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I just installed an app to update my blog from the ipad. The boss supplied me and a workmate with 64GB 3G models for research and testing. I’m still playing with it and installing apps. I’ve written a few small apps for iPhone (SDK 3.1) but would like to do more with Objective C. The best app I’ve come across is the one by the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission). I used to watch i-view a bit to catch up on the shows I miss during the week. There aren’t a lot of Australia-only apps. Browsing the Internet and came across this post on the YouTube blog. I thought this part was funny: “Without content protection, we would not be able to offer videos like this.” (with link to a page that says “This rental is currently unavailable in your country”) I’m so glad for content protection and the videos it can’t offer! This is sample code that I had posted on the PHP documentation comment that seem to have been deleted. Someone called “matt at mattostock dot com” posted code where this came from originally, but it didn’t work. This is designed to be called after the imagepng($im, $write_file) call. <?php
$bgColor = array (255,255,255); // white
$pngData = bin2hex(file_get_contents($write_file));
$pngDataOut = substr($pngData, 0, 16);
// TODO: verify this is the correct PNG header
$pngData = substr($pngData, 16);
$fs = 100; // prevent infinite loop
while (--$fs>0 && $pngData!='')
{
$chunkName = substr($pngData, 8, 8);
$chunkSize = substr($pngData, 0, 8);
$chunkSizeNumber = base_convert($chunkSize, 16, 10) * 2;
if ($chunkName=='49444154')
{
// here we have found the first IDAT so we insert our bKGD
$bkgdChunk = '624b4744';
foreach ($bgColor as $bit)
{
$bkgdChunk .= sprintf('%04x',$bit);
}
$bkgdChunk .= sprintf('%08x', crc32(pack('H*', $bkgdChunk))) . '';
$pngDataOut .= '00000006' . $bkgdChunk;
break;
}
// TODO: omit any other bKGD chunks
$pngDataOut .= substr($pngData, 0, 8+16+$chunkSizeNumber);
$pngData = substr($pngData, 8+16+$chunkSizeNumber);
}
$pngDataOut .= substr($pngData, 0);
file_put_contents($write_file, pack('H*', $pngDataOut));
I just took receipt of a Samsung NC10 – $0 upfront on a two year contract with Optus – monthly 2GB of 3G data for use with the built in HSPA modem. I’m actually typing on it on the train right now. It meets most of my requirements, though I am still using Windows XP on it. I’ll be looking at installing dual boot on the weekend (though other factors may stop me doing that). Heh, just then it wanted to reboot to install an upgrade. Yay for Windows. My biggest thing is battery life. I did get almost 6 hours the first charge (keeping use low) and I’m 4 hours into my second charge with an hours remaining (watching video, and keeping the screen fairly bright). The 3G is a good thing too. It’s like having a big iPhone but more useful (ability to run arbitrary software including Flash is useful). I’ll be aadding to this blog more often now, too! Ever since the countdown of the Triple J Hottest 100 of all time, I felt a little cheated. I reckon some songs shouldn’t have been in the list, and here is a list of songs that should have been in there! (Note: these songs probably shouldn’t be top-10 or anything – but they should have been in the list somewhere) None of these artists even made it to the list – which is a little unfair when some bands have multiple songs on the list. (If a song title appears in brackets it means I personally prefer the song listed but the song in brackets would probably be more popular) Josh Abrams – Addicted to Bass The Avalanches – Frontier Psychiatrist Basement Jaxx – Red Alert Fatboy Slim – Weapon of Choice Regurgitator – Black Bugs (Polyestergirl) They Might Be Giants – Dr Worm Spiderbait – Buy Me a Pony (Black Betty) The B-52s – Rock Lobster (Love Shack) Bloodhound Gang – Fire Water Burn The Whitlams – You Sound Like Louis Burdett (No Aphrodisiac) The old Athlon XP 2500+ died last week, so it was time for an upgrade anyway. The old beast hadn’t been upgraded for a while. It did have a new monitor, keyboard and hard-drives, but it was getting slow. The case was cheap in 2002 so probably the whole thing was running a little hot. It had 80+320+120GB hard-drives, 1GB DDR RAM and an AGP video card (ATI 9200 from memory). It was only crashing in the week before it died permanently. I was planning on buying a SATA PCI card for it so as to get more space, so I’m glad I didn’t now. I went ahead and bought the parts to build a brand new tower: Q9400 CPU, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, 2×1TB SATA2 drives and 9600GT PCI-E video card. It is contained within an Antec Three Hundred case, which is nice. This is the first case I’ve owned that hasn’t cut me during installation! I’m also running the Windows 7 release candidate on it, which is actually working out pretty well. There was a problem with XBMC (on the old Xbox) not being able to connect to it over the network, but upgrading XBMC fixed the issue. I’ll probably use this until March 2010, when it will start shutting off after 2 hours. I could either go back to Windows XP or Ubuntu, or work something else out. The computer scores 7.2 on CPU and memory speed and 5.9 on the other benchmarks on the “Windows Experience index”, which isn’t too shabby. I’m not sure how to improve on those scores, other than spending (too much) money. Sometimes it does feel sluggish, but after it gets going it is much faster. It seems hard-drive speed is the biggest bottleneck at the moment. The solar people finally got around to installing the panels on the roof! The original install date was meant to be in January 2009; they were installed on 29 May, and we are still waiting for the solar hot water to be installed. The company is not very good at giving reliable timeframes for installation of things. These cells are meant to save us “up to” 25% of our electricity bill. They put a big inverter at the side of the house. The highest amount I’ve seen it put out is about 300W, though it is winter so the sun’s rays aren’t at full strength. It has a nifty LCD display to tell you stats. The hot water system will slash our hot water bill to $0! I used to live in a share house where the landlady was a bit crazy and didn’t let anyone turn on the electric booster: though we never ran out when I needed the hot water and it was always scalding hot! (I was once told of a story where they ran out and tried turning it on when she was out: it didn’t work anyway) Taking a day off work for the plumber to come around to install our new toilet after the old one cracked and became loose. I don’t get a lot of time by myself these days so it’s good to just chill out around the house. However, I need to go out today and buy some things with my $900 stimulus money. I’ll go into what I’m buying after Wendy’s birthday. I’ve also had a toothache for the last two weeks. This morning it isn’t so bad but I can still feel it. A few months ago I went to the dentist for the first time in about six years, but they checked out ok, except for one deep filling. The dentist was a little concerned while filling it that it might need more major work (eg root canal) but it was fine for ages. Only the other week drinking some cold water set it off and it has been sensitive ever since. I haven’t been as productive at work as I could have been because I was writhing in pain. I was having Nurofen plus and paracetomol which did help a bit. Hopefully the dentist can fix my tooth this afternoon. The Hood is back, though I’m still recovering data from my last attempt. They got in, not sure if it was through the theme or OpenID… The HTC Dream running Android and the Apple iPhone are both available through Optus in Australia, so it is easy to directly compare their plans and coverage on the same network. The cheapest plan available with both phones is the $59 per month plan which includes $350 of calls and 500MB of mobile internet data. The rates are all the same (35c flagfall, 40c per 30 seconds call rate, 25c SMS). However the difference is in the cost of the actual phone: the 8GB iPhone is only $3 per month extra on the 24 month contract; whereas the Dream is $15/month on the same plan, making it $288 more expensive over the course of the contract. The $79 plan makes the iPhone free on the 24 month contract and the Dream still costs $13/month, making it $312. This plan includes “unlimited text” and more included credit and mobile internet data. The most expensive plan ($129/month) gives unlimited talk and text and 3GB Mobile Internet data: the 16GB iPhone is free where the Dream is still $3/month. I like the idea of an actual keyboard, plus the “open source” nature of Android (although the term “open source” is fairly meaningless these days). There needs to be justification of the extra cost though, but the details on the Internet seem a little thin. I’m currently using a Nokia 5500 Sport on the “yes” 30 plan from 2001, so any new phone will be a change in plan and use! For the moment I’m going to leave it as I’m saving up for the Japan trip. |
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