Light Bot Flash Game

More than just a funny game this Flash Light Bot is the perfect tool to introduce simple programming concepts to anyone - in a fun and easy to understand way.

Basically, you need to instruct your small robot to light up all blue colored tiles.
To achieve that goal you'll need to create a list of instructions it will execute; things like: move forward, turn left, move forward, jump, light up.

Before you know it you'll be a programming guru, using functions and all. :)

21st Century Rubik Cube

Remember the famous Rubik's Cube that enchanted (and caused major headaches to) millions of people all over the world a few decades ago?

Well... it's back. Sort of...
This new variation (we have seen it in all shapes and sizes) offers assymetric mirrored pieces that make it look more appropriate to this new century.

Are you interested?

Then you just need to bug some of your Japanese friends to ship you one directly to your home.


via [Technabob]

Cool Down your PC with the Thermaltake Xpressar

Just the other day I was talking about a skeleton case for your PC with lots of air to cool down your PC - but today I have an even better proposal for you.

Don't tell me the thought of placing your hot computer inside your refrigerator never crossed your mind!

Well, if you can't put your PC inside a refrigerator, what about placing a refrigerator inside your computer?


It sounds crazy, but it's indeed true: just check Thermaltake's Xpressar PC case.

It works just like a refrigerator, although with a smaller and less powerful compressor (50W.)

It is said it can drop 20ºC off a similar but non-refrigerated liquid-cooling system.

What do you think?
I guess it may be "cool" to have one of these, especially if you can stick a couple of beer/coke/soda cans in there to cool off whenever you feel like it.

via [Gizmodo]

Optimizing XP for Dual HD/SSD [Part II]

In my previous post I talked about why more Hard Drives are better than one.
Today, I'll show you how to tune your system so you can reap the benefits.

First of all, if you're planning to use more than a single HD, you'll need to carefully consider how you're going to use your computer and what you're trying to achieve. There are so many different variables that finding a "perfect" setup is - quite frankly - impossible.

So, let's assume a generic use scenario, without any special requirements for particular software applications.
For instance, in my case, in a 2 HD scenario I would split things as follows:

HD #1  I would create 2 partitions on it.
Partition #1 (10-20% of total disk space) would hold the OS and frequently used Applications.
Partition #2 (80-90% of disk space) would hold larger applications like games and other stuff that we're more likely to install/remove frequently.

HD #2  I would also create 2 partitions here.
Partition #1 (smaller) This is where you would setup the paging file (if needed,) and also setup to be used as "temporary" storage.
Partition #2 (largest) For all your documents, media, music, movies, etc. (You could create more partitions to keep your things separate if you have large collections of those - as in a partition for movies, other for music, other for downloads, etc.)

You could also set aside a separate partition to temporarily download highly fragmented files such as the ones you get via bittorrent.

So if we had two 500GB HDs:
I would set it up like this:

C: Disk #1 Partition #1 - size 80GB (for Windows XP + often used programs)
D: Disk #2 Partition #1 - size 10GB (For paging file + temporary files. If you usually work with larger files - as in multigigabyte compressed files -, you should increase its size accordingly)
E: Disk #1 Partition #2 - size 420GB (for large programs, such as games, as well as keeping a backup of more important stuff also stored in F:)
F: Disk #2 Partition #2 - size 490GB (Your main storage space, for all your docs, movies, music, etc.)

Ideally, if you ever need to migrate to a new computer, F: should hold all important stuff you'll ever need to backup and restore - the rest is just stuff you can install again.


So, let's start by telling Windows to use a different temporary location for all its stuff.

Windows XP (and Vista) store this location in a place reminiscent from the old MS-DOS days: the environment variables.

Just check it out - open a command prompt and type SET followed by Enter.

You'll get a list of all the the environment variables in use.

From all of those, we're only interested in two:

TEMP=C:\DOCUME~1\Carlos\LOCALS~1\Temp
TMP=C:\DOCUME~1\Carlos\LOCALS~1\Temp

(Your will be slightly different, according to your user name.)

The reason there are two comes from way back, when some programs used TEMP and others used TMP to determine that location.

You can also see all the junk you have there by clicking on the start button->Run and entering %TEMP%
You'll be taken to that location and find hundreds (or thousands) of temporary files.

So, we'll need to edit those and point them to the new place; in our case D:\TEMP
Note: You should always use a subfolder for your temporary location. Don't ever place it on the root folder as it can cause problems with some programs. Besides, it's tidier to have it all under a "Temp" folder anyway... One you can easily clean up at boot for instance.
FAT32 file systems also have a limit on the maximum number of files you can have on the root folder. Placing in in a subfolder removes that limitation.



You'll need to right click on your computer icon, goto properties and click advanced.

Then you need to click on the Environment Variables button near the bottom to get to this window.

This is where you can edit/insert the environment variables you saw earlier on the command prompt.

(images courtesy of ask-leo)

Make sure you edit/add both the TMP and TEMP environment variables and set them to the right location - in our case: D:\TEMP



This takes care of Windows, but now you must do the same for your browser as well.
For Internet Explorer you can do this in Tools->Internet Options:

Then you go to Temporary Files Settings->Move Folder-> and choose your new location.
In our case you could point it to D:\TEMPNET
(You should also restrict its size according to the available disk space on D - this particularly important if you're using a smaller RAM disk.)


If you're using Firefox then you need to type about:config in the url input box and then search for:
browser.cache.disk

You'll need to edit the location of:
browser.cache.disk.parent_directory

And you can also set a maximum size in:
browser.cache.disk.capacity


You can/should check all other programs you use frequently to see if you there are options to manually set its temporary files location. Programs like Winzip and similars often allow you to do that.


[To be continued...]

In the next part we'll see the particularities of using a SSD, with its unique features that render most currently HD improving techniques such as caching and pre-fetching useless, and learn how to use it best.

Fujifilm Super CCD EXR

Fujifilm has recently announced a new Super CCD sensor promissing the benefits of high resolution, high sensitivity and wide dynamic range.

Still using the traditional Super CCD hexagonal pixel pattern (on the left,) the new EXR offers a new color filter array (on the right).

This new pattern allows a better sensitivty and processing, and can be used to capture an image using different exposure times.

This allows it to capture detailed picture in both well lit and poorly lit areas - traditionally over/under-exposed in other sensors, requiring a second shot and later processing.

Now we just need to wait for the first cameras using this new Super CCD EXR to come out and see how they perform in the real world.

via [dpreview]

StarCAVE - one step closer to the Holodeck

Slowly but steadily we get closer to the famous Holodeck from Star Trek.

Sure, we still have a very long way to go... but these VR rooms are becoming more impressive than ever.

At the UC San Diego, a team of researchers has built a 3rd generation VR room called StarCAVE.

With over 68 million pixels processed in real time (and in 3D) you can imagine what kind of hardware is involved:

• 34 latest generation graphic chips from NVIDIA
• 34 High-definition 2K projectors (2048x1536) - 2 for each screen, to create the 3D effect
  
• Each pair of projectors is connected to a high-end computer with a quad-core CPU running Linux, dual graphic cards, and dual network cards for gigabit Ethernet or 10GigE networking.

The end result is something never seen before in a VR room of this kind.
But things won't stop here and the team is already planning on the upgrading the current projectors to 4K resolution. These will allow the StarCAVE to have 20/20 visual quality... meaning... it will be as real as your eyes can see.

[University of California]

Playing with Spiders

Do you like spiders?

No?... Well... you can always visit this link and set them lose on your co-workers desktops.

Amazing demonstration of Flash wizardry.


[Playing with Spiders via Boing Boing]

Piratebay is Down (for good?) [Updated]

I don't know about you, but the popular torrent site The Pirate Bay seems to be down.

I have checked with some friends, in different countries and different ISPs to check and they all report the same: Pirate Bay is down.

Their servers are still responding to pings, but http traffic is a no-no.

Are they upgrading their servers, or have they been raided by authorities trying to shut them down once again?

Time will tell...

[Update]

Well, the sooner I would talk about it, the sooner it got back online... Pirate Bay is back!
(Although still slightly laggy... I guess they'll soon explain what happened to cause this outage for most of the day)

Dell Announces 16GB RAM laptop

If you've always felt constrained when you have to work on a laptop then you haven't heard about Dell's latest beast. This 17" Dell will probably leave your desktop computer in the dust.

Besides its quad-core CPU, its 17" LCD and its 1TB Raid storage, it allows you to install up to 16GB of Ram!

This monster is obviously directed to the video and multimedia professional - and even includes an integrated jog-shuttle control. You can also connect it to a pair of external 30" monitors.

Now... I would just like to see someone using one of these in their laps...

No Torrents in France [Pic]

No wonder there's been so much fuss about cutting internet access to P2P users in France! :)

Thanks Knoxville. :)

Usability Tests: iPhone vs Palm Treo 800w

Here's a couple of video showcasing how long it takes to do some common everyday tasks on the iPhone and on the Palm Treo 800w.

I leave it up to you to decide which one you think its best - and be sure to compare it to your own devices.

iPhone


Palm Treo 800w

Optimizing XP for Dual HD/SSD [Part I]

I didn't expect my previous article regarding optimizing Windows XP for SSD use would spark so much interest - and I thank all those who commented and requested (and provided) further information.

But today I'm going to focus on slighlty different setup: using multiple Hard Drives/SSDs.


Optimizing Windows XP for Multiple Hard Drives

Part I - Why More is Better

Using multiple HDs has always been a very effective method to speed up your computer performance - and can improve your efficiency dramatically.

Ever since HDs become relatively affordable, I believe I've never had a computer with just a single hard drive. Contrary to what most people choose, I prefer to have two smaller HDs than just a single large one. In fact, my first "serious" computer had three HDs, and my current one has... six (ok ok, I know it's not very energy efficient, but I'm serious when I say I like my computer to handle as quickly as possible.)

Having multiple HDs allows you to manage things much more effectively - especially now. You may have the latest and fastest multicore CPU in existence... but unless it's performing some serious number crunching operations chances are it will spend most of its time waiting for the hard disk to feed it information.

Sure, there are caches, pre-fetching, and all sorts of techniques used to speed up those operations, but if you need to read 20MB from your disk... there's no other way to do it but to *read* those 20MB from your disk.
And with everything that's going on... multiple tabs open on your browser, an email application checking your email, an antivirus program scanning your disk, playing MP3 music in the background... there are a lot of places your hard disk has to go every millisecond.

These are quite common tasks, and this is where traditional rotating hard drives fail miserably. Just try it yourself: start a full disk antivirus scan and try using your computer... it will become unbearably slow.
(Even though Vista introduced a "priority" concept to read/write operations, so that you could theoretically say that the antivirus scanning is low priority and handle other requests first.)

Using multiple drives is the easiest way to speed things up.

Imagine if you had one HD for your operating system and applications, one to store your documents, another one to store your music, another to store your videos, and yet another one to use as temporary disk space.

I'm not talking about different partitions on a single hard drive, I'm talking about having real physical hard drives for each of these tasks.

The idea is to be able to separate intensive disk operations so that they can be performed simultaneously on different hard drives. That way, you won't have a single hard disk struggling to get all the data to multiple applications.

A prime example is working with video editing. If you ever had to remux a video clip (for example, adding background music to your holiday/party/anniversary videos) you know what a pain it is and how long your hard drive keeps spinning and thrashing its reading/writing heads back and forth.

That's because - with a single hard drive - the disk must read the original video stream and the new audio stream and write the combined result. It's trying to do all these things at once (not to mention other background stuff that might be going on.)

Having two hard drives would greatly enhance this operation, as you could read the video and audio from one HD and write the resulting stream to the second one. Sure, for best results you could/should have three HDs, one for reading the audio, other for reading the video, and the third one to write the results to.
(This was indeed what my first work computer was designed to do, and it did that extremely well.)

But back to regular operations.

At the very least any computer can greatly benefit from two separate hard drives - to separate operating system and applications from a separate temporary storage and documents location.

As memory prices drop, temporary storage space is becoming less of a requirement. I have disabled Windows page file (with 2GB ram) and haven't had any problem since - unless I really push it. With 4GB ram you can safely say you'll never miss it - except for very specific aplications requiring lots of virtual memory.

Anyway, even if you disable the page file, there are still lots of temporary files that are written to disk: your browser cache, history, cookies, your "unzipped" files, etc. For some of them (browser cache) I would recommend setting up a ram disk - as these usually consist in thousands of small unimportant files you won't miss if you reboot or if your computer crashes.
(It's also a nice way to use the extra memory not usually recognized by XP - meaning you can actually use all your 4GB of memory instead of just 3-3.5GB)


[to be continued...]

In the next Part I will show you how to implement all this, and how to tweak Windows XP to make the most out of the newest SSDs.

Happy Anniversary Emoticon

Ouch, that's how you know you're getting old...
Our popular ASCII smiley is 26 years old today.

It was 26 years ago, on  Septmeber 19th 1982 (yep, we already had computers back then :P) that Scott Fahlman posted the following electronic message to a computer-science department bulletin board at Carnegie Mellon University

19-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman :-)
From: Scott E Fahlman

I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:

:-)

Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use:

:-(

And so emoticons were born...

(And you may want to learn some secret emoticons to use on Gmail's chat.)

Android is Here - Just one week to go

It seems Android's rumored delays were nothing but just that: rumors.

Because the first Android phone will be out next week!

It seems like it was yesterday when I started talking about this, but indeed those first indications were quite accurate. And just 4 months ago, people were already drooling all over those HTC Android demos.



I really didn't think they would be able to pull it off this quickly. In fact, I decided to buy the iPhone 3G when it was launched simply because I thought Android phones would be at least 6-8 months away.
Guess I was wrong... :)

It will be quite interesting to watch how the public will react to this new platform.

Personally, I'm all in for the Android platform - sure we'll be expected to face some first generation bugs (just take a look at all the problems the iPhone had to face in this second coming!) but one year from now I bet Android will be one of the major platforms for smartphones.

Even though I'm happy with the iPhone - there are a lot of issues that keep reminding me why I love an open-source community better. Things like those unexplicable removed or non-approved Apps (netshare, podcaster, etc.)

I'll give it a couple more months... but I have no doubt I'll get an Android phone sooner rather than later.

Google Location - Now with Improved Accuracy

If you're worried about Google ever growing powered, that you might not be too pleased to know they'll know exactly where you are with improved accuracy.

Google Location has been improved and it will now show you an estimated blue circle of your location based on its accuracy:

In places with higher accuracy you'll see a smaller dot.


But even when you're in a rural area with less cell phone towers to triangulate your position, Google's new algorithm can place your center closer to your real position (or so they claim.)

Nothing like trying it out for yourself and checking the results.

iPhone 2.1 - Second Impressions

My first impressions regarding Apple's latest firmware update to the iPhone (2.1) were quite positive... but:

After a couple of days, it seems that there are still some annoying bugs need fixing - soon!

Although my iPhone has yet to have had a fatal crash requiring a reboot since the update, Apple's own Safari has regularly been crashing and prompting me back to iPhone's main menu.
(I have just cleared its cache, to see if that was to blame...)

Unrelated to that, I have also suffered one instance of "phantom" keyboard keystrokes. As I was typing as usual, the cursor started deleting my message as if someone was pressing the backspace key - clearing about 10 or 20 characters. I had never experienced anything like that with the previous firmwares in the last couple of months.

And at last (at least for now) App Store updates are completely messed up! (check update at the end of the post)
In the previous firmware update, the "update all" button was gone - forcing us to manually go through each app requiring updating, and doing it one by one - but now it's even worse: i get no update button on the iPhone!
I mean, the updates show up as usual, but once I click to get to its details, I just get a tab with the previous version with a grayed out button saying "installed"! No way to update it directly from the iPhone.

What do they expect? For me to use iTunes every time I want to update an App?


What will come next?
Maybe next firmware update will remove the App Store altogether...

Thank God Android is coming...

[Update]

It seems like the update issue was unfounded. After some emailing the App developer, he explained they had been doing some editing of its descriptions and that the App store would take several hours to propagate those changes. So, today when I tried it again everything was as normal as usual - as he said it would be.

Safari keeps crashing though, even after clearing its cache... :/

Gmail Attachment Reminder

Two very interesting features have been added to Gmail Labs:

You can now have a "mark as read" button. (quite handy)

But more importantly you can try out their Forgotten Attachment Reminder.

How many times have you forgot to actually send an attachment to some of your emails?
(I hope I'm not just the only one doing that quite frequently...)

Well, this new feature checks your email for patterns involving "attachment/attached" phrases and reminds you to attach a file if you haven't done so.

Now all I need is a script to write all those emails for me as well... :)

iPhone Big Brother

Here's another cool one for you to annoy your iPhone-carrying friends.

It seems Apple's iPhone has one unadvertised feature: 'Big Brother'-style screen captures!

Everyone knows how cool the iPhone interface is, with its sliding and zooming screens moving around.

The problem is, whenever you press the "home button" - which will trigger one such effect - the iPhone stores a temporary file with a screen capture of your current screen.
This is just a temporary file that is soon deleted, but as anyone who has already recovered deleted photos from a memory card could tell you: these files aren't really deleted and are still accessible if you know how to get them.


It's isn't simple and it requires physical access to your iPhone - so, it isn't that serious for most users.




However, I wonder why the heck it is need to store a tiny 450Kb screen capture in the Flash memory for a tiny animation taking tenths of a second. Couldn't they have stored it in ram only?



Although this "feature" has already been put to good use to catch some criminal, I seriously doubt that's enough of an explanation to justify the potential security breach for millions of iPhone users worldwide.

C'mon Apple, keep the video effects in Ram only!
I wonder what kind of programmer writes screen captures to slow flash memory everytime he wants to make some effect on screen for a fraction of a second...

Source [Wired]

Ubuntu 9.04 [The Jaunty Jackalope]

While we're all waiting for Ubuntu 8.10 "Intrepid Ibex," which is expected in late October, work has already started on its successor:

Ubuntu 9.04 "The Jaunty Jackalope."

The priorities for next year's Ubuntu are going to be lighting fast boot and resume times and seamless integration with web apps.


People grew used to waiting 1 minute (or even more) for their computers to boot - but that will soon be a faint memory from "older" times. We want to get to a working environment as quickly as possible. With the popularity of small mobile computers (like the netbooks) that we can carry at all times, we need to be able to use it without wasting precious time waiting for it to boot or resume from a suspended state.

As for web apps, soon we won't be able to tell the difference between local installed apps and web based ones.

But I guess we'll have to wait till April 2009 to see that for ourselves. :)

source [ZDnet]

High Definition via Internet

While I do mostly agree with this article from Gizmodo explaining why High-Definition is still a long way from what we want it to be, I can't stop wondering why they insist so much on the bitrate issue.
 Sure, you can't have high quality content without enough bitrate - but... how much is enough? Do we really need those 40Mbits+ to have an enoyable HD internet experience?

I don't think so...

While I do agree that companies severey throttle bitrate so they can push some extra channels down the tube (and this is happening in almost every transmission media) there's more to quality than just the bitrate itself.

Here's a chart showcasing the bitrates used in different media:

Well, the issue isn't exactly what the bitrate is, but instead we'll focus on how it's used!

Just imagine for a second, what would happen if I took one of my old and dusty VHS tapes (assuming they would still work - and assuming I would still have some old VCR around to play it) and convert it to Bluray using its maximum bitrate?
Do you think you would have a "movie experience" with those 40Mbits of advertised bitrate?

It's all about the source material and how much we can compress it so it looks "nearly" the same.

There's a huge community of movie fans that excels at compressing movies at highest quality and the least used space, squeezing every bit of perfection out of the available codecs. These are the people that know when enough is enough.
It's not uncommon to see them arguing like:
"Why didn't you make it fit a DVD DL perfectly (8GB)?"
- "I won't make it use more space if there's no point in it. If it fits in 5GB and it won't look any better if it used 8GB; what's the point in making it larger?"

This is exactly what compression is all about: achieving  transparency.


Iimagine you have just an image consisting of just two dots (pixels) in black and white.
You could store this image in a computer using just 2 bits: one "0" for the black pixel, one "1" for the white pixel.
But hey - if you were trying to sell it, wouldn't it sound better if you said you have a 32bit color image?

So we'll convert this image that used 1bit per pixel to another format using 32bits per pixel.
Instead of the original "01" image using 2 bits of storage space you'll now have:
00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 (that's the first 32bits for the black pixel)
plus
00000000 00000000 00000000 00000001 (that's the second pixel, with the "1" white color)

You went from 2 bits to 64 bits (a 32x increase in used space) - without gaining anything in image quality.


Of course, thing get a lot more complicated when we're talking about "real images" and motion, but the key point about transparency is compressing the original image as much as possible without loosing any details.
For a very dark - or completely black - image, that may mean a couple of bytes, for a very complex scene it might mean Megabytes.

Taking the 2 pixel example from above, if you had a 64 bit image of those 2 pixels, you could compress it down to just 2 bits without loosing any detail.


You've probably noticed this already when you're listening to MP3 music.

As you know, you can have different quality setting for your MP3, some using 64Kbits/s others using 256Kbit/s. Most people also know that the higher the bitrate, the better it usually sounds.
But if you can usually tell (hear) the difference between a 64Kbit/s MP3 and one encoded at 256Kbits - distinguishing between a 256Kb and 384Kb MP3 is a lot harder. And what about if you had a 512Kb/s MP3 vs a 1024Kb/s one? Could you really tell the difference?
Not really, because like I said above, the extra bandwidth wouldn't really be needed for it.


In High-Definition movies things are a bit different because we're talking about an insane amount of data compared to CD audio.

Consider this: a single uncompressed 1080p frame (that's 1920x1080 x 24bits) takes about 6Mbytes. But, you have 30 frames per second showing in your TV screen, so that adds up to about  178MB per second --  10GBytes per minute - 625Gbytes per hour!

Just try and fit that into your "high-tech" Bluray disc which takes only 50GB and holds 3 or 4 hours of film.

That's where codecs like MPEG come in - and in the case Bluray it will reduce the original bitrate from 1400Mbits/s down to 40Mbits -- that means cutting about 97% of the original information.

Then we have different codecs, each with its own efficiency. While MPEG2 (the codec used in DVDs - and some Bluray discs still) was efficient, the newer H.264 is considered to be 4x better.
That's why you can easily rip and encode your DVD movies to your media center, and have the movie shrunk down to 1/4 its original size without noticing any quality loss.
And the same thing happens to Bluray movies and any other HD stream (provided they're not already using the H264 codec.)
That's why you can have great looking HD movies in a quarter of the size used by Bluray disks.

Even if the movie is already using H.264 and taking 40GB of space, you can still compress it a bit more and get it to around 10GB with "some" acceptable quality loss.

Unless you compare it side by side, the differences won't be that visible for most people.

The point is, it's not all about the bitrate...
More is better, yes. But just until it is "enough".

I don't want to reach a point where people look blindly at a bitrate sticker to access a movie quality.

If not, companies might just start encoding movies so they fill up the disc completely whether that's the best way to do it or not.

Back to the topic, even though the available offerings are a clear rip-off, offering so-called HD streams worst than your regular DVD, it is indeed possible to get HD via the Internet. They just need to get closer to the 5-10Mbits bitrates for the HD streamsand people will be able to see the difference (for the better.)

Considering most broadband connections are now advertising 20+ Mbits (not considering those countries where 100+ is already the norm) that's not so far off.

iPhone 2.1 - First Impressions

Finally we seem to have the iPhone we were expecting when the iPhone 3G was launched a couple months ago.

And if some of the issues were understandable because of the new App Store, some were completely unacceptable.


But lets get on with it...

First impression is: everything runs smoother.
You can now jump from the browser to the email, and then open the contacts without noticing annoying lags and slowdowns. Yes, even if you have 800 contacts in your list, you can now scroll through them without a problem.

Clicking on the SMS icon still takes slightly longer than I'd hope for, but it's on par with other cell phones.


Signal strength indication seems to be much more accurate than before - and showing up more powerful signals than before. I used to have "zero" 3G bars at home, and now it shows 2 or 3 bars (right now it's showing 4.)
If that's just cosmetic or real - it remains to be seen. I'll be able to tell the difference on monday, when I can test it in my workplace (which had lousy signal reception.)

As for the keyboard, I expect those slowdows to be gone, and you can also type Firefox instead of Firefix at last! :)
In international keyboars - at least in the Portuguese one - it finally stopped expanding single letter words!
When I typed just "e, a, o," all valid portuguese words, iPhone consistently corrected it to"em, as, os" which are also valid words but not what I was tryping to type - and it never learned to stop doing it.
Now it does! No more constant fixing and wasting time with it.
Other non-existing single letter words, like "q" still get expanded correctly though - that's nice!


Installing apps is speedier than ever, that will help prevent the common bricking problem (auto translated link - don't blame me for the "engrish.")
iTunes syncing is also blazing fast now - as it should have been from the start!

There are a lot less crashes also. Some 3rd party Apps that refused to start now work flawlessly. (Better memory managment I guess.) I still had one crash on an App that usually rebooted the iPhone - but no reboot this time - and its developer already told me they knew of a few bugs that might cause this issue.

You now get 2 extra reminders when you receive a SMS and fail to notice it. That's not adjustable though - it does it whether you want it or not. That's lame - they should have added extra setting in the control panel.

You now have the genius playlists as well - but I didn't go into that yet.

What amazed the most was finding that the enhanced battery life was indeed noticeable and visible!
I spent a couple of hours last night chatting with Palringo, with the iPhone always on and using WiFi - something that would suck about 20 or 30% of its battery and the battery indicator just dropped 1 pixel!
That's really amazing.

Truth be told - when I used WiFi a lot for a very long time, it was quite common for the iPhone to get noticeably warm, as if it was transmitting at full power - yesterday, you couldn't notice any warming at all, as if it was using much less power.
That's something I'll be able to figure out better withing a coupld of days.


So, most major issues seem to be finally solved. And although it took a couple of months, it's better late than never.

Now we'll have to wait and see what bugs will creep up to the top of the "urgent fixing" list.

Besides, if this firmware update was mostly a giant bug fix, I hope the next one will finally implement new and much needed features like copy-paste and a Safari ad-blocker.

EA Justifies DRM-ing Spore

Spore has been one of the most highly anticipated games of the decade - allowing you to play around with life, from a single cell organism up to a galactic civilization.

However, when it was launched a few days ago, customers had a curious reaction to its DRM copy-protection method: they trashed their review scores in high-profile sites like Amazon.

While Spore is still selling ok, it's isn't very good for a developer or distributor to have a game showing with a rating of 1 star in 5, is it?

The issue, as always, is the copy protection method: you can only install the game 3 times. After that, you'll need to contact Electronic Arts and kindly ask them for a new activation code - which they may very well refuse, after treating you as a suspect and jerking you around for a while.

This is a game you *paid for*, but you're treated like you just rented it.

The protection is well known to gamers, it's the hideous SecuROM that acts more like a virus, and can affect your computer performance and reliability.

And proving that DRM is useless, Spore was leaked on the Internet several days before its launch date, free from those pesky protections.

Why they keep using these techniques?

"That's like saying just because your house has been robbed, why do you bother putting a lock on your door?" responded Jeff Brown, EA's vice-president of corporate communications.

Sure... But why do they keep putting a lock *and* a retinal scanner *and* a fingerprint reader in *our* front door, while they leave the back door open for anyone deciding not to pay for the game?

I only ask that I can play the game I paid for without worrying about my computer integrity and without being treated like a criminal.

Last game I bought for the PC was completely DRM free and it was quite successful (ET:Quake Wars) and there are many other examples.

I guess I'll just have to stay clear of EA's games...

Fortunately, some smaller developers are listening and adjusting accordingly.

via [FT]

iPhone Firmware Update 2.1 Available

Finally, it's out!
Firmware update 2.1 for the iPhone - the one expected to fix most major bugs in the iPhone and finally make it as it should have been at launch.

At least this time we get a lengthier description than just a simple "bug fixes":

• Decrease in call set-up failures and dropped calls
• Significantly better battery life for most users
• Dramatically reduced time to backup to iTunes
• Improved email reliability, notably fetching email from POP and Exchange accounts
• Faster installation of 3rd party applications
• Fixed bugs causing hangs and crashes for users with lots of third party applications
• Improved performance in text messaging
• Faster loading and searching of contacts
• Improved accuracy of the 3G signal strength display
• Repeat alert up to two additional times for incoming text messages
• Option to wipe data after ten failed passcode attempts
• Genius playlist creation

Update yours as soon as you can.

[Update]
If you're having issues syncing your iPhone 2.1 with iTunes, see if this helps:

1. Unplug your iPhone and turn it off.
   Hold the power button at the top until the red slider appears and power it down completely.
2. Quit iTunes 8
3. Relaunch iTunes 8
4. Plug in iPhone - DO NOT TURN IT ON FIRST. Make sure it's still off completely from step 1.
5. Should sync normally

Sekai Camera for iPhone

Augmented reality from TonchiDot, Sekai Camera for iPhone as presented on Techcrunch 50.

What if reality was used as a canvas for social networking and... everything else?

Check this video:

iPhone Useful Wallpaper

While what we really want is the chance to use Intelliscreen in non-jailbreaked iPhones (if that ever comes to happen,) that doesn't mean you can't put a very simple feature to good use: the screen capture function together with the wallpaper.

As you're probable aware, you can easily take a snapshot of whatever is on your iPhone screen by clicking the "home" button wile pressing the "lock" button.

That means you can easily snap a photo of your task list, calendar, weather reports, or even a webpage filled with relevant info - and set it as your wallpaper so you can have easy access to it by simple looking at your iPhone even in locked mode.

Talk about putting the wallpaper into good use. Instead of using a "pretty" picture you're actually using it for something useful.

I now it is a very basic and "cheap" trick... but it does work.

You can also easily use it to take a snapshot of a note stating: "If you found this iPhone please return it to ... " which can be useful - considering there are still honest people out there that would return an iPhone they found lost somewhere.

Of course nothing stops you from using Photoshop to create an even more creative and useful wallpaper.

But again... what we really need is Intelliscreen working in all iPhones, jailbreaked or not. ;)

Techcrunch 50 Winner - Yammer

And this year's Techcrunch 50 Winner is... Yammer (think of Twitter for enterprises.)

Yammer takes the familiar Twitter messaging system and applies it to internal corporate communications. There is such a huge demand for this type of service that 10,000 people and 2,000 organizations signed up for the service the first day it launched on Monday. Anyone with a corporate email can sign up and follow other people in their company. But if a company ants to claim its users, and gain administrative control over them, they will have to pay. It’s a brilliant business model.

 If you're interested, go sign up now: Yammer.com

Not all SSDs are created Equal

Solid state disks (SSDs,) are the craze of the moment. These storage devices use Flash memory like the ones you can find in USB Pen drives and promisse to revolutionize the computer industry. However, there's also a dark side you should be aware of...

As anyone reading that has heard from it will be able to tell you, SSDs are awesome: no moving parts, nearly instantaneous acesses, the works!

That's the good part, however...

Not every SSD is created equal, and even if they use the exact same Flash memory chips, the device chipset and controller can make all the difference in the world. To make it worse, this is the kind of thing hidden away inside its case - not something you can tell by looking at its enclosure.

That's why we need to be careful when we see things like this SSD OCZ Core 32GB costing just $99 while others cost substantially more like this SSD from Intel costing $595.
Some people might be led to believe that such a huge price difference will more than cover the smaller size and slightly slower performance.

But things are not that easy...

Although Flash memory has some advantages, they also have one very annoying drawback: its write cycle times. (Not to mention the limited number of write cycles each cell can endure, but that's another issue.)

Simply put, when you write a very small 200 byte file to your SSD, internally it will need to erase a full "page" (which might be 256KB or even larger) which takes a very long time - relatively speaking.

You've probably noticed that already: when you copy  file to a USB Flash disk, it takes quite a bit longer to write to it than to read it back to the disk.

To mess things up even more, there are different flash types available, the most common used in SSDs being SLC and MLC.
MLCs are cheaper - and as you'd might imagine, slower. However, when combined with an intelligent controller even these "low-cost" flashs can beat SLC SSDs with "dumb" controllers.
(Intel MLC SSDs are a prime example of this, beating many SLC SSDs from other manufacturers.)

So, what does this all mean anyway?

It means that in some cases, SSDs like OCZ Core can become annoyingly slow and grind your computer to an halt for several seconds.
Check the worst case scenario below:

While an Intel SSD takes 0.09ms to perform a 4K write, an OCZ Core takes thousands of times more - worst case being nearly 1 second!

In real world this can mean you'll have to endure frequent system "hiccups" or even be unable to install Vista (besides taking a long time, it seems Vista doesn't handle well those lengthy write operations and gets corrupted somehow.)

Again, keep in mind I'm talking about the OCZ Core and similar SSDs - other SSDs like the one from Intel performs just like we expect an SSD to perform: flawlessly!

Of course, there are tasks where even a poorly designed SSD can perform extremely well; like you can see in this benchmark that is executing 4 tasks together: searching Windows contacts, searching Windows mails, browsing in IE7, and launching applications.

Even though slower than faster and better designed SSD, it still beats magnetic hard drives.

However, you have to remember that you might have to face those dreaded deadlocks for a few seconds every now and then. So, keep that in mind when you see some extra low-cost offering for an SSD.


If you want a much more in-depth review about SSDs and its internal workings, be sure to read:
[Detailed performance analysis at Anandtech]

Swype Touchscreen Text Input

Another interesting project shown on Techcrunch 50 was Swype.

Coming from the inventor of the T9 predictive text input you can find in every cell phone, this is believed to be the "next generation" text input method for touchscreen devices.

Watch the demo video, because it can soon become as common in tablet and touchscreen devices as T9 is in cellphones.

Swype:



via [Techcrunch]

Get Dropbox Now

Remember Dropbox?

They just had their live presentation in the Techcrunch 50, a conference that is looking for the best ideas and startups around the web.

Unfortunately for them their presentation didn't go all that well - they had some Wi-Fi troubles that messed his concentration, and things got a little "out-of-control." And when you're competing with other great concepts and ideas, this is a killer. :(

I still can't understand why he failed to mention the revision control, which gives you access to any version of any file you modify in your dropbox! That's probably the feature with the most "wow" factor. It's a shame it went unnoticed.
(They should have played their demo video instead...)

Well, here's the new stuff:
Dropbox is now live and available for everyone! No need to hunt down invites from friends! Just go there and sign up for your free account.

Linux support is also up and running!

And if you feel 2Gb is not enough, you can now get up to 50Gb for $10/month or $100/year.

For the first 500 users that went to http://www.getdropbox.com/beta/tc50 were entitled to a free premium account - which were used up in about 1 minute. :)

Don't forget to check the demo video if you haven't done so before:

Google Chrome About: pages

You've probably tried typing "about:config" on Google Chrome (even if by mistake) and found it to do... nothing special. But... are you aware there are a lot of other "about:" pages you can type on Google's Browser?

Check these out (they're pretty much self explanatory)

1. about:version 
2. about:plugins
   
3. about:cache
   
4. about:memory 
5. about:stats 
6. about:histograms
   
7. about:dns 
8. about:network.
   
9. about:crash - crash the active tab.
   
10. about:hang - hangs the process (this means that the process no longer accepts any signal, but it's still running). The other tabs will continue to work and the active tab can be closed.
    
11. about:internets - this is an Easter egg - and it only works if you have the file sspipes.scr in C:\Windows\System32.
    

via [googlesystem]

Does Apple really Hate Firefox that much? [iPhone]

So you want a tip on how to have a laugh with your iPhone owning friends?

No, you don't need to mention double-clicks bypassing their passwords; you don't even need to annoy them with the slow keyboard bug... in fact, it's a lot easier:

You just need to ask them to type 'Firefox' on their iPhones.

Yep, you heard me right.
Ask them to go into anyplace where they can access the iPhone keyboard; SMS, Browser, Notes, whatever... and simply type Firefox (they do have to do it in the 'english' keyboard though.)

Ok, now just watch...

You: So, go ahead, type Firefox - and be sure not to write it wrong.
Them: Ok, I don't see what will be the problem, iPhone's keyboard is a joy to use.
You: Yeah, I know... just do it then...
Them: Damn, don't stress me... it's the third time I'm making mistakes because you...
You: Oh, really? Sure... no worries. Please try it again slowly.

(insert variable lenght of time until you feel sorry for them)

Now, you can tell them: they can't really type 'Firefox' on their iPhones in one go without making a mistake - simple because as you're typing it:

F i r e f ...

When you get to the 'o', it won't allow you to write it, the iPhone will nudge your press to either the 'i' or 'p'.
Yep, just try it yourself. You can press and hold, press and drag, do whatever you think of... the 'o' button is completely locked out.

Meaning... you can still type 'Firefox', but you'll have to type it as:
F i r e f o (you'll probably get the 'i' instead) [backspace] o x

Bug? Seriously doubt it.
Easter Egg? Maybe, but an annoying one if so...

I never noticed it because most of the time I'm writing with the Portuguese keyboard enabled... but for English users, I'm sure it will be a lot less funny.

So... anyone has more details about this Apple-Firefox grudge? Or any other grudges that might be lurking inside your iPhone keyboard?

... or can this be the definitive proof that Apple does indeed have a sense of humor? :)



[Update]

Firmware update 2.1 fixed this (and many other issues.)
So... if you're tired of fixing "Firefix" on your iPhone... just update it to the latest firmware.

Google Chrome OS

There's a lot of buzz regarding Google Chrome and how it might grow to become a full-fledged OS and become a "Windows Killer."

This is probably due to the way Google Chrome implements some OS-like mechanisms to manage its tabs and processes.

It didn't take long for some high-profile sites to announce Chrome as a Windows Killer and, of course, for others to say that's stupid.

Personally, I have no doubt that the trend is towards web-based things. Netbooks are alread advertising "online" disk space, some companies are working on realtime online 3D rendering... Imagining a world where you can access everything, from office suites like Google Docs to impressive 3D games, through a browser isn't that farfetched. That's something I have been telling my friends for a longtime - though I also tell them this isn't something that will happen now or next year; it will take a bit longer, but eventually it will happen.

In that sense, I look at Chrome as a step in the right direction - even though I also believe Google's purpose is to push forward so that other browsers keep up, and not really to become an opponent to them.


So, taking that article as reference it tells us that traditionally, processes were organized like this:

And later on evolved to this, with runtime languages like Java and .Net:

... and then it concludes Google Chrome as an OS is stupid because it would turn things into this:

Ok, I understand all those layers look nice for explaining his purposes, and that *right now* this is the case for anyone wanting to try Chrome on Linux, but...

People shouldn't forget Chrome is an Open Source project and it's just a matter of time till it works natively on Linux. In fact, Chrome is already compiling fine, even though it usable yet.

But, more realistically, you'll be able to get rid of all those extra layers:

And end up with something like this:

Which becomes a lot more attractive and acceptable.
Considering we can even imagine getting a Chrome-like browser in an embedded Linus OS like Splashtop, things start looking even better - and this is something Splashtop (and other's, I'm sure) are working on; this isn't just "wishful thinking."

Though a browser will never be an OS in the true sense of the word, it can become very close... and that's what I mean when I talk about Chrome (and other future browsers) as becoming our future "operating systems."

Portugal Technological Achievements

What prompted me to write this entry was reading news around the web and people talking about some recent "amazing technological stuff" that happen to be common place here in Portugal and have been for a very long time.



ATM machines

For instance, take ATM machines (in here called Multibanco.)
Having been used to the Multibanco (MB) machines since my early years, I was shocked when I started traveling to different (and supposedly more "advanced") countries and saw that they had a bunch of different ATM machines, completely old-looking with monochrome screens and often incompatible with my cards.

In Portugal, every card from every bank works in any MB machine. They have large and simple to operate color screens - even capable of playing video ads - and with voice prompts if you want it (useful for impaired vision users.) Also, international cards will automatically trigger the MB machine to display its options in their respective language.
MB is also not just for cash deposits and withdrawls - you have countless operations you can perform: buying tickets for music shows, tickets for train travels, charging up your prepaid cell phone cards, and just about anything you might imagine.

Although some of these are fairly recent, MB has been around since 1985 and is now available everywhere. Just about every place where you might be asked to pay for something has a MB terminal for payments - and you can easily find a cash dispenser MB just about anywhere.
There's really no need to carry around large quantities of cash in Portugal, as you can live by with your MB card.
Needless to say, these machines are fully compatible with all major internationl credit/debit cards (though some stores accept just MB transactions and choose not to accept credit cards.)

There's also MB.net, a service that allows you to create virtual credit cards for single operations on the internet. You set the cash and date limit and it creates a unique card number for you to use in a single (or more) operation.

To finish this MB thing, you can also access all of MB functions from your cellphone - meaning you can actually pay for your cell phone using your cell phone (sounds kind of cool, doesn't it? :)


Cell Phones

Talking about cell phones...Portugal is a cellphone heaven (or should I say, hell?)

Everyone has a cellphone... or two... or three. In fact, you're now more likely to find someone having a cellphone than having a fixed line phone.
Even mobile operators offer "fixed" mobile phones for home use (basically a cell phone with a docking station - but restricted to work in a single cell so you can't move it around.)
Any kid going to school is likely to have one, and wherever you go you'll find people happily (and sometimes annoyingly - I admit) texting and chatting on the cellphone.

Why? That's easy... we were the first to introduce prepaid cellphone SIM cards.
Until then, cell phones were quite expensive - both to acquire and to maintain - with hefty monthly fees.
When the prepaid cell phones appeared, people felt they had all the control they needed to finally start using cell phones without worrying about the bill they would get at the end of the month.

The principle is simple and effective: you "fill" your card with a specified amount - let's say, 10 euros. And you start using your cell phone as you wish. At any moment you can easily check how much money you have remaining on your card, and at any moment you can easily fill it up again at any MB machine, over the internet, or even using the cell phone (as I said before.)
There are also ways to transfer money from one cell to another (for example, from a parent's phone to their children) and also ways to request someone to call you back even if you're out of money on your card.

For infrequent callers there are even "no obligation" plans where you're not even required to "fill up" your card. Meaning you can just fill it with $5 and keep it working for the rest of your life (provided you make a phone call once every 6 months or so.)


RFID tickets

In Porto, since 2002, you can use a single RFID ticket called the "Andante" (literally meaning: walker) whether you're taking a train, bus or subway. It was the first fully contactless mass transit ticketing system used in the world.


Electronic Toll collection systems


I can't help but chuckle everytime I hear/read about some country implementing non-stop electronic tolls.
We have our own Via Verde (literally: Green Way) since 1991 - yep, that's right: 17 years ago!
Since 1995 it has been implemented in *every* toll in the country and it allows you to simply drive by a special non-stopping lane to be charged without stopping. That operation will appear in your bank statement.

More recently, they have ditched the toll booths all together and use just an overhead structure - meaning you have just a free empty stretch of highway, and you don't even need to slow down like in the older "Via Verde" lanes. (If you want/need to pay the old-fashioned way you'll need to take a detour and head for the toll booths.)

Starting next year, every car in the country will be *required* to have a license plate ID chip that will be compatible with this system - meaning no one will have ever have to stop in toll booths again.


In other areas, I could talk about Cristiano Ronaldo, Figo, or even Port Wine and our yummy Francesinhas... but that's stuff for another post. :)