Google now brining the cloud into Outlook?

Google claims it sometimes hits a snag when pushing Google Apps products like Gmail to enterprises, meeting major resistance from users comfortable with the look and feel of Microsoft Outlook. So on Tuesday, the Mountain View, Calif.-based search giant unveiled Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook, a plug-in for Outlook 2003 and 2007 that presents users with the familiar Outlook user interface but runs e-mail through Google’s cloud rather than Microsoft Exchange.

http://www.crn.com/software/217800408

Event registration in C# 2.0

The C# 2.0 (and newer) compiler is smart enough to determine the type of delegate with which a particular event is implemented. This “delegate inference” capability enables you to omit the declaration of the requisite delegate in the code that registers an event handling method with an event.

Consider the following 1.x code that registers an event handling method with an event. This code explicitly instantiates the event handler (delegate) in order to register the associated method with the event.

thePublisher.EventName += new MyEventHandlerDelegate(EventHandlingMethodName);

The following 2.0+ code uses delegate inference to register the same method with the event. Notice the following code appears to register the event handling method directly with the event.

thePublisher.EventName += EventHandlingMethodName;

When you assign the method name directly to the event like that, the C# compiler ensures that the method signature matches the signature of the event handler upon which the event is based. The C# compiler then inserts the requisite delegate registration code (i.e., ... += new MyEventHandlerDelegate(EventHandlingMethodName);) in the output assembly.

This simplified syntax is made possible by the C# compiler, and not by any change to the fundamental ways that events are implemented in the .NET Framework. To be clear, it is not the case that events in C# 2.0 (and newer) can directly reference methods. What the compiler is doing for us is supplying the [still] requisite delegate syntax in the output assembly — as if we had explicitly instantiated the delegate.

Clipped from: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/event_fundamentals.aspx

Google Releases New Browser – Chrome

Google today has officially thrown it’s knock-out swing at Microsoft with the release of the official Google Chrome browser.  This is not a knock out punch, but a definitely a knockout swign destined to be a punch over the next few months.

For an entire overview of Google Chrome and it’s advance features view this mini overview in the form of a comic:

http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/

To download now:

http://www.google.com/chrome

One thing to note, Google Chrome has following user agent which indicates it’s based on the well known webkit open source browser commonly used by Apple Safari browser.

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US) AppleWebKit/525.13 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/0.2.149.27 Safari/525.13

Comics 2.0 in the Digital World?

While I have enjoyed the recent Hollywood iteration of Marvel comics with movies such as Superman, Spiderman, Hulk, etc., I have never been a reader of comics books themselves.

Reading through my typical news articles I found an intriguing article about Apple banning a comic book based app called Murderdrome.  Apple, according to the SDK guidelines, reserves the full right to reject any application which may be offensive to some people.  It’s very concerning to me when content beyond the obvious porn and blatant gore is blocked from being available through the App Store.

If an international news application, not bound by domestic censorship rules, posts a graphic image of a war scene in their news application as part of an article — can this now embody Apple to remove the application from the App Store?

Due to lack of access, I have yet to preview the Murderdrome app to determine how graphic the scenes may be, but based on the YouTube video below it’s plan comics and far from any graphic or questionable content.

Presuming Murderdrome simply has a controversial name and their content was actually quite the contrary to from the name’s suggestion, would Apple have accepted the App?  And if so, would they take it out afterwards when the content transitioned slowly to the more murderous scenes as the name implies.  As you can see, it’s a very blurry line Apple has their work cut out for them if they are going to play the “Content Cop” in their App Store.

The matter of fact is this App is very revolutionary.  Just by watching the YouTube video, I learned about the way comic are from pencil, to ink, to color — granted, one could have derived this through simple thought and this should probably indicate how distant I am from comics in general.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CecFio3gIOA

Bottom line though, Infurious, the makers of Murderdrome, decided to exploit the iPhone features to expose the entire process to the reader — an innovative feat clearly seen in their YouTube video.

In essence, they capture the three representative images for each scene during the stages of development (the pencil, inking, and final colorized step).  As you interact with the comics by flipping through the screens, you can drill down to either of the three images by dragging down or up. So if you like comics with the pencil look, you have it.  If you like comics in their full color mode — you have it to.  If you are simply the curious observer on how they created a particular screen, stop and flip through the three versions accordingly.

This is simply another demonstration of how digitization enhances the experience of a traditional medium beyond a simple port.

 

References:

http://www.macworld.com/article/135205/2008/08/comic.html?lsrc=rss_main

iTunes 7.7.0 and iPhone 2.0.2 Results

There is great debate still with the delays and times the iPhone takes to backup.  I myself had the excruciating waits of 2-3 hours for a simple backup as well as apps crashing.

I am not going to speculate exactly why the delays are, however after extensive research I concluded iPhone 2.0.2 has cleared the backup delays.  Since I am not sure if the backup delays are also remedied by the version of iTunes I am using, I would like to emphasize I am using 7.7.0 (shown as 7.7 in the about iTunes) instead of 7.7.1 which is the currently available version.

iTunes 7.7.1, again after extensive research, lead me to conclude it also has problems with the digital rights management applied to the applications.  If you download Apps from iPhone, this app may have trouble synching back to your computer.  I quote “may” because I have had mixed results.  Similarly, your apps may simply start crashing from one day to another without warning.  In my case, I was comfortably using my apps and stopped to show the lighter to my brother.  The lighter app froze (didn’t crash; just froze after a few frames of the flame video) requiring me to cold boot the iPhone.  Upon rebooting, none of my apps would launch — they would immediately quit.

By downgrading to iTunes 7.7.0 as some have indicated, I have resolved all these app problems.  I believe Apple is not as quick to update iTunes, even though they are aware of via a blanket email from Steve Jobs on the matter.  I feel this is mainly due to the fact they may be hard at work with 7.8 for a September announcement of a new iTunes subscription model (rumors have it at $100/year for full iTunes music access).

Anyhow, just to dispel any concerns I decided to perform a sync which should cause an automatic backup to occur as the conclusion of this post and these are the results.  My iPhone is pretty loaded too as you can see from this picture:

Backup started first, so will list times for this:

01:21:30am – started
01:22:30am – 33% done
01:23:30am – 50% done 
01:24:10am – 80% done 
01:24:30am – 80% done (stuck there a bit)

01:25:00am – 85% done (moved a few notches)
01:25:45am – 95% done
01:26:03am – 100% done (backup complete)

Sync started:
01:26:15 – Started Updating Apps

01:27:30 – Sync 80% done (Stylem only apparently)

01:28:55 – App Sync completed  
01:29:00 – Pod Casts synching started 

[Note:  I was wondering why iTunes seems darker here than the previous and this was due to the fact I had iTunes selected as the foreground window for this screen shot and those that follow]

01:30:55 – Photos Synching started
01:31:00 – All SyncComplete

 

I highly recommend you download the 7.7.0 version of iTunes for PC & Mac from my other postings or other sources on the internet and recommend you do a clean slate starting with a 2.0.2 factory restore using 7.7.0.

https://mike952.wordpress.com/2008/08/21/iphone-app-crashing-issue-resolved/

Cheers,

Mike

iPhone App Crashing Issue Resolved

After numerous restores, endless backups, and frustrating reconfiguration of my favorite apps I have finally arrived to the root of the problem and the solution.  First, just to make clear, I would like to point out the various things I have tried over the past week or so as surely you have tried some if not all yourself.  Each of these had varying levels of success but ultimately I encountered errors either when upgrading an app or simply launching it later on.

• Restore from previous backup
• Restore to original factory software and resync apps
• Remove App explicitly via the iPhone and resync
• Remove App explicitly via iTunes and re-adding it
• and more…

The root of the problem seems to be the way iTunes 7.7.1 applies the digital rights management to the apps.  iTunes does this to ensure the app only runs on authorized computers similar to how the music you purchase is also limited to authorized computers.  The problem stems from some failure in the way iTunes 7.7.1 applies this signature to the apps.  Further complicating matters are apps purchased through the App Store icon on the phone. Theory states these apps will sync up to your computer automatically since they were purchased through the same account.  These apps many times didn’t transfer over transparently — identifying again some issue with the digital rights management applied to the application files.

The solution is quite simple!  Simply downgrade to iTunes 7.7 and use that version until the next release is issued by Apple (expected in September as per some other blogs).  I had a heck of a time finding 7.7 and even initially thought Apple themselves downgraded to 7.7 because their site reflects iTunes 7.7.

 

After downloading from their site however, it clearly states 7.7.1 in the title bar so another source must be found.

For convenience, I have aggregated these installers from the web and they can be downloaded here:

Mac:

Simply drag the iTunes application into the trash.  Don’t worry none of your preferences are erased. Rerun the 7.7 installer and you are done.

iTunes77.zip

PC:

Uninstall iTunes and reinstall the following one.

iTunesSetup.zip

iPhone 2.0.2 update results

The iPhone 2.0.2 update does indeed help matters with the 3G connection. Now I waited almost a week since the update to report on my blog because I wanted to have ample time to test and review the results. As we all know, the update improved responsiveness of the phone in many areas such as the keyboard and contacts. The one item most people have been waiting roe though is the improved 3G connectivity.

My findings indicate the switching to edge randomly has decreased quite a bit. It has not been eliminated only because I noticed it on edge the other day at the AT&T store but this was the only time I noticed. Previous to the update I would notice through my speakers as the speakers would make the infamous GSM noise – indicating it as on the edge network at the time. Since the update the speakers never made noise again!

While at the AT&T store I mentioned the edge connection to a salesman and h pulled his 3G phone ( non iPhone ) and he also had edge at that time too! Great news for me as I felt the iPhone was simply doing what any other 3G phone would do.

I rarely have dropped calls and for some reason when I visited my parents on Saturday I had notorious amounts of dropped calls and no data connection. — at least it wouldn’t bring down the mail or web page when trying to. This brought my spirits down quite a bit as now my phone was acting up like many of the iPhones talked about online. Interestingly enough when I left my parents house everything went back to normal. Keep in mine also I had almost a full 3G signal at my Dad’s house.

Curious if this was an isolated incident I decided to drive by my dad’s neighborhood the following day and attempt making calls and low and behind I was dropping like crazy again.

Initially I believed AT&T was resetting their network or something to that effect the night before. This time however it was too coincidental the calls were dropping again in the same vicinity. My take so far is we have some areas of AT&T network which are not iPhone friendly for some reason and those in that area are mostly being affected.

iPhone speed tests super fast

I just upgraded my iPhone to firmware 2.0.2 and decided to conduct some tests. This website conducts some latency tests and then does a bandwidth test right afterwards. I feel this test is more valid than say the speed test within the app store because there are delays with DNS resolution and transfer start up times which unfortunately are included in the timing. While I agree the speed test app in the app store may represent real world scenarios, it does not measure nor report brute download capacity accurately.

I did find this website with a casual google lookup and I am in awe with the repeated results with a poor 3G signal.

See for yourself:

No matter how many times I try (in this case three) I find it difficult to match the brute timing above with the free speed test app in the app store. See for your self:

 

UPDATE 8/20:

Just to not create the wrong expectations, the speed I was obtaining was at 2:30am when surely there was very little traffic on the 3G network.  All throughout the day I was obtaining values from 400k-800k.

Musharraf, president of Pakistan, resigns

Today Musharraf, in a nationally televised address, resigned. Democracy prevails in pressuring those who exercise control over the will of the people.

Farewell to Inktel interns!!

Every year we reach the sad moment where we say farewell to our interns. This is a farewell party we threw this year for them. Each recieved a plaque containing a certificate of appreciation for all their hard work.   In the first picture from left to right are: Lionel Perez, Stephanie Tamargo, and Belkys Fernandez.