René Rebe

So I wanted to see the Ping (:-) and update to iTunes 10 (though that will probably not bring back syncing to my [secondary] Palm Pré, sigh). The iTunes built-in software update tells me “This version of iTunes (9.2.1) is the current version.” – hm, really? I really have to go to Apple’s website to pull it manually? How easy and streamlined is that? Ok, let’s check the system software update, and indeed “New software is available for your computer.”:

iTunes 10 comes with many new features and improvements, including:

• Introducing Ping. Use Ping to follow your favorite artists and friends or connect with the world’s most passionate music fans. Discover the music everyone is talking about, listening to, and downloading.

• Rent HD TV episodes for just 99¢ each. Watch them on your Mac or PC, on-the-go with iPhone or iPod touch, or in your living room with the all new Apple TV.

• Play your favorites on the all new iPod touch, iPod nano, iPod shuffle, and Apple TV.

• Play music wirelessly with AirPlay on AirPlay-enabled speakers, home theater receivers, and iPod accessories.

• Explore many look-and-feel improvements throughout iTunes.

• Enjoy performance improvements which make iTunes faster and more responsive.

• Additional voice support with VoiceOver Kit for iPod.

For information on the security content of this update, please visit: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222

At least, unlike Safari, it does not require a reboot, just to quit Xcode, and iTunes itself (do I really have to be notified of the later, and quit it myself?), …

Update: Oh my god! What have they done to the window controls! This traffic lights look ugly! And so does the new icon, oh my, oh my, …

Update 2: In the meantime the iTunes App feed directly get’s the 10 update, too, … and it looks like I hit a nerve with the icon and window decoration criticism, … Personally I do not like the icon, because it simply does not match with any other icon in my dock, neither the Finder, Mail, Safari, Cal, Preview, Xcode, et al. Mostly because the others are not as round. Whatever. The window decoration, however, is really annoying. The fragmentation of Mac UI elements, where every App brings it’s own variants, really contradicts usability and users getting to a look and feel. This really is not what the Mac user experience once meant to be and reminds me on the Unix world, where each X11 environment brings it’s own toolkits, usability, and look’n feel, …

I am constantly working on bringing up interesting topics and telling stories. August 2010 was the best month for this site, yet!

Thank you all for visiting!

This overzealous review process and random rejections of Apple’s iTunes iOS App store has been discussed in all lengths all over the internet by now. It is just that recently we found enough time to finish the first App to be submitted into said App store.

You may wonder how long their review process does take, and so do I, … Until now it took them 7 full days to answer a basic question regarding a minor application meta info detail, and it has been a whole week the App is still pending for review on their side!

The sad thing is that by now we even have a version with the first post release polishing, but are afraid to reject and reload the binary, as according to the iTunes connect documents this would make the updated binary start at the very end of the review queue, again

Sigh^2!

Update: just after posting this the iTunes connect status flipped to “In Review”, keeping my fingers crossed!

Update 2: now “In Review” for 24h, fun, …

Update 3: rejected, crash for them, sigh! They must have stressed it very much, as frankly I can not get it to crash, anyway we already had polishings, performance improvements, a new icon, and other miscellaneous tweaks lingering around, let’s see how long the submitted update takes to review, stay tuned!

Update 4: submitted improved App binary, let’s see how long this takes keeping my fingers crossed

Update 5: of course one week later it is still “Waiting For Review”, …

alert tcp any any -> any any (msg:”My TEST rule”; flow:stateless; sid:66666;)

Yesterday I ordered at the Jacob Elektronik online shop for the first time. Although I have a mixed history with those non-major online stores, the price for the Intel X18 SSD was pretty good.

Long story short: it’s actually no long story, they shipped it it just some hours after I ordered, and it arrived in just 24h, that is today!

Then you might be surprised that Apple now forbids using your language of choice, …

…but Sony indeed removed the OtherOS functionality with the v3.21 PS3 firmware update on April the 1st. So in order to use the primary function I purchased the 64bit PowerPC and Cell equipped small form factor workstation, I now have to carefully avoid to ever update the firmware again. Oh wait, there still is George Hotz to help out.

I’m crossing my fingers if that allows me to update to the more energy efficient PS3 Slim.

Certainly not the smartest move from Sony, to highly motivate some thousand, if not ten thousands, programmers -certainly some of the brightest minds, using it for super-computers in university labs- to regain access. Maybe even beyond the former restricted access, but now to the RSX, one more SPE, or Slim, as well.

Just my own quick notes for SSL cert generation for use wit CAcert. Mostly just because too many instructions on the web run over many pages with thousands of words, …

Generating the private key:

openssl genrsa -out key.key 2048

Generating the Certificate Signing Request, CSR:

openssl req -new -key key.key -subj /CN=example.com -out key.csr

The CSR is now provided to your signing authority, from which you get the resulting certificate, which you save to something like key.crt.

Some software require the key and the cert to resist in a single file, you can simple cat them together:

cat key.{key,crt} > key.pem

Heise is running a story, reminding us on the ten years anniversary of the burst of the .com bubble. Where about ten years ago the stock value of overrated, mostly internet related companies became penny stock overnight.

I can not stop, but think we will soon see history repeating itself with all those web 2.0 companies, such as Facebook or Twitter. I mean how many millions, and billions are they pumping into them without any reasonable revenue, or just even revenue model in sight?

Sure, at last they can all go down the advertising road. But is there really enough space for them to grab a multi billion share of the ad-market? And 2020 we will be all living from advertising?

Somehow, I do not really see this adding up.

Five years and the wait is finally over–Poker reduced the price to a tenths