The iPhone OS 3.0 came out and I managed to upgrade within 30 minutes of the release. I'm happy with the extra functionality, but there's some stuff I wish would have been included.
So what are the things that should be included in the next release?
How about RSS feed subscription and updates? I don't want to sync with iTunes just to get podcast updates! I want to be able to download them by just clicking on "Refresh" in the podcast window instead of having to go to the "iTunes Store."
How about uploading your pictures to Flickr or Picassa from the photo app?
Anything else you can think of?
Yes, I know you can buy separate apps for these but it would be nice if it were all included.
I guess someone has to make a living by making things people want or need?
-P
Friday, 19 June 2009
Tuesday, 26 May 2009
Geeks: Star Wars, Star Trek, Matrix, Firefly, oh why?
I'm a geek. I love technology and the possibilities that it opens. As a geek, I love movies that have tech theme. My wife doesn't understand why I (and other geeks) love watching these movies over and over. She doesn't understand what we find so fascinating. Well, let me try to explain.
Star Wars: Knights with swords, rescuing damsels in distress, fighting evil and a force that unites all living creatures. Oh, and everything wrapped with technology.
Star Trek: Explorers searching for things that will help better humanity, meeting creatures and beings. The adventure spirit at it's best.
Matrix: People obsessed with technology also tend to be people that don't like things to stand still. We don't usually believe in fate and think that we make our own luck, etc. If we can't control it, then maybe there's an external reason.
Firefly: Cowboys, guns and the old west but with spaceships.
Discuss.
-P
Star Wars: Knights with swords, rescuing damsels in distress, fighting evil and a force that unites all living creatures. Oh, and everything wrapped with technology.
Star Trek: Explorers searching for things that will help better humanity, meeting creatures and beings. The adventure spirit at it's best.
Matrix: People obsessed with technology also tend to be people that don't like things to stand still. We don't usually believe in fate and think that we make our own luck, etc. If we can't control it, then maybe there's an external reason.
Firefly: Cowboys, guns and the old west but with spaceships.
Discuss.
-P
Dovecot migration error
We migrated IMAP servers at work and for some reason I was the only one that was affected by a small problem. I couldn't get my email! The error that would show in the maillog was:
After looking at several things I eventually saw that my cur directory had some subdirecties named like emails. They were empty, so I went ahead and deleted it and that fixed it!
Just thought I'd let other people know since it's one of those things that Googling didn't really give any answers. (Imagine that!)
-P
dovecot: IMAP(user): FETCH for mailbox INBOX UID 176705 failed to read message input: Is a directory
dovecot: IMAP(user): Disconnected: BUG: Unknown internal error bytes=473/4475
After looking at several things I eventually saw that my cur directory had some subdirecties named like emails. They were empty, so I went ahead and deleted it and that fixed it!
Just thought I'd let other people know since it's one of those things that Googling didn't really give any answers. (Imagine that!)
-P
Thursday, 7 May 2009
EPS to SVG
Wow it's been a while since I've update this!
I have several images that I got from Cisco that are in EPS format and I wanted to use them in Inkscape for diagrams, etc. They're public domain, so I wanted to see if I could give them back to the Open Clip Art Library once I was done.
I got them from the Cisco site but couldn't find anything that could easily convert them on the command line. The ways I found involved converting to PDF and importing in Inkscape. The best way was loading them in Scribus and exporting as SVG, which worked fine, but do that with 300+ files!
In the end I found that I could use pstoedit to convert to another format and then from that format to svg. This worked flawlessly and I didn't even encounter any problems on the final svg file like the website claimed there would be.
This is what I did:
-P
(Note: I've fixed the script. Thanks to Nelnik pointing out in the comments that my sed for /eps/fig/ would convert steps.eps into stfig.eps. This is due to me not being specific enough. Adding the $ at the end of the /eps/ makes it look specifically for something ending in eps. This would match the extension only in steps.eps.)
I have several images that I got from Cisco that are in EPS format and I wanted to use them in Inkscape for diagrams, etc. They're public domain, so I wanted to see if I could give them back to the Open Clip Art Library once I was done.
I got them from the Cisco site but couldn't find anything that could easily convert them on the command line. The ways I found involved converting to PDF and importing in Inkscape. The best way was loading them in Scribus and exporting as SVG, which worked fine, but do that with 300+ files!
In the end I found that I could use pstoedit to convert to another format and then from that format to svg. This worked flawlessly and I didn't even encounter any problems on the final svg file like the website claimed there would be.
This is what I did:
for EPS in *.eps ; do FIG=`echo "$EPS" | sed -e s/eps$/fig/` ; SVG=`echo "$EPS" | sed -e s/eps$/svg/` ; echo "Converting ... $EPS" ; pstoedit "$EPS" -f fig "$FIG" ; fig2dev -L svg "$FIG" cisco_svg/"$SVG" ; rm -f "$FIG" ; doneIt worked like a charm.
-P
(Note: I've fixed the script. Thanks to Nelnik pointing out in the comments that my sed for /eps/fig/ would convert steps.eps into stfig.eps. This is due to me not being specific enough. Adding the $ at the end of the /eps/ makes it look specifically for something ending in eps. This would match the extension only in steps.eps.)
Thursday, 15 January 2009
2009 is here.
Where did it come from? I was only now just getting use to 2008.
So I found an interesting Bash tutorial and I've linked to it because you can never have too many interesting Bash tutorials.
-P
So I found an interesting Bash tutorial and I've linked to it because you can never have too many interesting Bash tutorials.
-P
Monday, 24 November 2008
Asterisk - so powerful
I've been doing some things with Asterisk that have been causing me headaches. However, this is probably due to my inexperience and the fact that I'm still learning. I can do a lot of stuff already but there's tons more that I know can be done and I'm probably not doing.
My dilema is that if I were to take a course, as far as I can tell, they tend to cover the basics. All the things that I know will be repeated. Now, will I lean something new? Maybe. Will is be worth the £XXXX that I have to pay for the course? I don't think it will.
I am going to see what else I can do that will help me learn - other than trying to implement things, I don't know what I can do that will make me discover ALL that Asterisk can do.
-P
My dilema is that if I were to take a course, as far as I can tell, they tend to cover the basics. All the things that I know will be repeated. Now, will I lean something new? Maybe. Will is be worth the £XXXX that I have to pay for the course? I don't think it will.
I am going to see what else I can do that will help me learn - other than trying to implement things, I don't know what I can do that will make me discover ALL that Asterisk can do.
-P
Sunday, 9 November 2008
iPhone 3G - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
I got an iPhone 3G and I must admit that I like it. It's not much of a surprise, however I did find quite a few things that go wrong.
One thing that I noticed it doesn't do well is SMS. I use to be able to write several SMSes with my old phone even when there wasn't a signal available. I'd "send" the message and write another one and once the phone had a signal again, it would send all the messages. Well, I wasn't able to do that with the iPhone. It kept on complaining that there wasn't a signal and it couldn't send. (Yes I KNOW, save it for later!)
The other issue I've had it that it's gotten "stuck" with a few applications and I've had to force reboot it. One was just trying to write into a large text field on a website. It started slowing down and finally I wasn't able to do anything. I couldn't go back to the home screen or anywhere.
One time that actually happened with an email. Speaking of email. I also have a lot of problem sending emails. It keeps on complaining that the email address I'm sending to is incorrect, even though I know it's right. I'm still working on that one and to see if I find a solution.
However, I must admit that the user interface is great and the other day I saw someone using the Samsung touchscreen phone. They went to send an SMS and what did I notice? They got a NUMBER KEYPAD as if it's a regular phone instead of a full keyboard. This meant having to use the number to select the letters which makes me thing that these manufacturers don't understand what the purpose is for the touchscreen. Anyway... lets see what they come up in round two.
Well, all-in-all the iPhone isn't a complete disappointment. I hope they can fix those stability issues, but I think they still have the best interface in town. Let's if what Blackberry's phone does can compete.
-P
One thing that I noticed it doesn't do well is SMS. I use to be able to write several SMSes with my old phone even when there wasn't a signal available. I'd "send" the message and write another one and once the phone had a signal again, it would send all the messages. Well, I wasn't able to do that with the iPhone. It kept on complaining that there wasn't a signal and it couldn't send. (Yes I KNOW, save it for later!)
The other issue I've had it that it's gotten "stuck" with a few applications and I've had to force reboot it. One was just trying to write into a large text field on a website. It started slowing down and finally I wasn't able to do anything. I couldn't go back to the home screen or anywhere.
One time that actually happened with an email. Speaking of email. I also have a lot of problem sending emails. It keeps on complaining that the email address I'm sending to is incorrect, even though I know it's right. I'm still working on that one and to see if I find a solution.
However, I must admit that the user interface is great and the other day I saw someone using the Samsung touchscreen phone. They went to send an SMS and what did I notice? They got a NUMBER KEYPAD as if it's a regular phone instead of a full keyboard. This meant having to use the number to select the letters which makes me thing that these manufacturers don't understand what the purpose is for the touchscreen. Anyway... lets see what they come up in round two.
Well, all-in-all the iPhone isn't a complete disappointment. I hope they can fix those stability issues, but I think they still have the best interface in town. Let's if what Blackberry's phone does can compete.
-P
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