I've tweeted it before. I really like the iPad, but it's not a device i need. Between a MacBook Pro and an iPhone which i already have, there simply isn't much use for a device mainly made to consume.

My consuming device is the iPhone, which is where i consume my twitter-feed, rss and occasionally even hook it up to a TV to watch a movie. For this, the screen size doesn't matter at all. When screen size does matter, which is mostly when i create things, there's the MacBook Pro which might even be hooked up to a 30" Cinema Display (which will be a perfect setup once Apple fixes the flaws of the Dual Link Adapter).

So who is it for?

The iPad is the perfect device for someone which does neither have an iPhone or any personal computer at all. Like – my Mother. She's in her late seventies, learned how to type when she was young but never used the internet. She's alone and i bet an iPad would help her kill some time by communicating with friends and relatives, browse the news on the web and maybe connect with like-minded.

Deal breaker

As many of you probably know from experience, the first line of support for a mother is not AppleCare, it is FamilyCare, which would be me. And that is the deal breaker. At least as it currently seems. There is no screen sharing for iPad yet.

So how would i be able to support my mother and quickly show her how to address an email again or where to go in order to make that type display larger so she can read it? I wouldn't and that, i believe, is a big omission from Apple for an audience which seems to be the perfect target for an iPad.

So here's hoping that Apple will quickly come up with some kind of back to my iPad. As there's no daemonizing for 3rd party apps, the chances are slim that someone like TeamViewer can fill this gap any time soon.

Posted in: Apple

I had tons of messages like the following flood my system.log every 10 seconds:

04.03.10 12:56:16	mDNSResponder[18]	Bad service type in ._MacOSXDupSuppress._tcp.local. Application protocol name must be underscore plus 1-14 characters. See <http://www.dns-sd.org/ServiceTypes.html>
04.03.10 12:56:26	mDNSResponder[18]	Bad service type in ._MacOSXDupSuppress._tcp.local. Application protocol name must be underscore plus 1-14 characters. See <http://www.dns-sd.org/ServiceTypes.html>
04.03.10 12:56:36	mDNSResponder[18]	Bad service type in ._MacOSXDupSuppress._tcp.local. Application protocol name must be underscore plus 1-14 characters. See <http://www.dns-sd.org/ServiceTypes.html>
04.03.10 12:56:46	mDNSResponder[18]	Bad service type in ._MacOSXDupSuppress._tcp.local. Application protocol name must be underscore plus 1-14 characters. See <http://www.dns-sd.org/ServiceTypes.html>

The cause of the logs seem to be an older Mac OS X Server 10.3.9 box announcing a bonjour service which has a name longer than 14 characters. Short of being able to fix the cause, i was looking for a way to exclude such messages from being logged at all.

Syslogd and Filters

After a lot of googling, i discovered that on Mac OS X, syslogd not only uses /etc/syslogd.conf – as you probably knew – but also uses /etc/asl.com which offers some nice ways of configuring exactly what you want to be logged (see: man asl.conf and man asl). You can filter by log-lever, sender and even the specific contents of a message which is being logged.

Filtering by Sender

I my case, the sender of the log messages was mDNSResponder. So if i wanted to exclude anything from mDNSResponder is trying to log, i could add the following line to /etc/asl.conf:

? [= Sender mDNSResponder] ignore

After you made any changes to asl.conf, you need to restart syslogd to read the changed configuration. Syslogd is restarted with: sudo killall -HUP syslogd

Filtering by Message content

Filtering by Message content is equally trivial. In my case, the annoying message being constantly logged was Bad service type in ._MacOSXDupSuppress._tcp.local. Application protocol name must be underscore plus 1-14 characters. See <http://www.dns-sd.org/ServiceTypes.html>
You could just filter by message content, but to be save, i filter on both, sender and message content. Thank god, asl not only lets me filter by Message content but also by substring like so:

? [= Sender mDNSResponder] [S= Message Bad service type in ._MacOSXDupSuppress] ignore

Again, don't forget to restart syslogd after a change to asl.conf!

As it took me rather long googling a solution to my problem, i hope this post is being indexed nicely and will help others with a similar problem!

Update 2010-03-04 17:48 CET

It seems the above only really affects logging to the asl datastore. Messages filtered like above are not being displayed anymore if you use console.app and select ":All Messages" but unfortunately will still be written to /var/log/system.log.
Too bad.

Posted in: Apple, MacOSX

Blue Beanie Day, showing our support for web standards by wearing a blue beanie.

Posted in: Web Design, Web Development

Analytics to Earth is a Mac OS X Utility which lets you view Google Analytics Geo Reports in Google Earth

Download | Release Notes

I believe, looking at Geo Reports in Google Earth in 3D offers far more insight into the world wide usage of your site than the flat, colored map in Google Analytics. Therefore i developed Analytics to Earth. Maybe one day, Google will integrate KML export right into Google Analytics.
In the KML files generated by Analytics to Earth, each page view is represented by a logarithmically scaled yellow line. Red lines represent more than 1.000 page views.

Using the Google Analytics API, Analytics to Earth downloads geo reports of a given timeframe, displays them in the built in browser or converts them into a .kml file which you can open in Google Earth.

Usage:
After you launch the App, simply enter your Google Analytics Email and Password (needed to log in to the GA API), then specify a timeframe by setting a start- and end date. Clicking on the "Save" will then save the KML file to disk, where you can open it using Google Earth. Clicking on "View" will display the report in the built in browser using the Google Earth Internet Plugin.

Requirements:

• Mac OS X 10.4 or newer
• A Google Analytics Account
• Google Earth to view the KML file

Installing:

• Download
• Unpack the ZIP by double clicking on it
• Double click Analytics to Earth to start

If you like it, please:

$5.00 $10.00 $15.00 $20.00 $25.00 $30.00 $40.00 $50.00 $75.00 $100.00

Donate easily and securely via Paypal using your credit card or Paypal account.

All traffic to the Google Analytics api is done securely via SSL. Application updates are downloaded from https://secure.spiceislands.net which is my only domain with an SSL certificate.
Software updates delivered with the beautiful Sparkle framework.

Posted in: Analytics to Earth, MacOSX, Software

For whatever reason, Twitter seems to have rolled out an api change before Twitter Clients have implemented the necessary changes to deal with them.
The changes are concerning retweets. There's a new way retweets are handeled in a users timeline XML. Twitter is effectively stripping out the RT parts of the tweet text (making them invisible to the user) and includes them as meta data into the XML:

<retweet_details>
    <retweeting_user>
    	...
    </retweeting_user>
    <retweet_count>1</retweet_count>
    <retweet_id type="integer">4043457594</retweet_id>
    <retweeted_at type="datetime">2009-09-17T01:15:32+00:00</retweeted_at>
</retweet_details>

Today, there's only few Twitter-Clients which already support this new XML and this is where the problem starts. As the RT part of a tweet is now effectively hidden to anyone not supporting the new XML format, a retweet might be displayed as if it is a message from someone you do not follow (if someone you follow retweets someone you don't).

TwittelatorPro 3.2 already supports the new format and indicates the retweet (RT) in the upper right corner of a tweet

Twitterrific (3.2 Mac) doesn't support the new API and thus it looks as if i received a tweet from Trisha which i do not follow. Shock and awe!

Update 1: These changes are clearly documented on the twitter API site, but contrary to the documentation, the changes affected friends_timeline.xml (at least for me) also and not only the new home_timeline.xml!

Update 2: It is possible, that i misinterpreted this and twitter didn't accidentally roll out any changes to friends_timeline. It may well be, that Andrew Stone (he retweeted Trisha as seen in the screenshots above and i am following him) was simply testing the new features using the statuses/retweet API call.
But still, even if he did, the RT shouldn't have arrived in my friends_timeline (in that new format).
That is why other services use versioned APIs and don't bend live APIs at will!

Posted in: Software, Web Development

So here's my take on the problem. Click on the image, play around with it and let me know what you think!
I can't guarantee, that this will work in any other browser than Safari of FireFox!

I am making use of the much bigger screen estate by placing the home screens side by side and by using a so called Dropzone where one can park icons to move them across screens (just like you park stuff on your desktop) which might not be visible and need to be scrolled to.
What is not implemented is multi-selects, reordering of home screens and sorting of apps (which is also needed e.g. sort by most used), as this is beyond the scope of my little experiment.

This is a functional concept and not intended to show off my graphical skills.
Big thanks to jQuery for making it possible to sketch up such a simulation in almost no time!

Posted in: MacOSX, Usability

Posted in: almostdaily

This effing progress bar won't ever finish. It stands still at the exact position you see above. And MT silently fails to republish "ALL" (after a template change or such).
Worst of all, i am a web developer and have no clue how to fix this (emphasis on MT, not my abilities), nor does MT give me any hint as to what might be going wrong.

This could be such a lovely relationship but MT doesn't stop to show its ugly face every once in a while. Oh well, i love Movable Type.

Posted in: Software, Usability, Web Development

So here's a tip – which in case you haven't already discovered this yourself – is so simple, that you'll probably bang your head against the desk.

This tip probably applies to most Web Analytic Tools out there. As i have no access to any other tools, i'll use Google Analytics here for the examples.

Google Analytics has a nice date-picker which lets you select the timeframe used to display its verious reports. The timeframe is usually defined by a start- and end-date. In order to let you compare metrics to the past, there can even be two start- and end-dates.
Let's assume you want to look at your dashboard, and compare your statistics for April to the ones from March (the previous Month).

The Default

By default, you'll define a date range by either clicking on the month name (April) which automatically inserts 04/01/2008 and 04/30/2008 into the date fields or you fill in the date fields by hand (or even use the fency Timeline slider or what have you).
You then repeat this step for the timeframe in the past you want to compare your metrics to, click on Apply and you're done defining your timeframes and your report is being displayed.

The defined timeframe as seen in the little calendar view

In your dashboard, you'll see all kinds of graphs and probably also one for Absolute Unique Visitors which might look just like the image below:

As you can see in the graph to the left, we have a nice pattern, as the data used for this example is from a B2B Site which has an audience browsing the site mainly during weekdays.
The blue line represents April's trend and the green line represents visitors in March. You'll notice, the pattern is somehow repeated in the green line for March.
What the graph to the left fails to communicate however is the data you might probably be interested in most: The difference in quantity between the two months. Did April have more unique visitors or March?
The graph simply fails because there is too much noise and the pattern isn't aligned.
If your traffic doesn't show any patterns and you have the same amount of traffic every day, please stop reading, as all i say here doesn't apply to you.

The Hand Tuned, Meaningful Beauty

Now here's the simple trick. Let's align the patterns by adjusting our timeframes in a way, that makes sense for our scenario: Instead of picking whole months, we need to align our timeframes by a specific Weekday, which will be the same day for the current and past timeframe. We'll also make sure, both timeframes have the same length.

Adjusted timeframes with similar lengths and the start days aligned at a Monday.
We're looking at four weeks each.

Look at the graph to the left. Isn't this a beauty? Get the story this picture is telling you? Huge difference. We can still immediately identify the patterns from the previous graph, but can also see a meaningful, comparable representation of quantities.
I believe everybody will now be able to immediately spot the decline in March's visitors which lasts from the middle of week three until mid of week four.

This trick is so simple, i wish google had "Align by Weekday" build right in to Google Analytics already.
I hope this was news to at least some of you and that this little nugget will be helpful to you as you are crunching your numbers.

PS: If you're into Web Analytics and don't read him already, do yourself a favor and have a look at Avinash's Blog.

Posted in: Software, Usability, Web Design, Web Development

Posted in: almostdaily

Posted in: almostdaily

Posted in: almostdaily

you are absolultely right, that most of the current Camcorders went USB instead of FireWire.

But you know what? I don't upgrade my Camcorder (a trusty old Sony DCR-PC2E) every so often because it just works and i need the money to buy new Apple Laptops every other year.

Regards,
Stefan

Posted in: Apple

That's how i'll remember you. Rest in peace!
Leo Pot † July 4th, 2008

Posted in: Comment

It is totally crazy how fast this little but ice cold creek winds through the beginning of the park. People enjoy surfing although officially prohibited.

Posted in: Photos