samuel.bowles.es

Here’s a silly Terminal trick for giggles. For those of you who know what you’re doing just grab the first block of code and put it in your .profile, .bashrc or wherever. For the rest of you here’s a step by step guide to creepy fun.

First copy this code to your clipboard:

function sayslow () {
phrase=$1; #import

osascript <<EOT 
  say "{$phrase}" speaking rate 10 pitch 1 
EOT
}

Now open Terminal and type:

pico .profile

Hit Control-V until you are at the bottom of the file and then paste the code you copied to your clipboard. Hit Control-X followed by Y and RETURN.

You’ve just add a new command which will give you no end to entertainment. :)

Now close your Terminal window and open a new one by typing Control-N. At the command line type:

sayslow "your phrase"

Where “your phrase” is anything you want your computer to say. Note: avoid using single or double quotes as these will just screw things up. Also note: This has only been tested under Snow Leopard.

I, like John Gruber , believe that Apple's recent announcement that free applications can now include in-app purchases is a big deal. And it follows that many developers will want to consolidate their Lite & Pro applications into these new free-to-paid applications. There's a problem though: how do you manage the transition?

In Marco Arment 's recent post, In-App Purchase now available for free apps he mentions that, "there's no practical way to transition the existing paid customers to a new "free+" version". Below I will propose a possible solution to this transition (if Apple allows it) along with a number of other potential models that these changes could usher in.

And without further adieu I present you with:

Potential ways Apple's new free-to-paid application purchase scheme could be used by developers. None of which have been either confirmed or denied by Apple as legitimate uses of the system and therefore require further clarification most likely achieved through direct testing of The Great Black Box which is the App Store approval process.

Migration from Lite & Pro applications to free-to-paid applications

1. Create a free-to-paid application that provides all features from both previous applications with the Pro features behind an in-app pay-wall. Create a back door around the pay-wall enabling the pro features by way of a "promo code".
2. Upgrade your Lite app with this new code.
3. Create a new version of your Pro app that includes a slightly annoying screen each time the user starts the app explaining how to get a copy of the new version.
   1. Download the free-to-paid app
   2. Use this promo code to unlock the pro features (include an unlocking promo code)

Unlimited promo codes

1. Create a free-to-paid application with a way around the pay-wall using promo codes.

Desktop & iPhone application bundles

1. Create a free-to-paid application with a way around the pay-wall using promo codes.
2. Provide one of these codes with the purchase of your desktop application.

Time limited access to additional features

1. Create an application with two feature sets which we'll call Lite and Pro.
2. Comply with Apple's requirements by making sure the Lite version is useful and usable independent of the pro features.
3. Enable the pro features upon download on a time-limited basis.
4. Once the time-limit has passed require the user to make an in-app purchase in order to keep them permanently.

A few of these (rightly or wrongly) will most likely be disallowed by Apple as they would be seen as an end-route around their commerce platform (see Desktop & iPhone app bundles, and Unlimited promo codes) but some of them seem like legitimate uses to me even according to Apple's playbook. Only time will tell if any of these models are adopted and approved.

Here’s my list of applications that have given my grief in Snow Leopard:

• Marco Polo - Doesn’t recognize SSIDs as triggers. A temporary fix is available.
• iStat Menus - I use this almost exclusively for the multi-timezone clock. Fixed!
• Growl Pref Pane - Works but is causing System Prefs to restart due to it being 32bit. The 1.2 betas install on SL and the System Prefs are now 64bit. If you run into trouble with installation delete all references to Growl first.
• A Better Finder Renamer Pref Pane - 8.2.7 claims Snow Leopard compatibility but is still 32bit. Can’t find acknowledgement.
• Secrets Pref Pane - still 32bit. Bug filed.
• MacFuse - There is discussion of the issues MacFuse has under Snow Leopard and even a hack to get it working but no acknowledgement from a developer that I could find.
• Wacom Intuos3 Driver - It looks like there’s a new driver out but I haven’t had a chance to test it yet.

I’ll update this list as I discover other compatibility issues or those I’ve discovered are fixed.

Hace tres meses Yoigo dijo que estas eran sus tarifas “sin trucos”:

"Todos las llamadas de Yoigo a Yoigo cuestan 0 cent/min. Da igual si llamas 3 minutos, 1 hora o hasta que se te acaba la batería del móvil. Como lo oyes, bueno, como lo lees, solo pagas 12 céntimos de establecimiento de llamada.”

Suena bien ¿no? Y aseguraba que:

"No es un plan de precios especial, no es una ofertita, no es una promoción concreta. Es una nueva tarifa sin letra pequeña, sin cuota de alta, sin condiciones, o sea, como siempre en Yoigo, tal y como suena."

Los anuncios dijeron específicamente que:

"Esta no es una promoción de Navidad."

Y que:

"Nuestras tarifas no son promocionales son, sencillamente, muy buenas."

Pero tres meses después (aproximadamente la duración de un promoción de verano ó navidad que hacen todos los operadores todos los años) dicen:

"Para continuar ofreciendo este servicio que combina calidad y el mejor precio del mercado, Yoigo actualiza a partir del 1 de marzo su cuadro de tarifas, según ya anunció el pasado 31 de octubre de 2007. La principal novedad es la actualización de la tarifa de llamadas nacionales entre teléfonos Yoigo, que pasa a ser de 0 céntimos/minuto durante los primeros 60 minutos de conversación cada día sin límite de llamadas."

Y esto ¿qué es? Me parece peor que un “promoción”, me parece un “truco”. Lo que querría, mas que un buen precio (aunque esto vale mucho) es un operador que no me engañe. Un operador que “odia la letra pequeña tanto como yo”. Un operador que puede ser “honesto y transparente conmigo … sin rodeos”. Me apena descubrir que Yoigo no es ese operador.

At the 1939 World’s Fair Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first president to appear on television, no doubt completely oblivious to the extent to which this new technology would change future political contests. Sixteen years later Dwight D. Roosevelt stood before a class of West Point graduates and a camera which would broadcast his speech and said, “… you must be ruthless in a self-imposed command never to rest in the pursuit of new knowledge, in your application of it to your own duties.” These words would be the first spoken by a president who stood before the nation in full-color.

A mere five years later Kenedy would be christened by the media “The Television President”. Within thirty-two years from the first regularly scheduled television service politics had been changed forever.

This year marks a mere thirteen years since the Internet reached the mainstream and it appears to me it is already having a game-changing effect. The most amazing change I see is the way it is making available political narratives that were inaccessible before.

Take as an example this recent ad which was created and broadcast by the Clinton campaign. In my opinion it’s a very effective use of the medium. It easily evokes an emotional response and I would guess it’s the very emotions her campaign managers were seeking: fear, uncertainty, and doubt. They hope that these feelings will lead people to choose her over her “less experienced” competitor.

All of this is “old-school” television politics. Here’s where it gets interesting: Obama responds with a well-considered statement and then his supporters uncover this amazing nugget from the past. In the era of YouTube politicians are less and less able to out-live their past. What you say (or what you repeat) will be replayed by millions often with a similar emotional effect to it’s first broadcast.

Will this mean greater accountability or simply greater caution. Only time will tell.

Some people say I should make up my mind: am I a code monkey or a design junkie? Do I care more about how things look or how they’re built? But for me design runs deep and wide. I get just as excited to have finally groked the function of an object of a class as I do to see, hold or hear something that has been crafted with simplicity and beauty. Here are a few things that have inspired me recently.

Metaphys has designed a wall-garden that is simply breathtaking. As an urban dweller surrounded by far to much concrete I would so love to hang this on our wall. It feels like a sort of memorial to the view we’ll probably never have. The only downside is the price (especially after shipping to Spain) - these seem like such easy things to make. I just wish I could find a source for the “high-tech growing medium, made up tiny sponge balls impregnated with nutrients” that they use. They mention needing to refill the tray with seeds every 4-5 months so it seems I should be able to find them someplace (via swiss miss).

For Christmas this year my friend Jonah got me these wonderful gloves from my wish list. I spotted them in a store linked to by my friend Paul. They are very simple polyester-stretch gloves that come with a variety of patterns emblazoned on them in arclyic resin which functions as either a grip or just a fashion statement. What statement? I have no idea. “I like pretty swirly patterns?” The only bummer is I can really only wear them about two months out of the year here. I know, poor me.

Brooklyn 5 and 10, the store that sold the gloves mentioned above also carries this beautiful “game”. It’s more akin to a zen garden or a stress ball than a “game” but with a bit of a designer’s twist. Created by newartifacts, a group of designers from Uruguay, the site claims the cube can be configured in 68,719,476,736 combinations - you read that right: close to 69 billion. There is no one solution. Just fiddle and play until it makes you smile. Someday I’ll keep one of these on my desk to clear my mind between the other puzzles I face each day.

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