Ronald's ScribblingsPosts
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iMessage
I’ve realised that iMessage will fall-back to SMS automatically when it detects that the recipient is unable to receive iMessages for whatever reason. This tiny feature alone one-ups Whatsapp.
To the uninformed, iMessage was rolled out to all iOS devices that support iOS 5. This includes iPhone (3GS, 4, 4S), iPad, and iPod Touch. iMessage allows users to message one another via the Internet, free-of-charge, similar to the ubiquitous Whatsapp.
It is deeply integrated into the SMS Messages app and will be in-use whenever the recipient of your message is on iOS 5 (and does not have iMessage disabled). You will be able to tell that you are sending an iMessage when the interface chrome is blueish in colour, and the placeholder text in the message area reads ‘iMessage’.
While it is clear that a Text Message will be sent when the recipient does not have iMessage enabled, what about cases in which the user has iMessage enabled, but does not have access to the Internet at the moment you send an iMessage to him?
In the case of Whatsapp, your message will be stored on the server, and the user notified only after he establishes connection to the internet. Well, as some will say, you could always fall-back to SMS when you noticed that he has not read your message after awhile, albeit manually.
As for iMessage, it will automagically fall-back to SMS the moment the system detects that the recipient has not received the message via iMessage, after a few minutes.
So, don’t worry about not being able to switch to SMS manually. You don’t have to—the system will do all the heavy lifting for you.
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Steven P. Jobs: 1955–2011
Today, Steve Jobs left us. No words can be used to describe what he has done, or who he is, but one thing for sure, we can see his touch in the technology we use every day.
He has propelled humanity forward, made things that were once inaccessible, accessible to everyone. He has raised the bar of possibility, turning hyperbole into reality.
His passion for his vision brought him where few have gone. He has proven to us that passion trumps rationality. To live the life that your heart leads you, he did exactly that—nothing more, nothing less.
As an inspiration to many of us, let’s not forget, this man changed the world—we should too, in our own ways.
Let’s raise our glasses:
Steve Jobs, 1955–2011, aged 56.· · · -
Boot Camp on Older Intel-based Macs
While installing Windows 7 (x64) on a white (late-2007) Macbook via Boot Camp 4.0 (Lion), I received the following error when running the setup.exe from the disc downloaded and created by Boot Camp Assistant:
Boot Camp x64 is unsupported on this computer model.
(But first before continuing, please ensure that Windows 7 64-bit edition is actually supported on your Mac before manually bypassing this error.)
After digging around on the net, I’ve found that this computer model check can be bypassed by running “Bootcamp64.msi” directly from the “Drivers/Apple/” folder, found in the Boot Camp support disk or drive.
However, another annoying error may popup:
This installation requires elevated privileges. Launch the installer through setup.exe
Back to square one. The option to run the .msi as a system administrator is blanked out within file properties. With right-click non-functional, there’s not much more prodding I could do.
After further digging all over the internet, I’ve found that the solution is to launch Bootcamp64.msi via msiexec through a cmd.exe that has elevated permissions.
Here’s how to go around doing it without right-clicking at all:
- Open the Start Menu.
- Type “cmd” into the search box.
- Cmd.exe should appear as the first result under “Programs”.
- Instead of hitting Enter to open it, hit Ctrl + Shift + Enter (⌃⇧↩) instead.
- Accept the UAC dialog and command line will now run.
- Assuming that the disc of your Boot Camp support drivers is “D:”, enter the following in to the prompt:
D:
cd Drivers\Apple
msiexec /i Bootcamp64.msi
The Boot Camp (x64) installer should now start normally.
As there I have yet to know any technical pitfalls of bypassing Apple’s check in the setup.exe so far, I suspect the reason is more legal and technical-support related than just purely technical.
Have fun!
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Text Management
There are two main applications that I use on my Mac to manage text input, depending on whether it’s free form text, or structured text such as code.
For the former, I use iA Writer (available on both the Mac and the iPad). It is simply the best text editor ever created. It has the best display font, Nitti, which ensures clarity and at the same time, slows your reading such that you’ll read every character of what you’ve typed. In addition, the text size is sufficiently large which allows you to see your progress very visually. Most importantly, it comes with a very sparse distraction-free writing mode, called Focus Mode, that fades off all text except the current sentences, allows you to just type without any distractions.
Given that this application has absolutely no configuration settings and the fact that it still feels right, it could be said that it is extremely well designed. Every design decision, including the background and cursor is meticulously engineered to look beautiful, and hence, less distracting.
Here’s an introduction video:
This is one of the few applications that have made writing a pleasure for me and I use it for all writing tasks. Word is just for formatting at the end. I hope the developers would release a trial version someday as the only way to fully appreciate its beauty is to use it.
Another aspect of writing that I do often is coding. Programming languages are very structured and the least the code editor could do would be to enforce and aid in such syntactical rules. On the Mac, I’ve always used TextMate as it has awesome colour scheme support and bracket autofill. There are also bundles that are language specific that would allow you to run custom commands with a simple shortcut-keystroke.
Lately, development of TextMate has almost stopped and the developer claimed that he is working on a successor version, TextMate 2. It’s been a few years since that announcement (2009) and nothing much has been said publicly after that.
Thankfully, someone stepped up to the game and is now working on releasing another code editor that is similar enough to TextMate, but better. Sublime Text 2 is currently in beta, but in my currently regular use, it has performed reliably well. The best part of this is that this editor is cross-platform, available on the Mac, Windows, and Linux. As of this version, (build 2111), it has almost reached feature parity with other mature code editors. The only minor downside is that the code-editor configuration is driven by text-based JSON configuration files, no spanking clickable GUIs available, yet.
For a code-editor to be decent, I have two requirements. First, it needs to automatically indent the text-insertion point whenever I insert a newline. If my text-insertion point is between two brackets (or curly braces), it should be smart enough to send the closing bracket to the next line, leaving my cursor right in the middle of both lines, indented by 1 tab-stop. Second, it needs to automatically close my brackets, while at the same time, prevent me from generating an additional closing bracket should I choose to type it in manually. Stepping in when I forget, stepping out of the way when I remember.
Before I came across Sublime Text 2, I was on a lookout for a decent and usable code-editor for the Windows platform—Notepad++ is not decent. I’ve tried UltraEdit too, which supposedly is the most popular text editor, but it didn’t fit my requirements. With Sublime Text 2, I’m at ease.
In both my code-editor and my Terminal.app, I use Ethan Schoonover’s Solarized colour scheme. It comes in both light and dark variants, and I personally prefer using the light variant. Here’s how it looks:
In Sublime Text 2, there’s also an option to customise the interface chrome so that it is less jarring and black. For that, I use the Soda Theme, light variant. Here’s how it looks:
As for the font, I use either Apple’s Menlo (if available) or André Berg’s Meslo (a modified version of Apple’s Menlo), “Meslo LG S” variant (on Windows especially). It is monospaced and it has great readability at most reasonable sizes (9–13 pt). Nitti Light would have been a great monospaced font if not for its exorbitant price.
Happy writing and coding!
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