Grid layout of Snow Leopard Exposé ; wrong decision

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

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

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

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;

1. Start to play a video or video-podcast with iPod (on iPhone) or Music (on iPod touch) application.
2. Click the home button and the video play-back is stopped at this step.
3. 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.
   
4. 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

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

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?

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?