Bleadof’s world of tinkering

April 4, 2011

Android rant

Filed under: General whining — Bleadof @ 15:04

This is a very opinionated rant on the thoughts after I got the Samsung Google Nexus S as my first Android phone and am trying to switch from the iPhone 3G S. I probably have missed something, so just flame the comments if there is something to flame about.

Philosophy

Android

Android philosophy is quite close to Linux philosophy. We have a lot of software, stuff is free, so there is mass. The stock software is a bit so so, but since everything is open and free somebody else can and probably will do a better application.

Okay! That’s cool, but if you’re NOT a NERD, but just a regular user, how much time will you spend to find the best software for something like email.

This is the Linux (and the Windows) problem: The stock software is somewhat usable but at least I get frustrated since they lack features. What does this mean is that you end up digging up the internet, install something, try it out and it’s crap. Yeah, crap – that’s what Android Marketplace is full as is Linux package repositories.

Android is a Linux.

iOS

So how does the iOS philosophy differ from the Android one? The difference is very simple – the default has to be good enough. If you buy an iPhone, the stock software is already so good that you in most cases don’t need better. They’re hardly perfect but in most cases you’re not going to be frustrated using them, or at least I’m not.

App Store vs. Marketplace

Marketplace

Let’s face it, Android marketplace is full of crap because nobody is looking after it. This is fairly similar thing on Linux all over, it’s really hard to find ANYTHING from there! Okay, a correction, you will find something, but it’s CRAP, if you exclude some few exceptions.

Marketplace relies on the same kind of idea as does App Store, user reviews. I don’t exactly know why this doesn’t work, but when I try finding something from the Marketplace most of the time the reviews, stars or comments, aren’t very helpful. I just end up trying things and wasting my time. Maybe this is because there’s so many (crappy) applications, that it’s just impossible for someone go through them all?

Of course it’s also nice to have all those applications free but that actually means that YOU, the user, has to work for finding the applications you’ll be willing to use, if you ever do.

How to make Marketplace better?

So how could we get the experience on the Marketplace better? I think there should be a community review process which would weed out the crappiest of the crap. Now there are multiple sites that do reviews on the applications but this should be somehow integrated with the Marketplace just because star rating with comments made with the phone are hardly enough.

The community model should be some sort of hybrid of the StackOverflow model with the current star rating and comments. There should be community moderators that look through the applications, they would get karma for going through the stuff and with more karma you could do more stuff on the review process.

Coming up with this model would be another blog post altogether…

Amazon Appstore

Of course now you ask: “What about Amazon Appstore?”. Well, my answer is pretty straightforward. I don’t know. It doesn’t work in Finland yet and I don’t know when it will work outside US. Maybe this is the saviour for the Android application discovery experience.

App Store

There’s a lot of pretty good applications in the App store. The quality stays always a bit better because somebody is actually keeping at least track of it. It’s of course not perfect since with moderation there’s always stupid rules on the content and some applications don’t get in because somebody at the App Store review team doesn’t like something or Apple doesn’t like something. Anyway, I prefer that somebody actually goes through the crap before it is sent to the general public, then I don’t have to work so much. I might miss out on something, that’s true, but at least I don’t get some of the horrific shit you can end up installing on the Marketplace.

Experience

So let’s agree that when I’m talking about experience and usability it’s of course only my exprience since I haven’t conducted any studies about it and don’t even claim to be any kind of expert at it.

iOS

I’ve been using iOS way longer than Android so of course I’m biased and some people might call me an Apple fanboy because of this but I don’t really see myself as such.

Apple has been leading the way of smart phone operating systems lately. There has been great innovation in the App Store and the execution of it, the simple and yet fairly powerful user interface. In addition iOS has a really good web experience, tight integration with the iTunes (in good and bad), really good stock applications and very rich set of applications in the App Store.

So of course when the setup is like this, it sounds like Android as operating system is starting off as an underdog and that has to be acknowledged. This said, I won’t be going on too much detail why I like the iOS, but I’ll go through on the next section what are my beefs with the Android and there you’ll also can see where the comparison favours the iOS.

Android

Somehow on the Android I feel that there’s not enough UX testing been done with it which can be partly due to the fact it’s meant as a platform for the manufacturers to build their experience on top of it. Anyway, I bought some what of a flagship product from the maker of the platform albeit the hardware was supplied by Samsung. The experience on the Google Nexus S should be top of the class, am I right?

Well, it isn’t. There are a lot of problems I noticed and yes some of them might seem small and irrelevant, but still they somehow annoyed me. I made a nice little list about them.

Problems

  • Facebook application sync is disabled.
  • Lack of shared controls for the media playback
    • You can have multiple media sources overlapping and there’s no simple way of switching between.
  • The stock email client
    • (Re)moving multiple emails
    • Filtering support (to be fair iOS doesn’t have this either)
  • Notification sound mixing with current media playback
    • Might not be a big thing to you but felt really choppy since iPhone has this.
  • Podcasts
    • There’s NO support as default.
    • You can’t sync them from your computer.
    • You have to keep track what you have listened with your computer.
    • Downloading them with your phone drains the battery.
    • Google Listen is BUGGY.
  • Flash support
    • Funny enough this seems to be a boon and a bane.
    • Think about all of those nifty flash ads on the mobile.
    • Thank goodness you can fairly easily disable it and enable it when needed.
  • The browser
    • There’s lag when you’re scrolling pages.
    • Somehow the zoom isn’t quite as good as on the iOS.
    • The experience just feel less smooth than the iOS. (Sorry about the vagueness, but the analysis would be another post altogether.)
  • The widgets
    • They make the UI lag.
    • Facebook and Twitter widgets are just a bit crappy.
    • There’s just not many widgets that are really fleshed out.
  • The notifications
    • For some reason Facebook notifications and Twitter notifications aren’t as reliable as on the iPhone.
  • Transitions and animations
    • The transitions and animations are way smoother on the iPhone.
  • Scrolling
    • Scrolling experience depends on the application. On the iPhone I get a fairly consistent scrolling experience on lists, but not here.
  • Synchronisation
    • Everything syncs to the cloud.
    • It’s pretty much effortless for the user.
    • Where is my information? Is it safe?

And more crap on Android experience is that the Spotify application on the Android SUCKS because at the moment it still crashes due to “too many” playlists.

Plusses

So that this doesn’t sound too sour, let’s add some good things about the Android experience.

  • The notification area
    • Provides a simple and neat view on the all of the notifications.
    • This is probably the best feature of the Android OS.
  • The widgets are kind of cool.
    • I really like the flash light widget that uses the flash led.
    • The weather + news ticker is nice.
    • The wi-fi, bluetooth, location and brightness control widget is handy when you want to control the battery life.
  • Free software
    • Having a lot of free software is a boon and bane.
  • Less limitations
    • Google is way more liberal on what you can do with the phone.
  • Synchronisation
    • Everything syncs to the cloud.
    • It’s pretty much effortless for the user.

Conclusions

So you could say that the Android experience for me hasn’t been the smoothest. I’m at the moment lacking a nice way of listening to podcasts. And since the phone I got had a defective headphone socket which I know because the headset remote on the headset I got with the phone isn’t working, I haven’t been too pleased with it.

Even if I take that out and just look at the user experience on the Android and the iPhone you can see that on the iPhone there’s way more polish. It’s not just about eye-candy but the quality of how things are done. I actually prefer to get a really good and thought out way of doing something than just some way of doing it.

On the Android you a lot of times you have some way of doing the thing you want to do, but it can be horrible, but that’s okay, since you’ll get used to it or maybe someone will make it better. In a way there’s always hope for something better that doesn’t exactly lie on one company but that’s also a problem if nobody really takes the responsibility.

Android user

If you really want to spend time with your phone customizing it, finding the best software to do the one thing you want do and you want to have flash, get Android. It’s not a really thought out product but you’ll be able to do most of the stuff adequately, but you’ll be missing out lot of the cool content in the App Store. Then again you will have a lot of free applications, better notification UI and widgets.

iPhone user

If you want to use your phone mostly on defaults, are more interested in getting things done and are willing to accept the fact that Apple will tell you what you can and can’t do, get iPhone. Most of the time they’ll provide you good tools on doing the basics but sometimes you’re just stuck with defaults and there’s nothing you can do to make it better, besides maybe jailbreak. You’ll have all the cool apps at the App Store but you’ll have way less free options.

What will I do?

For now I’m going to choose Android for a while since I already bought the product and I see that they’ve at least tried to innovate where iOS hasn’t been very exciting lately. I’m a weird combination though since I don’t really want to do a lot of customisations but most of the time prefer defaults and just want to use my device. I still see that there’s potential in Android but it’s still behind iOS. I hope they catch up. And I won’t be giving up my iPhone either…

September 9, 2010

Ajatuksia mobiilikehityksestä

Filed under: Just something — Bleadof @ 13:09

Koska sanomisiani tullaan julkaisemaan MikroPC-lehdessä, niin päätin julkaista myös kokonaisuudessaan tekstin, josta lainaukset ovat peräisin, mahdollisten väärinymmärsten välttämiseksi.

Päivityksiä!

  1. Tekstissä on vanhaa tietoa, koska Apple tänään 09.09.2010 höllensi aiemmin tänä vuonna tekemiään rajoituksia ja mahdollistaa sovelluksien kehittämisen millä työkalulla tahansa, kunhan lopullinen sovellus ei ajonaikaisesti lataa ajettavaa koodia.
  2. Mobility APIen avulla pystyt kyllä soittamaan jo musaa, mutta ne eivät ole vielä mukana Qtn levityksessä.

Taustaa

Annetaan nyt alustavasti taustaa, että olen tehnyt Nokian alustoille kahdella eri teknologialla, eli Qtlla ja webbikehityksenä. Androidille ja iPhonelle en ole kirjoittanut mitään, kunhan vain lueskellut ja katsellut videoita asiasta kiinnostuneena.

Kehitysteknologiat

Webbiteknologialla tarkoitan JavaScript, HTML(5), CSS(3/2)

  • Nokia: Symbian C++ (natiivi), Qt & C++, Java ME, Python, JavaScript ja selaimen kautta webbiteknologiat.
  • Android: Java (dalvik), C, C++, webbiteknologiat
  • iPhone: Objective-C ja webbiteknologiat

Tästä jo nähdään, että periaatteessa webbiteknologioilla voidaan tehdä sovelluskehitystä kaikille alustoille. Nykyään webbiteknologioilla voidaan myös tehdä sovelluksia ilman verkkoyhteyksiä. Rajoittavana tekijänä on tässä tapauksessa teknologian rajoitteet, eli hitaus, rajoitettu pääsy raudan ominaisuuksiin. Nämä rajoitteet ovat hyvin pitkälti samat jokaisella alustalla, mutta periaatteessa näitäkin voidaan kiertää. Se on taas oma asiansa, joten en ota niihin nyt kantaa sen enempää. Näissä ongelmat ovat joka alustalla samanlaisia, eli skaalautuvuus eri näyttökokoihin ja resursseihin.

Symbian

Natiivien ohjelmakehityksen rajoitteet ovat ehkä Symbian C++ kannalta suurimmat osaltaan juuri eri käyttöjärjestelmäversioiden takia, kuten myös osaltaan hankala käyttöisten kirjastojen takia. Useat eri puhelinmallit ja käyttöjärjestelmäversiot auheuttavat päänvaivaa myös testaamisen kannalta. Yksittäisellä kehittäjällä esimerkiksi on harvemmin varaa testata monella eri laitteella.

Qt C++ tuo vähän helpoutta ohjelmistokehitykseen itsessään todella näppärien kirjastojen ja huomattavasti helpomman käyttöliittymäohjelmoinnin osalta, mutta tässä riippakivenä on edelleen se, että Qt ei vielä löydy vakiona kaikista laitteista, joten se pitää toimittaa mukana. Harmillista on myös, että Qt 4.6. versiossa ei ole vielä mahdollista käyttää 3Dhen tarkoitettua APIa, joten 3D pelien tekeminen Qtlla ei vielä onnistu.

Molemmissa, Symbian C++ ja Qt C++, pitää ohjelmoijan hoitaa resurssienhallinta käsin, vaikkakin Qtssa on automaattisia tapoja sen helpottamiseksi.

Käyttöjärjestelmänä S60 on suunniteltu mobiilikehitykseen, mutta on sittemmin rapautunut osaltaan ikänsä takia, mutta pääasiallisesti muuttuneiden vaatimusten takia. Multimediaominaisuudet ovat aikalailla päälle liimattuja.

Työkalut Symbianille eivät ole parhaasta päästä. Emulaattori on esimerkiksi todella hidas.

Tietoa ja esimerkkisovelluksia löytyy Symbianille Nokian omasta palvelusta forum.nokia.com .

Android

Java on Androidin pääkehityskieli, mutta C ja C++ mahdollistavat myös pääsy lähemmäksi rautaa. Kehittäjän kannalta Java on heti webbiteknologioiden jälkeen tästä kehityskielirepertuaarista korkeimmalla tasolla. Ohjelmoijan ei tarvitse hoitaa käsin kaikkea resurssien hallintaa, kuten muistinkäsittelyä.

Peruskirjastot on suht hyvät ja lisäkirjastojakin löytyy, tosin ne pitää erikseen kääntää Dalvikille, koska Dalvik käyttää omaa binäärimuotoansa. Dalvik on siis Googlen kirjoittama virtuaalikone, joka eroaa Sunin, eli nykyään Oraclen, JVMstä.

Hankaluuksia Androidissa tuo lähinnä se, että sitä on mahdollista ajaa hyvinkin rajatuilla resursseilla ja erilaisella raudalla, joten jos haluaa ohjelmansa toimivan joka yhdistelmässä on se otettava huomioon ja tämä aiheuttaa taas testauksen kannalta päänvaivaa.

Käyttöjärjestelmänä Android on ehkä lähtökohdiltaan parhaassa tilanteessa. Ikää ei ole vielä kertynyt kovin paljoa ja se on suunniteltu mobiilialustaksi. Nykyaikaiset multimediaominaisuudet ovat otettu huomioon alusta alkaen.

Työkalut ovat Androidille ihan kohtuulliset jo sen kautta, että kielenä on Java. Eclipse on Googlen tukema työkaluympäristö.

Tietoa, videoita ja esimerkkisovelluksia löytyy varsin hyvin Googlen omasta dokumentaatiosta.

iPhone

Objective-C on nykyään ainoa hyväksytty kieli heidän raudassaan, joten vaihtoehtoja ei ainakaan tarvitse miettiä – tosin Objective-C on myös Cn jälkeläinen, joten C koodi toimii siellä myös. Objective-C on abstraktiotasoltaan C++ ja Javan väliltä. Ohjelmoija on vastuussa resurssien hallinnasta.

iPhonen kirjastoista minulla ei ole juurikaan kokemusta, mutta pikaisella dokumentaatiovilkauksella vaikuttavat ne suhteellisen kattavilta.

Käyttöjärjestelmänä sijoittuu iOS Androidin ja Symbianin väliin, vaikkakin asettaa ehkä eniten rajoitteita sovelluskehittäjälle. Nykyaikaiset multimediaominaisuudet ovat otettu huomioon alusta alkaen.

iPhone on ehkä testauksen kannalta tällä hetkellä helpoin. Puhelimesta on neljä versiota ja erot esiintyvät pääasiassa suorituskyvyssä ja joidenkin ominaisuuksien eroavaisuuksina. Käyttötapaus sanelee sen, että mikä on ongelmallisinta.

Työkalut ovat iPhone-kehitykseen varsin kohtuulliset. XCode on Applen tukema työkaluympäristö.

Tietoa ja esimerkkisovelluksia löytyy varsin hyvin.

Yhteenveto

Lyhyesti ja ytimekkäästi jos kerrataan, niin Android on kehittäjän näkökulmasta peruskäyttötapauksille helpoin lähestyä tuttujen työkalujen takia (Java ja Eclipse) varsinkin kun dokumentaatiota ja tietoa löytyy suhteellisen paljon, vaikkakin käyttöliittymäohjelmointi poikkeaakin hieman standardi-Javan tavasta. Myöskin muistinhallinnasta ei tarvi pitää huolta niin tarkasti, joten se on selkeä etu iPhoneen ja Symbianiin.

iPhone on oma lukunsa näissä piireissä ja karsii tekijöitä maksullisuutensa kuten myös Applen asenteen takia, mutta on ehdottomasti myös yksi mielenkiintoisimmista alustoista. Väittäisin ohjelmistokehityksen olevan iPhonelle ja Symbianille Qt C++ teknologialle samaa tasoa. Kirjastot ovat molemmissa hyvät, mutta ohjelmoijalle jää edelleen enemmän vastuuta muunmuassa muistinhallinnasta, verrattuna Androidiin. Toki helpompi 3D -ohjelmointi ja rajatumpi laitepohja on myös etuja.

Symbianille (, Maemolle ja Meegolle) kehittäessä on monia tapoja tehdä asioita ja jokaisen käyttötapauksen kohdalla kannattaa valita siihen sopiva, mutta Qt on Nokian alustoilla tulevaisuus ja toimii suurimmassa osassa käyttötapauksia, joten minä suosittelen lämpimästi sitä, vaikkakin työkaluissa on vielä hieman parantamisen varaa.

Android on siis minun näkökulmastani helpoin ja väittäisin, että iPhone ja Symbian Qtlla ovat samassa tasossa. Tämä tosin sillä varauksella, että jos haluaa 3Dtä tai multimediaa, niin Symbianilla joutuu käyttämään Symbian C++, joka on taas huomattavasti vaikeampaa. Perusjutut onnistuvat kaikilla suhteellisen helposti, mutta Android ja iPhone ovat selkeästi paremmissa lähtökohdissa pelien ja multimediasovellusten teon kannalta. Webbiteknologiolla voi kehittää kaikille alustoille, mutta käyttötapaukset ovat osittain rajattuja, eli videoa, 3Dtä ja osittain ääniä ei voi käyttää.

May 27, 2010

Thoughts on Facebook privacy

Filed under: General whining — Tags: , — Bleadof @ 10:05

I think the most important difference between for example Twitter and Facebook is that in Facebook people share more personal things compared to Twitter. Also in Twitter a lot of people are behind a nickname where as in Facebook people are actually using their own name and it’s shown everywhere. I don’t mind that my followers for example in Twitter are public since it works with a nickname and the if you want to share your full name you’re more than entitled to do so. Where as in Facebook it guides you to share your full name and makes it thus easier to connect that data to you than in Twitter. This fundamental difference, as far as I’m concerned, has always been more of pain point than anything else.

Now that the privacy settings have been made more clearer, it still doesn’t really mean that people will understand why to use them. As the privacy isn’t just about the technology but awareness of people. I still think that part of people don’t really understand why it’s important to have the privacy features or what is really good to share. I’m sad to say that at the moment I’m not still all convinced that defaults in Facebook privacy settings are all quite OK. I wouldn’t want to undermine people and say that they won’t get why privacy is important but I’m afraid that’s what is going to happen.

Most of my Facebook friends aren’t really my friends but more like acquaintances. You still add them there because you don’t want to be rude and you might want to get to know them. Do I really want them to see all the things I want my close friends to see? No, I don’t. I know how to manage that, but can the average Joe do it? I think not. He won’t probably even care until something bad happens.

This isn’t of course only issue with Facebook. It applies generally to internet privacy and I don’t have a clear solution for this. I wouldn’t mind though if the default privacy settings would be more stricter.

I wrote this first as a comment to a Facebook and Privacy: It’s Time to Move On article/.

November 28, 2009

Riverside 28.11.2009 at Tanssisali Lutakko, Jyväskylä, Finland

Filed under: Just something,Live,Music — Tags: , , , , , , — Bleadof @ 02:11

I just came from the Riverside gig held at Lutakko, Jyväskylä and wanted to share my feelings about it.

As I had never heard their new album I was quite anxious and a bit on my toes because I usually like to check out the bands material beforehand. I picked on a vibe that the rest of the audience was the waiting side as well, because apparently not many, maybe even any, had seen them before. Luckily that wasn’t a problem at all.

They started with some old songs, I’d name them if I’d remember which were they, but I don’t. Anyway, it set the mood right and sucked me in. The vocalist, Mariusz Duda, was a nice chap and kept chatting to the crowd between the songs. After the first piece he announced that they were not here to play songs but compositions and that they’d play the whole new album. Crowd cheered and I felt sting but forgot it after the first composition started to build up. I was tapping on myself, waving, enjoying it. There on I didn’t really loose touch to the music, I was living and solely concentrating on it with my way of course, tapping and “drumming”.

There were highs and lows. The music took paths that seemed familiar but felt still right and weren’t too familiar. I didn’t feel lost at all with the new album and I was just able to enjoy it and the gig. There were short pauses between some songs as Duda was trying to interact with the crowd, apparently trying to probe the mood. I don’t know the impression he got but I felt that others were enjoying too although I didn’t really connect with anything but the music. I couldn’t because I was too busy admiring the way it flowed, progressed and felt.

The drumming being the key aspects of my enjoyment, there was quite enough hooks and technicality in it that kept me awed, but again didn’t loose me. I would not have changed hardly anything.

The new album finished, I only knew it because I could actually recognize the melody again and I suspect that Dura might’ve said it. I knew that the end was near but didn’t want it break the spell so I concentrated on jamming along. Then it came, the last song, encore and the end. I was left wanting more, so I bought the new album which came with 2008 live DVD. Again I was but mere mortal but for a while I was just living through music.

Thank you Riverside for cheering me up and providing me with a amazing experience.

January 10, 2009

Miranda that ghost just isn’t

Filed under: Meme — Bleadof @ 13:01

I seem to blog only when there’s a meme. Maybe it’s because I don’t really have anything to say but I find these memes amusing… :) This one I saw in Facebook.

  1. Put your iTunes/Napster/Zune Player/WinAmp/etc on shuffle.
  2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
  3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!
  4. Tag 10 or more friends who might enjoy doing this as well as the person you got it from.
IF SOMEONE SAYS “IS THIS OKAY” YOU SAY?
Russia on Ice – Porcupine Tree
WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
San Tropez – Pink Floyd
WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
Don’t fear the reaper – Apollo 440
HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
Roy’s Keen – Morrissey
WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE?
Kohtaaminen – Ultra Bra
WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
Inertiatic Esp – The Mars Volta
WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
Shine on me – Kingston Wall
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR PARENTS?
A forest – Nouvelle Vague
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
When the sun goes down – Arctic Monkeys
WHAT IS 2+2?
Transport is arranged – Pavement
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Monochrome – Dominique A – C’était ici
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Planet – Kemopetrol
WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Monochrome – Dominique A – Le Phare
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
flversögn – Sigur Rós
WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Textures – Robert Miles
WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
Two minute warning – Depeche Mode
WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
Bang bang – Nancy Sinatra
WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
Ei – Maija Vilkkumaa
WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Vuokralainen – Zen Café
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
Nobody home – Pink Floyd
WHATS THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?
Winter – Coney Island Low – Clint Mansell
HOW WILL YOU DIE?
Starman – David Bowie
WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?
Come here boy – Imogen Heap
WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?
The slow drug – PJ Harvey
WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?
Wednesday – Tori Amos
WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?
Vähän ennen – Maija Vilkkumaa
WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST?
Bildungsrock – Tommi Liimatta
DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?
Näkyvän valon olennot – CMX
IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
Satellite – Depeche Mode
WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?
Cowboys – Portishead
WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
Miranda that ghost just isn’t – The Mars Volta

November 13, 2008

Book meme (nearest book, page 56, 5th sentence)

Filed under: Just something,Meme — Tags: — Bleadof @ 23:11

Book meme seen on Planet Gnome by Sebastian Pölsterl, Karl Lattimer and Mark Doffman.

  1. Grab the nearest book.
  2. Open it to page 56.
  3. Find the fifth sentence.
  4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
  5. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

For example, many implementations of CORBA do not contain a security service at all.

Quote is from chapter which tells about different distributed object platforms and what things to consider when choosing one. It is from the “Building Secure Software: How to avoid security problems the right way” by John Viega and Gary McGraw. I’ve been reading for my thesis and it was just few centimeters from my right hand.

November 11, 2008

AT&T x86 assembly instruction reference

Filed under: Assembly,C,Programming,Studies,Thesis,Tinkering — Bleadof @ 19:11

The juice of this blog post is here: AT&T x86 assembly instruction reference can be found in the Appendix B. with the the title “Common x86 Instructions” from Programming from the Ground Up by Bartlett, J.

The actual process how I came about finding this bit of info was when I was reading Building Secure Software by Viega, J and McGraw, G in towards efforts of finishing my bachelor and master thesis on “Common faults in software which lead to a vulnerability”. The book is a brilliant as an entry level book for everyone working on software development and trying to think more securely when programming. Although hopefully my master’s thesis will serve this entry level of thinking secure while programming as well. Anyway, I was reading the BSS book and on the Stack Overflows chapter there’s this part where you’re told to use the gcc with -S flag to compile the C code to Assembly language and tweak it. So to be able to tweak it I wanted to understand what were the instructions in the Assembly language. I googled a bit to find AT&T instructions and that didn’t give me much until I finally found a question on comp.lang.asm.x86 news group which said that one would be in the Programming from the Ground Up book and there it was.

June 25, 2008

Podcasts

Filed under: Just something — Bleadof @ 19:06

I know that podcasts have been around for quite some time already but it’s just recently I’ve really started to listen more than one podcast. Because the podcasts I listen are pretty neat I just wanted to point them out to people who might read my blog. So I composed a list!

Podcasts

Entertainment
SModcast
SModcast is a podcast from Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier.
Rogues’ Gallery
It’s a progressive rock radio which is streamed live on Friday morning here in Finland. Frans Keylard is the host of the show and he plays mainly new progressive rock and occationally few wishes the listeners have submitted. You can interact with Frans during the show in IRC by coming to server irc.thedividingline.com:6667 on channel #dividingline.
Information technology
Software engineering radio
It’s a podcast where couple of German dudes interview people and talk about subjects in software engineering. They have some brilliant stuff there. I’ve started listening it just a while and I’ve picked up so much about different things that it’s amazing. Beats easily most of the lectures I’ve been to!
The Java Posse
It’s a podcast where Tor Norbye (Sun Microsystems), Carl Quinn (Google), Dick Wall (Google), Joe Nuxoll (Navigenics) talk about what’s happening in the Java community. Another one of those podcasts which I haven’t yet had really time to listen much but I will in the future.
Security
Silver Bullet Security Show
Is a podcast done by Gary McGraw and is sponsored by IEEE Security & Privacy. Gary interviews people from the field of security. I haven’t yet really started listening this, but it’s worth of mentioning.
Security Now!
Is a podcast done by people from Gibson Research Corporation. They talk about security in information technology. Another one of those podcasts I haven’t really had time to focus but I will in the future.

June 9, 2008

iSync not launching on Leopard 10.5.3.

Filed under: Os X — Bleadof @ 18:06

I had a problem for a while that I couldn’t launch iSync normally from /Applications, but it did still did work launching it from /Applications/iSync.app/Contents/MacOS/iSync . I knew this must be an issue for someone else as well so a little digging got me the anwser from the Apple Support discussion with title “iSync won’t open in 10.5.3.”.

Fix iSync launching problem
  1. Drag iSync from Applications to Desktop.
  2. Drag it back to Applications.
  3. Try launching it normally.

March 14, 2008

Great Assembler programming book

Filed under: Assembly,Programming,Thesis,Tinkering — Tags: , , — Bleadof @ 14:03

I found this brilliantly written Assembler, which I’m reading for my thesis, book online a while back already but I thought it might worth mentioning now. It’s called “PC Assembly Language” and its author is Paul A. Carter. It can be downloaded in PDF and PostScript so I suppose most of the people can read it. I don’t about the accessibility of a PDF or PS so I won’t say everyone can read it, but the text itself is very clear and easy to understand. It also offers good examples. I think it’s a bit sad that it’s written in Intel syntax, but I suppose that’s unavoidable. I’ve been reading mostly AT&T syntax which is a bit different, but you get used to Intel syntax fairly fast.

Now I’m off to a meeting…

Older Posts »

Powered by WordPress