Two incentives for me to complete this challenge:

• 1. For every kilometer that I’m short of 300 km, I’ll donate £1 to a charity chosen by readers. Vote below in the comments.
• 2. I’d like to invite you to run with me. It’s easier to commit to things when you have someone to do it with. No pressure, thought, it’s not a competition. We’ll just try and reach 300 km

I’ll be posting here every ten days on my progress, so stay tuned!

Thanks,

–kristian

[Update] I’ve started yesterday by running 3.1 km. Days to go: 115.

New features in 1.2

• Legacy planet, Pluto, added
• the Moon
• Asteroid Itakawa
• Death Star
• iPod Touch now supported

Other features:

• Mercury
• Venus
• Earth (alternative view)
• Mars
• Jupiter
• Saturn
• Uranus
• Neptune

Installing is easy:

• Download above .zip file
• Use iPhoto/Aperture and iTunes to transfer images to your iPhone
• Navigate to the planets on your iPhone
• Enjoy and share with others!

Compatible with iPhone and iPhone 3G. All images courtesy of NASA. Thank you.

Here’s few initial thoughts, for your pleasure:

• App Store is very nice to use, as easy as it was to use the Wi-Fi iTMS, it’s soo-u easy to download apps. Almost too easy, you can quite quickly end up downloading all sorts of little apps. I haven’t tried un-installing any yet, but I’m sure I’ll get to do that very soon.

Few Apps I downloaded

• Remote. iTunes library remote control. Uses Wi-Fi to connect and surprisingly works on my PowerMac G4 which doesn’t have an Airport card itself but is connected to the Time Capsule. One less reason to get off the sofa. I hope Eye TV will develop something similar.
• Super Monkey Ball. It’s harder than it looks in the SDK demos. And I can’t seem to be able to continue from same level after leaving the game. This might not be true, I haven’t played it that much yet.
• NetNewsWire. Fantastic. Reason why I won’t even look at any other aggregator is that this syncs with the desktop and web interface of NetNewsWire. This is probably what I’ve been mostly missing with the iPhone. I get most of my news and blogs through RSS (I can’t understand why so many people still don’t use it) and have become quite reliant on it. It’s a simple, free and a must have app.

Other notes:

• You can now search for contacts. I’m not sure if I like the way this is implemented- you have to scroll to top of contact list to search, rather than there being a dedicated button.
• International keyboards! My favorite new feature after Apps. Maybe 15% of texts I send are in Finnish and this just got a lot easier. I hated the way it used to try and correct my words to English. (i.e. when spelling the word ja [Finnish for and] it would always correct it to the English word is. Super annoying but it’s fixed now, thank you.)
• MobileMe supports contact/iCal etc. syncing. I think it’s disappointing that you need to pay £59 per year for something that should really be free. Seeing how easily the Remote app works with iTunes, the only reason Apple wants us to pay for that sync is that MobileMe still lacks useful functionality for most consumers. Which really comes down to greed. Perhaps someone else will develop a sync app, I’d be happy to pay money for it.

OK, that’s it. More to come when I have more time to spend with this. BTW, I’m not sure when I’m getting the 3G, could be bothered rushing to O2 store. They kept texting me saying how scarce they are and how if you want one this summer, you have to get it now. No thanks, I’m sure I can get one this weekend.

–kristian

Diablo II is now eight years old, and for a game to remain fresh all this time is somewhat of an achievement (installing it on Leopard was a struggle but doable in the end). For years there’s been rumors of Diablo III and those rumors are finally answered: Blizzard announced this weekend that it is in the making and will be released when it’s ready! I’m very excited, especially after watching the gameplay demo on their website. Well worth watching, it shows how they’ve remained loyal to the feel of Diablo yet made they gameplay feel more natural and faster. Destroyable environments, anyone?

Christmas 2008? Probably not, but at least, like always with Blizzard, it’ll be PC and Mac from day one.

–kristian

I mostly choose factual books over fictional. Is there anything better than driving/cleaning/cooking/sleeping and learning something at the same time? Don’t try, there isn’t. To share what I’m ‘reading’ I decided to open up a new page: The Reading List. Books are not in any particular order and I’m not putting up every book I go through, just the ones I really like. Links are to Amazon UK, mostly for the reason that you can find more info and reviews there.

–kristian

-kristian

I feel tempted not to make another list of things that are going to be announced in the keynote as it’s all too obvious. But I’ll make one anyhow, I have to, for the people. And just to hold on to my bad track record:

• 2nd gen iPhone - GPS, 3G, slightly smaller, better battery life
• iPhone SDK v1.0
• AppStore - 50 apps ready to go, 18 buzzle games, 8 GTD list apps, 4 text editors, etc. 4 really cool games/apps that I’ll buy moment I can, including Skype
• Snow Leopard - Bug fix only version of OS X, release date Jan 09 but delayed until April 09, $89
• New screens (one day….)
• Mention of some great upgrades to iWork/iLife/FCS that are in the pipeline
• Black anodized aluminium MacBook Pro
• 10.5.4 - TimeMachine/Aperture flaw stops sucking

Hmm. I don’t really feel inspired but check back on monday night to see how off I was.

]]> http://tapaninaho.com/blog/2008/06/wwdc-2008-hopes-and-predictions/feed/ http://tapaninaho.com/blog/2008/05/wings-of-nutty-behavior/ http://tapaninaho.com/blog/2008/05/wings-of-nutty-behavior/#comments Wed, 21 May 2008 09:16:43 +0000 Kristian Tapaninaho http://tapaninaho.com/blog/?p=166 Annoyance,

On a plane to Finland I’m getting bored after organizing my folders and finding things to archive. A job that someone’s gotto do and there never seems to be time for it.

Hmm. Does this machine do anything else than serious stuff? It does indeed. I can play few rounds of WingNuts 2: Raina’s Revenge, a great arcade style game I had bought about a year ago.

Launch WingNuts 2, go.

What!?! Register? Aah, ok, I haven’t typed the registration code in after rebuilding my machine. No problem though, got everything I need in my email!

MK Tapaninaho

and

click - click - click - click - click - click - click - click - click - click - click - click

And ‘Register’


Dialog box appears:

“The code entered was purchased too long ago and has expired. Go To Site [sic] your registration through the Support section of theCancelrse web site.”

No, in a matter of fact I wont. I can’t. I’m on an airplane!

This really sucks. It’s not saying it’s an invalid code or that it requires Internet access at the point of registering. It’s just too fricking long. And old.

I’ll suggest something but I first want to say that I’m all for serial numbers and web authentication for apps. It’s important for the developer to make money out of what they love doing and we love using.

But, and this is my suggestion. Don’t let it get in the way of the experience. As far as I see, there is no reason to expire a serial code*.

Many indie Mac apps come with a generous 30 day trial period, in Wingnuts’ case I think you can launch it 9 times and play only few selected scenarios. Fair enough. I’m not sure why it didn’t give me that option this time. I haven’t played it since ‘the great rebuild of 08′.

Idea I had for the web authentication when you don’t have access to the Internet is to let the user semi-activate it and use it for a week. Then each time the app is launched try if connection to the server is possible and towards end of the week, warn the user that it’s time to find that open network.

I don’t know if this would be hard to implement, don’t think so. Yeah, it is more work but then again, so is making rest of the app and making sure it’s accessible and trouble free to use.

I’ll post an update once I find time to go through the registration and find that newer, younger and shorter password!

Any similar experiences? Please share below.

–kristian

ps. I do have another license for the game, too. One I got with the MacHeist bundle. It also requires you to go on their website to get the serial.

*Of course, there are serial number farms where these sometimes end up but I guess that is what devs have to cope with, just like musicians have to cope with piratism.



]]> http://tapaninaho.com/blog/2008/05/wings-of-nutty-behavior/feed/ http://tapaninaho.com/blog/2008/04/aperture-and-time-machine-not-sitting-in-a-tree/ http://tapaninaho.com/blog/2008/04/aperture-and-time-machine-not-sitting-in-a-tree/#comments Mon, 28 Apr 2008 16:05:48 +0000 admin http://tapaninaho.com/blog/?p=163 Hope Apple fixes this quickly.

After getting a Time Capsule, I’ve started liking Time Machine again. No need to plug in a cable makes a massive difference. Difference between remembering to use it sometimes (I used to share a drive with Darina) and not having to remember to use it, ever.

However, Time Machine doesn’t seem to like Aperture that much, it wants to back up the whole library every single time there’s a change. Apple acknowledges it and suggest turning of Time Machine when using Aperture. I’m not sure if the problem is solved as long as they’re not running at the same time but will try it as soon as these 14.9 gigabytes of images have flown across my flat.

Taking Murphy’s Law into count, there’s a possibility of 2.45/31 for the HDD to die 16 days after turning Time Machine off.

–kristian

]]> http://tapaninaho.com/blog/2008/04/aperture-and-time-machine-not-sitting-in-a-tree/feed/ http://tapaninaho.com/blog/2008/04/web-design-workflow-for-non-web-designers/ http://tapaninaho.com/blog/2008/04/web-design-workflow-for-non-web-designers/#comments Tue, 15 Apr 2008 09:33:03 +0000 admin http://tapaninaho.com/blog/?p=162
check $value ('0', '1')
if $value = '1'
then set hireDesigner to 'Yes'
else
tell application "iWeb"
launch
end tell
end if


A bit of light humor I used in a recent web design workshop I did for a group of photography students. Not sure how to continue it. Any ideas?

[UPDATE] I’ve now finished the script. It was so obvious in the end…

–kristian





]]> http://tapaninaho.com/blog/2008/04/web-design-workflow-for-non-web-designers/feed/ http://tapaninaho.com/blog/2008/04/johnny-lee-on-ted/ http://tapaninaho.com/blog/2008/04/johnny-lee-on-ted/#comments Sat, 12 Apr 2008 17:00:40 +0000 admin http://tapaninaho.com/blog/?p=160 Johnny Lee, creator of the coolest Wiimote hacks out there, appears at TED for a short demo. £40 interactive white board, anyone?

–kristian

]]> http://tapaninaho.com/blog/2008/04/johnny-lee-on-ted/feed/ http://tapaninaho.com/blog/2008/04/isps-dont-like-the-iplayer/ http://tapaninaho.com/blog/2008/04/isps-dont-like-the-iplayer/#comments Fri, 11 Apr 2008 20:26:04 +0000 admin http://tapaninaho.com/blog/?p=159 Briefly,

Recently, many ISPs in the UK have been complaining that the - maybe surprisingly large - success of iPlayer is putting strain on their networks. Now they want a slice of the TV license fee payed by the UK households.

This is ridiculous.

BBC already pays a considerable amount of money to feed their programming into the backbone. And it’s the ISPs, therefor the consumers, who need to pay for it to be delivered on our screens. What they’re asking is a bit like asking your corner shop keeper to pay - on top of his store rent - your rent so you can have a place to eat at.

Video has become really big on the Internet in the last few years and that of course is more consuming for the ISPs to handle than just standard, often relatively light-weight, webpages. ISPs perhaps didn’t see this coming and instead of preparing for winter, prepared for the Mega Wars and started advertising ever higher download speeds. All the time knowing that there is no way of delivering it if most or just many customers peaked at the same time.

ISPs now have to continue to invest in new hardware to increase their capacity which on the other hand we may not see as increased advertised bandwidth but as more reliable and consistent service.

One questions still bothers me. Why are they pointing their finger at BBC and iPlayer? I’m pretty sure Youtube still consumes more more bandwidth than iPlayer. Is it because it’s harder to go after corporate money (Google) than public money (BBC)?

–kristian

]]> http://tapaninaho.com/blog/2008/04/isps-dont-like-the-iplayer/feed/ http://tapaninaho.com/blog/2008/04/csiny/ http://tapaninaho.com/blog/2008/04/csiny/#comments Thu, 10 Apr 2008 07:43:50 +0000 admin http://tapaninaho.com/blog/?p=158 SCI:NY show the elegant way of taking out the crooks. Check it out!

–kristian

]]> http://tapaninaho.com/blog/2008/04/csiny/feed/ http://tapaninaho.com/blog/2008/04/europe-allows-mobiles-phones-on-planes/ http://tapaninaho.com/blog/2008/04/europe-allows-mobiles-phones-on-planes/#comments Mon, 07 Apr 2008 14:10:26 +0000 Kristian Tapaninaho http://tapaninaho.com/blog/?p=157 Funny, I was just talking with a friend, explaining how the ban on using mobile phones on airplanes is fear mongering and one of the biggest bluffs since aspiring. Of course, the regulators until now have said that mobiles can - or will - effect the delicate equipment that is used to keep the airplane in the air. This is obviously absolute rubbish. If mobile phones would have any effect on an airplane, they would be taken off the passengers, sealed in a lead box and only given back after passport check once safely on the ground.

Not so much any more, European commission lifts the ban and allows airline carriers to decide for themselves. Whether or not it’s a good thing to allow passengers shout on the phone, “I CAN’T HEAR YOU, I’M 10000 METERS ABOVE THE SEA LEVEL!”, will be learned the hard way. Read more on The Guardian.



Next thing EC has to get their act together on is the ridiculous ban on fluids on the planes. What a load of bullshit. Haven’t they ever heard of Nitroglycerin? Eh?

–kristian

[update] Just reading Helsingin Sanomat (in Finnish) re: above topic. It appears that airplanes will be fitted with something called ‘open cable’ that will keep phones from contacting mobile phone masts on the ground. Instead, they’ll direct the signal to a satellite.

]]> http://tapaninaho.com/blog/2008/04/europe-allows-mobiles-phones-on-planes/feed/ http://tapaninaho.com/blog/2008/04/london-gets-snowed-in-april/ http://tapaninaho.com/blog/2008/04/london-gets-snowed-in-april/#comments Sun, 06 Apr 2008 22:03:22 +0000 admin http://tapaninaho.com/blog/2008/04/london-gets-snowed-in-april/

First snow for the winter. It came and went away. Pretty.

–kristian

]]> http://tapaninaho.com/blog/2008/04/london-gets-snowed-in-april/feed/