Macgasm

A weird thing happened today when I went to update my iPhone.  I received this image:

I’m not entirely sure what this is.  Unless this is an update to allow more carriers to use the iPhone.  I would think that this will update the way that the phone accesses their respective carriers.  And it looks like this update goes ahead and updates the logos.

In order to download this update, you have to go to iTunes and click on ‘Check for Updates’.  This update takes less than 5 seconds, at least for me it did. So, go ahead and update, but if you Jailbreak, I’d wait and see if it breaks anything.

Most of us are lazy when it comes to our passwords. I mean, come on! We have passwords for work, personal, and then for websites. So it is just natural to pick something we can remember and use that for everything. I know I have been guilty of it. If people know you well enough they can normally guess your password too. Over 90% of people use their children as there password. Are you one of those people? If they don’t use their children ,they use their animal’s names. Maybe you are that person.

But now, you don’t have to use your regular old password. With 1Password, you can create strong passwords and only need to remember one password to access them! 1Password has been around for a while and I have used it for the past year. But I have to admit, until recently I have only used it like the mac OS X keychain. But recently that has changed when somehow the password for my Amazon account got changed. So to be safe I changed it from my generic password to a 42 character long password with numbers, characters and symbols. This has slowly become the case for a majority of my passwords as well. But what about if you have multiple Macs? Or an iPhone. No Problem. With multiple Macs you can use MobileMe or other services like DropBox. I just started using dropbox with my 1password and I have to say it works a lot better. And the best part about DropBox is it is FREE! Well for 2GB that is. But what about the iPhone you ask. Well 1Password has an app for it as well. But you may have one other concern. What if you use machines at work? or the Library? or even a friends house? Well you can export your 1password list as a encrypted PDF and put it on a jump drive (FlashDrive).

1Password is available at http://1Password.com for $39.95. You may think that is expensive, But what’s more expensive, the application or some one guessing your simple password for your bank account and taking all your money? You can try it free too. So give it a whirl.

The title of this iPhone game, Falling Balls, sounds like the subject matter for a “that’s what she said” joke, but I have to say up front, this game has nothing to do with testicles and everything to do with giant gravity defying balls (editorial insert — that’s what she said!).  No really, the game has balls of different sizes dropping from space and trying to squash your little excuse of a man.  Seriously, you’re a puny stick figure running around trying to avoid being hit by balls.

On a more serious note, the game is the most simple design for a game since line rider, and I have to admit… It’s just as fun.  Both if you’re into balls, and if you’re not into balls.

For those keeping count I said balls 6 times.

Check out the devs site Wickedpissagames

If there’s only a couple of things we can agree on, surely one of them is just how crappy the iPhone’s camera is when compared to other options on the market.

There likely won’t be much of a change on that front until newer iPhone versions come out, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t have an “options”.  If your iPhone is unlocked, you can use an application called ClearCam.

The application works by snapping a bunch of photos over a short period of time, lines them up and gives you a higher resolution picture.  You can check out their site here, and check it out at your usually unlocked app download locations.

When was the last time your phone took a photo like the one below?

So let’s say you decide to take the dive and buy a copy of OS X Server.  After you get it installed, there are a few things that you will need to do after the setup.

The initial setup requires you to be connected to the internet.  During this setup you’ll need to enter in your product key, choose a server name, and the other ‘normal’ setup items.  But there is one thing within this setup that requires some thought.  This where you choose the role that you server will have.  There are three options with this, Standard, Workgroup, and Advanced.  Each of these has their pros and Cons.  Let’s take a look at each of these.

The Standard setup is intended for the situation where it is the only server in the entire network.  This is typical for small businesses where you do not have an entire IT staff dedicated to running a bunch of different servers.  The Standard configuration allows you to host a website, blogs, a wiki, secure instant messaging, file sharing and even allows you to configure the server as an email server.  The setup of these services is all done though the ‘Server Preferences’ program.  This application can only be used for the Standard and Workgroup configurations.  But this program is included on all OS X Server installations in case you need to remotely administer a server running in a non-advanced mode.

There are some restrictions on the standard configuration.  These limitations the inability to use the following: FTP and NFS sharing, Printer sharing, Firewall, Podcast Producer, advanced user and workgroup settings, xgrid, RADIUS, System imaging, Quicktime Broadcast, and Software Update server..  These aren’t available in standard mode.  Even with these restrictions in place, server setup is a breeze and is great for those who just need things to work.

Workgroup mode

Workgroup mode is an interesting option for server modes.  It is essentially the same as Standard, with all of the same restrictions, except instead of having everything automatically setup for you, Workgroup mode allows you to select which services to enable or disable.  Granted, after everything is setup in Standard mode you can turn on and off individual services, but you cannot set many advanced options.

The place that you would use a workgroup setup is when you already have other services in place.  For instance, DHCP, DNS, and user accounts are already being authenticated against another service, like Microsoft’s Active Directory or an LDAP Server.

Advanced Mode

The advanced mode is the quintessential anal retentive person’s choice for OS X Server setup.  There is not much hand holding with this setup.  Nothing is done automatically, you must do everything yourself.  Unlike Standard and Workgroup modes, you must use Server Admin to administer anything on the server itself.  This can be good and bad depending on how badly you mess something up.

With Advanced you basically have the keys to the kingdom and could easily go and mess things up, or just finely tune everything to hum nicely.  I myself have managed to do both on my server (which is a whole other article).  I would recommend Advanced for only those who know what they’re doing.  Otherwise the configuration can be a bit daunting.

With both Standard and Workgroup modes, you can actually convert both of these to Advanced Mode without too much effort.  But be WARNED, once you convert it to Advanced there is no way to go back, except to wipe the entire system and re-install.  If you are going to do this, you should backup everything.

That’s it for the modes for OS X Server.  If you do happen to buy a copy of OS X Server and you have an Intel Mac, I’d recommend installing it and testing it on an external hard drive, just so you do not wipe out your internal drive.  Plus, then once you’ve got it all setup the way you want, you can just do a super duper copy to your internal hard drive.

From time to time I find an application on my Mac or my iPhone that I simply can’t live without. But this time it is one that I have neglected for such a long time and have recently become attached to at the hip. Evernote has been around for awhile and it was just in the last year or so that they put out a Mac desktop client, more recently in July 07 releasing an iPhone app. Evernote is a brilliant tool that so many tend to neglect after using it for a little while. I first tried Evernote after hearing Leo Laporte talk about it on an episode of Macbreak Weekly. I soon found a decent amount of uses for it, mostly though for cataloging business cards and software that I owned.

Well in the last month I have re-discovered this wonderful app and have been using it constantly. Not only can Evernote be used as a native app, but they also have a great web interface. This is cloud computing the way it should be. I have been using Evernote now to post public pages of things that I want for my birthday for my friends, even to post topics for my upcoming podcast episodes allowing people to volunteer to co-host. My private notebooks normally consist of random jokes I find online to t-shirts that I want to remember to get, to even taking notes at meetings.

If you use Evernote on your iPhone, then you should also pick up a griffin Clarifi case so you can get clear close up photo’s of notes you need.

Evernote has become my go to app now for every thing. Any thing I want to remember when I am out and about to even the little things. If you are not using this cross platform application yet, you can use it for free from http://evernote.com . Give it a whirl, You wont regret it.

Sometimes I really hate the appstore, and most of the time I think a majority of the application on there are a steaming pile of crap.  Apparently I’m not alone!  There’s a whole website dedicated to reviewing the crappiest applications in the appstore.  You’ll never guess the name of it–Krapps.

They average about one post a day, and I’m sure that a rate like that and the deluge of crappy applications will keep them in business for quite some time.

After all, crappy applications need reviews too…

You know that post where I speculated about push being missing because of Telcos?  Well it turns out that I could be completely off the mark.  Rumors are circulating about there actually being a complete turnaround in concept from Apple.  They could quite possibly be looking to add background tasks in upcoming versions of the iPhone.

I’m not sure just how that would affect all the previous generations out there, but my guess is that it won’t be all that good for anyone with a 3G or 1.0 phone.  If they aren’t powerful enough to do it at the time of release, what has changed recently?  I mean, a software update could make it possible, but will we really benefit from an update of this variety?

The theory is everything released pre 3.0 hardware would have limited access to background processes, the new version would get more of a carte blanche.

So we might just have located where push notifications have gone, and don’t be surprised if they remain in the trash can.  It looks like they’re about to be made irrelevant.