Attention To Detail: Apple Photographer Screws Up

For a company that prides its unrelenting attention to detail, why is Eddy Cue positioned in the opposite direction?

(Eddy's shoulders are pointed from the bottom left to the top right, whereas everyone else's shoulders are either neutral or pointed from the bottom right to the top left.)

I can forgive Jony Ive for not smiling: he probably was upset that the camera was poorly designed.

Compiling SDL on Lion

I ran into this problem while trying to compile Gingerbread on Lion, figuring that the existing SDL was a 64-bit library and Android wanted the 32-bit one. I grabbed the source from the SDL website and tried to compile using the -m32 flag in gcc, which resulted in several assembly errors. It turns out that this is a known incompatibility with llvm-gcc. [1] However, changing CC to gcc-4.2 wasn't good enough; ltmain.sh complains that it can't infer the tag configuration. [2]

Here is how I solved the problem: In build-scripts/makedep.sh, every time --mode=compile appears, put --tag=CC next to it. Then, in libtool, add a gcc-4.2 entry to the case statement in func_infer_tag() as follows:

case "$@ " in

  " $CC "* | "$CC "* | " `$ECHO $CC` "* | "`$ECHO $CC` "* | " $CC_quoted"* | "$CC_quoted "* | " `$ECHO $CC_quoted` "* | "`$ECHO $CC_quoted` "* | "gcc-4.2"*)

It compiles! Install the library with sudo make install.

Unfortunately, the vanilla SDL and SDL used for the Android emulator aren't the same; besides the Android one being two releases earlier, I'm not too sure what the other differences are. The steps outlined above are not sufficient for building the SDL needed for the Android emulator. I'll report back if and when I get that working.

[1] https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/pull/4693

[2] http://www.howtoforge.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13540

Long Live Steve Jobs

“To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.

I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.

I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.”

Steve

2011: Year of the copycats?

Apple said the phrase first back in March this year regarding tablets, but turns out it's true for cars too (who would have guessed?)

Here's the leaked picture of the 2012 Lexus GS:

Photo credit: LeftLaneNews

And here's the F10 5-series:

Photo credit: AutomotiveRoom

Here's a cursory list of similarities:

• Layout of the vents with respect to the strip of wood. Both cars have the peripheral vents above the wood and the IP stack vents adjacent to the wood.
• Layout of IP stack: Screen above vents above CD player above climate, with the gear shift to the left of the entertainment controller.

Has Lexus lost its touch of uniqueness? Sure, these cars probably have been in development for several years, but this layout is certainly not the only way to layout a mid-level luxury sedan.

[EDIT] Seems like the original leaked GS interior image has been pulled, but no worries! It has been cached.

Homage to the Classic Mac

Today, Apple released iCloud web apps in beta form. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect is the ``Cookies Required'' page:

You may think that the eyes and the nose of the cloud look familiar. You're not mistaken. Voilà, exhibit A, the classic Mac icon:

How Do I Use a Computer?

I posed this question to myself amid the paradigm shifts happening in the desktop computer world.

To start off, I had been using various Wintel boxes ever since I was a little squirt. I got my own Dell box in 6th grade. The computer was a portal to the internet, so the handful of windows I had open were Internet Explorer and probably AIM instances. I may have had a couple of Internet Explorer instances open at once, but that became history when I discovered Firefox and tabbed browsing. I rarely had a need for minimizing windows. Simple and clutter free.

I got a Mac mini in 7th grade. With it came iLife, the consumer media applications suite, which I used to manage my family's photographs and learn more about and have been engrossed in the creation of digital media ever since. Unfortunately, the mini was underpowered so running more than a couple of apps would cause it to page out. Thus, all of my open windows could neatly be contained on one desktop. Since the Mac is application-based, I could easily hide applications I wasn't currently using, which more or less eliminated the need for minimization.

Another year passed and I discovered Ubuntu, which introduced virtual desktops, among bring back the taskbar and other things. They were decent, but I was never a fan because I never had a large number of open windows at once. I don't remember using the command line much either. In any event, Ubuntu became irrelevant when I acquired my trusty MacBook Pro, picking up where I had left off in the Mac world.

Two things happened in sophomore year of high school: I started programming in Java and C++ and Apple released Mac OS X Leopard, which included Spaces. Programming introduced me to the wonderful land of the Terminal (with a capital T!), which I actually have come to love. It was so simple, so clean; unlike a Windows or Linux GUI, it didn't immediately show you all the available options unless you asked for it. As for Leopard, it reunited me with virtual desktops, which I actually started to use because I had a more capable computer and thus built up more desktop clutter.

In my junior year of high school, I dual booted Linux on my desktop and tried out XMonad per a friend's suggestion. I don't remember how I quite felt about it ever since I broke it, other than it was simple and clean, but wasn't for me because I didn't need to see all of my windows on a virtual desktop at once. XMonad might have had layers within a desktop at the cost of adding complexity, so I never took advantage of it. Then I came across EvilWM, which I loved because it was so simple. The minimalist controls just included basic window manipulation: terminal spawn, moving, resizing, alt-tabbing; I do not use move-in-front or move-behind controls. Combined with a lack of a file manager (good riddance, Nautilus), my computing experience became minimalist, lightweight, nonintrusive, and almost eerily Mac-like [1].

Come 2011: I finally acquired an iPad to complement my relatively nascent MacBook Air. It handled most of what I did on my Air with aplomb, save for remote coding and photo post-production jobs with Aperture. It was even less obtrusive and had even better battery life, at half the weight of my laptop. When I was traveling from Cupertino back to Boston for the holidays and had noticed the weight of my backpack (which contained a change of clothes, headphones, iPad, MacBook Air, and its charger), this question occurred to me: How do I use a computer, and did I need what I was carrying?

[1] By Mac-like, I mean that it adheres to nine of Dieter Ram's ten design principles

Happy Independence Day!

Man, if only I had brought my tripod and held the exposure longer would I not have had to jack the ISO up to 2500. Next year!

[edit] The photograph was untouched except for the watermark.

Probably the Best Use of the Golden Ratio

I am consistently amazed by Apple's attention to detail.

[source]

Adventures at Apple [Part I]

It's amazing how much more you'll experience by getting to know some people.

``Oh, baby!'' is right!

Yup, I got a ride in this monster to a coffee shop! After discovering that I was a car geek at heart, her owner invited me for a spin. I was blown away by its raw speed and prowess on the road; it was pinned to the road at all times (much unlike the rental Prius my family had for vacation did). The engine roar was harmonious; the echo is amazing if revved under a bridge or inside a garage. (protip: this will set off car alarms!) Above all, it was equipped with a stick, for a truly engaging driving experience.

The twothree-hundred large one pays not only acquires a spectacular handcrafted driving machine (hey, this ain't a Bimmer!) but also a richly upholstered cabin. The leather-wrapped dash is met with tasteful carbon fiber trim in the center stack and an Alcantara swathed headliner. Extra bolstered seats sitting low on the floor in the style of a sports car supported the driver and passenger in tight turns. All in all I was amazed by the dynamics that a car could have (this statement speaks volumes of what sorts of cars I am used to riding and driving).

[EDIT] Ha, two hundred large for this baby? Add a few options and it easily becomes $300k!

WWDC 2011!

I thought I would never have the opportunity to attend this much vaunted event, perhaps now the biggest Mac community gathering, but hey, Apple employees get to visit for a day (or a half)!

Perhaps my biggest display of fangirlism ever, besides the time that I met Steve Jobs?

(The Green badge is for Apple Engineers -- I went as an iOS Engineer)

But that's pretty much all I can say. You know why. :-)

I'll hopefully get to posting my Power Mac G4 case mod in the near future.