Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2010 April 23

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April 23

Writing my own programs for iPhone

An earlier discussion centred around Apple's refusal to allow Adobe Flash on the iPhone platform and the non-availability of Flash on Apple's App Store. One answer proposed porting an open-source Flash player to the iPhone. But, that raises an interesting question. If you were to write your own iPhone program, how would you get it installed onto your (non-jailbroken) iPhone if the App Store is the only way to get any app on the iPhone? Astronaut (talk) 00:35, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

According to our article on the iPhone SDK, you can develop them off-line (not on an iPhone) with an "iPhone simulator", but if you want to load them onto a device (even just your own), you have to pay an "iPhone Developer Program fee." (Can I soap-box for a moment just to say how disturbing I find it that geeks who are normally up in arms about big corporations determining how they use their computers are willingly accepting this kind of thing? This is about as far away from a free-software ideal as you can get.) --Mr.98 (talk) 00:51, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

The Free Software Foundation has been campaigning against the iphone ever since there was an iphone. That's about as "up in arms" as can be, lacking the budget for an actual army. 98.226.122.10 (talk) 01:47, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm actually a little offended at the insinuation that Apple fan-boys are just like us free-software enthusiasts. We activists who develop and promote free, free software are a little too scruffy and unshaven to fit into Apple's target-market! Just because some rimmed-glasses turtleneck with an iPhone calls himself a "technology enthusiast," you can't lump him in with the rest of us! At least, not until they complete the rite-of-passage: releasing something useful and potentially profitable under a free license like the GPL, instead of through a commercial channel. Nimur (talk) 14:26, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, if you only want to develop for the iPhone (not the iPad or iPod touch) you can register for free, otherwise it's $99/year. It also requires that you run the SDK on OS X Leopard or newer; no other operating systems are supported. Also, Apple recently stated that all applications must be written in "Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript". Indeterminate (talk) 02:00, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I've criticized Apple in several forums. But on the Apple forum, they just censor me. They removed a comment I made that Steve Jobs is trying to increase sales on the iTunes video store by killing free streaming Flash video. But, suspiciously, they left the rest of my post intact. ;-). Electronic criticism is about the limit of what I can do. Adobe is the only company with enough power to hit back hard. They appear to be preparing a lawsuit. And if they were to discontinue Photoshop and Dreamweaver for the Mac, and deny Apple the right to use the PDF and Flash Player in Mac OS X, they would do some serious damage to Apple's market share. But I fear that both companies are too concerned with profit to take any courageous, principled steps at this point in time.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 02:16, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

And yet when you point that out to the Apple fanboys, they call you all sorts of names, "wintard" being the most popular insult. I've nothing against Apple products at all, but I don't like it when people freely call out Microsoft for all the crap they've pulled over the years, yet they refuse to hear any criticism on Apple having its own flaws. Every company has its faults, one shouldn't have the luxury of being able to sweep theirs under the rug. In fact, the whole point of criticism is to demand that they make their products better to use. 24.189.90.68 (talk) 08:43, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

It is these "must use iTunes" and "must develop on Mac OS X" restrictions which are the main reason why I haven't rushed out to buy an iPhone. Astronaut (talk) 10:35, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Two words: HTC Desire. After all, it is the best phone in the world according to techradar. 131.111.185.69 (talk) 12:51, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Funnily enough, I read a magazine review of that very phone just this afternoon, and a friend of mine has good things to say about HTC products. Think I'll check it out. Astronaut (talk) 22:46, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

We have to vote with our feet. Just say no to closed systems - the Android phones are every bit as good (many would argue "better") and you can develop for them on Linux, Mac or Windows. The full developer toolkit includes a phone emulator and is free. The Android runs Linux - and most of the source code is freely available. It has proper multitasking (not like the crappy system Apple kludged onto the iPhone as an afterthought). You don't have to get permission from almighty Apple to get your App onto the market. It's a great platform. SteveBaker (talk) 18:53, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

lossless ogg vorbis editing?

I have an Ogg Vorbis audio file that I'd like to losslessly extract a clip from. By that, I mean Vorbis is already lossy compression, and editing with audacity seems to introduce further loss by uncompressing and recompressing the vorbis file. I'm hoping to just select a bunch of the compressed frames from the input file and copy them to the output file. Is there a simple way to do that? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.127.53.162 (talk) 08:46, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

The Oggz tools (specifically oggz-chop, for your task) can do this and some other lossless Ogg editing tricks. They're command line tools, but they should be quite straightforward to use (at least for simple things like cutting files) if you have even a little bit of experience in using the command line. I'm not particularly familiar with equivalent GUI tools, but a bit of Googling turned up Ogg Cutter for Windows. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 20:23, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Mac OS X Updates Download

Is there a direct download for Mac OS X Updates? A friend of mine is asking this because his Apple Updater (Leopard) is really slow at the moment and sometimes crashes. Is there any way he can bypass the updater and download directly to his Mac (thinking about it now, actually, I have the same problem with mine (Tiger)). --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 08:58, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

You can get the latest updates from Apple's website, I think. Try using the search bar on there- I can't find the direct link to it. Chevymontecarlo. 11:55, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Cheers. I looked on there and only found info about the most recent update, not the update itself. I'll take a look again. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 20:53, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I thought you could grab the updates directly. Sorry about that, but I'm fairly sure you can, somewhere. Chevymontecarlo. 07:36, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

[1] - click the Download button to get the .dmg. (first result for "download os x updates" ;) Indeterminate (talk) 07:56, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Deploying software through Active directory

Hi I am trying to publish Adobe reader through active directory.

I have configured the Group policy in user configuration->Software settings->Software installation so that with the relevant .msi. \\<<my name>>-serv\programs\AcroRead.msi, and in deployment state published.

However this policy setting does not show in Resultant Set of Policy, and the software is, presumably for the same reason, not availiable for installation in the clients. What am I doing wrong?

To eliminate one possible source of error; the group policy is placed in the top of my domain, and other changes that I make in it does show up in Resultant set of policies. 213.161.190.227 (talk) 09:02, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Motorola Milestone and Android 2.1 update

I'm in the Netherlands, with a Motorola Milestone. This week I received the Android 2.1 update 1, OTA, and installed. Seems that worked, as new features are functional. There is now a 'voice dialer' program, which is working. All good. What I can't figure out how to turn on, is the 'speech to text' feature of the keyboard, or in text boxes. There should now automatically be a microphone icon on the keyboard, and in the google quick search text box, but it isn't there. I found one advice by googling around that the settings are in "language and keyboard>android keyboard", but in my language and keyboard, I have 'motorola keyboard' not android keyboard, and no setting that I can discover for turning on or off the microphone/'speech to text' feature. I have been on the Motorola website and other Android blogs, but w/out success so far. Thanks if you can help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.101.134.43 (talk) 09:33, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

According to http://www.heise.de/ct/hotline/FAQ-Android-980631.html (German, Google translation here [2]): [...]on the other hand, some innovations are disabled despite Android 2.1: The Motorola Milestone is missing, for example, the system-wide voice, the HTC Legend shows no Live background.

Note to U.S. readers: The Motorola Milestone is a GSM/UMTS version of the Motorola Droid. -- 78.43.60.58 (talk) 11:13, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Does this exist?

I'm looking for a mouse, doesn't matter where from, that is wireless,and has a battery pack. But when it's dead I'd like to be able to plug in the mouse and use it wired until it finished charging. Something like the Xbox_360_Controller#Play_And_Charge_Kit. Does this exist? Chris M. (talk) 15:31, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

A search for "wired wireless mouse", returns only the Razer Mamba. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:35, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I think that the Logitech gaming mice [e.g. this one.] can be used while they are charged. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 17:53, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I have two mice (a wireless and a wired device). Both connect over USB. Every operating system I have used, except Mac OS X, behaves exactly as you would expect - both mice can be used simultaneously; if one sits dormant, the other controls the mouse cursor. This is a cheap workaround - a wired mouse can be under $5 - so this may be the most cost-effective solution (if not cheapest in terms of desktop real-estate). Nimur (talk) 22:14, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

As has already been mentioned, Logitech Performance MX & the Razer Mamba have this. As these are high end gaming mice, they are not cheap and if you don't game, you may find a lot of their features useless. The Microsoft Sidewinder X8 (which is also a highend gaming mouse but tends to be cheaper at least where I live) also has this. The modified Logitech MX1100 part of the Logitech Wave Pro (not Wave) mouse+keyboard set is another one but bear in mind the original/stand alone Logitech MX1100 does not. All of these except for the Microsoft use micro USB cables I believe (which may be useful if you have a phone or something else that uses micro USB) to connect the mouse while the Microsoft has some magnetic thing which is supposed to be easy to quickly connect (as I said it's designed for gamers). The Logitechs are both part of their unifying receiver range and the MX1100 in particular has an AA battery but I'm not sure how easy it is to remove (there's the risk someone may put a non rechargable battery in it then plug it in, but then that's common with many DECT phones and some other similar devices). Nil Einne (talk) 07:59, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I keep a spare set of rechargeable batteries on my desk, so when the batteries in my mouse are flat, I can immediately swap them out. 121.74.167.214 (talk) 08:10, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Why not just buy a second mouse? Cheap USB mice are about $10 to $15 - keep it in your drawer and plug it in when your fancy wireless mouse craps out. SteveBaker (talk) 18:48, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

MSN plugin Logitech G-19 keyboard

Where can i find a msn plugin for the screen on the g-19 keyboard? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.183.172.203 (talk) 21:19, 23 April 2010 (UTC)