Let me introduce you to ...

Macfusion Download Link

Sun, 30 Dec 2012 02:58:00 -0500

GitHub announced they are removing the downloads tab from every repository, this brought the problem of not being able to share a static link to provide users with a download. Therefore this post exists, to be the reference place to find the download link (for now) to the latest build of Macfusion.

Launch Services

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 23:21:59 -0400

In my humble opinion, Apple has a very unique and beautiful way to create software, however some of their APIs are not so easy to understand at a first glance, still very robust and reliable. With this in mind, there have been a couple times where I have found myself misunderstanding what the documentation was intended to communicate and therefore it is usually my fault when something is not working how it is supposed to.

That being said, I had a very unpleasant experience last weekend when I was learning about the Launch Services within App Kit. One of the things that Launch Services is good to, is to have an application interact with Finder or with the Login Items of the system, something pretty cool and useful. Everything was going well, and I was able to programmatically add an item to the Finder Sidebar. So once that was done I was happy, but then I thought that it would be cool to add an icon to that item and oddly enough I found out that the current function I was using to add the item had an option to add an icon, so I proceeded to add the icon, but it didn’t work at all. And I continued to try and try and try, without any luck.

Once my pride was in the floor, I realized that the all-mighty internet should already have an answer for this, so I found the following sources of knowledge:

And I tried some of the suggestions, I tried different ways but I couldn’t get a custom icon to show with the item in the Finder sidebar. I finally found a thread in the Apple developer forums with a user mentioning this has been reported to Apple’s bug tracker Radar.

Given this my conclusion was to just let this go, though then I found that Radar bugs are taken into account given the number of reports posted in the tracker, so I Issued a bug, let’s hope for this to be solved sometime soon.

Macfusion on OS X Lion 10.7 and Mountain Lion 10.8

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 02:42:00 -0400

A few days ago I was about to install Macfusion, which if you don’t know already, is a great project that aided by the FUSE project or rather the macintosh port MacFUSE is capable of providing support for users to mount filesystems over the network. It is all good and both projects are open source but the problem is that as far as I know the software is only supported for 10.5 and 10.6 i. e. Leopard and Snow Leopard. And even worst not even MacFUSE is supported as it has turned into abandonware.

Using Macfusion in OS X 10.7 Lion is rather painful, a few bugs here a few bugs there, but some of them are fixable by the regular user, which now have to rely on OS X FUSE and SSHFS two projects that are in active development.

Doing some quick google searches I was able to solve a few of the issues, still some other issues were still there, so I decided to take a look at the source and I realized that there is a bunch of people who have identified the same issues using github’s network feature and even more awesomely they have fixed them.

So this is a call to everyone and anyone who find this project useful and want to try to bring it back up. I have made a few modifications on this repository, be sure to see the commit history to see a detail of the modifications.

Code Poetry

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 00:37:00 -0500

I have had the chance to work with quite a few programmers and with quite a few programming languages. I have done this with the following purposes:

Recreational.
Educational.
Commerical.

No matter what the programming language, the purpose, how big the team is and who you are working with you must always care about the documentation of your code. This is not an official classification about code documentation, but these are the most common types I have seen and probably the most common ones:

/*Comments*/
def identifiersWithinCode(amount):
Documents & Diagrams
Doodles on a white board

/*Comments*/ or #Comments or //Comments or %Comments or 

In my humble opinion this is one of the most important types of documentations that should be done, there is no excuse not to have them. This type of documentation is (probably) like an investment, sure, it takes some time to describe what you are doing, but trust me, if you come and look back at your code in 4 months it will be most likely that you won’t remember how did you solve everything with your code. And if someone has to give maintenance to that code, this is probably the easiest way to for them to understand it. This way you will avoid having someone bugging you to explain them your code.

Sometimes you can even find bugs by just reading your comments, or in another case, someone else can find flaws.

What you should do:

//i has to run outside j, otherwise epicMatrix won't be filled with the data

//and if you don't get the value of amazingVector times the position you will

//probably get uneven values

for(i=0; i<LIMIT; i++){

for(j=0; j<LIMIT*CONSTANT; j++){

epicMatrix[j][i]=someValue[i]*(amazingVector[j]*j)

}

What you shouldn’t do:

//Print an error

printf("Error:You cannot divide by zero\n");

def thePoetryBehindMeaningfulIdentifiers(inCode):

People do not often pay attention to the importance of having meaningful names in their variables, in their functions, in their modules, in their classes, etc. Why would you even care about this? Because again you are probably not just working for yourself, people often re-use someone else’s code and when they do the last thing they want to do is read enormous amounts of code to understand how to use some API/Library. If you name your “stuff” in a meaningful way, it will be easier for others to understand your code.

But it’s not just about names, it is also about the way things are typed, different languages and even between different frameworks (within same languages), you will have different ways to type things.

The underscore: This one is in my opinion the easiest to read, though it is very uncomfortable to write, specially if you are not using an awesome text editor that will complete your function names. The first example that comes to my mind is C, specifically in GTK+, you will often see the following:

GtkWidget* gtk_button_new_with_label(const gchar *label);

The Camelcase: My personal favorite and one of the most annoying ones for some others. An example for this one is Objective-C, where a method call would probably look like this:

[someString stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:withString:@","];

The Creative Bastard (TCB): Again, this is no official classification, but this one seems to be the way to call it. This is no obvious way to name a function, IMHO, not the best way to name something, it probably is good for functions you use on a regular basis. An example, any of the command line tools found in UNIX, for example cd (change directory), mkdir (make directory), prstat (process status), among many others. One commercial use I have seen of TCB, is by The Mathworks Inc. current sellers and developers of MATLAB, for example:

dec2bin %convert a number from decimal to binary

tf %transference function

pzmap %pole zero map

Documents & Diagrams

This is to me the most annoying one to do, though one of the easiest ways to explain yourself (of course if you can :P). Suppose you are developing the most awesome algorithm ever to detect faces in a picture, depending on who you are, what you are doing it for, where are you doing this and why are you doing this, you will use one platform that suits you better, for this example let’s suppose it’s C++ running on a desktop. So you are writing your code but you feel the need for feedback and sure, one of your best pals has a Ph. D in Electrical Engineering and his thesis was about digital signal processing, so you ask him, but he doesn’t know anything about C++ … he probably won’t be able to help you, even with just comments on the code will probably be hard for him. The solution, a document, if you write a clear enough document explaining what your code is doing, explained with some diagrams, he is surely going to give you a hand.

Doodles on a white board

Don’t ever rely on this one, this is more of an honorific mention. The value of making a doodle of what you want to do hides behind the idea of a group of people (say the user interface design team) working together refining an idea in an accelerated and not limited way.

Sure you might say, who ever uses white boards, you can do this with OmniGraffle, send an email and there, it’s solved. Yeah, I agree, you can but you will have to wait for everyone to catch on the mail blast, so they can all put their ideas out. That’s the biggest reason why a board rocks! Everyone can sum to the idea batch and refine the final product/prototype easily and quickly enough so that someone in the team can Omnigraffle the shit out of the doodles and add it to a document ASAFP.

Conclusion

Try them all, encourage your co-workers/friends to use them.

dndeuce: So, Michael Jackson has a song called 2000 Watts on...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 01:35:40 -0500

dndeuce:

So, Michael Jackson has a song called 2000 Watts on the “Invincible” album. I think it was actually written by Tyrese though. In the chorus, he gives us some figures (see figure and attached video). Because I am slightly nerdy, I have decided to check his math/measurements.

I conclude that both Tyrese and Michael Jackson would be terrible electrical engineers.

These are things I do when I’m supposed to be doing homework.

Appendix A: The song in question

Reminds me of XKCD’s http://xkcd.com/643/

Bowers & Wilkins P5 (frequency response)

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 23:23:02 -0500

I know, I have already written a post about the Bowers & Wilkins P5 headphones, they are good, no doubt, I totally recommend this to you for further details read the full blog. Now the only thing I have found (quiet often), are wannabe audiophiles who claim this headphones have great mid-ranges or that this headphones have a bad bass and what not. I don’t like to guide things by opinions but by facts, therefore I present you a small analysis of the frequency response of the Bowers & Wilkins P5.

First thing first, if you are not familiar with the terms and all the jib-jab, don’t confuses the frequency response with the frequency range or bandwidth. I have even seen quiet a few audio product related manuals confusing the frequency range with the frequency response. I would probably blame translators and not the companies themselves.

When it came to my mind that I wanted to analyze this headphones’ frequency response, the first place where it occurred to me to look for was at the B&W site and I could not find such thing there. Then I decided to contact their support team, after a day (that was fast), someone came back to me, pointing at this review by PC Magazine.

In that review, they present a frequency response chart, comparing the B&W P5 with the Grado GS1000 (Fig. 1) and another frequency chart comparing the response of the two channels (Fig. 2).

Figure 1. Frequency response chart comparison between the Bowers and Wilkins P5 and the GRADO GS10000. In the x axis the frequency in Hertz and in the y axis the magnitude in decibels.

Figure 1. Frequency response chart comparison of the two channels of the Bowers and Wilkins P5 and the GRADO GS1000. In the x axis the frequency in Hertz and in the y axis the magnitude in decibels.

If you know something about signal processing you are probably wondering, where’s the test signal, what was the sampling frequency of that signal (probably 40K), what was the output impedance of the player used for this test, what’s the frequency response of the transducer used to perform this test, what was the window used to estimate the transform. Wonder no more because there is no record of that data and you know what, probably not even PC Mag will be able to answer you this questions, they probably don’t even know or care about those things. That’s why I got back to the B&W support team and they told me that they didn’t have the data, that I should request the data to PC Magazine.

Now, you would wonder, why would you care about all those things? well because if you don’t care about those things, you aren’t really doing a good frequency response analysis, you are just performing the Fourier transform to some data.

Anyway I kept looking for a more serious analysis and I found out that Inner Fidelity wrote a very complete blog reviewing the B&W P5. There your will find another frequency response chart (Figure 3). I have already requested the data of both of the sites, if any of them provide me with the appropriate files, I’m willing to do a much more exhaustive analysis of the frequency response, I will write the software that’s necessary for such purpose.

Closing statement

What do we learn about this? Do not trust a freaking audiophile telling you shit about headphones, trust the data and trust the controlled data only. In the end what’s more important is not the fancy charts, the real important thing is that you like what you buy.

BTW and if you didn’t already know, Fourier is awesomesauce!

Why I don't like Spotify

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 23:40:00 -0500

It can all be reduced to the user interface, I don’t like it and they probably won’t fix that anytime soon, to some extent the interface is a bit abusive and this is probably the biggest problem this software has. Thinking a bit more about this, it is not only a software problem but also an ideology problem of the whole company.

When I downloaded the app to my computer it immediately required a Facebook login, now call me crazy or whatever you want but, I want to listen to music, not to give you my Facebook profile, I know a lot of people (young software active people) that don’t use Facebook. I know for a fact a few of them would love some Spotify, but hey: “WAIT! If you don’t have a Facebook account I don’t give a fuck about you!”. That’s the message I get from that requirement another example is presented in Figure 1.

Figure 1. If you don’t share that you are using Spotify on Facebook, you have to close the application. The left blue button says “Añadir a Facebook” (Add to Facebook) and the right gray button says “Cerrar Sesión” (Close Session).

Again, it’s free and all that. Is it really free, are this fuckers really giving away their software? … NO!!! I don’t think so. They are requiring you to make public the fact that you are using their product. That is something I really don’t like, although making public the use of a product is good for the product and the company, this should be something optional not obligatory.

It’s that all? … nope, I don’t like the user interface. If you pay close attention it is a lot like iTunes, which is good, they are trying to keep everything homogeneous using similar interfaces and following the Apple’s human interface guidelines. So what’s the problem? These are the problems:

The design looks a bit weak.
The controls are at the bottom of the window.
There is nothing indicating what the fuck you are listening to.
Library & Local Files are two redundant sections on the left bar.
The search bar is on the top left, whilst most of the search bars (even Spotlight) appear on the top right.

For a graphic example of these problems, see Figure 2.

Figure 2. Features the app running under Mac OS X Lion.

I’m a strong believer that if you are going to design something for multiple platforms, you have to think on the user of each and every platform. They clearly didn’t think that much in the Mac user.

Anyway, a friend of mine told me: “What can you expect for $ 0.00”. I would expect a good product, a well designed product. Because that’s the least you can do when you do something.

JVC (HACN80) VS B&W (P5)

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 01:42:00 -0500

That’s right, I’m going to compare a set of JVC and a set of B&W headphones.

Audiophiles are probably already saying something like: “The clear winner will be Bowers and Wilkins, there’s no chance for JVC to fight back”. But you know what, I don’t think I have any audiophile readers, so fuck that.

Anyway, direct your attention to Table 1, the first thing you will notice is the price, it is almost an order of magnitude of difference. ¿Should this be the indicator that one is better than the other? I don’t think so, I don’t like to use the price as an indicator of quality(although most times it is).

Table 1

Now, what qualifies me to compare this headphones? Well, I have them both, I like them both and I have some spare time to write this. Table 1 should only serve you as a quick way to compare both of this pieces of hardware, you must decide what are the features that you want in your headphones.

Cons about the JVCs HACN80:

Made almost entirely of plastic.
The impedance in the off mode is not the best match for an iPod/iPhone/iPod/¿Zune?.
They apparently look goofy (this is a common comment I get).
They fall way too much from your head, unless you are still and not shaking your head a lot.

Pros about the JVCs HACN80:

They are extremely under-priced for the quality they provide.
They are a good buy for music lovers (not for snobs).
The noise attenuation is really good for the supported bandwidth (obviously).
You have no idea how comfortable this headphones are, no idea. You can wear them for about 4 hours without feeling any pain.

Cons about the B&W P5:

They are not cheap.
They are not so comfortable after long periods of time (after 1 hour you will feel a bit of pain in your ear).

Pros about the B&W P5:

They are entirely made of leather and metal, which should last more than just plastic and vinyl.
Although the P5s are not active noise attenuation headphones, they do a great “passive” job blocking a lot of the outer noise.
They are esthetically good looking, they don’t look as goofy as the JVCs.
The controls for the Apple products work as expected and are handy for Skype/Facetime calls when you are using them with your computer.
The sound quality IS FUCK-AMAZINGTASTIC-KICKASS, they are not bass punchy like the Dr. Dre’s headphones and are not plain as most headphones, they provide a good balance for most frequency ranges, though I have yet to find a bode plot for the frequency response to be sure about this.

Conclusion:

This is just a way to put face to face two pieces of hardware, I like them both. If you are about to pick a new pair of headphones, be sure to try them first. Although my opinions are extremely awesome, you can’t trust we both will react the same against certain features. Some people like their headphones only because they have punchy bass, some people can’t stand leather, some people just hate certain brands.

Although I like how the P5s sound, I hate how uncomfortable they are. I hate the fact that my JVCs are made of plastic and that they are (to some extent) fragile.

How software can fuck your day

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:39:21 -0500

Say you are a physician/lawyer/mathematician and during the course of your day you are required to use certain software, this software was either developed by a big corporation, an open source organization or by someone with some spare time. The best case scenario is for you to just use it, have your things done and move onto some other stuff to do. But on the other side, what happens when the software you use won’t work the way you expected. Here are some of the most common reactions I have seen:

“I’m really bad at computers, technology hates me …”.
“I’m done with this, I’ll ask for [insert geek friend name] to help me with this …”.
“That freaking Microsoft, I’m going to buy a Mac …”.
*googles for the problem, goes to a forum where the problem has already been posted and finds it hasn’t been solved since 2002*.

I don’t know which one of these description fits you best, but this is a crappy way to go right? And I bet you know someone that fits at least one of these descriptions. In the end is something you shouldn’t be doing, the unexpected behavior or malfunction is something that should have already been fixed. Most of the times I can GUARANTEE that the problem is not the user. The problem is usually a lazy programmer, who didn’t want to do the things the right way or who didn’t want to spend just a few more hours to fix a bug.

So what’s to do when this happens? Report the problem, be sure to do it otherwise those lazy MOTHERFUCKERS won’t do their job … that was a bit harsh, let’s try again: Report the problem, otherwise the programmers won’t have any feedback and the system won’t be able to compensate the error. Truth is most people won’t report the problems they have using software, I don’t know why but people just won’t do it.

Now if for some reason you contact the person responsible for the software you are using and he/she answers you by saying: “Why would you want to do that!?” give him/her a big FUCK YOU! You are the user, if the programmer didn’t limit the functionality then you are in your right to do it.

This post was inspired by someone who tweeted about his frustration about some Adobe software.