Google Liquid Galaxy

Google’s Liquid Galaxy is a series of eight LCD panels surrounding the viewer in a wraparound view of Google Earth. You can get really motion sick flying around the globe but it is very cool.

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OmmWriter

OmmWriter for the Mac is a wonderfully simple text editor designed to help you relax and focus on your writing without distractions.

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Using MySQL with Aptana

Aptana 2.0 no longer ships with Aptana PHP or the Database tools included by default. You need to install the PDT plugin for PHP development, and the Quantum Database plugin for managing database connections.

To install the Quantum Database Utilities, in Aptana open Help > Install Additional Features. Under Featured Plugins, select Quantum Database Utility and click Install. Select the features and click Next. Click Next again, accept the license agreement and click Finish. When installation finishes, restart Aptana.

Use the same process to install the PHP Development Tools (PDT) and the PHP Debugger Binaries. I also installed jQuery Support.

To add a database bookmark, open the Quantum DB Perspective. If you don’t have the icon for this perspective already, click Window > Open Perspective > Other and select Quantum DB. Right-click on the (Internal) Derby bookmark or click the Add Bookmark icon in the Database Bookmarks pane.

If you haven’t already, add the MySQL JDBC driver by clicking Add Driver. Click Add External Jar and locate your jdbc jar file, you shoud have saved it in /Library/Java/Extensions. Click Browse and select com.mysql.jdbc.Driver then click Ok then Finish.

Back at the New Bookmark dialog, select the MySQL JDBC driver and click Next. Enter your MySQL username and password. Leave the hostname and port as is, then enter the name of the database. When you click Finish you should be able to browse your database tables.

The functionality of Quantum DB Utilities is disappointing. Apart from browsing tables and manually enter SQL statements, the only editing functionality is table data. phpMyAdmin is more useful.

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Install the MySql JDBC Adaptor on a Mac

It is fairly easy to install the JDBC adaptor on a Mac, you just need to know where to copy the jar file.

Go to MySQL Downloads and download the ZIP archive of the latest stable release of MySQL Connector/J. At time of this writing this is version 5.1.

Assuming this file was downloaded in a folder named /Users/Shared/Downloads/ then you will follow the following instructions.

Expand the zip file (if not already done by your browser). Inside this file there are other files and folders including the .jar file which in this case is named “mysql-connector-java-5.1.10-bin.jar”.

Now open Finder and navigate to Macintosh HD > Library > Java > Extensions. Then drag the .jar file from the zip folder to the Extensions folder.

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Anonymous Surfing and File Sharing

If you want to conceal your computers address from external eyes, then the Tor-Privoxy solution below may be what you’re looking for.

Sharing Files Anonymously

If you want to upload or download files anonymously, there are services that mask your computer’s IP address for a small fee without significantly reducing your bandwidth. The cost is usually a monthly fee or the purchase of a special software product. These services include anonymizer.com, The Cloak, and A4proxy. TorrentPrivacy for example charges from $2.95 for a week up to $99.95 for a year for SSH 128 bit encryption. Mute Anonymity is a non-profit project dedicated to the P2P downloading community.

Web surfing and Email anonymity

If you want to bypass the oppressive controls in your country there are free proxy servers available around the Web. But the most reliable choice is a special two-part freeware solution by the EFF to protect democratic freedoms of citizens. This solution consists of Tor and Privoxy.

Tor is a special network of web servers run by the EFF and many volunteer server administrators. Privoxy is the software you need to connect to this Tor network. Tor and Privoxy hide your IP address by bouncing the data packets around several internet servers called Tor Onion Routers.

Tor and Privoxy are not perfect and they do not guarantee your privacy, but they do help reduce your exposure to surveillance and make you more difficult to track.

Please note, the Tor-Privoxy network was designed to protect private citizens personal privacy, not for downloading copyright data. Do not abuse the system by turning it into a P2P downloading avenue.

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Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2



December 26th, 2009 | Posted in Games | No Comments

Mac Programming

RealBASIC is a cross-platform (Mac, Windows, Linux) development tool available in a trial version. Price ranges from ¥9,900 for the Personal Edition, to ¥118,000 for Real Studio.

FBtoC creates Mac OS X universal applications (Mach-O executables) from FutureBasic projects. FutureBasic is freeware.

Chipmunk Basic is an old-fashioned freeware Basic interpreter which runs on almost all Apple Macintosh computers. It uses a traditional command-line console.  Supported features on Mac OS X include color graphics, sprites, sound (including Quicktime MIDI sounds and morse code), speech synthesis, matrix ops, AppleScript, network sockets, pipes, serial I/O, and even some rudimentary OOP (object oriented programming) capabilities. Versions are available for System 6.0.7 thru Mac OS X 10.6, for systems from very old Mac 512Ke’s, up thru the latest Apple iMacs & MacBook Pros.

Mono is a software platform designed to allow developers to easily create cross platform applications. Sponsored by Novell, Mono is an open source implementation of Microsoft’s .NET Framework based on the ECMA standards for C# and the Common Language Runtime. A growing family of solutions and an active and enthusiastic contributing community is helping position Mono to become the leading choice for development of Linux applications.

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December 26th, 2009 | Posted in Programming | No Comments

Palm Project Ares

Palm has launched a public beta of their IDE for writing Mojo apps for WebOS. The whole thing is browser based — it works in Safari, Chrome, and Firefox — and looks pretty slick.

Project Ares is the first mobile development environment hosted entirely in a browser, lowering the barriers for web developers to jump into mobile development.

Ares Screenshot

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December 24th, 2009 | Posted in Programming | No Comments

Restore your iPhone 3G to 3.0.1

If you upgraded your iPhone to version 3.1 and for some reason you want to rollback to OS version 3.0 or 3.0.1, here’s how.

  1. Download the 3.0.1 firmware from here.
  2. Connect your iPhone 3G or original iPhone to iTunes .
  3. Switch off your iPhone by holding the power button for a few seconds, then slide when it tells you to.
  4. Put your iPhone into DFU mode by pressing both the Home and Power On buttons for about 10 seconds.
  5. When you see the Apple logo, release only the power button, and keep pressing Home until the USB – iTunes screen appears.
  6. iTunes will say it’s detected an iPhone in Recovery Mode and tell you that you need to restore it. Click Ok.
  7. Now press and hold down the Option key (for Mac) or Shift key (for Windows) and click on the Restore button in iTunes.
  8. In the window that opens, select the firmware you downloaded. Usually this will be iPhone1,2_3.0.1_7A400_Restore.ipsw
  9. You’ll get an error message at the end of the restore, probably 1015. Don’t worry, the next step will fix this.

How to fix the Recovery Loop:

I tried the Hackintosh iRecovery Package but it didn’t work for me. I had better success with QuickPwn.

  1. Leave your phone in DFU mode and close iTunes.
  2. Download and unzip QuickPwn22.zip
  3. Run QuickPwn22-1.exe and wait for the message to appear. Don’t close the message yet.
  4. Hold Power and Home for 15 seconds, then release Home and wait 2 seconds, then release Power.
  5. The Apple logo will be displayed, then you should see a progress bar while QuickPwn does its work.
  6. You can now exit QuickPwn and open iTunes.
  7. iTunes will tell you set up your phone. You will have to set up your iPhone up as a new phone, or you can try to restore from backup if you have any backups at version 3.0.1 or earlier. You cannot restore backups of OS 3.1. I set mine up as a new phone even though I knew I’d have to re-enter settings for things like mail, Wifi, and various applications. Restores take a looong time…

Now that your phone is running 3.0.1 you can try tethering (Mac) or tethering with Windows, or see here for tethering with Softbank.

Enable Tethering with Softbank

  1. If you are using iTunes 8.2 or later, then close iTunes and run the following command.
    For Mac users, open Terminal, and execute:
    defaults write com.apple.iTunes carrier-testing -bool TRUE

    Or on Windows XP, open a Command prompt (Win+R, cmd) and run:

    "C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunes.exe" /setPrefInt carrier-testing 1
  2. Plug your iPhone into your computer via the USB cable
  3. In iTunes, display the summary page of your iPhone
  4. While pressing the Option key (Mac) or Shift key (Windows), click on the "Update" button.
  5. Select the Softbank_jp.ipcc file.
  6. iTunes will now update your iPhone with the modified carrier settings
  7. Once finished, unplug the iPhone, go to Settings>General>Network, and enable tethering.

    softbank-tethered
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October 7th, 2009 | Posted in Toys | 4 Comments

Remote Control your PC with your iPhone

Have you ever wanted to be able to control your computer using your iPhone? Here are three methods to allow you to control your computer remotely.

LogMeIn

TechnologyEvangelist describes how to configure LogMeIn to allow you to control your PC with your iPhone. Essentially you change the LogMeIn Remote Control preferences to use HTML instead of ActiveX. It’s a little slow but it works. As the article says, it would be great if LogMeIn automatically selected HTML for iPhone users so you don’t get a slow connection when you log in from a remote PC.

VNSea

If you have jailbroken your iPhone, CNET shows you how to set up VNSea to control your Mac or Windows PC.

  1. Install a VNC Server on your PC.
  2. Jailbreak your iPhone if you haven’t already.
  3. Use the jailbreak Installer.app or Cydia to install VNSea.
  4. Launch VNSea and tap the Connect button on the VNC Servers screen
  5. Enter a name for the session, followed by the IP address and password you configured in your VNC Server

When connected, tap the top of your iPhone screen near the time display to switch between interactive mode an scroll mode.

iPhone Browser with TightVNC

Natetrue at Cre.ations.net hacked TightVNC to let you use the iPhone’s Safari browser to remote into your Windows PC.

  1. Download the application from the Cre.ations.net site
  2. Extract all the files into a folder and run WinVNC.exe
  3. Enter a password
  4. Note your computer’s IP address and type it into the iPhone Safari address bar like http:///192.168.5.21:5800/
  5. Enter the password and tap Log In
  6. Select a window, or choose Full Desktop to show it all
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July 27th, 2009 | Posted in Asides | 31 Comments