takahar

MobileMultiUser is available on Cydia

2012-01-23T03:42:00.002+09:00

Open Cydia, then

Go to [Manage] tab
Tap [Sources]
Tap [Edit] button
Tap [Add] button
Enter http://cydia.myrepospace.com/taka8aru and Tap [Add Source] button
Then Cydia processes repository. (It takes several minutes these days, because some major repository having trouble.)
Tap [Done] button
Select [taka8aru - MyRepoSpace], and you find MobileMultiUser

Please enjoy.

MobileMultiuser V3 for iOS 5 will be available soon

2012-01-12T14:38:00.000+09:00

MobileMultiUser V2 - share your iPad with family under password protection

2011-12-26T21:59:00.006+09:00

After my previous post, I added password GUI to my MobileMultiUser.

MobileMutiUser for iOS V2 (build #002 2011-12-25) [Download]

Installation and set-up are same as previous version.

Note, JB is required.
I was tested on iPad and iPod touch 4th generation with iOS 4.3.1.
I will test it on iOS 5 soon.

Comments or e-mail feed-backs are appreciated.

[Japanese version of this post]

MobileMultiUser - sharing iPad by switching user accounts, multi user support for iOS device

2011-05-29T18:11:00.006+09:00

How many iPads do you have?
Most of you and I have only one iPad at home.
iPad is post-PC device because your grand mother can use it, for example.
One and big problem occurs when you do not want to share your personal mail account or web bookmark with your family.

So I developed a tool MobileMultiUser to switch user account on iPad/iPhone/iPod touch like Mac and PC.

Notice: JB is required and your command line operations are also required on this version.
Notice: Before you use this tool, you should backup your iOS device with iTunes, and you should duplicate the backup folder to prevent overwriting the original backup.

MobileMultiUser for iOS Prototype 1 (build #001 2011-05-16) [Download]

Features of MobileMultiUser:

Icons for user accounts are placed at home screen of your iPad/iPhone/iPod touch.
Touch the icon to switch user environment.
What are saved between users:

Preferences of standard apps
icon position and wall paper (SpringBoard settings)
settings and app data for Safari, Mail, and Notes
Web Clips icon
Flipboard's settings and app data

What are shared between users:

setting and app data for apps not listed above.
For example, iTunes, iBooks, Pictures, YouTube and your installed apps.

You can add a user by using following commands;

cloneUser
Creates new user environment by copying the current user environment.
createUserIcon [-icon color]
Creates specified user's icon on home screen.
Because super user privilege is required to create icon, so you should invoke this command after su command.

You can use MobileMultiUser on iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.
I tested on iPad with iOS 4.3.1 and iPod touch 4gen with iOS 4.3.1.

How to install:

Cydia packages required are; OpenSSH, Erica Utilities, Tape Archive (tar), and sed.
Download MobileMultiUser-001.tar.gz from above link.
After downlod it to your PC/Mac, copy it to your iPad.

$ scp MobileMultiUser-001.tar.gz mobile@<ip address of ipad>
Extract the package into /var/mobile/Library/AddressBook/MMU-parasite/ .
MobileMutiUser parasites to AddressBooks folder, so its data will be backed up by iTunes.

$ ssh mobile@<ip address of ipad>
ipad$ cd /var/mobile/Library/AddressBook/
ipad$ tar xzvf ~/MobileMultiUser-001.tar.gz
Create the first user named "defaultUser".

ipad$ cd /var/mobile/Library/AddressBook/MMU-parasite/
ipad$ ./saveCurUser
ipad$ su
# ./createUserIcon defaultUser
# exit
Create additional user (Taro in following command).

ipad$ cd /var/mobile/Library/AddressBook/MMU-parasite/
ipad$ ./cloneUser Taro
ipad$ su
# ./createUserIcon Taro
# exit
After add a user's icon, you should respring to see the new icon.

ipad$ respring

Limitations of current version:

There are no way to display the current user name.
You can set individual wall paper for each user to distinguish between them.
If you tap current user's icon on home screen, no action are occurred.
You can save the user's environment only for applications listed at features section with current version.
You have to invoke command line tool to create new user.
System keychain database is shared between users.
For example, if user-A and user-B defines same gmail account then the password are shared, and if user-A deletes the gmail account then user-B's gmail's password will be cleared.
User-B could define gmail's password again.
There is no password protection between users.

This tool is provided on an "as is" without warranty of any kind.
Feel free to post comment or e-mail to me when you have any questions, suggestions or encouragement.

[Japanese version]

Mac OS X Server for Free

2011-03-01T21:19:00.005+09:00

Apple's Mac OS X Lion Preview page states "Lion Server is now part of Mac OS X Lion."

It means the most easy to manage server operating system will be free for Mac OS X Lion users.

Macs, iPads, iPhones, and PCs at home or at office will be under single administration in easy way.

You can choose your on promise server or cloud as your like, even at your home.

Nowadays, one or more devices per one person makes complexity.

Mac OS X Lion built in server will be the answer.

HP/Palm webOS 2.0 and beyond

2011-03-01T11:14:00.004+09:00

According to the latest press event on 9-Feb-2011, HP will release S, M and L size webOS devices on this summer (my report in Japanese).

The webOS might be numbered 2.2 for Veer and Pre 3, and 3.0 for TouchPad (clearly stated on wikipedia).

In addition to the news for new device, webOS 2.0/2.x will not be released for original Pre and Pixi (by tough decision).

Yet another solution for YouTube black-out problem on Mac Safari ; User-Agent

2011-02-20T18:15:00.009+09:00

Since about a week ago, we can not watch YouTube video by Mac Safari.

Once the problem occurred, it cannot be solved by re-installing Flash player, clearing Safari history, nor clearing Safari Cookie.

I found a temporally solution.

Change the USER-AGENT of Safari other than [Safair 4.0.5 - Mac] (for example, [Safari 4.0.5 - Windows]) from [Develop] menu
If [Develop] menu item on your Safari, use [Preferences...] => [Advanced]

Other solutions are exists, but I think there are some disadvantages;

Change the Safari application from 64-bit to 32-bit
Apples decided the default is now 64-bit. If you forget to switch back from 32-bit to 64-bit, performance penalty or missing new features will become the problem.
Change the YouTube to HTML5 mode
You can change YouTube to HTML5 mode by visiting youtube.com/html5 . If the html5 version of video is provided, the problem will be solved. Some or many videos are Flash (FLV) only.
Use embed mode of YouTube
If the url is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABCXYZ&feature=aaa
then, rewrite it as
http://www.youtube.com/embed/ABCXYZ
You can watch the video in Safari windows as full scaled.

I do not know the problem came from the Flash War, I hope Apple or YouTube solves the root cause early.

[2011-02-21 2:50 JST] Added 4th solution.

[Japanese version]

Google Instant for Images, Videos, Blogs, and Updates (realtime search)

2010-10-07T04:08:00.003+09:00

Today, Google enables Instant capability for Images search, Videos, Updates, News, Books, Blogs, and Discussions.

Google Maps and Shopping Search are not yet.

For Google Realtime Search (Updates Search for Twitter, etc) search result is updated according to your input, and the same time the result is scrolled down realtime.

Google Instant provides Arrow Key Navigation

2010-10-07T03:26:00.005+09:00

Do you find the small blue rectangle located left of Google Instant search result entry? (see red square on screen image)

I found that it is used by cursor (arrow) key navigation function provided by Google Instant.

Up and Down arrow keys let you move up and down the rectangle and select one of the result
Return key let you jump to the result
At the bottom of screen, you can also select Next and Previous button

Arrow key navigation will help you speeding up your google-ing.

MobileMe is the pioneer instead of Google Instant

2010-09-15T00:32:00.003+09:00

Many of us think the Google is the pioneer at Instant search technology derived from Google Wave.

However, Apple renewed MobileMe Web service on June, with instant search capabilities for Mail and Contacts.

When you start typing at search field, MobileMe starts searching and display search result instantly.

Google Translation has been similar to Google Instant/Wave

2010-09-15T00:17:00.002+09:00

Recently, Google announced to launch the brand new technology called Google Instant (TechCrunch article 2010-09-08).

It is said as newest technology at many news sites or blogs.

However, I found that Google Translate also have similar capability (instant result display) since it adds some new features on 2010-08-30.

It also provides pronunciation.

I think instant capability is more useful on Google Translate than Google Instant Search.

rumor: Millions of devices watching this streaming could use FaceTime

2010-09-01T21:35:00.005+09:00

Today's Apple keynote will be broadcasted via streaming.
My rumor "Millions of devices watching this streaming could use FaceTime."
Recently Jobs stated "Apple will ship tens of millions of FaceTime-connected devices in 2010."

Safari Reader customization - sans-serif font

2010-06-22T22:16:00.003+09:00

Safari 5's Reader is incredibly cool.
You can customize Safari Reader output by editing "Reader.html" file at "/Applications/Safari.app/Contents/Resources/" folder.
This is the way to change the type face from serif to sans-serif both at title and body.

The line 7 of Reader.html begins with "<style ". Insert following after the line 7;
* { font-family: sans-serif !important; }

Technically, the key for this is style prioritization specification: "!important".
Most of the parts of Safari Reader output is based on Reader.html styles, but body paragraphs are overridden by hard-coded Safari output.

Please enjoy.
Do not forget to backup before make modification to your system.

[Japanese version]

Please update your Flash Player on Mac OS X 10.6.4; current 10.1.53.64, vulnerable 10.0.45.2

2010-06-18T17:22:00.003+09:00

If you updated your Mac OS X to 106.4 today or yesterday, you should also check your Flash Player version;

current/newest 10.1.53.64
vulnerable 10.0.45.2

You can check your Flash version at About Adobe Flash Player site.

Don't miss it.

When Apple released Snow Leopard 10.6.0, they did similar problem.

Source: ZDNet 2010-06-16 Apple gives Mac users vulnerable Flash Player plugin

iPhone 4 screen resolution

2010-06-09T14:30:00.002+09:00

iPhone 4 screen resolution is even higher.
A blog named "Second Flush" tested iPhone/iPad Simulator of SDK.

from the 100 new features of iPhone 4, Macro Photo and Notes Sync

2010-06-09T01:30:00.004+09:00

Followings are my most curious features;

The camera has macro function
Camera page says "the macro lens takes great close-ups."
Notes Sync
More features page says "If you use an IMAP account such as MobileMe, your notes can even sync over the air."

new version of Fonera 2.0n firmware, very good

2010-04-23T20:13:00.003+09:00

The firmware update version 2.3.6.0 was released for FON Fonera 2.0n.
With older firmware relase, iPod touch/iPhone was sometimes suddenly disconnected and/or communication was very slow on Wi-Fi vir Fonera.
With this release, Wi-Fi communication becomes very stable like old La-Fonera 1.0.

This release is must be used for all Fonera 2.0n user.

Windows 7 tips; keyboard short-cut and gesture for maximize and minimize #2

2009-11-02T02:30:00.004+09:00

Vertically maximize window

Drag bottom border of window to the bottom edge of display, whole the mouse pointer is up-and-down arrow
Drag top border of window to the top edge of display, whole the mouse pointer is up-and-down arrow; this is not work if you drag the title bar, instead of the top border
Double click at bottom border of window, whole the mouse pointer is up-and-down arrow
Double click at top border of window, whole the mouse pointer is up-and-down arrow

Providing multiple way to do one thing may useful.
But explaining "To do xxxx, please execute aaaa, or bbbb, or, cccc, or..." is nightmare.
In the other hand with Mac, "To resize a window, drag right bottom corner of the window, this is the only way" is the life of minimalist, bipolar design philosophy.

Windows 7 tips; keyboard short-cut and gesture for maximize and minimize

2009-10-25T13:43:00.004+09:00

Windows 7 tips I found.

[Windows]+[Right arrow] and [Windows]+[Left arrow]
Align and maximize at right/left half of display.
With mouse, move title bar to right/left edge of display.
To restore, reverse arrow key. If you press same arrow key once again, the window will be aligned and maximized to opposite, and again, it will be restored.
[Windows]+[Up arrow]
Maximize current window.
With mouse, move title bar to top edge of display.
To restore, press [Windows]+[Down arrow] . If you press this key again, see below.
[Windows]+[Down arrow]
Minimize current window (iconify).
[Windows]+[Shift]+[Up arrow]
Maximize current windows to vertical direction.
With mouse, move bottom border to bottom edge of display. (move down with mouse, but up arrow with keyboard)
To restore, press [Windows]+[Down arrow] . [Windows]+[Shift]+[Down arrow] is same effect. If you press again, see above.
Shake the window title
Minimize other windows.

Passcode Lock Now utility

2009-09-23T21:45:00.004+09:00

>Recently, I wrote an entry "Protect your iPhone/iPod touch with Stronger Password".
Many of us use passcode lock timer to let us eliminate re-enter the passcode even when iPhone/iPod touch has been locked in very short period.
When you leave your iPhone/iPod touch alone, someone could see your important information without passcode.

I wrote "PasscodeLckNw (Passcode Lock Now)" utility that puts iPhone/iPod touch immediately into passcode locked.

PasscodeLckNw (Passcode Lock Now) (build #001 2009-09-22) [Download]

How to install:

It can not be installed from App Store, sorry.
Copy above kit to home direcotry of mobile user of iPhone/iPod touch by your favorite method.
Log-in to iPhone/iPod touch and become root (by "su" command).
Extract the kit at /Applications/ folder. The example command is;
```
cd /Applications/ ; unzip ~mobile/PasscodeLckNw-001.zip
```
A directory /Applications/PasscodeLckNw.app/ will be created.
Let iPhone/iPod touch recognize the application by using "respring" command or reboot.

Implementation note:

This is a shell-script application.
It restarts SpringBoard process by using "killall". That is a quicker way to lock the iPhone/iPod touch than rebooting.

[Japanese version]

Easily Take a Note on Snow Leopard/Leopard

2009-09-22T16:12:00.014+09:00

With Notes on iPhone/iPod touch (MobileNotes.app), you can take a note easily and quickly.

On Mac OS X, Notes function of Mail.app is not so quick.
You have to open the Mail, and then call New Note from File menu.
You want to take a note, but you have to open the Mail app, is not intuitive.
So, I made an utility to start taking a note with one click.
If you are using Note Sync with iPhone/iPod touch, this brings synergy.
It is very basic AppleScript applet.
Follow the steps to make it.

Open [Applications] -> [Utilities] -> [AppleScript Editor].

Copy and Paste following code into AppleScript Editor window.

tell application "Mail"activate
end tell
tell application "System Events"
tel

l process "Mail"
click the menu item "New Note" of the menu "File" of menu bar 1
-- click the menu item

 "新規メモ" of the menu "ファイル" of menu bar 1
end tell
end tell

Push [Run] button to test the script. You will see the Mail.app is open and new note window is appeared.

Then, do [File] -> [Save as], with "New Note" as file name, and specify [Application] for [File Format].
Place the "New Note" icon created into Dock.

To change the icon of "New Note";

Save the image at the upper right.
Open the image with Preview app.
Do [Edit] -> [Select All] or .
Do [Edit] -> [Copy] or .
Select "New Note" on Finder and do [File] -> [View Info] or .
Click the icon on the "New Note Info" window.
do [Edit] -> [Paste] or . Then the icon is replaced.

[Japanese version]

Grid layout of Snow Leopard Exposé ; wrong decision

2009-09-22T15:06:00.008+09:00

Grid layout of Exposé on Snow Leopard (with about 60 windows)

Flexible layout of Exposé on Leopard (showing famous 150 window) - There are 2.5 times many windows, but easily distinguish each of them.

The Layout mode of Exposé is changed from Flexible to Grid on Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6).
I like flexible layout of Leopard or Tiger (10.5/10.4).
I think grid layout has following disadvantages.

The size of all window will be same. So you can not easily find them.
For example, large Safari window and tiny Sticky window will have the same size. You can not distinguish which window is Safari and another is Sticky at once.
The information "window size" will be dismissed.
There is no meaning on Grid itself.
Grid layout is seems to be smart, but original window layout is analog, and is not aligned each other.
Anyway, Grid layout is not fun compared to Flexible layout.

I want original Flexible layout comes back in future.

[Japanese version]

Bottleneck of PyObjC on iPhone OS

2009-07-20T22:26:00.004+09:00

I found the bottleneck of Python programs with PyObjC on iPhone OS.

"import objc" and "obj.loadBundle ("UIKit",...)" are both usually used code, but they both takes about three seconds at application startup.

Though, Python language itself is not so slow.

It is 5 seconds overhead at startup time.

In addition , they are very large libraries so it also become disadvantage on memory footprint.

On comparison, MobileAddressbook takes only 5.7MB, but HelloPython takes 11MB.

That shows the memory overhead is about 5MB.

Both overheads appear only when you use both PyObjC and UIKit.

[Japanese version]

My Safari 4 on Mac OS X has been always hanged with pages with Flash

2009-06-27T22:41:00.003+09:00

Actually, My Mac mini with Safari 4 always hanged with web pages using Flash or YouTube movies.

After months with nightmares, I found it was caused by the conflict between Safari and SafariStand.

I deleted SafariStand, and I got very smooth web surfing with Safari 4.

My fault was that I do not updated the SafariStand after I installed Safari 4.

SafariStand is installed on /Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins/SafariStand.bundle .

I was mistakenly used SafariStand 3.1T161 with Safari 4.

Current version of SafairStand is 4.0T167 and it is compatible to Safari 4.

You can play video/video-podcast sound in background; iPhone/iPod touch tip

2009-06-19T03:19:00.005+09:00

Musics can be played in background; during web surfing with Safari, and even the iPod in sleep state.
You can enjoy the sound or voice of iPhone/iPod touch videos or video-podcasts with following steps;

Start to play a video or video-podcast with iPod (on iPhone) or Music (on iPod touch) application.
Click the home button and the video play-back is stopped at this step.
Double-click the home button to display play-back controller, and push the Play button. Then you find the sound or voice from the video is resumed. You can also sleep your device.
If you want to watch the video again, re-open the iPod/Music application.

This tip can be used with iPhone 2.2.1 or 3.0.

[Japanese version]

Protect your iPhone/iPod touch with Stronger Password

2009-06-18T05:10:00.010+09:00

The passcode (password) of iPhone/iPod touch is just only four digit numbers.
I think it is not safe enough for our all-day-use information device.
Apple provides "iPhone and iPod touch Enterprise Deployment Guide" and "iPhone Configuration Utility", but I could not easily start with them.
A post at Mac OS X Hints titled "Use a longer alphanumeric passcode on the iPhone" provides very easy instruction.
You can let your iPhone/iPod touch to require six alpha-numeric password instead of four digits.

Save the XML text of the post to a file with ".mobileconfig" extension.
Create e-mail message, attach the file, and send it to your iPhone/iPod touch.
With iPhone/iPod touch, open the message received, tap the attachment, and install it.
Then the profile will be installed. You will be prompted the old password, and new password (more than six character, and alpha-numeric).

After successful, the Enter Passcode display is enhanced like the picture below.
The password security of iPhone/iPod touch is powered up.

If you want to restore the password to four digits, open [Setting] -> [General] -> [Profile] and [Remove].

[2009-06-19 #01 IMPORTANT NOTICE]
Please do NOT install "iPhone Configuration Utility 1.1" (dated 2008-12) on your Mac running iTunes 8.1/8.2.
If you do so, MobileDevice.framework will be degraded and you can not sync your iPhone/iPod touch with your iTunes ("symbol not found" error will be logged on system.log).
To resolve this problem, you should restore /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/MobileDevice.framework from your TimeMachine, or delete it and re-install iTunes (I spent two nights for recovery).

[2009-06-19 #02]
Just after I wrote above notice, Apple released ICU 2.0 (2009-06).
I have not yet try it, but it may be better.

[Japanese version]

What our most want is MacBook Air with 4GB

2009-06-14T23:01:00.003+09:00

On the same time of announcement of iPhone 3G S, MacBook series was renewed.

Noticeable with bringing back of sub-15-inch MacBook Pro, and maximum 8GB of memory on notebook footprint.

But I feel something missing with MacBook Air.

It is great that it is priced under $2,000 with SSD, however fixed 2GB memory is not sufficient for professional use.

It may be convenient 4GB version with $500 additional cost.

In addition, (but it is not my personal economic interest) 17-inch MacBook Pro could be doubled on memory slots and configured with 16GB or cheaper priced 8GB is very interesting (if possible on 15-inch).

Nowadays, many kind of tasks are done with virtual machine, so 3GB limit of 32-bit operating system has become bottleneck.

We want that benefits of Mac OS X could be boosted with maximum memory available even on the MacBook.

[Japanese version]

Will iPhone 3.0 Beta 6 not be released?

2009-06-06T18:41:00.004+09:00

After releasing of iPhone 3.0 Beta 5 at May 7, there were no more releases from Apple for four weeks.
Is it an indication of formal release of iPhone 3.0 at WWDC?

Hello

2009-05-14T16:18:00.001+09:00

This is English version of my technology blog http://taka8aru.blogspot.com/ .
Please stay tuned.