Downtime

I'm off to Portugal tomorrow morning, so there will be no new entries until the 10th August 2004. Thanks for visiting

PocketPC and Symbian viruses, neck and neck

The first PocketPC virus has been discovered! At the moment Duts, as it's known, doesn't do any damage and asks the user's permission before spreading, but transmission avenues include email, the web, synchronisation, or bluetooth. And Pandora's box is now open ...

Of course, over here on the Symbian side of the fence, we've had our first virus, Cabir, for over a month now (at the moment it only affects Series 60 phones, not UIQ phones like the P800). Again, the virus is a "proof of concept" non-malicious release which requires user approval to spread itself, and unlike Duts, can only do so via bluetooth.

Both viruses were allegedly created by members of the hacker group known as 29A Labs. I considered the ramifications of linking to 29A, but those of you who are interested could easily find them on the web anyway. Whatever the case may be, if you do decide to have a look at their page make sure you have a look at their 'old news' for a bit of an eye-opener.

Salling Clicker updated

The newest version of Salling Clicker is out! Version 2.2 adds support for the Sendo X, Motorola A925, Nokia 7610, palmOne Zire 72, TapWave Zodiac and Sony Ericsson T637, as well as adding integration with EyeTV and VLC. This new version also includes a separate installer for P800s with the original R1D firmware (that's the phone firmware, not the calendar or other parts). It appears to be working on my un-updated phone exactly as advertised so far. Great stuff!

iPod speakers

BoingBoing reported on a MacGyver challenge involving tins of Altoids. There are some pretty inventive folks out there

Son of P900

Sony Ericsson have announced the P910! It's billed as a 'minor' upgrade, but in my opinion the major benefits are 64MB internal ram and access to Memory Stick Duo Pro (up to 1GB!). Not to mention the non-virtual QWERTY keyboard! The screen has been upgraded to 200k+ colours too, but that's not a big issue for me.

Breaking the 128MB barrier will make a huge difference. Instead of storing 6 albums of music in 48KHz ogg format, we're now talking about 48 albums. In my eyes 48 albums is a full-fledged music player, whereas a 6 album capacity was just a phone that dabbled in music. In a similar vein, we're now talking about 8 full length SmartMovie xvids per Memory Stick instead of just 1. Finally, we're also talking about enough storage for a movie in a VHS quality format now - think Divx or VCD/KVCD! Granted, it will take a phone with a beefier processor than the P910 has now to play back VHS quality Divx or MPEG1, but imagine plugging your phone into a 50" TV and playing back a movie...

Update: I'm not sure how I ended up posting this after the previous entry about the P900 firmware update, but there you have it :-)

New P900 firmware

I was looking at the new firmware R5B02 release notes when one sentence caught my eye: "Improved visualization of the stand-by clock". I was curious what the difference was until I read the next sentence. It turns out the clock's digits are now larger than before! Silly me

On a more serious note, the update looks good. Lots of fixes, including improved Bluetooth, improved photos, improved handsfree sound, and fixed auto-caps in T9 text prediction.

Encrypted emails

Interesting article on MacMerc this week describing how to enable encrypted and digitally signed emails in Mail and other Mac email apps. I'm waiting for my certificate now, although to be honest I can't imagine anyone I know encrypting their emails

My Desktop

I rearranged my desktop recently and have now concluded that I like this layout:

Presenting ... Tim's Really Useful Desktop™ - the guided tour

Starting on the left side of the screen, and working clockwise...

1. Since I have a Powerbook and it's wide-aspect screen, I moved my Dock to the left side. I use it solely as a list of running apps - I don't keep any commonly-used apps permanently in the Dock - if I need to launch something regularly I use Butler.

2. The Konfabulator widgets are, from left to right and top to bottom: iTunes Bar, The Weather, mini Calendar, FTP Mini, WhoDoesWhat, one-liner, upTimeRecord, SiteCheck, mini Digital Clock, and Word of the Day (all available from the Konfabulator Galley). I also use the National Rail timetable widget when I'm catching a train later in the day. In my opinion most of these widgets exemplify the virtues of Konfabulator - they look good and display some regularly updated information in an easily seen place (use Expose to get windows out of the way if necessary). SiteCheck, which simply carries out periodic checks to see if a specified website is responding, and Word of the Day, which updates once a day to display a new word and its definition, are two great examples.

3. My menubar contains, from left to right: the Konfabulator menu, iClock, the Bluetooth menu, MUMenu, the Modem menu, all four MenuMeters modules (modem throughput, memory usage, disk usage, and CPU load), the Battery menu, the Keyboard layout menu, the Eject menu, the Volume menu, and the WinSwitch FUS menu.

4. The two white windows near the center of the screen are Butler windows. The big one is the launcher window (it fades out once you launch something, in the image it is awaiting keyboard input). The lower one is the iTunes track window. This fades in when a new song starts and displays the track name before fading out again. I had to be quick with the screenshot before it faded out :-)

5. On the right is a DragThing dock, configured to have no tabs and to automatically hide. In the image the mouse is on the right edge of the screen, so the dock has expanded and become visible. Move the mouse away and the dock shrinks back into the edge of the screen. I use this as my 'drop box' dock. It's full of drag-and-drop apps (think Stuffit Expander) and various folders that I often move items to.

6. On the bottom of the screen is another DragThing dock, this one configured with tabs and ten layers and also set to automatically hide. Each layer is labeled Applications, Utilities, Internet, etc. This is my secondary app launcher. Almost every app in my Applications folder is also in this dock. Having them categorised sometimes helps me find what I want, especially if I cannot remember the app's name (my Applications folder currently contains 322 items). In the image the dock is minimised, since the mouse is over on the right edge of the screen.

This layout has been a pleasure to use so far. Some of the Konfabulator widgets might go (the upTime module hasn't been particularly useful!), and although I previously used MUMenu on a daily basis I now use NetNewsWire to keep abreast of new releases along with regular news, so that will probably go too. Other than that, to quote Ronald McDonald: "I'm lovin' it" :-)

A bit of Butler

After a comment in a recent entry, I had my first experience playing with Butler today, and I think I am starting to see why so many people rave about it. This donationware software is now up to version 4.0b15 (it was formerly known as Another Launcher). Why did I wait so long before trying it? Mostly because I didn't like the sound of the name (either one) ;-)

Butler Basics

The basic idea, that of a keyboard-based application launcher, is similar to LaunchBar and QuickSilver, however there are some extras thrown in. Launching an application is a matter of hitting the hotkey (ctrl-space by default) to bring up the launcher window and typing the first few letters of your desired app. Folders, web bookmarks and email addresses are also recognised and will open the appropriate item (or compose a new email, as appropriate). The search algorithm seems much the same as LaunchBar's. Both are better than QuickSilver. The launcher window snaps into existence when you press the hotkey and looks pretty good too. Speedwise Butler is definitely faster than QuickSilver on my Mac. It may even be faster than Launchbar.

A myriad of extras

If Butler has a drawback, it's that it does so much. The configuration and preferences windows are quite intimidating at first. In addition some of the extras seem a bit superfluous. Surely the whole point of a keyboard launcher is to use the mouse less, so the inclusion of a launcher menubar item, a bookmarks menubar item, and a web search box in the menubar comes across as a little odd. They look pretty, but in my opinion don't add much convenience and take up more space in my already crowded menubar (although you can choose to put all the menubar items into a docklet if you prefer). I can only assume that some people (ones who can't type, presumably) use Butler for these menubar items and don't use the keyboard functions at all.

Another Butler extra is controlling iTunes with hotkeys (play, previous, next, etc.), and there is also the option of enabling a bezel which fades in and displays the track details each time a new song starts. This level of iTunes control would usually be the result of a standalone app or control panel (PTHiTunesNotifier (RIP) was an early example, and there are dozens of Konfabulator widgets to control iTunes in the same fashion). However, unlike both QuickSilver and LaunchBar, Butler does not recognise iTunes playlists (not an issue for me, I don't use them).

In my opinion by far the best extra is easily Butler's web search hotkey. This very nice feature is faithful to the whole keyboard-launcher concept. Press the hotkey (Ctrl-Opt-W by default) and a white bezel appears centered on screen containing a web search box. Just type away and hit return, and watch your Google or Dictionary.com results appear in a Safari page. I can see myself getting a lot of use out of this one :-)

The Land of Ogg

Until a few weeks ago I never gave the Ogg Vorbis format a second thought as a music format. I always knew it could achieve the same quality as mp3 in less space, but so what? Hard drives are bigger and cheaper than ever. Then came my awakening (cue choir breaking into song) - I got my first phone which can play real music. The limited storage on a 128MB memory card suddenly made the Ogg format rather appealing.

A bit of digging around on the Mac software sites turned up an OS X app named Ogg Drop X. This is a nicely done drag-and-drop Ogg encoder. It works well, can batch encode Oggs at a variety of bitrates and has good metadata tag support. Unfortunately the program is intended for ripping CDs to Ogg and as a result it only accepts the uncompressed music files you'd find on a CD (AIFF / WAV format). I'm reliably informed that audiophiles would recoil in horror at the thought of re-encoding an mp3 as an Ogg, which is presumably why this program doesn't offer the option. So you're stuck with creating your Oggs direct from CD, or using something like QuickTime Player to convert your mp3s back to AIFF prior to using Ogg Drop X.

Update: If you have a batch of MP3s to convert, using QuickTime Player to convert those MP3s to AIFF is a painstaking process, primarily because you have to sit and wait for each conversion to finish before starting the next one. After a few conversions I was heartily sick of it so I set off in search of a better solution. Enter the freeware app MACAST MP3 Converter. This a batch converter for MP3 to AIFF/WAV conversions.

However in the default mode, MACAST MP3 Converter's output AIFF and WAV files are not accepted by Ogg Drop X. To fix this, select AIFF in MACAST MP3 Converter's pull-down menu, click options, select Custom, click Set, and then select Compressor: 24-bit Integer. The output files will now be compatible with Ogg Drop X.

Finally, MACAST MP3 Converter isn't totally bug-free. The notable one is that it appears to consume all available CPU power, even after the conversion has finished. So don't forget to quit the program once you've finished your conversions!

Who says size doesn't matter?

As far as size is concerned, mp3s at 128kbps (generally accepted as CD quality to the untrained ear) weigh in at about 1MB per minute, or just over two hours on a 128MB memory stick duo. However an Ogg can achieve very similar quality at half the bitrate. Since space is at a premium, I have chosen to encode my Oggs at 48kbps. In my opinion the quality is still totally acceptable, and this means we can fit almost six hours of music on a 128MB MS Duo. In practice I generally only keep a couple of albums at a time on my P800, for a total size of about 40MB.

Playback on the P800

The bad news is that there isn't a lot of choice. As far as I'm aware there is only one Ogg player available for the P800, and that is OggPlay. The good news is that OggPlay is a quality piece of software! It can not only play Oggs (you'd hope so!), it can do so in both flip-open and flip-closed modes and it's clever enough to mute the music if the phone rings. It's also skinnable - there are various skins available on the developer's site.

Crappy P800 headphones

I've heard the bundled headphones that come with the P800 are less than satisfactory (I wouldn't know since my phone from eBay didn't come with them!). But since they have the pickup-hangup button on them you are kinda stuck with them if you want to receive phone calls while listening to music. All is not lost however! On a recommendation I bought this headset adapter. What can I say - this is a nifty little device. It consists of a spring-loaded retractable wire connecting the P800 to a combination microphone, pickup-hangup button and headphone miniplug adapter, and it comes with a detachable single earpiece for your handsfree conversations. The clever part is that you can unplug the single earpiece and plug your high-quality third-party headphones into the miniplug adapter, and still use the pickup-hangup button and microphone on the adapter itself.

Online DVD rentals in the UK

The Register today reported the merger of two of the UK's online DVD rental companies, MovieTrak and Qflicks, supposedly in preparation for US pioneer Netflix's arrival later this year. As mentioned elsewhere, I'm a fan of LoveFilm.com. Other outfits include Video Island and Screen Select. While looking up their websites I had a chuckle at the inevitable hyperbole:

Screen Select - "Join the UK's number 1 online DVD rental service"
Qflicks - "Largest DVD Selection in Europe - over 20,000 titles"
MovieTrak - "Europe's first online DVD rental company"
Video Island - "Rated UK's No.1 DVD rental service"
LoveFilm - no bold front-page claims, but the FAQ mentions "over 20,000 titles - that's virtually every DVD available in the UK"

Category icons in Movable Type

I wanted to add category icons to the website, so after a bit of reading I decided to give the TopIcon Movable Type plug-in a try. Installation was fairly straightforward - the only slightly obscure part was the documentation on the naming conventions for the icon files. I seem to have it cracked though, except for an odd spacing issue where the entry title doesn't extend to two lines.

Update: worked around the space problem by wrapping everything in a table with a defined width for the first cell.

GPRS in the UK

GPRS is mighty expensive in the UK, just a month or two ago I looked into it on my T-Mobile pay-as-you-go plan and prices started at £1.50 per megabyte or £40 a month for 'unlimited' usage (discretionary 100MB cap, 12 month contract). This is way too much for me to use it for my regular email, let alone browsing the web.

So when I noticed this I thought, what a great idea!. A text-based web browser almost makes me want to sign up for GPRS so I could use the P800 as a mobile modem for the laptop. I'd still have to lug the laptop around along with the phone though. All I need now is a similar program for the Symbian OS.

P800 ringtones

The P800, unlike it's newer sibling the P900, cannot play an MP3 as a ringtone. It is restricted to normal ringtones (which are MIDI based, i.e. they only reproduce the melody of a song, not the actual sound or any lyrics) and WAV files. Unfortunately, a WAV file is by definition uncompressed, which makes them enormous when compared to the phone's memory. An average MP3 that is 4MB in size, when exported to WAV with QuickTime Pro at the default settings (48KHz, 16bit, stereo), will weigh in at around 50MB in size! How can we reduce the size of our WAV file? Luckily for us, since the file is only for a phone's ringtone, and given the limited speaker in the phone, we can drastically reduce the fidelity of the WAV file to the minimum possible and still have a recognisable song. Using the minimum settings (8KHz, 8bit, mono) when we export to WAV, our output file comes out to about 2MB in size. This is of course for the entire song - for a ringtone we only need about 15 seconds of the song which at the same settings will somewhere in the 100KB range. To cut out the section of the song we want, use the 'bookend' markers underneath QuickTime Player's position slider to select the portion of the song you want to keep, copy it, and paste it into a new empty QuickTime Player document. We can then export to WAV from this new document. To export to a WAV, simply choose Export (this requires QuickTime Pro), select WAV, click Options and choose 8KHz, 8bit, mono. If you have a lot of MP3s to convert you may wish to have a look at SoundConverter, a great drag-and-drop audio conversion application. It is free for input files under 500KB in size, otherwise it costs US$10. What I do is cut my MP3s in QuickTime Pro, save them all, and then batch convert the lot with SoundConverter (once your MP3s are cut down to size they should be quite a bit smaller than 500KB).

RegExp and Konfabulator's one-liner widget

I've recently been trying out one-liner, a handy Konfabulator widget. This is a highly customizable widget that uses regular expressions to extract data from a user-specified webpage and display it on screen with regular updates. The suggested uses are to keep track of new comments on a site such as VersionTracker, or to keep track of the latest version of an application. This latter use is what I like it for.

Some history: a few years back, VersionTracker made their name by offering a free service to check for updates of all your installed software. It was a bit slow (at the time everyone had dial-up connections) but it worked very well and was a big timesaver. Rather than Get-Info on each application (or worse yet, launch it just to check the version number), you could just run VersionTracker's app and it would tell you which of your installed apps had an update available online. Unfortunately, VersionTracker now want us to pay for this program (now called VersionTracker Pro, obviously). Worse yet, it's not even a traditional "pay-once" program. We now have to pay US$50 every year to use the service! This is known in some industries as a "bait and switch" scam ;-) but in the computer world it is unhappily quite common (mac.com anyone?)

Back to one-liner. What I wanted to do with it was to set it up to check for updates to a few apps that I regularly use (and have some minor issue that I'm waiting for a bug-fix for). After a bit of reading, including this nicely done RegExp tutorial, I was able to put together some generic expressions to parse VersionTracker entries for the information I want (i.e. the latest version number). Simply create a new entry in one-liner and enter the following values (use the VersionTracker URL of the application you want to watch):

Update: I realised VersionTracker have a different page for each version, which makes tracking the newest version difficult. MacUpdate only keeps the latest version which simplifies things a lot.

Parse Target URL (use the MacUpdate URL of the app you want to track):
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/13341

RegExp1(A):
/<title>(.*)<\/title>/[1]

Title:
/<title>(.*)<\/title>/[1]

Display:
A

This will make one-liner request the MacUpdate page and display what the current version number of the software is. You can set the interval in the one-liner preferences. This is the result (the bottom five lines are the result of this technique):

A good place to ask RegExp-related questions is regexp.org.

QuickSilver steps up

I have been a long-time fan of LaunchBar , the whole concept is amazing and has truly changed my daily computer usage. Simply hit the activation key (ctrl-spacebar by default) and type a few letters from the app's name and Launchbar presents you with a list of possible apps to launch. Every extra letter further condenses the results. It is intelligent as well, learning to recognise which apps you mean. And it's fast - the whole procedure of launching an app takes as long as typing a 4 letter word. For instance launching Apple's DVD Player is merely a question of typing ctrl-spacebar, d, v, return! The on-screen list updates with every keystroke so you can see what app you are choosing, but often-used apps will automatically float to the top of the list.

However, there is a new upstart on the scene! QuickSilver is very similar to LaunchBar, but it looks prettier :-) There are a selection of interfaces for it, but I think it's safe to say the bezel interface is the slickest. The activation key brings up a bezel centered on your screen and as you press keys the icon in the bezel changes. The bezel looks very similar to the built-in OS X application switcher - itself a rare example of a feature that Apple swiped from Windows rather than the other way around (no matter what the developers of LiteSwitchX would have you believe).

All-in-all, QuickSilver has all the functionality of LaunchBar, but it looks more "OS X-like". The sole problem was that QuickSilver was for a long time noticeably less responsive than LaunchBar, however this appears to have been fixed in the latest B25 version of Quicksilver. This new version is very snappy and compares nicely to LaunchBar in terms of speed. It also doesn't suffer from the quite frankly far-too-slow indexing rigamarole LaunchBar goes through at startup.

Dashboard vs Konfabulator

With all the recent 'controversy' over how Apple's new Dashboard feature (highlighted in the WWDC OS X 10.4 "Tiger" preview) copies Konfabulator, I'm surprised no one remembers a very similar 'controversy' from late last year over Apple's application switcher and LiteSwitchX. If you ask me, John Gruber's comments regarding the earlier debate are just as applicable to the current argument.