Posted 9 months, 3 weeks ago at 9:40 pm. 0 comments
This is a really cool tip brought to my attention by WhaleSalad. Firefox is historically known not only for it’s speed, standards, and its protectiveness as opposed from Internet Explorer, but also as a great tool because of all of the plug-ins it supports to make debugging a website easier. On a Mac, however, the default browser Safari is even faster than firefox according to benchmarks. The thing is, it doesn’t support plug-ins like firefox does.
But have no fear, Safari provides it’s own set of hidden website debug tools. They can be enabled via one command in the terminal.
defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1
While Safari is closed, open the terminal and copy and paste that in! Next time you open Safari, right-click somewhere on the pages and click “inspect element”
It’s a small tip, but a really helpful one to web designers on Mac.
Posted 10 months ago at 8:44 pm. 0 comments
I started learning c++ a while back but got deterred when I learned it takes 70 lines or so using the winapi just to make a blank window! A few days ago I learned about Qt. Its probably something everybody knows about but me. Anyways what it is, is a cross-platform application framework that makes GUIs easy. I’m just learning about it myself right now so I can’t really teach how to use it, however, Qt gives some good very documentaion here.
You can make a full c++ source file in less than 10 lines that will make a window with a button that reads “Hello world!”. I know this is a short post, but it is only because I want to get back to learning Qt myself! For all of you php lovers. Qt has php bindings which you can download here. You could even easily make a gui application using php. I haven’t tried it, but it sounds cool to experiment with!
Posted 10 months, 1 week ago at 3:55 am. 0 comments
Everybody knows about the Optimus Keyboard, right? If you don’t, it’s a keyboard in which each key has its own (O)LED screen with a resolution of 48×48 pixels on every key. This comes in handy for many reasons. Say you were in Photoshop. This keyboard will display tools on keys to quickly be able to select them, apply actions, or what ever you set it to do. Or how about gaming? You don’t have to use your W,A,S,D keys to move anymore… they automatically change to arrows and such. The possibilities are endless.
The concept was created back in 2005 by Art Lebedev. But now it is 2008. A few days ago art came to the consumer electronics show with a working Optimus keyboard. But what has changed in the design, almost 3 years later?
As you can see, it is a lot more bulky than the concept. They also switched from the metallic material to white or black plastic. Heh, Apple is switching from plastic to metal, Optimus is switching from metal to plastic. Artlebedev also added some new features such as the card reader and USB ports in the back. But look at all the wires that will stick out of the back. As people are switching for keyboards with one wire to wireless keyboards; this keyboard is a 2-wire minimum baby. Add 3 more. One to plug your mouse in. One for the Kensington lock to keep this $1,500 keyboard at place. And perhaps another peripheral. Thats a little too many wires for my taste.
The guys over at Art Lebedev Studios already have another concept in mind for a totally key-less keyboard. Basically a touchscreen in the form of a keyboard. The Optimus Tactus.
Posted 10 months, 1 week ago at 7:03 pm. 0 comments
Well,
That was disappointing! Sure the new MacBook Air is cool and all, but who really needs it? It has less power than the MacBook and how many people really need that much portability? I was hoping a for a new MacBook Pro as previously discussed.
I’m willing to guess that new MacBook Pros will arrive shortly anyhow. Most probably had to do with the short amount of time they have had since Penryn was launched and also not taking the limelight off of the MacBook Air.
The MacBook Air does, however, give a few clues about whats to come in the next MacBook Air. The keyboard for sure. A Back-lit MacBook style chicklet keyboard. The casing will probably stay the same. If they are going to change the case, it would make more sense to have a new motherboard (Logic Board) that fits with it. The new MacBook Pro will use the same Santa Rosa chipset as the current rev. MacBook Pro. For intel’s next generation mobile chipset, Montevina they will have to change the motherboard. Montevina also supports the next generation Wi-fi, WiMax. Montevina is expected Mid-2008… Please Apple, don’t wait that long before another revision!
I’m estimating updates will come for the MacBook Pro sometime within the next month.
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Posted 10 months, 1 week ago at 8:31 pm. 0 comments
I was looking at my awstats report and saw that a bunch of hits are coming in from Google. I am listed on the first page for ‘macbook pro penryn’ and never would have guessed that would generate such a traffic flow.
Posted 10 months, 2 weeks ago at 8:38 pm. 0 comments
In this post I will show you a few must know commands to get started in linux/unix/Mac OS using the command line. The command line can be more useful than you may think. The first command you should know is ls. Now, ls is the most basic of commands, but for those of you just getting started its a very important one. What it does is list files inside a directory. For example, to view the files and directories within your home folder just open up the terminal and type ls. That it? Yup! Simple as pie. There are a few common options you can use with ls. -l brings up things like permissions, owner, group, time modified, etc… Try it by typing in ls -l. But you notice that the file size is an insanely large number. -h will fix that. Instead of bytes, it will show things in K(b), M, G when possible. But what if you have a bunch of hidden files and folders and want to see ‘em all at once? the -a option. So to call ls with multiple options, all you have to do is ls -lha.
Cool, you may be wondering. But how do you change directories? Easy! cd. Use cd to change to a directory relative to where you are already, or an absolute path. For example, say you are at your home directory (/home/myusername) and want to get to /var/log you can do either:
cd ../../var/log
cd /var/log
Clearly, typing cd /var/log is easier in this case, but what if you wanted to get to your “Desktop” Folder inside your home directory? Just cd Desktop. Note that you don’t have a ‘/’ in front of ‘Desktop’ because that would be saying that the Desktop directory is in your root. Also another trick is just cd, without a path or cd ~ will bring you to your home directory.
One last tip! you can click your tab key at any time while typing in a file path to auto-complete it. You can type in cd De and then press tab. If there are more than one matches though you will have to double click tab and it will list all of the possibilities. This is definitely a huge time saver.
Have fun out there!
Posted 10 months, 2 weeks ago at 9:01 pm. 1 comment
Hello again,
Long time no see! I can’t beleive I let myself go 5 days without posting! I will never let that happen again. Anyways, winter break is almost over and I get back to school on Monday. It really sucks, break went by way to quick. Tuesday, January 15, however is a day I’m looking forward to. I am expecting Mr. Steve Jobs to announce a brand new MacBook Pro. With the new Penryn processors out from Intel, now would be an ideal time. The MacBook Pro’s haven’t seen an update from apple in well over 200 days. Although the current 2.2/2.4/2.6 Ghz Merom Mobile processors are blazing fast, these new Penryns are a 45nm die shrink with new technology. They are smaller, faster, and more energy efficient.
Intel is releasing 5 mobile penryn processors.
X9000 2.8 GHz, 44W, 6MB, $851
T9500 2.6 GHz, 35W, 6MB, $530
T9300 2.5 GHz, 35W, 6MB, $316
T8300 2.4 GHz, 35W, 3MB, $241
T8100 2.1 GHz, 35W, 3MB, $209
The MacBook Pro’s would get the T9500 for the high-end 15″ and 17″, and the T9300 for the low-end 15″ if price points were to stay the same. I wish Apple would make the X9000 available as an option, but I don’t see that happening. However I see something more than a mere processor jump because the chipset (Santa Rosa) will stay the same. Maybe an upgrade from 8600M GT to 8700M GT? Although the 8700M GT happens to be just an overclocked 8600M GT, it would be nice to throw in there anyways? Or maybe the 8600M GT from 128/256Mb (low-end/high-end) of V-RAM to 256/512Mb? Or, how ’bout a case redesign. I personally love how the MacBook Pro looks already, but I know there are some things they can fix. They could remove the case latch and replace it with the magnetic, latch-free design from the MacBook. Maybe offer a black anodized aluminum MacBook Pro? I wouldn’t pay the extra premium to get a black computer instead of silver but there are definitely people who would.
Either way, MacBook Pros aren’t the only products of Apple that are expecting updates. A brand new Ultra Portable is rumored too. Something In between an iPhone and laptop perhaps. Numerous patent applications seem to point to it. Mac Pro’s also haven’t seen an update in 277 days!
In the mean time I have to finish up a week of school then right after finals, hopefully I will have my own. It’s been a long few years. Currently I’m on a 3 1/2 year old windows machine I built for myself. Specs are: AMD XP 3000+ (Yep, 32 bit, single core), X800 Pro AGP, Asus A7N8X, 1 Gb RAM. I can’t wait to get rid of this thing and install Linux on it.