Five One

RADIO Dandelion 1.1

2011-02-10T14:28:00.000Z

My first iPhone App got it’s first update published today.
I hope you enjoy it!!
Ecstatic reviews and ratings for the new version would be very welcome!!

Oh Happy Day!!

2010-12-18T16:37:00.001Z

My first iPhone App is available in the App Store.

RADIO Dandelion is an audio streamer coupled with a content discovery engine. It plays the music from a radio station inspired by the late great John Peel. As it does so, it looks up info about what is playing, finding images, biogs, discographies, related artists, videos etc. etc.

It was a fun but challenging project.

The review process was more problematic than I expected. I sent it to Apple in late November, just after reading reports about single station radio apps being rejected, which was scary.

Actual review started two weeks later and it was almost immediately rejected.

The grounds for rejection were very vague and I cannot say I ever got a straight answer from them about what was wrong. It became almost Kafka-esque as they began to accuse me of trademark and content theft. Content that on even a cursory inspection you could see I was not using. I even told them at one point that it was not logically possible to prove that something did not exist. I was mildly rude a few times when I thought they deserved it, I was finding the process unhelpful and disrespectful, I even reminded them I had paid to be treated fairly by the review process.

Finally yesterday, out of the blue, someone wrote to say the process had moved on, thanked me for my patience and even left their name. Hours later it was on the App Store.

They do like their mystique.

So, quite a steep learning curve for me. This has got to be the most complex bit of software I have written.
It is heavily multi-threaded, something I had done little of before. Making it behave sensibly in very poor conditions was a challenge. Reproducing variable networking conditions for testing can be very difficult. Manual memory management is not fun at first. Migrating from the iPhone Simulator to a real device was more of a shock than expected.

My first update is in development, I hope to send that to Apple in a few days.

Lots of ideas about where to take this.

Loving the combination of design and coding.

Please take a look, tell me what you think, write glowing reviews, then hire me!!!

Beta Testing started

2010-10-04T16:29:00.003Z

I delivered the first distribution build, of my first iPhone App to my first beta tester today!!

I am really enjoying this platform, though some of the learning curve has been pretty tough.

Obviously coming direct from Java, Javascript, etc., the biggest headache is memory management, in Objective-C on iOS you have to do it manually. The last time I had to worry about stuff like that was when I used to program in 6502 Assembly back in the 1980’s!

There will be new issues to deal with I am sure.

I used to be a designer before I became a programmer, so I feel very comfortable with developing for this platform, the various skill complementing each other.

So what is my business plan?

Well at the moment, I do not expect to make money selling my own apps on the AppStore, it is just too crowded, I don’t expect to be able to invest enough in marketing etc.

What I do hope is that once I have my own apps in the store, they will help me find contract work.

Fingers crossed.

I did applaud

2010-09-28T22:21:00.003Z

Just in case you wanted to know, unlike his brother, I was one of those who did applaud the new Labour leader’s view that Britain getting involved in the Iraq war was a mistake.

XCode - turn off logging for Release

2010-09-28T11:35:00.006Z

Welcome to my first tip for iPhone developers.

If you have logging statements in your project for testing and debugging, you’ll want a way to turn them off for released code.

I have seen many complex solutions requiring custom macros and preprocessor parameters, most of them overkill IMHO.

The simplest thing to do that I have found so far is to use this technique.

Place the code-snippet in your project’s *_Prefix.pch file, continue to use the standard NSLog() macro.

NSLog statements will be automatically left out of projects compiled for release.

I hope this helps.

An Apology to the Workers?

2010-09-15T21:19:00.005Z

The Governor of the Bank of England has just apologised to us, for the mess the policy makers and financial sector has put us in.

That’s what it sounded like in his speech to the Trade Union Congress, as reported by the BBC.

I am not currently a member of a union, but as a British worker, I feel it may have been extended to me too.

Maybe this will further encourage the redress the British people will bring upon those policy makers and financial sector he mentioned.

What I’d really like …

2010-07-08T23:12:00.007Z

What I’d really like to see in the ‘Hardware' menu of the iPhoneSimulator, is all released Hardware.

i.e. the ability to run realistic, reduced CPU and memory simulations for all released devices, plus the ability to select simulations of networks conditions, i.e. Good Wifi, Bad Wifi, Good GSM, Bad GSM etc..

Not just get what 'Your Mac Can Do’.

I thank you.

(Oh, BTW Steve wants it)

Painful Politics

2010-05-12T19:47:00.004Z

Two quotes I enjoyed during the election.

A BBC commentator after Gordon Brown’s post-results speech :

“He took it in the national interest”s

Ouch! Maybe it will become a new euphemism.

A Conservative spokesman on the BBC, after the Con/Dem government had been formed :

“We don’t know what the whipping arrangements are”

Public school boys … they never change.

SpoonMan

2010-04-21T20:18:00.006Z

I don’t know what led me to look this up tonight, but of course this old classic is on YouTube ;-)

I worked with QuickTime since version 1.0, when you only had postage stamp sized movies, we got the Dev CDs, I have managed to keep the original (120 x 160 px, 10 fps) on my series of computers since then.

And what is amazing is that the original file still plays!

Enjoy Spoonman, and good luck!

Peace & Quiet

2010-04-17T10:52:00.003Z

While I am sorry for all of the people caught up in airports etc. the closure of Britain’s air-space for the last few days has brought some welcome peace and quiet to my area.

We normally get planes flying over every few minutes, now they are gone, it is amazing what difference it makes.

Once things get back to normal again, I imagine people living under the really busy flight paths are going to realise even more strongly what a blight air-transport bring to their lives.

Where I’d like to live

2010-02-05T13:23:00.003Z

I hear people around here saying house prices in Brixton will boom in the next few years as (The Council expects) the area to become the next Notting Hill.

Maybe that would be a good time to sell up and move?
I have lived in Brixton since the late 70’s, the place I grew to love has already changed beyond recognition.

So, where do I want to live?

no more than 10 minutes walk from the sea
but at least 30m above sea-level (thats not a flood plain)
within 5 minutes walk of the shops
in easy reach of a public swimming pool
in a place I don’t need to have a car
good public transport
at least semi-rural
in a building that is efficient enough not to need heating
with a workshop
with very fast broadband
where I can play loud music
where there is good cultural diversity
with a good local pub
and a few nice restaurants

Where am I going to find this combination?
Am I asking too much?

I have most of these already, apart from the efficient building and rural/coastal location.

I had better start looking …

Best Mail.app Tip Yet

2010-02-04T22:42:00.004Z

The best tip I read for a while on MacOSXHints.com was this one :

Select your “Inbox" and “Sent" mailbox at the same time, then turn on threading.

(you get a view of them both interleaved, even better than the GMail “All Mail” view)

External Drives on MacOSX

2009-11-24T12:35:00.003Z

Another one of my external hard drives has failed, after only two years. I was very lucky not to loose important data!!

So here is my latest bug report to Apple.
I post it here because I do not expect a response from them, maybe one of my readers has an idea if there is a simple solution.

My hard drives connected to Apple equipment are wearing out faster than they need to.

When I have external hard drives connected to my mac via FireWire, I like to let them spin down to reduce noise and energy usage, however every single time I do something like go to save a file, all of the drives spin up, one by one. All activity on the machine is blocked during this and is very frustrating, specially when I did not need to access any of the external drives. It makes more sense IMHO to only spin up a drive if it is actually selected (in the Open/Save dialog).

This problem is causing unnecessary delays in the system and extra wear and tear on the drives.

To try to mitigate this problem, I moved one of my external drives to the USB connection on my TimeCapsule. Now another issues rises.

With the external TimeCapsule drive unmounted, every time the TimeCapsule is accessed via a computer on my network to perform a backup, the external drive spins up, then immediately spins down again!!

This is completely pointless and causes even more noise, delays and wear on the drive.

Compiling Asterisk 1.4.27 on MacOSX

2009-11-23T16:10:00.003Z

Asterisk is a powerful Open Source telephony toolkit.
The latest version 1.4.27 does not compile on MacOSX 10.6, due to missing libraries.

The solution is simple and slightly strange as this bug was fixed 3 years ago :-/

In the file “Makefile” locate line 360 :

+@_ASTCFLAGS="$(OTHER_SUBDIR_CFLAGS) $(_ASTCFLAGS)” $(MAKE) --no-builtin-rules -C $@ SUBDIR=$@ all

and replace it with this :

+@_ASTCFLAGS="$(OTHER_SUBDIR_CFLAGS) $(_ASTCFLAGS)" AUDIO_LIBS="$(AUDIO_LIBS)" $(MAKE) --no-builtin-rules -C $@ SUBDIR=$@ all

Now at least it compiles on my system :-)

A good winter meal

2009-11-22T22:37:00.003Z

Channa Saag Aloo
(produces 4 or 5 servings)

Ingredients

2 tins of chick peas
1 lb spinach
3 potatoes
1 onion
4 cloves of garlic
1 green pepper
2 tomatoes
1 tsp turmeric
2 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp black mustard seeds
1 tsp ground black pepper
salt to taste
green chillies to taste (try at least 4)
olive oil and/or butter (or ghee if you are really serious)

Preparation

Halve then coarsely slice the onion
Thinly slice the garlic
Remove seeds, cube the green pepper
Slice the chillis
Cube the potatoes (1 inch cubes are a good size)
Peel and dice the tomatoes (pour boiling water over the toms to make peeling easier)
Wash and tear up the spinach a bit
Drain and rinse the chickpeas

In your biggest pot, ideally with a thick base and a lid :

Warm the olive oil and/or butter (I mix them, butter has a good flavour, adding olive oil helps stop it burning)
Add the dry spices to the oil, keep on a low heat, when you hear the mustard seeds popping (a few minutes) add the onions and garlic and coat them in spices
Let the onions soften and begin to brown, stir often
Add the green pepper and chillis, let them soften, stir often
Add the tomatoes, let them develop a sauce, stir often
Add the potatoes, coat them in the sauce for a few minutes
Add a cup of water (enough so the potatoes are nearly covered), put the lid on, let it simmer on a low heat until the potatoes are nearly cooked, stir often
Add the chick peas, coat them in sauce, simmer gently for a few minutes, stir often
Add the spinach and salt, put the lid on, leave it on a low heat
When the spinach wilts, give it a good stir and you are ready to serve as soon as the potatoes are done

Serve with rice, pitta bread or wholewheat toast, mmmmm

enjoy !!

My Latest Hint

2009-05-22T12:02:00.004Z

I just had this hint posted on MacOSXHints.com.

On my last project, I was collaborating with people in the States via iChat, using audio, video screen and document sharing.
We had such wide-ranging and complex discussions, I kept wishing I could record them.

Ironically, it was not until after the work ended that I found the iChat / Video / Record menu item (aarrgghh!!).

Well anyway, I thought it would be useful to automate the recording feature and wrote the script featured in MacOSX Hints.

You can attach this script to specific buddies, or to everyone. When an AV Chat starts, recording is automatically started ..... well actually the other party is first asked if they mind and can choose to reject the request.

It seems that only the person who initiates, records, so if both parties want a recording they both have to start it.

Many thanks to Ross and Dave for help testing :-)

Logging to GTalk

2009-05-20T11:04:00.006Z

I was reading yesterday that Apple is thought to be using XMPP the Jabber protocol for their new iPhone Push Notification technology.

That's funny I thought, I had just started using XMPP for logging!!!

I am experimenting with Asterisk at the moment. Asterisk for those that do not know is an Open Source PBX (Private Branch Exchange) a phone system in software. I have it running on my ancient 500 Mhz Mac Cube, it has been extremely reliable. My home office now has a ridiculously sophisticated phone system ;-)

IMHO most of the monitoring tools for Asterisk suck. They are written in nasty languages like PHP, Perl, Flash etc. that not only do I not want on my system, they are overkill.

What I wanted was to receive simple messages about the run-time status of the system. I wanted to be able to receive these messages securely, from wherever I was (because I can use my phone system from wherever I am, but more on that another time).

Asterisk has a Jabber module, so this was an easy way to go.

So, I have two GMail Accounts, one for personal email, one for mailing lists.
I have iChat on my desktop/laptop/iPhone already subscribed to GTalk on my personal GMail account.

First I added my spare GTalk account as a buddy to my personal account (requires some fiddling around, but if you know your IM client, it's pretty easy).

Then I configured Asterisk (beware, she's a complex beast, BTW a semi-colon marks a comment).

First configure /etc/asterisk/jabber.conf :

[general]
debug=yes ;Turn on debugging by default.
autoprune=no ;Auto remove users from buddy list.
autoregister=no ;do not auto register users from buddy list. 

[gtalk-logger] ;label
type=client ;Client or Component connection
serverhost=talk.google.com
username=MY_SPARE_GTALK_USERNAME@gmail.com/asterisk ;Username with optional roster.
secret=************** ;Password for MY_SPARE_GTALK_USERNAME
port=5222 ;Port to use defaults to 5222
usetls=yes ;Use tls or not
usesasl=yes ;Use sasl or not
buddy=MY_MAIN_GTALK_USERNAME@gmail.com ;Manual addition of buddy to list.
statusmessage=Up and Running ;custom status message for Asterisk.
timeout=100 ;Timeout on the message stack.

This allows Asterisk to connect to GTalk to send messages.

The next thing to do is to emit messages from the appropriate parts of your dialplan.

First I defined a Macro, that can be used from anywhere in the dialplan, this goes in /etc/asterisk/extensions.conf :

[macro-logger]
; log message - to Jabber
; @param ${ARG1} - the message to send
exten => s,,Jabbersend(gtalk-logger,MY_MAIN_GTALK_USERNAME@gmail.com,${STRFTIME(${EPOCH},GMT,%C%y-%m-%d %H:%M%n)} ${ARG1})

This sends the message in $ARG1 with a timestamp.

Next is to use the macro from the dialplan. Here is an example of an outbound route to go via SipBroker, matching dialed numbers beginning with * :

[via-sipbroker]
  exten => _*X.,1,Macro(logger,Outbound call to ${EXTEN} via SipBroker) ; log the call
  exten => _*X.,2,Set(CALLERID(all)=${JQNAME} <${JQOFFICE}>)  ; Set outbound CallerID
  exten => _*X.,3,ChanIsAvail(SIP/${EXTEN}@sipbroker,j) ; Check to see if available (jumps to priority + 101 on fail)
  exten => _*X.,4,Dial(SIP/${EXTEN}@sipbroker,,tTW) ; Dial, allowing transferring and recording
  exten => _*X.,5,Macro(dial-result) ; Check result
  exten => _*X.,104,Playback(all-circuits-busy-now) ; if ChanIsAvail fails, say message

I know, it looks really weird !!!! :-)

I left out a few details like, looking up the phone number in my AddressBook.app to show the recipient's name and using Growl.app to splash these messages received by iChat. I plan to cover these in a subsequent post.

I have found this to be a really simple and reliable solution.

There are XMPP libraries for many systems, I may start using this technique elsewhere as well.

Nested Screen Sharing

2009-05-06T12:14:00.005Z

I am starting a new spare-time project (more on this later).

I am using Maven, Spring etc. etc. within IntelliJ.
While I have worked on projects started by other people using this tech, this is the first time I have started a new project using this stuff myself, so I reckoned I needed someone to review what I was doing.

So I contacted my good friend "M" (all names redacted).

We both fired up iChat and had a video conference for a while, M became interested.

Then we switched to an iChat screen sharing session to look through my code and show him what worked, this included me launching Screen Sharing.app to open a session to my server (so now we have one level of nested screen sharing).

M became even more interested.

M wanted to check out the code, so I fired up a Terminal and let him type in his own password into the htdigest command.

M then suggested that a mutual friend "G" would be really interested in this. iChat would not let me add G to it's screen sharing session, so M shared his screen with G via Skype. Now we have 2 levels of nested screen sharing.

G cannot type into my machine, but we can all talk to each other.

G wanted to check out the code, but as he could not type, I made a password for him using the Password Assistant in KeyChain.app, then pasted it into our iChat text session.

G could not read the text easily, so I used Control-ScrollWheel to zoom into the stuff we were discussing.

M had compiled the project and wanted to run it, but could not set up the complex server the project connects to, so we reversed the screen sharing session, so I could set up his machine to connect through my VPN.

M and G make their first commit, adding their names to the project's pom.

It was an incredibly constructive few hours.

And a very warm welcome to my two new collaborators !!!!

Street View Celeb

2009-03-21T13:02:00.005Z

Google Street View is out in the UK and what fun it is!!

My younger brother is now a Street View Celebrity, but he's not sure if he likes the idea or not.

Radio Uncompromising

2009-03-16T20:58:00.005Z

I used to listen to the John Peel show.
Unfortunately he died a while ago, I still miss him.

Most of you have probably never heard of him, but I listened to his show for something like 30 years, I managed to record the last few years of his show and still enjoy listening to them.

Apart from being an incredibly nice guy, he was considered by some the most influential DJ in the history of the BBC.

He would play whatever he liked, which included a lot of stuff that would never otherwise get a chance to get on the radio, always surprising, always eclectic.

I recently found a kind of substitute, a radio show that streams over the net called Dandelion Radio. “The Internet Radio Station Inspired by John Peel. Independent. Original. Uncompromising”.

I use this stream URL in iTunes.

The same with John's shows, I cannot say I like everything that is played, some of it is pretty challenging, but if you have as deranged and confused a taste as me and you crave your “new music hit”, maybe you'll like it, give it a go!!

My New Tripod

2009-03-12T21:04:00.006Z

I have been yearning for a new tripod, ever since I found the old one was not sturdy enough for a DSLR.

I did a lot of research, some of it probably useful but in the end there is no substitute for actually getting your hands on something like this ...... and there lay the first problem, actually finding somewhere that keeps stuff in stock at a shop, where you can go ...... you'd think, living in London that this would be easy but even professional suppliers would have everything in their online catalogues but next to nothing in their physical shops.

In the last few months I watched different photographers use tripods in different situations, doing astonishing things with them, easily ..... they were all Gitzos, so that began to narrow the field, except Gitzo seem to have a ludicrously huge range.

I eventually found one in a shop in Tottenham Court Road, it had a broken leg, so I could not buy it but I had a chance to play.
It was one of their levelling range, there is a gimbal holding the centre column, which has a spirit level at the bottom, so you can adjust the level of the camera after setting up the legs. This interested me, I like low light panoramas.

You can do a lot with it. It's light and strong. No catches to catch my fingers. The legs are easy to use, they can lock at different angles so you don't just have to use the floor. I can place the camera anywhere from taller then me, to ground level.

I found this one, end-of-line, big discount.

So, it finally arrived. The first thing I tried was to get it really level, level enough so that when you rotate the camera, it stays level.

No way.

Maybe my eyesight is not as good as it was, maybe the spirit level is too small, maybe it's the slight nudge it gives as you clamp the gimbal, so far I have been unable to get it level enough for a panorama that did not drift.

The leveling is really useful for fine tuning your framing, but my expectations were too high regards panoramas.

So I went out on my first night shoot with it.

I was very pleased. It was a very windy night and I was doing long exposures, not a good combination but I could do what I needed and work quickly with it.

The unexpected problem was the law.

I got moved on by renta-cops from the South Bank. Later I heard Lambeth Council requires anyone using a tripod in the street to have a permit and pay by the hour, because if you use a tripod you must be (a) professional and (b) causing a potential public liability insurance issue.

Paranoia Britain, don't you love it.

Do Something About It

2009-03-04T16:22:00.002Z

http://www.dosomethingaboutit.org.uk has just issued it's first vote to members, to choose the issues it will attempt to tackle in the next few months.

Their boilerplate text :

I've just cast my vote to decide DoSomethingAboutIt.org.uk's campaign priorities for the coming months. We can either wait for political parties to tell us what the next election is about, or we can take the initiative and tell them what matters to us. By logging on to www.DoSomethingAboutIt.org.uk, you can let politicians know what you want to see happen- and if they don't listen, then you can get rid of them by using DoSomethingAboutIt.org.uk to link up with thousands of other progressives across the country. Check out the website yourself, and cast your vote today!

Hopefully a worthwhile attempt at grassroots democratic lobbying.

Birthday Present

2009-03-01T13:09:00.004Z

It was my 50th birthday recently, I celebrated with a party in my local pub, the Effra Tavern, friends came from all over, it was a great evening, many thanks to you all.

Two friends Gab and Mau came all the way from Amsterdam, impressive in itself . . . but they topped that by giving me the most incredible present.

They chose a load of photos from my Flickr Photostream, downloaded them all, copied all of the captions and assembled it all into a book, using blurb.com.

Mau just made it public, so you can see it for yourself or even buy a copy!

Many thanks guys, you're the best :-)

“I’m A Photographer Not A Terrorist”

2009-02-16T15:48:00.009Z

I was at the demonstration by photographers outside New Scotland Yard this morning, there even are a couple of glimpses of me in the BBC TV report, maybe the orange jacket was a good idea after all :-)

Here are mine.

100 Today

2009-02-07T19:07:00.005Z

I finally did 100 pushups for the first time today!

A few months ago, I started using the schedule published on hundredpushups.com (someone mentioned it on Planet Apache).

It worked well for me. Even though I could not always follow the course (it took me longer than 6 weeks) there was always somewhere I could fit in on the schedule and feel like I was advancing.

I have also been swimming several kilometers a week for the past few months, enjoying it and improving there too.

Eating more, loosing fat and putting on muscle, it is doing me a power of good.

(I hope this encourages you)

iWork Trojan

2009-01-23T11:55:00.003Z

Slashdot etc. are reporting the first properly malicious Trojan for MacOSX has been released in a BitTorrent of iWork, Apple's productivity suite.

According to MacRumors, it has been downloaded over 20000 times.

The MacRumors article has instructions for it's removal.

So, who was naughty and got infected?

Places to Visit

2009-01-22T20:18:00.006Z

A colleague of mine recently asked me to come up with a list of my most favourite places in the world that I have visited, he is planning a world trip.

I really enjoyed writing it, so I thought I would offer it to you my readers as well ;-)

(Not that I am encouraging you to expend lots of CO2 flying around or anything)

Sanna, Yemen.
The Yemen may not be currently possible to get a visa for, but it is an incredible country.
The Old Souk in the capital Sanna, is like walking back into the middle ages ... a canon-ball dent in the main gates; buying frankincense, myrrh, saffron, local woven fabrics. The only other tourists we saw in the Yemen were architecture students on a field trip. The mountain villages outside the capital are incredible.

Kotakinabalu, Sabbah, Borneo.
We ate at the Philippines Market in Kotakinabalu, the capital of Malaysian Borneo.
On the surface it looks squalid and dangerous, but in reality while alien it was warm and welcoming. You can take trips to Kinabalu National Park, to see wild orangutang and climb Mount Kinabalu, at 4101m the highest mountain in Borneo, reach the summit at daybreak!!

Koyasan, Japan.
Near Osaka, a mountain village of over 100 Buddhist Temples, you reach it via vernicular railway. Stunningly beautiful architecture and setting, amazing food, very peaceful. Some of the Temples act like hotels (Shukubo). We stayed in a traditional room, sliding doors, tatami mats, etc. We were served the most exquisite vegetarian food I had ever had. You must of course also visit Kyoto!!

You really must see Australia, it is an astonishing place, I was in Queensland in the winter, lovely climate. The whole Queensland coast, flora and fauna are incredible. These two islands really stuck out in my mind:

Fraser Island, Queensland.
A small sand island just off the coast, wild dingos, beautiful pockets of tropical rainforest. You can take a day-trip on a wacky amphibious vehicle from the mainland.

Lady Eliot Island, Queensland.
A tiny island at the southern end of the Barrier Reef. Just large enough to land a light aircraft on. Flew there on an old Otter 7 from Bundaberg, we saw migrating whale pods below us.
The island has a bar a canteen and a dive shop, no phone, no net. Perfect! My first snorkel and I was mixing it with Manta Rays!!

I spent 6 weeks sailing from Antigua to Grenada, we went off-season in July, far more peaceful. As for the locations, a very difficult choice to make .... all of the islands are beautiful, avoid the resorts. You could island-hop via ferry or light aircraft.

Les Saintes, Guadeloupe.
In the French Caribbean, the most memorable place I visited was Terre de Haut, Les Saintes, a small island just south of Guadeloupe. A wild and beautiful French-speaking islands (lovely walks, amazing beaches) with a gorgeous laid-back ambience and very mixed culture. Ferry from Basse-Terre.

St Vincent and The Grenadines.
My all round favourite of the ex-British Caribbean. Beautiful, relaxed, relatively undeveloped, lovely food. Try to get a sailing trip in the Grenadines! My favourites were Bequia and Union Islands, then you have the outstanding Tobago Cays in between.

My list for Europe would obviously be massive, I'll just add a few places in the Mediterranean and Ireland .... off the typical tourist map.

Syracusa, Sicily.
An ancient port in the south of Sicily. Unbelievably warm, sophisticated, fantastic cuisine, some of the best Roman and Greek remains in Italy. The market is sublime, wandering the streets of the old town at night, gives you a real impression of warmth of Italian culture.

Isola Di Ponza, Italy.
You get there by hydrofoil from the port near Rome, or from Naples (Both of which you ought to visit). Very beautiful, excellent sea food, very popular with Italians, busy on the weekend. I spent an utterly glorious week there many years ago. Wonderful place, lots of history, beautiful buildings and people.

The Skelligs, Co Kerry, Ireland.
An 800 ft pinnacle in the Atlantic. Used to be the home of monks and hermits in the Dark Ages. Fascinating place and history. You get there by boat from the mainland, only in good weather, there are no facilities, you need good sea legs. If you can dive, this was in Jacques Cousteau's top 5 dive-sites of the world.

Cahersiveen, Co Kerry, Ireland.
Cahersiveen on a Saturday night, I've never seen anywhere else quite like it, one road through a small village with something like 20 pubs. Good fun, good music, lots of Guinness. Both Kerry and West Cork are full of friendly places and beautiful scenery, hospitable and surprisingly cosmopolitan, your waitress will just as likely be from Normandy or Galicia as be a local.

(Islands seem to figure very highly on this list, must be all of my diving and sailing trips)

(I should probably add my local pub on a Friday night, but TBH it is getting too crowded already)

Thanks Ted

2009-01-22T19:19:00.006Z

My good friend TedDave just sent me this link to a collection of my Flickr photographs on HiveMind.

A very pleasing collection, thanks Ted!!

He thought my palette was predominantly blue and subject matter full of nicely swishing technology. Interesting (to me at least).

Enjoy.

Tax Hell

2009-01-19T20:13:00.002Z

Filling in my tax form again.

Ugh! They have changed the form so much this year, it is almost impossible to check for errors against previous years!

Why Oh Why every year am I stuck in this position where :

I am sure something is wrong with the calculation, my tax looks too high
The help pages I need are blank
The help pages I can find, I cannot understand
It is impossible to get through to the help line
I have to meet the deadline

UK Inland Revenue have this despiteful scheme whereby they charge you this year for some estimate of next year's tax, then make you manually enter the figure for last year in this year's return. Not only is the whole concept heinous, but it is a source of unnecessary error, why make me enter a figure they could supply. I think I have fallen foul of this field before and paid too much tax.

It is a RIP OFF, and what's bugging me now is I cannot work out how or where (or even what) this figure is and where it should be entered.

I do not feel that I am being offered "Public Service".

And to whoever is in charge of the design of this annual joy of a web application: may the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits!

HotSpot Shield

2008-12-07T10:30:00.005Z

If you are out and about with your iPhone using public WIFI HotSpots and fancy a bit of security/privacy, there is a free VPN service available.

Simple instructions for setting it up are here.

Easy Peasy .....

More Copyright Infringement

2008-11-10T11:35:00.003Z

I have just had another of my photos ripped off and used commercially without proper attribution etc. etc.

I really like Flickr, I think being part of the community has improved my photography, which is why I keep using it. But there is a price to pay, even though I use a Creative Commons license on my images, 20 or 30 images (to my knowledge) have been used inappropriately and it is extremely difficult to find out when this happens and almost impossible to do anything about it.

Flickr themselves are appalling in this regard.

Two totally inexcusable things that they do, which IMHO promote copyright theft, display their ignorance and devalue CC Licencing :

Flickr remove all EXIF tags (contains the copyright info) from your images that go into the download page (this is totally outragrous!!!).

Flickr allow you to change the licensing you add to an image after a license is applied ........ this is disallowed by Creative Commons, their licenses are by definition irrevocable.

However, lots of people do the right thing ....... I love it when someone writes to me describing their project, asking to use one of my images, I seldom refuse ....... and I have a growing collection of books and pamphlets at home, the results of some of those projects .......

So Flickr, get your act together, please !!!!!

Obama on Race

2008-11-08T12:22:00.004Z

My vision for America from the UK's Independent Newspaper.

Many thanks to Howard for pointing this out to me.

Howard says :

It's long, but this is Obama's speech on race - the most intelligent political speech on the subject I have ever heard, and a good primer on the issues. It is a measure of the man that he didn't simply disown Reverend Wright, but addressed the issue head on.

Well done America

2008-11-05T09:04:00.004Z

I still could not really believe as I went to bed last night that this would be the outcome.

What a happy awakening!!

Not only has America voted for their first African American president, they voted for a clearly intelligent and erudite man, something that after the last few elections, I thought would never happen again.

Howard said something very memorable to me the other day ....... If Obama gets in, two little black girls will call the White House home .......

I hope this is finally a resolution to some of America's appalling racial history.

Good money after bad

2008-10-09T11:12:00.004Z

So the UK is also resorting to fund and forgive the past bad practises of their banks.

What surprised me, was not that we are bailing out the Merchant Bankers (cockney rhyming slang pun fully intended) but that the amount of money on offer is almost the same as what is being offered in the US.

Is the size of these two nation's banking sectors really equivalent?

I bought the flat where I live in Brixton, for £18,000 in 1985.

There was a time when it became worth a large fraction of a £million!!!

In fact there were several years in which the value of my flat increased by more than I earn working!!!

This always seemed particularly mad to me ...... I was left wondering “what does that mean?”, “where does that money come from?”, “what does that mean for the currency?”.

Well it is a bit clearer now, we have been living in a “consensual hallucination” of a functioning economy. All this so called wealth has been an illusion, one that future generations will pay for, along with the price of our profligate environmental impact.

All we have to look forward to as we get older, is being despised by the young for our lack of foresight and restraint. Yummy!!!!

Rare Opportunity

2008-10-05T12:35:00.005Z

We are living through one of those deeply rare opportunities in history.

A time when it is possible to make a paradigm shift in society.

The last one I remember was the fall of the iron curtain, there appeared to be a slim window of opportunity in which those countries and their people could have found some new way, that was not socialism and not capitalism, but alas the moment was lost.

Now we have a situation where it is very clear to everybody (not just intellectuals, pundits and experts) that the foundation of our current system of economics is deeply flawed.

A moment in which we widely understand that our economies are deeply unsustainable, not only from the point of view of capitalisation and wealth but also from the point of view of environmental impact.

Even national leaders like Sarkozy are calling for structural change.

. . . lets not just leave it up to them . . .

Google's CalDav

2008-10-03T14:10:00.004Z

Google have an implementation of CalDav for use with iCal on MacOSX, I just tried it, it's pants, don't go there.

I have been using the OpenSource Darwin CalendarServer for nearly a year now. I runs it on my old Mac Cube at home (it works on most OSs), to share several calendars between multiple machines. While there is lots of missing functionality, the important stuff works.

I thought I'd give the Google implementation a go, as it saves me having to run my own.

Not good.

Basically, if you have more than one calendar (I always have had more then one eg. Home, Work, Admin, Holiday, Project, etc.) then you'll find the Google Calendar integration into iCal a real mess.

Unlike Darwin CalDav, a lot of important stuff in Google's CalDav really does not work.

Firstly, if you have multiple calendars, each will be in it's own section in the iCal sidebar, this reeks of a really big hack IMHO.

You cannot make new calendars from iCal.

Each calendar needs replicated account details (username, password etc.).

There is no support for alarms or ToDos etc. etc. etc.

There appears to be such an enormous impedance mismatch between iCal and gCal that I don't see how they will ever get this stuff working smoothly, much like the terrible mess caused when I tried using the new 'Sync with Google' functionality in Leopard's Address Book application. I think Google's models for this kind of info are too simplistic, they only support the simplest possible scenario and then not well.

Since I stopped using the appalling Dot Mac service for syncing, I have tried almost everything I could find to keep this kind of data synced between multiple machines and nothing is really reliable (except CalendarServer). I am not tempted to try MobileMe, it sounds even less reliable then it's predecessor.

It is a real shame, I would happily use Google for this stuff, if it worked with the built-in desktop applications, but GMail is the only Google App that works well enough IMHO. Even then Mail.app coupled with GMail using IMAP can be pretty ropey!!!

So while I am please Google is trying, my assessment is : Could Try Harder.

Euro * Bad

2008-10-03T10:53:00.003Z

Beware booking Eurostar tickets at the moment. The channel tunnel suffered a bad fire a few weeks ago, but Eurostar are acting as if nothing happened.

I am off to Paris next week, to help some friends setup an exhibition of the work of Australian artist Tim Maguire.

As usual, I booked tickets via www.eurostar.com.

They take you through the whole process, book your tickets (I book mine based on arrival time), choose my seat (so I have a power socket), make my payment etc. etc.

Then, after I have completed my non-refundable, un-alterable ticket, they say that the timetable is completely irrelevant due to the fire and my train may or may not leave at the allotted time, that for sure it will take at least an hour longer than planned.

WTF do they think they are doing!?!?!

OK so the fire was not their fault, they are obviously struggling to cope with it, but to sell something they know they cannot provide with no warning up front, this is unbelievable!!!

This feels like fraud, like selling under false pretenses, like totally shoddy and incompetent behaviour!

BAD Eurostar!!!!

Highly Recommended

2008-09-30T10:59:00.004Z

The 3 part BBC documentary “The Power of Nightmares” is now available via Google Video.

I saw this when it was broadcast last year and was very impressed by the quality of insight and the incredible range of interviewees.

I have been recommending it ever since.

Meme (Me)

2008-09-20T09:41:00.003Z

Via Bertrand

1. Take a picture of yourself right now.

2. Don’t change your clothes, don’t fix your hair…just take a picture.

3. Post that picture with NO editing.

4. Post these instructions with your picture.

Safari versus Firefox

2008-08-26T10:05:00.003Z

Safari is my every-day browser, it just gets better and better.

Firefox is the browser I use for two specific tasks:

1. I prefer to use Firefox for my daily Google Reader session, because it is so easy to turn off advertising. I would not need to do this if adverts in article I read were not so extremely obtrusive. I find it much harder to read when the text is surrounded by strobing adverts for products I have no interest in. So I just turn them off. Sorry for the publishers who need the income but the advertisers are doing you a disservice.

2. I use Firefox for debugging Ajax web applications, using the truely excellent FireBug. Firebug Lite runs in Safari, and it is an incredible acheivement, but it does not hold a torch to the real thing.

Firefox has lots of annoying niggles. The two that I find the worst are:
No obvious access to the system dictionary or spell checker.
Uses option instead of command as the meta-key to open a search or link in a new tab.

(As I said, I am used to Safari)

Anyway, it looks like some of my habits are about to change.
I just downloaded the latest nightly build of WebKit and it blew me away.

Webkit has something very similar to FireBug built into it now, I have not used it heavily yet, but what I have seen looks really promising!!

FireBug can give you some incredibly unuseful error messages sometimes, maybe WebKit will be better.

If you write and debug web applications for a living, I heartily recommend you try out a WebKit nightly, or if not, wait for Safari 4 which has recently been seeded to Apple developers.

Number Format Heaven

2008-08-05T10:54:00.004Z

Well here's a happy ending ....... I have a working solution to this hell.

I did not try any of the solutions I wrote up in the comments of the hell post. I just woke up the next morning realising it was even simpler.

The solution to getting Cocoon and Dojo using the same localised formats for numbers, was to use Java classes that are built using the same CLDR data as Dojo.

I now use the NumberFormat classes from com.ibm.icu.text instead of java.text, to send and receive formatted numbers. It was almost a drop-in replacement.

The IBM versions have their format data compiled from the same source as Dojo. While java.text.*'s data seems to be really stale.

Choose the version that uses the same CLDR version as Dojo.
Dojo 1.1.1 uses CLDR 1.5.1 so wants icu4j version 3.8.1 and Dojo 1.2 will use CLDR 1.6 which comes in icu4j 4.0 (so there is a clear upgrade path).

Here's one happy bunny.

The one remaining fly in the ointment is languages like Hindi and Arabic, that use different Unicode characters for digits, which is really ironic as supposedly zero came from India and the 1 to 9 came from Arabia, (imagine trying to do maths with Roman numerals!!) probably the next thing to try is re-building Dojo's locale number libraries with everything included.

Number Format Hell

2008-07-29T01:00:00.001Z

I am in localised format hell at the moment.

I am currently re-working Apache Cocoon CForms.
My current task is a validating, currency field, which can properly display and edit any currency in any locale.

CForms (started long before Browsers became smart with big Ajax Libraries) allows you to use Convertor classes to map either way between an Object in the business logic and a localised String to be edited in a form.

Number Convertors are based on java.text.NumberFormat class.

Let's say that the Model (Bean, XML frgment, etc.) I am editing contains a value that represents a Currency in Pounds Sterling as a java.math.BigDecimal, I'd set up my Convertor like this :

<fd:field id="dieselprice" required="true">
  <fd:label>Price for a liter diesel:</fd:label>
  <fd:datatype base="decimal">
    <fd:convertor variant="currency" currency="GBP"/>
  </fd:datatype>
</fd:field>

When my number eg. "1000.00" goes into the Convertor, it is localised to the format for the viewer's locale, so in the UK someone should see: "£1,000.00", in France: "1 000,00 UK£" etc. (PS. Diesel will cost £1000 per litre one day, you'll see ....)

So far, so good. The user gets a number in a format they recognise, the edited number is returned to the server and the Convertor performs the reverse operation, to store it back to the java.math.BigDecimal.

Now the fun starts ........

I am changing CForms on the client-side to use all Dojo editors. In the case of currency, I use the dijit.form.CurrencyTextBox. It is a cool editor, while the editor is not focussed, it shows the formatted version "1 000,00 UK£" (fr_FR) but as soon as you click to edit it, it gives you the simple version, where it is harder to make editing mistakes "1000,00" and gives you validation feedback while you are typing.

So here comes the first impedance mis-match .... Dojo does not expect the server to format and localise the number as a String, it expects the server to send the value in the same format as a JavaScript primitive "1000.00". Dojo then uses it's vast library of localisation formatting rules to convert the primitive to a formatted String suitable for the locale of the User, allow that to be edited and post the new primitive back to the server.

So, I can hack Dojo, or I can hack CForms. I hacked Dojo, because CForms has the right behaviour, it should still work when someone has JavaScript turned off, they will see a simpler form but with properly localised values in it.

So I extended dijit.form.CurrencyTextBox <-- cocoon.forms.CurrencyField, to allow it to send and receive formatted strings instead of number primitives (as text).

Boom Boom, job done! (so I thought).

The first hint of trouble appeared when I was testing numbers represented as percentages. They would display fine in some locales but not in others. You see Dojo needs to be able to interpret the format to be able to validate it and it turned out that Java and Dojo use different formats for percentages in fr_FR and de_DE (France and Germany).

While Java formats them as "#,##0%" (123%) Dojo formats them as "#,##0 %" (123 %).

I am thinking WTF! These are supposed to be international standards! Where's this stuff coming from?

On the Java side, the closest hint I could find was that java.text.DecimalFormat is copyrighted by Taligent (IBM). It is also possible that IBM wrote the number formatting in Dojo, I believe they contributed all of the Internationalisation classes to Dojo, but specifically, Dojo's datasource for compiling it's lookup tables is Unicode.org. I have yet to ascertain where Java sources it's data, but there are clearly problems, I read that JDK7 will package the currency bundles in a way that does not require a whole JDK update when currencies change.

So there is an annoyingly large number of very detailed differences between localised currency formats in Dojo and Java, simple differences like individual locale's currency symbol can be worked around via Dojo APIs, deeper problems like group and decimal separators not matching for Arabic and some far-eastern countries are proving more wasteful of my time.

I am currently using Java 1.4.2, will upgrading change the situation? Make it better? Make it worse? My JDK is supplied and maintained by Apple. Will moving to another OS make it better or worse?

It's an abysmal situation!

One tip for the would-be user of java.util.Currency and java.text.DecimalFormat is, if you call DecimalFormat.setCurrency, make sure you also copy over the number of decimal fraction digits, DecimalFormat leaves them out, resulting in a bad format for currencies that have no decimals (Japanese Yen etc.).


Currency currency = Currency.getInstance("GBP");
 int digits = currency.getDefaultFractionDigits();
DecimalFormat format = (DecimalFormat)NumberFormat.getCurrencyInstance(locale);
format.setCurrency(currency);
format.setMinimumFractionDigits(digits);
format.setMaximumFractionDigits(digits);

I did not find this in any of the tutorials online, but it is in the JavaDocs.

iPhone Day

2008-07-11T10:20:00.003Z

All the net is abuzz with iPhone unboxing reports etc.

I gave my iPod touch to my 14 year old godson a few weeks ago, a bit rash, I miss it a lot, but my intention had always been to pass it on when the 3G iPhone came along.

I am bursting to get one now ....... specially after I spent half an hour looking through the iTune AppStore and already found about 10 apps I would have downloaded straight away!!

One app that caught my eye immediately was FileMagnet. One of the reasons I jailbroke my iPod was to be able to copy files to it for viewing on the device, reference material, stuff like pdf public-transport maps of places I am visiting ...... it was never an easy process ...... entering those darn file:/// urls into MobileSafari, FileMagnet looks a lot easier.

But there is one hell of a bitter pill to swallow!!!!

There is only one carrier in the UK, no competition in most countries, therefore often ludicrous prices.
O2 has a bad rep (but then I guess all carriers have a bad rep).
The deal itself in the UK is not so bad, I'd be paying only a little bit more than I do now and I'd get more service.

But the international data-roaming charges!!!!!!!!

£3 per Meg in Europe, £6 per Meg in the rest of the world!!!!!!
WTF?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
This is utter madness!!!!

When I am abroad in a strange city, that is just the time when I'd want data-access, GPS + Google Maps would be indispensable.

An article in ArsTechnica today, outlines the amount of data transferred per hour to use different applications.

Using Google Maps comes out at 6.5Meg or £19.50 per hour in Europe!!!!

For crying out loud!!!! And you cannot even work around it by legally de-SIM locking and using a local carrier.
This just ruins the whole purpose of the device and I think the bad feeling from this will ultimately rub-off on Apple.

The EU is currently trying to force a reduction in call-roaming charges across Europe, apparently they also have data-roaming charges in their sights, I really hope they get a move on!!!

Form Symbols

2008-06-30T14:34:00.010Z

I am re-working Apache Cocoon Forms framework at the moment, mainly upgrading it to use the new features of Dojo 1.1 but also taking the opportunity for a bit of a cleanup.

One thing I am looking at, is the three symbols that can sit beside form fields :
1. the field-error marker (currently uses an exclamation mark, don't like it, not visually strong enough)
2. the field is required marker (currently uses an asterisk, OK, I suppose .....)
3. the field help marker. (currently uses an icon, one of mine I think, a bit ugly)

I am trying to decide between two different approaches, and you may be able to help me decide .......

The typical approach (the one used extensively by Dojo) would be to have graphical icons as the background of a tag, turned on and off as appropriate by toggling the 'display' css property.

This is all and well, but TBH I am not such a great icon maker, not all of the ones I need are included with Dojo, I do not want to rip off someone's copyright by mistake and infect Cocoon with it.

I also reckon that these kinds of symbols are culturally-specific, hence should be controlled by the locale of the client.

So my alternative approach is to use characters from Unicode.
The characters I have chosen display fine in MacOSX, but I realise they might not do so under Windows or Linux.

So, you could help in two ways :
1. Do these characters display properly on your platform?
2. In the context of a latin language, do they convey the right meaning?

1. ⚡ field error (name: High Voltage Sign)
2. ★ field is required (name: Black Star)
3. ⓘ field help (name: Circled Latin Small Letter I)

Please let me know what you think in the comments.
Many thanks for your feedback.

More Fraud

2008-06-04T12:59:00.002Z

I have been ripped off again.

Apparently my debit card has been skimmed and the info used to attempt purchases across America and Nigeria. The bank noticed the activity immediately and stopped my card (last time, it was up to me to notice).

Unfortunately they stopped the card without telling me ....... I started having problems with payments failing, visited my branch to see what was going on with this (and several other problems) spent a frustrating half-hour waiting in a queue, got no resolution from them ...... called the bank's main office and began to hear that they could not deal with any of my issues because my account had been security flagged.

I finally got through to somebody useful in the security department and got everything quickly sorted out.

When this happened last time, I assumed my card details had been stolen online and had changed some of my purchasing behaviour accordingly, but what was interesting this time was that they told me that whoever stole my card info, had had access to the physical card itself, i.e. a modified ATM, an employee of a local shop or restaurant etc.

Not at all what I expected.

Another reason to eat less meat

2008-04-15T09:40:00.004Z

OK, so many of you will know that I have been lacto-vegetarian for 29 years.
For me, the reason is metabolic, however there are very many reasons to at least eat less meat and dairy products :

George Monbiot writes in "The Pleasures of the Flesh" :

While 100m tonnes of food will be diverted this year to feed cars, 760m tonnes will be snatched from the mouths of humans to feed animals. This could cover the global food deficit 14 times. If you care about hunger, eat less meat.

Monbiot is an interesting writer.

As a designer, I worked in sustainable design for many years, however I still had some cherished assumptions broken, reading his book "Heat" recently. I highly recommend it.

ApacheGone

2008-04-14T11:46:00.002Z

ApacheCon Euro 2008 is over and I am home, no delays this time.

This was my first ApacheCon, I really enjoyed myself. Many thanks to the sponsors and organisers for a great event.

I went to very few talks, there are a few I regret missing now, but the opportunity to hack was so great. I am in the middle of upgrading Cocoon CForms to use Dojo 1.1, so having access to several other Cocoon comitters proved very useful. Many thanks to those of you who gave me your time, especially Grzegorz Kossakowski who spent several hours helping me with Cocoon 2.2.

I had some useful business discussions that I hope will lead somewhere.

My talk seemed to go OK. No one obviously walked out during it, no heckling, there were some questions at the end, with easy answers (Yes, No, I don't know) and several people approached me over the next couple of days to discuss it further.

Many thanks to Lars Eilebrecht for introducing my talk and getting it together when the wireless mike ran out of batteries : )

I suppose my main regret was not meeting more of the Apache people whose names I have known for a long time.

All Change

2008-04-06T11:06:00.003Z

Yesterday I was out in a tee-shirt and light jacket, and overheating, taking photos of a fire in Brixton.

Today there is 50mm of snow on the roof.

Wacky weather !

Tomorrow I am off to Amsterdam for ApacheCon. Taking the EuroStar to Brussels and the Thalys to Amsterdam. I just hope it is not the "wrong type of snow".

I have recently been investing in improving my flat's energy use.
A new hyper-efficient central heating boiler, an extra 300mm of loft insulation and replaced all filament light-bulbs with high-efficiency LEDs (and a few compact fluorescents).

My energy bills are already noticeably down, my flat is light, snug, warm and nice to see ....... unlike my neighbour, the snow on my roof is not melting yet :-)

Next project: replace the 20 year old heath-robinson MagnaTherm magnetic stick on plastic secondary glazing with built-in units.

Suppliers :
The boiler is off the shelf from Vaillant. What amazed me about these new condensing boilers is that the flue gas is barely warm, the flue is POLYTHENE!!!!
Some of the LEDs are from UltraLEDs.co.uk, they have some great products, but they have real supply problems and they really messed me about recently .....

Destructive Editing

2008-04-05T09:07:00.004Z

One of the really great things about Aperture, is it's non-destructive editing.

When you are working on a photograph, you can roll back any edits you perform, at any time.
When you perform say, a crop, the crop is not applied to the actual photo (until you export) the crop is saved as an instruction. Let's say I then do some colour adjustment, then realise I do not like the crop, I can go back and re-do it, without effecting any subsequent changes.

The good thing is, you do not end up with lots of versions of the full binary, you end up with the binary with a bunch of instructions on how to render it into different versions, it saves a lot of space and hassle.

The down side is that you need a reasonably fast computer.

It turns out the other downside is that you cannot do any pixel-level editing ...... you can only apply effects to the whole image.

Apple just introduced a plugin API to Aperture 2.1. As the library of available plugins builds up, there will be less need to export to PhotoShop to do edits on regions of images.

Unfortunately, this breaks your non-destructive workflow. As soon as you invoke a plugin, Aperture exports your image with all of your edits applied, before passing it to the plugin, much like editing in PhotoShop does.

The first time I tried it, on a 7Meg RAW image, I ended up with a new 70Meg master, which was passed to the plugin, meaning any effects I applied before the plugin are locked-in.

Maybe it was naïve of me to think that Apple could pull the trick of non-destructive editing in a plugin API. But as they have not, unfortunately, using plugins really throws a spanner in your workflow.

PS. The reason the new Master was so big was that I had the export settings at 16bit, which was probably pretty pointless.

ApacheCon 2008

2008-04-03T10:21:00.003Z

I'll be heading off on the train to my first ApacheCon in a few days. I am honoured to be giving a talk on the Wednesday, please come along.

I am looking forward to several things .....

Being in Amsterdam : )
Seeing old friends.
Putting faces to the many Apache peeps whose names I know, but have never met.
Asking lots of dumb questions to whoever Cocoon devs I meet, who know CForms.

Talking of CForms (it's the cool forms framework in Apache Cocoon) I am currently working on upgrading it to use Dojo 1.1.
I just got Repeaters working with Dojo's new Drag & Drop API. It is very pretty, you now get an avatar of your dragged rows, optional drag handles etc.
Next I am looking into changing the way the CForms backend processes repeater events, so that it can handle stuff like : dragging more than one row at a time, row cloning, clone or copy between Repeaters etc. etc..

I am really enjoying the work.
It's like doing a year's worth of 20% time in one go (no, I am not employed by Google, but that does not stop me making time for non-commercial research).

Look forward to seeing you in Amsterdam.

The Sound of the Lambs

2008-03-16T13:24:00.002Z

Flock
Originally uploaded by sharkbait.

It's that time of year again.

Some of my family have small farms, if I write to any of them around now, I get replies like "Sorry I did not reply earlier, we are lambing".

Lambing Season, for all you city folk, is the time of year when hill farmers are most busy, all of their sheep give birth at pretty much the same time and some need a lot of help. Everyone has to work day and night for weeks on end. It is a time of high mortality requiring very close attention. The vets are too busy, so you usually have to rely heavily on your own skills.

I remember as a kid, there were always a few orphan lambs. We would hand rear them, which is a lovely thing to do, small lambs being absolutely gorgeous creatures.

We'd give the orphans names like "Lamb Chop" and "Mint Sauce", so that as children we would remember that they were destined for the deep freeze.

I have been a vegetarian for nearly 30 years now, but I still remember our lamb as being the best meat I ever ate.

Look out for organic British lamb later in the year, who knows you might be eating one of ours :)

Not Normal

2008-02-24T11:42:00.005Z

I do not understand why Nikon do not make a 33.3mm lens.

Since the popularity of three-fourths sensors on semi-pro DSLRs, you would have thought someone would make a 'normal' lens for that sensor size, but no ...... the closest I could find is the 30mm lens by Sigma, which I have and like very much (but it is not quite normal).

I dunno, maybe I an being getting overly nerdy here ...... but all the advice about starting SLR photography says, don't use a zoom, use a normal lens first, learn to move not zoom, learn what that lens can do before moving on.

My understanding is that it is called 'normal' as it has the same perspective as human vision, making it appear very natural.

A normal lens on a full-size sensor or film camera is 50mm. You get many lovely, high maximum aperture, cheap lenses of that size. A normal lens on my Nikon D80, which has a sensor-size ratio of 1.5 would be 50/1.5 = 33.3mm, and no one seems to make one.

Zoom lenses are very convenient, I have one myself, I take it when I do not know what I am going to be photographing. Of course you could adjust the right zoom lens to be at 33mm, but you probably would not get such good results. Zoom lenses are always compromised in some way ....... at least ones in my price bracket. For instance the high aperture range of my 30mm Sigma (F1.4 to F16) opens creative low light possibilities that my zoom (F3.5/F5.6 to F22) could not.

So, do you have any suggestions?
Am I just being too nerdy about this?

Open Source VoIP

2008-02-20T13:51:00.005Z

Amy Quinn (a distant relation, I wonder?) sent me this list of Open Source VoIP software : Wide Open VoIP: Top 50 Open Source VoIP Apps

Thanks Amy :-)

Mobile PDF

2008-02-16T16:48:00.004Z

At last I have found a reasonable PDF Reader on the iPod touch ..... and it was there all along .....

Unfortunately so far, all of the third-party PDF viewers for the iPod touch rather suck.
MobilePreview still in version 0.1 mentions reading pdfs as a "planned feature".
PDFViewer is too annoying to use, as it scales from the top-left of the document, not the centre of the screen and does not rotate.

The best solution I have found so far is to use MobileSafari, with the 'file://' patch applied.
I keep a folder of PDFs in ~/Media/PDF/ (which was where PDFViewer expected to find them), I copy them there using AppleFileProtocol, using AFPd (which also turns on Bonjour, nice).

MobileSafari is a far nicer PDF viewer than PDFViewer, but is less convenient because you cannot browse a directory.
What you can do though is to type in the URL to your PDF file, eg. file:///var/root/Media/PDF/TubeMap.pdf and when it loads, zoom into a representative part of the image and add it as a WebClip to your home screen.

Happy typing.

Updated

2008-02-14T13:46:00.004Z

Many updates from Apple over the last few days .....
A mixed bag really ......

I love the new Aperture 2 already, I am running it on an early low-end MacBook and it is really responsive. I was not able to get Aperture working here before.

The main disappointment so far is it still lacks the ability to write geolocation EXIF tags.
This means unless you add those tags before import, you've had it. What is worse, Aperture plugin and script writers cannot work around this omission as even the EXIF tag object in AppleScript is read-only.

Leopard 10.5.2 does not fix the things that I still miss from Tiger, like seeing WebDAV Shares in the Finder, missing SMS from AddressBook etc.. And Apple missed fixes for the various glitches to do with calendar entries in a CalDAV Server.

Linked In

2008-02-11T18:38:00.000Z

I finally got linked in.
My friend Sena put me up to it.
He says he gets lots of work from it.
Let's see .......

Getting Final

2008-02-10T15:35:00.000Z

I never understood and definitely never used the final keyword in Java.

I saw it a lot in Giacomo's code, when we worked together on a project a few years ago. I was intrigued, but never really grokked it at the time.

I don't get to write a lot of Java, so when I recently got the opportunity to re-factor some code into a nice set of polymorphic classes I thought of looking at it again, and found this excellent article that helped me to understand it well enough to use it usefully in my code.

More Air

2008-02-08T12:40:00.000Z

I was lying in the bath last night, listening to mucic streamed via wifi from my computer in my home-office, controlling it using RemoteBuddy on my iPod touch, thinking ..... Apple's AirTunes is such a great technology, why on earth do they not do more with it?

I was pretty organised back in 1985 when I re-wired my flat. There are speaker cables wired-in, running from the living room to the bedroom, office and dining room. That made a lot of sense when I only used my lovely old Quad 300 series Hi Fi, but these days, my music is on my computer in the office. The bath is one of those places where I really like to listen to music. I've been kicking myself for not wiring in speakers, but it would be really expensive to do now, I put fancy flooring down, I cannot get under the floor to lay new cables.

So I finally splashed out on a couple of AirPort Express. One in the living room to feed the wired HiFi, one in the bathroom to feed some old but good Yamaha powered speaker. Having to crank up the volume in another room, to be able to hear music in the bath used to really annoy my neighbours :)

So here Apple have this great tech, but what are they doing with it? One piece of hardware, not updated for may years (AirPort Express) and one piece of software that can send music to it (iTunes).

Rogue Ameoba, who make some great software for the Mac, like Audio Hijack, have a title called AirFoil. It allows any software's audio stream to be sent via AirTunes. In a recent update, they added Airfoil Speakers, a piece of software to turn any Mac into a player for AirTunes.

I think Apple should take note of this powerful idea (sorry RA). You see the problem with Airfoil Speakers is that it is not compatible with iTunes. Apple use some encryption in their hardware, that stops Rogue Ameoba from being able to fully simulate an AirPort Express.

Apple could solve this problem. Either open it and allow a "Made for AirTunes" programme develop like "Made for iPod", or just build AirTunes in at a System level (control speaker-sharing and audio destination in the Audio Sys Prefs).

Apple could make a whole new ecology of hardware and software for AirTunes.

Basically, any device with an audio out, and any device which has a library of music to play, should be able to play with AirTunes. Any device that can do both, should be able to play on another device, or play from another device.

A boom-box with built-in iPod docks and AirPort Express which runs on MacBook batteries would be a great start.
iPhones and Macs could play to it via Wifi. iPods without Wifi could play from the dock, or select another AirTunes client that the boom-box can see locally. Similarly now the latest AirPorts are coming with hard drives, why not add an amplifier and some iPod docks.

One of my favourite evening-with-friends activities, is playing music together, taking it in turn to play one track, it can be really good fun, specially with people who know their music. We used to do it with a couple of thousand vinyl LPs, then CDs, now MP3s. Do this with computing devices and you can makes games from the interaction.

Now that everybody is walking around with all of their music in their pocket, the next thing to sort out is how people can play their music to other people. Streaming is a great solution because it does not involve copyright-busting copying.

I hope you are listening Apple :-)

XSLT 2.0

2008-01-26T16:18:00.000Z

I had a complex XML transformation to perform. I ended up using XSLT 2.0, I was really impressed.

I needed to measure several sub-tasks in a publishing process, that updates hundreds of documents in batches every few hours, with data from live sources.

I needed to compare the original implementation with simulations of 3 incremental optimisations, so we could see if they are worth making.

Setting up and running the tests was out of my hands, happening in another country. What I got back were four very large XML files, in Java logger.xml format.

<record>
  <date>2008-01-24T13:10:44</date>
  <millis>1201176644561</millis>
  <sequence>6</sequence>
  <logger>app.Uploader</logger>
  <level>INFO</level>
  <class>app.Uploader$DataLogger</class>
  <method>end</method>
  <thread>10</thread>
  <message>timing.folder 15 1468</message>
</record>
<record>
  <date>2008-01-24T13:10:44</date>
  <millis>1201176644561</millis>
  <sequence>7</sequence>
  <logger>app.Uploader</logger>
  <level>INFO</level>
  <class>app.Uploader$DataLogger</class>
  <method>end</method>
  <thread>10</thread>
  <message>memory.folder 15 844128</message>
</record>

etc.

Thousands of them, all in a flat list. I needed csv files to import into a spreadsheet, to analyse the data.

The first processing pass, filtered out records I was not interested in and extracted values from the message, adding them as individual tags to each record. <message>[type].[key] [fid] [data]</message>

Each log file needed to be output into separate csv files, one for each type of measurement (timing, memory etc.). Each row of the csv file needed to contain each different measurement for one document update, where measurements with the same key were added together.

It is recognised that getting these kind of groupings from flat data using XSLT 1.0 is difficult. I tried for a while using muenchian grouping, the code was getting longer and more complex but I still had not solved all of the problems. It was looking like I would need a whole chain of XSLTs to do the job. I switched from xsltproc to Saxon, because it has a chaining command. Then I remembered it also implements all of XSLT 2.0 which has new commands that make grouping far easier.

I ende up with 3 nested <xsl:for-each-group select="nodes" group-by="key">. XSLT 1.0 has <xsl:for-each> which iterates a nodelist. <xsl:for-each-group> produces a list of lists and iterates through the outer one, giving you access to each inner list and it's key. This solves two difficult issues in XSLT 1.0, arbitrary grouping and making lists of unique keys.

After re-factoring, I had easier to understand code that was a third of the size and ran three times faster.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="2.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">

  <!--
  
  output a CSV file for each unique record/type (eg. 'timing' or 'memory')
  one row per unique record/fid (document ID)
    
  where multiple values of the same record/type are summed
  eg. record/type values below have multiple values:
    transform
    put.default.preview
    put.default.www
  
  -->
  <xsl:param name="test">1</xsl:param>
  <xsl:output method="text"/>
  
  <xsl:template match="log">
    <!-- create a set of nodelists of record nodes of each unique record/type  -->
    <xsl:for-each-group select="record" group-by="type">
      <!-- output the log type for debugging purposes -->
      <xsl:value-of select="current-grouping-key()"/><xsl:text>
</xsl:text><!-- new line -->
      <!-- new output file for each unique record/type -->
      <xsl:result-document href="results/{current-grouping-key()}.{$test}.csv" method="text">
        <xsl:text>id,</xsl:text><!-- first column -->
        <!-- nodelist of records for each unique record/key, within the record/type group -->
        <xsl:for-each-group select="current-group()" group-by="key">
          <!-- output each unique record/key into the first row -->
          <xsl:value-of select="current-grouping-key()"/><xsl:text>,</xsl:text>
        </xsl:for-each-group>
        <xsl:text>
</xsl:text><!-- new line -->
        <!-- create a set of nodelists of record nodes of each unique record/fid (document id), 
             within the record/type::record/key nested grouping -->
        <xsl:for-each-group select="current-group()" group-by="fid">
          <!-- for each unique record/fid -->
          <xsl:for-each select="current-group()[1]"> 
            <!-- output the document id into the first column -->
            <xsl:value-of select="current-grouping-key()"/><xsl:text>,</xsl:text>
            <!-- for each unique key in the document -->
            <xsl:for-each-group select="current-group()" group-by="key">
              <!-- output the sum of same-named keys -->
              <xsl:value-of select="sum(current-group()/data)"/><xsl:text>,</xsl:text>
            </xsl:for-each-group>
          </xsl:for-each>
          <xsl:text>
</xsl:text><!-- new line -->
        </xsl:for-each-group>
      </xsl:result-document>
    </xsl:for-each-group>
  </xsl:template>

  <xsl:template match="@*|node()">
    <xsl:copy><xsl:apply-templates select="@*|node()"/></xsl:copy>
  </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

I think XSLT is an amazing language.

Thin Air

2008-01-16T16:45:00.000Z

I don't know about you, but I found this year's keynote by Steve Jobs a bit thin on the ground.

I don't have a big movie-rental habit and they won't be coming to the UK for a long time, I guess ..... also I expect we'll pay a Rip-off Britain surcharge anyway .....

The MacBook Air is obviously gorgeous and looks like a really stunning bit of engineering, but I would have to think long and hard ..... I am not sure I would want to be without FireWire or Ethernet (though they are offering a USB/Ethernet adaptor).

I did think building demonstration videos into System Preferences for multi-touch gestures was a total hoot :-)

Remote-Disk sounds jolly clever. I did not hear whether is allows you to install a new System using it though.

My initial reaction to Time-Capsule is that it is a bit of a joke, why not just fix Time-Machine backups to AirPort-Disk?

I am sure that the improvements to the iPhone and iPod touch are welcome by people who have not jailbroken theirs yet, but for me, I could not see anything that I cannot already do ...... albeit differently on my jailbroken iPod touch.

I will wait for the release of the iPhone SDK, and see what it brings, before I un-jailbreak and update the OS on mine. Even with Apple's additions, there are still compelling 3rd party apps on mine, that I would not want to loose.

Charging for the applications they left out of the iPod touch is bizarre IMHO, I bet we see a refund in a few weeks ;-)
Now they are putting back the bits missing from the iPod touch, maybe they will put back the bits missing from Leopard :-)

I find it very difficult to believe their WIFI-location technology would actually work, specially outside urban America. It sounds bloody clever, but I have a GPS ..... I'd rather have a GPS module .....

So, WTF happened to "Just one more thing"?

Rich Text Editors

2007-12-06T21:54:00.000Z

As a regular reader of this blog, you may have noticed the different line-spacing on my last two posts.

I started using the 'Compose' editor in Blogger, instead of the 'Edit HTML' editor.

The 'Compose' Editor only started working for me recently, once Safari 3 came out. It is easier to use, but I am not sure I like the tighter spacing for reasons of readability.

As an aside, I was mildly shocked recently to realise that when you use some of the new breed of RTEs like the one on Dojo 1.0, the output HTML is different, depending on the browser you use.

While it is really great that cross-browser/platform RTEs are becoming a reality, I imagine that this lack of consistency is going to freak the bejebus out of some content-management types I know.

Sharing Calendars

2007-12-06T21:15:00.000Z

Always on the hunt for replacements to the functionality that dot mac used to try to provide me, I decided to try out CalDAV. I chose the implementation by Apple, released as Open Source on MacOSForge.

Using these instructions, it was easy to install.

In short order, I had it installed, running on HTTPS with a self-signed certificate. A bunch of users and locations setup and ready to go.

Leopard comes with a built-in CalDAV client, the iCal application, I only have Leopard installed on one machine ATM (I have CalDAV running on an old Cube under Tiger), so wanting to experiment with sharing, I invited by brother in Australia to join me.

Once you have added your Cal Server account in iCal, it is as easy to create new calendars on the server as it is locally. I am confidant that when I have more machines running Leopard, they will all be able to share the same calendars between them.

Sharing a single user's calendar between multiple users is still a problem though. According to the plan, you ought to be able to assign levels of sharing in your own calendars from the client, this does not seem to work yet as far as I can tell.

My brother and I can share a calendar, and it works well, but in such a way that it has to be setup in advance via server configuration. I made a 'location' and added our two users to it. We can both add, edit and delete each others entries. We have not tried any of the auto-scheduling features yet.

I do not have access to Leopard Server, so I do not know if the version of Calendar Server that comes with it suffers from the same problems, but regardless, the free MacOSForge Calendar Server is already a very useful tool for any workgroup, club, family or individual with more than one computer (CalDAV is a cross platform standard).

If you have a server knocking around, give it a go :)

PS. I am spending the next two weeks in Holland doing some work. I will know pretty soon just how good or bad it is to be on the road using a remote calendar !!

New Design

2007-12-06T16:12:00.000Z

I have updated and relocated fiveone.org again.

I have had a home page of one sort or another practically ever since it was possible to have one. I do wonder sometimes if it is worth the hassle, but occasionally people do find me through it, whether for work or some friend or family member looses my contact details, I guess it is still useful.

I really had to do something about the design (clearly ripped from Blogger), I had got so sick of it. Being such a stickler for good code, I had always hand-coded my site before. This time, feeling a bit lazy, I decided to see how iWeb would work.

iWeb has the look and intuitive feel of the iWork applications, which I like. However, unlike Keynote etc. it seems to lack the ability for the user to build new templates, most of the built-in templates are pretty nasty, but luckily there was one (Modern) which I found bearable.

I found iWeb very easy to use. I found not having to write the code myself (and make it work across platform), freed me up to think much more about what the purpose, message and content of the site should be, which was refreshing.

The Prototype AJAX library is built-in to iWeb-generated sites, this brings some quite funky behaviour, like a half-decent slideshow widget etc. which I appreciated. The implementation is a bit over-the-top though IMHO. The slideshow dynamically loads photos using an RSS feed to specify the contents, which while being clever, is a bit pointless, every file is overwritten during export, so this could have just been burnt into the html. Some of the things they do are just plain silly. If you want a link that opens in a new window, instead of just adding a target attribute, they add several JavaScript Event Handlers to do the same job ;-)

One behaviour I definitely appreciated was the ability to dynamically pull html snippets into the page at runtime. I used this for my email address, crawlers looking for this info will not find it, unless they execute the JavaScript.

Since iWeb was never designed for someone like me, I inevitably had several issues with it, here are some of them :

Layout: Not surprisingly, considering how the program works (like a DTP program) all of the layouts are generated using absolutely positioned div tags. What is unfortunate is that Apple decided to use fixed units of measurement (a bad mix of pt and px) meaning that the layouts do not scale properly if a user presses command-+, the individual divs begin to crop their content or overlap their neighbours. Interestingly, Apple realised this, but instead of fixing the code output, they seem to have fixed Safari 3 not to zoom iWeb sites (Safari 2 and Firefox still zoom) which to me is a strange way of working !! The way I have solved this in the past is to place a default text size on the body tag (font-size: 10px;) then use a relative unit em in the elements I want to scale properly. In this situation 1px = 0.1em. Easy.

Meta-Data: The ability to control meta-data is almost non-existent. You cannot do things like add your own title attributes to links, alt attributes on images, or add your own meta tags to the head. I am used to having full control over stuff like this, I like proper Dublin-core and geotags in my pages, yeah I am geeky :)

Standards: I am used to making my sites fully compliant with w3 standards, I like to get WAI-AAA compliance etc. as well. Of course this is just professional pride, so few people visit this site, it does not really matter ...... but it could have been something Apple just got right ......

URLs: Being a Cocoon developer, I am used to having absolute control over all URLs. iWeb is not really designed like that. iWeb is designed for pumping multiple 'sites' out to a single dot mac address. Each 'site' in iWeb has the site-name at the top level of it's URL. So that you can go from my.tld/ to the default 'site' Apple output a /index.html with a meta-redirect. I do not like that and you do not seem to have any control over it.

Conclusion: Well, the fact I actually published the HTML made by iWeb shows that I found it just about good enough. I did resort to some post-processing on the exported files to solve some of the problems above, but this is obviously a nuisance. The point of tools like iWeb is that they make it really so easy to make and publish changes, you are likely to do it more often. Having to post-process the HTML really spoils that experience.

Note: Since publishing this site a few days ago, it has gone from 1st to 2nd position in Google when you search for my name, hmmm what have I done that they did not like?

[1] The site was hosted as a favour by Andrew Savory for many years. Many thanks Andrew! Now it is on an old Mac Cube at home.

Deranged Voip Setup

2007-11-30T15:54:00.000Z

Ahhhhh VoIP, now there is a subject any self-respecting Sudo Masochist can spend long fruitless hours tinkering with !!!

I have a VoIP setup in my home/office. Parts of what I planned work, others do not.
I am surprised because I would have thought that what I am trying to do would be a relatively common requirement, with some decent documentation, but after many different attempts, I am still not sure if what I am trying is either conceptually impossible, or just unlikely to work because of bugs in the services and hardware that I use.

I have one PSTN line coming in, I have had this number for over 30 years, I do not wish to change it, it must be handled properly. Due to the mess that is the UK's telecommunications industry, it is not viable to port the number away from British Telecom, so I have to carry on paying them through the nose, just to be able to have calls coming in on that line.

I have accounts with 3 VoIP Providers, who between them give me the ability to make very cheap outgoing calls, a range of addressing schemes on which to receive incoming calls, voicemail that arrives via email, smart routing to the cheapest provider etc. etc.

The problem lies in merging the two.

I have a good quality ATA, a Linksys SPA3000. It can bring incoming PSTN calls into a VoIP network, and make PSTN calls from a VoIP network.

I have a good quality VoIP handset, a Linksys SPA 941, good build quality and physical controls.

What I'd like in the office, is to have one phone and one voicemail account, regardless of where the call originates from, or how it got to me. If I am out I need the whole lot to go to my mobile.

I am so close to getting this working, but the last part of the puzzle is still tantalisingly out of my reach ......

When a call comes in on PSTN, the SPA3000 is able to pass it through to one of the extensions of the SPA941 (also I can call out through this extension to the PSTN line via the SPA3000). What I cannot make work is to have the call forwarded to my VoIP voicemail box if it is not answered. I could make it go to practically any other voicemail box or phone in the world, but not mine, because the phone is registered to that account to be able to receive Message Waiting notifications, plus make and receive calls from that account.

You will not find this kind of detail in the glossy brochures ......

The only way I have found to make this work, and beleive you me, I have tried many, is to have calls coming into my office via PSTN, routed by the SPA3000 out over the net, via my Voice Service Provider and back to the SPA941 in my office.

I have the bandwidth for it, but it is a totally ridiculous way of working IMHO.

Part of the problem is the complexity and adaptivity of the technology.
The web configuration of Sipura products is the biggest html form I have ever had to use, it has no validation and the documentation is very poor (there are many parameters not even mentioned in the admin manuals).

The Voice Service Providers do not have Tech Support, they have online forums. In some it is rare to see any posting from an employee that is not a product or press announcement. What you do find is sporadic, often contradictory information from well-meaning but equally confused co-users of the service, each of whom are trying to set something up that is different from you.

A lot of what I hoped I could get working, works fine.
It is frustrating though, not to be able to deal with the last few details.

So even though you do not have to use the 'sudo' command much, I designate VoIP a fully-fledged Sudo Masochistic occupation :)

Sudo Masochist

2007-11-29T11:48:00.000Z

In a brainwave last night, I came up with a new pleasantly daft alter-identity.

What is a Sudo Masochist? Someone who gains dubious pleasure from the frustration of fiddling around on the Unix command line. [1]

( OK, I did warn you it was daft :) )

I always hated the command-line as a way of controlling a computer.

My first 3 computers, a Sinclair ZX81, Apple ][e then Apple ][gs all had to be controlled through the keyboard in one way or another ...... I always thought it was stupid, why have a computer if you have to struggle so hard to get it to do anything? The computer should be intelligent, not me !! (Which considering I was teaching myself 6502 Assembler, was pretty daft as well I guess).

My hate of the command-line was really reinforced when I did a short course in C programming at the then Polytechnic of Central London. None of us on the course learnt any C, we all struggled too much with the VaxVMS command-line and text editor to get anywhere with the language at all ...... anyway, I did not want to learn C, I wanted to learn Prolog (it sounded so much cooler) but I was the only person who elected to do the course that year :(

So then of course REAL computers came along!! I got a second-hand Mac IIci and thought: I am a confirmed GUI guy, I will never see the command-line again, and I was right for quite a long time ....... of course until MacOSX came along.

I use the command-line now of course, I suppose I grudgingly realise why it has survived all this time ...... I used to run MacHTTP on a Mac IIsi at Westminster University. I remember once an intense struggle in a hotel room in Melbourne on a slow modem and a long-distance call, trying to connect to it back in London via Timbuktu screen sharing, so I could click on a dialogue box which was blocking the OS.

So the other day I found myself doing a complete software download, compile, install and configure on a remote Mac via SSH of the Open Source CalDAV. Why? Because I was a bit bored and thought it might be interesting to play with.

Yup, I am a Sudo Masochist !!!!

On a whim this morning I grabbed the name on GMail :)
Much to my chagrin, the new account is immediately activated with IMAP available, and I am still waiting for it to be enabled on my main account :(

NB. For my non-geek readers, "sudo" is the command you use to pretend to be somebody else so you can issue a command on their behalf. Typically you pretend to be the 'root' user, the user who can do anything, even destructive things. Get a sudo command wrong and you can destroy your whole system.

Geek humour.

OMG !!

2007-11-28T23:36:00.000Z

I just received this :

> Dear Jeremy Quinn,

> Thank you for your session proposal(s) for ApacheCon 2008/EU.

> You have been selected as a speaker for ApacheCon Europe 2008.
> The following session(s) has/have been accepted and scheduled:

> (2416) 'Break My Site'

Oh My Gosh !!
I did not expect this talk to be accepted at all.
I gave it once before, with any luck I may have another case-study to add.

Thank You ApacheCon Europe 2008 Selection Panel (I think)

Something Nice

2007-11-23T12:55:00.000Z

At last, something nice to say about Leopard :)

Server Apache/2.2.6 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.6 OpenSSL/0.9.7l DAV/2

The Leopard Client has Apache 2 built in, hurray !!!!
Tiger had Apache 1.3.n which was not nearly so much fun :)

See : /etc/apache2/ for the configuration etc.

Ambiguous URLs

2007-11-23T11:21:00.000Z

(Oh dear, he is complaining again)

Flickr have released a new section on their website called Places.
It is all about browsing photographs in a geographical context, something I am pretty keen on ....

Such a shame then that they have done it all wrong :)

OK, so maybe not ALL wrong, but look at this example and tell me they got the URL hierarchy correct for the UK.

The URLs appear in this form :

http://www.flickr.com/places/COUNTRY/REGION/TOWN

looks sensible enough right? Until you see how it is used :

http://www.flickr.com/places/United+Kingdom/England/Brixton

OK, you say, so what is the problem?

Well in England there are at least two Brixtons that I know of, the one where I live in south London and one in Devon, near Plymouth. Do a search in the Places page and two Brixtons come up in the results, unfortunately they both have the same URL, and it points to the one in Devon.

I imagine this has happened to many places in Britain that share names.

IMHO it is the choice of regions in the UK that has caused this. Someone decided that the top-level regions in the UK are England, Scotland, Isle of Man, Channel Islands, Wales etc. Whereas I would say that from the point of view of wanting to disambiguate the URLs as much as possible, the names of counties should have been used.

Then we could have had :
http://www.flickr.com/places/United+Kingdom/Devon/Brixton
http://www.flickr.com/places/United+Kingdom/London/Brixton

While writing this and testing URLs I was playing with yesterday, I am seeing different results, so this indicates, I hope, that someone is tinkering, anyhow it was amusing yesterday to find that the place where I have lived for the last 30 years "does not exist on the planet".

As it is, the nearest I can drill down to my home is London, and this is a shame.

Leopard Peeves

2007-11-22T13:42:00.000Z

So, I just upgraded one machine to Leopard ...... here are my initial impressions.

The Stupid :

The translucent menu bar, bejebus what drugs were they on ?!?!?!?
It is so incredibly ugly !!!! Thankfully you can fix it easily, following these instructions.

The Broken :

The new Finder is OK I suppose, much too much emphasis on eye-candy for newbies IMHO (this is a general complaint I have against MacOSX).
What really pisses me off is that WebDAV Volumes on your local network, that broadcast their location using Bonjour "_webdav._tcp" do not show up in the 'Shared' section of the Finder's sidebar, until you manually mount it via the "Connect to Server" dialogue. I would call this a bug. I do not have a fix for this ATM.

The Crap :

Supposedly, Stacks were originally slated for Tiger, but withdrawn. I sincerely wish Apple had left them out of Leopard as well, specially as they have replaced perfectly good functionality with something far less capable. You used to be able to keep folders in the Dock, and have a menu of their contents popup, allowing you to navigate into nested folders. I used to keep my Home, Applications and the HD's root in the dock, allowing me to reach anywhere quickly. This was especially useful for quickly launching Applications you don't use often enough to keep in the Dock.
Stacks do not offer anything close. More fancy but useless eye-candy for people with like 20 documents. Totally unscalable with 100's of thousands of documents, specially as my Documents folder only contains folders at the top level. So now if I want something similar, I have more work to do, I have to manage folders full of aliases by hand, hmmm a great advance !!!!!

Spaces is interesting, but will take a while to get used to it's weirdness. What is badly needed IMHO is a contextual menu item for all windows, allowing you to move a window or all windows of a running application into a specific space. Dragging and dropping Exposé style miniature window proxies is too clunky. The officlal technique of "Move the pointer over the window, and hold down the mouse button while pressing the Control key and an arrow or number key." is totally bizarre !!! You'd need to be some kind of mutant contortionist! My hand is not big enough to hold down the control key and press arrows at the same time.

The Fix :
Oh joy, now I can finally type uninterrupted into Spotlight's search field!!! WOW!!!
You mean they could not fixed that in 11 updates of Tiger ????? GRRRR!

I sincerely hope that next time I write, I have something nice to say about Leopard !!!

Upgrading to Leopard

2007-11-22T13:09:00.000Z

Ahhhh, my 100th post :)

I upgraded my MacBook to Leopard last night, here's what I did :

1. Wait until Leopard's first update.
2. Backup my Installer CD to a DMG file using Disk Utility, put the disc away in a safe place.
3. Set up an external HD with two partitions, one of about 8 GIG for the installer, the other large enough for a backup of my MacBook.
4. Restore the Installer DMG to the 8 GIG partition using Disk Utility and verify it.
5. Boot from the new Installer partition.
6. From the installer, switch to Disk Utility, repair the MacBook's disk.
7. Restore the MacBook's disk to the large partition on the external drive and verify it.
8. Check the backup boots OK. (Or, AT LEAST check it comes up in the Startup Disk panel!!)
9. Perform the actuall install, I chose to do an "Archive and Install". It worked fine !!

Free Stuff

2007-11-11T20:05:00.000Z

I gave to a stranger today, it went really well.

This old but good Denon tape deck had been stored under the bed for years.
I had never got around to selling it second-hand, it always seemed like too much hassle.

I found someone who wanted it through the Lambeth branch of FreeCycle.
FreeCycle exists to keep stuff out of landfill, our societies are so awash with redundant goods, but as even eBay has show, everything is useful to someone, if only you could find them.

I might have found someone willing to buy it on eBay, but then you probably have to ship it, you worry about the money exchange, yadda yadda, for what I was likely to get it did not seem worthwhile. FreeCycle's rules are simple: recipient collects, no one pays.

Through FreeCycle I got immediate response from about 6 people. I emailed the person who wrote first, they collected it in the morning. It even turned out they lived across the road! I could have just put it out in the street after all (like everyone else does, grrr!).

Next, there's that bloody scanner I got years ago, that never worked with SANE reliably, there's bound to be somebody local who could use it . . . . .

Hello Tiger

2007-11-02T20:10:00.000Z

I had to replace my home server's broken Ubuntu. It is an ancient Mac Cube, so going back to MacOSX Tiger seemed like the easiest thing to do.

Using MacPorts, I installed Apache2, SVN, SSL etc.

With a WebDAV repository setup, I needed a way to broadcast it's URL over the local subnet using Bonjour, ironically for a Mac there did not seem to be a way to do it.

MacOS Client comes with a Bonjour Module for Apache 1.3, MacOSX Server comes with one for Apache2 (but I do not have it).
Linux can use mod_dnssd but as it is based on Avahi, I am pretty sure it won't work on MacOSX.

A bit of Googling and I found the dns-sd command. The man page says it is designed for testing only, but it seems to work fine, fired off once at startup.

I use this plist, placed in /Library/LaunchDaemons/


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
 <key>Debug</key>
 <false/>
 <key>Label</key>
 <string>org.fiveone.shared-dav-dns-sd</string>
 <key>OnDemand</key>
 <false/>
 <key>ProgramArguments</key>
 <array>
  <string>/usr/bin/dns-sd</string>
  <string>-R</string>
  <string>Shared-DAV</string>
  <string>_webdav._tcp</string>
  <string>local</string>
  <string>80</string>
  <string>path=/Shared/</string>
 </array>
 <key>RunAtLoad</key>
 <true/>
 <key>ServiceDescription</key>
 <string>Bonjour Shared</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Touchy Mods

2007-10-27T11:44:00.000Z

Someone asked me for more detail on the iPod Touch mods from my last blog entry.

But first, an aside :
One of the issues while writing in something like Blogger on the iPod touch or iPhone is that text entry can get a bit cramped.
I can be almost impossible to move the cursor to the top line.
You cannot select text, then click a button to do something to it, unlike the typical editing paradigm.
Writing rich-text editors that work in a web browser has never been easy, the new gesture interface of touch-type products is going to require some new thinking all round.

So, without copy and paste, text-selection, link buttons etc. I just could not be bothered to add links to my last blog post. Now I am writing this on my MacBook, it is less of a problem .....

Hacking My iPod Touch

I used iJailbreak, a pre-packaged set of jailbreak software, controlled by an AppleScript. Put together by AriX, a clever 13 year old (nice one lad).

There is next-to-no documentation, though do not let that scare you off, it is very easy and takes less than 10 minutes.

Following this vague run-through, I launched iJailbreak on a Mac, browsed the iPod to a URL for the famous TIFF exploit, then followed the steps I was asked to perform.

You need to re-boot the iPod several times during this procedure, so I recommend turning the Passcode Lock off (in Settings/General).

Lo and behold! There are several new icons in your home screen.

Delightfully, iJailbreak adds several of the applications from the iPhone that are missing on the iPod touch. Mail and Maps being the most noteworthy IMHO, as the mobile versions of Google Maps and GMail suck. I imagine Apple may not be too chuffed at this aspect of iJailbreak!

You can immediately start looking for more application to add, as iJailbreak thoughtfully adds the Installer package manager to your iPod.

I recommend that you first activate Sources/Community Sources, which adds a plethora of new applications to what is already there.

I immediately installed the lovely Sketches and the useful BSD Subsystem.

I had SSH'd into the iPod earlier, but found it did not have commands like 'ls' etc, so was not sure how I could use it, installing BSD Subsystem solves this.

You log in via SSH using the username 'root' and the password 'alpine'. These will be well known and I am not sure you can change the password or not. There clearly needs to be a way to turn SSH off!!

My final hack was to fix Calendar editing, the fix is here. I used Fugu on the Mac to log in to the iPod, navigate to the folder and make the edit via BBEdit, though this could have been done via SSH on the command line (now BSD Subsystem is installed).

So, I am happily using MobileMail to access my GMail account. MobileSafari is doing a great job. I read my RSS feeds using Google Reader, I find this is the best starting point.

I am watching recorded TV programmes streamed to my iPod from EyeTV.

I am controlling iTunes playback on my Mac with the music library, using Remote Buddy. Including control of which AirTunes speakers to play back through was masterful, not including access to iTunes Sharing is less so ......

ATM it looks like the iPod touch could be a really useful little general-purpose computer.

The situation is not stable however.

The TIFF exploit that allows the whole Jailbreak process to happen will surely be fixed soon, throwing everyone who updates back into the vanilla state again.

An official SDK is on it's way, but who knows what restrictions Apple will place on 3rd party application installation. For sure Apple won't like applications built-in to the iPhone appearing on iPods ......

What am I looking forward to?
Google turning on IMAP access more widely (I still do not have this option on my account).
MobilePreview getting PDF support so using MobileFinder etc. I can carry PDFs documentation around with me.
Some kind of MobileVLC or Perian video codecs for QuickTime so I can play more video formats.
A microphone hardware hack and a SIP VoIP client :-p

Update.
I confirm that my iPod continues to work fine (syncs with iTunes etc.) after I changed the default root password.
I only had to ssh in and run the 'passwd' command.

Impressed

2007-10-26T18:13:00.000Z

I am writing this on my new iPod touch, using Blogger.com.
This little machine is impressing the bejesus out of me.

It was easy to jailbreak.
I have MobileMail and Google Maps etc. from the iPhone running.
The MobileCalendar hacked to allow editing.
SSH, BSD, MobileFinder, Sketch and other goodies.

I am demoing Remote Buddy to control the sounds around the flat and streaming video from EyeTV.

Crikey!! And I even have some music on it!!

Hey! One day this will even be an open platform!

Grotty Gibbon

2007-10-21T14:10:00.000Z

Yes, they have done it again.

Ubuntu have rendered my server un-bootable after following the recommended upgrade path from Feckless Fawn.

I don't have time to mess around like this any longer, this I expect spells the end of my attempts to use Ubuntu.

iPhone SDK it's Official

2007-10-17T16:16:00.000Z

Apple released news that an iPhone (and iPod touch) SDK will be released in February 2008.

Well thank goodness for that!

I was becoming dismayed by the whole situation.
It seemed completely daft, Apple hampering such cool devices by not supporting 3rd party software.

I did not like the idea that Apple may move towards more closed platforms.

So greatly reassured, my iPod touch should arrive at the end of the month, it will be my first iPod.

After seeing stuff like Remote Buddy and hearing about the deal between FON and BT (I'm a Fonero) etc. it seems it could be useful for more than just portable media.

When in Rome

2007-10-10T17:13:00.000Z

I just got back from a very pleasant week in Rome at the Cocoon Get Together, catching up with old friends and colleagues.

I would really like to thank Simone Gianni and his team for doing such a great job of organising and running the event, plus Gabriele and Maurizio for various extra-curricular activities they arranged : )

Rome is a beautiful city, the weather was lovely, the last touch of summer (my photos so far).

I have just published the talk I was honoured to give, the other talks are available here.

Being such a guilt-ridden eco-freak (and having flown to the West Indies twice this year already) I decided to go by train. London to Paris on Eurostar, a night staying with friends, the Artesia sleeper to Rome the next night.

I love travelling on trains, you meet people. Our couchette compartment was a magnet all night for drink and wild conversation. British, Italians, French, Russians and Americans, it was a gas.

The downside is that it is really expensive compared to flying and our sleeper carriage was in a very poor state of repair. I was in the same carriage in both directions, it had 2 toilets, 3 washrooms. 2 of the washrooms had the door broken off, 1 toilet and washroom had no water.

But everyone was so nice about it : )

Nice Feel

2007-09-26T11:03:00.000Z

Had a play with the iPod touch yesterday at the Apple Regent St Store, (none for sale there until Friday).

Gosh !! It's really nice !!

Has a great feel to the device, really smooth operation.
One thing I found strange was the scrolling, I kept scrolling the wrong way !!
On a Mac, you scroll down by dragging the scroll bar down, on a touch, you scroll down by grabbing the content and dragging it up, it kept catching me out.

That home screen looks horribly empty though ....... there is a lot of missing functionality, it's weird that Apple would hamstring it in such a way. And it's looking like cracking the touch is proving a lot more difficult than the iPhone.

I saw two announcements for applications that really interested me :

Elgato's new version of EyeTV will stream video to the iPhone/iPod touch, it sets up a little streaming server on your Mac, you access it via MobileSafari. Watch your stuff wherever you can get a net connection, without filling up the device :)

Alloysoft has an application called Signal, another little server running on your Mac, which provides a web interface to MobileSafari to act as a remote control to iTunes on that machine. Looks like the only thing you can't do with it is switch the AirTunes speakers the mac plays to. This is pretty close to one of the items on my wishlist.

All very cool IMHO.

The Right Number

2007-09-24T14:12:00.000Z

I do not use spreadsheets very often.
I do not make graphs from data very often either.

However, I had to make some graphs for my talk at CocoonGT2007.

I used the new Numbers from Apple, part of iWork'08.

I was very impressed. Slick, fast, intuitive.
From never having used it before, I was making what I needed within minutes, you can't say better than that, can you?

I needed to use graphs made in Numbers, within my presentation made in Keynote (the reason I have iWork).
Copy & Paste did the trick obviously, but what got copied?
I expected it would either retain a live link with the original file (like OLE?) or that it would copy over an un-editable object.
Wrong on both counts, it copies a Graph Object that is still recognised by Keynote, allowing you to further edit data there, (or further fudge your results, as the case may be ....... not that I actually had to do that myself of course !! )

It is not perfect, there are a few bugs with the graphics engine etc., shared by the other iWork apps ..... little niggles ..... stuff they will hopefully fix soon ......

There is a 30 day free trial, give it a go.

Open Letter to TFL

2007-09-22T14:10:00.000Z

Sent to the TFL contact page :

I really like what you are doing with the Transport For London website. Being a Londoner I personally find it very useful.

To make planning public transport use in London even more easy, I implore you to consider supplying the necessary data feeds to enable Google Transit to work in London.

Please see the specification here.

As you can see, a growing number of cities are doing this.

Many thanks for your consideration.

I should have done this ages ago

All Busses Lead To Brixton

2007-09-22T13:49:00.000Z

I just noticed that Transport For London have a nice public-transport route-planner widget generator, that allows you to build a widget to place in your webpage, hard-coded with your location, to allow visitors to plan a route to you.

I just added it to my contact page.

Need I say, public transport is cheaper for you and your descendants than driving ......

Well done chaps !!

See You In Rome ?

2007-09-19T10:48:00.000Z

I am happy to say that my proposal for a talk at CocoonGT2007 in Rome, has been accepted !!

Here is the outline for the talk :

Break My Site -- Practical Stress Testing and Tuning of Cocoon Applications

It is best to know before you go live, whether your new site will stand up to the traffic you expect it to receive. There is only so much you can tell about the speed and capacity of a web project from browsing it by hand. This talk offers practical advice, garnered from real-life experience about how to measure and tune the performance of Cocoon applications, using free tools like JMeter, the Open Source load-tester from Apache.

The talk will cover, planning your tests, setting up the tools, advise on what data to capture, how to interpret it and some of the possibilities for tuning your project.

It will help you answer questions like :

How many users will it take to break my site ?
How can I handle more users, faster ?
How reliable will my site be ?
How can I measure the effect of my changes during development ?
How do I compare different implementations of the same functionality ?
How do I determine the right size for my server infrastructure ?

Many thanks to the GT team!!

The program looks very interesting as usual, here is the complete programme.

And now the good news

2007-09-16T12:31:00.000Z

My bank did the decent thing and paid me back for the money spent fraudulently on my debit card.
They also got a replacement card to me.

It was all very inconvenient plus I lost two days at work dealing with it, but it looks like it is all over.

PHEW!!!

Insecure Sharing

2007-09-13T11:36:00.000Z

Still trying to find a work-around for sharing calendars between multiple Macs, now that I have dropped .Mac (as unreliable).

I have a WebDav Server at home, running in Ubuntu on an old Mac Cube.
It is set up to only work via SSL with a self-signed certificate.

Once I had set the certificate to be 'Always Trusted' in KeyChain.app, iCal was able to publish the calendar via https://
Great I thought, I am on my way ......

The next step, subscribing to the calendar from another machine proved to be impossible, for some reason, iCal cannot subscribe via SSL, only publish.

WTF?

This is so dumb !!!

Did Apple do this on purpose to somehow 'promote' .Mac ?

Will they fix this in Leopard, with the new support for CalDAV ?

Eastbourne Man Edits World-Famous Book

2007-09-12T10:55:00.000Z

The (original) title of an article in a local Eastbourne newspaper, written by Howard and friends as a piss-take against all those in the town who never thought Dr. Howard Cunnell would amount to anything.

I spent a very pleasant evening at the Cunnell household last night.

One of the highlights being the chance to look at the new UK and US editions of "On the Road: The Original Scroll by Jack Kerouac". Currently receiving great reviews in the US literary press.

This is a new edition of the world-famous book, transcribed and edited from the original scroll, apparently far closer the original than the old edition.

Howard's first novel is on it's way, you can read most of it on his blog.

I hope this page continues to fill up !!

My Books

2007-09-06T21:24:00.000Z

Google added a personal book library feature.

You can add books from Google Book Search to your own library, then publish it.

I added some Philip K Dick, to mine.

Touch ?

2007-09-05T21:39:00.000Z

Nice iPod Touch

I have never had an iPod, though maybe I will one day

Now if only .......

could it play music over WIFI from other computers using iTunes sharing ?
could it play music over WIFI using AirTunes to remote speakers ?

the combination would make for a very nice music system

will we be able to write to the file system?
could MobileSafari read stuff like local webarchives or use the file:// protocol or run Gears, so you could carry stuff around with you?

can you play the music while you are browsing ?

is there a microphone ?

will someone compile VLC for it ?

I hope it is cracked as quickly as the iPhone was

Ripped Off

2007-09-01T15:33:00.000Z

Someone has been spending my money using my debit card and it isn't me.
Over £1000 in the last two days, in several cities in the USA.
I just found out this morning when I logged into my bank account to do my usual monthly financial chores.
Debit card is now cancelled, I will be without one now for up to 10 working days :-(
Have to go into my bank on Monday morning to try to get them to agree with me which payments were fraudulent.
Looking through my recent transactions to see if I can work out who nicked the card details .......

The good news, Apple Store in Regent St. have repaired my MacBook in less than a day. There was a crack in the case they have repaired for free. Thanks guys.

MetaData Madness

2007-08-30T16:05:00.001Z

So, I just got back from a 6 week holiday (fantastic, I'll write about it soon) with 5000 photos and a bunch of GPS tracks, so what happens now?

I use Aperture on my home iMac/24 for most photo management, but it does not 'fit' on my MacBook, so while on this trip with camera and laptop, I though I'd use Image Capture and iPhoto 6 to manage the photos.

Every couple of days, I'd plug in the camera, get Image Capture to just copy files to a folder, with no processing. Next import them in to iPhoto (with the preference to NOT copy to iPhoto's folder) so it is easier to begin viewing, selecting and showing the photos. Next I'd plug in the GPS and copy off the latest tracks using gpsbabel+.

Back home I then went through the whole lot in iPhoto, deleting from the Film Rolls the photos I'd never want (about 50%). I quickly realised that deleting a photo from a roll in iPhoto and emptying iPhoto's Trash did not result in the original being deleted, so I'd have to use iPhoto to export my selection. This was when I realised that I had tweaked a few photos in iPhoto, and after export, they had lost their colour profile and a bunch of exif tags (naughty naughty, even revert did not restore the missing data!!). I would need another way of extracting my complex selection from iPhoto, to import into Aperture.

I had a look in my iPhoto Library Originals, the Rolls were being kept as folders of aliases to the originals, so it was a simple matter of selecting the aliases (iPhoto had been deleting aliases of deleted photos), right-clicking to choose Show Original, resulting in a new Finder window with the originals selected, which can now be labelled for later extraction.

The next step was geotagging the photos from the GPS tracks. They were incomplete (see here) so I did not want to use a completely automated technique (like this). Instead I decided to buy a license for HoudahGeo. One by one, I imported the Rolls, then imported the GPX files that covered that time period. Usually about 50% of the images needed geotagging by hand. This was often because the photos were taken at anchor with the GPS turned off, so it was just a question of selecting multiple images and then choosing a map location for them all in one go. The final step was to reverse-geocode the images ...... a nice little trick in HoudahGeo, it looks up the location in a geocode database online, and fills in the Country and City EXIF tags (great for Smart Folders in Aperture!!).

Now I am finally ready to import the images into Aperture. (One big nuisance with Aperture is the inability to write Latitude and Longitude into images. It has to be done before import.)

I decided that I would retain the grouping by Roll. I made a folder in Aperture for "Trips/Caribbean/Projects" and imported each roll as a project. Next I made Smart Folders for each country in "Trips/Caribbean" then moved those to "Trips/Caribbean/Locations". (Make them first, then move them, or they will not work).

Now I can start making Albums for different purposes, images to give to friends, images to make a book for the boat to say 'thanks', images for Flickr etc.

MetaData Madness, maybe, but I am convinced that looking after the metadata will pay dividends in the future.

Things to remember :

GPX files are always marked up in the UTC +0 timezone, even if you change the display timezone on the GPS (so I do not change mine).

If you move across timezones and you change the timezone of your camera, always remember to take a photo of the current (UTC +0) time on the GPS, so you know the offset to enter when you use automated geotagging tools.

The Finder, Spotlight etc. automatically convert image creation times to your local timezone set on your Mac, so if you want to use Smart Folders to select complete days of photos you will get an offset unless you switch your Mac to the timezone the camera was in (and restart the Finder).

Editing Tracks in GE

2007-08-30T13:39:00.000Z

It is possible to edit GPS Tracks imported into Google Earth, but it is not obvious or intuitive.

Lets say you opened a GPX file (imported from a GPS) in Google Earth, you'd have a new entry in in 'My Places', probably called 'GPS Device'. Keep on burrowing down through 'Tracks', "ACTIVE LOG n', finally to the 'Path'.

Right-click on the 'Path' and choose the 'Get Info' menu item.

Your path is now in editing mode (weird huh?).

In the dialog, you can change the colour of the path etc. etc. but in the main window, you may now edit the path (eek dialog, go away!!).

There are several different cursors.
The square cursor will add a new point, after the currently selected point (not easy to know which this is). This may be used to insert a new point between existing ones, or add a new point at the start or end.
The hand cursor appears when you mouse-over a point, this can be used to move it.
Hold down the Control key and click on a point to delete it.

That is all I found out about by playing.
I could not work out how to select or delete multiple points or anything advanced like that.
I do wish the guys at Google would let someone who knows Adobe Illustrator show them how path editing works there, it is far superior :)

NB. This is for the Mac version of GE, I am running 4.2.0180.1134 (beta).

Simplifying GPS Tracks

2007-08-30T10:44:00.001Z

Anchoring
Originally uploaded by sharkbait.

In my last post I talked about needing a tool to simplify GPS tracks, to remove the spikes and squiggles you get from inaccuracies in the GPS readings and stuff like swinging around on anchor chains.

Here is an image from Google Earth showing us anchoring. There are two tracks, one containing the full data, one showing the simplified data.

I think together they show quite well how a boat moves over time on an anchor.

I simplified the track using gpsbabel :

gpsbabel -i gpx -f 20070806.gpx -x position,distance=6m -o gpx -F 20070806-dist-6.gpx

This gets gpsbabel to filter the track, removing points that are closer than 6 meters together.

I went through a bunch of different distances, 6 meters gave me the most pleasing results, but the correct distance is probably going to be related to your speed.

This filtering makes almost no difference to the shape of the main track curve, only to the heavily crowded parts of the track where we were close to stationary.

GPS Shenanigans

2007-08-29T14:20:00.000Z

I had a GPS (Garmin GPSMap 60CSx) for the first time, to take on a long sailing holiday, to be able to geotag all of the photos I took and maybe publish some tracks to Google Earth.

How did it go?

Not all plain sailing ....... here are some of the issues.

Maps were the first problem. The basemap on my GPS, showed no landmasses for most of the islands in the West Indies. I had managed to find a good Open Source map of the area just before leaving, but was unable to load it onto the device.

The first problem (got stuck on this while away) was I had updated MacOSX to a version that broke USB connectivity in Parallels (needed to run the MapsSource uploader), so the GPS was never going to connect to Windows. The few net connections I found while away were so bad I was not able to find this out, let alone solve it until I returned.
Once that problem was solved, I tried to upload the maps. Windows would crash after about 10 minutes (of 40) of uploading. No go, must be an instability in Parallels. Next I tried the new beta Mac MapInstall from Garmin. It just refused to do anything.
I finally got to run MapSource under VMWare Fusion instead of Parallels, the transfer worked first time. I have the map on a chip now, but of course I am no longer in the West Indies :)

The next problem was battery life.
When I was doing my online research before buying my GPS, I saw many otherwise attractive units with stated expected battery life of like 3 hours. That is so useless I have no idea why anyone would buy one. I was attracted to the Garmin unit I bought, because it was supposed to have a 40 hour battery life on two AA batteries, still too short IMHO, but becoming reasonable.
As it turns out, 40 hours is an outright lie. With two high power throwaway batteries, you would be lucky to get 10 hours. I do not like to use disposable batteries, so I bought a set of the highest power rechargeable batteries I could find, Nickel Metal Hydride rechargeables with a stated 2700 mAh capacity. The unit has a special setting for Ni-MH batteries (lower voltage, run slower) but I would struggle to get 5 hours.
Keep in mind this is 5 hours of the unit just making a track, not 5 hours of heavy interactive usage, calculating routes, displaying complex maps!!! 5 hours is not enough. It became too difficult to keep batteries charged and changed (power is always a bit ropey on a boat).

So I have ended up with incomplete tracks of my trip, very frustrating considering how much money I paid and effort I put in.

I have now geotagged all of my photos (using HoudahGeo), the tracks did help.
Next I'd like to play with making them into KMLs for Google Earth.
One problem I am facing is if you leave the tracking on while stationary, you get a rat's nest of spikes and squiggly lines as the boat swings on it's anchor and/or the accuracy of the GPS varies. Now I need a good track editor (suggestions anyone?).

What will I do differently next time?

1. Prepare maps before I leave.
2. Bring an adaptor that allows me to run the GPS off the boat's 12V power supply.

Offer

2007-08-26T10:54:00.000Z

I got this email :

> Hi Jeremy,
>
> I am interested in advertising on your web page: Credit Card Craziness
>
>The ad would be for a credit card directory, and it would consist
> of a 2-3 lines of text with links to their web site. I can pay you $35
>for the ad, and send it via PayPal, or check.
>
> Would you be interested?

I guess I am slightly flattered, however I said "thanks but no thanks"

Never heard of this before

Aperture & Google Earth

2007-06-13T23:00:00.000Z

You have photos in Aperture that have GeoTags in their EXIF data and you'd like to view these locations in Google Earth?

Here is an AppleScript to do it :


on run
  tell application "Aperture"
    set theSelection to selection
    set theImage to item 1 of theSelection -- get the first selected image
    try -- there might not be geotags in the photo
      set lat to value of EXIF tag "Latitude" of theImage -- get the latitude
      set lon to value of EXIF tag "Longitude" of theImage -- get the longitude
      tell application "System Events" -- find out if Google Earth is running
        set isRunningGE to (name of processes) contains "Google Earth"
      end tell
      if isRunningGE then -- only do this if GE is running, it is such a hog at startup
        tell application "Google Earth" -- switch to Google Earth
          activate -- bring Google Earth to the front
          set viewInfo to GetViewInfo -- get the current view
          set latitude of viewInfo to lat -- set the new latitude and longitude
          set longitude of viewInfo to -lon -- bug in Aperture 1.5.n, reverses the Longitude
          SetViewInfo viewInfo -- go to the new view
        end tell
     else
       display dialog "Launch Google Earth first please" with title "Show on Google Earth" buttons {"OK"} with icon stop
     end if
   end try
  end tell
end run

Save this as a script called "Show on Google Earth" in ~/Library/Scripts.
Enable the Scripts Menu (if necessary) using /Applications/AppleScript/AppleScript Utility.app.
Select a photo (with Lat/Lon) in Aperture.
Select the script from the Scripts Menu.

Google Earth needs to be launched first.

Enjoy.

Geo Workflow

2007-05-20T17:21:00.001Z

Geo Workflow
Originally uploaded by sharkbait.

I used to have Aperture setup to import photos when my camera was plugged in, but now I have a GPS that I take on photo trips, I need a new workflow.

Sigurd Buchberger at ScriptaMac.at makes two Automator plugins. One for importing data from a GPS unit or a GPSx file, the other for geo-tagging images with the GPS track data.

Here is a screen shot of my Automator Workflow. It gives you an idea of the kind of thing you can do.

The other option I am looking at is a Workflow that reads straight off the GPS and reads straight off the Camera, which would be triggered by plugging the camera in. I'd need to plug the GPS in first, and use two USB ports.

Credit Card Craziness

2007-05-18T12:11:00.000Z

I have a credit card through my bank, Nationwide.
I recently forgot to make the monthly repayment on the card.

I started receiving phone calls from an automated IVR system, to my mobile and my home phone, every few hours, asking me to enter personal information. I declined to accept the opportunity to provide my details to a possible phishing scam.

I reported the issue to the bank, via their online secure message system. An hour later I logged in again to see if I had a reply. The original message had mysteriously been deleted.

Curiouser and curiouser.

I finally managed to get through to the Credit Card department and confirm that it was actually them calling me.

They really expected me to respond to a cold call from an automated system by typing sensitive account details into my mobile? This is such a bad idea !!!! It opens up a whole new phishing vector.

Nationwide 'lost' account details of 1000's of their customers recently, in the light of the current onslaught of bank phishing scams, whoever proposed contacting customers in this way must be mad!!

BTW. If you do manage to break into my bank account, could you pay off my overdraft please : )

Getting there

2007-05-02T10:05:00.000Z

It is great having access to more and more route planners. The free Google products, my new GPS with European road maps etc.

However, unless you live in an area covered by Google Transit, Google only helps with planning routes for car drivers. My last car was turned over in the Brixton riots in the 1980's and caught fire soon after while driving past Downing Street. So Google's planners are only useful to me on the rare occasions when I hire a car or get a lift.

My Garmin has a route planner that allows you to specify (from an inconveniently deep menu) Pedestrian, Cyclist etc. which is a bit more useful ..... at least I can plan a walking route that keeps me off main roads.

With private transport having such a high environmental and geo-political cost, the time has come for public transport route planners.

Take London for instance, Rail, Tube, Bus, Tram & Ferry all run under the auspices of Transport for London. Even bus stops have a display telling you which buses are on their way and how long they will take to arrive. TfL have a nice little planner online, but it could go much further.

If a combination of routes, timetables and live-tracking data could be made available to GPS-based devices, public transport route planing would become a reality.

Imagine your hand-held GPS being able to warn you : "If you don't leave home in 5 minutes you will miss your bus and be 15 minutes late for work". Or your in-car GPS on nearing a Tube station on your route, telling you how much money and carbon dioxide you'd save by parking here and taking public transport.

Why stop at London, I'd like to see this for the whole UK, or any region that has a reasonably well integrated public transport system.

If halting the effects of global warming requires concerted action from every individual, then we individuals need to tools to help us do that. Smart public transport route planning could be one of those tools.

Food for thought, Mr Livingstone ?

Where am I ?

2007-05-01T20:31:00.000Z

I finally bit the bullet and bought a gadget I have been bursting for, for years, a hand-held GPS. I have little real need for one, but I am a map fetishist (you should see the maps on every wall of my flat!!).

Support for GPS on Macs has never been great, which is why I have held off so long, but Garmin is beginning to fix the situation by releasing the first of a few necessary applications (no map uploads yet).

I bought the Garmin GPSmap 60CSx, with a European streetmap on a Mini SD card. It uses USB, where there is even less support on the Mac, because Garmin never released a driver. However, surprisingly several shareware/freeware products (see below) can access it.

I am (mostly) very happy with the device ...... there are some problems though ...... doing postcode lookups is often not reliable, Garmin tech support say it is impossible to backup the expensive data on the Mini SD card etc. etc.

My main usage so far has been route navigation and geotagging photos.

Nick and I drove down to Cornwall for Easter, we used my GPS for navigation, it was impressive ..... smooth and intuitive. Nick said it worked a lot better than his older unit, specially inside houses and cars.

When I go out taking photographs, I take the GPS. I set it up to record my track. When I get home I can merge the GPS track and the photos, to add location info to the photos meta data. TIP: Take a photo of your GPS's time display before you start, so you know the time difference between them.

Here is some of the software I have been using :

The wonderful GoogleEarth Plus ($20 paid-for version). Adds a GPS Menu under Tools that reads tracks, waypoints and routes from your GPS and plots them in GE. Why on earth Google did not implement WRITING TO THE GPS I have no idea (hey guys please fix this!!).

I started adding my favourite restaurants around Brixton to the GE Community (I hope I can still get a table).

The venerable Swiss Army Knife of GPS, GPSBabel can read and write to the unit plus convert between file formats, it even has a half decent GUI wrapper.

There is a pretty looking geotagging tool called HoudahGeo, you can use it to merge GPS tracks with photos.

There are some Automator plugins for reading GPS data and geotagging photos, I have not tried them yet, but hopefully soon I can get around to making an application that will automatically download my photos and tracks, geotag and import the photos into Aperture.

Hotel WIFI

2007-04-29T13:28:00.000Z

I have been travelling and staying in hotels recently, while giving training courses in Apache Cocoon.

I stayed in Lincoln for a week, at the disgusting Travel Inn on Canwick Hill. Nasty, ugly, bland, expensive bad food. The crowning insult, being forced to pay £70 for a week's worth of poor WIFI usage in my room. Not only the ridiculous price, but it forced me to re-log in all the time!!

Why do hotels charge for WIFI?
Do we get separate bills for clean sheets, water, electricity?
WIFI should be seen as a service that comes with your bill like any other.

I just got back from giving a course in Brighton.
I stayed at the extremely fun Hotel Pelirocco in Regency Square.
Totally opposite to the Travel Inn experience, a fun, friendly, wacky place ...... each room a different theme, I stayed in the Bowery room, dedicated to the performance artist Leigh Bowery, decorated by his wife and the Kinky Girls' room, complete with handy bondage gear (though not exactly my taste : )

And the other big difference?
I get to my room, wake up my mac and it instantly connects to their free WIFI.

MacOSX Finder Bugs

2007-04-29T12:03:00.000Z

There is a very nasty bug in MacOSX Finder, it has caught two of my friends out now ......

I have several non-computer-savvy friends who have started using Macs, I help them with their systems.

I get a phone call saying "All my files have disappeared !!! HELP !!!!", with the implication "You feckwit I thought you said Macs were more reliable !!".

After some discussion, trying to wheedle out of them what they did, I hear that they used the Finder to change the name of their Home Folder. The stupid Finder lets the user do this, and nothing bad happens, until they restart.

When they log in again, using their old credentials, the home folder for that user name no longer exists, a new one is automatically made, and lo and behold, it appears like they have lost everything.

The Users section of the NetInfo database still contains the path to the old user folder name, changing the name in the Finder does not update NetInfo.
The Finder should NOT LET YOU DO THIS!!!!!

The next big source of "I have lost my files" horror, is new users moving or renaming stuff in their iPhoto or iTunes library using the Finder.

Both of these problems could be fixed in the Finder ......

First, renaming the user home should not be possible from the Finder, as doing so is 100% guaranteed to break your system.
Secondly, the iTunes and iPhoto libraries should by default be treated as Packages, not folders (then if a savvy user legitimately needs to browser those folders, they can still get in).

Please get to it Apple.
We need a fix for Panther and Tiger ASAP !!