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I spent many all-niters playing this game with friends...

In a few months, Tecmo Bowl Throwback ($TBA) will let you relive your gridiron glory days of the late 80's. Available as a download this spring on Xbox Live Arcade...Visit Uncrate for the full post.

This past weekend we had a little impromptu road trip. We ended up spending the night in Yachats Saturday, then continuing even further south on Sunday. read more

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To jailbreak or not, this may sway...

Originally published in the Smoking Apples Magazine Issue 5. Grab it now—free no strings attached download—if you haven’t already. Though still seated below a minor 10%, the iPhone and iPod touch jailbreak community continues to grow with a steady rate despite the continued hindrance from Apple. Jailbreaking is the act of more of less ‘freeing’ your device, by unlocking restricted components to allow for new and exciting application possibilities and device tweaks either not yet implemented or disapproved by Apple. Since the launch of the original iPhone several years back jailbreaking has seen many advancements making jailbreaking all the more appealing. Before taking a look at some of these advancements, here’s a couple quick notes about some of the fear, uncertainly, and doubt involved with jailbreaking, and even some of the cons to doing it. First off, your battery can potentially see a quicker drop after jailbreaking. Chill, though… it all depends upon what you choose to install that will actually make the difference on the battery. There’s various extensions that can essentially run full time on the device, so the more you choose to install the more it will take a hit on your battery. In all honestly, I have everything you see listed below and more running on a daily basis and after a day of using my phone every free moment I get I’m usually sitting with a fair amount of battery. There’s some upsides to help the battery and speed, too. Some tweaks exist to remove useless daemons running in the background and to stop some of Apple’s pesky apps like Mail and Safari from backgrounding on their own. There’s also an SBSettings (more info in the post) toggle to change the screen brightness at will (honestly only takes a couple seconds) as well as an SBSettings toggle to kill processes and free memory (a function Apple forced developers to remove from their applications). Speed can be an issue too, but it’s not for me. On both my past 3G and current 3GS I’ve never had an issue with speed. Things seem to run just as fast as they do on the stock iPhone OS. Finally, another big thing is security. The ridiculous rumors that fly about huge exploits on jailbroken phones honestly astounds me as jailbroken phones typically have far less security issues then the stock iPhone OS (if any) as the jailbreak community is quick on patching up any holes that should be their from Apple (which is honestly very rare). The only thing I would recommend is changing your root password for SSH should you choose to install it. So, here’s a look at some of my most beloved and also some of the most popular applications and extensions on the jailbreak scene. Themeing The stock iPhone OS interface certainly is one with rather exquisite beauty and elegance, and in my opinion is unarguably the best or smart phone interface seen to date. Despite the allure it does harness, the iPhone OS interface in no way delivers what could be a truly outstanding and lustful interface. Due to considerably poor interface and icon design choices by the developers of otherwise exceptional applications, an extremely large majority of jailbroken iPhone and iPod touch users have taken it into their own hands to customize their device’s interface with extended elegance through themeing.

Themeing is undoubtedly one of the most desired customizations many users have after jailbreaking their device. Although many choices have appeared over the years, Jay Freeman’s Winterboard has unofficially become the de facto standard for system wide device themeing. You can theme virtually any interface element with WinterBoard (in any application)! WinterBoard is nothing more than an assistant that helps load themed images into the system, but it does so in a way that ensures no images are replaced so you may safely return to the system default at any point. Despite the fact you could completely refresh your device’s interface to dazzle others with sheer lust, themeing was far from its potential until recent months. Several new additions to the scene have helped create an extremely versatile themeing experience. The long-existing SpringJumps brewed up by Lance Fetters is a delightfully handy extension that allows you to jump to any page on your SpringBoard with the single tap of an icon. One use of this extension can be seen in the screenshot above where I’m using themed SpringJump icons coupled with an 8 icon dock to allow my to navigate the beautiful interface with an action even quicker than a swipe – a tap. Yanik Magnan’s Iconoclasm is a powerful new extension on the scene that allows you to place SpringBoard icons virtually anywhere on your SpringBoard with custom x and y coordinates. You can set the number of icons per page, and where you want them, all on a per page basis. Another rather recent inductee to assist in the jailbreak themeing scene is Infinidock. This slick extension allows you to set literally an infinite amount of items in your dock with smooth scrolling and customizable spacing preferences. IconHarvester With themeing of these wonderful devices came forum additions in communities new and old. These design communities really are ‘communities’ in the strongest sense of the word as user contributions can bring posts for a single theme up to several hundred pages simply to ensure everyone has each application themed. Unfortunately, navigating through these posts to find all the icons you need is never a simple task especially when sites completely lack a search function (though a couple tricks with Google do suffice). Luckily, one fellow with startup NanoTech got just as annoyed as the rest of us and developed IconHarvester to automatically browse and download icons from the MacThemes forums providing the most seemless on-device themeing experience possible thus far. Although it has its fair share of quirks, IconHarvester does a rather spectacular job at digging up all user-contributed icons on those 180 page posts so you don’t have to. This app goes a step further and not only lets you select which icon of the ones it found that you would like to use, but it will also generate icons for any unthemed icons you still bear should the resources be included by the themer. SBSettings As a revolutionary successor to the much-admired BossPrefs, SBSettings by the same developer, BigBoss, will quickly become an invaluable tool for any jailbroken iPhone or iPod touch user. With a simple swipe across the status bar, SBSettings gives you access to a number of settings which are otherwise hidden or time-consuming to access. Whether you should be lying in bed and you’re tired of Safari thinking it knows what’s best for you by throwing itself in landscape, or you need to flip on the WiFi for faster streaming. Perhaps the AutoCorrect is annoying the ducking hell out of you or your case manufacturer put your silent switch in an incredibly hard to access location (coughmophiecough), SBSettings is not only at your finger tips, it’s a swipe away.

Music Controls Even on the iPod touch, controlling your tunes is a pretty weak experience considering the iPod touch is assumedly… you know… an iPod. Shake to refresh is more annoying as hell than it is intuitive. Music Controls by phoenix3200 is a brilliant extension that uses a double height status bar (just like tethering on the iPhone) to give you control over your currently playing music. With Music Controls you can pause / play and skip to previous and following songs with a simple tap… from any app (yup, taglines it is… taglines it is). Music Controls doesn’t stop at just iPod.app either, it harnesses the power for controlling media in well over a dozen applications including Last.fm, RSS Player, and Pandora. Snow Cover Pro I think album art on the lockscreen is great, and apparently, so do the EyeDevs, the folks who designed and developed Snow Cover Pro. Snow Cover Pro presents your album art in a classic crystal CD case or vinyl slip case with plenty of other stunning styles available. Full-Blown SMS Replacement Avid texter or not, biteSMS is sure to make you hot (uhm, career in taglines, anyone?). biteSMS not only resembles the clean interface of the native Messages application, but hides in exciting new features that are sure to get you… excited. biteSMS’ QuickReply and QuickCompose provide you with the fastest possible texting experience you’ve ever seen. Incoming texts show up just as seen above. Tap the textarea, keyboard slides up, you’re good to go. It doesn’t matter what app you’re in, or even if you’re on the lockscreen, biteSMS provides a few quick gestures that’ll make composing and sending that text not only blazing fast, but also uninterruptive to whatever you’re doing on your device. biteSMS also features their own network that allows you to send SMS and (in some areas) MMS messages at what may likely be a very reduced rate in your region. iRealSMS, the founders of these quick reply and compose concepts just tossed out their 3.0 release recently with a similar feature lineup but with some competitive differences as well.

ActionMenu and Inspell Sure, copy and paste finally hit 3.0, but that doesn’t mean it’s as powerful as it could be. ActionMenu brings tons of power to your copy and paste menu by providing additional options such as clipboard history, favorites / templates, web search and send to Twitter (for text clips), and plenty more. Also by Ryan Petrich, the developer of ActionMenu, is Inspell, more powerful spelling correction for the iPhone and iPod touch. Inspell is nested in the copy and paste menu and provides various dictionary correction suggestions for words it notices are misspelled, just like a traditional word processor, web browser and the like. Firewalls and Analytic Blocking Several months back there was quite a bit of hysteria after one blogger discovered several analytics companies were gathering what some feel to be very sensitive information through integration with some of your most used applications. Four of the major analytic companies worked cooperatively with Jay Freeman (saurik, iPhone dev team member and Cydia creator) to bring jailbreakers PrivaCy, a set of four toggles to turn off analytics bundled with some applications. Developer Yllier went a step further to bring host-specific filtering with Firewall iP, an extension that allows you to selectively filter to what hosts an app may connect. It’s all completely customizable and can be toggled off at any time with a simple SBSettings toggle. 3G Unrestrictor As outrage poured out over iPhone users not being able to use popular apps like Slingplayer and Skype over a cellular data network, jailbroken iPhone users sat contently while streaming TV and making Skype calls over their cellular network. 3G Unrestrictor by Kim Striech gives you the power to trick apps (on a per-app basis) to thinking they’re on WiFi. Whether you want Safari and YouTube.app to hand over the high quality videos, maybe you wanna download a 20MB application over 3G, or perhaps you want to stream from your Slingbox while on the go, 3G Unrestrictor brings you that power. Again, if for whatever reason you need to turn 3G Unrestrictor off for a bit, the SBSettings toggle is there. YourTube Tired of having to continually waste bandwidth and time as you attempt to get that lolcat video to stream for every friend you show it to? YourTube is here for you! YourTube is exactly what it’s called, it puts power into your hands and allows you download low or high quality YouTube videos (right in the YouTube application!) and keep them on your device so you can watch them any time, internet connection or not. This delight was brewed up by founding dev team member pumpkin and a few buddies. MewSeek Longtime jailbreak iPhone developer errrick first brought the community Mewseek for P2P file sharing and now he’s done it again with Mewseek Pro which brings powerful music search to your device using a variety of music search engines. On the OS 2.0 level Mewseek Pro allowed you to import tunes directly into the iPod.app however this function was crippled with the 3.0 update. Though the developer says he’s continuing to work on this function, it still remains useless. Don’t let that stop you though, the next fantastic app lets you listen to your music in all it’s album art glory.

iFile Also one of my jailbreaking favorites, iFile is an advanced file manager. Similar to App Store options such as iFiles or Air Sharing, iFile allows you to manage all any document; email, drag and drop it, zip – unzip it (okay, might not exactly be drag and drop, but I like Daft Punk). iFile goes further to offer native music playback just as the iPod app does with album art an all. Files can be accessed via a local web address or as a Bonjour server. The iFile developer has claimed that a coming iFile release will integrate with the upcoming iBlueNova which allows for powerful file sharing over bluetooth. Categories and Categories SB Categories is a fantastic app / tweak that allows you to stash some of your less used applications into folders to keep that springboard tidy and organized. Categories SB goes a step further and has the folders load right in your SpringBoard for fast an slick access. Stacks by Steven Stroghton-Smith is also a worthy competitor for hiding your apps but keeping quick access to them. Stacks are fairly similar to the stacks you’d see on any Mac system. Safari Download Manager and AttachmentSaver Regain power of your device with Safari Download Manager by Dustin Howett and AttachmentSaver from Youssef Francis. These lovely extensions let you save virtually any file off the interwebs or any attachment emailed to you right to the file system. Both extensions go a step further and offer fantastic integration with iFile, you’d almost think these guys were part of the verbatim system.

LockInfo Recently released LockInfo by David Ashman is also another of my most loved applications and I’m sure Steve Streza would toss in a praising word or two as well [Ed note: There’s some back scratching going on here I’m sure…]. This beauty keeps nearly everything you’d want right on your lockscreen. Don’t worry about missed SMS and push notifications because of silly UI design, LockInfo keeps new mail, push notifications, calendar events, SMS, phone, voicemails and more right on your lockscreen. LockInfo also features plugins for popular todo applications 2Do, Appigo ToDo, and Things as well as weather, Twitter, RSS, and other fancy plugins. LockInfo also supports themeing, and to be honest, I have one of the less-developed themes. ProSwitcher Another fairly new contender on the jailbreak scene from Ryan Petrich and chpwn, ProSwitcher combined with the legendary Backgrounder provides a stunning Palm Pre-like interface for multitasking with applications. Although the iPhone and iPod touch weren’t created to have to many apps running in the background, other tweaks can allow you to have Safari, Mail, iPod and the like stop backgrounding on their own to free up some needed memory.

My Setup Just a few quick words about what I’m running on my device as as you can see above I’ve got some pretty heavy themeing going on. The main theme I’ve got running is a custom mix of iHome and iHome Matte from lauro’s Home [S] eries which actually inclused the work of totushi and his wonderful SilkyMatte where I think Thyraz may have even played a hand too. The Categories[SB] icons are seen themed with kediashubham’s Matte Nano who is actually the designed behind Matte UI which is responsible for nearly all of the rest of the system themeing. One exception to that however is my Matte StatusBar which whipped up by the great dew825. Finally, there’s Thyraz and friends to thank for the slick SBSettings theme, SBMatte. There is some other minor elements themed by the wonderful members of the MacThemes.net forum, whom I must thank as a community for their incredible work. Hopefully I’ve convinced you that jailbreaking is a pretty epic good time, but whether I have or haven’t be sure to let me know in the comments along with any other questions or annoyances you might have.

Touchpad - Transform your iPhone or iPod touch to remotely control your computer through WiFi. Extended keyboard, Multi-Touch Trackpad and Apple Remote.

Tasted by ebohling. Always a fan of Scott Paul wines, so admittedly a bit biased. Having said that, the last time I drank this (Dec 09) I wasn't a huge fan. Now that it has had a chance to age a bit it is certainly coming of age. Still some cherry cola taste, but certainly very enjoyable. (90 pts.) - Tasted 3/3/2010.

Like many others, I watched CBS Sunday Morning last weekend and saw the blurb on Toms Shoes. read more

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May need to leverage some of this knowledge in my day job... I recently jumped in and acquired an Authenticode code signing certificate & key pair. It’s great being able to sign my .NET executables, installers, and even Visual Studio 2010 extensions. I’m documenting my efforts here in the hope that others would be able to follow the relatively straightforward process – there’s not much magic other than learning to export and work with the certificate mechanisms inside Windows. But I know a lot of devs see it as a black magic art, and really it’s just about time, money, and some quick learning. Which dialog would you click ‘Yes’ on?

Windows 7 is leaps and bounds ahead of Vista in terms of usability. The improved User Account Control experience is nice. I think that a lot of people are finally becoming more weary of unsigned software, especially installers. With the net full of stories of mirror servers becoming compromised, or people blinding clicking yes on many dialogs, the assurance of the dialog without the scary orange warning banner is the one I think every software developer would like to offer their customers. It’s the professional thing to do.   So here we are, from start (no cert) to finish (signing a .NET app). It only took about two days to go through the identity verification process, but the time was well worth it – and the rest is easy given the nice signing tools in Windows and Visual Studio. We’ll be getting a certificate & private key through a trusted root certificate authority (CA) provider, not test signing or self-signing. If you’ve ever purchased an SSL certificate for your web servers, similar process. For a list of current program members, see this download on the Microsoft site – there are hundreds of businesses and governments in the program. Some corporate IT departments will have their own internal CA, so although those companies can sign apps for internal use, using them on machines without that CA cert installed will yield the un-trusted publisher dialog. What is Authenticode? Authenticode is the name for the code signing system on Windows. There are many tools from Microsoft that are core to code signing and ship in the Windows SDK. Code signing certificates have an expiration date, but as long as a timestamp server is used when signing, signed apps can still be used and verified. Certificates can also be revoked if ever compromised. For good measure, here’s a short Wikipedia page on code signing, and the MSDN document “Introduction to Code Signing”. What code signing is not Signing is only a way of proving that some person or company is who they say they are. It doesn’t tell you whether there’s a nice person, or in any way validate functionality of an app. Also, .NET projects have a “Signing” tab, but this is actually a feature called Strong Naming, and is different. Most commercial software products using .NET will be both strong named, plus be code signed. What all can you use your $99/year key for? The PKCS12 file the stores your certs and keys can be used by signing tools for a lot of goodness; you don’t need a separate cert and key pairs for most signing operations a technical company will need to do.

Signing Windows executables .NET programs, class libraries, ClickOnce apps .MSI installer files Adobe AIR apps Java JARs Microsoft Office/VBA macros Mozilla objects and extensions Signing Visual Studio extension packages (.vsix files), although SignTool doesn’t directly support this (no SIP module)

Note that only Verisign offers code signing certificates for Windows device drivers through a special program for kernel-mode code signing. How does Microsoft do code signing? Obviously the Microsoft corporate keys are extremely secure and private. All signing is performed through a set of intricate systems that accept builds, check conditions, scan for viruses, and who knows what else… and eventually provide the signed binaries. It’s pretty much a black box to us as engineers, but it works for hundreds of thousands of files. As a dev, I’ve had more than my share of wild Friday nights trying to get code strong named and signed: there’s a big process and it revolves around a lot of people, smart cards, and it eventually works out. Step-by-step guide to purchasing a certificate Here’s my experience with getting a certificate. Different certification companies may have different processes, but in general you can be sure that you will need to do a lot to provide proof and authenticity of your name/company. You can purchase a personal certificate (independent developer, professional geek) quicker than a corporate certificate given the different proof requirements. Since the name/company name is what will be shown in the publisher field, you obviously wouldn’t want to get a personal certificate for company use. Also, be aware that the address you provide to a signing company will be embedded inside the certificate. I purchased my code signing cert through K Software, which is an official reseller of Comodo certificates, a popular Level 2 CA whose certificates are part of the root CA program on computers everywhere. The certificate costs $99 per year. I’ve heard of other companies sometimes offering specials as low as $65 a year, and others such as Verisign asking $499 a year. Since there is some pain in the process (producing copious amounts of evidence) and waiting for that to be validated, you may want to consider purchasing a multi-year certificate and skip having to renew yearly. You must use Windows and either Internet Explorer or Firefox to make the initial request. After the entire process is complete and the certificate is issued (days later), you will need to use the same computer and browser to complete the process. You will then export the certificate and private key to a file so you can store it safely somewhere. What proof will be required This is a partial list, the authentication process may require other documents. Most verification can be done through fax, mail, or even email. If you’ve ever purchased an SSL certificate, it’s almost the same exact process.

Your own domain name:

The domain’s WHOIS records must match the information you provide in your order. If you use Private Registration services, you’ll need proof from the private registration company that you own the domain and your address matches. This can be a pain.

Corporate entities:

Articles of Incorporation Business License Other documentation such as DUNS details

Individuals:

Driver’s license or passport Recent utility statements with matching data Phone statement with matching information, name, and phone number where final phone verification will be performed

This information will be asked for after you order and pay for the service. It is performed by the CA (Comodo in my case), not by the company or reseller you buy the service from. For the remainder of this section, everything will be specific to Comodo. I found them helpful, quick and responsive, and professional, so I would definitely recommend their service. It is a great value when purchased through a reseller. Step 1: Register with the CA to track your validation tickets and receive support You’ll need to do this with an email address at your domain name. You register with the same email you’ll use in the next step. If you don’t usually receive mail at your domain, you should be able to easily setup mail forwarding to your normal mail address. On a Windows server, SmarterMail Free sets up in minutes and is great for this. Simply create an account at Comodo Support for this: https://support.comodo.com/index.php?_m=core&_a=register Step 2: Submit basic data and purchase Start at the K Software site, which is a reseller of Comodo’s: https://secure.ksoftware.net/code_signing.html Current prices are $99 US for one year, $198 for 2 years, and so on. After navigating to the page, click Buy Now. Internet Explorer will pop up a message that the site is attempting to perform a digital certificate operation. Click Yes.

On the order form page, you will submit your details, including address, email, etc. The email address needs to be an email address on your domain name that can be verified, not a Hotmail or Google Mail address. Note that this information will be embedded inside the final issued certificate.

Important values at the end of the page:

CSP should be Microsoft Enhanced Cryptographic Provider v1.0 (the default) Key size: 2048 is fine for most people Exportable: definitely – if you don’t check this, you can’t get a PKCS 12 (.pfx on Windows) file to use for signing, and would have to do all signing on that machine User protected: Leave this unchecked

After clicking Submit Order, you’ll go to a payment page. I used PayPal and was done in seconds. Step Three: You’ll be contacted At this point you’re done with the K Software order. You will be contacted via e-mail from Comodo, and they’ll step you through what verification they need at that time, and how to submit it. In my case I had to go through several rounds of verification, including sending a recent phone bill. I ran into some hiccups because the domain name I used for the e-mail address, though owned by me, is hard to prove: my WHOIS data all says ‘Domains By Proxy’, which is the provider of private registration services for GoDaddy. I had to find a way to provide proof that I own the domain. The final verification step is when they eventually call your phone number. After that call, they’ll issue the certificate approval, and you’ll receive a final e-mail about 20 minutes later to go pick up the certs. This step took me 1.5 business days including waiting time. Step Four: Pick up your key On the same computer you started the operation on, and same browser, click on the link provided in the e-mail Comodo sent when the key was ready.

On this page, you’ll again receive a notification about a certificate operation. That’s fine. At this point you now have the key stored in your browser certificate system. Step Five: Export your key This step is for Internet Explorer users. If you’re using Mozilla Firefox, here’s some other instructions.

In IE now, click Tools | Internet Options. Click on the Content tab, and then the Certificates button:

Within the Personal (first) tab of the Certificates dialog, click on the new certificate issued by UTN-USERFirst-Object (this is one of the many Comodo level 2 CAs in the Windows root CA program):

Then click ‘Export…’. In the Certificate Export Wizard, read the useless text and click Next.

Select the option ‘Yes’ for exporting the private key along with the certificate.

Next, you pick the file format. Only PFX/PKCS #12 should be available. I checked both ‘Include all certificates in the certification path if possible’ and ‘Export all extended properties’, though to be honest I haven’t a clue whether this is needed. I wouldn’t recommend clicking the delete private key option, I like knowing that on this particular machine I can still re-export the cert as needed in the future.

Now, come up with a password to protect the file. You will need to use this password when using tools such as SignTool.exe, or setting up an automated code signing process of your own.

Finally, pick where you want your .PFX file stored. Step Six: Protect your key Although code signing certificates have a mechanism through the CA to revoke keys, you do not ever want to have to do this. Take precautions. It is your duty to protect your key. Many people find ways to store this information through smart card or other physical security mechanisms. As an individual, it’s pretty easy for me: Only I know the password, I have the file securely stored, and I don’t need to worry about sharing it with others. Business entities and groups will have more trouble coming up with the appropriate processes and systems for this. Ideally some sort of automated system should be used to perform the code signing, with alternative authentication; providing the key file and a password is not the best method. Import Wizard Note To manually sign on another machine, you’ll want to double-click on the .pfx file. An import wizard will open up that will allow you to install the cert and private key on your machine. For manual signing you typically select from your private certificate store on the machine, instead of using the .pfx file directly. For automated signing, you probably will use the .pfx. How to sign your apps and libraries Now the fun part. Armed with your new code signing certificate and private key, you’re ready to go SignTool.exe’ing. SignTool is included with the Windows 6.0 and 7.0A SDKs, and you’ll have it in your path if you have Visual Studio 2008 or 2010 installed and are using the associated Visual Studio Command Prompt. You can create scripts to sign quickly using command line parameters, or even write .NET apps using types in the System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates namespace. It’s easiest to get started by manually signing, using the Digital Signature Wizard. From a Visual Studio 2008 Command Prompt, for instance, run: signtool.exe signwizard

This will popup the wizard that will walk you through.

Select the file you want to sign:

The ‘Typical’ option will let you pick from the certificate store on your machine. You don’t actually select the previously-exported .PFX file when manually signing.

Here I click ‘Select from Store…’:

Which pops up a Windows dialog listing available code signing certificates.

Here I can verify the goods:

On the next wizard page, you can optionally offer more information here as appropriate.

The last optional, but highly recommended step, is to use the timestamp server provided by the CA. This is a service that authenticates when the data (your app) was signed. This means that your app will continue to be valid, even after the certificate expires, as long as the cert is not revoked. For Comodo, their timestamping server is: http://timestamp.comodoca.com/authenticode

Click Next and you’ll see the summary of what signing is to take place.

After clicking Finish, the dialog will go away, and pretty soon you should receive a success/failure message.

CodeSign.exe Parameters You can also code sign in scripts and the command line using arguments. For instance, here’s a sample made-up signing argument list. You can specify any number of files to sign as the final arguments. signtool.exe sign /f PathToKeysAndCert.Pfx /p “MySuperSecretPasswordToUseThePfxFile” /v /t http://timestamp.comodoca.com/authenticode “C:\MyFileToSign.exe”

For all the parameters, type ‘signtool sign /?’ That’s it! You can use a variety of tools to check that the signing works fine, including just examining the file in the Windows explorer. Authenticode-signed executables, MSIs and libraries will have a ‘Digital Signatures’ tab in the properties window (though not irregular file types, such as Adobe AIR files). Here’s the .exe I signed:     And that’s it! Ship it! Your customers will have that extra level of confidence when using your application. At some point, the more more professional software developers and software companies code sign, the more likely customers will be able to make proper security decisions about their computers… and the real benefit of the crisp user account control user interface comes to light.

Hope this helps. Let me know how your experiences with code signing go.

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Taking a break from the whole Aperture vs. Lightroom topic and posting a photo from a recent trip to the coast. And for the record, I did process this photo using Aperture 3. read more

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Are you wasting money on supplements? play with the interactive version | find out more about this image | post a comment This image is a balloon race. The higher a bubble, the greater the

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Seriously!? $20 per month to get the quality of service one should expect to get by default? I'd happily pay for the device, but no way would I pay a monthly fee. Filed under: iPhoneWe've previously written about AT&T's MicroCell device and service here at TUAW. It's a tiny cell tower that you plug into your home cable or DSL connection to boost your phone reception. This is particularly handy for those with home offices who may currently be plagued with poor reception on their iPhones.

WMExperts is reporting that AT&T is adding five more markets to the short list of trial areas. If you live in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Las Vegas, or San Diego, you can have the opportunity to spend an additional US$19.99 per month on top of your existing iPhone service plan to get 5 bar service in an area up to 5,000 square feet around your MicroCell.

To determine whether or not you're currently in one of the target zones for the service, visit the AT&T 3G MicroCell website and enter your zip code into the appropriate spot. If you're one of the lucky ones, a list of retail locations where you can purchase the MicroCell will appear. You'll also have to pony up $150 for the device in addition to the monthly charge, but for those who really need perfect 3G phone service in their homes or offices, it's worth the cost. [via TiPb]TUAWAT&T rolling out MicroCell to five more markets originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Nice list of rippers for the Mac though DVDRemaster is missing...

Collecting and watching video is one task every personal Mac is put to use for. While QuickTime or VLC can play pretty much any kind of file you throw at it, it’s a lot better to get video to reside in your iTunes library. iTunes is the the most fussy video manager, mostly because Apple wants you to buy content from their store, but it’s also your one way ticket to watching video on your iPhone, iPod, iPad, or AppleTV. So you have to learn to deal with it. Here’s a little guide, on using some of the video converters on the Mac, that will make sure the process is as smooth as can be. Handbrake A free and open source video encoder, Handbrake was originally designed to handle DVD ripping, but later got the ability to convert ‘regular’ videos like AVIs and MKVs. The only problem with Handbrake though, is that it’s far from what a Mac app should look like—did I mention it’s open source?

Handbrake looks daunting on launch. It’s got all kinds of controls sprawled over its user interface, tabs that switch between modes, and you’re always left wondering whether or not you’re supposed to change something. The good news: for a straightforward conversion, all you need to press is Start. Once you’ve selected your video for conversion (click “Source” if you haven’t), just make sure your output directory is of your choosing (it defaults to Desktop), and hit Start. It will create an H264 compressed video file that will play on your iPhone, iPod touch, and possibly even on the AppleTV. But those controls and tabs are there for a reason. The Toggle presets fly-out drawer allows you to select from different presets. I’ve found the High Profile produces great results with acceptable file size and speed of conversion. You can quickly check the picture quality of the output using the preview window, useful if you’ve changed a bunch of advanced settings. Since Handbrake was designed to handle one DVD at a time, it’s not optimal for handling multiple video files like an entire TV show series at once time. It does have a queue, but you have to manually add files, one at a time. Moreover, there’s almost no meta-data support, so you’ll have to tag them later when you add them to iTunes. Of course, there’s solutions for that, so read on. Ideal for: DVD ripping and occasional video conversions, or precise transcoding. Best used in conjunction with MetaX. Ripit If you’ve got a massive DVD collection, and oodles of storage space, Ripit might just appeal to you. Unlike Handbrake, it’s a one click solution. You don’t have any options other than naming your output. This allows the user interface to be something out of this world—spinning starburst n all. The suck? It copies your entire DVD, as is, without any re-encoding, lossless. That means you have to have around 7GB of hard drive space for every movie you want to store on your hard drive. But then again, it does it in the best way possible. It’s fast, uses the DiscID to get the name of the movie, and is able to copy almost every disc in the market (the team has thousands of unique discs for compatibility).

I only wish they would build in an encoder (they promised but never delivered) that would at least reduce the file size to at least around 25% of the original. That way the quality stays intact, but you’re saving a huge amount of space. Ripit is best used if you’re real lazy about your conversions, or if you have oodles of hard drive space you don’t know what to do with, and is best used with Multiplex, the fancy swirly DVD media center app. Ideal for: DVD collectors with oodles of hard drive space, wanting to keep lossless copies of their precious DVDs. Super easy to use. $20. RoadMovie If you’re looking for an elegant solution to convert video, RoadMovie has some really neat features. I’ve reviewed it in the past, and I’ll continue to recommend it. RoadMovie starts off with a clean UI. Nothing’s there that doesn’t need to be there, yet it has quite a bit of power should you need it.

RoadMovie uses the QuickTime engine to encode content, so it supports any of the formats that QuickTime can play. It’s got easy presets for exporting for iPhone, iPod, AppleTV, and others; and allows you to feed your media with the right metadata, so your iTunes collection looks spick and span. Since it uses the QuickTime engine, it’s a little slower than what Handbrake can achieve with FFmpeg, but it should fly if an Elgato Turbo.264 hardware encoder is plugged in. Ideal for: Those looking for an easy to use solution to watch movies on their iPhones and AppleTVs. Lots of features, including creation of chapters, subtitles, minimal metadata support. $25. iFlicks This video converter not only encodes video, but pays great attention to the metadata that goes along with it. iFlicks is decent to look at, and you get a bunch of presets for optimising video for iPhone and others. It also uses the QuickTime engine, so you can fine tune your conversions, as well as use the Turbo.264 hardware encoder to speed up the process. The one feature that most interests me, is the ability to save merely a flattened .mov file or even a reference file. This will rewrap any video that QuickTime can play into the .mov format which iTunes understands, without any re-encoding. The process for flattening a movie is the same time required to write that amount of data. And to create a reference file is seconds for each file. These files won’t play on the iPhone or AppleTV, but will have all the meta-data working—great if you’re using your Mac as a media center device.

What’s different about iFlicks, is that it ties into themoviedb.org and tvdb.org to grab metadata for files. And it’s really good at doing so. Most movies and TV shows will recognise without you having to do anything at all. Many a times you have to manually search and select the correct title, but once you’ve done that it pulls cast and crew info, artwork, so when you see it in Front Row it looks as complete as can be. iFlicks also allows you to tag and convert video already residing in iTunes. It installs itself into the iTunes script menu, from where you can directly add metadata to video files, or convert it for AppleTV or iPhone. Everything is done almost automatically with little minimal twiddling. Ideal for: Complete solution for converting and tagging movies for iTunes, including comprehensive meta data support, reverse tagging from iTunes, as well as quick flattening of movies. A little slow due to QT engine, but can be sped up with the Turbo.264 hardware encoder. €20 (~$27). VideoMonkey When VisualHub died—rather, was killed—TechSpansion released its source. From that rose FilmRedux, an open source project based on the VisualHub source. That never did take off as promised (not sure what happened there), but another developer did make something of that code, and so we have VideoMonkey.

VideoMonkey is based off FilmRedux, but it’s definitely growing into something unique. First of all, you get the awesome fast ffmpeg engine in an easy to use interface that VisualHub was known for. The quality slider is testament to its fun loving UI. VideoMonkey also adds metadata support, tying into tvdb.org and themoviedb.org, both community driven databases. I don’t think it can use the Turbo.264 hardware encoder, but ffmpeg is mighty faster than QuickTime, so you should be just fine. VideoMonkey is free and open source as well, so go nuts! Ideal for: Easy to use, fast ffmpeg engine, and includes metadata support (a little flaky at times), and free. MetaX But, there’s more. While the others try to do everything, MetaX lives and breathes on getting metadata into your iTunes library. So naturally it’s kind of a perfectionist. MetaX has got all the features you’d need, including presets, poster grabbing, barcode scanning, and even includes 64-bit tagging. What sets MetaX apart, is its ability to find even the most unknown of movies and TV shows using its TagChimp database. This database allows you to grab metadata shared by its users, as well as submit data for those shows that aren’t already present or have wrong tags. The downside is that MetaX only works with iTunes compatible files (including any flattened movs); there’s no scope for any kind of conversion. Moreover, it doesn’t plug into iTunes, so you have to rework your collection on your own. It’s free though, and if you already have a lot of converted data, MetaX will help you quickly tag those into respectable files. I should note that while MetaX has worked flawlessly for me in the past, this time round it couldn’t pull any data for any video file; hence I didn’t grab a screenshot. I’ll just consider it a bug on my system. Ideal for: Those who already have a bunch of videos converted (maybe with Handbrake) and want to get them into iTunes properly tagged. Free. To conclude To conclude, I’m confused. I’ve yet to decide what I’d use on a regular basis. And this has been going on for months now. Sometimes I prefer VideoMonkey (for those quick operations), Handbrake (DVDs, etc), or iFlicks with its stellar integration with iTunes (but slower QT encoder). Which is why I’ve added the “Ideal for” runner at the bottom of every section. Of course, if you’re not interested in getting media into your iPhone, you can always use Plex or Boxee which will sort things out behind the scenes. Did I leave out something crucial? [Header img via Far0_RC1]

Touchpad - Transform your iPhone or iPod touch to remotely control your computer through WiFi. Extended keyboard, Multi-Touch Trackpad and Apple Remote.

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Even though many of these tips are old, they are still very useful. Several I had not heard before...

OK, so I've been spending a lot of time comparing Lightroom 3 Beta and Aperture 3...I even bought Aperture 3. read more

While I am still tormented between Lightroom and Aperture and have yet to make a final decision, I did upgrade my large photo library to Aperture 3. I know MANY folks have had a rough time with Aperture 3 and upgrading their library...fortunately I was not one of them. Granted I have the latest hardware (iMac 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 / 8 GB RAM), but I also have a library of over 65,000 photos.

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Let the fun begin... Due to cloud computing, anyone can perform routine computer tasks anywhere, at any time, without installing applications. All users need a computer with operating system installed, connection to the internet and a compatible web browser; available at just about any coffee shop, library or other public places.This technology has given birth to a new line of small and cheap computers, called netbooks, which have become extremely popular. They are small in size and have longer battery life due to less computing power, making them ideal cloud computing clients. Similarly, mobile phones are gaining computational power and fast becoming another cloud computing client. In short, netbooks and mobile phones—which will pass the total number of personal computers in near future—are the biggest beneficiary of cloud computing.Consequently, this emerging and attracting market is taking a hit on tech giants, which are now teaming up to compete. We’ve rounded up the top five operating systems utilizing the available cloud computing infrastructure in the best possible manner.1. Glide OSGlide OSGlide OS is a free set of productivity and collaboration applications which can help in organizing your digital life with ease. It provides a safe and secure 30GBs of storage, thus protecting your needs for private online storage. You can create up to six accounts for different users. Common applications like office suite, photo editor, email client, and media player are available.It is compatible across multiple devices and operating systems; also providing plug-ins for popular web browsers like Firefox, Chrome, and Internet Explorer to make your experience more convenient. You can sign up for Glide Premium which will upgrade your storage to 250 GBs for $50.00 a year.2. icloudicloudicloud is a nice suite of desktop applications and personal storage to make daily computer use more productive and synchronized. It has an intuitive and attractive user interface and offers 50 GBs of free online disk space; which can be accessed easily from Windows Explorer using WebDAV.The applications suite contains essential applications for productivity (write, calendar, and to-do), media (iPlay, movie, photo, and radio), and internet (IM, browser, mail, and news reader). icloud also incorporates IDE, XML Editor, and documentation tools for applications development. It is supported on prominent operating system and mobile phones.3. JolicloudJolicloudJolicloud is an operating system designed primarily for netbooks. As it is an operating system itself, installed on a target device. It has a nice directory full of applications which can be installed with one click although many free web applications can be used alongside.The installation process is very simple and jolicloud can also be used in a dual operating system mode. You don’t need to worry about finding recent drivers for Wifi, sound, 3G or other devices. It is actually a variant of Ubuntu Linux optimized for netbooks. It is very suitable for the current needs of online social communities.Although Jolicloud isn’t located in the cloud, it leverages the cloud in many ways to create a more powerful operating system.4. eyeoseyeoseyeos is an open source solution to leverage the cloud. The team provides specific solution tailored for the environment in which eyeos is used. For personal use, they have setup a public server for eyeos. Like other web based platforms, it can be used on different operating systems and platforms.eyeos is equipped with the necessary applications the average user will need. The user can synchronize documents, spread sheets, media and other type of files. For entertainment, there are also some games available such as chess and tetravex. There is also an active community which has developed many of the applications for the eyeos platform.5. GhostGhostGhost aims to provide a cloud solution for basic computing and storage. Ghost provides 1GB online disk space, for personal use. The user has complete control over their privacy and files can be shared with friends or kept in total secrecy. Instead of developing their own solution for office suite, they ask you to take advantage of established and popular Zoho’s online office tools.The online cloud storage can be integrated into Windows Explorer, which will turn it into a virtual hard drive on your system; in result, files between the computer and cloud can be shared effortlessly with drag and drop ease.ConclusionThis is just the beginning. We will see more innovative and elegant solutions such as the collaboration between IBM and eyeos to make a virtual Linux desktop for IBM’s Solution Edition for Cloud Computing. There are many cloud operating systems which are not mentioned here such as Chrome OS and Windows Azure; both of which are very fresh. We are keeping an eye on those OSes though.What you are waiting for? It’s time to shift from traditional desktops and operating systems to the “cloud”. It can manage and organize your scattered digital life on different work stations and also boost your productivity in mobile scenarios.If you use or know about a free cloud OS that belongs in this list, share it with us in the comments below or shoot us a quick tweet @webappstorm. Thanks!

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If you like typography and you are frugal, this is for you!   Every now and again we take a look around, select “fresh” high-quality free fonts and present them to you in a brief overview. The choice is enormous, so the time you need to find them is usually the time you should be investing in your current projects. We search for them and we find them, so you don’t have to.In this selection we’re glad to present you PT Sans, FF Celeste Sans Offc Black, Secca STD, Cantarell and many other regular and experimental high-quality free fonts. Please read the license agreements carefully before using the fonts — the license can change from time to time.You may also want to take a look at our previous typography-related posts:20 New High Quality Free FontsIn this previous “free fonts” edition we present Madawaska ExtraLight, Apparatus SIL, League Gothic, Contra and many other high-quality free fonts.40+ Excellent Freefonts For Professional DesignThe price of good fonts usually reflects their quality and starts at 50$ per typeface. However, before purchasing a font you will probably use only once in your designs you might want to take a glance at outstanding free alternatives first.50 Useful Design Tools For Beautiful Web TypographyA review of useful typographic tools, techniques and resources for creating effective and expressive designs. We will also look at some hands-on typography tools that help designers and developers learn how to style their Web content, test it interactively and see the changes instantly.New High Quality Free FontsPT Sans (PDF specimen) The Russian type design company “Paratype” released an extensive free sans-serif family with 8 font weights: Regular, Italic, Bold, Bold Italic, Caption Regular, Caption Bold, Narrow Regular and Narrow Bold (700+ glyphs each). The family can be used for legal documents on screen and in print. The family contains glyphs to various Cyrillic languages as well Latin glyphs, signs, fractions, numerators etc. A very impressive free font. License: free for personal and commercial projects.FF Celeste Sans Offc Black Set (Registration is required)FF Celeste Sans Offc Black Set comes in an easy-to-use format optimized for everyday use in Microsoft Office apps. You can use the style-linked (regular and italic in one menu item) FF Celeste Sans Offc for free. License: free for personal and commercial projects.Secca STD (2 Demo fonts) (Registration is required)Secca is a fine and simple typeface honoring the roots of early German grotesque type designs but mastered for the needs of today. The weights work perfectly for body text. Two weights are available for free downloads: Secca Std Demo Regular and Secca Std Demo Bold. Designed by Andreas Seidel. A registration is required.Fh_Lentil Regular (the designer has removed the font)For more fonts, and other resources, visit Fictionalhead.com’s Fonts New font created for personal use. Additional families being developed (bold, italic, etc.) to be released at a future date. License: free only for personal projects.Mr Jones BookMr Jones was originally conceived as a family for print design consisting of a sans and a headline. The lowercase are wide for legibility at small sizes while the caps are narrower to save space and keep an even balance of negative space when used in body copy. The overall widths of certain characters have been adjusted to almost extremes to keep an even balance of white space around each letter. He works well in body copy, but will need decreased tracking for larger settings. Two weights are available for free download: Mr Jones Book and Mr Jones Book Italic. Designed by Richard Miller.ClutcheeClutchee Font is perfect for t-shirts, also applicable for any type of graphic design, web, print, motion graphics etc. License: free for personal and commercial work.DigiticaA very interesting, original geometric font, designed by Samuel Delabarre and available for free download. License: free for personal and commercial work.CantarellThe typeface is designed as a contemporary Humanist sans serif, and was developed for on-screen reading; in particular, reading web pages on an HTC Dream mobile phone. Each font file currently contains 391 glyphs, and fully support the following writing systems: Basic Latin, Western European, Catalan, Baltic, Turkish, Central European, Dutch and Afrikaans. To date, Pan African Latin has only 33% glyph coverage. Since the design is aimed at display on-screen at small sizes, the printed output (especially of the bold and oblique) may not work well. License: free for personal and commercial work.tribbon ‘Layered’ fontThis layered ‘ribbon’ style font was created by Dominic Le-Hair. It is a working ‘ribbon’ style font that consists of several layers and is available in both TTF and OTF font formats for free download. License: free only for personal work.Exus PilotAn original geometric free font in True Type format. A good choice for poster design. Designed by Mauro Hernández. License: free for private and commercial projects.OrbitronA geometric sans-serif typeface intended for display purposes. It features four weights (light, medium, bold, and black), a stylistic alternative, small caps, and a ton of alternate glyphs. Orbitron was designed so that graphic designers in the future will have some alternative to typefaces like Eurostile or Bank Gothic. License: free for private and commercial projects.Ripe Font FamilyA geometric post-modern slab serif face. The serifs feature simplistic rounded terminals and its stroke is uniform. Ripe was designed to be a practical typeface. Each character is distinct, yet consistent. Its subtle differences are clear enough to be easily read at both high and low resolutions, perfect for print, web and screen media. The family has 4 weights (Regular, Light, Semibold, Bold) containing 577 characters in each weight. License: free for private and commercial projects.Goudy Trajan RegularGoudy Trajan is based on the drawings by American type designer Frederic W. Goudy of his rendition of the capital letters inscribed on the Trajan column. One of the most elegant typefaces in the CastleType library, Goudy Trajan works especially well at large sizes. The Regular weight (shown above) contains many alternate letters and discretionary ligatures for more versatile typography. It also includes the Cyrillic alphabet and over 100 classic fleurons. Click here to view all glyphs. Download specimen. “Goudy Trajan is possibly the finest font I have discovered” (D.S. from Omaha, Nebraska.) The Goudy Trajan family includes: Regular, Medium, and Bold. A single font is available for free download. License: free for private and commercial projects.St Transmission (free for personal use only)This free font is available in two weights: thin and extrabold. It has standard OpenType features such as ligatures, slashed zero, contextual alternates and lining figures. The Extrabold weight is ideal for bold headlines. Designed by Sascha Timplan. License: free only for private projects.Keeparty (Large preview)A very original, colorful typeface created by Eugene Rudyy. License: free for personal and commercial projects.LOT (large preview)LOT is a free font applicable for any type of graphic design – web, print, motion graphics etc. It is a good fit for T-shirts and other items like logos or pictograms. Format: Opentype (.otf) Compatible: PC and Mac. The font contains 78 glyphs. License: free for personal and commercial projects.Recycle it fontLicense: free for personal and commercial projects.Denne’s aliensA hand-written, original, playful font with basic glyphs set. Designed by Denise Bentulan. License: free for personal projects, designer’s permission is required to use the font for commercial purposes.Pac FontAn older, yet quite original and attractive free font. License: free for personal use only.MergeA very simple, yet playful and nice looking free font, designed by Philatype type foundry and released for free download in the OpenType format. License: free for personal and commercial projects.Further useful collections24 high quality free and stunning symbol fontsFonts are the vital need of any designer. But now a days font demands are increasing in regular computer users as well. Depending on the needs and modern trend we are going to list down some really beautiful and unique examples of 24 High Quality Free And Stunning Symbol Fonts. We hope these fonts will be useful for you.Top 10 Programming FontsA round-up of 10 readily-available monospace fonts. Many of these fonts are bundled along with modern operating systems, but most are free for download on the web. A few, notably Consolas, are part of commercial software.40 free unique cartoon and comic fontsHave you ever feel that traditional fonts are a little too boring and plain for your designs and artworks? Ever wanted to use fonts that are funkier, stylish and fun to look at? Cartoon and comic fonts are very popular and most people are only familiar with Comic Sans MS and that’s about it. We have now discovered 40 unique and refreshing cartoon and comic fonts for you to give your artwork and design that extra ummmppphhh. Here are a few for sneak preview and the full list is right after the jump.5 Excellent Calligraphic FontsA small collection of nice calligrapic fonts found over at Dafont.com.Related PostsYou may also want to take a look at our previous typography-related posts:20 New High Quality Free FontsIn this previous “free fonts” edition we present Madawaska ExtraLight, Apparatus SIL, League Gothic, Contra and many other high-quality free fonts.40+ Excellent Freefonts For Professional DesignThe price of good fonts usually reflects their quality and starts at 50$ per typeface. However, before purchasing a font you will probably use only once in your designs you might want to take a glance at outstanding free alternatives first.50 Useful Design Tools For Beautiful Web TypographyA review of useful typographic tools, techniques and resources for creating effective and expressive designs. We will also look at some hands-on typography tools that help designers and developers learn how to style their Web content, test it interactively and see the changes instantly.© Smashing Editorial for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | 62 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine Post tags: Fonts, typography