Josh Sunshine's Random Ramblings

Being An App Developer: OS Version Support

2012-01-27T00:00:00+00:00

Being An App Developer is my series documenting how I'm going about designing, developing and releasing my first iPhone app. I won't be sharing too many details about the app itself; since it will probably take a while to develop, there's the possiblilty someone will steal ideas if I reveal too much.

There has always been some debate, espcially on the iOS platform, about the number of previous OS versions your app should support. For instance, in October 2011, version 5.0 of iOS was released. Should new apps (newly developed, that is) support just the latest version, 5.0, or should it also have some backwards compatibility with versions 4.x as well?

Matt Gemmell wrote an article last year highlighting some reasons why latest version only. He makes some good points, including the fact that only providing support for the latest version is less hassle, and requires less code.

Re-implementing something from newer standard libraries just to have feature parity on older OS versions is for chumps, and sucks up your time, energy, enthusiasm and your very soul.

Matt Gemmell – Latest Version

Looking at what iOS 5 provides over iOS 4.3.x, I've made the descision that my app will only support the latest version available at a given time. I don't want to be a "chump" as Matt puts it, and I certainly don't want to waste time.

So, let me be more specific; what advantages does targeting iOS 5 on its own have? Here's a short list:

ARC. ARC, or Automatic Reference Counting, is a feature of the compiler in Xcode that means that memory management (this is technically C development, remember) is handled almost completely without interaction from the developer. Instead of calling release or retain, memory references are kept up to date automatically, simplifying code dramatically. Only devices running iOS 5 can handle ARC in apps.

Storyboards. Before version 5.0, iOS UI development was either done in code, or in an app separate to Xcode called Interface Builder. Every view in your app had to be laid out individually in a separate file, then activated using code. iOS 5 brought Storyboards, which are basically those Interface Builder files on steroids. Instead of a separate file for each view, your entire app's UI is created in one file, making it much easier to see how your app flows between views.

iCloud. Since iCloud only works properly on iOS 5 devices (iCloud mail and contacts can be set up in iOS 4, but that's about it), targeting iOS 5 only makes integrating iCloud into an app a whole lot easier. It means you as the developer can simply add in iCloud features without worrying about somehow providing the same functionality to older versions using a similar service, or your own server, which could get expensive.

There are a whole load of other things that I could mention about iOS 5, but I think I've talked about it enough already. I'm sure there are a few reasons you might consider supporting old versions, but you have to ask yourself, is it worth the extra effort? Personally, I don't think so.

Ignore The Copycats

2012-01-13T09:45:00+00:00

Look at any well-respected Apple news¹ site, and you'll probably be able to find a post reporting that Samsung (or some other company, but mostly Samsung) has ripped off Apple's design in one of its new products.

Instead of ranting and raving about this all the time, I propose a new way to react when each new ripoff is spotted: ignore it.

What difference does it make to you if the Samsung Galaxy Nexus S Note II 4G Plus has an app called Messages that (badly) simulates the Messages app on the iPhone? No one is making you use it, or making you buy the phone, so absoultely none.

OK, yes, it's bad practise for a company to copy another's design in their products, but Apple will deal with copycats, if Apple thinks they needs to be dealt with. There's no use writing blog post after blog post complaning that the new HTC Wonder has a silent toggle switch just like the iPhone's – that will achieve absolutely nothing. The copycat company isn't going to read your post and think to themselves, "Hey, this guy's got a point! I'd better rework the entire design of my new product!".

Let's face it, the only way a ripoff product could possibly affect you is if someone was standing next to you permanently, and kept saying, "Look at what my new phone does! Look!" whilst shoving the screen in front of your face. And the issue there isn't the copycat features you're being forced to say are 'cool' even though your phone had them a month ago; it's that person not recognising that you don't want their phone in your face. It doesn't matter what phone that person had, they'd probably be doing the same thing.

So next time a post appears on one of those sites about a copycat product, sure, read it, but you don't need to make a big deal about it. What would actually be better is if those sites stopped reporting it just for the sake of it.

Whether these sites can be called 'news' sites any more is the topic for another blog post. Have you heard that the iPad 7 will have a thicker and thinner design, according to two different sites? ↩

Being An App Developer: Starting Out

2012-01-12T15:00:00+00:00

Two things I learned when I started designing the app: the best ideas come naturally, and that starting to design on paper rather than in Photoshop is much better.

Don't force yourself to have an idea

I've only started to develop this app because I already had the idea for it. If you don't already have an idea for an app, don't try to make one up just so you have something to develop. Chances are, whatever idea you come up with, unless you're some kind of wizard, probably won't be the best idea you've ever had.

A few months ago, I felt like writing an iPhone application, so I tried to come up with an idea for something to do. It ended up being yet another RSS reader, which not only did I not particularly want to develop, but during the design process, I ended up copying ideas from other apps.

When an idea does come to you by itself, that's the time to start developing.

Start on paper

This is something I learned very recently. Start designing on paper, with a pencil, before you start creating mockups in Photoshop or other programs.

By starting on paper, it gives you the freedom to be as rough as you like with your drawing. If you use Photoshop, you'll be more likely to feel that you need to be pixel-perfect, which in turn means you'll probably spend longer nudging layers around than reworking parts you don't like.

This paragraph from an article on The Next Web sums my thoughts on this up nicely:

It's genuinely tempting to begin all of your projects with a computer if you're going to finish there in the end, but the results will be so quickly polished that you'll settle too early. Your results will keep you from experimenting in the raw.

Working on paper first is great, since not only can you make changes as you go along, it's much easier to write notes alongside your work. It's a lot less effort to scribble something next to a drawing than it is to, say, change to the Text tool in Photoshop, click in your document, type the note and commit the changes.

Finally, paper allows you to keep away from UI design early on and focus on the UX design. If you use a computer to create your first mockup, you'll end up spending ages deciding on colours and fonts before you've even worked out what's going to be on the screen.

Get Alfred To Open A Blog Post's Markdown File

2012-01-08T00:00:00+00:00

Perhaps, like me, you use Jekyll to compile your blog, in which case each of your posts will be in the form of a Markdown file in a _posts folder somewhere. In that case, there's probably been a time when you were reading one of your own posts in Safari, noticed a spelling mistake and wanted to go and edit the Markdown file for that post. For situations like that, I've come up with a little Alfred extension to open the Markdown file for the currently displayed post in Safari.

Basically, the extension is an Applescript which grabs the current URL from Safari and chops it down to the /yyyy/mm/dd/post-title part, then turns that into a filename and opens that file in your chosen Markdown editor. You can download it by clicking here.

Once you've downloaded the extension, just double-click it to install it in Alfred. Then, there are a couple of things you need to change at the top of the script. First, change the set thePostLocation to "Macintosh HD:Users:Josh:Dropbox:Random-Ramblings:_posts" to point to wherever your Jekyll _posts folder is (remember to use the : character instead of slashes in the file path).

Next, change set theWebsiteAddress to "http://www.joshsunshine.me.uk" so that your blog's address is there in place of mine. If your blog is at http://something.com/blog, add in the /blog part, for example.

Finally, change set theFileExtension to "md" and make it use the file extension your blog posts use. (Markdown posts can be .md, .markdown, and possibly others, so yours may be different to mine).

Once you've changed those three things, you can test the extension by opening one of your blog posts in Safari, then run the post command using Alfred. Happy editing!

Keeping A Diary With Momento

2011-12-31T21:15:00+00:00

I've recently started using Momento again for keeping a diary-type-thing on my iPhone. It's not a new app by any means, but I recently decided to start using it again. And it's not really so much a diary I'm writing as a kind of private Facebook – a place where I can record thoughts to look back over at some point (assuming the app still works on iOS 12 when I feel like rereading my stuff).

Momento is great, because as well as being able to write journal style text entries, you can also hook it up to a number of social feeds such as Twitter and pull entries from those. I have mine importing Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Instagram and the RSS feed for my blog.

I guess keeping Momento going is my New Year's Resolution for 2012, and hopefully I'll be able to keep it up so that I can come back after a few years to see what I was up to in 2012.

Open The Mac App Store Updates Page With Alfred

2011-12-25T00:00:00+00:00

If you visit the updates page of the Mac App Store often, and you get fed up with wating for the main page of the App Store to open, you may like to know there's now a URL you can visit which will take you straight to the updates page:

macappstore://showUpdatesPage – click to open the MAS and jump straight to the updates page.

I've also added the URL into Alfred so that I can use Alfred to open the page, too. Click the following link to add the same thing to your Alfred:

Add "Open Mac App Store updates page" to Alfred App

There's no need to change anything; simply clicking the above link will add the shortcut "masu" to Alfred, which will open the updates page when activated.

Oh, and one last thing; you don't need the Mac App Store open to use the URL. If you activate the URL with the App Store closed, it'll automatically open.

The Catch-Up Game On Mobile Operating Systems

2011-10-24T00:00:00+01:00

There has been a trend recently that whenever a new version of iOS is released, anyone who prefers Android over iOS will say that iOS is playing catchup to Android.

While that may seem true – Android had copy/paste, multitasking, and proper notifications first – they never think of it the other way around. There are plenty of examples of where Android has had to catch up to iOS.

For example, the recently announced Android 4.0, dubbed "Ice Cream Sandwich", adds some features which iOS already had, and in some cases has had since iOS began.

Screenshots – Android 4.0 is the first version of Android which allows you to (natively) take a screenshot, by pressing the power and volume down buttons. You've been able to take a screenshot on iOS (hold the home button and press the sleep/wake button) since the beginning.
Folders for apps – Another new feature Android 4 boasts is the creation of folders by dropping one app on top of another. Note – I don't mean that folders are new, I mean that the method you create them is new. Folders were only introduced in iOS 4, but iOS still had them first.
Customisable dock – The dock at the bottom of the screen in Ice Cream Sandwich can, to use a word often applied to iOS, finally be customised. Aother feature iOS 1.0 had.

I'm sure that's not all, but I don't actually care about new features in Android, so I stopped reading. I just wanted to make the point that iOS isn't the only OS playing catchup.

Due Date Bug In iOS 5

2011-10-22T00:00:00+01:00

Reminders, the new app built in to iOS 5, is really useful, especially in conjuction with iCloud. However, there seems to be a bug in the app – you can't set a due date for a reminder on iOS.

When you create a reminder in the app, you can set a date and time to be reminded by using the 'Remind me on a day' setting. However, there is no option to set a due date, even though due dates are a feature of Reminders.

What use is a due date feature? Take an example of how I use reminders: college homework. I'd like to be able to set a due date, which is when the actual homework is due, but get it to remind me (via an alert) the day before so I have a chance to complete it if I haven't already. The way the app stands at the moment, I have to set the reminder the day before and remember that the homework is due the say after the alert.

That's not to say it's completely impossible to set a due date; if you access your reminders on your computer, through Calendar on icloud.com or through iCal, you can set a due date.

And the really annoying thing is, once you've set a due date on your computer, you can then edit the due date field on iOS! That behaviour convinces me that this is a bug – why would a feature rely on using a computer like this when iOS 5 is meant to be PC-free?

Please, Apple, get this sorted out, preferably soon. Looking forward to iOS 5.0.1!

My Crystal Ball Needs A Tune-Up

2011-10-05T21:00:00+01:00

I had a stab yesterday at predicting what we'd see announced at the Let's Talk iPhone keynote. Turns out that I got two of my predictions right, and two only half right.

iPod touches

My prediction regarding iPod touches was:

New iPod touches with specs to match the iPhone 5 (except the camera)

which was ~~spot-on. OK, I admit it was kind of a given, but I still count that as a point to me.~~ wrong. The only new thing about the iPod touches is the fact that there's now a white one. The internals are all still the same, to the extent that Apple hasn't called them the fifth-generation iPod touch, it's still fourth-gen.

iOS 5

I had two predictions regarding iOS 5. One was about the GM:

The GM (Gold Master) of iOS 5, because Apple wouldn't release a .0 version of iOS without having released one first…

another point to me. The GM was released about an hour after the keynote ended. However, I had another point to make about iOS 5:

…and with no 'Assistant' feature.

Whoops. We did indeed see an assistant feature, called Siri.

One more thing

I do get another point for my 'One more thing…' prediction.

No "one more thing…" because that was Steve Jobs' bit, and Tim Cook will want to leave it that way.

There was no "one more thing", and I still believe it's because they want to keep that as Steve Jobs' trademark thing.

New iPhones

I'm going to award myself half a point for my new iPhone prediction, which was

The iPhone 5, which will look the same as the iPhone 4, but will have been upgraded internally.

because while the new phone does look the same as the iPhone 4, and has indeed been upgraded internally, it's called the iPhone 4S (ugh), not the iPhone 5.

Final score

So, my final score is 3 out of 5, which isn't too bad. Next year, though, I'll try to be more specific with my predictions so that they aren't so obvious (anyone could have predicted that stuff).

Let's Talk iPhone – Last Minute Thoughts

2011-10-03T00:00:00+01:00

By this time tomorrow, we'll know everything there is to know about the new iPhone, be it the iPhone 5, the iPhone 4S or the iPhone 4GS-GTi. Here are a few of my thoughts on tomorrow's keynote.

"Hidden meanings" in the invite

Every year, people like to pick apart the images in the press invites for the keynotes. For example, take a look at this year's invite:

Everyone seems to be focused on that missed call on the Phone app. The major rumour this year is that Apple will announce two iPhones at once, one being a cheaper entry-level model. According to the invite "analysts", that one missed call indicates that there's only going to be one iPhone announced.

Did anyone really expect two new iPhone models to be announced? I definitely didn't. There's absolutely no need for it. There has always been an entry-level iPhone: the previous generation. When the 3GS was released, the price of the 3G was dropped and the 8 GB version was introduced. Same thing with the 4 and the 3GS. Whatever the new iPhone is or does, the iPhone 4 will be dropped to 8 GB and made cheaper.

Which brings me on to my next point…

iPhone 5 or iPhone 4S?

The big debate is whether the new iPhone model will be the 'iPhone 5' or the 'iPhone 4S'. The general consensus is that the 4S would be to the 4 as the 3GS was to the 3G (hence the same addition of the letter S), and that the 5 would be a big redesign, like the 4 was to the 3GS.

Personally, I think the new phone will be a mixture of those two. It will be a small update (i.e. a 4S-style model) that is called the iPhone 5. This is for two reasons; a) 'iPhone 4S' sounds stupid, and b) it makes logical sense.

Now, people will argue that if it's a small update, they'll add the S like they did with the last small update. I say they won't. The only reason they added the S last time was because they wanted to call it the iPhone 3, but it would have been confusing because of the 3G.

It doesn't matter whether the new model is significantly different, it's the next iPhone, making it the iPhone 5.

The 'assistant' feature in iOS 5

A rumour that has surfaced in the last couple of days is that iOS 5, when released to the public, will contain an as-yet-unseen Assistant feature, which is meant to be like Voice Control but on steroids. Apparently, you'd be able to have a conversation with your phone, and tell it to do things such as "Send message to Justin saying 'How about lunch at 1?'". That would be a great feature, but not one that I would use. I'd rather type out my message than hold a conversation with my phone in public.

I also think that this is big enough that we'd have heard about it in the original iOS 5 announcement. Something like this is too much for Apple to keep as a 'surprise' feature like some of the other new features are.

What will we see tomorrow?

To sum up, I think that at the keynote tomorrow, the following will be announced:

The iPhone 5, which will look the same as the iPhone 4, but will have been upgraded internally.
The GM (Gold Master) of iOS 5, because Apple wouldn't release a .0 version of iOS without having released one first, and with no 'Assistant' feature.
New iPod touches with specs to match the iPhone 5 (except the camera)
No "one more thing…" because that was Steve Jobs' bit, and Tim Cook will want to leave it that way.

Perhaps I'll be proven wrong tomorrow evening, but we'll have to see.

Microsoft's UX Designers Need Replacing

2011-09-16T00:00:00+01:00

I wrote the previous post, How To Shut Down Windows 8, more as a joke than an actual how-to piece. However, I’ve since updated it to have a more serious tone, since today alone, I’ve had nearly 150 hits for search terms similar to “How to shut down Windows 8″.

Surely, that level of confusion isn’t good. Especially seeing as this is a ‘developer preview’ – essentially alpha software – and the target audience for downloads at the moment is Windows developers, people who are experienced with computers and tend to know what they’re doing.

If Windows 8 was released in its current state, we’d be seeing hundreds, if not thousands, of novice users installing it, then becoming apprehensive about using their own computer. Perhaps even more intermediate users as well as novices. What is it going to do to someone’s confidence using a computer if it takes ten minutes to work out how to shut the thing down?

The problem lies not in the fact that the shut down button is buried a few levels deep, it’s that it’s buried a few non-sensical levels deep. If you’re looking to shut a computer down, would your first (or even second or third) instinct be to look under settings?

It’s not just that the option is hidden under settings, either. To open that menu in the bottom corner, you can’t click a button or press a keyboard shortcut. You have to know beforehand that a menu will appear if you place your cursor off-screen in that certain area. There’s no hint to tell you it’s there, you have to figure it out yourself.

During my initial hunt for the shut down button, I triggered that menu by accident a couple of times, but because there was no obvious path to what I wanted, I disregarded the entire menu. I only went back once I’d clicked everywhere else and found nothing.

The other issue is that nothing looks obviously clickable. There’s no texture to anything; it’s all a ‘flat’ surface. If you look at buttons on OS X, or even previous versions of Windows, they have some depth, and look as though they can actually be pushed inwards. I clicked the word “Start” at the top of the Metro view more than once, thinking it was the Start menu. It looks exactly the same as the clickable buttons in the settings pane (see above screenshot to see what I mean).

All in all, if I’m honest, the Metro UI, used on a computer rather than a tablet, sucks. If I had been using a tablet, I wouldn’t have needed a shut down button, since I would have just hit the lock button, like on the iPad. Windows 8 needs to recognise when it’s on a platform which doesn’t support touch, and adjust accordingly.

How To Shut Down Windows 8

2011-09-15T00:00:00+01:00

I never thought anyone would have to write a how-to on shutting down a computer, but it took me quite a while to work out how to do it myself.

Press the Windows key to get back to the Metro UI.
Move the cursor to the very edge of the screen, at the bottom-left corner, and the “Start menu” or whatever it’s called now will appear.
Click Settings at the top of the “Start menu”. A sidebar will appear on the right-hand side of the screen (counter-intuitively – why not on the left, where the mouse already is?)
Click Power, and then click Shut Down from the popup menu which appears.

Again, I can’t believe it’s buried that deep. Why it couldn’t have been in the first menu in the bottom left corner, I don’t know. However, Windows 8 is a step in the right direction for Microsoft, I will say that.

How To Improve Your Burglary Skills

2011-09-08T00:00:00+01:00

Are you an amateur burglar hoping to nab some extra loot this weekend? Good news; there's an app for that! No, it isn't called iBurgle or anything like that. It's called Facebook. Yes, everyone's beloved social networking site and the app that goes with it can be used as an aid to someone looking to rob you of your possessions.

The 'big thing' at the moment is checking in to places you visit. At the station? Check in on Facebook and let everyone see where you are. Out for a meal with a friend? Check in at the restaurant, and even tag them with you!

The thing is, though, is the check in feature is getting misused. Users have started checking in at their house, or at their friends' houses. A very popular one is to check in at "My Bed" (usually accompanied by a winking emoticon, because everything needs implied sexual references these days).

So how can we burglars use this to our advantage? Well, let's come up with an imaginary situation. We have two people who are friends on Facebook. One of them is regular Joe, and the other is a potential criminal, looking for people to burgle – let's call him Rob. One day, Joe decides to check in at his bed on Facebook:

Rob can now click on the "My bed ;)" link and see a map of exactly where the check in occurred. He notes down the address – he now knows where Joe lives. Now all he has to do is wait for another check in from Joe, somewhere else:

Great news for Rob; not only does he know where Joe lives, but also now knows that he's out of the house at the moment, and probably won't be back for a while. So off he goes to Joe's house, and commits the burglary he's been waiting for. Joe gets home that evening and…

Joe now doesn't have a TV or a computer, all because he decided to check in at his bed. So the moral of the story is: never, ever, ever check in at your house on any location-based social network.

And if you have done so before, remove the post from your profile now. You can do this (on Facebook) by going to your profile, hovering over the post in question and choosing "Remove post" from the drop down list.

University Choices: Done.

2011-08-20T00:00:00+01:00

I mentioned a couple of months ago that I was having trouble deciding which universities to choose to apply to. However, I have visited a few of them and I have made my mind up.

First off, out of the Cambridge/Oxford choice, I've decided on Cambridge. That's partly due to preferring the city as a place, but also because I'm going on the Sutton Trust Computer Science Summer School (that's a mouthful!), so there will be an element of familiarity. I'd rather go to a university I've gotten used to somewhat.

As for the other choices, I basically found the four highest-ranking universities that carry the course I want to take – a three or four year course in Computer Science – and chose those. The final list has ended up as Edinburgh, Southampton, Bristol and York.

Basically, at this point, it comes down to applying and seeing if any of them offer me a place.

In case you were wondering, I got my AS level results on Thursday: An A in Computing, an A in Physics, and in Maths (which was a full A level rather than an AS), I got an A*.

Recover iTunes' Missing "Create MP3 Version"

2011-08-16T00:00:00+01:00

Around the time version 10 was released, the option in iTunes to "Create MP3 Version" seemingly disappeared for a lot of people. It turns out, it hasn't been removed from iTunes, but there's a setting you need to change to get it back.

If you've never changed any settings in iTunes, it's likely the option you'll see if you right-click a track is "Create AAC Version". AAC is a great alternative to MP3, since it generally gives better quality, but it's useless for burning MP3 CDs, since you can't burn an AAC track to an MP3 disc. If you try to burn a disc using iTunes and select "MP3 CD" you'll get this message:

What you need to do is convert those files to MP3 format. However, in order to do that, you need to get back the "Create MP3 Version" option. Here's how:

Open the iTunes Preferences and then open the General tab of the preferences.
Near the bottom is an option which starts "When you insert a CD:". To the right of that is a button labelled "Import Settings…" – click that, and another window will open.
At the top is a drop down labelled "Import Using:". Change that drop down to the "MP3 Encoder" option. Click OK on both windows and you're all set to convert tracks to MP3.
To convert a track to MP3 format, right-click it and choose "Create MP3 Version". iTunes will create a second copy of the track in MP3 format.

Once all the tracks you want to burn are in MP3 format, you'll be able to burn an MP3 disc just fine.

Pixelated Star Wars Posters

2011-08-16T00:00:00+01:00

I found these Star Wars posters and thought they were pretty good. This is the best one, and there are more on the original site.

I have to say, I'd never have the patience to work out the exact shapes and colours needed to create something like that.

iCloud iPad Wallpaper

2011-08-03T00:00:00+01:00

Developers have been given beta access to the web interface of iCloud, and many people have noticed the unique error pages on the site. I enjoy the icons on those error pages, so I created an iPad wallpaper out of them.

I made two versions, one with text and one without. Oh, and don't worry, the cloud images don't get cut off when you rotate the iPad. Here's the version with text:

And the version without text:

You can download the images by right clicking above, or download both as a .zip here:

iCloud iPad Wallpapers.zip

"Facebook Chat is experiencing technical problems" In Safari

2011-07-27T00:00:00+01:00

A few weeks ago, I logged in to Facebook and went to open a chat with a friend, when suddenly the chat window disappeared and was replaced with a little warning symbol and the message "Facebook Chat is experiencing technical problems". Oddly, this was only happening in Safari – I could use chat perfectly fine in Chrome.

This went on for a while, until a couple of days after I installed Lion on my MacBook. I was testing out resizing a window whilst holding the Option key (this resizes the window equally from each side as you drag) on a Safari window. I happened to have a Facebook window open as I did it, and once the window got to a certain width, the chat sidebar appeared! I tested a few times, making the window smaller and bigger, and it was definitely the window width determining whether chat was working.

So if you ever run into this issue with Safari and Facebook, try making the window wider. It would be nice if the error message said the window was too small, but at least this seems to work for this particular issue.

Coping Without The Downloads Window

2011-07-25T00:00:00+01:00

There are some people who are complaining about the fact that the Downloads window was removed from Safari in Lion and replaced with a popover instead. How can we possibly cope without a floating window showing the progress of current downloads?! Quite easily, actually.

In Safari for Snow Leopard and earlier, current downloads were shown in a separate window like this:

It was actually quite annoying, since once all the downloads were finished, it would stay open anyway. Being as OCD as I am about windows (you would never see a window on my Mac that wasn't centred above the Dock), having an empty window hanging around bothered me. So I was pleased when, in Lion, the window was replaced with a popover that can be opened from the toolbar.

When there's no download in progress, the toolbar icon disappears, making the interface a lot cleaner. But, like with everything else Apple does, some people are getting upset about it. Some of the complaints they have include:

The popover doesn't stay open so it's hard to keep an eye on a download in progress.
There used to be a shortcut (⌥⌘L) to open the Downloads window, which has been removed.
You can't move the popover.

I will admit that not being able to move it is a valid point, but that's a small price to pay for the other improvements. As for not being able to keep an eye on downloads, it's pretty easy to do so still. First off, there's a progress bar in the toolbar button itself. If that doesn't do it for you, a partly downloaded file shows a progress bar on its icon in the Finder.

Since on most computers, the Downloads folder is on the Dock, it's easy to keep an eye on a download by glancing at the Dock.

Now let's talk about the ⌥⌘L shortcut. There's an AppleScript you can download from Red Sweater Software to show or hide the popover. You can then use hotkey software such as Red Sweater's FastKeys to set up a shortcut to run the script.

Personally, I think the popover is an improvement, but there were always going to be people who didn't. Hopefully they'll come around given time.

Review: Textastic For iPad

2011-07-23T00:00:00+01:00

If you're looking for a text editor for your iPad that also doubles as an FTP client and a Dropbox client, look no further. The best one you could find is Textastic, a £6.99 ($9.99) app which not only does all of the above, but also includes features such as syntax highlighting. Let's start with a look at some of the best features it has.

FTP/Dropbox

Built right into Textastic is an FTP client, so you can upload and download files to and from your web server and edit them in the same app. The initial connection to an FTP server can be a bit sluggish, but once you're connected, navigating through folders is quite fast. You can then choose files to download and they'll be stored on your iPad for offline editing.

If you don't use FTP, you can also sync files to and from a Dropbox account. And unlike a lot of Dropbox text editor apps, it's not just plain text files. Any file that Textastic supports can be synced with Dropbox. It's also possible to create and delete folders in your Dropbox, as well.

Syntax Highlighting

One of the most important features in a code editor is syntax highlighting, and Textastic doesn't disappoint. I haven't counted exactly, but around 80 file extensions are supported and come with proper highlighting. That includes not only really commonplace filetypes like CSS, HTML, C and Java, but also some rather obscure ones like Fortran, Prolog, Scala and Verilog. There are so many others with support that I've never even heard of most of them.

Extended Keyboard

One of the other big selling points of the app is the extended keyboard. There's an extra row of keys above the standard keyboard which offers common programming symbols, like brackets, slashes and semi-colons, most of which are buried two levels deep in the standard keyboard. It makes coding much faster than having to switch to the symbol view on the keyboard every few characters.

There's one feature I'd like to see in the app that hasn't been put in, and that's automatic completion for brackets. Especially in CSS, I like to put the opening and closing brackets on separate lines, such as:

a:hover {
    color: #4bb14b;
}

It would be nice if after I typed the first bracket, the second was added on the next line for me, rather than having to type it myself.

Other than that one feature, though, the app seems to have everything I'd be looking for in an iPad code editor. I highly recommend Textastic if you're looking for this kind of app.

Remap The Dashboard Key To Launchpad

2011-07-22T00:00:00+01:00

In Lion, Dashboard is given its own space, which is easily opened with a swipe. That means (to me, anyway) that the Dashboard key on the keyboard (F4) is useless. So I remapped it to open Launchpad.

What you'll need

FunctionFlip by Kevin Gessner - this allows you to disable the special function of specific function keys.
OS X Lion - because, you know, Launchpad is a feature of Lion.

Method

First off, you'll need to download and install FunctionFlip. It's a preference pane, so you'll be able to access it from System Preferences in the future.
Once it's installed, open it up in System Preferences (it should open automatically once it's installed). In the drop down list on the right, select the keyboard you'd like to remap the key on.
Now find Dashboard in the left-hand panel. It should be the fourth in the list. Check the box next to it, which will disable the special function of the key (Dashboard) and turn it into a regular F4 key.
Now click Show All at the top of System Preferences and navigate to the Keyboard preference pane. Open up the Keyboard Shortcuts tab once you're in there.
In the left-hand side of that tab, click on Launchpad & Dock. Now select Show Launchpad on the right-hand side. Double-click to the right of the selected row to edit the shortcut, then press F4 on your keyboard. That's it! Pressing the F4 key should now show Launchpad!

This is especially useful for those of us with a Magic Mouse, since the mouse doesn't have a gesture for showing Launchpad.

Little Things In Lion

2011-07-21T00:00:00+01:00

I tried to think of a good lion pun of the title, but I couldn't. I'm not doing a full review, since there are literally hundreds around the internet. Instead of all the really exciting, huge new features that Apple wouldn't shut up about, I'm going to highlight some of the smaller additions to OS X that have improved in Lion.

External displays and laptops

It used to be that to use an external display with the laptop closed, you had to attach the cables, including the power cable (no running off battery power), then shut the lid on the laptop. The computer would then go to sleep, and to use it on the external display, you had to use an external mouse or keyboard to wake it up. With Lion, you no longer have to wait for it to go to sleep and wake back up again. When you shut the lid, the transition to the external display is automatic. You still have to keep the power cable plugged in, though. I don't know why Apple thinks using a display when on battery power is such a bad idea.

iChat

In Lion's version of iChat (version 6.0) everything seems much cleaner. The shiny chat bubbles have been replaced with pastel colours, and if you have multiple accounts, the contact lists are merged into one window. Duplicate contacts from different accounts are even hidden so each person is only in the list once. (You can choose which account you want to send the messages to, but I don't think it really matters too much.)

System Preferences

The best new feature of System Preferences is the ability to hide preference panes from the main screen. If you click View → Customise… you can uncheck the ones you don't want to see. I use this to hide panes I never use, like Parental Controls.

About This Mac

The information you're presented with if you click About This Mac in the  menu is much nicer, and is also more in-depth. If you choose More Information, you'll be shown an overview of your computer. It even tells you which type of computer it is (by which I mean mine says MacBook Pro, 15 inch, early 2011).

If you then click the Storage tab at the top, you'll see an iTunes-esque breakdown of the drives you have mounted, showing you how the space on your drive is taken up. It's much more informative than About This Mac used to be.

Link preview

If you receive an email or IM containing a link, you can hover over that link and a small triangle icon will appear. Click that, and you'll be shown a preview of where the link goes in Quick Look.

Double-tap in Safari

In Safari, you can now double-tap your trackpad or Magic Mouse and you'll be zoomed in, exactly the same as on iOS.

New downloads list in Safari

Before Lion, Safari showed you downloads in progress using a separate window – one of the most annoying features ever. In Lion, it's integrated into the toolbar, and only visible when you're actually downloading something. You can click the toolbar icon to open a popover to get more information.

How Does Installing Lion Work?

2011-07-18T00:00:00+01:00

OS X Lion is going to be the first OS to be distributed purely digitally; that is, it's not going to be available on disc at all (unless you burn one yourself after downloading it). So I have a major question: how in the world does installing Lion work?

I was rather confused until I read John Siracusa's review of Lion on Ars Technica. When installing Lion, a small partition is created on your drive (called the Recovery Partition), and the computer reboots from that whilst it installs 10.7. Quite clever, really! Once Lion is installed, that partition can then be used if something goes hugely wrong, so you can reinstall OS X.

New Tomb Raider Trailer

2011-06-25T00:00:00+01:00

Square Enix has released the trailer for the next Tomb Raider game to be released in late 2012. Looks like it should be a good one. Apparently it's going to be a prequel to the original Tomb Raider games.

How Reeder's Icon View Works

2011-06-17T00:00:00+01:00

If you have Reeder for iPad, you will have seen the view I call the Icon View. Wondering how those icons are made? Read on.

Reeder shows your list of feeds as fairly large, square icons, like this:

Not all of the feeds get a nice big icon. Some, like the Geeks Are Sexy feed in the screenshot above, only have a small icon in the top corner. You might think that the developer behind Reeder has picked some of their favourite feeds and created their own icons for them. That isn't the case, however.

Remember my post before about how if you added this site to your iPad's (or iPhone's) home screen, you'd be given a nice icon rather than the generated screenshot? Well, that is how Reeder gets the icons. It looks at the webpage for each of your feeds and determines whether or not it has an apple-touch-icon. If it does, it downloads that image and uses it as the icon for the feed. As you can see, even this site gets a large icon in Reeder, since the developer doesn’t make the icons.

If the page doesn’t have an apple-touch-icon, Reeder will then look for the favicon and use that. The favicon is what's being used for those small icons, such as the one in the screenshot before.

So there you have it. A simple explanation of how Reeder generates big icons for its icon view.

Annoying Red Star

2011-06-11T00:00:00+01:00

The Andromeda Galaxy wallpaper from Lion has a single, red-coloured star at the top of the screen, which is really annoying. So I used Photoshop to turn it blue. Here is a portion of the original, with the red star:

And here is the modified version, with the blue star:

If the red star annoys you too, you can download my version of the wallpaper at full size here:

Andromeda - No Red Star.jpg

The Best Parts Of The WWDC 2011 Keynote

2011-06-07T00:00:00+01:00

Yesterday was the keynote speech at WWDC in San Francisco, and Steve Jobs and his friends were up on stage with three huge software announcements; OS X Lion, iOS 5 and iCloud. Although all of that is good, there are three parts of these announcements which were the best.

iOS 5 cuts the cord

Starting from iOS 5, you'll no longer see the Connect to iTunes screen when you open the box of your new iPhone. Instead, you'll be able to get it set up and activated right on the device. There's also now no need for a USB cable; you can wirelessly sync your device over Wi-Fi — something jailbreakers have been able to do for a while now. Finally, software updates will now be over the air (OTA). Again, no need to plug it into iTunes to update. Plus, to keep download sizes down, iOS 5 introduces delta updates, where only the changes are downloaded, rather than the entire OS.

Lion is (almost) instant-on

One of the ten features of Lion highlighted was Resume, the ability of an app to open exactly where you left it last time, just like an iOS app. It remembers everything, down to window position and even what text you had selected. When you log in after shutting down or a restart, all the apps you had open before come back.

Photos in the iCloud

The best feature of iCloud (other than the price tag — free) is Photo Stream. Your iCloud will hold up to 1000 photos in your stream, for up to 30 days. Any photos you take on your iPhone can automatically be sent to your stream, and will be downloaded on your iPad or computer for viewing. From there on, you can then save them properly to free up some space in your cloud. Still no word on who's paying for the mobile data we'll all need for iCloud, though.

More AppleScript Fun

2011-05-26T00:00:00+01:00

You may remember my iChat AppleScript from last time. This time, I have a script which uses both iTunes and Numbers; it grabs the 'Top 25 Most Played" playlist and compiles it into a Numbers spreadsheet.

The final result looks something like this:

All you have to do is create a blank spreadsheet, save it, change the file path to the spreadsheet at the top of the script, open iTunes and run it. The script will take care of tidying up the spreadsheet and formatting it nicely. Here's the script:

Play Count Spreadsheet.scpt

Each time you run the script, any changes in the list are highlighted in green. ~~The one caveat is you must have a Smart Playlist set up to monitor the top 25 songs, and it has to be called "Top 25 Most Played" (unless you change the script of course).~~

Update: The script has been updated and now creates the list using the main music library, rather than requiring a playlist. The script will make the top 25 list from the library. There is also now another column in the spreadsheet; when a song moves up or down in the list, the last column tells you how far it's moved since last time.

Favicons and apple-touch-icons

2011-05-26T00:00:00+01:00

If you were watching closely, you might have noticed the new favicon I made for the site. If not, look now. It's either next to the URL in the address bar or next to the page title on the tab bar. If you can't find it, here's a screenshot:

I also created some images to be used as the apple-touch-icon for the site - that's the image that gets used if you add a bookmark to the site to the home screen of your iOS device, like this:

Not only does it look better than the screenshot that is normally used, but it's even Retina Display ready! You can add this site to your home screen by pressing the Action button in the toolbar (it looks like an arrow coming out of a box) and choosing Add to Home Screen.

Next up on my to-do list is a proper iPhone sized version of the site. When I have some extra free time, I'll get right to it.

Wordpress Tip: Change Content On The Login Screen

2011-05-22T00:00:00+01:00

If, like me, you’ve been wanting to change the content of the WordPress login screen, but having trouble working out how to do it, look no further. Even a very extensive Google search will only bring up information on how to change the CSS, which is great, but what about changing things such as the text on the Log In button? Turns out there's a simple way of doing it, using jQuery.

Just about every other article online will tell you to just change the WordPress core file (wp-login.php) directly. That's OK, but when you update your WordPress installation, that gets overwritten and you have to reapply the changes.

Instead, you need to add a few lines into functions.php, which won't get overwritten unless you do it yourself. Let's take the example of changing the text on the button.

First, create a new JavaScript file in your theme directory, such as in a scripts folder. In that file, add the following code:

    var $j = jQuery.noConflict();

    $j(document).ready(function() {
        $j(document.getElementById('wp-submit')).attr('value', 'Enter the Site');
    });

The first line puts jQuery into no-conflict mode, which makes sure it doesn’t, well, conflict with other JavaScript libraries. The next line tells jQuery to perform the actions once the page has loaded all of its elements and is ready to be scripted. The line inside the ready function tells the element with the ID of wp-sumbit (that's the Log In button) to change its value attribute to "Enter the Site". Now you need to add a little code into functions.php:

    function change_login_button() {
        echo wp_enqueue_script('jQuery');
        echo '<script src="link-to-script.js"></script>';
    }
    add_action('login_head', 'change_login_button');

First, this code defines a function called change_login_button(). Inside that function, it tells WordPress to load the built-in jQuery library. After that, the script you just created is loaded (make sure to change link-to-script to the actual path of your script).

Finally, outside the function, the add_action line tells WordPress to carry out the previously defined function inside the <head> tag of the login page. Once that code is saved, if you visit the login page of your site, you should see that the text on the button has changed.

This works for all the content on the login page, too. Just replace wp-submit with the ID of the element you want to change.

Some Alfred Improvements I'd Like To See

2011-05-19T00:00:00+01:00

Everyone should know by now that Alfred is the best app launcher/clipboard manager/iTunes controller/etc. around for miles, especially when you purchase the Powerpack. But there's always room for improvement, so here are some things I'd like to see in Alfred's future.

Quicker access to Snippets

The Snippets feature, part of the Clipboard Manager, is great. It's kind of like Typinator or Textexpander. My complaint is it takes a few keystrokes too many to activate a snippet. You have to invoke Alfred, then type 'snip' , then type the name of the snippet you want to use, and finally press enter. I'd much prefer it if I could type the snippet's name directly into the search field from the beginning, without having to use the 'snip' keyword.

Smart Font Sizing

I don't have a problem reading small text on a computer screen. So when I type in a long string into Alfred's search field (such as a Terminal command), I'd rather the font got smaller first, before the text started scrolling. Once the font size is down to about a third of the normal size, then start scrolling.

Disable certain Actions

When you have a file selected in Alfred's file browser, you can Action it, such as copying, renaming or emailing the file from within Alfred. But there are some commands I know I'm never going to use, such as Search in Finder. These 'fluff' actions are taking up space where my custom ones could be. Being able to disable some of them would be great.

Would You Care For Some Tea?

2011-05-07T00:00:00+01:00

So I was reading these rather good 'Whocaps', when I suddenly remembered the part of Doctor Who (the first Matt Smith series) where the Daleks are helping out with World War II. Then, I remembered the part where one of the Daleks said the best thing a Dalek has ever said: "Would you care for some tea?". A Dalek will never say anything better, ever. And that's final.

Video of said Dalek and MP3 file of the Dalek saying it.

Choosing A University

2011-05-06T00:00:00+01:00

It's nearing the summer between my two years at college, which means it's getting close to the point where I have to decide which universities to apply to. Let me tell you, it's incredibly difficult.

The degree I'm going for is Computer Science, so that isn't the hard choice. The hard part is narrowing it down to five universities at the most to apply to.

Actually, let me rephrase that. I have five choices in mind (Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Southampton and Bristol), but the drawback is, you can only apply to one out of Oxford and Cambridge. So I'm having trouble deciding which one to choose.

Oxford and Cambridge are fairly similar — both require A*AA at A-level for instance — but they do have some differences. For example, Cambridge can offer you accommodation for all four years of the degree, whereas Oxford chuck you out for the second year and let you come back in the third.

Oxford require you to take their own admissions test (hard!), but Cambridge requires either their test or STEP maths (£80!), based on which college you apply to.

At Cambridge last year, there were 4 applicants per place for Computer Science - so about a 25% chance of getting in. At Oxford, the number of successful applications was 15% (their intake is only 19 each year, so this is understandable). But you can't just choose by which one you think you have more chance of getting into.

I think it's basically going to come down to what I think when I visit each university on its open day. Hopefully going there will provide a way to decide between them.

iChat + AppleScript

2011-05-02T00:00:00+01:00

If you’ve ever used Adium, you might have come across the Xtras page, where you can download stuff such as icons, themes and scripts. But I like to use iChat, so I can't use those. There's no really easy way to change iChat's theme, but it does support AppleScript. I came up with the following script. It reads a text file, then chooses a random entry from the file and sets it as your status.

For example, I have mine picking random Portal quotes. The status changes every five minutes and sends a Growl notification letting me know what my new status is.

Oh look! Here is that script, ready to download!

Random iChat Status.scpt

You just have to change a few things using AppleScript Editor. At the top of the script are two variable-setting lines. Replace the all-caps text with your variables. The username should be "user@domain.com" - you need to keep the quotes and the @ part.

The file path should point to a plaintext file where the list of potential status items are separated by new lines. The path should be separated using the / character (such as mine, which is /Users/Josh/Documents/Scripts/iChat/Portal.txt.

Way down near the bottom is the line delay(600). That's the delay in seconds between each status change. Feel free to change it.

Finally, in order to avoid an infinite loop, there had to be a way to stop the script running. To do so, simply change your iChat status to anything apart from what it currently is. It doesn’t matter what you put, as long as it's different from the last status the script generated.

I'm going to assume you know how to use a downloaded AppleScript. If you don't, I suggest a guide such as this one.

Stop The Twitter For Mac Compose Window Floating

2011-04-20T00:00:00+01:00

It's really annoying that the Compose window of Twitter for Mac floats above everything else. Luckily, there's a secret preference you can set to stop it doing that.

Open up Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal).

Paste in the following:

defaults write com.twitter.twitter-mac NormalComposeWindowLevel -bool true

That should all be one line.

Press Return.
Quit and restart Twitter for Mac.

If everything went OK, if you now start a new tweet, the window should not float above others when you click away from it.

Get Pastebot's Eyes Back

2011-04-20T00:00:00+01:00

A while back, Pastebot, the clipboard history app for iOS, lost his eyes. However, there is a way to get the original icon back, even if it is a bit long-winded. You don't even need to have a jailbroken device.

First off, you'll need to download the original icon from below. Just right-click and choose Save Image to Downloads (or similar).

Don't worry that it it's square, since iOS is smart enough to crop it correctly.

Next, download iPhone Explorer (free) and connect your iOS device. It should show up in the iPhone Explorer window. Navigate through to Apps/Pastebot/Pastebot.app and drop the new icon in there.

Rename the file called AppIcon@2x.png to something like AppIconOld@2x.png, then rename the new file to the old name of the other file. If you're not using a Retina display device, do the same but for the file without the @2x part. Now turn your device off and back on again.

Pastebot's icon should have changed to the new one you added.

The Death Of Mark As Read

2011-04-19T00:00:00+01:00

I'll be the first to admit it: attempting an RSS reader as my first iPhone application wasn’t the best plan in the world. I only have a basic grasp of the actual iPhone-specific programming part at the moment, let alone getting apps to connect to the Internet and whatnot.

So, I'm declaring the death of Mark As Read, my first go at an iPhone app. This is a permanent thing, for the foreseeable future at least. I'm going to stick with easier apps that don't require the Internet and such.

Sense Of Humour

2011-04-11T00:00:00+01:00

Someone at Apple has a sense of humour, it seems. In Xcode 4, when you create a new Mac application project, some files are automatically created. One of them is Credits.rtf, which contains this as a placeholder:

Engineering: Some people
Human Interface Design: Some other people
Testing: Hopefully not nobody
Documentation: Whoever
With special thanks to: Mom

Someone on the Xcode development team had fun that day.

Spam

2011-03-08T00:00:00+00:00

My research (running a blog) has taught me a bit about spam comments. First of all, this may be obvious, but the more posts you have, the more spam comments you get. I have around 95 posts, and I get somewhere between 5 and 10 spam comments every day. Back when I only had a few dozen posts, I got closer to 2 or 3 a day.

Second, a post which contains popular keywords, such as my post about uninstalling an beta version of iOS, get more spam comments than other posts. Somewhere around 75% of my spam comments are usually on the iOS beta post.

Finally, and this is most important, don't try and stop the spam from ever reaching your blog in the first place. If you do, you'll be fighting a losing battle. I tried blocking the IP addresses of every spam commenter I got, and it got me nowhere.

The iPad 2 Event

2011-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

So it's about half an hour until the event starts. Predictions: iPad 2 (obviously), very quick sneak preview of iOS 5, an announcement about MobileMe. Steve won't be there, since he's on leave, so instead we'll be treated to the opening financial talk by Tim Cook instead. And no, I'm not liveblogging it. Go somewhere else.

Liftoff

2011-02-21T00:00:00+00:00

Development has begun on the RSS reader! I created the new project in Xcode today, and I've begun work on the very first screen, the login screen. I've also decided on a name for the app - Mark As Read. Not only is it suitable, no one else is using the name, and it also fits nicely on the Home screen:

The character limit on the Home screen is 12 characters, so Mark As Read just fits. So far I don't have any ideas for the icon, but once I get going, I'm sure it'll come to me. I'm also not concentrating on how it looks at the moment. Instead, I'm getting it working, then customising the interface. My current progress looks like this:

I'll keep you posted on what's going on as it happens.

I've Already Changed My Mind

2011-02-17T00:00:00+00:00

So yesterday, I told you about the app I'm making. I showed you an initial design for the feeds screen, and it turns out that it was only initial, since I changed my mind and redesigned it.

I realised that the iPhone screen isn't suited to a document view like the iPad screen. It would also take ages to find the feed you're looking for, since if you have hundreds, you have to scroll through, one at a time. A 'picker' view is much better, since you can see nine feeds on-screen at a time, making it easier to spot the one you want.

I've also been having a debate about the red number badges. I have a mockup of the same screen but with grey badges instead of red, but I wasn’t sure if that made the app too colourless.

Another Mockup

2011-02-17T00:00:00+00:00

The article list view, once you've chosen a feed.

I'm Making An App

2011-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

I tried once before to make an iPhone application, but I didn’t pay much attention to detail; the graphics were poor, it didn’t run very well, and the main problem was I never finished it. That was the unnamed app which featured eight countdown timers which were meant to look like hobs and ovens, for use in the kitchen. Interestingly, someone else had the exact same idea, and they made KitchenPad Timer, which is extremely similar, except, you know, theirs is finished and it works. Anyway, I'm trying again, but not with the timers thing. This time I'm going for an RSS reader.

Before you start shouting things like, "But there are thousands of RSS reader apps in the App Store! Why do we need another one?!", let me explain. I'm not doing this because I don't think there are any good RSS readers in the App Store. I'm doing it a) because I enjoy programming, b) I want to get more acquainted with Objective-C, and c) universities look for things which show you enjoy the subject you want to study — what better way to show it than by saying, "Hey, look at my iPhone app in the App Store!"? I've had a few good ideas for the functionality of it, and I've started drawing up some initial designs. Here's my first one, of the feed list screen:

The feeds view is based on the Documents view from the iPad version of the iWork apps (Numbers, Pages and Keynote). Obviously it's a work in progress, so nothing is final. I'm still not sure how I'll be generating large logos from feeds yet. If you have any ideas you want to share, that you think might be a good feature for my app, let me know, and I'll probably be able to work it in somewhere. Look out for progress updates in the coming weeks.

Seen In A Forum's Rules Section

2011-02-14T00:00:00+00:00

I saw this listed under 'rules' in a forum I was reading:

Please attempt basic spelling.

This should be the first rule listed on every social networking site and forum.

Features All iOS Apps Should Have

2011-02-14T00:00:00+00:00

There are hundreds of thousands of apps on the App Store, but only some of them are actually nice to use. Here are some features which make a good app a great app.

Save Game Progress

It's really annoying when my game progress gets lost due to a restore (looking at you, Angry Birds!). So use the iTunes to device file sharing feature to export a save game file to iTunes. That way, when you lose all your data somehow, you can then import that file back in and resume where you left off. Some developers have already done this, such as with Broken Sword:

You can save those files to your hard drive, then import them back into the game if you need to. More gave developers should learn from this example, and allow users to save their games permanently.

"Universal apps = Yay"

Wise words indeed from iPhoneTiny earlier today. A universal app (one which runs on both iPhone and iPad natively) is infinitely better than having to download two separate apps, especially if the app in question isn't free. Having to pay twice for the same app isn't something a lot of people are prepared to do, so take heed, developers! Make that application universal! I've even found you a tutorial on how to do it.

Support all orientations

You’ve no idea how much I hate it when an app doesn’t rotate to match my device's orientation, and I have to turn the whole thing around. An app that supports both landscape orientation scores a lot of points in my rulebook. It doesn’t matter so much with the 'upside-down' portrait orientation, but please, developers, make sure you support landscape left and landscape right.

In-app purchase price tags

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind paying for in-app content, but please tell me how much it is before I tap on 'Buy'. More often than not, I'll buy it, if I was interested enough in looking at it, but I like to know beforehand how much I'm going to be paying. Having to wait for the 'Would you like to buy one XYZ for £0.69?' message is annoying.

All I ask is that these features are implemented in as many apps as possible. That is all.

Get Around BBC iPlayer's Wi-Fi Restriction

2011-02-10T00:00:00+00:00

Just like the iPlayer website, the native app for iPad won't let you stream content unless your device is connected to a Wi-Fi network. If you try to use a 3G connection, you'll get told off. But what if there was a way around the restriction?

The way to do it is using a phone with a 'personal hotspot' feature. A lot of Android phones can do this, and the iPhone will be able to soon, with the release of iOS 4.3. Simply turn on your phone's personal hotspot, and connect your iPad to your phone's connection rather than 3G. The iPlayer app will be happy because your iPad is connected to Wi-Fi, and you'll be able to watch anything you like, as long as your phone has a signal.

Turning on Personal Hotspot – Android

If your phone supports a personal hotspot feature, there will usually be an application called Hotspot or Wi-Fi Hotspot in your applications list. Open that app, set up a name and a password if you wish, then choose Turn on Wi-Fi Hotspot. Then, open up Settings on your iPad and choose Wi-Fi, then connect to your phone's entry on the list.

Turning on Personal Hotspot – iPhone (requires iOS 4.3 or later)

On your iPhone, tap Settings, then tap Personal Hotspot. Set up the name and a password if you want, then flip the Personal Hotspot switch at the top to on. Then open Settings on your iPad, connect to your iPhone's Wi-Fi listing and you're good to go.

One more method

If you have an iPad which is jailbroken, you can download the My3G application from Cydia for $3.99 (\~£2.50). It tricks the apps on your iPhone or iPad into thinking they're using Wi-Fi, when really they're using 3G. This works for all apps, including the BBC iPlayer app.

Understanding Bases

2011-02-07T00:00:00+00:00

No, I don't mean military bases, or the ones in baseball. I mean mathematical bases, like base 2 (binary) or base 10 (decimal). It took me a while to get around how it worked, but it makes sense now, and I thought I'd share how I got used to understanding it. Let's start with the most simple one - base 10. Base 10 is also known as decimal, and it's our normal number system. It works in powers of 10, and we all know that 283 is two hundred and eighty-three. Looking at it from a bases point of view, 283 is the same as (2×10²) + (8×10¹) + (3×10⁰). It makes more sense as a diagram:

From the diagram, you can see that bases work by multiplying numbers by powers of the base (in this case, 10) and adding the results. Let's look at base 2, called binary, which is used in computers and such. Base 2 works in the same way as base 10, but using powers of 2 instead of powers of 10. For example:

Therefore 1011 in base 2 is (1×2³) + (1×2¹) + (1×2⁰), which is 8 + 2 + 1, or 11. In base 2, you won't see a digit higher than 1. That's because if you multiply, say, 2² by 2, you get 2³, which shifts the digit along in our diagram to the next power of 2. That is, if the digit in the 2² column was a two, you'd be doing 2×2², which is 2³.

Now a couple more examples, using references to a couple of things I like.

The first is the game Portal. Near the end of the game, GLaDOS exclaims, "Two plus two is f-f-f-f… ten. In base four!". Let's take a look at that. In base four, 10 is:

That's 1×4¹, which is 1×4, so GLaDOS is right. 10 in base 4 is the same as 4, so two plus two is indeed ten.

OK, one last example, this time from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. In The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, a possible Ultimate Question for the Ultimate Answer of 42 is suggested: "What do you get when you multiply six by nine?". Of course, everyone knows that 6×9 is 54, so what was Douglas Adams going on about? The answer lies in bases; if you take the Ultimate Answer, 42, and convert it to base 13:

42 in base 13 is (4×13¹) + (2×13⁰), or (4×13) + (2×1), which is 54. So if Deep Thought was working in base 13, he was technically right when he came up with 42 as the Answer.

iBooks and VoiceOver

2011-02-07T00:00:00+00:00

Switch on VoiceOver on your iPhone or iPad, set the speaking rate all the way to the top and have it read an iBook to you. Good luck understanding what she's saying. To get VoiceOver to read an iBook continuously, swipe down the page with two fingers. VoiceOver will even automatically turn the page for you!

Only One Bug

2011-02-03T00:00:00+00:00

I have made a few references to my Computing A-Level work, but here's something I've made outside of the lessons: a fully-functioning (almost, more on that later) game of Yahtzee. Perhaps I should stop making games… Anyway, it's not the prettiest of software, but at least it plays like it should.

As you can see, it's all done using a series of buttons, even for the dice. Since there are five dice, it needs a long list of switch statements. In all there are around 1,700 lines of code, but I'm not the most efficient programmer yet, so I'm sure that could be cut down a lot.

I've been trying to implement a high score system, involving a table of the ten highest scores. However, I've been having some trouble getting the scores to save for retrieval later. I've cobbled together this screen for now, though:

Like I said, it's not going to be winning any design awards any time soon. But I don't care what it looks like at the moment, as long as it works – which brings me onto the problem. There is a small bug in the scoring code. A short straight, which is four consecutive numbers – 1, 2, 3, 4 or 2, 3, 4, 5 for example – is hard to check for, at least for me, anyway. I've resorted to using an array of the dice values, sorting it into ascending order and then checking how many consecutive pairs of numbers there are. Since it doesn’t check that the four numbers are consecutive to each other, only checking two numbers at a time, it incorrectly allows some rolls to pass through. 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 for instance is not a straight, since there aren't four numbers in a row. However, the code allows this as a straight, because it sees three pairs of consecutive numbers – 1 and 2, 4 and 5, and 5 and 6. I need to sort that out, obviously, but I'm having trouble working out how.

Coding Tip: OS-Specific Content For Websites

2011-01-30T00:00:00+00:00

You may already know that it's possible to do some browser detection using PHP, but read on to find out how to take it further, and change a page's contents depending on the user's operating system.

Perhaps you've seen one of my previous posts where I talk about a keyboard shortcut. What you haven't seen is the PHP behind how they behave. If you view the page on a Mac, the Mac specific shortcut will be shown, and if you view it using Windows, you'll be shown the Windows shortcut. In order to make that magic happen, I use a little bit of PHP. It's simple, really. The code looks like this:

    <?php
    if ( strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'], 'Mac') !== false )
        echo '<abbr>CMD-C</abbr>';
        
    elseif ( strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'], 'Win') !== false )
        echo '<abbr>CTRL-C</abbr>';
    ?>

Explanation:

strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'], 'Mac') searches the user agent information from the browser and returns the position of the string Mac, if it's present. The idea is that if anything in the user agent info contains 'Mac', then the user is using a Mac to view the page.
The if statement checks to see if the strpos function finds the string. If it comes back as anything other than false, then it was found, so the Mac-specific content is shown.
If the Mac string isn't found, an elseif then uses the same method to check for the string Win. If it is found, then the Windows content is shown.
I use the <abbr> tag so that I can apply a CSS style to the shortcuts the code produces.

Of course, you aren't limited to just using an echo; you can do anything you like, although I can't think of anything else you'd want to be OS-specific like this. Now, technically, I lied to you. That code isn't the exact code I use. Since I use Wordpress, I have to use a shortcode, because you can't use PHP inside a post with WP. To create the shortcode, place this into functions.php:

    function keyboard_shortcuts($atts) {

        extract(shortcode_atts(array(
            'mac' => 'CMD',
            'win' => 'CTRL'
        ), $atts));

        if ( strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'], 'Mac') !== false )
            return ''.$mac.'';
        
        elseif ( strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'], 'Win') !== false )
            return ''.$win.'';
    }

    add_shortcode('shortcut', 'keyboard_shortcuts');

It's almost exactly the same, except the code is wrapped in a function called keyboard_shortcuts. Whenever I use the shortcode [shortcut], this function is called. The extract part at the beginning sets up two variables, $mac and $win. When I call the shortcode, I give it two attributes, such as [shortcut mac="CMD-C" win="CTRL-C"]. The extract function grabs the two attributes and assigns them to the variables. Then, instead of using an echo, I use a return, which tells Wordpress what I actually want to be displayed from the shortcode. The variables are used in the return part so that either the Mac shortcut or the Windows shortcut I assigned gets shown, depending on the user's OS.

Colour Clock

2011-01-29T00:00:00+00:00

Remember my idea for the barcode clock? Well, here's another geeky clock, made by Jack Hughes. It's called the Colour Clock.

It's a simple clock, but the background colour is calculated using the time as a hexadecimal colour value. In other words, the colour in the screenshot below is the colour #225730, which is a pale yellow colour.

The only problem is the whole thing uses Flash, which is annoying. There's also a downloadable screensaver of the thing, but even that uses Flash. You just can't win sometimes. Oh, and watch out for when the seconds turn over from 59 to 00 - there can be some pretty dazzling colour changes.

Fez

2011-01-28T00:00:00+00:00

Sackboy wears a fez now. Fezzes are cool.

Everywhere Should Use PayPal

2011-01-27T00:00:00+00:00

Everyone's heard of PayPal. It's just a shame that not everywhere uses it. It's got some good things going for it.

Cards

The first thing I like is the fact that a site using PayPal can let you pay by credit or debit card, even if you don't have a PayPal account. Even though I do have an account, back when I didn’t, this was an extremely useful way to pay. Of course, sites can use cards without implementing PayPal, but with PP there's a greater sense of security that comes with it.

Addresses

Another great thing about PP is the fact that it saves your mailing address. You don't have to mess around typing out your address whenever you want to buy something, which is a real bonus. Most sites let you sign up for an account, but that still involves typing your address the first time for each site.

Single sign-in

While we're on the subject of accounts, with PP you only need to sign up for one account. Other sites usually make you sign up and type in everything about yourself including what you had for breakfast. A site with PP only requires logging in to an account you already have, rather than signing up when you're only planning on making a single purchase on the site.

Resolution centre

The last thing I like about PayPal is its Resolution Centre. If you have a problem with something you buy – not as described, never turns up, things like that – you can open a dispute using PayPal, and they'll contact the seller to ask them what's going on. Since PP requires an answer from them, you'll always either get a replacement or a refund, if your query is legitimate. As you can probably tell, I like PayPal. In fact, I wouldn’t mind a single bit if it was made some kind of official standard, and everyone had to use it. That would be great.

Why The iPad Doesn’t Need A Camera

2011-01-24T00:00:00+00:00

This is all the proof we need to show that the iPad having a camera would be ridiculous…

Imagine everyone going round looking like that, and you'll understand why the iPad should never be given a camera on the back. On the front, maybe, but not the back.

Catch Your iOS Home Screen

2011-01-23T00:00:00+00:00

You know how, since iOS 3, when you're at the Home screen, if you press the Home button again, it zooms to the first page? Well, I discovered something kind of useful today; if you press the Home button by accident, you can 'catch' the screen and stop it zooming all the way back to page one. Just hold your finger down on the screen and it'll stop at the page you touched.

Stop Google Analytics Registering Your Own Visits

2011-01-22T00:00:00+00:00

Google Analytics is a great tool for tracking information about your websites, but it has no way of distinguishing you from anyone else. That means your data can be wrong, especially if you visit your own site a lot. Luckily, there's a way of fooling Analytics into not counting views from certain computers.

1 – Create a page only you can access

We're going to be using a cookie to fool Analytics, so you'll need to create a page on your website containing the following code:
<body onLoad="javascript:pageTracker._setVar('ignore_cookie_name')">

You can replace the ignore_cookie_name with anything, as long as it's unlikely that someone else will already have a cookie with the exact same name. Upload the page you just created to your server, to a URL no one else can access, such as example.com/cookiemaker. Anyone else with access to the page you create won't be counted by Analytics. Now you need to visit the page you just created from every web browser on all of your computers. That adds the cookie you want to each of the browsers.

2 – Set up a filter on Google Analytics

Next, go to Google Analytics and visit the Analytics Settings page. Then click Filter Manager at the bottom of the page, and then choose Add Filter. Give your filter a name, and check Custom Filter. Set up the Filter Type as Exclude. The other settings should be:

Filter Field => User Defined
Filter Pattern => The name of your cookie
Case Sensitive => No

Under 'Apply Filter to Website Profiles', add all the sites you want to stop tracking yourself on. Analytics should stop tracking your own visits from now on.

The Grand Unveiling

2011-01-19T00:00:00+00:00

If you follow me on Twitter, then you might have noticed my recent comments about CSS (either good or bad, depending). Well, here is what I've been working on; it's version 2.0 of the previous theme from this site, Capsules.

I think this version is much cleaner, and easier to read as well. It's definitely not a finished product at the moment, but I think it's close enough that it's ready for public viewing. Let's call this the Beta stage.

At some point, I hope to add an iPhone and/or iPad specific version of the theme, but for now, this is fine. I don't want to use the WPTouch plugin either, since for one it's no longer free, and also I want to feel the sense of achievement that would come from doing it myself.

Oh, and just so you know, there's no Javascript or jQuery behind any of this. It's pure HTML and CSS. Apart from the lightbox effect. But other than that, no scripts.

How Does Facebook Ever Go Down?

2011-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

Apparently, Facebook has around 60,000 servers. How are there ever times when Facebook is down? That linked article is actually an interesting read. It's about how Facebook gets new features coded and released. The engineers are responsible for bug-testing their own code.

Quick Fix: Cursor Not Hiding In iTunes In Fullscreen

2011-01-16T00:00:00+00:00

Since the last update to iTunes, 10.1.1, I've noticed what can only be a bug when transitioning to fullscreen mode when watching a video. Usually, after a few seconds, the mouse cursor disappears so it's not in the way. However, in this version, it doesn’t seem to like hiding at all.

It's really easy to sort out. When you go fullscreen, don't use the mouse to click the fullscreen button. Instead, use the keyboard shortcut, ⌘F (or Ctrl-F on Windows), which does the same thing. However, when you do so, you have to make sure that the cursor is outside the iTunes window. If you don't, the cursor still won't hide. Hopefully this will get sorted out in the next release, but for now, this is an easy workaround.

A Game To Improve Your Typing

2011-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

If, like me, you want to improve your typing speed and/or accuracy, here's a fun game you can play to help.

It's called Z-Type, and the idea is you have to shoot down the enemies making their way towards you by typing the words next to them.

I know there are probably hundreds of games like this, if not more, but this one not only looks good, but also doesn’t require Flash, which is a bonus.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to work on the iPad, so to improve your touchscreen-typing you'll have to use an app such as TapTyping.

Zombie Games Aren't Particularly Realistic

2011-01-14T00:00:00+00:00

Umm, let's just ignore the fact that zombies don't exist... *ahem*.

The people behind Immersion at Rooster Teeth decided to carry out an experiment. Their theory was that games such as Left 4 Dead don't recreate the zombie apocalypse properly, because the survivors nearly always have no firearms experience, and yet they manage to kill the zombies at your command, every time (as long as you can aim properly in the game).

So, anyway, they created some zombies and took turns shooting at them to see if they could get headshots. Here's the video:

[via GeeksAreSexy]

Personal Inventions Of Mine

2011-01-10T00:00:00+00:00

I recently came up with two inventions. Not full-blown amazing new products, but features of existing products that might make them better. Feel free to insult the ideas and/or throw things at me if you don't like them.

Scientific calculators

As I found out during an A-Level Maths paper (practice, luckily), it pays to make sure your calculator is in the right mode - degrees or radians. For instance, when you work in degrees, sin 65 is 47.37º. In radians, it comes out as 0.83 radians. There's quite a bit of difference there. (Even if there wasn’t that much difference, being even slightly out determines whether you're right or wrong for the question, really.)

So here's my idea. When you press the sin, cos or tan buttons, a warning appears on-screen: You are currently in radians. Are you sure you wish to proceed? Then, you either press equals to continue, or the delete button to go back and change to degrees. Problem solved.

Alarm clocks

My other idea relates to the snooze button on alarm clocks. When the alarm goes off, you can either turn the alarm off, or hit snooze and the alarm will go off again in about 10 minutes, usually. The trouble is, if you really don't feel like getting up, you can keep hitting the button to stay in bed longer.

My solution to that is a system that reduces the snooze time each time you press it. The first time, you get the whole 10 minutes. But after that, each time you press it an additional time, the amount of time you get is reduced. Eventually, you don't get any time, and the alarm doesn’t snooze any more, so you have to get up.

Wordpress Tip: Custom Login CSS

2011-01-07T00:00:00+00:00

For those of you who self-host Wordpress, or are just theme developers generally, here is a small chunk of code I found extremely helpful.

When it comes to redesigning the custom CSS for the wp-login page, Wordpress just doesn’t want to let go of its default styling. To start with, here's the code which tells WP where your custom CSS file is, and tells it to load it. Put this at the end of your functions.php file.

function custom_login() {
echo ''; }

add_action('login_head', 'custom_login');

Obviously, change the '/custom-login/custom-login.css' part to where your stylesheet actually is. The problem with just doing that is that your styles are just tacked on the end of the default ones. I noticed some flashes of the default colours, for example, when I load the page. In order to totally remove the WP styles, add this code to functions.php:

    function kill_login_css($tag) { 
          return ''; 
    } 

    if (basename($_SERVER['PHP_SELF']) == 'wp-login.php') 
    add_action('style_loader_tag', 'kill_login_css');

That checks to make sure you're on the login page, then stops the default CSS file from even loading. The only CSS that's loaded is yours. Bear in mind, then, that you will have a completely blank canvas. There won't be any styles at all (but that's why you wanted to remove the original CSS, right?).

Why The Mac App Store Will Start On A Downer

2011-01-06T00:00:00+00:00

The Mac App Store is launching today, which has got everyone excited. A bit too excited, I might add, since I can spot a couple of things that might detract from the experience from the off.

Apps moving to the App Store

There are thousands upon thousands of apps which already exist, many of which will likely be moved into the App Store once it's open for business. When that happens, what will happen to existing users of these apps? Since most developers use serial numbers right now, which Apple doesn’t allow in the App Store, previous customers will either have to repurchase from the App Store. Either that or stick with their current version and live with the fact that they won't receive any updates.

Some developers might see sense and try to offer their loyal customers a way of transferring over to the App Store, but I can't see a reliable way to do that. They might be allowed promo codes like the iOS store, but if that's the case, they'll only be given 50, like the iOS store. That's obviously not enough to support a popular application like Things or OmniFocus.

Of course, there is the possibility that some developers will keep both versions going. However, that's reliant on them remembering to push updates to both the App Store and their update servers every time. It might work for a while, but eventually it'd get tiresome. Perhaps Apple even has a way of dealing with this issue. We'll have to see, although I can't imagine what it might be.

Fart apps all over again

It might not happen from the minute the store opens, but you know there are thousands of rubbish apps just waiting to make their way into the App Store. They might not be fart apps, but I can assure you, we will see a torrent of uselessness flood into the store at some point. Apple has a set of guidelines for apps that are submitted, but that didn’t seem to help the iOS store much. Mark my words. It's going to happen.

Bad ports from iOS

There are most definitely going to be people who rush to release an OS X version of their iOS application, simply by changing the touch input to mouse input and making the graphics a bit bigger. That's not going to work, because pointing with a mouse is totally different from touching with a finger. Apps are going to have to be almost rewritten with the Mac in mind, if they want to be successful. In reality, though, a lot of developers aren't going to bother with that. Some will, and well done to them, but look at what happened when the iPad was released. The exact same thing.

One more thing

Since the App Store isn't part of iTunes and is a separate application in itself, it will have to be downloaded. If nearly everyone is trying to download this thing at the same time, how will the download server cope? Last time, when it was the FaceTime beta, the download link started downloading the iWork '09 trial instead of FaceTime. How embarrassing.

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-25T00:00:00+00:00

It's that time of the year again… You know, that time when toy, card and wrapping paper manufacturers make a fortune. It's Christmas! And to celebrate, here's the 2010 Christmas special of Mr Cheese's Stop Motion Show.

Dear Reference Book Publishers…

2010-12-20T00:00:00+00:00

…I have a request for you that will guarantee that readers of your books will be happy and will want to come back for more. Hear me out, and I think you'll understand the problem I'm having with reference books, especially those about computer tasks.

Picture the scene: you're an enthusiastic new web developer, and you’ve purchased a book titled 'Getting Started with Javascript'. You’ve just got to the chapter about using document.getElementById(), and there's a code snippet you want to try out. You rest the book on your desk, move over to the keyboard, and — BANG! — the book slams shut and you’ve lost your place.

This is a problem with nearly every computer reference book; without folding the book back on itself (which someone as obsessive as me would never do), you can't keep it open and type/use a touchscreen/whatever at the same time. So here's my solution: spiral-bound books. At this time, I know of one tech book which is spiral bound, and that's 'Digging into Wordpress', which doesn’t have the issue I've described and stays open where you left it until you're ready to move on or close it.

So there's your example-setter; now I hope you take notice of this request and start publishing books which I don't have to hold with one hand and type with the other. Sprial-bound is the future.

Don't Let It Snow

2010-12-18T00:00:00+00:00

It's apparent that Britain isn't capable of dealing with snow, even if it's only a few inches.

Airports get closed, motorways get closed, railways get closed. Everything basically comes to a standstill (except Ipswich vs. Leicester).

Now compare that with what goes on in Canada most days. They wake up, get dressed, go outside and scrape 6 ft of snow from their cars so they can actually see where they're going. The snowploughs have already been out to clear the roads, and they just drive to work. The roads stay open, the airports stay open and life carries on normally.

I know that Canada is more used to huge amounts of snow than we are, but every single time, we are caught unawares by "unprecedented amounts of snow". Yeah, we weren't expecting that at all.

The One Thing I Want In iOS 5

2010-12-13T00:00:00+00:00

I am totally fed up with typing something on my iPad and then having to go back and changes it after iOS "corrects" my spelling. Funnily enough, Mr iPad, I didn’t want to type 'mr' instead of 'me'. I also don't want everything I make a minor mistake in typing corrected to some town name I've never heard of, such as Hapsburg. Oh, and one last thing; correcting 'reading' into 'Reading'? No thanks. I haven't been "doing a spot of Reading" this afternoon.

Which is why the only feature I care about having in iOS 5 – never mind the wireless sync or the information on the lock screen – is context-aware corrections. Have the OS work out what you’ve said beforehand, and use that to try and work out what word you meant when you typed a load of rubbish. That way, I can visit Reading but I can catch up on my reading. I'll know who to buy for, and be able to brush the cat's fur. I'll be able to... OK, you get the idea.

Come on, Apple.

An HTML5 Advent-ure

2010-12-04T00:00:00+00:00

I may not be able to give you chocolate to download each day, but I can recommend an online advent calendar which you should have a look at. The HTML5 Adventure Calendar provides an excellent example of use of HTML5.

There are some really interesting links on there. For instance, on the first of December, the advent calendar featured the HTML5 Ball Pool, where you can mess around with a screenful of balls.

To view the calendar and its linked sites, you'll need an HTML5-compatible browser such as Safari, Chrome, Opera or Firefox.

Google Learns To Beatbox!

2010-12-01T00:00:00+00:00

Google may be a multi-talented search engine, but it just learned a new skill: beatboxing. You can hear this internet phenomenon for yourself by following these steps:

Head on over to Google Translate.
Set the translation from German to German.
Paste in the following text into the box:
pv zk pv pv zk pv zk kz zk pv pv pv zk pv zk zk pzk pzk pvzkpvpzk kkkkk bsch
Click the Listen button.
Be amazed as Google beatboxes right through your speakers!

Uses For Rubbish #187: Quality Street Wrappers

2010-11-26T00:00:00+00:00

Hold it right there! Yes, you. You, with the handful of wrappers from that tin of Quality Street. You weren't going to put all those in the bin, were you?! No, I should think not, when you could be using them for Novel Uses For Rubbish #187!

This sort of works, but sort of doesn’t. Maybe you bought Flight Control HD for your iPad, and noticed that there's a 3D map you can play. But what if you don't have any red/blue 3D glasses lying around? Just grab a Strawberry Cream and a Coconut Éclair from your Quality Street tin, then eat them and save the wrappers.

When you unfold the wrappers, you'll notice that there are actually two layers; the outer coloured wrapper and a foil 'freshness' wrapper. You can discard the foil part, you won't be needing that. Now all you need to do is flatten out the coloured parts as best you can and hold them up in front of your eyes. Depending on what you're looking at through them will change which colour you put over each eye. You need to look at the 3D image you're viewing, and take note of which side the red and blue lines are on. Then hold up your wrappers on the opposite sides to that. Hopefully, you should get a sort of 3D effect. This doesn’t work quite as well as with proper 3D glasses, but it makes for a good substitute until you can get some.

How To: Set Custom SMS Tones On Android

2010-11-22T00:00:00+00:00

While iPhone users may have lucked out when it comes to custom SMS tones, we Android users are able to set up almost any sound as a ringtone or notification. However, for some reason, it's not quite as easy as choosing it from a list, like it is for normal ringtones.

Requirements

An Android phone
A sound file you want to be an SMS tone
A computer and USB cable for your phone OR
The ASTRO File Manager application for Android

Method

Either use the USB cable or some other method to add the sound file you want to use to your device. A short sound clip works best, otherwise you (and people around you) will get upset having to listen to it every time you get a text.
Using the computer or ASTRO to move said sound file to the folder
sdcard → media → audio → notifications
Any sound files you place in here will automatically show up in the list when you go to choose a notification sound.
Now just go to wherever it is on your phone where you set the notification sound. All the sound clips you placed in the folder previously should be on the list a readily available for you to select and use.
Enjoy having a unique SMS/notification sound on your phone!

'DataMan' Review - Keep Track of Your Data Usage

2010-10-26T00:00:00+01:00

I recently changed carriers on my iPad and have a 1GB monthly limit on my 3G data usage. To make sure I wasn’t going to be charged for any overs, I wanted a way to keep track of how much data I had used that month. Luckily, I was then contacted by XVision to tell me about their app, DataMan [69p / 99¢].

DataMan is an app which quietly sits in the background on your iPhone or iPad, monitoring exactly how much data you use, both on the cellular network and over Wi-Fi. When you re-open the app, it shows you the daily, weekly and monthly totals for both types of data.

It's nice to know how much data you’ve been using over a given period, but what really makes this app worth the 69p asking price is the way you can tell it your monthly, weekly and daily allowances, and it'll warn you if you're approaching them. This is done using local notifications, so the warning message will pop up no matter what you're doing.

The only annoyance I have with this is that you have to set all three limits; you can't just set a monthly limit and be done with it. I don't want to have to set a daily and a weekly limit. A way round this which I have found is to set your monthly limit to whatever it is (1GB in my case), then divide by four to get your weekly limit (an approximation, anyway), and then divide that by seven to get a daily limit. It's not pretty, but it works. An interesting feature of DataMan is the way it's able to geotag all your data usage and show it to you on a map. This might be useful if you wanted to know whether you were using more data at work or at home, for instance.

The thing that worries me about this is, surely finding your location every time you use the internet must use extra data to what you were already using. When you're on a small data plan, all these location requests will eat into your allowance, leaving you less to use yourself. Fortunately, however, the developers were nice enough to include an off-button for the geotagging feature, which stops the app from making location requests.

Update: Johnny from XVision got in touch and explained that DataMan does not use data when it geotags your usage information.

In iPhone, Location Services uses a combination of cellular, Wi-Fi, and GPS to determine your location. If you're not within a clear line of sight to GPS satellites, iPhone can determine your location using Wi-Fi. If you're not in range of any Wi-Fi, iPhone can determine your location using cellular towers. (See http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1975)

Thanks to Johnny for clearing that up!

Once last feature which I like is the ability to display a history between two given dates. Once you select a period using the date picker, DataMan gives you a breakdown, by day, of how much data you used in that period. It's useful for going back to see why you’ve used so much data so far this month, for example; you can set the dates for between now and the beginning of the month, and see which day you used a lot of data. You can then think to yourself, "Ah, I remember! The plane was delayed at the airport flying out to that conference last week!". (I wouldn’t think this, because I don't go to conferences. But still.)

If you're looking for a way to keep track of your data usage (or you just like the statistics), DataMan is well worth the asking price. With a couple of tweaks to the settings, this will be a perfect application. Even at the moment, it's definitely the best app of its kind on the App Store.

How To: Remove A Beta Version Of iOS

2010-10-24T00:00:00+01:00

Anyone who's tried to do this will discover that it's very difficult to manoeuvre around Apple's "no downgrading" policy, even when it comes to the developers' prerelease versions of iOS. Never fear, because here is a way to get your iPhone back to the state it was in before.

Forewarning

Following these steps will downgrade your device software, but all your data will be deleted in the process. iTunes doesn’t allow restoring from a backup if the backup came from a device with a higher software version.

Tools You'll Need

A computer running iTunes (you should already have this, considering what we're talking about).
A copy of RecBoot.

Method

Once you have RecBoot, you now need to put your device into DFU mode. To do this:
1. Plug in your device using a USB cable.
2. Turn it off by holding the power button and sliding the red slider.
3. Once it's completely off, press and hold both the power button and the home button for ten seconds.
4. After that ten seconds, release the power button but keep holding the home button.
5. iTunes should pop up a window saying that it has detected a device in recovery mode. Your phone's screen will be black. If this hasn’t happened, try again from the beginning.
Click OK on the iTunes alert, then click on your device in the iTunes sidebar. Now just click Restore and then click Restore and Update in the confirmation dialog. iTunes will carry out the restore process on your device.
Wait. A restore usually takes about 10 minutes.
You'll most likely get an error like the one below, and your phone will be stuck on the 'Connect to iTunes' screen. Just click OK on the error message and open up RecBoot.
Within RecBoot, there are only two buttons; one for entering recovery mode and one for exiting. Click the 'Exit Recovery Mode' button and within a few seconds, RecBoot will force your iPhone out of recovery and back into the public release of iOS, where you want it to be.

Note: This method works fine for both iPhone and iPad. This is the same method used by LifeHacker to downgrade iPhone firmware, seeing as RecBoot is almost always the easy way out of iTunes error 1015.

Happy Birthday To Me

2010-10-19T00:00:00+01:00

That's right, yesterday was my birthday! I am now officially 17 and one day. It doesn’t feel any different, but it's the same every year. I suppose I should stop expecting it to, really. We went out for all-you-can-eat Chinese (tasty!), I got Dead Rising 2 (zombie-y!) and also a whole load of accessories for my new scooter (vroom-y!).

Yes, that's my brand new, 60-registration scooter. It's a 125cc, Yamaha Vity, which is why I had to wait until now to get it - you have to be 17 to ride anything bigger than 50cc. It got delivered at about 3.30 this afternoon, by which time I was *extremely* impatient! Other presents I got included Super Mario World for Game Boy Advance (I use it in my DS - I just like the game is all), £40 of iTunes vouchers and The Sims 3. Now I'm off for a ride on my scooter; see you later!

I Made Pong

2010-10-08T00:00:00+01:00

I started college this September, studying Further Maths, Physics and Computing (all A Levels). My favourite out of the three is definitely Computing, because it's all programming computers and making programs and things like that. All of the coding is done in Java, and today I finished my latest mini-project; I managed to re-create the classic tennis game Pong! It may not look like an exact replica, but it's fairly close.

Also, the physics can be a little off (sometimes the ball slides along the paddle rather than bouncing off for some reason) and it can be a tad difficult - the ball doesn’t pause at all when it comes back after a point, something the original game included. However, considering that I had never touched Java before a month ago, I think this is fairly impressive, if I do say so myself. I won't bore you with posting the code or anything like that, but I will tell you: the amount of instances of the letters 'x' and 'y' are terrifying.

Game Center

2010-10-05T00:00:00+01:00

Before I start, yes I know that it should be 'Game Centre', but it's Apple's spelling and it's the name of something, so I can't change it. OK. Basically, I'm lonely on Game Center and I need so people to play with/against.

So fire up your iOS 4.1 enabled device, load Game Center and add me. Or, if you're a developer/you know a developer/you're just sneaky (delete as appropriate), use your iOS 4.2 beta-enabled iPad.

Don't know what Game Center is? Basically, it's like OpenFeint or [Plus+][], just it's hosted and run by Apple. You also get a dedicated app on your device for checking leaderboards, achievements and friends' scores.

There are quite a few games with Game Center built in, a few of which are free, and some of which you probably already have. All you have to do is sign into Game Center then launch an enabled game.

Because Game Center on the iPad is still in beta, there are no iPad games which have Game Center yet, but if you play an iPhone game with Game Center on your iPad, you'll still get the achievements and climb up the leaderboards.

Oh, one more thing I forgot to mention; my Game Center username is jobbogamer. Add me by going into Game Center, going to the Friends tab and tapping the little + button in the top right. Then just type in jobbogamer and a message (if you want) and hit Send.

Ahoy!

2010-09-19T00:00:00+01:00

Avast, ye landlubbers, it be International Talk Like a Pirate Day (ITLPD)! This be the one day of ea' year when ye can talk like a pirate and not soun' quite so mental! Ye can fin' out more abou' ITLPD on tha' there Wikipedia page or on the official ITLPD website.

It be a shame tha' this year it be fallin' on a Sunday so ye can't be talkin' like a pirate at work, but nex' year it be on a Monday, so abandon all hope, ye who not take part! If ye have Facebook, there be a language settin' where ye can have Facebook talk to ye in pirate! Jus' don't forge' to change it back, else ye migh' be stuck talkin' like a pirate for the res' o' ye life! It also be happenin' across Twitter, with the hashtag #ITLPD! Go see fo' yeself, if ye don't believe me!

Shiver me timbers, I've run ou' of pirate stuff to be sayin', so I bid ye farewell until nex' September 19th!

Plastic Bags

2010-09-14T00:00:00+01:00

When it comes to dishing out white plastic carrier bags, supermarkets like to use as few as possible; it means they have to make less, therefore saving money, and it helps the environment, which they all supposedly care so much about. They go about this in numerous ways, including the 'Bag for Life' reusable bags and giving rewards like Clubcard or Nectar points to people who don't use the disposable bags. However while they're helping themselves by doing these things, they're also hindering their progress by employing many plastic bag-related money-saving schemes.

For instance, recently Tesco started making their bags a lot thinner -- in fact, so thin you can through them now, whereas before they were opaque. The reasoning behind it is each bag uses less plastic, so it saves money by not having to buy so much plastic. Very sneaky.

But the problem is this: now that the bags are thinner, they can't support the weight of as much shopping as before. A bag that could carry two two-litre bottles of Coke before can now just about manage one before it splits. So now the customers are having to either double-bag heavy items, or simply separate things out into separate bags. Either way, this means that twice as many bags are being used by each person. Thought Tesco might be saving a few pennies by making the bags thinner, they're doing themselves no favours because they have to produce twice as many bags now, thereby costing twice as much. The dilemma they have to face is, do they save more money by keeping the bags thick (spending more money buying plastic) but using less, or by making the bags thinner but using twice as many?

Update: Tesco were recently featured on BBC Watchdog due to the poor quality of their carrier bags, and have decided to manufacture thicker bags that won't break so easily. At the rate they go through bags, I'd be surprised if they weren't already being used now.

Stationery

2010-09-13T00:00:00+01:00

Whenever you start a new year of school or college or whatever, you always restock your stationery supplies. But there's only one reason that you have to do this: stationery goes mysteriously missing between September and July. No one quite knows where it goes or notices when it disappears, but it always does.

The two most likely culprits are forgetfulness and theft. You either set your ruler down and forget to pick it up at the end, or someone borrows your pencil (your favourite one, the mechanical one you twist the end of, no less!) and never brings it back. Of course, you could try asking for your sharpener back, but more often than not they'll pretend that either a) they "did give it back, what are you talking about?!" or b) have lost it in the three-and-a-half minutes they had it. So you end up with no sharpener until the start of the next school year.

Taking note of previous personal experience, I've stocked up on essential stationery - mainly pens - and I'm going to make everyone who wants to borrow one of my possessions sign a contract. Try running off with my compass-with-a-pencil-nib-in-the-end-so-you-don't-need-to-put-an-actual-pencil-in now.

Boing!

2010-09-07T00:00:00+01:00

Today, Google changed the logo on the search engine site - as they usually do on a special occasion - but this time it was a little different. Upon navigating to google.co.uk, the logo appears as a whole load of little dots (or 'particles', as the source code for the page calls them) making up the word Google.

When you move your mouse across the logo, the balls explode outwards, as if your cursor hasn’t washed for three years. Once you move your mouse away, they settle back into their original positions.

Nobody is sure what the reason behind this fun Google doodle is - usually hovering over the image reveals what it's all about - but some theories are it's either to celebrate their 12th anniversary (Google started on September 7, 1998) or it's just to prove what HTML 5 is capable of.

Either way, it kept me entertained for a few minutes earlier. All Google has said on the subject is "today's doodle is fast, fun and interactive, just the way we think search should be". There's a search themed media event happening tomorrow, so that could be part of it. We'll have to wait and see if there are any developments, I suppose.

Repositionment

2010-09-03T00:00:00+01:00

I know this is against my promise about content, but this is life or death! OK, not really, but it sorts out the new positioning of the iTunes 10 window controls.

http://theappleblog.com/2010/09/02/quick-tip-make-itunes-10-window-controls-horizontal/

Changes the 'traffic light' controls from vertical back to horizontal.

Tell the Time with Lines

2010-09-01T00:00:00+01:00

I was wandering round Brighton yesterday, when I saw a wall clock consisting of multicoloured stripes extending from the centre. In fact, it looked like a strange kind of time-keeping Tube map. But it inspired me to think up another clock which uses lines: a bar code clock. And I mean a proper bar code clock, where the time is shown in the form of a bar code, not where the background is just a random bar code. So the current time when I write this would be:

That's 010910085422 - the same as 01/09/10 08:54:22. From then on, every second, the bar code would change to show the current time. As far as I can tell, there isn't a way to do this physically, so it'd have to be a computer-based project, but it's something to aim for when I have some time on my hands.

OMG, Bacteria

2010-08-28T00:00:00+01:00

Fact: Dettol is currently running this ad on TV for a no-touch automatic soap dispenser:

OK, so it's like those dispensers in public toilets. But it's obvious that this (while a nice demonstration of proximity sensors) is an unnecessary product. Yes, your hands touch "germy stuff" all the time, and yes, they'll pick up bacteria that you should probably get rid of. When you go to wash your hands, chances are that some of those bacteria will end up on the pump of your soap dispenser. But think about it, what's the purpose of touching that dispenser and spreading nasties all over it? To get soap, to wash your hands with. As in, using water to get rid of dirt and bacteria that is on your hands.

So, yes, you'll have to touch the pump to get any soap, which might mean you pick up a few extra passengers, but the very next thing you're going to do after touching it is wash your hands! It doesn’t matter in the slightest whether there are germs on your dispenser, because even if there are, they can't do anything to you anyway, because you're about to remove them.

It's adverts like this that prove just how much companies rely on scare tactics to make you buy things you never even realised you 'need'. I can understand if they were just selling the soap, because soap from Dettol is probably fairly effective. But this just crosses the line into stupidity.

Quick Tip: Pesky Wi-Fi Networks

2010-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

If you’ve been out and about with your iPhone near other people’s houses, you’ve probably noticed many Wi-Fi networks called BT Openzone. Openzone is a service that BT broadband users can sign up to which gives them free access to other BT routers and Openzone hotspots. The problem is, they’re all called BT Openzone, which means that if you log in to one of them on your iPhone, it’ll remember it and try to connect to them every time you’re nearby one.

This makes your life difficult because they require a password to be typed into Safari, and this means you can’t use other apps that require the internet to work. To be able to use your data network even while you’re near an Openzone hotspot, you’re going to have to disconnect from the network. This usually requires turning off Wi-Fi, which is a pain because then you have to turn it back on again later.

There is a way to solve this though. Next time you’re near an Openzone hotspot, load up the Settings app. Choose Wi-Fi, then tap the little blue circle next to the Openzone network. At the top, there is an option labelled ‘Auto Login’. Turn this off and voila! Your iPhone will never automatically connect to an Openzone network again!