1. Creating OS X Leopard Install on a USB Drive or iPod

    Step 1:

    Insert the OS X installation DVD and plugin the USB Drive.

    Step 2:

    Open Disk Utility, under /Applications/Utilities.

    install1.jpg

    Step 3:

    Drag the “Mac OS X Install DVD” to the “Source” field

    install2.jpg

    and the formated partition on your USB drive to “Destination”.

    install3.jpg

    Do not drag the volumes or devices that state the size of the disk, it won’t work.

    Step 4:

    Click “Restore”.

    install4.jpg

    You’re done.

    I’m not sure if this speeds up the installation but it sure should. Whether it does or does this process still helps.

  2. jailbreakme.com

    UPDATE:

    Please Use ZiPhone, it works on all firmware versions.

    Wow, jail breaking the iPhone and iPod touch is way easier then ever before.

    Hackers hdm/metasploit, kroo, dinopio, rezn, drudge, pumpkin, davidc, dunham, and NerveGas just setup and “instant” jailbreak for the iPhone and iPod Touch simply by going to a website.
    Installer.app allows for third party application you like like an awesome NES emulator, ssh and much more.

    Instructions on how to hack the 1.1.1 iPhone:

    1. Go to jailbreakme.com (don’t go to this site if you’re not using an iPhone of iPod touch).
    2. Read the directions
    3. Scroll down and select “Install AppSnapp”
    4. Safari disappears and you’ll simply return to the Home screen, this is a good thing.
    5. Just wait. It sometimes takes up to 5 minutes as it’s network dependant (I’m assuming it’s downloading and installing installer.app at this time).
    6. WAIT!! don’t do anything and be patient.
    7. Finally, you’ll be asked to “Slide-to-unlock”.

    * If Safari hangs, just hold the home button for until you’re home again and try again.

    You’re home screen will now have installer.app and you’re set to have all of those third party apps the “community” way.

    I’m not sure how long this expoit will last, since it’s based off the TIFF exploit found shortly after the 1.1.1 release but it looks like installer.app won’t be needed for very long with the announment a few weeksback about an SDK release for the systems.

    I went ahead and ran the installer on my phone before writing this post and it runs great. The new installer.app version 3 is great and finally manageable with it’s new UI. I’m still not sure how much I’ll use it though, since I’ve been perfectly fine with 1.1.1 since it’s release and not having any “third party apps” along with it.

  3. iMAP on GMail

    It looks like Gmail will finally be rolling out IMAP support for GMail.

     

    Sync your inbox across devices instantly and automatically. Whether you read or write your email on your phone or on your desktop, changes you make to Gmail will be seen from anywhere you access your inbox. Don’t fret if you don’t see “IMAP Access” yet under the Settings menu. We’re rolling it out to everyone over the next few days.

    And it looks like they did it all for the iPhone, maybe to compete with Yahoo!s support of IMAP. Either way you have to thank iPhone. :)

    I’m still curious as to how they’re going to solve the tagging labeling. Are they going to make each tag a folder or are they going to just ignore tags altogether? I hope it’s not the later because I use labels for almost all of my e-mail and I’m sure the majority of GMail users do as well. It looks like “changes” need to be defined or someone out there in the blogoshpere needs to post about how labels are handled.

    The best solution I can think of is treating labels as folders, the problem will be e-mail duplication since mail could be labeled multiple times or simply once while still residing in the inbox.

    Maybe labels aren’t such a good idea after all Google. It seems you’ve learned your lesson and re-configured the method in the new Google Reader, which handles tags and folders separately. Could this be the pre-cursor to a major overhaul for gmail? I hope so because their innovation in gmail years back has created incompatibilities with legacy software, in this case IMAP.

    aside: I haven’t recived the option yet, either in gmail or my google apps account. Which also makes me wonder how long it’s going to take for my google Apps account to get this feature, in the past google rolls out new features to gmail users first and then after some time gives it to us apps users.

    Update:

    In order to “label” messages multiple times from within Apple Mail or the iPhone, you must copy the message(s) to each respective ‘Folder’ which corresponds with your Gmail Label. I think it’s time to move back to the idea of Folders as opposed to Labels. #

  4. Search Everything 4.2.1 Release

    I just committed SE 4.2.1 which includes:

    • Full Wordpress 2.3 Support
      • Tag Searching
      • Category Exclusion
    • Major Performance tweaks when searching tags and/or comments.

    The speed of comment searching has improved dramatically, so much that I’m contemplating activating on this site. The reason’s why I won’t I’ve posted about in my “Fixing Wordpress Search” posts.

  5. DRM Free iTunes Part 3

    Apple dropped the price for DRM free music and opened up to some indies earlier this week.

    Offering customers the largest catalog of DRM-free music in the world, Apple today expanded iTunes Plus to more than two million tracks while at the same time lowering the price of those tracks to just 99 cents. In addition to artists from EMI’s digital catalog, iTunes Plus now includes artists from Sub Pop, Nettwerk, Beggars Group, IODA, The Orchard and many others. All iTunes Plus tracks feature DRM-free music with high-quality 256 kbps AAC encoding, offering audio quality virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings. [Oct 17, 2007]

    And i was just going to let it slide but since the initial post started such a debate I’d hope Jared would now eat his shoe and admit his “case” doesn’t exist now.

  6. Third Party Applications on the iPhone – Steve Jobs

    Just after posting an official statement from Jobs was posted.

    Third Party Applications on the iPhoneLet me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers’ hands in February. We are excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users. With our revolutionary multi-touch interface, powerful hardware and advanced software architecture, we believe we have created the best mobile platform ever for developers.

    Sorry but you already have. Look at the great installer.app applications released by “novice” developers.

    It will take until February to release an SDK because we’re trying to do two diametrically opposed things at once—provide an advanced and open platform to developers while at the same time protect iPhone users from viruses, malware, privacy attacks, etc. This is no easy task. Some claim that viruses and malware are not a problem on mobile phones—this is simply not true. There have been serious viruses on other mobile phones already, including some that silently spread from phone to phone over the cell network. As our phones become more powerful, these malicious programs will become more dangerous. And since the iPhone is the most advanced phone ever, it will be a highly visible target.

    Sounds like an excuse to take their time in releasing an SDK. When thinking about it, waiting to release an open SDK can only hurt them so these points could be extremely valid to them or they need the time to get other necessities ready, like the iTunes infrastructure.

    Many of the hackers and developers looking at the underlying system of the iPhone stating that the 1.1.1 release was what Apple intended/should have released at launch, meaning they rushed the iPhone OS at launch with the plan to completely revamp/rewrite the system. This is similar to the AppleTV  with it’s YouTube update. But wrap this into my point, they’re behind already with the proper OS for the phone which would ultimately postpone any intent for an iPhone SDK this year.

    All specualtion since the WWDC in January is the perfect place to announce and release it.  And I’m willing to bet Jobs didn’t hold this under his sleeve until then because the rumors were already getting out and there has been a lot of heat on the iPhone recently with the 1.1.1 release and the surge of new posts about the iPhone being closed.

    Some companies are already taking action. Nokia, for example, is not allowing any applications to be loaded onto some of their newest phones unless they have a digital signature that can be traced back to a known developer. While this makes such a phone less than “totally open,” we believe it is a step in the right direction. We are working on an advanced system which will offer developers broad access to natively program the iPhone’s amazing software platform while at the same time protecting users from malicious programs.

    Quality supersedes.

    We think a few months of patience now will be rewarded by many years of great third party applications running on safe and reliable iPhones.

    Steve

    P.S.: The SDK will also allow developers to create applications for iPod touch. [Oct 17, 2007]

    Great news for the holiday season coming.

    What ever happened to their complete secrecy?

  7. Apple planning iPhone SDK for February

    Looks like Apple is indeed planning an open SDK for release in February.

    The company just announced on its Hot News feed (and we’d say this certainly qualifies as such), that it is currently at work on an SDK for the iPhone, the apps from which will naturally work on the iPod touch. Apparently it’s going to take ‘em until February to do it up right — you know, secure and stable and all that nonsense — but this is certainly a beautiful breath of fresh air.

     

    Apple has seen a lot of criticism for not allowing 3rd party apps on to iPhone, well before it’s launch, now it seems the whiners are getting what they wanted and knew they weren’t getting at the time of purchase.

    Less excitingly, Apple claims that it agrees with Nokia’s approach of “digital signatures” for applications, meaning that Apple gets to say who qualifies for entrance onto its hallowed devices as was rumored last week; though who’s to say what exactly that will look like just yet. But even with that caveat, we suppose we should take what we get from this sometimes benevolent, but never aesthetically challenged, dictator of ours and eat it like we’re told.

     

    It looks like the iPhone wont be completely “open”, since there applications would need to be “approved” and this process could be extremely limiting to developers (e.g. Sidekick) on what they can and can’t do or just a submission process for the app to be cataloged.

    Either way I’d love to see some kind of quality control. Both Treo and Blackberry have applications that are written poorly and subsequently crash the phone.

    The next question would be, “what is the delivery system”. If iTunes, would it be through the iTunes store and will developers be allowed to sell their applications.

    The apps I want to see (some already available through installer.app):

    • Terminal
    • gTalk or Chat with multi-protocol support
    • Podcast OTA downloader
    • Games and NES emulater
    • eBook Reader

    After listing these apps, only the first two are really needed and the second is the only necessary one for me. Maybe I can wait till February for an SDK after all. Especially since I see a chat client coming out before then.

  8. 5K downloads for Wordpress Search

    Search Everything looks to break five thousand downloads this weekend (if not today) on Wordpress extend. I lost the prior totals before I committed all my downloads to extend but I’m guessing the total downloads since version 1 is around 7.5K.

    All this with the recent news that WP 2.4 will be including the ability to “search everything”, almost exactly how I laid out in my recent posts on wp-hackers, benifiting Wordpress and our community.

    From Wordpress Tac #5149:

    Description

    Extend search to include pages and other things. The more comprehensive the better, limited only by performance considerations. Care will need to be taken when including pages in the search results since themes that display full post content may break. Putting a filter that strips tags from page content returned in search results would suffice. The search should be as hookable as possible to allow customization via plugin.

    Possible things to search on:

    • Post title, content, excerpt, author, tags, categories
    • Page title, content, excerpt, author, tags, categories
    • Comment content, author
    • Post/page meta fields

    Features that would be nice to have:

    • Order search by relevance
    • Excerpt relevant areas of content, search engine style

    Relevant discussions:

    This is great news, granted my sites traffic will take a major hit but I’ve felt strongly that one of the major issues with WP core is the default search functionality. But even though Search Everything will be deprecated and useless after 2.4 I’ll be looking to create a new search plugin that will filter the results, the opposite of what SE does now. Maybe I’ll call that new plugin search nothing.

     

    2.4 looks to be a major milestone in WP, with the inclusion of search and the new backend redesign it looks to be the most noticeable upgrade since 2.1.

  9. “Fixing” Wordpress Search

    Cut from my post on this “Page Searching examples” thread on the wp-hacker’s list and a continuation of Jared and my conversation on a previous post.

    Here’s what I propose, knowing it’s most likely not going to happen
    but it will alleviate: user expectation, not bloat the core with
    “unnecessary” options and more importantly the patch [I assume] will
    only be a few lines of code:

    Let’s have Wordpress’ default search include:
    * Posts
    * Pages
    * Tags
    * Meta fields
    * Attachment Fields (title and description)
    …this is what I strongly believe the author expects search results
    are pulled from.

    THEN,
    Have the community (maybe me) create a plugin that will provide
    options for the user to exclude, limit or include more from the core
    search.

    All this without requiring the any new options panel.

    Pretty much the exact opposite of what’s being done now, except it
    will help the average non-plugin wordpress user and the wordpress user
    that doesn’t know how the default search works. Whom are the people
    I’m thinking about when I make these suggestions or comments, not the
    wp-hackers who can write a plugin or the above average .org user
    swamped with plugins.

    Then again, what about the wordpress.com user?

    [These are only suggestions and should not be taken as a directive nor
    was any of it meant to be condescending or rude to anyone on this
    list. Thanks]

    –Dan Cameron
    http://dancameron.org

  10. Feeds, Pownce and WP 2.3

    So some of you might have noticed that my feeds are completely out of whack. Well since the upgrade to 2.3 some plugins that say they are 2.3 compatible aren’t working. However, I’m not completely sure it’s the plugins causing the issue because I’m getting similar errors this very second while writing this post.

    The auto save produces this error every time I write a post, no matter what I do:

    WordPress database error: [Table 'name.prefix_categories' doesn't exist]
    SELECT c.cat_ID AS ID, MAX(p.post_modified) AS last_mod FROM `
    prefix_categories` c, `prefix_post2cat` pc, `prefix_posts` p WHERE pc.category_id = c.cat_ID AND p.ID = pc.post_id AND p.post_status = 'publish' AND p.post_type='post' GROUP BY c.cat_id

    I shouldn’t be getting these errors after the complete re-install I did this morning. I’ve been meaning to export the entire site through the export function WP provides and then loading that backup into a fresh installation for while, but this morning I was fed up so I just did it.

    The syndication plugin is getting some similar errors that I can’t entirely explain how it happens, but the plugins I’ve used (I think) are creating posts with a dummy category name which is the same as the intended category. That makes me think the plugin just isn’t supported yet fully, even if it says it is on the plugin page but that doesn’t eplain the similar errors I’m getting on auto save.

    I really don’t know what to do other then wait for 2.3.1 and hopefully some more updates from the plugin authors. For now all RSS readers wont be receiving my pownce posts, you’ll need to subscribe to them separately and will have to comment on Pownce.

    This might be a good thing if it forces Jared, Nathan and Nate to create Pownce accounts in order to comment, that way I don’t have to pull in these posts at all.