Extra Future>”Save all the money on the manuals and just give me this duck to always be there and tell me what to do.”
[Looking back on the 15-year anniversary of Microsoft Bob][link], one of Microsoft’s most famous failures.
[link]: http://technologizer.com/2010/03/29/microsoft-bob/ “The Bob Chronicles”
[David Barnard on the sales fluctuations in the App Store][link], and how hard is it to gauge future success/sales on same.
[link]: http://davidbarnard.com/post/425488663/made “Made, Is Making, or Will Make? – @drbarnard”
[22 simple steps to borrowing an audio book from a public library][link].
[link]: http://www.bradcolbow.com/archive.php/?p=205 “The Brads – a comic about web design » The Brads – Why DRM Doesn’t Work”
[To combat those RAM-sucking, memory-leaking, background apps][link] everybody wants the iPhone to support so badly.
[link]: http://stevenf.tumblr.com/post/391510844/a-homebrew-app-for-the-palm-pre-reboots-your-phone “stevenf.com – A homebrew app for the Palm Pre reboots your phone…”
The [newly-Americanized][newly] Steve [knocks it out of the park][link]. There is a big shift happening under the layers we walk on, and most people won’t see it for a few years yet.
[newly]: http://www.panic.com/blog/2010/01/steve-american/ “Steve American”
[link]: http://stevenf.tumblr.com/post/359224392/i-need-to-talk-to-you-about-computers-ive-been “stevenf.com – I need to talk to you about computers. I’ve been…”
[When the software was first developed][link], a rule was hardcoded that marked the years 2010-2099 as “grossly in the future.”
[link]: http://jwz.livejournal.com/1147218.html “jwz – A special treat for the ten year anniversary of Y2K…”
The hyper-expensive and [sometimes-maligned][maligned] Unreal Engine [gets a free / indie version][link]. [The Unreal Development Kit][link] is free for non-commercial use, and $2500 per-seat for commercial games.
[With Unity making a similar offering][unity] last week, the independent games scene is only going to get better.
[link]: http://www.udk.com/index.html “UDK – Unreal Development Kit – Epic Games”
[unity]: http://extrafuture.com/2009/10/28/game-engine-unity-launches-free-option/ “Unity Launches Free Option”
[maligned]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_Human#Unreal_Engine_dispute “Epic Games .vs. Silicon Knights”
I’ve been getting this error in WordPress, so I wasn’t using the auto-update functionality, which is a real time-saver. My problem was that WordPress was trying to write to `/tmp/` which is a no-no as my host (Segpub.net) uses Safe Mode. You can solve this issue by adding a couple of directives to your `wp-config.php` file, namely `WP_TEMP_DIR`. Adding these lines to `wp-config.php` fixed the problem for me:
define(‘WP_TEMP_DIR’, ini_get(‘upload_tmp_dir’));
putenv(‘TMPDIR=’ . ini_get(‘upload_tmp_dir’));
Thanks to the WordPress forums [for my answer][link].
[link]: http://wordpress.org/support/topic/291823?replies=2#post-1145649 ” WordPress › Support » Upgrade tries to write to root”
[My personal URL shortener][la] hits version 1.6. Current users will be able to upgrade by way of WordPress’ automatic update mechanism. The rest of you: [Download it from WordPress.org][wp].
*Fun fact*: House style is to always type “la petite url” in all lowercase.
[la]: http://extrafuture.com/projects/la-petite-url “la petite url”
[wp]: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/le-petite-url/ “la petite url on WordPress.org”
[Flying Meat Software][meat] release [a super update to their image editor, Acorn][link]. It sports an all-new UI designed (mostly) by [Brandon Walkin][walkin]. [Gus’ blog post sums up many of the changes][blog]. It is, interestingly to me, 64-bit and only runs on 10.6.
[meat]: http://flyingmeat.com/acorn “Flying Meat Software”
[link]: http://flyingmeat.com/acorn/ “Acorn, the image editor for humans.”
[blog]: http://gusmueller.com/blog/archives/2009/09/acorn_2.html “Gus’ Ramble: Acorn 2.0”
[walkin]: http://www.brandonwalkin.com/blog/ “Brandon Walkin”
In no particular order:
* **App recommendations**: Wholly necessary, but we aren’t out of the woods yet regarding App Store curation. I bet there’s a good deal of money to be made just doing that: Curating collections of apps. Boing Boing got huge during the blog boom for curating other blogs, why wouldn’t it work for applications on a still-new platform? Someone’s going to get rich digging down on serious Touch applications.
* **iPod Touch** No camera, no mention of 3GS-type speed bump. Kinda got the shaft. I can’t think of a single good reason for not including a camera that doesn’t involve trying to trick people into buying a Nano. Surely they aren’t afraid a (not that great) camera is going to steer fence-sitters from the iPhone to the Touch? **Update**: It’s now come out that the 8gb ($199) iPod Touch has the older, slightly slower, hardware, and all the others in the Touch line have the upgraded “3GS” innards. You’ll notice on the “[Compare iPod Models][compare]” page on Apple’s site, the 8gb is sectioned off from his higher-capcity and speedier brothers.
[compare]: http://www.apple.com/ipod/compare-ipod-models/ “Apple.com: Compare iPod Models”
* **iTunes 9** Now with more bloat and cumbersome, non-portable, versions of the extra features that people who illegally download albums already get in more useful formats. Still a 32-bit Carbon app. [Gruber was right about WebKit][webkit].
[webkit]: http://willnorris.com/2009/09/itunes-9-now-with-more-webkit “iTunes 9: Now With More WebKit”
[A nice little update to Waffle Software’s extremely useful tool][link]. It’s 64-bit.
[link]: http://wafflesoftware.net/hexpicker/ “Hex Color Picker”
[If there is only one 10.6 review/recap you read, it should be this one][link]. John is the best at this. It is part history lesson, part analysis, part commentary.
[link]: http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2009/08/mac-os-x-10-6.ars “Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard: the Ars Technica review – Ars Technica”
[Probably a good idea to consult this][link] before you take the plunge tomorrow.
[link]: http://snowleopard.wikidot.com/ “Snow Leopard Compatibility: Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Compatibility List”
[An absolutely astonishing demonstration of a vector drawing application from 1962][link].
[link]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOZqRJzE8xg “YouTube – Ivan Sutherland’s Sketchpad”
[Waffle Software brings out a major update][link] to it’s [Google Notifier][notifier] plugin. Jesper lays down some specifics in [this blog post][blog], and has posted [a tech profile here][tech]. The [new page for G+G][link] is just beautiful.
[link]: http://wafflesoftware.net/googlegrowl/ “Google+Growl”
[blog]: http://waffle.wootest.net/2009/08/16/googlegrowl-3/ “waffle → Google+Growl 3.0”
[notifier]: http://toolbar.google.com/gmail-helper/notifier_mac.html “Google Notifier”
[tech]: http://wafflesoftware.net/techprofile/gg.html “Google+Growl tech profile”
[The big news of the day][link]. There is a lot of talk that Chrome OS may be what powers the CrunchPad, but I am not so sure.
[link]: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html “Official Google Blog: Introducing the Google Chrome OS”
[It only took five years][link].
[link]: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/gmail-leaves-beta-launches-back-to-beta.html “Official Gmail Blog: Gmail leaves beta, launches “Back to Beta” Labs feature”
[Super useful Coda plugin, which uses CSSTidy][link]. Can translate back to human-readable code for changes, then re-compress.
[link]: http://mondaybynoon.com/2008/12/15/css-tools-coda-plugin/ “CSS Tools Coda Plugin – Monday By Noon”
[Created by yours truly over the last 24 hours][link], in honor of [John Hodgman’s live recitation of 700 Mole-Man names][hodg]. I hope you enjoy it. My own Mole-Manic name is “Ernest Silverjaw”.
[link]: http://molemen.extrafuture.com/ “Mole-Man Name Generator”
[hodg]: http://www.areasofmyexpertise.com/2009/06/seven-hundred-mole-man-names/ “Hodg-man”