samuel.bowles.es

Sillyness at The Terminal

2010-02-08T14:57:36Z

Here’s a silly Terminal trick for giggles. For those of you who know what you’re doing just grab the first block of code and put it in your .profile, .bashrc or wherever. For the rest of you here’s a step by step guide to creepy fun.

First copy this code to your clipboard:

function sayslow () {
phrase=$1; #import

osascript <<EOT 
  say "{$phrase}" speaking rate 10 pitch 1 
EOT
}

Now open Terminal and type:

pico .profile

Hit Control-V until you are at the bottom of the file and then paste the code you copied to your clipboard. Hit Control-X followed by Y and RETURN.

You’ve just add a new command which will give you no end to entertainment. :)

Now close your Terminal window and open a new one by typing Control-N. At the command line type:

sayslow "your phrase"

Where “your phrase” is anything you want your computer to say. Note: avoid using single or double quotes as these will just screw things up. Also note: This has only been tested under Snow Leopard.

Eleganthack on What's Wrong with Wireframes

2010-01-13T21:16:55Z

“We’ve got a million sites out there with little boxes around each piece of content like the content was a cow that, if not fenced in, might try to mate with the form fields.”

Free-To-Paid Applications on the iPhone

2009-10-16T10:01:17Z

I, like John Gruber , believe that Apple's recent announcement that free applications can now include in-app purchases is a big deal. And it follows that many developers will want to consolidate their Lite & Pro applications into these new free-to-paid applications. There's a problem though: how do you manage the transition?

In Marco Arment 's recent post, In-App Purchase now available for free apps he mentions that, "there's no practical way to transition the existing paid customers to a new "free+" version". Below I will propose a possible solution to this transition (if Apple allows it) along with a number of other potential models that these changes could usher in.

And without further adieu I present you with:

Potential ways Apple's new free-to-paid application purchase scheme could be used by developers. None of which have been either confirmed or denied by Apple as legitimate uses of the system and therefore require further clarification most likely achieved through direct testing of The Great Black Box which is the App Store approval process.

Migration from Lite & Pro applications to free-to-paid applications

Create a free-to-paid application that provides all features from both previous applications with the Pro features behind an in-app pay-wall. Create a back door around the pay-wall enabling the pro features by way of a "promo code".
Upgrade your Lite app with this new code.
Create a new version of your Pro app that includes a slightly annoying screen each time the user starts the app explaining how to get a copy of the new version.
1. Download the free-to-paid app
2. Use this promo code to unlock the pro features (include an unlocking promo code)

Unlimited promo codes

Create a free-to-paid application with a way around the pay-wall using promo codes.

Desktop & iPhone application bundles

Create a free-to-paid application with a way around the pay-wall using promo codes.
Provide one of these codes with the purchase of your desktop application.

Time limited access to additional features

Create an application with two feature sets which we'll call Lite and Pro.
Comply with Apple's requirements by making sure the Lite version is useful and usable independent of the pro features.
Enable the pro features upon download on a time-limited basis.
Once the time-limit has passed require the user to make an in-app purchase in order to keep them permanently.

A few of these (rightly or wrongly) will most likely be disallowed by Apple as they would be seen as an end-route around their commerce platform (see Desktop & iPhone app bundles, and Unlimited promo codes) but some of them seem like legitimate uses to me even according to Apple's playbook. Only time will tell if any of these models are adopted and approved.

Snow Leopard Issues

2009-08-30T23:04:13Z

Here’s my list of applications that have given my grief in Snow Leopard:

Marco Polo - Doesn’t recognize SSIDs as triggers. A temporary fix is available.
iStat Menus - I use this almost exclusively for the multi-timezone clock. Fixed!
Growl Pref Pane - Works but is causing System Prefs to restart due to it being 32bit. The 1.2 betas install on SL and the System Prefs are now 64bit. If you run into trouble with installation delete all references to Growl first.
A Better Finder Renamer Pref Pane - 8.2.7 claims Snow Leopard compatibility but is still 32bit. Can’t find acknowledgement.
Secrets Pref Pane - still 32bit. Bug filed.
MacFuse - There is discussion of the issues MacFuse has under Snow Leopard and even a hack to get it working but no acknowledgement from a developer that I could find.
Wacom Intuos3 Driver - It looks like there’s a new driver out but I haven’t had a chance to test it yet.

I’ll update this list as I discover other compatibility issues or those I’ve discovered are fixed.

I've been outside. It's overrated.

2008-04-02T22:36:05Z

"In terms of the traditional target age/content metrics, Outside is remarkably high in sex, violence and challenges to traditional values, despite the strong child-focussed marketing it receives. ... Children injured playing Outside are usually comforted by parents, and soon encouraged to go Outside again; this leads to the conclusion that somehow Outside has escaped any and all of the usual moralizing that surrounds the videogaming industry." (via Wilson Miner)http://www.metafilter.com/70365/The-Myth-of-the-Media-Myth-Games-and-NonGamers#2063862