Archive for January, 2008
The WebKit and Safari thing
Jan 8th
It is difficult to explain why I make this entry, but let’s say, that I quickly want to say something here for some reason, which might be of interest for you as well if you’re interested in development for Safari, WebKit, or both.
According to my understanding of the two technologies, it outlines as this:
Safari is a web browser that is bundled with Apple’s operating system, Mac OS X. In the current system, Leopard, Safari 3 is included. The web browser itself has a trademark and is distributed under a proprietary license, meaning that Apple has access to the source code, but not the general population. Or in Wikipedia’s words:
License: Proprietary EULA
To be found under the screenshot of the browser here.
WebKit is the underlying foundation, written by Apple, which also incidentally powers their own web browser, Safari. It is a framework that functions as rendering engine. This engine in turn is based on KHTML, the web engine of Konqueror, KDE’s file and web browser. Both, KDE (and thus KHTML) and WebKit, are Open Source. Or in Wikipedia’s words:
License: Engine under GNU LGPL
To be found under the screenshot of the browser here.
There’s also something, like this:
Safari uses Apple’s WebKit for rendering web pages and running JavaScript. WebKit consists of WebCore (based on Konqueror’s KHTML engine) and JavaScriptCore (based on KDE’s JavaScript engine named KJS). Like KHTML and KJS, WebCore and JavaScriptCore are free software and are released under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License. Some Apple improvements to the KHTML code are merged back into the Konqueror project. Apple also releases additional code under an open source 2-clause BSD-like license.
Meaning, Webkit is freely available to anyone who wishes to contribute to it.
So the equasion that builds up from this information, is:
Safari = Browser, Closed, code not available
WebKit = Open Source, Open, code available to anyone
Just because the WebKit is open, does not mean the browser is as well.
I’m writing this entry because it’s very hard to talk to someone, when he doesn’t believe the truth. *sigh*
To everyone else, correct me if I’m wrong… but I’m fairly sure I got it right this time around.
Smalltalk really is a drug
Jan 7th
You know, I don’t remember who said it, but it was like ‘Smalltalk [the programming language] is like a drug… I suggest that you don’t try it’. Whoever said this aimed at the simplicity of the language, and that everything inside Squeak, a Smalltalk-80 environment, is an object. Everything can talk to everything at runtime. And wanna hear the real juicy bit? You code it once, and you bring your code to any Squeak VM. It will run. No linking. No compiling. No GCC. And no errors, once your programs runs as desired.
Intrigued by these facts, and by what is possible with it, I have decided I take it for a spin and see how far I can go. Programming languages were never really my thing… C++ to difficult, others I just didn’t get. And then, along came Smalltalk. So what is possible with it? Let me put it this way: What Blender is for 3D, that’s Squeak and Smalltalk for programming. Alright? Okay, this is possible:
- Open Croquet. A three dimensional collaborating environment much like Second Life, only better and open source
- Seaside. An advanced web development framework opening the doors for really sophisticated webapps that are based on Smalltalk.
Well these two are some of the real big players and landmarks of the language. I’m not there yet. However, I have put together a very simple and very stupid text editor, that allows for very basic functions, like writing text (no way!!), open plain text files, save them, and do some basic operations such as copy and paste. I have stupidly named this “TextPad”, and I put it up here. Trust me, it’s not much to look at, but I’m proud of this because for me this means I finally figured out a programming language.
A screen:
Here is the code in a Zip file. Decompress the Zip, then file in the other two first before filing in the Textpad.
Man, I’m really proud I figured it out… now I can go on to bigger projects.
Here’s what’s in store after the iPhone / iPod touch
Jan 5th
I think we should have enough reason to believe that Apple will pursue further development of Multitouch devices. Here are three things already available today. Prepare to see a shiny Apple logo on those in the next 10 years.
Introducing the all-new iMac.touch.
In case you ask: Touch Me, The Doors
Introducing iPhotoshop ‘15. Part of iLife.touch.
But on top of them all, Jeff Han’s uber-cool Multitouch screens. Including iPhoto 2020.
Pimp My iTouch – Part Deux
Jan 3rd
Alright. So now that we have our apps running as smooth as apple pie goes down, we can begin with some more rather serious cool pimping.
Let’s turn our shiny multitouch media player into a usable iPhone like device. Meaning that you can make phone calls for free. That is not a typo: it is free.
Like the first part, it is absolutely imperative that your iPod touch is jailbroken as otherwise this will be of no use to you. If you don’t know how to jailbreak it, please follow my short guide outlined here.
Follow these steps, in this order, and you soon can enjoy calling people from your iPod.
I should however mention that you will require a microphone for the iPod touch as otherwise you can not talk back…
Okay. Now let’s get busy. Follow these steps.
- Go to Installer.app
- Go to the sources, and add:
http://touchmods.net/rep.xml
- Let it refresh the sources, and then go to the new repository “Touchmods”.
- In there you will find only one application, “Touchmods SIP-VoIP”. Install it.
- Back in your Home Screen, you will see a new application, bearing resemblence to Apple’s phone icon. Don’t go there yet.
- On a normal PC (for the comfort) go to CallFree.com.
- Register an account there. You only need to provide a username, email, and password.
- Go to the new shiny phone icon on the iTouch.
- Tap on “Account”.
- Enter your information as you entered on CallFree.com.
- As registrar, use: sip.voiparound.com.
- Tap on “Save”. It should say “OK – Saved”.
- Tap on “Phone” on the top right corner.
- Enter a phone number, comprised of the country code, prefix, and number.
This should work, and it has worked for me that way.
You can call many countries in the world for free, you have 5 hours every week to call any number in any country. If you don’t call people that much, this is plenty enough.
The sound quality is pretty good, I have tested it.
Have fun with your new iPhone.
Imagine sitting on the airport, with your iPod, browsing the web – AND making phone calls. All of this without a phone…
Enjoy.
Pimp My iTouch – Part Uno
Jan 3rd
So today I want to quickly show you two rather awesome hacks for your iPod touch. The first one, this one, will effectively make all the applications you have noticeably faster. It’s a real short thing, but super effective. My friend Allen Lowe (aka ZeroFill) has shown me this, I have tested it, and it works perfectly.
If you have a jailbroken iPod touch like I do, and you keep on installing apps from the Installer.app repositories, you might eventually see a very annoying message that you run out of disk space. And here’s the worst part: it’s true. See, the iPod touch is divided into two partitions – one for the OS, Applications, and some data. The other one is for the rest such as your precious music and videos.
This hack can only be done when your iTouch is jailbroken, as you need the SSH service to run. So to start this, do these things:
- Go back to your Home Screen
- Go to Settings, Wi-Fi, select the network you are connected to, then tap the “>” in the blue circle, to find out your IP address.
- Then, go back to your Home Screen.
- Now, on a Mac, start up the Terminal application. On Windows, it might be best to use puTTY.
- If you don’t have SSH installed on the iTouch, please install this now via Installer.app and set a root password.
- On a Mac (or any other Unix like system) you can do a
ssh -l root here.is.your.ip
Once you are logged in, do these commands, in exactly this order:
cd /
mv /Applications /var/root/
ln -s /var/root/Applications /Applications
exit
- Restart your iTouch by turning it off entirely (”slide to turn off”), then turning it back on again
If you made it right, you will not see any change whatsoever on the interface. But, you might see that its slightly smoother, apps open faster, and apparently they run faster too.
What you have done is moving the entire Applications folder into the root partition, where you have as much space as iTunes tells you that you have available.
So next time when visiting the lastest in Installer.app, the annoying message should be gone.
Moving on to turning your iPod touch into a VoIP phone!
They just keep on trekking
Jan 3rd
Not too long ago, the last official series of the Star Trek franchise, named “Enterprise” has been terminated due to the lack of audience – so Paramount says. The series ended after only four seasons, the last episode is seen controversial in the fans’ eyes. However, now that the Voyager has come home, and we know what happened before Kirk, what is next? Paramount has so far not announced any other plans to produce another series, all we know is that Star Trek XI comes to the cinemas worldwide next year.
Some fans couldn’t live with the fact that there is a large big void until the next adventure of the Enterprise hits the streets. They took matters in their own hands, and came up with their own ideas and put the entire thing into their own thing. And they gave it the name “Star Trek: Hidden Frontier”.
All in all the project has produced 50 episodes over seven years, divided into seven seasons, respectively. All episodes have been made available for free, you can download them directly from their website. However, as Rob Caves, the executive producer of the series, believes that people might take advantage and produce and sell DVDs with the series, the episodes are released in low-res except for five or six or so, and the series finale.
The USS Excelsior – a Galaxy Class Dreadnought – approaching its home base, the station Deep Space 12
We are in the Briar Patch, otherwise known as the Tikrit Expanse, an area with very unique and unusual properties, introduced in the movie Star Trek IX: Insurrection. In the area is a planet named Ba’Ku, which is surrounded by rings which radiation will heal all life on the surface, and stop the aging process. The Federation wants to find out more about the unique properties of the rings and has set up a base there, Deep Space 12. Soon the station becomes a vital point of operations as new threats arise. New ships are developed and posted at the station, such as the USS Excelsior, a Galaxy Class Dreadnought – a ship design that was only before seen in the final episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, as an alternative version of the Enterprise-D in an alternative timeline. The story eventually centers around a new enemy named the “Grey”, who do not seem to be willing to communicate with anyone in any way, their ships are massive and far more advanced then other people in Star Trek universe.
The story arc of the show is very well done, spans over all seven seasons and finds its ultimate climax in the very last episode, “Its Hour Come Round At Last”. I won’t tell you anything here that would spoil the fun, but enough said when I tell you that you will be blown away by the work Rob Caves and all his team has put in for the end of the show.
The entire show is filmed in a spare room with a green screen, ultimately resulting in virtual sets, stills taken from other Star Trek shows. However, the costumes and make up are very Star Trek like, so are the dialogues and the wit you have come to known from Star Trek.
From a graphical point of view, the first seasons were experiments, learning curves. As the show progresses, especially in Season 6 and 7, major improvements are made. Ultimately, you will forget about the green screen (almost) and concentrate on what is happening.
I have seen all 50 episodes now, and all I am telling you is one word: Tetrahedron. If you watch the show, you will understand what I mean… alltogether the show was very well done, all actors did their role to the best. I personally have to say that I liked Larry LaVergne as Tolian Naros very much. But all the others did a very great job too.
So if you are a Star Trek fan, and you want to keep on trekking, you better watch this. From Episode 1 – 50. You won’t regret it. Honestly.
Star Trek: Hidden Frontier
All information and episodes available there.
Make it so!