Put the knife down and take a green herb, dude. (c) Ruffin Bailey 2001-2018

The Mac mini Is Dead: Why It Missed the Target (from lowendmac.com):

We've said it before, and here we go again. The Mac mini was not a realistic solution to Apple's problem of expanding into the consumer market. The ideal computer for that market would look at the wants and needs of end users, and for most consumers having as small and pretty a computer as possible wasn't a priority.

The Mac mini languished because it didn't have a single expansion slot. Thus there was no way to add a better video card - and it's built-in GMA 950 graphics sucked in comparison to even the low-end video cards on the market.

I really enjoy LowEndMac.com, though lately it seems to be dealing less with the low end and more with the reasonably competent last generation (perhaps I'm showing my age), but this assessment is a bunch of bunk. I've heard the Mini is going away, but the reasons why I still don't quite get, unless it's simply not chic enough to be a Mac and is costing Apple profits.

Dan Knight of LEM includes a few more reasons the Mini is dying, but other than the single memory bank (apparently it's bad to have to toss memory when you're adding more, though I bet most consumers aren't even real sure what RAM is when they buy a computer; I've seen pretty savvy folk get RAM and hard drive space confused), let me point out exhibit A: the iMac. The iMac doesn't expand and never has. In fact, the almost expansionless, extremely crippled LC sold awfully well, iirc. Apple's entry level sales or lack thereof have never been about expansion.

Nor is the possible death of the Mini about video. Most end Mac users aren't playing Doom 3. The crappy integrated video drives me crazy, personally, and is a reason I won't be buying the current generation of MacBooks (that and I'm broke), but I like to play 3D games. For most, the Intel 950 2D performance is just fine. Why does iPhoto and iTunes need a GeForce 8800?

So why kill the Mini? I'm betting it's not selling well, and I'm betting its sales cannibalize iMac sales in a way that it'd be a much better move for Apple to get rid of its entry level model, in spite of its low price enticing some buyers in the door for a possible upsell. The Mini was made for Switchers, and if they are buying it, Apple must now feel that each Mini sale is leaving some of that Switcher money on the table. If you're going to be the BMW of PCs, why sell something in the (staying with the car metaphor) $15k range? Out the Mini goes. Now Apple sells folk LCD monitors they can't upgrade nor even use with another computer instead.

Okay, were one to being running OS X and want to use one's CD burner to create a VCDs from a public domain DVD, here are the tools that will do the job, listed in the order of their use.

1. (Optional) MacTheRipper (MTR) -- takes everything off of the DVD, creating AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS folders, among others, the latter with VOB, IFO, and BUP files galore. There is a newer version of MTR that is apparently a much harder application to get than the 2.x version. You seem to need to bug someone on the RipDifferent.com forums who will dutifully take your contact information, turn it over to the cops, and send you a copy of the app anyhow.

Note that Handbrake will rip the disc directly. In my single public domain DVD ripping attempt, I started with MTR. You probably don't have to, but if you do, this still works... *sigh* ... and at least you have a full-quality copy, if that's useful.

2. Handbrake -- this application will take the folder of your fully ripped disc (or will rip straight from disc; I've not tried this, however) and compress the video into an .avi of a size you request. If you want to put your newly ripped, public domain movie onto your iPod or if you want to give it away to someone who will watch it on their computer with VLC, you can burn the correctly sized .avi file onto a CD-R now and stop. The resolution of this .avi -- recalling that an .avi is just a wrapper for a file encoded in an unspecified format -- is much better than what you'd get from a VCD, and is smaller than VCD files in size too. I won't mention Limewire, but will again say that you can tell Handbrake to turn the ripped disc into an .avi of any size you specify. I wonder what our home movie DVD would look like as a 30 meg .avi?

3. ffmpegx -- ffmpegx is a GUI front-end for ffmpeg, a command line tool that does a good job translating video files from one format to another. If you drop the .avi from Handbrake onto the left side of ffmpegx and then choose VCD on the right, starting ffmpegx up will split the .avi into as many VCD-sized mpegs as you'll need. Remember that full-length movies require more than one VCD, and that this process will, like Handbrake, take a heck of a long time. Hours. More hours. I suggest not only brewing and drinking coffee as you wait, but growing, harvesting, roasting, grinding, and then brewing & drinking.

4. Burn -- Now the tough part: How to get the mpegs into VCD format discs. For some DVD players, a lone mpeg burned to CD-R won't play; it has to be in VCD disc format. Burn will take your VCD-sized mpegs and burn then in VCD format if you select its "Video" option and, well, "VCD" from the drop-down menu. It might want to re-convert your mpeg into "VCD format". Let it. You still need to go through ffmpeg first, as Burn won't split up your mpegs into VCD-sized files. If you drop something too big onto Burn and tell it to convert the file, once Burn creates a file that's too big for your CD-Rs, it'll refuse to burn, saying only, "Remove more audio [sic] files and try again," or something similar. Of course you only have one file sitting there, so you're toast. (har har)

I get the feeling you could probably just create an image with the proper directories and placeholder files to play everything correctly, but Burn does it for you. Good enough.

The end. Your high-resolution, public domain DVD is now in incredibly low-res VCD format, ready to be shipped off to your VCD-and-public-domain-movie-loving friends.

title: Put the knife down and take a green herb, dude.	descrip: One feller's views on the state of everyday computer science & its application (and now, OTHER STUFF) who isn't rich enough to shell out for www.myfreakinfirst-andlast-name.com Using 89% of the same design the blog had in 2001.
FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY!!! Back-up your data and, when you bike, always wear white.
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Tuesday, July 31, 2007
PDFs, Kinkos, and Five Windows Got it. Adobe's placement of a button to allow you to print to Fedex/Kinkos from Reader is a big deal, but the strangely unremovable Internet Explorer icon on the Windows desktop isn't an unfair power flex. You know, in retrospect, if I were a MS shareholder, I think at this point I would have preferred the solution that Windows get split into five different companies starting at the same place. What has Apple done to gain so much cash? Simply [arguably] be cool. A monolithic Windows can't afford to concentrate solely on looking cool. That would change its corporate culture, and such a change would clash with the cultures of many of its users. But one of five Windows producers sure could have. Another could go straight security, etc. A few would do well, and could potentially nip Apple in the bud. posted by ruffin at 7/31/2007 01:55:00 PM
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Saturday, July 28, 2007
Accidently get Firefox to remember the wrong setting? You did? Well, thank you very much: 03-05-2005, 06:55 PM Well, I found the solution. It sure didn't take very long. Type in 'about:config' (without quotes) into the location bar. Type 'itms' into the filter bar. Find the preference named 'network.protocol-handler.external.itms'. Under the value column it should say false. Double click on the entry to change its value to true. The next time you click on a link, for example U2's Album Page (http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewArtist?artistId=78500&originStoreFront=143441), Firefox should warn you similarly to the image robot_guy attached in his previous post. Hit Launch Application and you should be in good shape. posted by ruffin at 7/28/2007 01:55:00 PM
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Friday, July 27, 2007
XML == human + computer + anonymous consumption The ongoing guy gets What XML Means pretty well: XML’s tenth birthday is coming up next spring; here’s my sound-bite on What It All Means. XML is the first successful instance of a data packaging system that is simultaneously (human) language-independent and (computer) system-independent. All he's missing is that it's best when the computers and humans who are consuming the XML are anonymous or at least unknown at spec time. It's much, much easier to write up simple text files or dbms schemas, but what happens when someone or something you never anticipated wants to read your data? Without XML (at at least ODBC in the case of databases), you're in trouble. The independence allows integration with what's unanticipated. Often XML is the wrong choice... with every acronym you add to an application, you're cutting your future available workforce in half as well. If it's simple enough to roll in-house and only in-house will use it in the future, go for it. The only reason Word docs are in XML now, and even then only as an option, is because of places like Massachusetts who say that if the format's not open, they're not using it. It's not because the old, closed Word doc format stunk. Quite the opposite. Openness concedes power, on some level, and unnecessary technologies increase maintenance costs. This is why our ongoing friends say... A classic Unix-flavor file containing ordinary lines of ordinary text is the best choice of all, whenever you can get away with it. XML’s still a decent option, probably the best, for interchanging things that are (at least in part) meant to be read by humans. Exactly. Human readable + machine readable + a need to operate with anonymous, unpredicted (though not necessarily unpredictable) consumers == time to use XML. XML is ASCII glorified in such a way that an anonymous machine can still create an outline of it. Labels: anon, xml posted by ruffin at 7/27/2007 05:37:00 PM
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Thursday, July 26, 2007
Where's iTunes for Linux? I meant to post earlier, as I heard an interesting radio commercial today that linked sales of iPods to computer use and, at least implicitly, computer sales. They were selling computer help courses for pretty inept computer users, but it's enough to make me wonder if the iPod is selling computers to some degree. If 95% of those computers purchased to complement iPods are Windows boxes, my question is why Apple doesn't support the other alt OS out there: Linux. Of the market which is people that now use a computer regularly to mess with their iPods, why not enable a niche of inexpensive x86 hardware that doesn't require a Windows license and respective donation to the Gatian coffers? Linux on the desktop hasn't caught on yet, though I'm increasingly wondering if appliance-type, Linux-powered boxes aren't just around the ever-proverbial corner. When and if Linux approaches a nontrivial market on the desktop, I'd think Apple would want to have iTunes there waiting on, even encouraging, it. posted by ruffin at 7/26/2007 06:39:00 PM
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The Mac Mini and LowEndMac The Mac mini Is Dead: Why It Missed the Target (from lowendmac.com): We've said it before, and here we go again. The Mac mini was not a realistic solution to Apple's problem of expanding into the consumer market. The ideal computer for that market would look at the wants and needs of end users, and for most consumers having as small and pretty a computer as possible wasn't a priority. The Mac mini languished because it didn't have a single expansion slot. Thus there was no way to add a better video card - and it's built-in GMA 950 graphics sucked in comparison to even the low-end video cards on the market. I really enjoy LowEndMac.com, though lately it seems to be dealing less with the low end and more with the reasonably competent last generation (perhaps I'm showing my age), but this assessment is a bunch of bunk. I've heard the Mini is going away, but the reasons why I still don't quite get, unless it's simply not chic enough to be a Mac and is costing Apple profits. Dan Knight of LEM includes a few more reasons the Mini is dying, but other than the single memory bank (apparently it's bad to have to toss memory when you're adding more, though I bet most consumers aren't even real sure what RAM is when they buy a computer; I've seen pretty savvy folk get RAM and hard drive space confused), let me point out exhibit A: the iMac. The iMac doesn't expand and never has. In fact, the almost expansionless, extremely crippled LC sold awfully well, iirc. Apple's entry level sales or lack thereof have never been about expansion. Nor is the possible death of the Mini about video. Most end Mac users aren't playing Doom 3. The crappy integrated video drives me crazy, personally, and is a reason I won't be buying the current generation of MacBooks (that and I'm broke), but I like to play 3D games. For most, the Intel 950 2D performance is just fine. Why does iPhoto and iTunes need a GeForce 8800? So why kill the Mini? I'm betting it's not selling well, and I'm betting its sales cannibalize iMac sales in a way that it'd be a much better move for Apple to get rid of its entry level model, in spite of its low price enticing some buyers in the door for a possible upsell. The Mini was made for Switchers, and if they are buying it, Apple must now feel that each Mini sale is leaving some of that Switcher money on the table. If you're going to be the BMW of PCs, why sell something in the (staying with the car metaphor) $15k range? Out the Mini goes. Now Apple sells folk LCD monitors they can't upgrade nor even use with another computer instead. posted by ruffin at 7/26/2007 05:21:00 PM
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Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Bellsouth's website stinks. Stinks. Not that this quite belongs here, but I just waded through BellSouth's website, and it really is an "amazing x-ray glasses from Sprint" kind of experience. The pages are horribly poorly written, both in that they require Internet Explorer 5.5 (and are, therefore, Windows only) and that they don't tell you this until you're about 4 pages in of selecting options, possibly more depending on how many services you're getting. The more you'd like to buy, the more you pay, but here not in dollars -- it's a payment in frustration. There's nothing -- nothing, I can guarantee -- that requires IE 5.5+ here. I could write this site for Netscape 4 and up if they'd like. Would take a month, tops, with the current content. In any event, then I call up to order my service and find out there's a three-minute wait. I can wait or have them call me back. Three minutes isn't a long time. I'll hold. Five minutes later I'm still holding. I call back, get to go through about 50 seconds of number pushing and confirming, and they'll call me back. They call me back. I answer to a pause. About 7 seconds later, I hear ringing, and then an automated voice. This is my call back, the tape tells me. No reps are ready. I have to hold. After finding out the $15/mth service advertised is really $26+ with a $42 hookup, I give up. Looks like I'll be adding data services to my cell phone rather than bothering with this crud. Course there the run around could be worse... What the heck is this mess? I hate monopolies. Please open up the land lines. Why can't anyone service the customer properly? posted by ruffin at 7/25/2007 03:32:00 PM
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Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Our friends at Panic bring you Coda, which brings you... Hot little artifacts like this one: HTML code is not valid. This document does not validate to declared grammar: HTML 4.01 Transitional. ... unities </a> <a href="#"">Policies </a> <a href=". ... See how Coda decides to do that little double-quote autocomplete? That is, if you type `href="\|`, where the "\|" is your caret's position, what you'll see is `href="\|"` instead, to be "helpful". If you have `href=#` already, however, careful that you when you add the end quote by starting in the back that Coda doesn't help you to an additional double quote. That is type `href=#"\|` and get `href=#"\|"`, which, two arrow lefts and another double quote later, gives you `href="#""`. Nice. Anyone who followed that gets a gold star. NO!!! NO STAR FOR YOU, CODA!!!! posted by ruffin at 7/18/2007 07:05:00 PM
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Whoa, not so fast, myspace Yes, I made a myspace profile. Here's a warning: If you don't select all of your stats, myspace will occasionally select one for you. Say, well, "Martial Status". It starts as a set of radio buttons with none selected. If you don't go in and select one, it'll display "Single" by default on your profile. More exceptional programming by the fine folk at New Corp (thx jvm). Guess from the options in the list, things could have been even further from the mark. At least at one time in my life I was single. In any event, myspace's presumptuousness may or may not have gotten me into a misunderstanding, one which I believe has been rectified. Darn. ;^) So consider yourself warned, old farts like me that haven't yet made myspace profiles but might in the future. posted by ruffin at 7/18/2007 06:10:00 PM
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Spammers, getting luckier all the time A recent spam email I received that passed Gmail's filters had the following subject: The Define Query and Activate Query code demonstrates how to construct parameterized SQL queries from user input at run time, and how to switch between data sets programmatically. That'll get you to my inbox every time, I'm afraid. Now the body, a picture advertising a Canadian pharmacy, apparently, and stuff like this... I ran up to the bath-house. Don't want to sacrifice your happiness to a sofa. Note that CENTER only centers the table as a whole, not the contents of each table cell. I only came to oblige. Note that AllowOverride Options must be in effect for these directives to have any effect. Oh, her name is Betsy, then. It was nine o'clock. ... shouldn't. Way to go, Google. posted by ruffin at 7/18/2007 01:37:00 PM
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Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Using php to get image size attributes I've got a php page where I'm trying to get around the accessibility complaint that, "Embedded images should specify size attributes". Well, the images were being uploaded via ftp and their src attributes in html built from locations stored in a database, so I had complete unknowns from the point of view of the page. Here's the solution, without any extra libs needed in php 4.1+, I believe. `// HEADSHOT if (!isNull(trim($myrow['studentHeadshotUrl']))) { $strImgLoc = $myrow['studentHeadshotUrl']; $imgProps = getimagesize($strImgLoc); $type = $imgProps['mime']; $width = $imgProps[0]; $height = $imgProps[1]; echo " " src=\"" . $myrow['studentHeadshotUrl'] . "\"" . " height=" . $height . " width=" . $width . ">\n"; }` And there was much rejoicing. Labels: code, php posted by ruffin at 7/17/2007 09:25:00 PM
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EETimes.com - Observers link Apple to Imagination's latest license deal EETimes.com - Observers link Apple to Imagination's latest license deal: "the license deal may indicate that Apple is planning to use Imagination cores in future Apple products. " posted by ruffin at 7/17/2007 01:33:00 PM
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Friday, July 13, 2007
Note to Self: VIm keystrokes Beginner's Guide to the Vi editor It's got a good review of keystrokes, like the very useful (with text versions of written docs) { & }. posted by ruffin at 7/13/2007 05:28:00 PM
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Thursday, July 12, 2007
Ah compliance From a discussion called <div align=" center" > replacement: Sorry, I gave the advice for <div align=' center' >. The thing is, even though the attribute is deprecated, it is still widely supported. Probably even more so than the css equivalent which would be... div{margin-right:auto;margin-left:auto;width:740px;} or the shorthand version... div{margin:0 auto;width:740px;} Except that nobody likes an absolute unit! Come on! Thanks Px2Em!! Seriously though, this is getting crazy. What the freakin' heck is wrong with a center tag anyway? Incredibly well supported, and all this other muckity muck is just inserting center all over again. Align=center is deprecated, sure, but style="text-align:center" doesn't work with nearly the same reliability across browsers, etc. It might be "righter", but whatever happened to the concerns about the sighted browsers among us? Can't we get a tech where we'll all be happy? ;^) posted by ruffin at 7/12/2007 05:49:00 PM
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Sunday, July 08, 2007
*Yes folk, Google is* evil** Google Selling ‘Democracy’ — Oh, and Advertising - Bullet Points: For everybody – and I get the feeling the numbers are dwindling – who fancies Google as a new-age white knight jousting with the venomous capitalist serpent that is Microsoft, I offer yet another disheartening bit of evidence: corporate spin... It's no surprise that Google has become corporate, and perhaps the biggest surprise is how long it's taken -- and how there's still a space for programmers to do The Right Thing wrt backwards compatibility, as I've commented on before. Still, it's a shame to see the company popularly believed to be in business to "do no evil," is, at best, redefining evil as it marches along. In The Dosadi Experiment, Herbert includes this bit at the beginning of a chapter (pg 290 in my paperback version): Communal/managed economies have always been more destructive of their societies than those driven by greed. This is what Dosadi says: Greed sets its own limits, is self-regulating. --The Dosadi Analysis/BuSab Text Very Ayn Randian, ain't it? Such a line is becoming/has become popular in academia again, which bothers me, though I do wonder if there isn't something to the statement's accuracy. The problem seems to rise not by believing in its possible accuracy, but when one uses such a capitalistically fatalist argument as an excuse to cede the hearts and motivations of institutions at least historically built on non-capitalistic frames. It is one thing to believe in a possibly goodness in greed, quite another to act on that belief. posted by ruffin at 7/08/2007 01:00:00 PM
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Frequently Asked Questions about the GNU GPL - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF) Frequently Asked Questions about the GNU GPL - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF): Companies distributing devices that include software under GPLv3 are at most required to provide the source and Installation Information for the software to people who possess a copy of the object code. The voter who uses a voting machine (like any other kiosk) doesn't get possession of it, not even temporarily, so the voter also does not get possession of the binary software in it. Note, however, that voting is a very special case. Just because the software in a computer is free does not mean you can trust the computer for voting. We believe that computers cannot be trusted for voting. Voting should be done on paper. (emph mine) posted by ruffin at 7/08/2007 12:16:00 PM
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The Joys of Video Okay, were one to being running OS X and want to use one's CD burner to create a VCDs from a public domain DVD, here are the tools that will do the job, listed in the order of their use. 1. (Optional) MacTheRipper (MTR) -- takes everything off of the DVD, creating AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS folders, among others, the latter with VOB, IFO, and BUP files galore. There is a newer version of MTR that is apparently a much harder application to get than the 2.x version. You seem to need to bug someone on the RipDifferent.com forums who will dutifully take your contact information, turn it over to the cops, and send you a copy of the app anyhow. Note that Handbrake will rip the disc directly. In my single public domain DVD ripping attempt, I started with MTR. You probably don't have to, but if you do, this still works... sigh ... and at least you have a full-quality copy, if that's useful. 2. Handbrake -- this application will take the folder of your fully ripped disc (or will rip straight from disc; I've not tried this, however) and compress the video into an .avi of a size you request. If you want to put your newly ripped, public domain movie onto your iPod or if you want to give it away to someone who will watch it on their computer with VLC, you can burn the correctly sized .avi file onto a CD-R now and stop. The resolution of this .avi -- recalling that an .avi is just a wrapper for a file encoded in an unspecified format -- is much better than what you'd get from a VCD, and is smaller than VCD files in size too. I won't mention Limewire, but will again say that you can tell Handbrake to turn the ripped disc into an .avi of any size you specify. I wonder what our home movie DVD would look like as a 30 meg .avi? 3. ffmpegx -- ffmpegx is a GUI front-end for ffmpeg, a command line tool that does a good job translating video files from one format to another. If you drop the .avi from Handbrake onto the left side of ffmpegx and then choose VCD on the right, starting ffmpegx up will split the .avi into as many VCD-sized mpegs as you'll need. Remember that full-length movies require more than one VCD, and that this process will, like Handbrake, take a heck of a long time. Hours. More hours. I suggest not only brewing and drinking coffee as you wait, but growing, harvesting, roasting, grinding, and then brewing & drinking. 4. Burn -- Now the tough part: How to get the mpegs into VCD format discs. For some DVD players, a lone mpeg burned to CD-R won't play; it has to be in VCD disc format. Burn will take your VCD-sized mpegs and burn then in VCD format if you select its "Video" option and, well, "VCD" from the drop-down menu. It might want to re-convert your mpeg into "VCD format". Let it. You still need to go through ffmpeg first, as Burn won't split up your mpegs into VCD-sized files. If you drop something too big onto Burn and tell it to convert the file, once Burn creates a file that's too big for your CD-Rs, it'll refuse to burn, saying only, "Remove more audio [sic] files and try again," or something similar. Of course you only have one file sitting there, so you're toast. (har har) I get the feeling you could probably just create an image with the proper directories and placeholder files to play everything correctly, but Burn does it for you. Good enough. The end. Your high-resolution, public domain DVD is now in incredibly low-res VCD format, ready to be shipped off to your VCD-and-public-domain-movie-loving friends. posted by ruffin at 7/08/2007 11:40:00 AM
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Saturday, July 07, 2007
Gimme back my line endings! Vi-IMproved.org Wiki - File Format: If you have extra leading or trailing characters (^M in unix or ^J in mac), use :%s/\r// to remove them. If you have long lines (mac line-ends with ff=dos or unix, unix line ends with ff=mac), use :%s/\r/\r/g to replace the wrong line-ends with the correct line-ends. If you are curious, the reasoning behind this methodology appears below. posted by ruffin at 7/07/2007 05:39:00 PM
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iTunes 7.3: iTunes Library file cannot be saved - Mac Forums Let's pretend this fixes the issue. The problem seems to be with the data file that iTunes create, so I let iTunes create a new one, and it worked for fine me: * Open iTunes, and go to File->Export Library * Save the library somewhere in your hardrive * Complete close your iTunes * Go to your music folder, open the iTunes folder and move to another location both files: the Itunes Library data file and the iTunes Music Library.xml DO NOT REMOVE THE FOLDERS * Open iTunes again, and it should show up that your library is empty, now, go to File->Import and load the file you exported in the second step. The Library import will take a while, but after it finishes you will have a new iTunes library with all your stuff in it. If something goes wrong, just copy the original data and xml library files to the Music->iTunes folder. Seems to kill your date added, played, etc metadata, though. THANKS, APPLE TESTERS!!! This really is sorry quality assurance/control for iTunes. And to think I thought the last set of "errors" in an iTunes update was done purposefully. Ha. Conspiracy theorists abound. Could take a while. posted by ruffin at 7/07/2007 05:07:00 PM
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Thursday, July 05, 2007
Skype Help. I guess. I noticed that my Skype credit was going down much more quickly than I'd recalled in the past. I don't make many calls, so it didn't surprise me too much that a connection fee had been added (apparently about 3.9 cents a call for US to US) in Jan of this year. That said, part of the explanation in the FAQ ostensibly justifying the connection left me wondering, "FTW?" Skype has been offering paid-for products since 2004 and the introduction of this connection fee is part of a new disruptive pricing strategy. Eh? That makes consumers feel better how again? posted by ruffin at 7/05/2007 04:07:00 PM
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Safari: Brought to you by New Zealand I was surprised to find that webkit.org, the site that hosts Apple's browser's rendering engine, has been registered by someone in New Zealand. Hyatt's Surfin' Safari blog (that's the fellow Apple hired to build Safari) is there as well. The blog seems to have moved from Mozillazine.org to the now dead OpenDarwin.org to here. Nice that the code is still easily available, as it should be, but it's hard to connect what's going on here to Apple easily (I expected, well, a Cupertino registrant, honestly), and there are issues with its use with Safari 2.x. Domain ID:D107259206-LROR Domain Name:WEBKIT.ORG Created On:23-Aug-2005 09:26:49 UTC Last Updated On:19-Jun-2007 10:28:44 UTC Expiration Date:23-Aug-2008 09:26:49 UTC Sponsoring Registrar:Abacus America Inc dba Names4Ever (R14-LROR) Status:OK Registrant ID:VHHXW Registrant Name:XXXX Rowe Registrant Street1:XX XXXXXXXXXX Drive Harewood Registrant Street2: Registrant Street3: Registrant City:Christchurch Registrant State/Province: Registrant Postal Code:10000 Registrant Country:NZ ... Registrant Email:XXXXX@bluewire.net.nz posted by ruffin at 7/05/2007 03:23:00 PM
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Why the iPhone has no keyboard This quote from a CNN/CNET review of the iPhone makes pretty clear why there's no traditional interface on the iPhone: Still, the interface and keyboard have a long way to go to achieve greatness. For starters, when typing an e-mail or text message the keyboard is displayed only when you hold the iPhone vertically. As a result, we could only type comfortably with one finger, which cut down on our typing speed. Using two hands is possible, but we found it pretty crowded to type with both thumbs while holding the iPhone at the same time. What's more, basic punctuation such as periods or commas lives in a secondary keyboard -- annoying. So we're just a downloaded update away from a horizontal, punctuation-included keyboard, rather than a brand new purchase. I wonder how quickly Apple will start issuing updates. posted by ruffin at 7/05/2007 12:38:00 PM
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