My thoughts on the Apple vs. Flash battle...

Some history: Apple seem to be launching an all out offensive against supporting Flash on their mobile, mini devices.

I don't think that the Adobe and Apple fight over Flash is about technical issues with running correctly. I think this is what Apple are bleating, but I think it is far from the truth. Here's the real problem Apple face, and it's strategic. Apple are relying on their developer kit for iPhone to win over thousands of developers... and that has been working. A significant reward is needed to convince companies that it's worth developing in a totally new environment on a new platform: Enter iPhone Apps and revenue as the reward, and the Objective C and Apple developer stuff as the environment... Now, logically, once companies are developing for iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, it's not a far leap to develop full-on Mac apps. What has happened, the Mac has become a developers platform, highly supported and tons of software being written for it. Can you see where I'm going here: Flash on these devices, will undermine their strategy of getting more developers, because suddenly people can bypass their precious Objective C platform, and simply use Flash and Flex. Apple don't want this. They REALLY don't want it, cos while in the short term it will benefit them to have more apps in the form of flash apps, in the long term, they go back to square one, and don't have a mass of mac developers.

leopard bites some users

Ok, so I was a bit spontaneous. I should never hastily rush and install a new Operating System the day of it's release. Nope, nothing is wrong, well at least with my installation! But i'm hearing reports of bad installs (blue screens of death) and other reports of odd things, like the latest version of Java not being supported on Leopard. Hmm. Hopefully those can quickly be resolved, and luckily I didn't encounter the blue screen and I'm not a Java developer (though I aspire to be one day!)

So, I'm fortunate - no hassles and an awesome OS, pity that these things are marring what would otherwise be a most excellent upgrade. I guess the pressure of a set deadline gets to everyone, even Apple.

apple getting greener

A very interesting trend to watch in corporations (those which manufacture products) - is their attention to the environment. This is obviously a positive effect of not only laws passed, but pressure applied from various environment lobby groups. While I'm not a vegetarian tree hugger myself, I fully stand on the fact that we should look after God's creation as best we can, and so I recognise the good progress we're making on this front.

Check out this link here.

linux ipod woe's

In reading this article, it's clear that Apple are effectively shutting out Linux users from using the new iPods. There is currently no iTunes for Linux, and no signals that one will be developed in the near future. They have changed the structure of how the iPod works, encrypting the database with a hash that ties that database to the iPod.

My opinion is this: that Apple should be more platform friendly towards Linux, especially with it's iPod support. Look at Adobe releasing the Flash plugin for Linux, as well as Microsoft's Silverlight plugin. Bring out an iTunes-light for Linux, make it open-source, let the Linux community manage it themselves. Sure, people will know the inside of your software, but rather have it this way and control it, than have some person reverse engineer it and you're left with the impression of being the big bad guy.

Maybe don't even make it open source, but release a core linux version with an API, and let the people build it.

You successfully took the digital music arena, which was a mishmash of illegal copying, file sharing, etc - and made a very lucrative business model from it. I'm sure you can do the same in this case if you apply yourselves.

mac: nifty way to schedule a task

OK, so I need to run a task frequently on my mac. A daily download of a wallpaper to my desktop from National Geographic, and every two days to do a project backup (which I ought to burn to disk and take off-site).

So, what are my options... cron, and iCal. Yes, I found that out today, as an alarm for an event, not only can I set a chime to go *TING* - I can run a script or open a file... This leaves lots of possibilities!

So, I fire up iCal, add a new task called getwallpaper, and set the time to 9AM. Then I change the repeat option to every day.

Now, my iCal is littered on each day with an obscure entry. We'll deal with that in a moment.

I head over to the alarm selector, and select open file (the script is an app, so the run script option didn't work in this case) - I choose my app which collects my wallpaper.

Now, to tidy up, I click the plus [+] icon in the bottom left corner, and add a new calendar, name it Scheduled Tasks. It should appear in the top left side panel with a tick. Uncheck the tick and the events disappear. So I don't need to be bothered by my scheduled events.

I did the same for my backup, except I set up a Custom repeat option so that it happened ever week on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Next time, I'll use Otto (Automator) to control the backup and zip the file afterwards.

Cron is another more scripty-geeky-terminal way to do this, and I'm keen to explore that when I get a chance. I got this info from here, and they also explain how to do this in Windows.

Here's a grab of the iCal screen, with my nifty National Geographic desktop, before I unchecked the Calendar so that they disappear. Wow, am I really that empty this week?

better than quicktime!

For a while now I've been struggling to see some various avi codecs using quicktime. Stuff that just works nicely on my windows box just seems to be riddled with headaches on my mac. Well last night I discovered a little app called the VLC player.

How this happened: 1) Quicktime moaned that it couldn't play the movie correctly, so it sent me to the Quicktime site. Fortunately, I knew it was an XVID codec I needed (see, before, I didn't actually know - surely Quicktime should also tell us WHICH codec we need, not just send us to a list of 10 Quicktime plugins saying "pick a codec, any codec... oops, wrong codec").

2) I went to the XVID site, and downloaded the plugin, but at the same time I saw a link to another video player, suddently the mist started to clear and the sun came out and a chorus played in the background (it was late).

3) I downloaded this app also, and found my Quicktime plugins didn't solve the problem, so I installed VLC and happily forgot about Quicktime. What's great is that it is also multi platform, and responds to the Apple remote control too (Windows Media doesn't!).

It also supports Windows Media formats, and does a much better job than the Windows Media Player 9 for Mac. I'm impressed, so check it out.

anti-virus: ClamXav and ClamAv

Although the mac is reputed to have few or no viruses (a few have been made as proof of concept but they aren't really comparable to what windows users experience), it's better to take precautions. I've recently installed ClamXav, which came on one of the MacFormat DVD's. It's a freeware Anti-Virus for Mac. It comes from another project called ClamAv, which is for other platforms. It works well and you can also set up schedules to do a Virus scan, as well as a Sentry, which can watch certain directories always (for example your mail attachment or Downloads folder).

Now, although the risk is less for us mac users, we should be responsible and allow this to apprehend Viruses that could otherwise be passed on in an email to our colleagues or friends. It's like paying your TV license, it's the right thing to do.

Apple drops the ball

In what most deem is a big risk, Apple decided to release Safari 3 public beta to the masses. By masses I mean both PC and Mac platforms. This move could have been ingenious, if the product was the usual Apple offering. However, it has fallen short, FAR short of expectations. Where is the "3 years into the future" design thinking that Apple are famous for? What, I can shift my tabs around and find things?? What were you thinking? Yes, the time is now to get PC users in, but do it with a product that isn't absolutely terrible! Think of a bunch of amazing browser innovations, build in some ideas from the firefox plugins if you can't think of them yourself. And reduce the features in favour of making it a little more stable. Yes, it's a beta, but my download didn't even start up after it was installed! I'll look again when there is a better offering, but my opinion is, most people wouldn't be bothered.

Another note on Safari. It claims to be a standards based browser and the best for web developers to test their goods on. In my experience, being a web developer, I find it dreadful to use. I've never thought much of Safari, and no amount of hype thrown at a bad product will ever turn it into a good product. I'm just concerned that Apple start resting on their good innovations in the previous few years, and rely on riding the wave of hype. This won't cut it with PC users (remember, they don't worship Apple), it won't work on a bad browser, and also, let's hope Leopard has more to offer than a few shiny makeovers and some irrelevant functions.

Adobe are getting this right, concentrating on workflows and cutting down production times. I'm hoping Apple don't get sidetracked and that recent popularity hasn't gone to their heads. That being said, I'm still a big fan of the company. I guess the expectations are high because people have become accustomed to only the best from Apple.

well said Steve

Steve Jobs of Apple Inc. just gave his thoughts on the DRM (digital rights management) restrictions of the downloaded music from iTunes on the iPod. Let's open up the DRM-restrictions on downloaded music.
Though I think Option 4 would be to incorporate an open standard that is open source and managed by the community. While the Record Labels might have a problem with this, and solutions might come in slower to breaches in security, at least no one company or small conglomerate of companies control the DRM development and implementation.

Steve, if you're reading this (haha, I think I'm the only person who reads my blog at this point) - how about opening the iTunes Store in South Africa too?

introducing... my mac

Could it be a definite trend happening... or is it that I'm noticing it more now that I have one: but aren't there a lot of macs around these days? I keep noticing fellow mac users all around, in coffee shops, in meetings I go to (and I don't just hang around in ad agency circles either), even the DJ at the New Years Concert at the Dome in Northgate... so what gives? Has the iPod swung the Cupertino doors open to Apple acceptance here in South Africa? It certainly seems so! I mean even my aunt got a nifty little black macbook (2nd generation, faster than mine!) I helped her set it up (not that she needed me either, it was child's play), and she loves it - she went to some free Apple training that they give to new users.

I've had my mac for a few months now and I love it. Every week or two I find some other neat little feature that I didn't know about before. That being said, it did take some adjusting from the PC I'd gotten used to. A friend sent me a link today: http://teenagefanboy.blogspot.com/2007/01/ten-things-i-wish-i-knew-before-i.html
and I found it a great read. It's a list of 10 things that can help new mac users, as some of the things are definitely very different on mac.

In fact, one of the focuses of this blog will be about Apple, Mac, iPod and all that stuff.
When I find more nifty features I'll be sure to post them here.

In the meanwhile, here's a great site I found with helpful shortcut commands. Being a developer, knowing lots of shortcuts is kind of like having experience points in the field of battle... "Oh, you fought in Korea?" - yeah, so rack these suckers up and impress your friends.

http://www.danrodney.com/mac/index.html