March 2012
2 posts
5 tags
Mass Effect 3 - First 3 hours...
I was late to the Mass Effect bandwagon. I bought both 1 and 2 for $20, brand new, on the same day and took my time spending 25 hours in the first one. I regret not being more meticulous about doing everything, because when I rushed through Mass Effect 2 in 41 hours (over the course of about 10 days) in preparation for the Mass Effect 3 release, I realized how cool the whole “save game...
5 tags
Tiny Tower vs. Dream Heights
So, I’ve spent a week or two playing Zynga’s newest game which is a pretty blatant ripoff of Tiny Tower. I figured, I really liked Tiny Tower, so I might as well give it a shot. I really don’t know how they did it, but Zynga just managed to sap all the fun and charm out of Tiny Tower. Every time I load up Dream Heights, I ask myself why I’m doing it. Tiny Tower let you...
February 2012
1 post
5 tags
Messages Beta for OSX
I just downloaded the new Messages beta for OSX and gave it a shot. I haven’t used it all that much but I thought I’d share some of my initial impressions.
Pros
iMessage support. This was inevitable. Now you can send iMessages to iPhones, iPods, iPads and Macs!
Interface. Looks just like Messages for iPad. An improvement over iChat.
Simple. The iMessage stuff (mostly) just works as...
January 2012
1 post
3 tags
Why Apple doesn't release things until they're...
When iTunes Match finally went live, my iTunes Library was sent to the cloud for the last time and I was finally able to not worry about what music I had synced to my iPhone since I could grab anything I wanted to listen to on the fly. Yesterday, things didn’t go quite as well as usual and it frustrated me. It wasn’t Apple’s fault. I was in a less than ideal spot for 3G coverage...
November 2011
1 post
October 2011
1 post
Android Orphans: Visualizing a Sad History of... →
understatementblog:
The announcement that Nexus One users won’t be getting upgraded to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich led some to justifiably question Google’s support of their devices. I look at it a little differently: Nexus One owners are lucky. I’ve been researching the history of OS updates on Android phones…
August 2011
1 post
5 tags
So long Halo 3 Players...
Due to a general lack of interest (I’m assuming most players of Halo 3 have moved on to Halo: Reach by now) and a lack of resources, time and money, I’ve decided to discontinue Halo 3 Players in it’s present form. I would really love to rewrite the whole thing for Halo: Reach at some point in the future but I am not sure when I will be able to get this done so I’m not going...
July 2011
1 post
May 2011
4 posts
5 tags
Secret Browser v1.7.0 Submitted!
UPDATE: Approved and ready to download!
After quite a long wait, I’ve finally deemed version 1.7.0 of Secret Browser to be ready for prime time! I’ve been spending a lot of time tweaking and testing to make sure everything works great and now it’s time for you all to have a go at it. What does 1.7.0 have in store for you?
Custom User-Agents! A very popular request is finally...
3 tags
L.A. Noire Mini Review. Initial Impressions.
I picked up L.A. Noire at midnight and just finished about 4 hours of play. My initial impressions are definitely very positive. The game does a GREAT job of making you really feel like you are heading up the investigations and making a name for yourself. I’m INCREDIBLY impressed with the facial capture technology they used. It’s amazing the level of realism you get when it’s not...
3 tags
My VPS Search continues..
I’ve been with SliceHost for quite some time now. For “Over 4 Years”, according to my SliceManager. Just one slice that I run a Facebook application on and use it for some testing and playing around. I have had very few problems and when needed, their various support methods (forums, wikis, chatrooms, etc.) have all proven VERY effective and friendly. There is one problem. They...
8 tags
Adding internationalization to XIB files in Xcode...
I want to post a quick Derrr post about localizing XIB files in Xcode 4 since I just spent a good 2 or 3 hours trying to figure out what I was doing wrong to find I wasn’t really doing anything wrong.
Localization of your Interface Builder files in Xcode 4 is a piece of cake, actually.
Select the file you wish to localize.
Press Opt+Cmd+1 to open up the file’s info pane.
Scroll...
April 2011
14 posts
6 tags
iOS consolidated.db "flaw"?
I’m kind of getting sick of the big hoopla about the recently discovered (even though it wasn’t recently discovered at all) consolidated.db file which sits quietly in a publicly available iOS directory and is backed up every time you sync your phone. The file in question keeps a running log of dates, times and locations according to your GPS and wifi radios. I am all for getting up in...
3 tags
Hooray, iPad!
I finally got my iPad 2 last week and this post is coming to you straight from it! I really love it for just about everything. My MacBook Pro hasn’t gottten a lot of love over the last week and I can see her getting delegated to mostly development work and gaming. I do, unfortunately, feel the sting from the lack of Flash a little more now than when I just had my iPhone, but that...
5 tags
Going back to unjailbroken
I really do love all the nifty features and tweaks that jailbreaking allows. I’ve dabbled many times. But every time I do, it just eventually reminds me how amazing Apple’s attention to detail and their refusal to release features until they “just work” really is. There aren’t any jailbroken features that I have found that work 100% of the time and/or work as...
4 tags
Prompt for iOS. Get it! →
Anyone who needs to SSH to a remote server on any sort of frequent basis should really download Panic’s new app, Prompt. It’s $5, but well worth it because it just works. For those with jailbroken phones, you can even ssh to your own phone instead of using MobileTerminal! DO IT!
4 tags
Two quick questions
1. Why hasn’t Apple already implemented a “quick reply” feature for SMS in iOS yet?
2. Why are the only “quick reply” SMS addons for jailbroken devices included with huge SMS replacements like BiteSMS or iRealSMS? Can’t we get a small, light weight, stand-alone addon?
Flash on Android Tablets →
Running a Minecraft server is a lot like flying...
minecraftteacher:
What I mean by that is that there is always something wrong. Some component that’s malfunctioning. Some part you thought you fixed that breaks just when you need it. And far too many little knobs and switches that have to be set just right. But when you’ve got everything patched up just right, it’s the sweetest ride in the galaxy.
(Even if it look like a piece of junk…)
...
iOS 4.3.1 Untethered Jailbreak Released! →
The newest version of iOS has finally been jailbroken in a much more convenient, untethered, version for all devices but iPad 2. iClarified.com has a great walkthrough tutorial on how to accomplish it.
5 tags
4 tags
Sorry, Firefox 4.. I tried.
I wanted it to be true. Firefox 4 was release and everyone was talking about how fast it was and how it actually leveled the playing field with Google Chrome. It has now been 10 days and I’m going back to Chrome. I didn’t do any sort of scientific tests. I just used it the same way I’ve done every day for a while. Found addons for Firefox 4 that were the same or similar to all my...
3 tags
5 tags
Mephisto2Tumblr should be ready for public...
I haven’t extensively tested this and have only used it on my own Mephisto database so I can’t guarantee anything but I figured I’d release what I have in case it helps anyone else out. The code is small enough and easy enough to read that it should be very easy to modify if you have specific needs. Head to the Mephisto2Tumblr GitHub repo if you want to give it a shot!
5 tags
Small oversight with my script
The script I wrote to convert all my articles over from Mephisto to Tumblr seemed to work rather well but I just noticed a small oversight on my part. Any article I marked with a “read more…” seemed to only come over from the point after the jump. I’ll take a look at this more tomorrow and see if I can’t clear it up.
5 tags
Finally finishing the blog move..
I just spent most of the day writing a small Ruby script for converting my old Mephisto blog to Tumblr. It’s quite late so I’ll clean up the script and release it for anyone else who might want to use it tomorrow or later this weekend. I still have a couple of things to move over manually before I can shut down Mephisto for good but this has been a long time coming and I’m happy...
January 2011
1 post
4 tags
Facebook App Filter
Since Facebook has been unable to add my most sought after feature themselves, I took it upon myself to create something similar and simple with GreaseMonkey. I’ve thrown together a simple script that allows you to toggle application and game posts in your Facebook news feed and on your friends profile pages on and off with a single click. It shouldn’t replace your block option. This...
December 2010
1 post
1 tag
What Facebook's news feed filters need
You might have noticed that Facebook released a new feature for their news feed. You can now pick certain types of posts (i.e. Status, Picture, Game, etc.) or you can choose a friends list and your news feed will filter down to only those posts. This feature actually existed before the most recent site redesign but I’m very happy to see it back. I do think Facebook can do better, though.
...
October 2010
1 post
4 tags
Halo Reach API
Bungie has finally gone and released their API. This would have been a god send when I was creating Halo 3 Players way back in the day. You have to be a Bungie Pro member to get your API key.
The API documentation providers in the stats API group on bungie.net didn’t please me ascetically so I went ahead and reformatted it a little bit and threw it online here. Feel free to use that for a...
September 2010
3 posts
3 tags
Halo: Reach (Review)
Halo has always been one of my favorite franchises as far as gaming goes. The balance between fun and competition has always been perfect and it has provided me with countless hours of enjoyment since I picked up my first xbox and Halo: Combat Evolved. I have a couple of thoughts about Bungie’s last hoorah in the Halo universe after getting acquainted with the game for two weeks.
Armor...
3 tags
2 tags
August 2010
7 posts
3 tags
Facebook Privacy: 102 (Places)
Facebook just started rolling out their Places feature to most of the US. Location information is a very touchy subject for a lot of people so I thought I’d throw a quick post out about how to effectively manage the new privacy settings that were enabled with the Places rollout.
UPDATE: It appears I missed a setting. I recently stumbled across one more Places setting that I have since added...
A Review of Scott Pilgrim Reviews →
2 tags
Facebook for iPhone v3.2
Facebook just updated their iPhone app for their Places roll out. They added a couple other little nice things too like privacy settings on a per-post basis and the nifty little “drag down to refresh” that Tweetie/Twitter has had forever now. One thing still lacking? Tagging in status updates. What’s the holdup, Facebook?
2 tags
3 tags
FarmVilleBot.pl Updated
A while back, a Farmville script was released on stronk.org. It allows you to type a simple command in your Terminal, position your mouse over a plot on your Farmville farm, and it would take care of the tedious task of clicking on all your plots. Since then, Farmville has been updated to add some new zoom levels that makes FarmVilleBot.pl quite inefficient. I’ve gone ahead and updated the...
Pardon my dust
I’m currently transitioning from my blog at dnite.org to this one. It’s based mainly on my lack of a desire to continue to manage the blog on my own domain. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to transition all my content from there to here, but I’ll come up with something. In the mean time (and the future, I suppose), I’ll be posting my random musings here on whatever...
3 tags
"Apple-tax" is worth it.
I understand a lot of people’s hesitation for making the switch to Mac. The biggest two objections that I hear about are definitely switching to a new operating system and the seemingly overinflated price.
The first issue is very justified because I you almost to start unlearning a lot of habits that you were accustomed to with Windows. Obviously, with time, this gets much easier. As an...
July 2010
1 post
Pardon my Dust..
I’m currently in the process of switching my blog over from Mephisto. I don’t see much action on the development side of things for Mephisto so I thought it would be a good idea to move on. It’ll also free up some resources for other things on my server since Ruby on Rails and Mephisto have never been known for their memory saving skills. My original idea would be to move to WordPress. It’s...
May 2010
2 posts
4 tags
Why not use Mobile Safari to it's fullest?
I don’t understand why more web developers aren’t using a lot of the great features in Mobile Safari when they’re re-formatting their sites for iPhone-type devices. AdMob is a great example of how to do it. If your a developer that uses AdMob for serving up your ads, you probably have seen their mobile formatted site (m.admob.com). There’s an attention to detail involved that (for some strange...
6 tags
Xbox 360 Wireless Headset Problem
I’ve been having a strange problem with my wireless Xbox 360 headset that would not let it sync to player 1. It kept going straight to player’s 2-4 (even though there was no controller connected for those players). It turns out, after using a wired headset for so long, some sort of buildup inside the connector tricks the controller into thinking it still has a headset connected. I blew out the...
March 2010
1 post
3 tags
Facebook Privacy: 101
I get a lot of questions about how to use Facebook’s new (ish) privacy features so I thought I’d go through a quick 101 tutorial on settings things up and using them effectively. I’ll try and keep this as simple and quick as possible but I will also be covering all you really need to know about keeping your Facebook profile and the information you post on it safe.
Where do we start? We need to...
December 2009
1 post
What I'm Looking Forward To In 2010..
The new year is hours away. Even though I know time is relative and that flipping a calendar to a new year doesn’t actually mean anything in the grand sceme of things, for some reason there’s comfort in it. Here’s a few of the things I’m looking forward to in 2010..
Movies/TV: The Lovely Bones, Kick-Ass, Harry Potter, Lost, Alice in Wonderland, Social Network, Always Sunny In Philadelphia..
...
November 2009
5 posts
5 tags
Baby-Daddy Generator Preview added to...
An update to iPregnancyTest was just approved by apple that includes a couple of tweaks here and there. There’s a one time notice about iPregnancyTest’s support for Facebook that reminds you to log in so we can use your Facebook friends as a basis for the Baby-Daddy Generator. Speaking of the Baby-Daddy Generator, there’s also a new “Baby-Daddy Generator Preview” feature that allows you to see who...
2 tags
Why Apple's Support Wins
My iPhone started acting up a couple of days ago. Any time the screen went blank (either via auto-lock or if I manually hit the lock switch) it took about 30 seconds and the iPhone would just shut itself off. If I turned off auto-lock, the phone stayed on for as long as it could (battery dependent, of course). It also only seemed to have this problem when running on battery power. Very strange...
5 tags
Poke A Keith adds OpenFeint support!
An update to Poke A Keith was pushed threw by Apple yesterday that includes OpenFeint support to add online achievements and leaderboards! There’s even a chatroom so you can talk with other Poke A Keith players or anyone on the OpenFeint network! Leaderboards let you compare your scores in a variety of categories with your OpenFeint friends as well as the world! It’s all available now so go get...
5 tags
Secret Browser is now available!
Until today, the only options you had for private web browsing were either kind of shotty and thrown together really quick or much more expensive than anyone should pay for such a thing. Secret Browser was approved and released on the App Store today to solve those problems! I made sure to try and squash all the annoyances of other private browsers out there now as well as threw a very reasonable...
3 tags
My Twitter List!
Twitter just updated not too long ago with their new Lists feature and I thought it would make a great opportunity to create my own list of my iPhone apps and whatever other applications I create that could warrant a Twitter account. So check out my new Twitter List at http://twitter.com/swemoney/apps and follow the hell out of it!
Update: I changed the name of the list to just “apps” so it’s...
September 2009
3 posts
7 tags
Homebrew DVR commercial skip idea
This just popped into my head while thinking about how shittastic my Comcast DVR is. Made me think about homebrew/open source DVR software. I have no experience at all with this and hell, this might even already exist, but wouldn’t it be cool if your DVR connects to a ‘commercial skip server’ that’s crowd sourced or maintained somehow. Basically, all it would store are timestamps for when...