iTunes 10.5 Available

You can download it at apple.com/itunes.  The official release version of 10.5 is downloadable (I couldn’t update iTunes to 10.5, but I was running a 10.5 beta).

New stuff includes:

• Support for iCloud
• Automatic downlaods
• Support for iOS 5 devices
• Wi-Fi Syncing (yay)

That’s about it, now we wait for iOS to be released tomorrow hopefully.

Tags: Apple, iOS, iTunes

WordPress: Custom Post Types with K. Adam White

K. Adam White does an excellent job reviewing many aspects of Custom Post Types in WordPress in his talk at WordCamp Boston last month.

Included in the review:

• Taxonomies
• Slugs
• Plugins useful with Custom Post Types
• Cost/Benefit of Custom Post Types
• Why you would use Custom Post Types
• How to build a Custom Post Type
• Some general Q&A

Tags: Custom Post Type, K. Adam White, WordCamp, WordPress

Photoshop Removes Blurring – Adobe MAX 2011

Who wouldn’t want this?

Tags: Adobe, Photoshop

Monitor Flickering – DP-DVI B087B-002B Fixed

What a week for fixing annoying computer problems.  First my “drag and drop” functionality, that you use more than you know, didn’t work.  A replacement mouse fixed that (sent for free by Logitech).

Now, another problem bothering me for a long time (it may be an entire year now).  Every hour or so my left monitor (I run 3) would flicker and/or turn off.  It’s not so annoying that it’s there all the time, but it would eventually happen.  Then I’d have to reach around my computer, disconnect the monitor cable for a second, and then plug it in again.  Things would work.

I finally decided to find out exactly what part I had (it’s a DP to DVI-D powered adaptor, DisplayPort to DVI, by Accell).  Once I got that, and the part number … a few google queries later, I found their site.

› Continue reading

Tags: Accell, B087B-002B, DisplayPort, hardware, troubleshooting

Logitech Performance Mouse MX – Excellent Customer Service

This mouse review starts off with a problem.  I’ve had the mouse for almost a year now, and started experiencing problems dragging files.  I’d drag files from one folder to another, only to have them stop dragging halfway there.  Frequently this resulted in some very annoying mistakes (like accidentally copying a folder in DropBox onto itself).

I expected some type of virus or trojan, so I ran every anti virus imaginable (just short of reformatting).  I found nothing.

Finally I decided to test out my mouse, and bingo!  If I switched to an older one of my mice, I had no problems dragging and dropping.  I tried my “broken” mouse on another computer, and experienced the same problem.  Troubleshooting 101.

› Continue reading

Tags: Customer Support, Logitech, Logitech Performance Mouse MX

iPhone 4S Arrives October 14th, No iPhone 5

Today Tim Cook, at the Apple “Town Hall” announced the new iOS 5 and iCloud alongside the new iPhone 4S.  Here are summaries of the things announced today (skipping the marketing material, which took 30 minutes).

The iPhone 4S will be available for Verizon, AT&T and Sprint (we saw that coming).

No sign of iPhone 5.

iOS 5

Available October 12

• More than 200 user features
• New Notifications Center (swipe from top to bottom)
• Lock screen has more notifications
• iMessage – works on iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.  Text / Photos / Videos and pushed to all devices (replacement for text messages)
• Reminders (pick up dry cleaning, dinner reservations) – includes geofences to remind based on location
• Twitter integration – sign in once, integrated to Photos, Safari, YouTube, Maps
• Newsstand – easier to read newspapers / magazines on iPad (subscriptions)
• Camera Upgrades – Lock screen shortcuts to camera, you can use volume to take a picture (optional), grid lines, auto-exposure and autofocus lock (doesn’t it do this?).
• Game Center upgrades – Add photos of friends, achievement points, recommendations
• Safari updates – Reading list, Tabbed Browsing (iPad)
• Mail updates – rich formating, indenttions, moving addresses, flagging
• PC Free – (not just Windows) you can activate an iOS device without a computer

iPhone 4S

iPhone 3GS for FREE
iPhone 4 8GB for $99
16GB for $199
32GB for $299
64GB for $399
(all with 2 year contract)

Available October 14th (pre-orders starting October 7th)

• Dual core A5 chip (same as iPad 2)
• Same form factor as iPhone 4
• Battery: 8 hours of 3G talk time, 14 hrs of 2G talk time, and 6 hours on 3G browsing
• Battery: 10 hours of video, 40 hours of music
• Improved wireless System (ahem, dropped call fixes?)
• Improved data speeds (HSDPA) looks like double the download speed max (up to 14.4 Mbps which is AT&T and T-Mobile)
• World Phone – Both GSM and CDMA (single model)
• 8MP upgraded camera (3264×2448, perfect 8×10 glossy photo) with backside illuminated sensor (73% more light per pixel than iPhone 4), 33% faster capture, hybrid IR filter, five element lens
• New Image Signal Processor to enable face detection (interesting) and 26 percent better white balance
• 1.1s to first picture, 0.5s between pictures (crap, my wife will have more pictures of the dog)
• HD 1080p video, with image stabilization and temporal noise reduction
• Wired or Wireless AirPlay Mirroring (assuming with an AppleTV hooked up for wireless)
• Siri voice assistant (this might be a very cool feature, if it works well and is flexible) features so far are time, alarms, weather, stock, directions, text messages – a very impressive demo even by photo / text.
• Geofencing will be a cool thing (I know, it’s been on the droid for years now)
• iPhone takes dictation as opposed to typing
• Siri learns your voice over time.

iCloud

iCloud available on October 12

iTunes Match available end of October

• 5GB free, you can buy more if you want (who here only has 5GB of data? keep in mind if Apple knows the song, it may not count towards your total)
• Stores all content, wirelessly pushes to devices
• Can re-downlod music or media anytime (and apps)
• Find my Friends – you can share locations of your family / friends.  Temp events let you only share location for a few hours. with parental controls.
• iTunes Match – can see playlists, create new, scan iTunes, stream music.  Will upload non identified songs.  Ships at the end of the month.

iPod Nano

8GB for $129
16GB for $149

Available October 12 

• Nano has easier navigation with larger icons
• Nano supports tracking walks & runs without additional hardware
• New Nano clockfaces for those who wear it as a watch.  Some are actually pretty cool
• 8GB for $129, 16GB for $149

iPod Touch

8GB for $199 (down from $229)
32GB for $299
64GB for $399

Available October 12

• Runs iOS 5 (yeah… and?)
• That’s it.

Tags: Apple, Find my Friends, geofencing, iCloud, iMessage, iOS, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod Nano, iTunes Match, newsstand, notiications center, PC Free, Schiller, siri, Tim Cook, Twitter

iPhone 5: What, when and why?

I’ve been avoiding saying anything about the upcoming iPhone 5 event , “Lets talk iPhone” because there are so many conflicting stories.

Tomorrow, October 4, 2011 at the usual 1pm eastern (10am PDT) Apple will hold the “Lets talk iPhone” media event at their corporate headquarters.  I will be following the live blogging, you can too at Ars Technica (and many others).

The Facts

Numerous sources agree upon the following facts:

• Apple will release an iPhone 4 variant, likely the iPhone 4S
• The iPhone 4S will run the A5 processor
• The new iPhone will leverage the Siri Assistant technology.
• iOS 5 will be announced officially
• iCloud will be announced officially (including the uploading of all your music to “the cloud”)
• The iPhone 4S will feature the same form factor as the current iPhone 4
• iPhone 4 will be the same screen size / resolution of the current iPhone 4
• Facebook will be there to announce something (probably a Facebook iPad app)
• Apple Assistance will allow you to speak in english and tell the iPhone to do things (it will require the iPhone 4S or iPhone 5)
• the iPhone 4s will have an upgraded camera

The Fun Stuff

Here are some fun rumors going around, and what we might see:

• An actual iPhone 5 with a tapered form factor
• Possible wider screen on the iPhone 5
• A Sprint iPhone announcement (it’s almost virtually guaranteed, but Apple may also announce it)
• News sizes for iPhones (either 4, 4S, or both) such as 8GB, 16GB, 32GB and maybe 64GB.
• Free 3GS with contracts?
• Maybe that iPhone 4 will be $99?

Basically we know there will be an updated iPhone 4 form factor phone feature the A5 processor.  We’ve seen the SKUs, the specs, everything.

› Continue reading

Tags: Apple, Facebook, iPhone, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5

CSS4: First Spec Released – Selectors

W3C released the first spec of CSS4 yesterday, and it’s focused on selectors.  Selectors Level 4 introduces many new and useful elements.

Some newly introduced selectors are (where E is an element):

• E:not (s1, s2)
• E:matches(s1,s2)
• E[foo="bar" i]
• E:local-link
• E:local-link(0)
• E:current
• E:current(s)
• E:past
• E:future
• E:indeterminate
• E:default
• E:in-range, E:out-range
• E:required, E:optional
• E:read-only
• E:read-write
• E:nth-match(n of selector) – stated twice in the spec for some reason
• E:column(selector)
• E:nth-column(n)
• E:nth-last-column(n)
• E /foo/ F – this sounds interesting, an F element referenced by E’s foo attribute
• $E > F – this will be important, it selects the “E” part of what used to only select F (you can still use E>F for the F element)

The current / past / future selectors are interesting.  I’m not entirely sure what the indicators will be.  The document is somewhat vague in whether you will define a “time/date” attribute, or if it’s just before / after in the document hierarchy.  It sounds like there will be graceful degradation.

Of course, CSS4 won’t officially see the light of day likely for a few years.  CSS3 isn’t technically finished yet either.

However, given a previous direction of no more “versions” of HTML.  We can safely assume W3C will begin releasing these specs for browsers to incorporate at their earliest convenience.

It is a double edged sword.  If a spec is implemented differently by different browsers, then we fork web developer code in the ambiguities of the early spec.  Will browsers implement the past/current/future on their own?

Tags: CSS4, selectors, w3c

Javascript Console Introduction Video

Saw this video and wanted to pass it along.  This guy is great at going through some of the fundamental tools we have at our hands as web developers in the Javascript console, that many of us never touch:

Tags: Javascript, javascript console, tools

Firefox: How People Use New Tabs

Over at Boriss’ Blog, an informative article was posted,  How People Use New Tabs in Firefox:

As the web evolves, so does the way people interact with the web. Firefox’s user experience and research teams have been eager to learn about our users’ browsing habits so that we can better design for our users.  Lately, Mozillians like Lilian Weng and Jono X have been running some fascinating studies using Test Pilot to determine how, when, and why Firefox users open new tabs.  I wanted to note a few key takeaways from their recent study that give us a glimpse into how our users browse (full studies are linked at the bottom of this post).

He includes this helpful graph:

Tags: Browsers, Firefox, User Experience