Less than useful

I use Ubuntu at the office. I started with 10.10 and installed it half a year ago when I was stuck with Windows 2000, and there were not enough Windows 7 licenses being bought. It was a vast improvement.

My work is not really dependent on any proprietary applications. I mostly just need a text editor and FTP client. As well my company subscribes to Google Apps, so I just use that for documentation.

I upgraded to 11.04 when it came out and was greeted with Unity. I was so pissed off by how inflexible it was, I immediately changed to the “classic” environment. I actually replaced the Gnome shell with AWN and was immensely pleased with my new work environment. The aesthetics, functionality and customisation were fantastic.

Now Ubuntu 11.10 is out, and Unity is allegedly better. I have really truly tried to adapt to it, but god damn this thing is so wrong-headed. Why do I have to adapt to my computer?

The single worst feature that I just cannot get over is that the dock is permanently fixed to the left-hand side of the screen. (It hides when a window would be covered by it.)

The Ubuntu and Unity teams seem to spend more time justifying this contentious decision than coding the damn thing at this point. People rationalise it saying stupid things like, “99% of people have widescreen monitors anyway“. In a widescreen environment, yes, it would save more space. You know what are still popular? 17″ 1280×1024 5:4 monitors, which are even taller than traditional 4:3 screens. The fact that the user isn’t given a choice is what baffles me however.

Another oddity is that I cannot seem to have two windows of the same application open at the same time. For example, instead of tabbing, if I wished to work in one browser window while referencing material in another. The workaround is to just run two separate browsers.  (October 29 edit: I don’t know if I uncovered a bug or something, but I cannot reproduce this … multiple windows work fine and as one would expect.)

Not tied to Unity, but another odd Ubuntu decision is to bundle Gwibber as the main Twitter/social networking client in its distribution. The programme is terrible. Why should it take 30 seconds for the damn client running in the background to pop up? Ubuntu is snappy as hell on this office Core2Duo, but that client is ludicrously slow.

All that said, and the left-hand-fixed-launcher will be enough to drive away many users, there are some great design ideas to Unity. First, the overall aesthetics are very nice and pleasing to my eye. I don’t mind the MacOS/OS X window-manager style where all programmes’ menus are located at the top of the screen — it saves some space and can be gotten used to.

I really like the subtle notification system. If you look at the screenshot, there are a few icons sitting in the tray. THEY DON’T EVER FLASH OR STEAL FOCUS! When I get new mail, that envelope turns to a pleasing shade of blue. That is it. I can click on it to check my mail, or I can ignore it and continue my coding. Simple and brilliant.

After a couple of weeks, I am slowly getting used to having the launcher on the left. I still look for the hidden panel at the bottom of the screen half the time though. I do plan on sticking with it for a while to see where Ubuntu goes with it, but I still don’t like it.

This is pretty much the stupidest thing I’ve ever done and perhaps the most costly mistake I’ve made. Good thing I don’t own a car…

On Wednesday I received late notice that I would be able to bring my camera to a show I was terribly excited to see (Iris + Mesh + De/vision + Assemblage 23). I was really hoping I could bring it as it had been a while since I was able to shoot a show, and had since upgraded my equipment and technique a bit.

I only needed to clear my SD card, but Windows wouldn’t let me delete for some  reason. “No big deal,” I thought. I figured I could just go and format the card in my camera. As soon as I put it in the camera though, the screen flashed “WRITE-PROTECTED.”

Clearly the little tab on the side of the card had been switched accidentally. I removed the card … only to discover the tab was completely missing. Shit.

I was on the verge of being late for the show. I run around the apartment desperately looking for some Scotch tape, but couldn’t find any. I found something a little thicker and figured “ah what the hell,” may as well try it. First mistake.

The card slid into the camera with a little bit of resistance, but not a huge problem. Unfortunately the screen showed it was still write-protected though. The card was stuck though and I couldn’t get it out. Second mistake: I pried the card out with a screwdriver. Gently and from the edge … it came out with two much trouble. Unfortunately it took the ejection mechanism with it. F— f— f–.

In some stupid bout of even huger idiocy, I tried putting the card back into the damaged mechanism, but really, it was already completely screwed at that point.

I took it to Henry’s today for repair, but discovered Olympus of Canada has recently shut down. For repair, the camera would have to be sent to New York. It would cost roughly $350 and take 8-10 weeks.

Frack. I started thinking, “well, I could go back to shooting film…,” but $350 is a lot for a repair, and there’s no guarantee what the final cost would be or how long it might take. I said I’d have to think about it.

In the same store I discovered they have a used version of the same model for $350 … a no-brainer compared to having mine repaired at least: same, concrete, cost and instant-gratification.

I had to consider though, a more modern, but a “lite” version of my camera is the E-PL2, and is $600 brand-new. It probably makes more sense to spend the money on that instead of buying a used camera which I have no idea how it has been treated. As well, I can sell my old small flash as the new one includes one.

The new camera would have some pretty significant advantages in having a much higher-resolution LCD, an included flash, smaller & lighter, and a better stock lens. On the other hand, it’s a cheaper build quality and has one less control dial which is annoying. Still, the advantages probably outweigh the negatives.

Just annoying to have to rebuy something. I was hoping to buy a cyclocross bike soon.

Heck, I may really still decide to just shoot film in the interim. The m4/3 format cameras are starting to show their age and a more significant hardware refresh may be on its way. The newer models are still using the same sensors as the original ones from two years ago.

I guess the lesson here is that I should have just left the camera alone and gone and enjoyed the show. I should have been more relaxed and rational about it. I could have mitigated this whole thing by just dashing to BestBuy (a block away) and buying a new $20 SD card. Hindsight is 20/20 and all, but I was aware of this even at the time… just thought I could get it working even faster.

This post is mostly intended for someone to come across via Google having trouble unlocking his or her phone.  There is a tonne of misinformation and lots of scams out there.

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My girlfriend had been using an unlocked 1G iPhone for a while.  That phone was locked to AT&T in the USA while she has beens using a cheap Bank of Montreal phone plan here in Canada.  She doesn’t want to pay for a data plan; she’s happy just using wi-fi on the iPhone whenever it’s available.

The 1G had started to die though, with error messages constantly popping up.  Each time the message would pop up, the screen would turn on, so the battery could only last a few hours.

She bought a used 8 GB 3G iPhone locked to Rogers to replace it, however the previous owner had updated it to official Apple iPhone firmware 3.1.3 which did several things to make unlocking it to other cellphone networks impossible.

With iPhones, there are two distinct hacks: jailbreaking means that you can run home-made software on your iPhone without needing to go through Apple’s official App Store.  Unlocking, like with any other cellphone, means that you’re not restricted to any one particular cellphone carrier.

In addition to the main iPhone operating system, (now known as “iOS” as it’s shared with the iPad), there is separate firmware that controls the modem in the phone: the part that actually connects with the cell network.  This firmware is known as the baseband.  Finally there’s a bootloader as well, which may be governed by the hardware iteration rather than software, but I’m not sure.  The jailbreak used to be mostly dependent on the operating system, the unlock used to be mostly dependent on the baseband version.  The bootloader determined whether or not you could restore your iPhone to older versions of baseband which could then be unlocked.

The sum total though was that with old hacks, it was impossible to unlock my girlfriend’s 3G iPhone to work with her cell provider.

Once iOS 4.0 was released however (June 21, 2010), the brilliant hackers that figure out how to jailbreak and unlock these things published exploits they had been withholding.  They’d been waiting for iOS 4.0 to come out to get more mileage and not waste them on an otherwise minor firmware update.  These current exploits work with ALL iPhones from 3G onwards, all basebands, and all bootloaders.

To unlock your 3G:

1. Sync your phone with iTunes.  Make sure it creates a backup.  If it doesn’t (from ericajoy, found with Google):
   • Open iTunes
   • Go to Preferences
   • Choose the syncing option
   • Remove the iPhone backup
   • Press OK and exit Preferences
   • Sync your iPhone
2. Update your 3G to the proper full iOS 4.0 with iTunes. It should be prompting you to whenever you connect your phone to your computer with iTunes open.
3. Download and run Redsn0w from the Dev-Team Blog.  The earliest version that works with iOS 4.0 is 0.9.5b5-4.  (Click the Windows link on the post I linked.)
4. It will ask you to point it to the IPSW file of your CURRENT FIRMWARE (which will be 4.0 now if you followed step 1.)  The file is called iPhone1,2_4.0_8A293_Restore.ipsw.
   • In Win7 it will be found in C:\Users\<YOUR USER NAME>\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\iTunes\iPhone Software Updates
   • In WinXP it would be found in C:\Documents and Settings\<YOUR USER NAME>\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes\iPhone Software Updates
   • Alternatively, you can just download it separately from a site such as this one.  (Look for the iOS 4 section at the bottom of the page and click the iPhone 3G link.)
5. Redsn0w will take some time to process the IPSW file, then it will prompt you for some options after you hit ‘next.’
   • The option you must select is “Install Cydia.”  Cydia is the programme that installs all the non-Apple approved iPhone applications, and will be required to actually unlock the phone.
   • On the 3G I recommend you also enable the “homescreen wallpaper” and “battery percentage.” The 3G isn’t really fast enough to do multitasking well, but it’s up to you.  Leave everything else unchecked.
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6. Your iPhone should be connected to the PC already.  Turn it off by holding the power button on top, and swiping across the screen when asked to.  Hit ‘next’ and follow the rest of the on-screen instructions.  Redsn0w is going to ask you hold the power button for a few seconds, then hold the power & home button for 10 seconds, and then let go of the power button while still holding the home button for 30 seconds.  You can let go of home once the screen changes and things start happening on your phone.  If gives you another chance to do it over if you screw up.
7. The rest of this is automated.  It can take a while to finish.  Redsn0w on your PC will soon say it’s done, that the rest takes place on your iPhone.  You can close redsn0w at this point.  I believe it took about 10 minutes for the iPhone to finish it’s business.  You now have a jailbroken iPhone 3G.
8. To finish the process and unlock the phone, run the Cydia app on your homescreen.  It will take some time to update itself.  (Roughly five minutes.)
9. Click on the search tab, and search for “ultrasn0w” (the “o” is a zero, like in redsn0w).
10. Install it, and select reboot once it asks you to.  Your iPhone 3G is now unlocked.

From now on, do not install any new official Apple firmware until you’ve absolutely confirmed that you can jailbreak and unlock it.

I haven’t been neglecting this blog, honest. I just can’t finish any of the articles I want to write for one reason or another.

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Just a quick thought. One of the most frequently heard questions I keep seeing over and over regarding the iPad is, “Why do you need it?”  Now I have no interest in one myself — if I only casually wanted a portable PC, I’d be all over it, but I intend to go back to school eventually, and the iPad just wouldn’t cut it with its on-screen keyboard.

But I want to point out, it’s such a bullshit rhetorical technique.  Everybody knows that nobody needs anything but food, shelter, and clothes if he or she is modest.

It’s perfectly okay to want/lust after something, and it’s nobody else’s business … except maybe creditors.  I guess being an Apple fan is just a slightly more abstract hobby.

Procrastinating a bit from some contract work I need to get done tonight.

I’d seen Amazon Kindles in person a few times, and was absolutely blown away by the quality and legibility of the text on the screen.  I didn’t get to spend that much time with them though to really get a feel for the features.  I didn’t like how a lot of the device’s real-estate was used up by a keyboard though.

Today I spent a while with the Sony eReaders, and was surprised to find that they don’t look or feel nearly as nice as the Kindle.  They looked great in their press-shots and sounded vastly superior to me, but they felt quite cheap comparatively.  When these things are supposed to recreate the “experience of reading a book,” which detractors keep bringing up, it’s apparently a really big deal.

Speaking of e-book readers in general, the ability to change text-size I think is a killer feature.  However one thing I noticed on the Sony readers, and really disliked, was that they wouldn’t justify or typeset the text particularly well.  It’s especially obvious at larger font sizes. I don’t know whether the Kindle does this either, but it seems like it’d be a great feature to further enhance legibility.  Maybe most people don’t notice this sort of thing though.

It does make me think though that I really don’t want to be an early adopter in this instance, and it’s steeled my resolve to get through all the physical books I’ve acquired over the years before I invest in something that will be obsolete in a few months…

I picked up a BlackBerry a couple weeks ago.  The impetus was that I started a new job with heavily-monitored internet, and an extremely restrictive firewall.  I wanted to avoid trouble with my new employer and couldn’t deal with being completely cut off for over half the waking day.  Suddenly having no access to personal email felt really isolating.

I chose a BlackBerry mostly because I really didn’t like tapping out long messages on an iPhone’s keyboard.  For plain internet browsing, I think the iPhone’s browser wins no-contest, but that wasn’t my main concern.  As it turns out though, I’m just ecstatic with this purchase, and I’m discovering more and more to do with it every day.

I was on Fido, but still had 11 months left in my contract.  I discovered that Rogers can be negotiated with to allow you to break your contract once in your lifetime, to switch from Fido to Rogers or vice versa, as long as you’ve been on your respective network for at least a year.

As the gadget comes up in conversation, I’ve noticed some inaccuracies, and as well, have found solutions to some common complaints:

1. Consumer BlackBerries do have push email (at least on the Rogers network).  It does not require a corporate server.  I have it set up with my Gmail account, but you can create an @rogers.blackberry email address instead if you prefer.  Without the slightest exaggeration, emails show up on my BlackBerry before my Gmail inbox.  The address to set this up is http://www.rogers.com/bis/ You can set this up from your desktop PC.  You will need the IMEI and PIN codes.
2. It took me a couple days to figure out, but with the default theme, you change the home screen icons by moving the applications you want to the top row of your apps menu. (Probably obvious, but two friends who’d had theirs for months never figured it out.)
3. The included browser is nothing spectacular, however you can install Opera Mini instead.  The 5.0 beta includes tabbed browsing even.
4. The included Maps application is quite rudimentary.  Google Maps is a spectacular replacement.  More information here.
5. I love the cohesive Messages programme, how it consolidates all incoming messages from your various IM applications, Facebook, emails, etc.  All except for SMS messages for some reason.  You can in fact combine the Messages and SMS apps by going to the Options in Messages, choosing General Options, and changing the SMS and Email Inboxes setting to Combined.
6. BlackBerry apps do not close when you push the red disconnect button.  They stay running in the background, eating at your battery.  This is actually a great feature, and a huge advantage over the iPhone, but if you’re not aware of it, you’re killing battery life and memory for running other apps needlessly.  Generally you can close apps by pushing the menu button and selecting Close.  Unfortunately this isn’t 100% consistent, and some apps require you use Exit instead.  (They often still have a ‘Close’ command, but in that case it won’t necessarily stop the programme from running.)
7. Related to the previous point, you can access applications running in the background by holding the menu button (the one with the BlackBerry logo on it).  Depending on your model, there will be programmes that you cannot actually close permanently.  (On my Bold, the Browser, Phone, Home Screen, Messages, and BlackBerry Messenger apps are always running.)

Some personal favourite apps include:

• ÜberTwitter is my favourite Twitter client.  It’s far faster than the seemingly popular Twitterberry/OpenBeak.
• Macleans is a nicely formatted version of the magazine, though it occasionally cuts articles slightly short and tells you to find the rest on newsstands.

The one minor gripe I have is that I can’t access Gmail-specific features from within the Messages app.  The BlackBerry suggested I download a special “Gmail plug-in” when I first set up my email account, which would allow me to do things like flag and categorise messages.  This works great, however I have to run it as a separate programme.  When I look at my email from within the default Messages app though,  I can’t do any of that Gmail-specific stuff.  It sort of defeats the purpose of having a consolidated inbox, and calling the programme a “plug-in.”  Hopefully I’m just missing something, or it will be corrected soon.

This is one of those posts where I hope random Googlers find it and may be able to offer some insight. Alternatively, hopefully I’ll be able to fix this eventually and offer a solution.  [While writing this post I discovered it was in fact iTunes that broke my drives.  It just adds to the hatred I have of that programme.]

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What’s wrong with this picture?

My DVD and CD drives are missing.  They used to work fine, but I noticed yesterday that they had vanished.  I thought maybe a reset would fix it, but when I turned my PC on this morning, they were still missing.  I’m not sure when they stopped working.  I keep the old CD-ROM around because it’s excellent for getting a good rip out of scratched CDs with EAC.  (It doesn’t cache audio…)

Device Manager showed this:

Opening one of these reveals:

It got me thinking that something had ‘damaged’ the drivers.  I thought back and remembered I had installed The Settlers II: 10th Anniversary Edition a week ago, but not gotten around to playing it again.  I knew that game used Securerom 7 copy-protection, so I reasoned that maybe it didn’t play nicely in Windows 7, seeing as it’s an XP or Vista-era game.  Uninstalling and restarting didn’t fix anything, though that didn’t really mean anything since these copy-protection schemes are notorious for staying on a PC even after the title they’re supposed to be protecting is removed.

I went back to the “Uninstall a program…” dialogue, and had the insight to sort the programmes by the day that they were installed.  This revealed that since Settlers, I’d also upgraded iTunes to the much-ballyhooed version 9.  Uninstalling that, and all four of its forcibly-installed components also didn’t fix anything.

I started Googling more actively, and came across this blog post of Farhan Ahmed’s where he points toward a fix on Microsoft’s support pages.  The fix worked great.  The only thing was that it needs to be run in compatibility mode (right-click on the installer file and select “Troubleshoot compatibility”.

This fix is pretty old, so interestingly there have been iTunes issues for some time, not just anything new with version 9.  I’m stuck with the programme, for all its headaches, because I cannot find any other way to manage my otherwise mostly-decent iPod Touch.