Brilliant startup idea generator.

http://venomousporridge.com/post/908986088/whereto-patent

Horrible if this is what it appears to be.

UPDATE: And Apple has gone on the record that it’s all on the up-and-up. Apple regularly includes mockups of existing apps in patent descriptions (not claims) as examples of where new technology could be useful.

There are several reasons to setup a VPN to your home LAN. For more professional business situations, you probably want to get some Cisco hardware. But if you just need a simple way to access a home network securely from your iPhone, then it’s easy to do it yourself without buying any additional hardware.

A full breakdown and deep exploration of all the various types and configurations of VPNs is beyond the scope of this article, but basically you choose between Point-to-Point-Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) and Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP). Today we will work with PPTP.

If you run Linux (BSD, Darwin, et al.) you can download the open source PoPToP project. This is a PPTP server daemon (pptpd) that works in conjunction with your system PPP daemon (pppd) to authenticate users, assign an IP address, and tunnel the traffic. There are a bunch of options you can use with pppd and pptpd. I will show you the basics to get it up and running in 10 minutes.

First, install PoPToP via the preferred method for your platform. I had no trouble compiling it from source.

You will need 3 configuration files:

/etc/pptpd.conf
/etc/ppp/options.pptpd
/etc/ppp/chap-secrets


The first file needs to contain only 3 lines to work:

option /etc/ppp/options.pptpd
localip 192.168.1.10
remoteip 192.168.1.100-150


Where the first line points to the pptpd plugin for ppp (don’t change this), the localip option is the IP address of the server you are going to be accepting connections on (the same server the file is on) and the remoteip designates the range of addresses to assign to incoming users, much like a DHCP pool.

Next, the /etc/ppp/options.pptpd file:

name pptpd
refuse-pap
refuse-chap
refuse-mschap
require-mschap-v2
require-mppe-128
ms-dns 8.8.8.8
ms-dns 8.8.4.4
lock
nobsdcomp
nologfd


This forces MS-CHAP version 2 authentication and DNS assignments for the iPhone. In the above, I use Google’s public DNS servers but you are free to use whatever you want.

Finally, the /etc/ppp/chap-secrets file, which contains all your users:

yourusername pptpd yourpassword *


Replace yourusername and yourpassword, but leave the pptpd and *. This instructs the PPP daemon to use the pptpd plugin and allow connections from any incoming address, which you will want on a mobile device.

Almost done. We just need to add some sort of startup script and iptables rules.

I manage a good deal of my init scripts by making one for each service and calling them from /etc/rc.d/rc.local

Here’s the one for the pptpd:

#!/bin/sh
# /etc/rc.d/rc.pptpd
if [ "$1" = "stop" ]; then
echo "Stopping PPTP VPN daemon"
killall pptpd
else # assume $1 = start:
echo "Starting PPTP VPN daemon"
/usr/local/sbin/pptpd
fi


I use a very tightly configured set of iptables rules, so I need to explicitly allow the PPTP port, TCP 1723.

#!/bin/sh
# /etc/rc.d/rc.iptables
(large irrelevent sections omitted)
/usr/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 1723 -j ACCEPT


You may also wish to let your server handle routing all Internet traffic to your iPhone:


# Allow VPN Internet traffic through
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
/usr/sbin/iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE
/usr/sbin/iptables -A FORWARD -i eth0 -o ppp0 -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT
/usr/sbin/iptables -A FORWARD -i ppp0 -o eth0 -j ACCEPT


The above is optional, but it may help you get around annoying firewalls. You will probably also need to forward TCP port 1723 on your router.

That’s it as for the server. Now the iPhone. In iOS 4, go to

Settings > VPN > Add VPN Configuration…

Select PPTP

Description:   My Network
Server:   Your network’s public IP address
Account:   What you put for yourusername in chap-secrets
RSA SecurID:  OFF
Password:  What you put for yourpassword in chap-secrets
Encryption Level:  Auto
Send All Traffic:  This is optional, but if you enable it, you will need the above iptables rules to allow passthrough Internet traffic

The point is that the default options should just work. And there is nothing iPhone-specific about this; uou should be able to connect from any PPTP client on any platform.

Next up, L2TP.

http://developer.apple.com/programs/mfi/cases.html

I want this on a t-shirt.

The Big Caption

Fantastic companion to The Big Picture.

http://mantia.me/blog/thoughts-on-flash/

He offers his own unique perspective. Congratulations to him also for starting his design gig at Apple this week.

Since Steve is all chatty these days, Craig Hockenberry has written an open letter about the way the iPad is used in group settings:

Predictably, people’s initial reaction was “Wow, that’s the new iPad!” But that quickly faded as I opened the Photos app and passed the device around. My family was more interested in sharing the photos than talking about the new technology.

I was particularly interested in how my mother, the quintessential technophobe, would react to the device. She picked up on things quickly and was flipping through photos in no time. It astonished me how the interface disappeared for her: at one point she subconsciously licked her finger before “flipping” to the next photo.

As interesting as it was to see someone non-technical use the device, the real eye opener was how several people could interact with the iPad at once. Much of my mother’s fear of computers was overcome because she was looking at the pictures alongside my sister-in-law who helped her out when she got stuck. Learning was organic.

This is what I’ve seen too. Whatever app is running quickly becomes the iPad. You’re not using a Google Maps program on a tablet computer, you’re holding an amazing digital, zoomable, worldwide map. Safari is also an amazing experience where it really feels like the entire World Wide Web is in your hands. The experience is also made communal by allowing more people to sit around it and use it simultaneously. A slight tilt in any direction orients it to that person’s view, but many apps (such as Maps) don’t require a particular orientation. With a desktop or laptop computer, there must always be one exclusive “driver” sitting in front of it controlling it primarily.

The iPad was naturally passed around amongst the partygoers. Many people interacted with it during the evening, and I lost track of who had it at any given time. And therein lies a fundamental problem.

My iPad has a lot of personal information on it: email, business documents, and financial data. When you pass it around, you’re giving everyone who touches it the opportunity to mess with your private life, whether intentionally or not. That makes me uneasy.

I don’t have an iPad yet, but my friend does, and even though it’s his information, not mine, it makes me instinctively anxious when people pass it around to experiment with it.

Zeldman:

Sounds familiar.

Except Steve Jobs’s subtext isn’t “web standards, web standards, web standards, told you so.”

Except it kind of is.

Kottke:

Jobs sort of circles around the main issue which is, from my own perspective as heavy web user and web developer: though Flash may have been necessary in the past to provide functionality in the browser that wasn’t possible using JS, HTML, and CSS, that is no longer the case. Those open web technologies have matured (or will in the near future) and can do most or even all of what is possible with Flash. For 95% of all cases, Flash is, or will soon be, obsolete because there is a better way to do it that’s more accessible, more open, and more “web-like”.

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/

Prominently linked from the front page of Apple.com, right under the big iPad.

He makes all great points, and I’m glad to see that it begins with “First, there’s ‘Open’”. I have often wondered if Apple’s devotion to open standards was just lip service, but given their recent response to Adobe’s madness and Jobs’ words here, I’m convinced. They are serious about this one.

After critiquing the poor performance of Flash, he moves on to discussing iPhone app development and confirms that 3.3.1 is all about the Flash to iPhone ABI cross-compiler.

This has led some people to say this letter is ironic or hypocritical given how closed the App Store is, and part of the blame is on the seamless transition in this letter between the two things (the Flash web plugin and the Flash to iPhone ABI hack).

http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/29/microsoft-confirms-kills-courier-in-one-fell-swoop/

The mythical Windows 7 Phone-like tablet that was going to put the iPad to shame is halted before the R&D for the project even got anywhere.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/04/iphone-finder/

Gonna have to just quote Gruber on this one:

Brian J. Hogan, a 21-year-old resident of Redwood City, California, says although he was paid by tech site Gizmodo, he believed the payment was for allowing the site exclusive access to review the phone. Gizmodo emphasized to him “that there was nothing wrong in sharing the phone with the tech press,” according to his attorney Jeffrey Bornstein.

So begins Hogan’s efforts to put it all on Gizmodo.

A friend of Hogan’s then offered to call Apple Care on Hogan’s behalf, according to Hogan’s lawyer. That apparently was the extent of Hogan’s efforts to return the phone.

Read that closely. First, Hogan never called anyone, including Apple, to attempt to return the phone. Second, his friend, according this paragraph, “offered to call Apple Care”. Did this friend actually even call Apple Care? It’s not clear from Wired’s article that Hogan did
anything at all to return the phone.

His attorney says he recently transferred schools and will resume his college education in the fall. He has been working part time at a church-run community center giving swimming lessons to children and volunteered at a Chinese orphanage last year while he was enrolled in a study-abroad program.

“He also volunteers to assist his aunt and sister with fundraising for their work to provide medical care to orphans in Kenya,” his attorney says. “Brian is the kind of young man that any parent would be proud to have as their son.”

You know it’s bad when your attorney is asking for leniency before you’ve even been charged.

Press release from HP.

The point is clearly to get ahold of WebOS. An HP tablet running that may be the first iPad competitor we see.

Truly the NetBSD of clock screensavers. (iTunes link)

Transmit 4 from Panic is out. First-day sales not too shabby.

For a treat, hold shift when you click to flip the Transmit 4 screenshot around.

UPDATE: For even more impressive attention to detail, check out Campaign Monitor’s writeup of Panic’s announcement HTML email. Using “/”s for the airmail header instead of images, for example, is just genius.

http://rickwebb.tumblr.com/post/556400952/the-never-call-there-are-some-people-who-love-to

It was a 70 year or so period where for some reason humans decided it was socially acceptable to ring a loud bell in someone else’s life and they were expected to come running, like dogs. This was the equivalent of thinking it was okay to walk into someone’s living room and start shouting. It was never okay. It’s less okay now.

http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/ada/

Five awards each for iPhone and iPad.

http://www.loopinsight.com/2010/04/28/apple-buys-mobile-app-assistant-company-siri/

Siri is an amazing little search app that uses voice recognition to uncannily figure out what you meant.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36795143/ns/business-us_business

Levin pointed to a particular transaction that one of Sparks’ bosses termed a “shitty deal” in an email. The Senator used the phrase “shitty deal” at least a half dozen times at the hearing. Sparks did not respond directly, and said it was not his own description of the transaction.
Later in the day, when asked about the email, Chief Financial Officer David Viniar said, “I think that’s very unfortunate to have on email.” People in the gallery laughed, and Senator Levin said, “On email? How about feeling that way?”

Viniar said, “I think it’s very unfortunate for anyone to have said that, in any form.” Levin asked about whether it was unfortunate to believe it, and Viniar said, “I think that’s very unfortunate as well.”

Great points.

Of all of today’s Verizon Android buyers, how many of them made that choice for the network first and the device second? And, by extension, for how many of them was Android a compromise rather than a choice? What will they do if there’s a Verizon iPhone in the future?

This is why I think part2 of Android’s popularity in the U.S. is only a temporary bubble that Apple can choose to burst whenever they’re willing and able to launch a Verizon iPhone.

As The Macalope points out, this article implying that the San Mateo District Attorney’s Office takes orders from Apple is by John Cook, who had his first day on the job today at Yahoo News. His previous employer was Gawker Media.

http://blog.laptopmag.com/eff-lawyer-seizure-of-gizmodo-editors-computers-violates-state-and-federal-law

Granick said that, even if Jason Chen is under investigation for receipt of stolen property, the government has no right to issue a search warrant, because California law includes exceptions for journalists who are in receipt of information from sources.

I don’t get this argument that journalists are immune from all investigations themselves simply because Shield Law protects them from having to reveal their sources.

I really expected more from the organization which has spent countless hours arguing that information is not property.

In full disclosure, I am a member and donor to the EFF.

The Macalope has a great rebuttal to Gawker Media’s Nick Denton’s implication that Apple’s presence on the REACT steering committee somehow gives them authority over police investigations.

“It depends,” Wagstaffe says. “If there’s something unusual about the phone, then yes, REACT would get involved. It deals with anything that’s high-tech. So if it’s hard to put a value on it — for instance, if it’s not just any cell phone — then a local police force might have trouble assessing its value, and the task force would have the expertise to do that.”

Oh, wait, turns out it’s really not hard to imagine why REACT might get involved at all! Because the damn thing was a freakin’ prototype of an upcoming product.

Since they demanded a letter from Apple, which they could scan and post as confirmation that the iPhone prototype was real, they could be guilty of extortion under California PC 518-527. (Thanks to Eric Warnke)

Steve Jobs, on whether there will be an Apple-authorized-only Mac App Store.

“They’re the real thing.”

Gizmodo’s defense is based on arguing that bloggers are journalists, with the tacit implication that Shield Law applies, but it does not. Shield Law exists to protect journalists from giving up their sources. The State of California is arguing that Gizmodo themselves committed a felony.

During the raid, Jason Chen provided police with a printout of the email from Gawker COO and legal counsel (note: not a bonafide lawyer) Gaby Darbyshire citing Shield Law. In what is probably poetic justice, they seized that too.

http://www.kyleconroy.com/apple-stock.php

Kyle Conroy breaks down how much you would have earned if you had spent your money on Apple stock instead of Apple products over the years.

My first, an 900MHz G3 iBook, cost $1,499 in 2003 which would be worth $60,055.35 today.

For Heap, a web-based CRM app, via Merlin Mann:

So I’ve been using Heap for my free trial and I’ll admit heap is the best thing out there. But, I just assumed that I would get the app for free when my free trial was over. See I run a gallery that features art that others find “too offensive” to show. So I’m a vital part of the community. I explained this to the support address at heap and they had the balls to write this back:

Doug,
We think that $9 for the first user and $5 dollars for every additional user is a reasonable price for any organization. You also don’t qualify for a company under our developing nation s license as you suggest. The developing nation license is only for the poorest nations in world who truly can’t afford $9 a month (thats why its free to them). The United States, where you are located, is not a developing nation.
You are free to export your data or to enter your credit card, but I’m sorry, you don’t qualify for a free license.
Ben Smith

WHAT AN ASSHOLE! “United States, where you are located”! I had to enter my card because Heap does stuff I can’t find anywhere else. But I don’t wont them to have any more customers so I’ve been trying to rate them down through proxy servers and stuff, but some people keep rating them up. Stop It!

Adam Lisagor:

So she sees my cock and, naturally, is revolted and I end up apologizing profusely and tipping generously and long story short, we’re going out later this week.

http://uneasysilence.com/archive/2010/04/14834/

In an email to get product feedback, they sent out a single message Cc’ing the entire customer list: all 64 of them (it was previously reported that they had sold only 90, with 15 returns, for 75 total), exposing each other’s email addresses to one another.

Also, “Please revert back to us want you think of our product.” ?

Hi-res photos and videos, courtesy of NASA. Stunning.

In response to Jonathan Wight’s complaint yesterday about background apps that aren’t aware you don’t want them, Scott Gruby has put together some sample code that does just that using FSEvents.

Via MacRumors

“A deal would make a lot of sense for Apple,” said one trader. “That way, they could stop ARM’s technology from ending up in everyone else’s computers and gadgets.”

http://www.incidents.org/diary.html?storyid=8656

Looks like update 5958 falsely detects svchost.exe as a virus, then sends any Windows XP machine with Service Pack 3 into a constant reboot cycle.

A nice little QuickLook plugin to see iPhone OS app icons in the Finder.

http://code.google.com/p/quicklook-ipa/

http://julianhansen.com/index.php?/alternative-type-finder/

Love the extra long path leading to Comic Sans.

http://blog.sproutcore.com/post/531215199/introducing-sproutcore-touch

SproutCore Touch is the first edition of SproutCore that includes complete support for touch events and hardware acceleration on the iPad and iPhone. It will also eventually work with Android, Palm once we have a chance to work with those platform vendors to tie into their custom features as well.

I had some false positives before, but this time it’s certain. With iTunes 9.1 Apple has finally fixed the most irritating bug since the iPhone launch. In a nut:

• - If you sync a directory of photos (as opposed to syncing an iPhoto or Aperture library) to an iPhone, iTunes will strip out the EXIF data on those photos before they reach the device.
• - So photos taken with the iPhone’s own camera, on the device in the “Camera Roll” album have the proper EXIF data.
• - Photos imported to your computer (through Image Capture, iPhoto, or Aperture) have the correct EXIF data.
• - Those same photos synced back to the device will lose that data
• - Which wouldn’t be a huge issue, except that the iPhone camera is actually horizontal, and it’s only an EXIF rotation tag that makes vertically oriented photos appear vertical.

Net result is that photos taken on the device, synced back to the device, display incorrectly. I use the Camera Roll only as a temporary album until I can sync again. Having photos there just means I haven’t synced since I’ve taken those. I also have an “Imported” album that they get dropped in when I import, and then that album is synced back to the iPhone. “Imported” acts as a central dropbox for stuff that hasn’t been dealt with yet, much like a “Desktop” folder.

I’m very happy to see this bug fixed. Ironically though, I switched to Aperture a few weeks ago.

http://friendda.org/

WHEREAS I possess a bright idea that I am choosing to disclose to you, The Advisor, with the mutual understanding that you are my friend and that you will not screw me.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/17/iphone-4g-is-this-it/

No.

I now believe this is a prototype of the new iPhone set to debut this summer. A few key details have surfaced, most importantly this device can be seen laying on the table next to the locked down iPad in the photos leaked just days before the iPad’s unveiling, along with what appears to be a ceramic back on the unit, which Apple has a patent from 2006 for, that doesn’t limit the radio signal as much as metal enclosures.

Those at Gizmodo who have handled it (and purportedly paid the finder for it) say the resolution is high enough that you cannot make out individual pixels, and it is recognized by iTunes and Xcode as an iPhone.

However, unlike Gizmodo who are bending over backwards to try to understand this “radical departure” from current iPhone design, I do not believe this unit represents the final design. It does not bear any markings of Apple’s design language. The seams and separate volume buttons (as opposed to the volume rocker switch on all previous and current devices that run iPhone OS) are particularly homely.

Also worth noting is that under California law, you are required to notify the police and return a found item that isn’t yours, and Apple considers this stolen. Whatever ad revenue Gizmodo is making from this story, I hope it’s worth it if/when Apple Legal calls wanting this prototype back.

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook-Pro-15-Inch-Unibody-Core-i5-Teardown/2212/

Pretty much the same as before, but without any sort of access panel underneath, the hard drive goes back to being a little harder to access. It isn’t made any easier by them switching to tri-wing screws either.

Sykora said Apple’s application programming interface in the iPhone OS software development kit does not provide a way to do the gesture, so he and Kaneko coded it themselves. The feature was even demonstrated in a promotional video the developers created for Web Albums HD through the iPad SDK.

“When we submitted it to Apple, we were stunned by their response,” Sykora said. “Apparently the tap and pinch to expand is only for native Apple apps.”

I don’t think the App Store approval process is going to be sustainable for the level of success Apple wants for the iPad.

Derek Powazek:

Calling the beautiful, amazing, brilliant things people create online “user-generated content” is like sliding up to your lady, putting your arm around her and whispering, “Hey baby, let’s have intercourse.”

http://www.macworld.com/article/1983/2001/03/macosx.html?lsrc=twt_jsnell

I still half cringe whenever I hear anyone talking about “Macs”, the “Mac OS” or another term that does not force the distinction between old world “Mac OS” and the new OS X hotness. It was turning point for Apple, and I think a turning point for the industry. But maybe it’s time for me to get over it and use the simple terms colloquially.

Best SQL injection attack ever.

Another off the cuff email reply from sjobs@apple.com

Just added to the collection, along with some improvements to the armoire itself. New photos.

Speaking as someone who bought WiFiTrak, and uses it at least once a week for my actual professional career, this is simply horseshit.

Since the original iPhone announcement, Steve Jobs said porn would not be allowed. But it’s debatable whether a few Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue style photos amount to porn. I don’t see the appeal of installing an application for viewing low quality static content. But it is disturbing that Apple would allow this for so long and then ban it.

Search is a strange attractor that draws repeat visitors despite poor performance. In the 1990s, Jared Spool proved that when people were banned from using the search interfaces of major e-commerce sites, their success rates improved.