Apple updates MacBook Pro laptops
Apple has updated its MacBook Pro line of laptops yesterday. These new laptops contain faster processors, unbelievable battery life of 10 hours and a graphics processor which is 80% faster than the predecessor. Interestingly the 15" and 17" laptops now contain latest Intel i5 and i7 processors. The best part is that the prices have remained more or less the same!
Updated specifications for 13 inch MacBook Pros (old configuration in brackets)
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Updated specifications for 15 inch MacBook Pros (old configuration in brackets)
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As you can see from the configuration above, anyone who recently bought the 13" 2.26GHz MacBook Pro must be cursing themselves.
It is interesting to note that even the high end MacBook Pros have the total memory capped at 4GB. In fact now all configurations carry 4GB. There are two reasons – 4GB RAM is usually good enough for most users and secondly DDR3 RAM is not cheap. If you really want to upgrade to 8GB, you need to spend a whopping $400 extra!
Ever wondered what is the most expensive MacBook Pro configuration you can buy? Well, you can get the best of the best for a low price of $7,505. This configuration includes a 24 inch LED cinema display and a 512GB solid state drive. Obviously many of us would have to mortgage our house to get one of these!
Most Expensive MacBook Pro (Configuration)
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Geohot hacks iPad – blackra1n and Cydia on iPad
Within a week of its release, iPad is hacked by the famous iPhone hacker George Hotz. He had a posted picture of hacked iPad running blackra1n (jailbreaking tool) and Cydia. This means that a new version of blackra1n may be released soon. It is also interesting to note that the exploit screenshot was released just within one day of posting the iPad firmware 3.2 encryption keys.
The advantages of Jailbreaking iPad
Jailbreaking iPad opens up more possibilities than on an iPhone. iPad has better hardware and bigger screen and hence it can replace a netbook with much better battery backup. We may see custom Linux distributions capable of running on iPad. The immediate benefit of course is that iPad users can download applications rejected by Apple from other app directories such as Cydia. It also enables complete customization of iPad OS. Who knows, someday someone may even find a way to run Windows XP on iPad!
However the lack of some of the essential hardware on iPad makes jailbreaking less appealing. For example, lack of an integrated camera.
How blackra1n works on iPhone?
Blackra1n works on a specific exploit on iPhone/iPad devices known as the USB Control Message exploit. By manipulating the call to function usb_control_msg it is possible to overwrite sections of memory. See this page for the details of this. However in the case of iPad, the precise exploit that Geohot used is not yet known.
Apple bans Adobe Flash cross compiler for iPhone OS 4.0
The latest developer agreement from Apple on iPhone OS 4.0 explicitly states that iPhone programs must be written on Objective C, C or C++ to legally link with the documented Apple APIs. This means that any sort of cross compiler which creates final iPhone machine code from other technologies are illegal. This change in developer agreement is a direct hit on Adobe’s idea to create a cross compiler for iPhone in its latest release of Flash Professional CS5. Any code generated using this Flash cross compiler is illegal on iPhone OS 4.0.
Apple is refusing to allow flash in its devices claiming that its implementation is buggy and it is not suitable for its devices. So the only option to develop software for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad was to use the Xcode and iPhone SDK on Mac machines. It also meant that developers need to learn Objective C to build iPhone apps. Adobe thought that they can work around these limitations by providing a cross compiler which will convert Flash programs directly into iPhone’s ARM binary code. Till now Apple approved any app submitted to App store provided it met all its guidelines and hence a number of apps built with a preview release of Flash CS5 got into app store.
With iPhone OS 4.0 onwards this whole cross compiler process becomes illegal. Adobe may probably release iPhone cross compiler as part of Flash Processional CS5. But any developer building an iPhone/iPad application on it will be taking a huge risk since Apple may reject it during App Store submission. Technically there is nothing that can differentiate between the ARM code generated by Xcode and Flash Professional. Apple can insert a unique signature to code, but the same can be easily inserted by Flash professional. But even releasing the cross compiler may be illegal.
Now I think Adobe deserves what it got. They could have directly contacted Apple before going ahead and developing a cross compiler. Things like these should teach giant companies like Adobe that they can’t be arrogant all the time. One day Apple may also get a taste of its own medicine.
Obviously what Apple did makes a lot of business sense. They want people to use their own platform to build apps. Proliferation of cross compilers is not a good thing in long run. It can lead to inefficient code(?) as well. But the real reason seems to be that Apple wants complete control over its platform. They don’t want somebody to create a better development platform for building apps in iPhone and iPad. It also shows how easy it is to decimate the competition when you put restrictions on a platform. I now wonder why Microsoft was harassed by various governments all these years. Compared to Apple, they are angels 
There is one more interesting aspect to the Apple/Adobe tussle. There are a lot of Flash game developers out there. It is not easy to compete with them if you are a pure Objective C developer building games for iPhone. So this is a good news for all the Objective C developers out there!
How to Run Windows Live Writer on Mac
If there is one software that Microsoft can claim to be exceptional, it is Windows Live Writer. It is the best desktop blogging tool currently available and it is free! So what makes Windows Live Writer so special? Here is a round up of cool features available in Windows Live Writer,
- Almost perfect WYSIWYG blog authoring. Your editor look as if you are writing inside your blog!
- Edit your blog pictures while writing your post. Crop them or apply various styles on them. Embedding pictures in blog posts is super easy!
- Manage multiple blogs at the same time!
- Built in spell checker and an extensible architecture supporting plugins. But the tool itself is so good that I have never used a plugin!
- Best of all Windows Live Writer supports a wide range of blogging platforms (Blogger, WordPress, TypePad etc.)
So for a blogger, Windows Live Writer is the ultimate tool available. Unfortunately it runs only on Windows platform! Now that means the guys who own costly Mac machines doesn’t have a good blogging tool. However there is a way to get Windows Live Writer running on your Mac. The only catch is that you need to buy a license of Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7 (which shouldn’t be a problem if you can afford Mac!). Using a virtual machine software you can run Windows inside a Mac machine. Now to use Windows Live Writer, just install it on the Windows running inside the virtual machine!
Running Windows Live Writer on Mac
Step 1 – Download VirtualBox – VirtualBox is virtual machine software(owned by Sun Microsystems earlier and now part of Oracle) which emulates a computer. So it is like a second machine running inside your PC and you can install any operating system inside it. VirtualBox software is available for many operating systems including Mac OS X. You can download the Mac version from here. Install VirtualBox.
Step 2 – Create a Windows Virtual Machine in VirtualBox – Start VirtualBox. From the main screen click on New icon to create a new virtual machine. Choose the guest operating system you want to install (Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7). I would recommend that you install Windows XP since it is cheap and it also requires less memory to run.
Now select the virtual machine memory size based on the Windows version you are installing and also depending on the total RAM you have. For example, if you have total 4GB RAM and you are installing Windows XP, 1GB would be a good choice. Then create a virtual disk. This disk will appear as a normal file with .vdi extension. For Windows XP, I usually give 12GB as the disk size and set it as dynamic so that the space is taken only if needed.
Step 3 – Install Windows on the Virtual Machine – Start the virtual machine you have created from the main menu of VirtualBox. It will prompt you for the boot device. Insert your Windows disk in the DVD drive and select this drive as the boot device. Now install Windows just like you install it in a real machine. The only difference here is that it is getting installed to the virtual disk inside the virtual machine. After installation, the virtual machine will reboot and you will get Windows OS running inside your Mac OS!
Once Windows is running in virtual machine, Click on the Devices -> Install Guest Additions menu from the VirtualBox. This will install a set of drivers onto the Windows. This will give you full integration between Mac and the Windows running on the virtual machine. You can now navigate seamlessly between them and you can even share folders/files between them!
Also keep your Windows installation up to date by enabling and running Windows Update.
Step 4 – Install Windows Live Writer on Guest OS – Now you can easily download and install Windows Live Writer from the Windows running in VirtualBox. Windows Live Writer can be downloaded from here. Now blog your heart out!
The following screenshot shows Windows XP running on Snow Leopard Mac OS.
The same approach can be taken to get Windows Live Writer running on various Linux distributions such as Ubuntu and Fedora.
A brief history of Windows 7
Ever wondered why Microsoft named the latest Windows release as Windows 7? Microsoft considers Windows 7 as the seventh generation Windows OS. Following are the 6 previous generations of Windows Operating System,
1. Windows 1.0 – Microsoft released the first version of Windows in 1985 and it featured tiled windows. From the beginning Windows was designed as a multitasking system. It was more of a GUI for the underlying MS-DOS operating system. It is interesting to note that Microsoft supported this operating system for 16 years (till 2001)!
2. Windows 3.11 – The next major release of Windows was in 1993 named Windows for Workgroups 3.11. It included networking and truetype fonts. Within months of release it sold millions of copies and Microsoft was named as the “Most of innovative company in US” by Forbes.
3. Windows 95 – Released in 1995, Windows 95 cemented Microsoft’s position as the solid leader in operating systems business. Microsoft integrated MS-DOS into Windows effectively putting all other MS-DOS competitors out of business. Windows 95 also introduced Internet Explorer 1.0. For optimal use Windows 95 required 8MB of RAM. The basic UI elements introduced in Windows 95 remains even today in Windows 7.
4. Windows 2000 – Windows 2000 was released in 2000 and the primary market was business laptops and server machines. Windows 2000 includes NTFS 3.0 and introduced encrypted file system. Windows 2000 was marketed as the most secure operating system, but continues to receive security patches in short intervals. Windows 2000 is supported till July 2010.
5. Windows XP – Released in 2001, Windows XP is the most used operating system even as of 2009 with more than 60% of market share. It offered a fresh user interface and a number of performance and stability improvements. Windows XP is supported till 2014.
6. Windows Vista – Windows Vista was released in 2007 and was not adopted quickly due to its high system requirements. To get a decent performance it required 1GB of RAM (Windows XP required 128MB) probably due to the fact that its engine core components were rewritten (audio, display, networking etc.). However it does have over 20% of the OS market share as of 2009. Vista is also notorious for its high prices (Ultimate edition costs over $300 almost matching hardware price).
There are a number of other Windows releases which are not considered in the above 6 generations. These include Windows 2 and Windows 3, Windows 98, Windows NT and Windows Me.
And then in 2009, Microsoft launches Windows 7 as the seventh generation Windows operating system.
How to fix Apple iPod Touch 3.1.2 firmware upgrade issue
Apple has recently released iPod Touch firmware upgrade 3.1.2. This upgrade is essential to test your iPhone/iPod apps. It may seem funny that 3.1.2 is a bug fix release. There seems to be a bug in the iTunes download progam or Apple servers which prevents this firmware upgrade. What is more irritating is the fact that Apple charges $4+ for this upgrade, yet you can’t install it!
The error is not uniform. Sometimes you get no error at all, but still the 3.1.2 is neither downloaded nor installed. Sometimes it gives a message “Unknown error 2020″. I tried upgrading iTunes and it turned out that it is the latest. I also tried resetting the iPod firmware. Interestingly the original firmware was downloaded without any issue which indicated that this may not be a download server issue. Finally I found a workaround quite accidentally.
There is a simple workaround to get 3.1.2 firmware installed on your iPod touch. Just download a free app from the Apple iTunes Store. This download somehow triggers the iPod touch upgrade download! Initially a 0.4KB file is downloaded which triggers the download of 240MB iPod touch software upgrade.
Problems like these remind me of the good old days when you can do upgrade to a device simply by downloading a file manually. If the file is available for download, it is guaranteed to work. For upgrade etc. iTunes should be made optional. They should give a alternate download location from where the upgrade can be dowloaded and directly moved to the iPod/iPhone.
What is new in iPod Touch 3.1.2 firmware?
3.1.2 firmware upgrade is a minor bug fix release. It contains fixes related to video streaming and sleep issues.
How to deal with a telemarketer
For many of us unsolicited marketing calls is a big nuisance. There is really not much you can do to prevent these calls. However as the following video shows sometimes it is the telemarketer who is at the receiving end. Highly recommended for anyone planning to join call centre work! It is the funniest prank call I have heard
Tom Mabe is telemarketer’s nightmare
It is hard to stop laughing …
The ridiculous pricing of Wolfram Alpha API
I am fan of the Wolfram Alpha right from the day it was released. The computational answer engine from Wolfram Research was one of the coolest things I have seen in a while. Wolfram is capable of almost all types of mathematical processing and in addition it is also capable of responding to natural language based queries. So it can not only give answer to questions like 20 * 30 = ? , but also respond to questions like "who is barack obama?". Check out the examples page for the kind of things Wolfram Alpha is capable of.
Unlike traditional search engine results, the Wolfram output is structured. This means that processing output from it is easy and is extremely useful in large scan data analysis. So an API interface from Wolfram Alpha was eagerly awaited and it was released last week. But the pricing of the API is one of the most ridiculous I have seen in a while. The following is the pricing for personal use (for hobbyists etc.).
What? $60 dollars for accessing Wolfram API for 1000 times? I can’t believe that someone in Wolfram could be so retarded to charge almost one dollar for 10 hobbyist requests for the API. Then you look at companies like Google and think – Man, these are angels from heaven!
Now checkout the terms of use section of API which is worse than many of the free online services(you thought paying through your noise would give you better TOS?). Some examples,
- Wolfram|Alpha reserves the right to terminate this Agreement or discontinue the Wolfram|Alpha API or any portion or feature thereof for any or no reason and at any time without liability to You.
- You are required to provide a hyperlink to www.WolframAlpha.com on every page with Results. All hyperlinks associated with data provided by Wolfram|Alpha must navigate directly to Wolfram|Alpha.
- utilize the Wolfram|Alpha API in association with, or as a component of, any website that in the sole discretion of Wolfram|Alpha is determined to be obscene or otherwise inappropriate.
Here is what I think is reasonable pricing,
- Up to 5000 requests – free
- Up to 25,000 requests – $50
- Up to 100,000 requests – $150
- Up to 500,000 requests – $500
- Additional request pricing – Below $2 per 1000 requests
So here is the one liner verdict – Wolfram Alpha API pricing sucks.
The strange case of SyntaxHighlighter WordPress plugin
From 2.7 version onwards WordPress supports automatic upgrade of plugins. Usually this is a good thing. Wordpress will inform you of any updates to the plugin and you just need to click on “upgrade automatically” to keep your plugin upto date.
But recently I realized that auto upgrade is not always good. I have been using the SyntaxHighlighter plugin from Erik on my blog and one day it showed that a new upgrade is available. I went ahead and updated the plugin and realized that it no longer worked. The problem was that the new version of SyntaxHighlighter named “SyntaxHighlighter Evolved” was a different version created by someone named Viper007Bond. But since he had the URL http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/syntaxhighlighter/, the plugin system of WordPress was identifying it as an upgrade of Erik’s plugin!
So I had two options left. Either update all my posts with the new plugin’s conventions or rollback to the old version by Erik. I prefered the second method(changing posts was too much work).
So if you are a plugin writer, ensure that you have the official WordPress extend entry for your plugin also. Otherwise people can hijack your plugin using auto-upgrade feature!
Chicken a la Carte – A short film on hunger
This is a short film which won the people’s choice awards on the theme food, taste and hunger. Directed by Ferdinand Dimadura, this film reminds me that there are still a lot of people in the world for whom food is still a luxury. The film also reminds us that over 25,000 people die every day due to hunger.
Who got all the AIG bonus money?
If you steal $100 from someone, you get enough jail sentence to repent all your sins. But if you steal trillions of dollars, you get millions of dollars in bonus as well! – first law of AIG.
Nick Vujicic on struggles in life – inspirational video
In the following video Nick Vujicic demonstrates why you should never give up when faced with challenges in life. Nick was born with no arms and no legs. He is a well known motivational speaker and spreads the message of hope & love around world.
LoseThos – 64bit open source free operating system
LoseThos is a small 64bit open source free operating system available for IBM PC compatible computers. It is written and released by Terry A. Davis 
and is an operating system developed from ground up. The primary focus of this operating system seems to be video games (really simple ones!) and is intended for "programming as entertainment". Interestingly it also introduces a new language very much similar to C/C++!
The latest version available as of November 11th 2008 is V4.19 and the ISO file is less than 20MB. The distribution is a "live cd" and you can boot into the OS by burning it into a CD. Since LoseThos is a pure 64bit OS, it will work only on those systems or virtual machines which support 64bit. For example, Linux qemu emulator is not supported.
What makes LoseThos interesting is that the whole of the OS is written by Terry over a period of 5 years. It has over 100,000 lines of code. Programmers may find LoseThos as an interesting toy! It allows complete access to all the hardware and there is minimal layering.
LoseThos Hardware Requirements
- IBM PC Compatible (EM64T)
- VGA Graphics
- Minimum 256MB RAM and a maximum of 128GB RAM!
- CD-ROM but no SCSI
- ATA/SATA hard drives
- Gameport Joystick/RS232 serial port but no USB
LoseThos is currently just a hobby OS which can be fun for programmers. But who knows, it might even inspire someone to create an exceptional 64 bit open source operating system in future!
Don’t waste your time trying to get this running on Vmware Workstation. After trying for a few minutes I realized that LoseThos uses non standard stuff and hence Vmware cannot support it. In fact I was also unable to get this running on my latest machine which is Intel Quad core CPU (Q9300).
How to play Divx videos on Windows?
DivX is so popular these days that almost all large videos and movies are published in DivX format. A movie which occupies over 3GB can be compressed to a 700MB DivX file without compromising video quality! Unfortunately DivX is not yet natively supported on Windows machines. You need download and install DivX audio and video drivers for playing these MPEG4 videos. I will show you how!
1. Xvid – DivX video driver – Xvid is an open source implementation of DivX standard on Windows. It can be used for both encoding and decoding DivX files. The best thing of course is that Xvid is free and there is NO adware packaged along with it. Once Xvid is installed, video players will automatically use it whenever a DivX file is opened.
2. AC3Filter – DivX audio driver – A large number of DivX movies are encoded with AC3 and DTS soundtracks. In order to play them you need a custom audio decoder. AC3Filter once installed will automatically decode AC3 and DTS soundtracks embedded in a DivX movie file. So if you are not hearing any audio while playing a DivX movie, don’t panic just install AC3Filter.
3. VLC Media Player – DivX video player – Why should you use a separate media player like VLC when you have Windows media player? Well, VLC Player has advanced features for DivX playback. For example, it is possible to download a subtitle file for your movie and then configure it in VLC player. The subtitle files have the extension .srt (you can search in Google for the subtitle file of a movie). Following screenshot shows how to configure a subtitle file in VLC media player. You can also control the appearance of subtitles.
Now you are all set to play DivX movies and videos on your Windows machine!
Google Chrome browser – first impressions
Google is again on the roll! The latest product from Google named Chrome is a very fast and compact web browser. From the first impressions, it seems that Chrome may attract a sizeable pie of the browser market in the coming months. Needless to say, this is surely will heat up the browser wars and Internet Explorer is going to feel most of it!
The Google Chrome initial installer is under 500kb and rest of the installation is done by downloading other components from the initial installer. On my 2mbps broadband line it took under 5 minutes for complete installation. The configuration took just the following step,
The Chrome user interface is simple, elegant and extremely fast. It is very unobtrusive, just what an ideal browser should look like.
Google Chrome is built from ground up and hence is able to address a lot of issues plaguing current browsers such as Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera. Here is a summary of major Chrome features,
1. Single text field for URL and Search – Type in the URL if you know it, else search the Web. The default search engine obviously is Google, but you can easily change it.
2. Browser tabs as separate processes – Instead of threads, Google Chrome uses separate processes and hence provides greater control of each tab and preventing possible crash of the entire browser due to a problem in a Web page in a single tab.
3. Enhanced developer features – This includes JavaScript debugging and control features, a task manager and a JavaScript console. The JavaScript console even provides auto completion. I guess this will be an area where we can find tremendous improvements in coming versions. Firefox Firebug, beware!
Why is Google going after the Browser market?
The majority of Google revenue comes from search and there is a risk that browsers such as Internet Explorer will try to divert users from it. Already IE sets Windows live as default search engine. The best way to fight this is to fight Internet Explorer itself!
Secondly an advanced browser provides an ability to roll out advanced features to Google products. Google can provide a degraded behavior to other browser users for their advanced product features. This enables Google spreadsheet and document editor applications to compete with Microsoft Office etc. Hence Microsoft can expect intense competition in this area.
My Verdict
I think it is too early to say how Google Chrome will evolve. But one thing is sure, it will soon take up a substantial pie of the browser market. Also I think in the long run, Chrome has the potential to host complex Web applications taking over a lot functionality currently provided by operating system and desktop applications. And for the Web developers, it may become a very good development tool for advanced Ajax based applications.
Further Resources