Me and my Mac

Posts Tagged ‘software’

Syncopation! iTunes synchronization for the rest of us…

A few days ago i stumbled over the really awesome and simple app Syncopation from the ever so simple Sonzea. A developer who got fed up with synchronizing his iTunes by hand and took matters into his own hands.

The result: Syncopation.

Syncopation can sync up to 5 computers iTunes libraries automatically, manually, auto deletion and many more options and thus keep them the same. This is something i was looking for for freakin’ ages!

After a few initial hick-ups with files not being copied and stuff i managed to get it all working.
Basically what i did wrong, i think, was to merge 2 existing libraries that should be one thing from the start.

So i simply deleted one (after making a backup) and synched from scratch. Which worked much much better and solved most of my issues. One song kept bugging me, but that has been gone now too for some reason.

Support is clear, fast and easy going. So i didn’t mind at all to fork over the 20something euros.

And you should too if you have multiple macs with libraries that should be the same :)!

This would make the iPhone even better…

Allow me to download parts of maps and store them for offline usage. Say i want to go some place and need directions, it would be nice to save that map, showing the route. View it offline, en route. Especially for me, since i have no “real” internet on my phone when i’m out of Wifi’s grasp.

Another nice thing would be to share contact information. So why not allow me to tab a button “share” when viewing a persons information and picking one of 2 options “email” or “sms” from the menu that would slide up from the bottom. And send a vCard to someone by mail and a textformatted SMS to someone requiring that information.

Obviously MobileMail should allow importing of vCards to make it really work.

An amazing discovery…

So here i was again. Installed a new harddisk, SATAII, in my server and went on with installing Ubuntu, since that still is a bit the distro of choice for some reason. I keep coming back to it…

Anyway, installed the whole thing. Ran updates and all seemed fine. Were it not that i can not log in in the regular Gnome session. I have to use the failsafe one. Which obviously omits some packages.
Further investigation shows me that my videocard is problematic due to a bug in Xorg (the app that handles visual output and basically governs the desktop). Ultrabummer! The video card is onboard and i thought it would be well suited for server use… And it would be if Xorg would support the thing.
This very well explains why Fedora kept screwing up after updates… Since Xorg was updated too. *sigh*.

So i have 4 options at the moment:
1. Install the *actual* server version of Ubuntu which does not use a desktop and with that go back in time 20 years with terminal.

or

2. Install the server version of ubuntu and somehow make Gnome work with it on some basic level comparable with the failsafe mode from Ubuntu.

or

3. Find another working PCI / PCI-express video card and use that for my desktop installation.

or

4. Use Windows. Which in my idea is no real option since i want a proper and secure webserver (with a system of which i know how it works) that has SSH and more of those things. In my experience it does not run well (if at all) on Windows.

My goal was to install a small server with a desktop and not use terminal at all, or limit it to an absolute minimum if possible. I’m not too fond of terminal/shell since i find it limiting, chaotic and inefficient. However, it works well otherwise. I’m spoiled with mice, colors, admin apps and remote desktop.

It’s that time again!

I found this computer in the attic, i knew i had it. But kinda forgot about it…

AMD3500 64bit, 1.5GB ram, 160GB HDD… How can one forget about it. Well it’s easy when you use macs… Anyway, i always wanted to do something with a server and before i knew it i was doing the following:

*sigh*

Yea, Ubuntu… Can’t let go. This however will be a lazy-mans server. I’m installing the desktop version and won’t bother much with the shell if possible. I guess i got a bit lazy with OSX.

The goal… Bring up Apache, MySQL and PHP (LAMP) and maybe some other things.
Intention… Revive Squidbot, dev server for Wordpress and some other top secret plans including taking over the world and remote desktop.

Facebook! Who has it…?!?

I have…

Add me if you will!

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1423596352

iPhone! one week in…

Soooo here’s a few thoughts, ha! About the iPhone 1st gen… One year late. But a review none the less.
It’s sluggish, the headphone jack is on the wrong side and it’s supercool!

Right… Well i noticed that it responds like a regular mac, ‘it has to actually load an app’ as my colleague calls it. I think it’s just annoying having to wait 1 second or so before i can browse my contacts. Or before the preferences show when i tab it’s icon.

T-mobile having the exclusive rights to the iPhone gives me updates specific for T-mobile users. So-called “carrier updates”. I think we all received them at some point. The funny thing is i’m not an official iPhone user for them, i use a pwnt 1st gen iPhone and do not have an iPhone specific contract (yes that’s another story). However T-mobile seems to think i do and sent me an update for their APN settings, network name and more of those carrier specific things. No, it’s not an update you get with any phone since it went via iTunes…

Another thing is, being used to the iPod touch that i constantly hold the phone upside down because of the headphone plug. The Touch has it on the bottom, which is much better in my opinion. The iPhone has it on the top.

And i went on a quest for headphone glory only to find that not many shops and stores sells cool, nice and proper headphones for the iPhone.
Luckily i found these:

Sexy! They’re in-ear so i hope they don’t keep falling out of my ears like the Apple ones do… They don’t fit at all!

And the ringtones are a bit lame… So i actually had to SSH into the damn thing and insert a bunch of custom crafted files into it… Ever heard of .caf files? I didn’t… Anyway, it’s just a mp4 in disguise… Silly apple peoples.

But it’s all sorted, i guess

‘Pwnt’ my phone, who cares?!

For one, i don’t… I noticed that i keep going to the app store to look for nice apps or when i think of something i automatically end up in the app store. Not necessarily getting something but still i don’t even think to look in Cydia, the new installer app for unlocked iPhones.

I opened the thing once because i was curious what it looked like and did some updates because Cydia told me there were updates. After reviewing them i saw it was a new database engine and some xml things the iPhone uses all over the place so i figured it would be a good thing to do. And it was, the contacts application seems to be a bit more reactive now…

But other than that… I briefly looked into installing BSD-subsystem and openSSH, but on a second thought i went like “fuck it”. I simply have no interest in the stuff in there. Even though i’m not sure what is in there… All i want it for is that my phone is unlocked so i can use my Simcard in it.

While cleaning some stuff…

I have this closet, it’s full of computer stuff, tools, materials, pens, cables and other computer/electronics related stuff. Today things started to fall out when i opened the door. So i decided to clean some stuff, throw away some things…

I found some things i thought i didn’t have them anymore or simply can’t remember i still had it…
Also some things that should have put to work or i’m not using anymore.

I found:

• A brand new Sony Ericsson W850i Mobile phone
• A EdiMax SoHo Print server for USB printers
• A Speedtouch Home DSL Modem from the time when 256Kbit DSL was lightning fast
• A Siemens SX551 DSL Home gateway
• 4x 3Com 10/100 Network cards
• A Guillemot Maxi Gamer 32MB TNT2 Video card
• A Voodoo 3 2000 16MB Video card From 3DFX
• A set of Floppy disks labelled “Windows 3.11 for Workgroups”
• A 32 speed CD-Rom drive
• A Floppy drive
• A Newstar NS211micro KVM Switch
• A Harddisk platter (without the rest)
• 2x 4MB EDO ram sticks
• 4x 1MB EDO ram sticks
• 2x 8MB EDO ram sticks
• 3x 1MB of just ram… EDOs predecessor i think…
• 12x 256KB (?) of another undefinable type of ram
• 6x 16MB/32MB 66Mhz SD-ram (some are labelled 16MB some others are 32MB and some look exactly like the labelled ones but have no label)
• Maybe a million sorts of cables/connectors/plugs/couplers/converters for audio, video, phone, peripherals, power, networking and whatever else cables can be used for
• Screws, hundreds of them
• An ECS K7S5A Mainboard with CPU still on it. Its a AMD Duron 1500 i think
• Jabra Stereo Bluetooth headset for mobile phones or Bt enabled A2DP devices
• 2 harddrives, a 2GB SCSI drive and a 525MB IDE ATA-33/66 disk
• A bunch of keys from various security systems, ethernet closets (the cases which hold 19″ panels and switches)

And a bunch of power adapters and other rubbish…

And some images:

Hmm, so there is more?

Just came across an app for file synchronizing or something for the iphone/ipod on a website and wanted to check it out…

I’m denied though:

Why should that even matter, it’s software, applications. I understand this is how it works for music… But if Japanese apps are listed, IN japanese (which i cannot even read what they are for), why can’t i access the apps that are apparantly in the US store? However, while browsing the store earlier today i was able to see french and german apps. But germany and france have their own store… It makes no sense!

*Ugh!*

iTunes App Store mumbling

Bitchin’ about the App Store… yea not all news and articles can be positive…

Why is everything in multiple categories? It’s confusing and rubbish… It appears there is like a million things in there and its a lot of the same in every category… For example, any music related game is also in the music category. Personally i think games should not be in the music category even if it were Guitar Hero itself… No matter how music related it is. It’s a game and games have their own category.

Another thing i noticed is the sheer amount of things that are not free. Not that i expected everything to be free but it can amount to quite some expenses even if you just want to try a few things. I didn’t see a demo period for any of the apps i looked at.

For the time being i didn’t buy anything and i won’t until i get my iPhone… Which i ordered on friday, not at T-mobile since they didn’t have any, so i ordered one at my work easier and faster.

I hope to try some apps real soon i saw some nice ones but they were for the iPhone, like using the camera and stuff. Or using GPS functions the iPod lacks…

Other than that i didn’t see anything new yet in the software, but i didn’t look very hard yet.