Gregory Tarnoff Photography & Design
Madison | Milwaukee

Archive for the ‘Computers’ Category

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Apple Underestimates iPhone SDK Demand

March 6th, 2008, posted in Computers, Project Management

Today Apple released the iPhone SDK in a beta format for developers. The official version and the ability for the average joe to use these to be developed applications will come out in July. However it appears that Apple greatly underestimated how many people want to produce applications for their now infamous device. The link to get the SDK and subsequent information is http://developer.apple.com/iphone/program/, but unfortunately this site is suffering from a massive digg effect as it has not be available since the announcement was made almost 4 hours ago.

UPDATE:

It looks like Apple is struggling with keeping their servers up. I was able to get to the SDK page a little while ago, but a lot of the links were broken and I didn’t try downloading it (I am away from my Mac at the moment). Sporadic attempts to get through to the proper page may occur.

You also need to have an Intel Mac in order to proceed, so if you are like me and waiting to buy a new Mac, now is the time.

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Google Calendar and Outlook Synchronization from Google

March 6th, 2008, posted in Computers, Parenting, Project Management

Google launched a synchronization tool this week that allows one-way and two-way syncing with Outlook on Windows machines (where is the Mac version for Entourage or iCal?). This looked to be the holy grail of my synchronization…but alas it is nothing more than a gilded goblet.

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Internet Explorer 8 beta Released to Designers and Developers

March 6th, 2008, posted in Computers, Standards, Web Design

Hot on the heels of announcing that IE8 would be standards compliant by default, Microsoft has announced the first beta release of their new web browser. Lots of new features abound including web clips (similar to Mac web widgets), better jscript handling, better AJAX handling, and extensions similar to what Firefox has. It automatically detects and imports from Firefox, however i haven’t installed it yet so I don’t know how the import of extensions works or if they are com patible. I will also be curious to see if they import form Safari, Netscape and Opera.

Something to be warned about, It does appear that Microsoft hasn’t learned to allow multiple installations of its browsers. IE8 will replace whatever working copy of IE you currently have running include 7 and 6. Install with caution.

Get the beta here.

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Internet Explorer 8…now with more standards compliance

March 4th, 2008, posted in Computers, Enlightenment, Standards, Web Design

When I first wrote about IE8 and the new HTML 5 standard the plan was that by default IE8 was going to render in the IE7 mode unless you declared it to render in the new IE8 standards mode using a meta tag.

Today, Microsoft announced that this will not be the case. The new standards mode that render the Acid 2 Test with 100% accuracy will be the default mode. If you have an old site that breaks in the new IE8 you will have to go back and add the meta tag or adjust your server to allow for rendering under the older engine (aka quirks mode).

We’ve decided that IE8 will, by default, interpret web content in the most standards compliant way it can. This decision is a change from what we’ve posted previously.

Some speculation behind the change points to Opera’s complaint and the recent European Union fine of $1.3 billion dollars for anti-trust tactics by Microsoft, but like any good spin-meister they deny this.

We think that acting in accordance with principles is important, and IE8’s default is a demonstration of the interoperability principles in action. While we do not believe any current legal requirements would dictate which rendering mode a browser must use, this step clearly removes this question as a potential legal and regulatory issue. As stated above, we think it’s the better choice.

You can read the rest of the article discussing the various modes at the MSDN blog.

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Apple Updates iPhone and iPod Touch

February 5th, 2008, posted in Computers

iPhone 16GB

It looks like Apple took the store down this morning and when they brought it back up they increased the memory options on both the iPhone and iPod Touch. The iPhone is now available in a 16GB version for $499 and the Touch comes in a 32GB also for $499.

It doesn’t appear any other items were updated, so those waiting for a multi-touch MacBook Pro or even a speed bump will have to wait a little longer.

If you haven’t experienced either of these devices, I suggest you run out to your local Apple store and spend some time with them. I truly fell in love with my iPhone and wonder how I got by without it. Warning: if you happen to be a bit of an internet junkie and don’t already have a smartphone, these two devices are not conducive to your social interactions.

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HTML 5, Microsoft IE8 and Backwards Compatability

January 23rd, 2008, posted in Computers, Standards, Web Design

In case you haven’t heard the W3C has released the working draft of HTML 5 this week. Microsoft recently released a statement that the pre-alpha versions of Internet Explorer 8 has passed the Acid 2 test. However having achieved this, IE8 will need to break many existing sites, more than IE7 did. Or does it?

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Google Lets You Associate Other Emails to Your Account

January 22nd, 2008, posted in Computers, Project Management, Web Design

So this week Google rolled out this little new feature that in their words:

Adding email addresses helps Google associate useful information with your Google Account. For example, Google Calendar can show invitations sent to any of your addresses.

I thought this was genius. I am constantly having syncing issues with my calendars. I bought the iPhone in September because I thought it would be the solution, however the solution is to export my work calendar (from Outlook) and import it to Google Calendars which I have a feed imported into my Mac iCal. The loop hole here is that I don’t like exporting my work calendar daily.

This new feature could answer that. I associated my work email address with my Google account but when people sent me meeting invites, nothing happened. So I tried my Yahoo! email address and sent an invite to myself. Still nothing happened.

Has anybody gotten this to work yet? Is the invites thing something “coming soon”?

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Apple and Fox team up for iPod versions of movies on DVD

January 16th, 2008, posted in Computers

While everyone seems to be thinking that the new MacBookAir and iTunes Movie Rentals are the big deals introduced at MacWorld 2008, but I think it is that the studios are starting to cater to iPod owners. Fox’s DVD of Family Guy’s Blue Harvest will be the first DVD to include an iPod ready format on the disc that the user can automatically import into iTunes.

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Lost: 40 GB of Files…A Backup Nightmare

November 30th, 2007, posted in Computers, Enlightenment

A few months back I began running out of room on my internal hard drive. I decided that it was time to clean files and move a few things around. Well I moved all my “non-priority” files and my music to an external hard drive. It started giving me a headache with the music, but that is another story.

I kept all the data I was working on regularly on the internal drive and archived to the external…manually. Realizing I was opening myself up for a major issue in not actually backing up my internal drive, I bought another external drive. I then bought a third to deal with the growing music problem. I manually moved my music top the biggest of the drives and set the smallest up as a daily backup of my internal drive using Carbon Copy Cloner.

A couple days later I noticed there was an “issue” that wasn’t clearly defined in the log file for Carbon Copy Cloner, so I redid the backup routine and deleted the old one. Then I started noticing heavy usage on my Pictures hard drive (the original external), but with the holiday didn’t look into it. Well tonight I was doing work and looked for some files I had stored on the orignal external and found out they were gone. The entire drive had been renamed to match my backup drive. It had my backup, deleting everything that was on it, and the new dirve that was for the backup had nothing.

Most of what was on there, I have saved from a previous computer transfer, but I do not know if my latest round of photos from California or the Milwaukee Kite festival made onto DVDs (I usually burn them in RAW format right after taking them from the cards). So it looks like I will have a busy weekend going through all my disks and trying to recover as much as possible. Well at least this way I can update my Flickr account and post a few more images from the archives…if I find them.

The moral of the story, disconnect all drives except the backup when running the backup the first time.

Update

I have gone through most of my files and found the ones that were of most concern to me, but a few things were lost none the less. I have the backup software running right now and it kicks in daily.

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Dr. Touchscreen, or How I learned to stop hating the iPhone

November 6th, 2007, posted in Computers, Standards, Web Design

I bit the bullet in late September. I had known that my needs changed from a regular phone to a smart phone back in April.  Between Late February and May I went through 4 improperly functioning phones. AT&T replaced each one of them, but that was hours out of my time I didn’t need. When the fourth phone started doing the exact same thing in july that the previous models had I decided I needed to just buy a new phone.

I started my investigation into the smartphone market. The big that I found is that I had to buy additional software to get one to work cleanly with my Mac, and even then there was much to be desired. I was convinced that maybe the Blackberry Pearl was for me. It was compact, the syncing was pretty decent to Macs and there were some really good deals going around.

I wasn’t ready to bite the bullet yet. In August my iPod started really acting up and skipping tracks when they were halfway through. I took it in to the local Apple store. I waited for my appointment for 20 minutes during which time I played with the iPhone more extensively than I previously had. I found overall the interface was very nice to work with, however the keyboard was a little funky. My feelings towards the device shifted from pure hatred to mere dislike.

So I stepped up to the Genius Bar when my turn came around and the techs there diagnosed a hard drive problem with my iPod and replaced it right on the spot. I was shocked. I thought for sure I would have to mail my iPod in (and would be lucky if they did it for me) and be without the thing for a week at least. Then the tech said something that made me go from disliking the iPhone to considering it.  he informed me that when the iPhones act up and need replacing they swap them out right on the spot just like they did with my iPod. I have been back a couple times since and have seen it with my very own eyes.

Well this is customer service! Realizing that if I bought an iPhone I would not be dealing with AT&T for tech support, but rather Apple, I reexamined the iPhone.  i started piecing together what I needed the phone to do, what I felt was a fair price for data access, and what the cost of the handset was going to be.

turns out I wasn’t going to be eligible for any handset discounts form AT&T. This moved the price of all smart phones to $300 minimum. The Blackberries started at $400.  The data plans for the Palm, RIM and Windows smartphones started at $40 and were not unlimited. Apple just knocked the price on the iPhone down. I could find the 4GB for $300 now. And the data package was just $20 more than what I was currently paying for voice.

My biggest problem is I wasn’t going to be able to sync my iPhone (without losing some data) with both my work PC and home Mac. However Google came to the rescue. I was able to export my calendar to Google on a daily basis and use Google’s subscription to iCal format to sync Google and my Mac, which of course allowed me to get my entire schedule on my iPhone.

With just about 6 weeks under my belt with the device, I wonder how I ever got along without it. I build all my to do lists, grocery lists, shopping list, weekly menus and other notes on it. I can find out movie listings in a couple clicks if on the road. I am constantly up on the news and mail. I have saved a few car rides that kids get bored on by playing a movie. In short, it is a huge benefit. My job as a User Interface Designer became more interesting when I realized how badly normal websites are on small screens.

The down side: I could really use the ability to extend it without hacking. I look forward to the SDK in February.  I should have gone for the 8GB as i quickly fill up the hard drive with just music. The camera could use a zoom. I am an internet junkie now that it is on my hip. It needs Flash.

Is it right for everyone? No. Am I happy with my choice? You bet. Like anthing out there, if you are considering it, make a list of pros and cons and see who wins.

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