since1968.com: fierce opinions, briefly held, quietly disowned

Fuji X-Pro1 Firmware update stops the chatter · 38 words posted 290 days ago

Fuji has released firmware update 1.01 to stop the annoying aperture blade chatter. I’ve installed the update and can confirm the camera is now quiet.

Hope someone recorded that rattlesnake chatter before the update. Would make a nice ringtone.

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How to remove a Kipon M Mount adapter from the Fuji X-Pro1 · 54 words posted 300 days ago

File under “stupid obvious don’t panic,” but I couldn’t figure this one out: to remove a Kipon adapter from your M mount lens, push the silver button back up toward the camera body—and not straight down into the barrel. The adapter will come right off.

Thanks for Peter from Leica Rumors for his help.

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Fuji X-Pro1 User's Guide shows promise · 131 words posted 378 days ago

As much as I love the X100, Fuji released the camera in a state that felt like “beta” and never brought it up to production quality. For example, there are four ways to insert the battery and only one of them works. Also, Fuji ships the battery charger with a small plastic insert that seems expressly designed to be lost.

But it looks like Fuji listened to these complaints when designing the upcoming X-Pro1. The newly published X-Pro1 user’s manual (PDF) shows they took time to get some of the little details right:

The battery now has a dedicated charger. No more cheap plastic shim.
The battery has been redesigned and only inserts one way.

Takeaway: ya gotta sweat the small stuff. I can’t wait for this camera.

Image Credit: Fuji

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Superfastmatch on OS X · 82 words posted 509 days ago

Sunlight Labs and Media Standards Trust have released Superfastmatch, a tool for detecting similarities between texts.

My iMac is about two years old, with a quad core and 12GB RAM. Superfastmatch still taxes my machine. One minor quirk: the thread_count flag doesn’t seem to actually cap the number of threads, at least according to Activity Monitor.

But I’m happy to report it runs right out of the box on OS X. What a great tool for comparing texts. Thanks Sunlight Labs!

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Best reddit thread ever · 12 words posted 634 days ago

“What’s going on in the background of my girlfriend’s voicemail message?”

Wow.

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AirPort Updates fixes AirPort Extreme VPN Problems · 44 words posted 1786 days ago

You might miss it in the Time Machine hubbub, but Apple has quietly fixed its VPN issues in the latest “Time Machine and AirPort Update.”

I can now connect to my VPN even over the Airport Extreme. Run Software Update to get the fix.

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How to connect OLPC XO to WPA Airport Extreme · 85 words posted 1870 days ago

As others have noted, the XO doesn’t support WPA out of the box. A kind soul has posted a shell script to connect to a WPA Wifi network.

Connecting to an Airport Extreme base station is simple: make sure your wireless is set to 802.11n (802.11b/g compatible) with “Wireless Security” set to WPA/WPA2 Personal.

When you run the shell script, the SSID is the same as your wireless “Network Name.” The Pass phrase is your “Wireless Password.” And WPA Version is 1.

Happy surfing.

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Quick and Dirty MySQL Diagrams on OSX with EOModeler · 510 words posted 2072 days ago

Whenever I take on a new project with an existing database the first thing I like to do is generate an entity diagram of all the tables. On OSX you can buy or download any number of third party packages to model tables, but here’s how to do it with software you already own: WebObjects and EOModeler.

The executive version:

Create a MySQL database with Foreign Key relationships; then install the proper JDBC driver for MySQL; finally point EOModeler to your database to generate the diagram.

Although these steps are covered in various places on the web, here’s the whole thing step by step in detail. I assume you have MySQL 5 and OSX 10.4.9.

First, make sure you’re working with InnoDB tables. By default MySQL MyISAM tables will recognize but not enforce Foreign Key relationships. When creating MySQL tables remember to add ENGINE=InnoDB to your CREATE statements.

Next, you’ll need to install the correct driver so Java can connect to MySQL. Download Connector/J to your desktop. As of this writing the most current stable release is 5.0.

Untar the download and look for the following file: mysql-connector-java-5.0.6-bin.jar. You need to copy the jar file to your Java Extensions folder. To do so, open terminal and type the following commands:

cd ~/Desktop/mysql-connector-java-5.0.6 sudo cp mysql-connector-java-5.0.6-bin.jar /Library/Java/Extension [Enter your password when prompted]

Next, you’ll need to install EOModeler if haven’t already. It’s included with WebObjects. Search with Spotlight for EOModeler. If nothing turns up, or if you hate Spotlight, open finder and look for the following folder: /Developer/Applications/WebObjects.
- If you don’t have EOModeler, you need to install WebObjects. Find your OSX install DVD (darn!) and pop it in your Mac. Browse the contents and look for the WebObjects package, then double click to install. That’s all.
- If you do have EOModeler you can skip to the next step.
Launch EOModeler and select Model > New to launch the New Model Wizard. In the list of available adapters select JDBC and click Next.
Provide the connection information for your MySQL database. The username and password are simply the username and password you use for your particular MySQL database. Enter the following value for your URL:

jdbc:mysql://localhost/yourdatabasenamehere

The Wizard will next ask you what to include in your model. You might want to uncheck “Ask about relationships” if you have a lot of tables. Click Next.

Select the tables you want to diagram. For starters, just click Select All and then click Next, then click Finish.

EOModeler then generates a list of objects, which isn’t so useful. From the Menu, select Tools > Diagram View.

Schweet! You can save the generated diagram and reopen it in Xcode. You should end up with a diagram that looks something like the image below, foreign keys and all. Tip: if you end up with am archipelago of unconnected tables, you’re probably working with MyISAM tables instead of InnoDB.

Questions? Post them in the comments here. Just don’t expect any replies Sunday night. I’ll be respecting the Bing.

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ColdFusion 8 hosting on HostMySite · 56 words posted 2081 days ago

HostMySite is offering free ColdFusion 8 beta hosting for as long as the beta lasts. Amazingly, the plan even includes a 600MB SQL Server database. Plenty of room to kick the tires on someone else’s machine—although HostMySite and Adobe must both have real confidence in the stability of CF8 to offer a deal like this.

(via fullasagoog)

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Interview: Dave Hoff and Anthony Webb of IMified · 571 words posted 2172 days ago

Dave Hoff and Anthony Webb recently launched IMified, “an instant messenger buddy that works across all major IM networks and offers access to a growing number of web applications.” While I’ve worked with the ColdFusion Event Gateway to build automated bots in the past, I’ve never seen the Event Gateway used so well for such broad purposes under a heavy load: IMified provides a single chat interface to Basecamp, Remember the Milk, Google Calendar, and more. I asked Dave and Anthony to talk about their service. And if you haven’t checked out IMified yet, it’s worth your time.

since1968: IMified is one of those great ideas that seem obvious only in hindsight: an IM content aggregator. How did you come up with the idea?

IMified: The idea for IMified came about when I was looking for an easier way to post todo’s to my Basecamp account. I found myself neglecting to add stuff to my projects because the process to do so was too cumbersome. Basecamp is a service I use a lot but doesn’t really warrant me leaving it open in my browser all day. I use IM throughout the day for staying in touch with colleagues and family. It’s always open and available, yet unobtrusive and was a logical interface to “fire and forget” simple data entry tasks.

since1968: Rails gets most of the “Web 2.0” attention. How did you decide to use ColdFusion?

IMified: Choosing anything other than CF as platform wasn’t really an option. Anthony and I are CF developers. When the concept for IMified was finally laid out, ColdFusion became the logical option due in most part to the excellent Event Gateways that are offered out of the box in the enterprise edition. The event gateways allow us to tightly integrate with the IM networks we connect to.

since1968: You say on your blog that your initial growth was almost accidental. For all we know you guys may be running a higher load on the CF Event Gateway than anyone else. What is your load?

IMified: Before launching IMified we did some research and tried to find others out there making use of CF’s Event Gateways under a heavy load. We didn’t find much information to go off of and were really surprised to see that the event gateways were so under utilized. We are handling a very heavy load and CF has handled this load like a champ! Our down time to date has been due to problems with some of the IM networks we run on and one out of control log file that grew to 30gb. In just 3 weeks of operation, our users have completed over 60,000 tasks through IMified!

since1968: What pitfalls did you encounter with the Event Gateways?

IMified: Honestly, none. There haven’t been any surprises as of yet and we don’t expect to see any soon. We’re really impressed with their performance, stability, and ease of use.

since1968: Do you have plans to monetize IMified?

IMified: Yes, we most certainly do. Someones got to pay for all this bandwidth! In the next few weeks we’ll be launching the next phase of IMified that we feel will really change the way people think of IM. We want IMified to be your go-to buddy when you need to get something done at your desk or on your mobile. Somewhere in there will be a business model. Hint hint… API.

since1968: Thanks for your time.

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