Steve Jobs passes.

By Michael Quinn in Apple, Blogging Tags: ,

I saw the notification from CNN pop up on my iPhone sometime around the hour. Steve Jobs is dead.

My thoughts: Fuck. I hope this is another hoax. They are referencing the Apple website. Probably not a hoax. Fuck. Some kids just lost their daddy.

All in the space of a moment.

Fuckadee.

Today I was going to start blogging again on Down Under Geek.

I’ve been learning all about WordPress Multi Sites for a month or so in my spare time, tried a couple of test installations. WordPress MU sites allow you to run squillions of sites off one WP install. So when it comes time to upgrade something, you only do it once for all sites, not over and over again which was shitting me before.

So for the last few days I’ve been copying over the old DUG site to the new WP MU site and fiddling about with the settings. To blow smoke up my own ass I was impressed with a few of the predictions and thoughts. You can read them if you want. So I was keen to write more stuff down and get on with it, get it set up on my iPad and other places so I could blog from wherever. I twittered with Daniel from Mars Edit (Red Sweater) about his awesome app and the Mac App Store, possible future updates, iOS versions and updating.

I was almost good to go. Then the notification popped up.

To relaunch a tech opinion blog on such a sad day felt odd. Would it feel/seem opportunistic? Every many and his blog would be writing many inane pieces bemoaning the loss of their great leader. I mean no disrespect, but so few do it respectfully. I even saw smh.com.au doing a “live blog” of the news. Whores.

But no one reads this blog – it’s barely existed over the years since the domain was registered in a fit of inspiration one night. I would feel stranger to me to not say something, put some thoughts down, if only for me to read and look back on years later.

So today, I took my 2 year old daughter out to lunch with her mum, picked up the car from the dodgy auto mechanic who said we could drive our suv in NSW instead of Victoria from now on, came home, finished fiddling with WordPress, and started writing.

Although his kids will no doubt inherit a Fairly Large Trust, there is a 13 year old girl who lost her daddy tonight. And that sucks.

Malware sneaking into Android market

By Michael Quinn in Andoid, Apple, Google, iPhone Tags: , , , , ,

Malware sneaking into Android market.

Thank’s to Google’s “open” application marketplace (ie: No review process, post what you like), already 1% of the Apps on there have been detected as having Malware included in them – including several that were posing as Bank Apps and simply capturing your Bank details and sending them off to someone else.

The iTunes App store is a pain in the ass for developers for a reason – it stops assholes doing crap like this.

All touch screens not created equal. iPhone compared to Droid & Nexus One

By Michael Quinn in Andoid, Apple, Google, Hardware, iPhone, Reviews Tags: , , ,

You probably don’t think about comparing the quality of a screen – it’s all about the size and number of pixels: Just like we compare digital cameras using megapixels.

Just shows that comparing basic specs and pricing is no match for comparing the experience of a device.

iPhone, Droid, Nexus One, and Eris capacitive touch screens compared | 9 to 5 Mac.

DIY Touchscreen Analysis from MOTO Development Group on Vimeo.

Relaunch of Down Under Geek for 2010

By Michael Quinn in Blogging Tags: ,

Very happy to re-launch my geek & tech blog.

Over Xmas 2009 I decided to revamp some of my blogs with a goal to using them a lot more in 2010. Spent a lot of time going through some WordPress designs and plugins, working out how to mod them a bit more, and deciding what is going to be blogged where.

Down Under Geek will be my main blog for geek news, reviews, thoughts and opinions. I’ll still be maintaining 360mac but it will likely just be a collection of Mac stories from here and another unannounced blog I’m still working on.

A new blog – MichaelQ.com.au will be my “personal” daily blog for whatever stuff happens to come along.

I’ve updated the RSS feed for the site, so please update your readers.

iPhone 3.0 Predictions

By Michael in Apple, iPhone, predictions

(originally posted on 360mac.com)

Apple have announced an event to discuss what they are working on in the next version of software for the iPhone – iPhone 3.0. It’s going to be held March 17 US time – in about 17 hours from now. So time for a few quick predictions.

My SHUT UP List (just do it to shut everyone up)

  • Cut & Paste
  • MMS
  • Landscape Mail
  • Video Recording
  • Turn by Turn GPS
  • To Do list
  • Custom ring settings / profiles

I’d be VERY surprised if all of these (except maybe video) wasn’t included. And seriously – after 3 revs of the software – people can rightly feel pissed if they aren’t.

Improvements to existing stuff

There are a lot of little improvements Apple could make to existing Apps.

  • Camera – timer / press anywhere to take pic etc. Build in the best ideas from the App Store
  • Better for uploading to FlickR / MobileMe / Facebook
  • Some iLife / iWork / MobileMe integration
  • Faces / Places ala iPhoto 09?
  • Integrated Synch with iCal and Google Calendars
  • Add Google Groups – Contacts Groups sync

NEW Features for iPhone 3.0

  • Remote Wipe for the Rest-Of-Us
  • XCode – more templates to make apps even easier (compare number of iPhone templates to Mac templates
  • Wireless Syncing to iTunes
  • And One More Thing – the big one – Core Fart Noises Layer for OSX 10.6

It will be interesting to see how many ideas Apple takes from Apps selling in the App Store. Yes it will suck for the developer, but you can’t use that as an excuse not to improve the OS. Not like they haven’t done it before with Mac OSX (Spaces, Dashboard etc)

 

Updated to add more.

There is nothing like hitting Publish on a post to unlock a flood of new ideas. Lets add a couple more to the list:

(this is the Wu Method of naming everything you and everyone else can think of, analysts get paid big bucks for this)

  • PUSH
  • Voice Dialing
  • Tethering (I could care less, till I need it)
  • Bluetooth support for Keyboards etc

One More Thing…

Support for larger sized screen – 7 or 10 inch – for Apple Tablet product to be released in September / October (with next iPod rev). If Apple plans to release something like this in 09 – this will be the occasion for developers to be told about it so they can.. develop.

Oh. And if Voice Play is announced – that one was mine too.

UPDATE: The silly section.

  • New Version of iTunes
  • Beatles on iTunes
  • Stability updates
  • and Flash support – why is no one talking about Flash support?

WWDC 2008 Prediction Results

By Michael in Apple, iPhone, OSX, predictions, WWDC

(originally posted on 360mac.com)

Now that the “SteveNote” from WWDC has been finished – lets see how I went with my predictions.

RIGHT

100% – 3G iPhone
100% – iPhone 2.0 software & App Store
95% – 3G iPhone to be triple or quad band
90% – GPS on 3G iPhone
75% – 3G iPhone in different colors
70% – OSX 10.6 announced
95% – OSX 10.6 called Snow Leopard
50% – .Mac refresh announcement
10% – iPhone Nano / Alternate models
0% – OSX 10.6 to have no new features

WRONG

75% – New MacBooks announced
65% – BluRay available
95% – .Mac Free (95% the basic service will be made free if its refreshed)
20% – MacBook Air 2.0
10% – iPhone gets plastic back
10% – MacBook Air Pro

DON’T KNOW YET

95% – Better camera on iPhone
65% – OSX 10.6 to be Intel Macs only

HOW DID WE GO?

10 right, 6 wrong (including a couple of long shots), 2 we don’t know yet.

Pretty happy with my guesses. I was pretty sure this was going to be the 3G iPhone 2.0 show with not a lot of room for other things like new Macs. Thought one of those I got wrong might have made a sexy “One More Thing” – but I guess Apple want the next 4 weeks of millions of dollars of free press to be all about the iPhone.

I like the changes to .Mac – now MobileMe. Pity the logo reminds me so much of Windows ME. Don’t think MobileME will ever really take off until it become a free service for all. $99 for a solo user with a iPhone is just a little too much. It rocks when you have multiple machines, but really it should just be free.

iTunes Music Store would never gotten to 80% market if people had to pay for it.

I kinda hate the plastic backs on the 3G iPhones. But as someone who has spent last few years with Motorola phones (with metal backs) and the crappy reception – it might not be such a bad thing.

No (RED)?

No 32Gig version?

Quick note on 10.6 Snow Leopard

I think the “low key” treatment of Snow Leopard was a good idea. The next 3 months are going to be a press frenzy on the 3G iPhone. The gestation of 10.5 Leopard from public announcement to release was way too long. But given 5000 developers are there for WWDC – your not going to call them back in a few months to show em 10.6. No doubt there will be a big Snow Leopard feature in January 09, when the software will be only a few months away from release.

No new features? Hardly. Improved enterprise support, new video with QuickTime X, no doubt the next generation of MobileME integration. Maybe nothing as shiny as Time Machine or Quick Look – but all important improvements nonetheless.

Roll on July 11.

WWDC 2008 Prediction Summary

By Michael in Apple, OSX, predictions, WWDC

(originally posted on 360mac.com)

Thought I would make a quick summary of my predictions for the WWDC 2008 – then tomorrow I’ll post my score card.

From Top to Bottom

100% – 3G iPhone
100% – iPhone 2.0 software & App Store

95% – Better camera on iPhone
95% – 3G iPhone to be triple or quad band

90% – GPS on 3G iPhone

75% – 3G iPhone in different colors
75% – New MacBooks announced

70% – OSX 10.6 announced
95% – OSX 10.6 called Snow Leopard

65% – OSX 10.6 to be Intel Macs only
65% – BluRay available

50% – .Mac refresh announcement
95% – .Mac Free (95% the basic service will be made free if its refreshed)

20% – MacBook Air 2.0

10% – iPhone Nano / Alternate models
10% – iPhone gets plastic back
10% – MacBook Air Pro

0% – OSX 10.6 to have no new features

Time to get some sleep and prepare the score cards for the morning.

Getting access to USA iTunes music store

By Michael Quinn in Apple, iTunes, Pirate Geek Tags: ,

Although the iTunes Music Store has been made available I have been looking for ages to find a way to purchase US iTunes content (especially the video stuff – big fan of Lost).

Unfortunately i am not lucky enough to know anyone in the states, or anyone with a US card. But i came across a site that is selling US iTunes gift vouchers. Basically they email you an electronic US store voucher.

Tried it out and it works fine. Although you need to register a US account, which means you need a US address (but appears as though Apple dont care what address you use – ie just make one up).. but, you dont need to register a credit card (unlike the aussie store).

But, makes me wonder about the legality of it all? Aussie can not buy from t he US store without a US card… but.. if you get a US gift voucher.. then you can use it…?? Loop hole?

anyway.. for those who are interested… www.capsule-productions.com

My New Broadband – NCable Wireless Broadband

By Michael Quinn in Geek Tags:

As you may know I moved into a new house about a month ago – can’t believe its only a month – feels like 2 or 3 months !

Part of the “deal” with the the new house was that we probably wouldn’t have broadband access here for at least 6-8 weeks. Around September / October. Telstra had to upgrade the local RIM – the usual blah blah story as to why you can’t get decent internet access.

But we knew that coming in and I was reasonable happy to put up with Dial-Up for a month or so, plus going around to my parents place once a week or so to use Dad’s internet to move some big files around. The house was a great deal – a bit of a bargain in my opinion – so it was worth a bit of pain.

To be honest – Dial-Up wasn’t the nightmare I imagined. Sure I wasn’t going to be downloading 10 podcasts every day or surfing sites all day. But for general email and basic surfing it wasn’t too bad.

OK it still sucked but I wasn’t completely offline.

As I was telling all of my contacts about the change of address, phone number etc – I was contacted by Neighborhood Cable – an Australian company with an American name. NCable are a Victorian regional Pay TV / Internet company. They are in Mildura, Ballarat and Geelong. Unlike most ISP’s they install their own infrastructure and cabling – rather than running off Telstra’s backbone.

http://www.ncable.com.au/

Even though they also don’t have their cable running down my street – they have a new service called Wireless Cable Broadband. They have a transmitter in town on the water tower – click for webcam view which gives them about 25km of range. At my place I have an antenna on my roof that runs down into a modem in my office – and from there to my wireless router etc. From there its business as usual in setting up the internet etc.

http://www.visitmildura.com.au/quicksite/index.php?id=webcam

So I know have broadband where otherwise I wouldn’t have. And even better – its FASTER. Best ADSL speed I can get here is 1500/256. It will be a long time before we get ADSL 2/2+ in a country town like Mildura. So far the speeds I have been getting have been the equivalent of 3500/1200 !! And I’ve even complained as I was told to expect download speeds around 5000 !!

http://www.milduravictoria.com.au/

And because I am in a country regional area with no access to ADSL broadband – I got full subsidy from the Australian Government’s HIBIS program. The whole install cost me nothing !! Yai !!

http://www.dcita.gov.au/tel/higher_bandwidth_incentive_scheme_hibis

So far the quality has been excellent. No problems at all. The increased upload speed already has made a huge difference to my productivity. Instead of queuing files to upload overnight – I can do them during the day while preparing the sites. 100Mb used to take an hour on 1500/256. Now its like 10 mins. That makes a huge difference to my planning.

Really happy with it all so far. Will keep you up to date on my experiences as we go.

RSS vs WebFeed ?

By Michael Quinn in Microsoft, Opinion, RSS Tags:

Just wanted to toss in my 2 cents on the whole RSS vs Web Feed issue.

A brief summary: RSS (really simple syndication) lets you subscribe to websites, podcasts and other things. Once you have worked out how to use it your internet browsing is changed forever. Instead of having to go back to a website to see if its changed, your subscription service sends you the latest news and headlines.

There is an RSS feed for this site – its the orange icon on the bottom right hand corner of the browser. If you have an RSS agregator or reader, you put the link into it and you started getting updates of the site when I make them. You don’t have to give me any information like an email address to subscribe to a newsletter. You come and go as you please.

Sounds great doesn’t it? Microsoft thinks so too and the are incorporating RSS into the next version of Windows – Vista – formerly known as longhorn. It’s due out late next year. Probably. But Microsoft are planning on putting RSS into Vista in a big way – especially Internet Explorer 7.

However Microsoft want to call it Web Feeds – not RSS. They feel RSS is a bit techy and complicated to explain. Web Feed sounds simple and easy enough. Of course this is upsetting a lot of people who claim Microsoft are trying to reinvent RSS in their own image. Much like they tried to do with html, css, media files, document files and pretty much anything else.

I actually like the term Web Feed. It makes it easier to explain to someone what it is. RSS just sounds weird and unfriendly. I think once you know what it is – rather than what it stands for – its a good name for it. But the 30 second conversation of introducing it to someone and explaining what it does – I’ve just had too many of those in my life of being a geek. Why can’t we find a simpler way of describing things?

Eventually I think the term Web Feed will slowly become more accepted. We will probably still use the RSS / XML buttons – but know them as Web Feed buttons.

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