I’ve finally finished writing a pair of Dashboard Widgets that monitor Final Cut Server and Xsan processor and RAM intensity. A third on FileMaker Server should be complete within the next few days. If you’re interested in testing them let me know. Screens below:
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Using JavaScript in iPhone Applications
I’ve been tinkering with using JavaScript (.js) in iPhone applications. Using the libraries posted here http://ejohn.org/blog/iphone-javascript-apps I was able to get the following script, which runs on my local webserver in OS X ported from Java to Xcode for iPhone: The script runs online or offline since the .js files actually live within the Xcode project. This is only a library for a much larger network utility application I’ve been considering. There are also JavaScript libraries out there for ping and nslookup, although they haven’t proven to port. Also, Dashcode projects typically won’t port so seamlessly…
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A Saturated Cloud Backup Market
It’s not that it all started with Amazon, but they were certainly the ones to mainstream cloud-based storage. Now, there are a variety of services such as Mozy (with CrashPlan) and BackBlaze from some of the smaller, niche players (both of them support the Mac) to Apple (can you say Mobile Me), Microsoft, Amazon (who now supports Windows Server and SQL Server), Google, Symantec, EMC and others for some of the more major players. According to James Staten of Forrester research, the cloud computing bubble will burst in 2010, if not before. At that point, we’re likely to start seeing far more feature rich applications start getting released and one…
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On the Road: Vegas
I’m staying on the West Side of Las Vegas for the first time, to be close to my job site. It’s nice. It’s less crowded, less pretentious and really a lot more like a suburb with a random casino here and there. If you’re looking for the Vegas experience, probably not what you’re after. But if you’re looking for a low-key place away from it all, there’s plenty here that’s appealing. Good stuff.
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10 Million iPhone Users
The economy seems to continue to get less and less optimistic. Meanwhile, 10 Million iPhone Users have now been sold. This means that there is an entire economic model behind iPhone application development. There’s also a huge market in creating mobile skins for otherwise non-mobile-friendly websites and building out iPhone applications for companies to use internally. In the midst of all of this I keep trying to decide, do I just GPL my apps or do I go ahead and try to monetize them. I finally got my application approved, so the apps will likely be up within the next few days whatever I choose to do with them.
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Google Chrome for the Mac – er, kinda'
So since Google has been dragging their feet on getting Chrome ported to the Mac our good friends at Crossover have done a little wine-porting for us. Only problem is, it’s emulated, which means that the hot keys and menu-ing just aren’t, well, native. But, as you can see below it works and doesn’t require me to fire up a VM just to grab a screen shot…
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WiMax Enabled Laptops
Lenovo has released the ThinkPad W700, a WiMax enabled laptop. Sprint is pushing Xohm, their WiMax unit heavily as the next big thing: a mobile broadband network. Not nationwide yet, but Lenovo is hoping it will be, with HP, Dell and Acer quickly following. The network is currently running in Baltimore with plans to expand into Washington and Chicago. Speeds are fast enough for VoIP and the cost is about the same as the cellular broadband service, at $30 per month. Is Xohm the next big thing? We’ll see…
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NetFlix and the Mac
So I was a tad bit offended when NetFlix started to support the Xbox before supporting the Mac. But it’s all OK. You can now watch bad movies while on the road. Just log into NetFlix, find a movie that has a Play button and click on it. If you don’t already have the Silverlight Plug-in installed it will ask you to do so and you’ll be ready to rock and roll. Enjoy.
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Xsan TCO
I recently read an article in CIO magazine about the cost per gig per month. In the article they quoted Google at about 6 cents per gig per month. I use Amazon for a few projects, which runs at about 12 cents per gig per month. Including labor and hardware I decided to look at about what it would cost per gigabyte per month for Xsan storage. Averaging out 30 installs that we did over the past year turned out a total of about 7.2 cents per gig per month, as opposed to around $2.00 per gig per month which is pretty average for many SAN solutions. Now, Xsan…
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autodiskmount in OS X
The autodiskmount binary, located in /sbin, is able to mount HFS+ and UFS volumes and report information about what can be mounted. In the most basic of forms, autodiskmount can be run with a -F option, which shows unmounted volumes: autodiskmount -F You can also use -a to mount all volumes on removable disks and all volumes on fixed disks: autodiskmount -a