The web can be useful with Blazer for Palm Centro and Treo
This is going to sound like blasphemy but here's the deal: I'm not convinced we need full-sized Safari web browsing on our phones. Why not? Because we browse the web in different ways and for different reasons when we are on the road vs. when we are at our home or office.
At home or work we are looking at much larger screens (often as large as a television) and have plenty of room for 4 column layouts for newspapers and blogs and fast enough processors to handle large flash movies and rich media. We are also sitting down and have more time available for browsing.
On the road we are most likely searching for something specific and want to get it as quickly as possible: directions to a restaurant, news or weather updates, or a wikipedia definition to a word you're arguing with someone about.
We don't need to be scrolling all over creation to get to the answer (even if it is fun) -- we need it presented quickly and plainly.
As such the Blazer browser still isn't that bad for reaching these goals but in order to do so you need to actually turn off a few factory defaults. First, here is an example of the problem in action: Websites that have not made a mobile style sheet often render poorly in Blazer:
Other problems include errors from sites that deliver content via AJAX or JavaScript that require multiple clicks to dismiss (ahem, twit.tv, cough...).
All of the fixes can be found on the General tab of your browser preferences:
Reloading our sample wikipedia page shows it now is quite readable (and loads quickly!):
Posted by Aaron R. Deutsch on | Comments (1)
Guitar Hero III (GH3) For Mac, some important notes
Announced Sept 11, 2007, Released December 11 and patched December 20, and patched again in May, Guitar Hero III has finally landed on the Mac platform.
Being the furthest tentacle out on this gaming franchise (with xBox 360, PS2, Wii and Windows generally taking priority) there are a few questions that don't seem to have easy-to-find answers.
Bronzefinger shall attempt to answer what it has learned thus far:
Q: Will Guitar Hero III run smoothly on my iBook/iMac/MacBook/etc.?
A: I know a lot of us are in a state of denial about this game's system requirements because they are so slap-you-in-the-face high. In fact, many people are disregarding these and buying the game anyway and then experiencing the pain of lags and stutters. Don't believe me? read the reviews at Apple.com and weep.
The MINIMUM system requirements:
- Operating System: 10.4.10 (Tiger), 10.5 (Leopard)
- CPU Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo
- CPU Speed: 2 GHz
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Hard Disk Space: 5.1 GB + 1 GB Swap File
- Video Card (ATI): Radeon X1600
- Video Card (NVidia): Geforce 7300
- Video Memory (VRam): 128 MB
- Media Required: DVD-ROM
- Macintosh mouse and keyboard
- Official Guitar Hero X-Plorer Guitar Controller
RECOMMENDED SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
- CPU Speed: 2.33 GHz
- Memory:2 GB RAM
- Video Memory (VRam): 256 MB
The key here is really the graphics card -- most MacBooks, MacBook Pros and early Mac Pros video cards DO NOT MEET THE MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENT and they WILL cause the game to stutter.
Here are a few real-world examples from the Bronzefinger stable:
Guitar Hero III for Mac, patch 1.1 installed, all other programs off:
MacBook Pro (dual 2.16Ghz, 2GB RAM, 250GB HD, 64MB Graphics Card (BELOW SPEC!)):
Plays the first two levels up to the prison just fine with effects off. Then songs will fairly regularly suffer from visual slowdowns that are bad enough to not be able to play through them "by ear"
Mac Pro (quad 2.66Ghz Xeon, 5GB RAM, 500GB SATA HD, 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 7300GT (Aspyr support says this card is below spec but their website says it's supported)):
No visual difference between screen resolutions so play widescreen at the lower resolution. All effects on and mostly smooth gameplay but when panning through the crowd in the Japanese Superdome and the Desert Rock tour the screen will stutter slightly.
Q: Are there downloadable songs for this game like the PS2 version?
A: No.
Q: Can I play my friends online?
A: RedOctane states in their online F.A.Q. that online game play is NOT available between consoles, so you can NOT play online with your xBox or Wii friends.
Q: Since this came with an XBox USB guitar can I use the XBox wireless guitar or PS2 Guitar (since it uses a USB adapter)?
A: No. The official word from Aspyre is:
"The Guitar that we support for this game is the X-Plorer USB Guitar Controller. The Playstation 2 controllers will not work properly, even with the adapter. There have been many reports of compatibility problems with the PS2 controller. So, the X-Plorer (wired) USB Guitar Controller is the only controller that we support for GH3.
You can, however, dress your guitar up a bit with vinyl covers from a variety of sources including iStyles.com.
For owners of GH3 on other systems you can find a handy chart of guitar compatibility in the scorehero forums
Q: What does "NOTICE: This game contains technology intended to prevent copying that may conflict with some disk and virtual disk drives." mean?
A: In an act of customer loathing Aspyr has employed some kind of copy protection that requires that your install DVD be inserted into your machine in order to run the game. It appears that it is only used as a check to prove you "own" the game and is not used to play the actual game -- so you don't have to worry about it decreasing performance due to the slower read speeds of optical drives.
This does, however, create quite a few opportunities to scratch your disc (either by the drive mechanism or general storing/retrieving). If this happens you're off to the Activision/RedOctane/Asypre maze to figure out how to get a replacement disk all the while you're w/o the game you purchased.
It appears that this software can tell if you've made a local .dmg or .iso copy and similarly can tell if you have inserted a copy of the disk into your optical drive meaning that you can ONLY play your game by validating it with the actual DVD that came in the box from the store -- you can not use a copy even if it was an exact disc-to-disc copy.
Update 28 March 2008: The "unofficial" way to protect your original Guitar Hero III Disc is to not use it at all. For as long as it is available you can check on this thread for instructions. They would be post #7, #20, #25 and #33, roughly in that order.
Update 22 August 2008: After some more testing and tweaking I have found a better way to play Guitar Hero III "on a Mac". Here it is, with a touch of irony: http://www.bronzefinger.com/archives/2008/08/gh3-on-a-mac.html
Posted by Aaron R. Deutsch on | Comments (0)
Keep Your Server Connections Alive with OS X
If you connect to servers via SSH or SFTP you may get disconnected by your router which can lead to having to log back in dozens of times throughout a days work.
There is a system-wide fix that you can apply using Terminal in OS X 10.4 and 10.5.
Drawing on Almaer.com's suggestion here is what I discovered:
- enable your root user (sudo passwd root) and su -
- open the file /etc/ssh_config in a text editor like pico
- Add this line to your config file: ServerAliveInterval 300
keywords: Keepalive, timeout, ssh, os x tiger, os x leopard, Terminal, Transmit, Fetch, MacSFTP Carbon, Fugu
Posted by Aaron R. Deutsch on December 7, 2007 | Comments (0)
Just a reminder of how important good icons are
And how lousy the defaults are for the Palm Garnet OS
Launcher Before (possibly the ugliest screen I've seen on any mobile device)
Launcher After (If you have a high-res screen use it!)
Posted by Aaron R. Deutsch on November 9, 2007 | Comments (1)
How to migrate SD cards on a Palm Treo with Mac OS X
If you're like me you like to have one expansion card that holds everything, not a handful that you have to carry around and swap all the time. Using OS X and a card reader you can migrate all of your data in three easy steps and be right back on the road with more storage.
STEP ONE: back up your data using Disk Utility
Make a disk image of your existing SD card. You can use a USB card reader or Palm software that mounts the SD card on your desktop. You can see my disk was called RICOCHET and I made my backup selection after single clicking on that disk in the left column. Disk Utility created a new .dmg of my SD card called disk4s1.dmg. You can choose to name this anything you like.
STEP TWO: format your new card
You can use the Card Info program on your Treo or you can use Disk Utility on your mac. If you use Disk Utility you need to choose "MS-DOS File System" so that it will use the FAT32 format.
STEP THREE: Use disk utility to "restore" your old disk image to your new SD card
In the "restore" tab of the Disk Utility dialogue you will simply drag-and-drop your freshly formatted SD card into the "Destination" box and your .dmg backup (disk4s1.dmg in my case) to the "Source" box and click "Restore"
Once the process is done you can eject the disk and you're set to go.
Notes:
- If you have an old Treo 700p you may need to update your firmware to allow it to recognize SDHC cards of 4GB and greater.
- Not all SDHC cards are created equal. I picked up a Kingston Class 6 SDHC card and it would freeze up half way through copying files to it and completely crashed my mac when accessing it via Disk Utility. An off-the-shelf SanDisk 4GB SDHC card was plug and play and worked immediately without a fuss. It is apparently only a "class 2" so we'll see how the speed holds up while playing TV on it.
Posted by Aaron R. Deutsch on October 23, 2007 | Comments (0)
Treo Launcher crash+burn: How NOT to update your phone, and an example of how you will need your backups
So you know all about the iTreo launcher that I configured over the weekend. I was so excited about updating my phone that I threw out one of the golden rules of tech upgrades and instead of doing one thing at a time I went on a rampage:
- Updated Chatter
- Installed new Card Reader app
- Installed new USB Modem app
- Installed new kMeteo app
- Rearranged categories
- Renamed infrequently updated applications (thanks to Resco Explorer)
After making all of these changes I picked up a new battery and swapped it out. In doing so the phone obviously had to reboot. When it did you can imagine my surprise when it went into an infinite reboot loop.
Various soft resets didn't work -- the only answer was a hard reset which meant wiping all the data, prefs, etc. off the phone. Game over? Not quite, but it took a fair amount of science to bring it back to life where it should have been.
Thanks to Resco Explorer I had a backup from a few weeks prior (though it reminded me I should do weekly backups of the phone like I do my computer). So here was the methodical walk-through to identify what the problem was in the stack of possibilities above.
1. Restored phone from most recent backup on SD card
2. Set desktop sync software to overwrite handheld with important info like calendar and addy book (to make sure it's all fresh and the sync doesn't go awry
3. Make a new backup (backup #1 -- after Resco Explorer makes a backup it soft resets the phone so this also acts as a test of whether or not the changes affected the phone. If they did I would have to do a "hard reset" again and restore the phone from a previous backup.)
4. Set new categories (backup #2)
5. Install kMeteo and Chatter update (backup #3)
6. Install Treo Launcher (but don't configure) (backup #4)
7. Configure Treo Launcher to be default plus all prefs, backgrounds and icons ( backup #5)
8. Name all icons properly so the phone, as a whole, works (but doesn't have preferred app names) (backup #6)
9. Rename pssh to Terminal (replacement icon wouldn't show with default name) (backup #7)
10. Rename remaining apps and icons (backup #8) (phone crashed and previous backup did not work, revert to version 6)
11. Rename just DictionaryToGo to Dictionary (backup #8.1)
12. Rename just LJP to Nintendo (backup #8.2)
13. Rename kMeteo to Weather (backup #8.3) (confirmed crash, kMeteo the culprit. restore to 8.2 and do not rename)
14. Perform final desktop sync, make backup (#9), and run with it
The moral of the story:
- Keep regular backups of anything important!
- Do not update too many things at once or it will complicate the troubleshooting process. This goes for all electronics.
Posted by Aaron R. Deutsch on | Comments (1)
One Last (Long) Gasp For Garnet
I was thinking about new software lately and pondering the $20 mail-in rebate for pre-ordering Mac OS 10.5 from Amazon.com when I stopped myself in my tracks and remembered the release of 10.4 and all the programs it broke.
Much like Microsoft, Apple is now breaking your computer with each and every software release. The big difference between the two is that Microsoft tries (in vain) not to break things while Apple relentlessly exploits new hardware rendering all old versions obsolete.
After growing accustomed to being productive I've decided to sit this round out for a few months and have someone else compile a list of everything that doesn't work and then make a calculated move into the future. Regular consumers have become such a great test lab that they're unwittingly included in "beta testing" for pretty much any new technology that hits the market.
And this is the very reason I realized that it was time to give my Treo one last booster shot to get me through the release of the Palm Linux, not to it.
Though Palm promises an Apple-like experience in the migration (there will be a "classic environment" in which to run old Palm Garnet apps) this kind of strategy is a crutch and we shouldn't have anything to do with it. Instead we'll need to watch and wait (some more) for new applications to come along and fill our launcher back up to it's previous glory.
So until then, Garnet works but needs to look a little better. I set out on a mission this week to find a way to display some wallpaper on the startup screen thinking that would be a quick and easy way to pretty it up a bit. It almost immediately (d?)evolved into a OS X-iPhone-KDE mash-up which not only made my phone look really slick but it also revealed one of the beautiful things about the rev 1 iPhone: if you are forced to simplify your launch screen you find the OS gets out of your way and you end up using your phone and tools more and tweaking it less.
Before:
What I was originally thinking: A simple wallpaper, though the problem of clutter still remains.
What it turned into: An all-out launcher replacement with wallpaper and custom icons:
Going back to large icons (which were always available on Palm) and having the ability to use the 5-way button to go left and right through categories forced me to rethink my applications. Now instead of having 5 categories, everything I do regularly is on the first screen, useful but less frequently used tools are on the 2nd screen and everything else is hidden. All of a sudden everything is a quick touch away, not multiple clicks and presses.
So how did we do it? Unfortunately it's not an installer package (partially due to potential copyright issues and also because I'm not a programmer) but here is a brief overview:
STEP ONE: FIND BACKGROUNDS
I found this page with 28 Mac OS X backgrounds on google. The Treo 700's screen resolution is 320x320 but 320x480 will work fine as the extra height will be cropped off. Below is the one I picked:
STEP TWO: FIND A NEW LAUNCHER
Sadly the built in launcher does not seem to support wallpapers on any screen but the phone screen (weird) and I couldn't find a way to "hack" one in via Resco Explorer so an outright launcher replacement was in order. ZLauncher, Silverscreen, VisualArts and others seemed really clunky and I was very happy to have found Treo Launcher ($12.95 Shareware). Out of the gates it's kind of ugly but it can be customized with wallpaper and custom icons if you have an external SD card to store them on (no internal storage right now...)
Note about wallpaper: Apparently the pnoJpegLib.prc is required to use a .jpg as a background image. It comes with TreoLauncher so you don't need to get it separately. The two advantages of .jpegs are:
1: most wallpapers you find will already be jpegs and won't require conversion and
2: They are a LOT smaller. My example .jpeg above is 16kb wheras a bmp of the same dimensions will be 528kb. Size still matters on small devices like this one.
STEP FOUR: FIND OR MAKE SOME ICONS
The option to use custom icons is particularly great because there are a handful of very popular apps out there (like pssh and Toccer) that don't have an icon and use a generic 3D blue box. By adding your own icon you can add that level of polish to the interface that should have been there from the beginning.
Speaking of polish, most Palm icons are pretty horrendous to begin with so it might be worthwhile replacing them all if you have the time.
If you are going to keep text beneath the icon you'll want to make a 57x57px photoshop file and only use the top-middle 48x48px square to get the effect illustrated above. You will want to save the icons as transparent .gif images with no background and follow the naming and filing instructions provided with TreoLauncher.
TreoLauncher also allows you to turn off the text giving you room for full iPhone-like 57x57px icons.
Most icons these days are getting shiny thanks to Apple's lead with OS X. I pulled a collection of photos from all over including forums, product pages, linux icon sets and google searches.
Here are a few of the main problems you'll run into with Palm icons:
Since you're making transparent .gif images you will run into the problems of a white haze showing around soft, anti-aliased edges. You'll want to trim your icons down as tightly as you can and save them with a matte color as close to your wallpaper as possible. Monochromatic wallpapers work best with this effect.
Any icon that has pure white in it will need to have a "replace color" done on it so that it's a few shades into light gray. For some reason pure white renders as clear even though it is not. The Treo's have very bright screens and the light gray will be solid and will still look white.
Once you're done and organized you can use the left-and-right buttons on the 5-way navigator to flick between screens:
IF YOU'RE GOING TO GO ALL OUT...: Check out the "For a laptop look and feel" section of an earlier article on the Treo 700p. It links to:
- Palm Revolt. Interface skins including OS X "Aqua"
- pTunes iTunes skin
Join the discussion about this and other Treo Launcher topics.
These custom icons, wallpapers, skins and interfaces seem to work with most Palm Treos including the Treo 600, Treo 650, Treo 700p and Palm Centro
Posted by Aaron R. Deutsch on October 19, 2007 | Comments (0)
How Similar are the Saeco Estro Vapore and the Starbucks Barista?
There are lots of words on the internet about Saeco discontinuing sales of their Estro Vapore espresso maker in the U.S. and instead selling them through the Starbucks brand as the Barista. This side by side photo probably states it as clearly as anyone can: the machines are identical except for the decals.
Related: A Hands-on comparison of coffee bean grinders
Posted by Aaron R. Deutsch on September 7, 2007 | Comments (7)
Dear Palm: It's time for an intervention
Here is an open letter to Palm written by Engadget via Digg. After hearing that Steve Jobs is an avid gizmodo reader one hopes that the Palm execs (or their administrative assistants) read the tech news as well as this letter is spreading like wildfire through the tech community.
The gist: Engadget has done, I feel, a wonderful job of summarizing Palm's victories in bringing useful and innovative products to market only to lose touch with what people want today. The company is still a favorite of many of us but seems like it is dooming itself to a slow and painful death while competitors slowly but steadily take the very market away that Palm invented.
Posted by Aaron R. Deutsch on August 21, 2007 | Comments (3)
Attention to Detail: Not Just Useful On The Outside
While I'm not sure that this would qualify as shoddy workmanship like some of the reported issues with MacBook Pro manufacturing, I thought the placement of this ribbon cable on the hard drive was interesting:
This was discovered while upgrading the HD to a 250GB model that had a different case configuration so there are no longer any blocked holes -- at least on this computer.
Posted by Aaron R. Deutsch on July 31, 2007 | Comments (0)
Ahhhh! Web 2.0!
Flailover: What you program for when non-new and fancy browsers discover and try to cope with your superfly interactive code.
Posted by Aaron R. Deutsch on July 29, 2007 | Comments (0)
Intuitive Technology. Still apparently really hard to do.
There are quite a few stories coming out about how easy the new iPhone is to use (complete with youtube videos of 1 year old kids navigating it). Some are actually criticizing the phone for this lowering of the technical proficiency bar one has to be at to use electronics -- essentially the same "dumbing down" argument against Apple's desktop OS X. Personally I think this is a great victory in UI and a rare deliverable on the promise of technology to make our lives a little easier.
It is easy to forget that the goal of technology isn't to create a thing that has the most features or to have the coolest looking blue lights -- it's to empower its owners to easily do more of something than they were able to before (more places to check email, faster cooking, etc.) or do something they have never been able to do before (send photos of something halfway around the world that they are looking at this very instant).
Requiring a degree in computer science to understand a top-level UI is an engineering failure on the grandest scale.
A good technology parallel to phone evolution might be microwaves. Both consumer goods followed an easy/hard/easy progression to get to where they are today:
MICROWAVES STAGE ONE: THE REBIRTH OF COOKING CONVENIENCE:
Microwaves appear on the scene transforming the kitchen with fast and easy cooking and reheating of food. It is intuitive: it's just like the oven-- stick your food in, turn a dial and you're off.
MICROWAVES STAGE TWO: TECHNOLOGY TO CONFOUND:
In an effort to show off the amazingly fine-grain modulation they have achieved appliance makers loaded up microwaves with an array of digital timers and an entire panel of non-alphabetical, non-intutive 'presets' for everything from popcorn to fish to steak au poivre. Simply setting a time went from a twist of the wrist to a 4-6 button exercise in memory and frustration (do I have to hit the power level first? why is it just counting down instead of cooking? How do I stop this damned thing?!)
MICROWAVES STAGE THREE: TECHNOLOGY DOES ITS JOB:
Technology is summoned to actually work for people once again. Microwaves are smart enough to detect what kind of food is inside and adjust accordingly, saving you the 300-page user manuals. For those who just want 30 seconds with no commitment the dial returns on some models. Now we just need to settle the argument of whether or not microwaved food causes cancer or not.
CELL PHONES STAGE ONE: THE REBIRTH OF CALLING CONVENIENCE:
Cell phones arrive and though thet are bulky and the service coverage isn't great they are simple and intuitive: the operation is identical to your home phone with the added convenience of being able to bring it with you.
CELL PHONES STAGE TWO: TECHNOLOGY TO CONFOUND:
Feature bloat and technology dead-ends abound. When you buy a phone you have no idea if you can add your own ringtones, if you'll be forced to email yourself photos to get them on your computer, or if it will even be stable. The rush to bring the personal computer, music player, camera, camcorder, gaming console, fashion accessory, gps, etc. into one device causes a car wreck that stalls traffic on the technology highway for years.
CELL PHONES STAGE THREE: TECHNOLOGY DOES ITS JOB:
iPhone. You pick it up and within a few short minutes you pretty much know what it does and can trust that the things it does will have been done well. In the not so distant future if you wish to add capabilities to it (like a compuer) you will be able to.
Posted by Aaron R. Deutsch on July 24, 2007 | Comments (0)
New Paper Shredding Technology Discovered
PROS:
- Environmentally friendly
- More ferocious than electronic shredders
- Built in entertainment value
- Does not overheat under normal operation
CONS:
- "Claw cut" less secure than "straight cut" or "cross cut" methods of shredding
- Easily distracted
Posted by Aaron R. Deutsch on July 13, 2007 | Comments (0)
Matias tactile pro 2.0 takes steps back
After almost three years of regular and hard use the keys started to stiffen up on the Matias Tactile Pro 1.0 keyboard and I thought I'd try out the newly released sequel.
Basically the entire review can be summed up as this: It's 4 steps backwards, one step sideways, and 0 steps forward.
The above image shows 3 steps backwards:
(1) One of the only two USB slots is now occupied by a gargantuan dual-USB cable used to plug the keyboard into the computer
(2 + 3) Matias decided to abandon the clean Apple aesthetic and spam up their keyboard with stickers
(3) This sticker is the kicker. It reads "USB 2.0 dock" and the box advertises it as being the greatest thing since sliced bread. Plug in all your fancy digital cameras and gadgets! Well, seeing how Apple mice have an extremely short cord the only thing you'll be getting at 40x the speed is your mousing action. WooHoo!
(4) The 4th step backwards was the removal of the light on the "caps lock" making it impossible to know whether you'll simply be typing OR YELLING.
Though this isn't an actual photo of my keyboard, the same flimsy feet were kept in the back. Step sideways: check.
Pretty much the only good thing I can say about this keyboard is that the mechanical keys are fantastic and luckily they are the sole reason I bought the keyboard. This comes with a 5 year warranty which from my experience (and keyboard usage) should outlast about 5 or 6 Apple Pro keyboards, which is good considering it's $150 price tag.
Posted by Aaron R. Deutsch on May 25, 2007 | Comments (19)
You CAN use 100% Recycled paper in any printer
Have you ever noticed that you simply can't find a ream of paper that is marked both "100% recycled" and "inkjet" or "laserjet"? Seems to be because it doesn't exist. Or does it?
A possible answer came by reading the back of a ream of "100% recycled copy paper" from Staples.
You can see that they have a little chart that helps you find the best paper for you and obviously points you to their more expensive "premium" papers for all things. But you'll notice that they have used a very carefully written phrase for their top-of-the-line printing paper:
"heavier weight, ENHANCED CLARITY for laser and inkjet printers"
Reading between the lines this suggests that you absolutely could use any of their papers in your inkjet or laserjet printers, but that you probably wouldn't want to.
Look, it is true that the pores of the premium paper are tighter (less ink bleed, better clarity) and the paper is thicker and more white (better color) but if you don't need it for quality prints from your digital camera or presentations for a project you'd be doing everyone a favor by using the recylced paper. Maybe toss the recylced in one tray and the premium in the other so you can switch depending on the job.
So far I'm one ream in (printing on both sides) of 100% recycled paper with an HP LaserJet 1012 and have had no problems with performance, clogging, etc. I will report back if this changes but I don't expect that it will.
For the record here is how recycled papers help:
30% Recycled "copy" paper
- 30% fewer trees used
- 13% less energy used
- 11% fewer greenhouse gas emissions
- 14% less water used
100% Recycled "copy" paper
- 100% fewer trees used
- 43% less energy used
- 36% fewer greenhouse gas emissions
- 49% less water used
Posted by Aaron R. Deutsch on May 11, 2007 | Comments (0)
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