A simple way to speed up your iPhone web app

June 22nd, 2008 @ 12:04 Comments Off

Reduce the size of each component to 25 Kbytes or less for optimal caching behavior

[Link]

Filed Under: Web development, Apple, iphone

iphone simulator seems to send the wrong user agent

March 7th, 2008 @ 13:40 comments(3)

The new iphone simulator (part of the iphone SDK) doesn’t seem to send the same User-Agent as a normal iphone, so any sites that use content-negotiation don’t appear on it. I would have thought it should send ‘(iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en)’ but instead it sends ‘Aspen Simulator; U; Apsen 1_2 like Mac OSX:en_us’. This seems like an oversight? What do you reckon?

Filed Under: Apple

New Omnigraffle stencil for Rails

July 22nd, 2006 @ 14:43 comments(0)

Metaskills have created a new Omnigraffle stencil for Ruby on Rails. Omnigraffle is a great OSX tool for creating visulisations of any kind. If you use OSX then its a must for this type of thing.

It says it’s semi-complete but it seems to have the basics you’ll need to create a rails project model schema.

Filed Under: Apple, Ruby on Rails

My first run using the NIKE+iPod pedometer

July 15th, 2006 @ 12:49 comments(0)

UPDATE: Do you also need those special Nike Trainers? NO, see below.

I got the latest product from Apple and Nike yesterday on the way home from work. I do a bit of running and use a Heart rate monitor but the having a pedometer is much easier for pace setting. I did a quick 2.5 mile run this morning and I love this thing already. Just plug it into your ipod and press go, and you’re off!

You can choose your distance or run free and once you start your run you get feedback straight away from either a male or female voice. Once I had finished my run I just plugged in the ipod and itunes asked if I wanted to sync with the Nike site. The photo you see above is the result. As you can see I overcooked my run a bit and petered off at the end. As time goes on it will be intersting to see if my running improves.

UPDATE One thing I forgot to say was that I don’t own and did not want a pair of those special Nike trainers that have the hole in the sole for you to stick your pedometer in. I just used my normal running shoes and manged to fit the pedemeter to them with a bit of persuading

Filed Under: Apple, running, nike

Puddle screensaver on OSX

November 23rd, 2005 @ 19:53 comments(0)

I’m not normally a follower of screen-savers per-say, but my colleague Tristan had this great screen-saver on his Mac when I walked pass his desk today.

It’s called Loadsawater and is completely free. It makes the screen go into pool of water mode and looks really nice.

Filed Under: Apple, Widgets, Screensaver

Safari with Omniweb style thumbs

September 27th, 2005 @ 22:43 comments(0)

This Safari plugin is the king of all plugins. Thumbnails in the side bar a-la Omniweb. Just so cool. I’m not sure how long this plugin has been around but I’ve only just spotted it.

Filed Under: Web development, Apple, Applications, Safari

iCal Dashboard widget updated

June 3rd, 2005 @ 09:53 comments(0)

UPDATE: version 2.1.2 available for download. Ok, so my current favorite Dashboard widget so far (apart from the one we’ve been building at work, more about that soon) has to be the iCal events one. I have a memory like a sieve and anything that I can quickly look at and check to see where I should be, and what I should be doing there is great for me. Ben Kazez, the guy who wrote it has recently updated the widget to version 2.02. It now shows upcoming entries from all calendars in the time frame of your choice. Nice work.

Filed Under: Apple, Widgets

Podcasting coming to Itunes

May 23rd, 2005 @ 17:56 comments(0)

It seems that Apple are going to add podcasting support to itunes in it’s next version. Apple CEO Steve Jobs told the assembled crowd at “D3: All Things Digital,” that support would be added in its next version of iTunes (4.9), which is due within 60 days.

Source: Macworld

Filed Under: Music, Apple, Podcast, itunes

Tiger up and running

May 1st, 2005 @ 22:30 comments(0)

Well, I lasted a day before I had to go out and get Apple’s latest offering. After reading endless articles I had to see it for myself, and I must say, first impressions are good. You can’t necessarily see the quoted 200 new features but the most talked up ones I’m finding useful. I actually think the nicest thing, and something I didn’t expect was that my Powerbook is now running faster, I actually expected the opposite.

Spotlight is really very nice. I used quicksilver before and didn’t really use it to it’s full capabilities. All I really use it for was to search for files (duh, really) and to open apps without having to hunt them down. Spotlight allows me to do this.

Dashboard I love. I have been playing with this a lot and hope to have a few widgets up and running soon. I guess I like this so much because the way widgets are constructed is using the kind of web based structures I have to deal with on a day to day basis. Not to say that they can’t go a lot further than that, but for me it means I can see something working straight away.

I am yet to try Automator but I’m sure there are many things it will be able to do that will make life easier. I was thinking things like creating thumbnails, resizing images in batches, automated backups of specific stuff (maybe zipping up important data and emailing it to my Gmail account for safe storage), the list is endless.

In fact the only thing I wasn’t into is the new icons in Mail. Too small and fidelity. I’m sure someone will come up with an alternative soon.

So in short Tiger is proving great. I no doubt will write more about it as I find it out from playing around and hearing things from friends. In the mean time I can only advise Apple users to go get it now.

Filed Under: Apple, Software, OSX

RIP Jef Raskin 1943-2005

March 1st, 2005 @ 14:59 comments(0)

The saw the sad news that Jef Raskin died the other day. Jef created the Macintosh computer as employee number 31 at Apple in the early 1980s, revolutionizing computer interface design.

Jef invented “click and drag” and many other methods now taken for granted by computer users. He named the Macintosh project after his favorite variety of apple, the McIntosh, modifying the spelling for copyright purposes.

A great pioneer..

Filed Under: Apple, RIP