Author: James Low

Thoughts On Keyboards

When Apple first released their wireless keyboard without the number pad attached I thought “What are they thinking?”. But having worked on a macbook with a small keyboard and an integrated touchpad, and then consequently getting neck pains from pad posture and switching to an external keyboard and monitor, I now see that having the keyboard right next to your mouse or track pad for both speed and ergonomics, is a really good thing.

I’ve since bought the small Apple keyboard for work, along with a Wacom Bamboo Touch for work, since I prefer it over a mouse (2 finger scrolling FTW!). I’m now selling/trading my Apple keyboard that I have at home with a number pad built in as its not for me, maybe for those doing a lot of a numeric entry (like when I worked in an investment bank doing excel all the time). Let me know if anyone wants it or want to trade for the small Apple keyboard.

With the Bamboo Touch, its not quite as good as an Apple touchpad. I would love an Apple keyboard with one built, just like a laptop. I had to turn off Add left and right taps to click and drag, and stick with the release fingers and retouch to have a click to keep the Bamboo Touch from detected accidental clicks, which the Apple one tends to ignore better. The texture isn’t as good as the nice glass Apple touchpads either, but I still prefer it over a mouse.

Guitar History

Total count in (brackets)

1993 – Yamaha Acoustic (1)
1994 – Aria Pro Electric (2)
1997 – Musicman Silhouette Special (3)
1998 – Fender Tele Nylon String (4)
1998 – Sold Aria Pro Electric (3)
1998 – Fender Bass (Used) (4)
1999 March – Gibson ES-175 (5)
1999 May – Sold Fender Bass (4)
1999 May – Sold Yamaha Acoustic and bought it back straight away (3/4)
2001 – Takamine (5)
2002 – G&L Legacy 2000 (6)
2006 – Sold Takamine (5)
2006 – Another Takamine (6)
2007 – PRS Santana SE (7)
2009 Nov – Michael Kelly Hybrid Special (8)
2009 Nov – Sold PRS Santana SE (7)
2009 Dec – Sold Musicman (6)
2009 Dec – Sold Gibson ES-175 (5)
2011 Nov – Sold Fender Tele Nylon String (4)
2014 – Gave away Yamaha Acoustic (3)
2016 Mar – Fender Strat Partscaster (4)
2018 Aug – Sold Michael Kelly Hybrid Special (3)
2018 Nov – Sold G&L Tribute L2000 (2)

Flips:
2018 Oct – Nature Jazz Bass Copy
2018 Nov – Fender Bullet Strat

Can I lose my need to impress?


If weakness is a wound that no one wants to speak of
Then “cool” is just how far we have to fall
I am not immune, I only want to be loved
But I feel safe behind the firewall

Can I lose my need to impress?
If you want the truth I need to confess

I’m not alright, I’m broken inside
And all I go through, it leads me to You

-Sanctus Real

HTTP headers and raw POST data for PHP-CGI

I host my website on Dreamhost and as good value as it is, with great email/SVN/MySQL and hosting, there are some limitations. One of them is trying to read raw POST data from $HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA and the other is trying to read custom HTTP headers because PHP runs as a CGI module using there service.

I realised the working around for getting raw post data is to use:

$data = file_get_contents(‘php://input’);

And that you can use mod_rewrite to to pass HTTP headers to the $_SERVER variable, as described here. If you want to add additional header values, you must specify each one as a seperate E= statement in your .htaccess file. I was writing a CALDAV server and wanted to be able to (1) use the HTTP authentication described here, (2) read the “Depth” HTTP header, and (3) redirect all requests queries through a single php file:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . index.php [E=REDIRECT_REMOTE_USER:%{HTTP:Authorization},E=DEPTH:%{HTTP:Depth},L]
RewriteRule .* – [E=REDIRECT_REMOTE_USER:%{HTTP:Authorization},E=DEPTH:%{HTTP:Depth},L]

Mail.app RSS Smart Mailbox

If like me you have quite a lot of RSS subscriptions within Apple Mail.app you may find that you either get sick of navigating each RSS folder on the left individually but don’t want to put all your RSS subscriptions within your inbox. What I realised you could do is create a smart mailbox to only show read RSS items, greatly saving space in the left hand pane, and making it easy to navigate all unread subscriptions.

iSync icon after iTunes sync

For some of you this maybe so minor its not worth worrying about, but I really don’t like how if conflict resolver is shown when syncing my iPhone with iTunes, the iSync icon gets added to my menu bar no matter whether I click sync now or later after resolving the conflict. I’ve contacted Apple about this, but I recently found this article (http://www.tuaw.com/2009/11/02/mac-101-how-to-manually-enable-menu-extras/) that helps explain how to load menu items. What I’ve done instead is rename the sync menu item, so that it never gets loaded. Quick disclaimer, I’m not responsible for any damage to your computer using this command.

sudo mv “/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/Sync.menu” “/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/Sync2.menu”

Dismantle.Repair.


Oh oh, things are gonna change now for the better
Oh oh, things are gonna change

Hands, like secrets, are the hardest thing to keep from you
Lines and phrases, like knives, your words can cut me through
Dismantle me down (repair)
You dismantle me
You dismantle me

 

iPhone Idea

My friend Janakan just got a Google Andriod. I think they’re pretty cool along with the Palm Pre and iPhone. Abduction on Google Android is great :-P

Anyway one thing the iPhone could improve is adding a central notifications area to show all push notifications. The way I’d see this working is to swipe right from the home screen to where spotlight/search is now, and show a chronological list of all notifications for all apps. Then if you start typing it starts to search your iPhone as usual.