I’ve been forced to learn Ruby as a side effect of learning TextMate. While posting to blogs, I often get timeouts because my ISP is slow when it comes to processing XMLRPC via perl.

So I dug around and found that TextMate’s XMLRPC is just a standard Ruby class. On top of that, that class is actually very well documented and it was very easy to see that there is a timeout parameter.

So I modified my local copy of the Blogging bundle and we’ll see how this post goes.

I ran my usual performance test to UC Santa Cruz and was only getting 10 of the 15 MB/s I should be getting on FIOS. So I installed the Apple Broadband Tuner and whoopee, immediately up to 15MB/s.

I guess I never ran this while using Ethernet, or installing OS X Updates negates these settings. I’ll be sure to check my speeds after the next update!

Interesting

A parody of SNL’s “Dick in a box” made for the Mac geeks out there:

Mac in my top

Thanks Bert!

Praise the powers at be.

Ars has a story on this being shown at CES. A simple software download and I’ll have a TiVo and no more crappy Motorola software. Yeah, the disk will still be too small but I’ll manage.

If it wasn’t clear by Apple, MacWorld Expo is ending as we know it. Today Apple used the MacWorld Expo venue to do three things:

• Introduce Apple TV, a consumer device to shuttle media from your computer to the television
• Introduce iPhone, a brand new phone platform
• Change its name from Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple Inc.

See a theme here? Think Differently is well in place at Apple Inc.

So lets talk about these products.

Apple TV

Alright, I bought one for the following two reasons:

• Apple in the living room interests me
• I wanted something to play with the 802.11n Airport Express I was ordering also

I have some questions about Apple TV though. Here are a few:

• Does the Apple TV upscale to 1080i or does the TV need to do that? My Toshiba has a poor scaler and if Apple TV leaves this up to the TV, it will look poor.
• Of course I want to rip my DVDs onto a server for playing them on Apple TV - When will a instant Handbrake for Apple TV be available?
• As mentioned, I ordered an Airport Extreme for the speed, but as with other 802.11x technology, the speed of the network is only as fast as the fastest devide on the network. This means if I use the router with my laptop, or my girlfriend’s laptops, or my Wii, the performance will be negated.
• Will Apple sell 720p content? If not, what 720p content do they expect me to watch?

I think this is a fascinating first step for Apple. I plan on giving them a lot of feedback.

iPhone

Alright, we can finally stop talking about the rumors, and now speculate about what it will and won’t do! Lets see some concerns I have over the iPhone as shown today. (I will skip the obvious drooling of the amazing stuff it does)

• Battery, battery, battery. Whats with the built in battery? Its ook for an ipod to go dead, but watching a movie on your phone will surely reduce the battery life by a large amount. So then you get an important phone call and oops, its off. Slide finger, damn. dead.
• Memory - 8 gigabytes is awesome for a phone, but its not enough to replace my iPod. So I will still need both. I guess that fixes the above problem. Altho a card slot would have been nice.
• Applications - All indications are that we will not be allowed to install our own applications. I hear that the binaries are digitally signed and the SDK will be closed, and the future iPods will all have digitally signed applications as well - no more linux on ipods. The real reason for this move is likely virus control - Neither Apple nor Cingular will have to support your screwed up phone if you installed a malware application onto it.
• 3G - I’d really like a faster internet connection than EDGE
• Touchscreen - Ok it rocks, yadda yadda. Until I use it, I am skeptical.
• One handed use - This is a biggie, even when just walking around, I want to be able to answer, dial, etc one handed. Again I won’t know until I hold one if this will be possible.
• No mention of a voice recorder. This feature is invaluable when parking in the Disneyland parking structure. No joke.
• Charger - What is the charger going to look like? Another brick to carry around with me? At least the car charger should just be an iPod car charger. I bet someone makes a charger with two dock connectors on it now.
• No mention if we’re locked into lame Cingular pay per ringtones or if we can do what we should be able to do, make ringtones from segments of songs right in iTunes.

There are just too many questions that popped up during the day. Time will provide answers.

iPod

What I would buy, like now is an 80gb iPod with that screen. Yum.

Leopard

What the hell? Its MacWorld. Where were the secret Leopard features?

iLife

Again, no iLife? What’s going on in Cupertino?

iWork

I see a pattern emerging.

Summary

In summary, this really was a big day for Apple. Apple has not been just a computer company for a long time, but now they’re really not a computer company. Apple will learn - Apple will take their lumps, listen and keep innovating.

I’ll own an iPhone - Just not sure which version I’ll own.

Sorry Erick, I wanted in on the early batch

Yes, Apple did release a 802.11n Airport Extreme, they just didn’t mention it in the keynote.

I’m ordering one asap.

Hello from PMUG (more…)

Roxio has shipped Toast Titanium 8! It supports dvd disc spanning, TiVo To Go, Blu-Ray and a whole other lot of features.

Here is a tip! Use FireFox to place your order. When you get to the screen listing Toast for $99, and the mail in coupon (the first invoice screen) just wait. be patient After about 30 seconds Digital River will pop up a “Buy now and save an additional 10%” window. Crazy I know.

Also, yes, even tho I bought online, and am downloading Toast 8 now, I have to mail in this stupid $20 rebate.

Digital River sucks.

Update: This might be the last update from Roxio. They still don’t have my registration email (which I used at digital river to purchase) and to submit feedback, they required me to log in, which doesn’t work, and no registration button.

To get my discount, I had to print out 5 pieces of paper, two labels, use an envelope and two stamps. And fill out a tiny form because their mail in rebate PDF is screwed up.

Not very impressive if you ask me.

A quick screencast to show how to find bundle shortcuts quickly. (more…)

This is a cool tip: How to Add a key mapping file

When the file is installed, quit and relaunch Mail and type control-m, control-a to get the apple/command symbol! (a caret (^) means control)

So for example control-m control-a control-m control-o P gives:

⌘⌥P

I made a demo movie for Barry to show how TextMate works with C source files.

P.S. I dont think you have to be online to see docs, I think it gets them from man. (more…)

Here is a movie I made showing some cool TextMate editing. (more…)

Here is a screen shot I made of a Growl file I had edited locally, and then asked TextMate to do a svn diff on.

I am trying out Macromates blogging module for TextMate. I can’t get the cat tab shortcut to work yet, but this is a very, very interesting editor. I have a million things to learn about it, such as the markdown language, etc. It is very fast and only $39 euro. (more…)