January 2012
10 posts
iBook author for mathematical expressions →
Apple Support Communities
I’m not the only one thinking about the lacking support for mathematical expressions in iBooks Author. It works with MathType (as does Pages ’09), but this isn’t enough.
iBooks could do more than just display expressions. I’d find it very useful to be able to get more information about symbols: what is it defined as and where else is it used?
Maybe mathematical...
Spotlight preferences
I was using my Mac, and wanted to access the Spotlight preferences without taking my hands off the keyboard. I thought it would be cool if I could summon Spotlight then press ⌘-comma but this does not work.
The arrows keys move up and down through results, and there is a “Spotlight Preferences…” option at the bottom of every results list. I found these ways to navigate quickly:
Use command...
Different Levels →
by Dov Frankel on For No One
The iPhone has two different volume levels: your ringer volume, and your audio playback volume. When audio is playing, or when an audio-centric app is open, the hardware volume buttons change the volume of the audio.
In Settings > Sounds, there is an option called “Change with Buttons”. The situation described above is when this option is on. When this option...
Bring
An “evil magic stone” in “Rave Master”? I think reading any more would spoil this.
5by6
Now I know why we’re still on iWork ’09 on the Mac →
Readomator for Instapaper →
Listen to your saved Instapaper articles as easily as you listen to podcasts. Readomator seamlessly bridges Instapaper and the iTunes podcast section using text-to-speech.
This is interesting stuff. It’s a Mac app, which takes text from Instapaper, runs it through the Mac OS X’s speech synthesis system, then puts the resulting audio into iTunes as a podcast.
Instapaper is great (we all...
Play the bitly team memory game →
Bitly have a fun game to help you learn their team.
Immobile Apps →
by Nick Bradbury
Many of my favorite mobile apps are immobile. I can’t take them with me.
All applications should aim to work as well as possible without a network connection. This is very important, but it’s often done wrong.
As well as preserving as much functionality as possible, don’t pester the user when there’s no internet connection. Mail and Maps on the iPhone are good...
December 2011
5 posts
Average web page is now almost 1MB →
by Ryan Kim on GigaOm
Roughly equal to the size of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations.
(via Brent Simmons)
Listary 1.1 →
on the Listary Blog
A nice update to one of my favourite apps. I love the new option to use ‘@done’ for completed items. Contrary to the release notes, this works well with the standard Notational Velocity, not just nvALT.
One downside: despite claims that syncing is now faster, I see the network activity indicator in the status bar keep spinning for ages (about a minute or two each time).
Why can’t I undo scrolling?
Safari 5.1.2
Address issues that could cause webpages to flash white
Yay!
Allow PDFs to be displayed within web content
Interesting. How does this work? Webkit has allowed the first page of PDFs in img tags for ages.
apple.com/hypercard →
Redirects to HyperCard’s Wikipedia entry. Nice.
November 2011
23 posts
Zombie episode in Instacast
I had a zombie podcast episode in Instacast. It was cached and refused to be cleared.
The solution:
Turn on iCloud sync
Delete Instacast from the device
Download the app again
Choose to use iCloud sync when asked
The downside was that I had to go through Instacast’s settings; these are not synced, and many of the defaults are not to my liking (such as auto-caching).
Also, Instacast’s...
Alfred 1.0 is due out imminently. What a bad time for my Mac to ‘have issues’.
Better Quotes →
by Tim Bray on ongoing
I’m in with this. You must use proper quotation marks. My only exceptions are text messages (to avoid jumping up to 16-but rather than 7-bit encoding), and I don’t go back and change what auto-correction does.
Thankfully Tumblr fixes this for me.
I agree with Brent Simmons: learn the key combinations, don’t mess with remapping.
Instacast HD →
A podcast universe in high definition
Martin Hering on the Vemedio Blog:
After the tremendous success of Instacast for the iPhone, a lot of customers asked me about a version for the iPad. At first I thought nay, who takes his iPad on the way to listen to podcasts when an iPhone in your pocket is so much more convenient? Then the idea grew on me. I thought about for what somebody would...
Greg Joswiak at SVC2UK
A week-and-a-half ago I attended Silicon Valley comes to the UK: a series of talks and panels organised by Sherry Coutu and Reid Hoffman.
Greg Joswiak gave a talk. Joswiak is the vice president of worldwide iPod, iPhone, and iOS product marketing at Apple. The twenty minute talk started with how they see product marketing at Apple. Next, Joswiak spoke about what the Apple brand means to him. A...
Today’s speaker in our 4F12 Computer Vision lecture: Jamie Shotton, from Microsoft Research taking about body part recognition and tracking with the Kinect.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Review →
by Neal Ronaghan at Nintendo World Report
Speaking of Skyward Sword, I liked Neal’s review. The text is fine on its own, but the video review is worth scrolling down to.
I’ve not seen a video review done like this before. It’s a narration of the article, with bits from the game that demonstrate or complement what’s being talked about. It’s exquisite, and really makes me excited about the game.
Targeted Advertising
They know just what I want.
That said, I have no plans to buy an iPhone 4S, while Skyward Sword has been a certain purchase for about a year-and-a-half. This makes both ads somewhat pointless.
Four Keys To Apple’s Success →
by Ben Rooney on the WSJ’s Tech Europe
About Greg Joswiak’s talk at Silicon Valley Comes to the UK last week. I was there.
But Joz had five points, not four. The first one was ‘Innovation’. I’ve been hoping to write up a little report all week, but it’s been a busy one.
(via Daring Fireball)
Preview’s Magnifier
Mac OS X’s Preview has a loupe. I don’t know how long it’s been there, but I only just noticed.
Tools > Show Magnifier or use tap the back tick key (`) — very convenient for right handed users as you don’t need to move your mouse hand.
Nintendo World Report Live Podcast Telethon for... →
Charity mega-show. They’ll talk about video games, particularly Nintendo. Starts at 5.00 GMT, Saturday 19th (tomorrow).
Read-write emphasis
Facebook is a ‘read-write’ platform. I go to it to get information (read), and share information (write). That said, I find posting a status update from the Facebook iPhone app can be surprisingly difficult.
When it is visible, the ‘Status’ button isn’t prominent (it is neither at the top nor bottom of the screen). From places in the app where it is visible, a single tap gets you to composing a...
If you’re at a Mac (and use Tumblr), try clicking a photo from the Tumblr Dashboard then press command-W. They’re intercepting the key combo and using it to leave the photo view mode. Overall I dislike this: I don’t like websites being able to tinker with things I consider ‘system level’.
Apple — Web apps →
The ‘sweet solution’. It’s amazing this still exists, although the most recent list is from December 2010.
Time Capsule Firmware Update 7.6 →
I gave to go-ahead for this update with AirPort Utility on my iPhone. It makes sense to do things this way.
Cocoa Controls →
Custom UI Controls for iOS and Mac OS X
A site that collects custom view components for when UIKit or AppKit doesn’t do what you want.
This is interesting to say the least. Worth checking out, but I’m not sure how useful it’ll be.
Matt Brown and AutoStitch
This morning we had a guest speaker in our 4F12 Computer Vision lecture: Matt Brown, who’s behind AutoStitch for iPhone, gave a great talk on panoramic photo stitching. It tied in very well with our lectures. I love being reminded that there are sometimes useful applications of stuff we learn in University, and occasionally it’s even profitable.
I use AutoStitch iPhone for stitching photos; it...
Turn off alerts in iCal
So far, I’m liking the new Reminders app on my iPhone. I wasn’t liking the little windows appearing on my Mac telling me about iCal alerts. When I see these, my iPhone has already reminded me, because the iPhone is always with me.
I still want reminders to sync, so I can look at my list and add things while at my Mac. Fortunately, you can turn off alerts from iCal’s advanced preferences.
...
I love the 5by5 error page:
That Grim Reaper is adorable.
Microsoft’s Vision video →
For lots of this video, I’m thinking: we have technology pretty much like this. Often, its made by Apple. For example, video chat on a thin, touch screen device. I’ve seen this before.
October 2011
17 posts
Amazon suggestions
Amazon will give suggestions from departments you’ve never shopped from. I’ve never bought anything close to clothing from Amazon. French style beret: fantastic!
Remove Title Attributes
Frustrated by tooltips redundantly telling you the section heading in HTML documents generated by DocBook? (Such as this one.) No? Maybe it’s just me.
This bookmarklet fixes the problem. Good web browsers let you drag it to your bookmarks bar.
The annoying tooltips are due to the HTML title attribute. It’s set for divs in the document. The bookmarklet runs very little JavaScript to remove...
Changing Address Book ‘me card’
My Mac had made a duplicate ‘me card’ containing just my name and one email address. I found this in Mac Address Book tips: 5 more handy hints on Reality Distortion:
Choosing your own card
When you first set up your Mac, Address Book creates a “me” card with your own contact details. However you might find that you end up with a second card which better represents you – this can happen...
Marco Arment on Twitter:
I needed custom pointInside:withEvent: behavior to minimize the scroll bar’s interference with the web view’s tap zones for a 4.0.1 fix.
Excellent. That’s my second biggest annoyance with Instapaper 4.0. I tap on, or swipe from, the right edge of the screen and the page doesn’t turn. Temporary workaround is to hold iPhone in left hand.
And here’s something to watch out for: if you’re creating an alarm then leave the Clock app without pressing Cancel or Save, the alarm is created and set.
Back button in Clock
Neven Mrgan:
The Back button should never show the text “Back”. […] Note that Apple never does this, not in any app.
I linked to this piece last month. Unfortunately I found a violation of Neven’s statement. I don’t know if anyone cares, but here it is.
When you’re adding an alarm (or editing an existing alarm) in the iPhone Clock app, the back button is labelled ‘Back’ in the Repeat,...
“Steve Jobs’ greatest legacy isn’t the success that Apple’s had under his...”
– Dr. Drang
This is from August, when Jobs left as CEO, and I should have included it in my post last week, but I just found it again in my Instapaper Liked list.
Money Squared
I asked Wolfram Alpha to “convert USD $89.00 to £” and was surprised that it retuned a result of 35.56 £2 (British pounds squared). It’s mathematically sensible given the dollar units were included twice, but money just doesn’t work like that. I submitted feedback.
lookup-api.apple.com
This is new:
With 10.7.2, Lion’s dictionary feature (control-command-D) now connects to lookup-api.apple.com rather than directly to Wikipedia. And it is much faster.
(Screen shot from Little Snitch.)
Capitalising iThingy
This source list section heading in Mail looks bad. It says ‘iCloud’ all in capital letters.
I would say both the use of all caps, and relying on particular (and non-standard) capitalisation for a product name are at fault.
Steve Jobs
It’s one week since Steve Jobs passed away. I haven’t written anything here, but it has been on my mind a lot.
Much has been said, and I have little to add. I’m touched most by what John Siracusa said in Hypercritical 37, A Story of Triumph:
He didn’t predict what the future would be like because he’s a Nostrodamus. He said what he would like the future to be like, and then...