26 Apr
Arthur’s Matrix
   Filed Under: Unfiled   

For someone way out there.

arthur-2.jpg

Click here for a bigger version.

Some work with inspiration from a Futurama quote and the Matrix. “There is no two.”

I got a week of vacation coming up. I’ve still got a lot of work to do for school, but Praetorian still has a healthy amount of hours going in it every day. Some questions were raised about Praetorian recently, so I’ll post a Q&A soon. And my lecture-in-the-works for the CCC is progressing great.

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Just a table content in the works, but that’s pretty much decided on. It’s up to the CCC committee to approve my paper and presentation before May 15th. So, I’m quite curious if I will make the grade.

Please keep giving input about my apps in the making! The most stupid question is the one never asked. Email’s open 24 hours a day.

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25 Apr
iSight Expert has competition.
   Filed Under: Unfiled   

Freeverse came out with Periscope, an application that, does the following;

* ‘scope your home when you’re out of town.
* ‘scope for intruders with motion detection.
* ‘scope the kids when you’re at the office.
* ‘scope a time-lapse movie of your workday.
* ‘scope for security.
* ‘scope for fun!

So, one could say this could make potential buyers or testers of iSight Expert compare the two. Before the speculation starts (and it’s bound to, since my app’s not out); there is a major difference between iSight Expert and Periscope’s design philosophy.

My application is focused on giving you control over what your iSight does; bascially, you could say it personifies a piece of hardware to do whatever the hell you want it to do; schedule it’s settings, take images on a very broad range of conditions. Perhaps the intended group of users is also different; my application has intermediate Mac users in mind with the urge to unlock their hardware potential, while Periscope looks a bit less like an application, and a bit more like a ‘game’.

In the mean time, I am in no hurry to release iSight Expert over increasing ‘competition’ — Praetorian is the application I will roll out first, and it will be followed by iSight Expert.

24 Apr
Blog updates coming soon.
   Filed Under: Announcement   

I guess if it’s my birthday, I might as well celebrate it with something my readers will like. Over the time, the CSS of the blog has gone a tad messy, with some relics of the old layout and an inconsistent sidebar.
There were bugs in the last version (links getting bolder screwed with layout), there are bugs in this version (IE, main image header off-alignment by 2 pixels) and the promise of the two-color theme haven’t been made true yet. But that all will change!

In a push towards total consistency and a more enjoyable reading, I am working hard on two complimentary stylesheets with their own graphics for the blog. I think I’ll settle with it as being the ‘May Theme’, just like March’s theme was replaced 3 weeks ago by this one.

Okay, I hear you; you want a bit in on the goodness. “Even though it’s 5 days away, why not see some eye-candy now? You -are- working on it, right?” — yup! Here’s some of the goodness. And I know that there are more people out there who think black themes rock, well, now there is one for me and you, and one for the people who like the white better.

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23 Apr
Fun with the Terminal.
   Filed Under: Apple   

Man, I really enjoy this.

It’s a very old app (supposedly by the Apple OpenGL team) that emulates those hyper-old phosphorous displays. It takes a whopping 30-40% of CPU, has configurable settings, and well, as I said, looks very cool. This is with 1800 baud modem emulation, it can run at regular speed as well.

Anyway, I have lots of fun in the Terminal. From telnetting towel.blinkenlights.nl, playing an old game of nethack, just having good old shellscripting fun, I love my terminal. There are some things, though, that I cannot live without when I get my hands on a ‘standard’ OS X terminal. Here are my additions.

Visor.

visorlarge.pngNumber one by far. It allows you to have a drop-down or fade-in terminal at a keystroke. I won’t have to explain why this is just super handy. It’s by the folks who made Quicksilver.

X11

X11 is a great addition to any Terminal lover. Terminal prompt themes like bashish and other fancy Linux-esque graphic addition to terminals often work properly with Xterm or Rxvt and only that. Or you might want to use Eterm, like I do – Enlightenment is really one of my favorite window-managers on Linux or BSD, and it works great with OS X. It’s on the Install DVD that came with your Mac, in the ‘Optional Installs’ folder. Why install it, you ask?
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(click for full size)

This particular setup lets me use my favorite old Winamp skins, lets terminals slide into a simple bar that you can ‘unslide’ by scrolling over the window (sounds complicated, but it’s super smooth)

Although GNU Screen comes standard, it deserves a mention. It’s like a window manager in a terminal. It allows for split screens, virtual terminals, and detachable screens. Check it out; type ‘man screen’ in the Terminal. Memorize the shortcuts and get rolling!

22 Apr
CocoiaCast Episode One: Secure E-Mail.
   Filed Under: Unfiled   

Cocoia CastThe Cocoia Blog has seen a lot of hyped terms on it — but not this one yet. Say hello to the first episode of Cocoia-Cast; about Cocoa, security on the Mac, and design with Macs in general. I hope you enjoy it.

The first episodes are about securing your communications; first securing Mail in this episode, in the second I will look at securing IM, and the third and final part will be about securing your surfing.

Link to Youtube (low res)

Download .torrent (Please do, eases the load on the server!)

21 Apr
Praetorian Update: April 2007
   Filed Under: Unfiled   

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Hello beta testers, time for an update.

Praetorian has been rolling steadily towards it’s Public Beta release candidate. As I have seen the trouble with compiling your own, I will make the latest sources of FreeRADIUS available as binary packages upon release, to save you the hassle. From there on, Praetorian will show you how your network’s going (the information architecture has been thrown upside down here, since the last preview) and your server is.

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Regardless of your understanding of computers, Praetorian will allow you to set up a Mac in your network to be a RADIUS server. This means you can let people log into your wireless or wired network with a username and password, or simply filter people based on hardware (MAC) addresses.
Praetorian has assistants for these tasks built in. If you have an Airport, it’s just a few clicks away to a super-secure network.

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The release candidate now has a probable release date and some features left undiscussed recently.

– New IndieHIG-compliant custom interface widgets.
– If licenses allow, a blazing fast scanning method to keep tabs on people online.
– Full document support; Praetorian’s own document type, raddb format, and SQL.
– Unlimited Undo functionality.
– Spotlight integration.
– Unparalleled security methods; passwords are stored in the keychain and kept in memory in an encrypted state.
– A separate Leopard version ready for release when OS X 10.5 is released.

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Cocoia expects to start public beta as soon as June 10th, culminating with the launch of the Cocoia Beta Panel, but expects at least one pre-release candidate beta release before commencing testing on the final branch.

Sign up for beta by email

.

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