beyond ls

Apple linux

When you start learning unix then the ls command is probably one of the first ones you come accross. It lists files. You need that. Allot. It is pretty easy to overlook that there is much more to files these days then the information that the ls command will provide you with. For OS X you have these additional commands that you can try:

stat -x FILENAME
This is a standard unix command. Helpful if you are looking for modification or access times or simply need to know which inode a file is starting on.

/Developer/Tools/GetFileInfo FILENAME
The default filesystem for OS X is HFS+. This can store extended attributes with your file, and if you have the free developer option insalled then you can use this to read the extended attributes. /Developer/Tools might be worth a casual ls as it contains a couple of other interesting tools

ls -ls FILENAME/rsrc
HFS+ allows files to have a so called ‘resource fork’. By adding /rsrc after the file name you can use the ls and even the cp command on these parts of the file.

mdls FILENAME
With OS X 10.4 apple introduced a searchable file content meta database. The spotlight icon sits prominently in the uppper right corner of the screen. But also in a command line you can access the information via mdls and a couple of other tools.

All these commands have a man page in case you need to know some details of how they work.

another one of these things

Apple

Another exclusive windows ‘feature’ ‘event’ whatever you want to call it.

I might switch just to be part of these things. I really would love to share my computer and my (neighbourghs) internet connection with a couple of obscure organisations between here and Wladiwostok.

But no. This stuff simply doesn’t work on macs. In years of viruses and spyware there has not been anything like this of OS X.
Not many things in life are black and white, but few are, and it does not help to make them gray just because most of it is:

– there is no malware for OS X
– the President of the USA is not a smart man
– fossil fuels will run out

great campaign, Sony

internet M$ marketing media technology

The xbox crashing meme has reached slashdot.
Sony is huge. Their Music division probably messed up on a scale that will be stellar for times to come. But their Playstation 3 dept. does rather well: For the XBox 360 this week is really really important. People listen to what people have to say. If the bad news continues to stick with the XBox 360 then this could be tricky for those brave people in Redmond that took on the gaming market. All the pre order sales have been done by hard core gamers. I don’t numbers on this, but my guess is that you really start making money with games (and therefor the consoles) once you reach the broader range of the not so hard core gamers. And for those people it matters if they spend 400 now or 400 later. These people might just wait for the PS3. If they do then Micosoft just lost a big part of the head start bonus. Looking at those ‘internets’ right now it appears as if Sony does an excellent job in putting bad word of mouth around the 360.
Just don’t think that the Music division could benefit from Sony’s PS3 underground marketing skills. They will simply never find the person who might in charge for this. That has nothing to do with the cladestine nature of this. It’s just that Sony is as broken as most big companies are.

good to be wrong

internet

When the good people at fxguide started to podcast this summer I thought to myself: Another podcast nobody is gonna listening too.
Turns out: I was wrong. What changed? I spend more time in the car now since my clients are spread out over town. So I bought a Monster iPod car connector (they are able to charge 80$ for that!) and suddenly I find myself always having a freshly filled iPod with me. Living in LA was great because of KRCW. The first nine years. Now the tuner only is set to the frequency of the iPod and I am loving it. Mike, Jeff & John: keep it up. It is simply great. Of course fxguide is not the only podcast in my mix, but it certainly stands out in the quality. And it exemplifies the potential of podcasts:
There is room for a million radio stations if turning that dial with a million stops is easy. I would miss those voices from fxguide if they should fall out of the long-tail.

xbox 360 – first impressions

technology

of course I am not a gamer. Let’s put it that way: the last time I looked a t fps (-> that also could mean “First Person Shooter” I have learned) was when it was called doom. I think doom runs on cellphones and/or iPods these days.
So, back to the Xbox 360: It really looks, well, not that great. The power supply is a big black brick. The thing itself is oddly shapped.
It has surprisingly few connections: A 7(?) ended whiplash for the video. USB and ethernet. And some memory thingy in the front.
HD is nice. 1080i and 720p look alright. Only looked at so-so Panasonic Plasma. That top of the line stuff from two years ago.
The aliasing was the biggest dissapointment. Some Racing game and it was PS1 all over again. But maybe I just have not see enough games. Never really get used to it. I am surprised though.
Modeling and texturing was so nicely done in this particular games. Just a shame that the anti aliasing was making every sizzle.
Glad I am not a gamer. Didn’t look like fun to me …

drudge

misc

Matt Drudge has a huge audience. Somebody somewhere misrouted a video signal or was unable to operate a switcher correctly.
People found quickly that there is not only an “X” over the image but also a message saying “Transition begins after 5 frames of black”.
Which is why the text below his face is not that readible.
Still, the white is concerned (according to Drudge and some ‘source’).
Maybe this was an ‘counter image’ attempt. After all George
not being able to walk away from a press conference was a very
telling one.

one click infection

Apple

I really really hope that Apple keeps it’s OS clean. Again: There are no viruses or other scamware for OS X.
And I like that, since I can focus on other things. How can people still use Windows and keep up with this kind of ongoing junk?

exit strategy

misc

over here

wonders of wikipedia

misc

3 on a match
almost should start smoking because of stories like this.

most of the time

free of any reason

we are dead