The Talk Show: Live From WWDC
7:00pm Tuesday • California Theatre
Tickets Available • Fun Will Be Had

Linked List: March 13, 2008

Thursday, 13 March 2008

Clever, self-descriptive web service from Alex Payne.

Update: I’m not sure if it’s ironic or unironic, but by linking to it, I’ve apparently brought the site down.

Obama Campaign Skewers Clinton Email Statement ★

Interesting political tactic: a blog-style point-by-point critique of a bullshit-ridden press release from your opponent.

ExpanDrive 1.03 ★

Music to my ears from the release notes for ExpanDrive 1.03: “.DS_Store files are no longer saved out to the server but are instead mirrored internally.” Also listed are other things I complained about, including better keyboard shortcuts and user interface refinements.

WWDC 2008: June 9-13 ★

Not surprisingly, Apple has expanded WWDC to three tracks: Mac, IT, and the new one, iPhone.

‘Hacking’ Confusion ★

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen someone so confused about what “hacking” means.

OpenDNS Redirects Google.com Requests ★

I linked to OpenDNS last week, praising their service after Comcast’s own DNS servers had failed me for the last time. It ends up though that OpenDNS is a polarizing service — they’re both praised and scorned. One of the reasons they’re scorned is that they redirect requests to www.google.com to their own internal server before forwarding the request along to Google’s www.l.google.com. They also do wildcard matching for unregistered domain names, a move most DNS experts consider a no-no. They’re open about these “features” (e.g. here’s their explanation for the Google redirection), but I tend to take the side that any sort of “DNS+” service is worse than just plain DNS.

I think it’s worth keeping OpenDNS on deck for use in a pinch if your regular DNS server conks out, but I can’t recommend them for primary use.

International Rip-Off Exchange ★

Perhaps the best rip-off of DF’s design ever. Not only did they copy all of my code, including my Mint web stats JavaScript include (which allows me to see their incoming web traffic), but they added some intriguing new colors to the palette. Update: Here’s a screenshot for posterity’s sake.

Dropbox Screencast ★

Ambitious cross-platform file-sharing system. Still in closed beta, but the demo is certainly impressive.

Encouraging Failure: A Brief Tutorial ★

Mikey-San has a nice takedown of Dave Jewell’s piece for RegDeveloper encouraging the willy-nilly use of private Mac OS X APIs:

Undocumented “wheels”—which is a misleading way of saying “shit that wasn’t designed for you to use”—usually have nothing to do with writing great applications. The two are mutually exclusive concepts when the mass of public APIs are as rich and powerful as they are. We’re not talking about things that are essential to creating good software being hidden from developers.

No Compromises, Except for the Compromises ★

Apparently a compromise only counts when it’s something like a missing port or the lack of a built-in optical drive. Wired’s Gadget Labs call the ThinkPad X300 a “MacBook Air without the compromise”, but then go on to point out that the screen isn’t bright enough, battery life is poor, it weighs a half pound more, and costs $1000 more.

I still think the X300 looks like a terrific laptop, but it’s pretty obvious that Lenovo made compromises in its design — just different ones than Apple chose for the Air.

How Long Has the iPhone SDK Been in the Works? ★

Jason O’Grady asks:

It’s pretty obvious that the iPhone SDK is a really big deal, right? Could Apple have been planning an SDK all along? Or were they coerced into doing it by the crafty cottage industry of jailbreakers that’s grown around iPhone?

The conventional wisdom seems to be that Apple changed its mind in the fall (the SDK was announced in October), but I think it’s pretty clear this was in the cards all along. Simply judging by the quality and scope of the iPhone SDK documentation and tools, it seems like far more than a few months of work.

Quick Look for Fonts ★

Jonathan Hoefler:

It’s commonly used for images, but Quick Look turns out to be immensely useful for fonts as well, as it allows both fonts and families to be easily examined in detail without ever leaving the Finder.

iPhone SDK Downloads Top 100,000 ★

Apple:

Apple today announced that more than 100,000 iPhone developers have downloaded the beta iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) in the first four days since its launch on March 6.

And I thought WWDC was crowded last year.

SXSW Interactive 2008 Sketchnotes ★

If you don’t think Mike Rohde’s notes from SXSW are cool, you’re not hooked up right. (My thanks to everyone who came to see me speak Saturday, by the way, and my apologies to everyone who got turned away at the door after the room filled up.)

Sun, Apparently High as a Kite, Plans to Develop Java JVM for iPhone ★

Despite the fact that the iPhone SDK terms explicitly state that “No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple’s Published APIs and builtin interpreter(s)”, Sun announced that they plan to develop a JVM for the iPhone SDK. Eric Klein, vice president of Java marketing for Sun:

Our announcement was based on our excitement to build a JVM for the iPhone and the iTouch, as well as our assessment of Apple’s publicly available information on the SDK and related business terms.

Apparently they’re so excited they think there’s a device called the “iTouch”.

If there are clauses in the iPhone beta SDK license agreement that potentially limit third party application distribution, then these are items that we want to have a positive discussion with Apple about.

Please record these discussions and share them with the world, so that we can all have a good laugh.

Bampot of the Week: Alexander Wolfe ★

Fraser Speirs takes apart a jackassy piece by Alexander Wolfe positing that developers are “angry” at Apple regarding the restrictions in the iPhone SDK. (Via The Macalope.)