http://duncandavidson.com/blog/restoring_from_time_machine/

In short, Time Machine passed the “Trust, but Verify” challenge with flying colors. I’m pretty happy about that as it means that I can recommend that my friends and family—including my Dad who just bought an iMac not too long ago—can use Time Machine as a totally automatic backup mechanism.

Open letter to the community (PDF)

We will continue to actively develop Qt and Qtopia. We also want to underline that we will continue to support the open source community by continuing to release these technologies under the GPL.

Last May I contacted Dr. Antoni Feldon, a German blacksmith and ancient weaponry builder about a custom project. Dr. Feldon normally makes real, working weapons for museums and universities, but also makes props for Hollywood along with Tony Swatton. Dr. Feldon agreed to forge a pair of custom fitted, steel Batman Begins gauntlets out of bronze and steel for me. Estimated time of completion was 3 months, but no guarantee because of his other projects.

Those gauntlets are now finished and he’ll be bringing them with him to Hollywood in February, where they will be handed over to Swatton, and then shipped to me. Price? I’m not saying. But for real, working, hinged steel gauntlets it’s worth it.

UPDATE: Dr. Feldon says they are in fact bronze, I forgot which metal I specific when I ordered them. They are lined with suede, and weigh about a half pound each.

I don’t know who is surprised by this. Apple broke their version of gdb, or more likely, modified the kernel noexec() function to disallow debugging iTunes, DVD Player, and anything else they want. I didn’t really expect DTrace to have full access to those areas either. That doesn’t mean it’s not completely wrong.

Apparently the problem isn’t that a lot of people want to debug iTunes, it’s that DTrace doesn’t work correctly when iTunes is running, no matter what you are tracing.

Landon Fuller has already written a small .kext that disables the NOATTACH method that the kernel is using, once again allowing full tracing and debugging. XNU is open source, it was only a matter of time anyway before someone figured it out.

http://landonf.bikemonkey.org/code/macosx/Leopard_PT_DENY_ATTACH.20080122.html

In addition to other changes, the iPhone 1.1.3 update runs userspace processes under the user mobile and does not put preferences in /var/root. This might be the release that developers can begin using when the SDK is out next month.

http://cre.ations.net/blog/post/iphone-113-firmware-behind-the-scenes-changes

http://www.electronista.com/articles/08/01/23/macbook.air.usb.details/

The MacBook Air’s USB port has been modified to deliver more than 5v so it can power the SuperDrive accessory without it needing another power cable. This is the main reason you can’t use the Superdrive on any other computer. Annoying tradeoff, but it shows how far Apple will go to help with clutter.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Movies/01/22/heath.ledger.dead/index.html

Found in his Manhattan apartment with sleeping pills.  Most news outlets are saying he was having difficulty sleeping and being normal because of how far he gets into his roles, but I think his wife recently leaving him has something to do with it too.  This changes The Dark Knight completely.  

Billing software should as a rule be the most rigorously tested code we have, short of the code that runs aircraft and medical equipment. And DreamHost, in their usual juvenile style, try to shift the blame for a billing mistake that charged most of their customers an entire year’s worth of hosting fees. Their response is just surreal for a multimillion dollar mistake. Sure, their system has been adjusted back now, but that doesn’t do much for the bank accounts of a lot of people right now have been slammed with fees. Shared hosting is a jungle anyway, that’s a given, but how much longer can these guys keep overselling before they crack?

The other announcement from the Macworld keynote was Time Capsule, a 500GB ($299) or 1TB ($499) NAS intended for use over wifi with Time Machine. Great for laptops, and not a bad price, especially since it can replace your Airport Extreme Base Station. I use a Linksys WRT54G router with the HyperWRT Thibor firmware, which is loads more featured and configurable than the stock, and even the AEBS. I’ve considered getting an AEBS before, but side by side I just cannot think of any reason to choose it over the upgraded Linksys other than it’s white and made by Apple. Time Capsule is great, but it makes no sense to sell a router in 2008 without a Web interface.

What I wonder though is if Time Capsule is a product intended to replace the axed Leopard feature of backing up to a network volume. You can easily enable this feature with a defaults preference, but it’s not enabled by default. It would be unforgivable if Apple disabled a perfectly useful feature just to boost Time Capsule sales.

Along with the AppleTV Take 2, MacBook Air, and iTunes Movie Rental announcements today, a new iPhone firmware update adds a few new features, including allowing you to manually manage your music with iTunes, instead of just syncing playlists.  I am really tempted to give up my iPhone’s jailbroken state (for now, a hack should be out soon) just for this one feature.  It really annoys me having an “iPhone” playlist in iTunes that serves no purpose but to give the iPhone something to sync against. 

UPDATE: It’s actually the iTunes 7.6 update that adds this, not the iPhone update. I’ll be waiting for a jailbreak.

Ars has an article up on how people either expect too much or too little from the MWSF and WWDC keynotes.  I agree that the Aqua demo was at least as powerful as the iPhone introduction, maybe even more revolutionary than the Intel switch.  What was amazing about the Intel switch announcement to me wasn’t that Apple would be moving to Intel processors, but that Mac OS X has always been mostly CPU independent since 10.0.  That’s planning. 

http://arstechnica.com/staff/fatbits.ars/2008/01/11/great-expectations

Not sure how this one slipped past the radar, but Apple’s skimpy open source development site MacOSForge has been updated with new pages for ZFS and XQuartz, the project behind the X.org-based X11.app.  I’d always felt that X11.app was the bastard stepchild of Apple, included in OS X out of an obligation to appease Unix users and not because they want it to be any good, so this is great to see. You can also download fairly recent tarballs of the full read/write code for ZFS at your own risk. 

http://www.wired.com/gadgets/wireless/magazine/16-02/ff_iphone?currentPage=1

But by the end of the push, just weeks before Macworld, Jobs had a prototype to show to the suits at AT&T. In mid-December 2006, he met wireless boss Stan Sigman at a suite in the Four Seasons hotel in Las Vegas. He showed off the iPhone’s brilliant screen, its powerful Web browser, its engaging user interface. Sigman, a taciturn Texan steeped in the conservative engineering traditions that permeate America’s big phone companies, was uncharacteristically effusive, calling the iPhone “the best device I have ever seen.”

Poorly sourced, but engaging article about how the iPhone changes the way people and carriers think about cellular devices. Hopefully it won’t be long before the US catches up with the rest of the world.

AFP548 has a great tutorial up on getting started with Mandatory Access Controls (the other MAC acronym). The API isn’t stable yet, but it’s worth learning about early.

   http://www.ohlalaparis.com/ohlalaparis/2008/01/idead.html The New South Wales Police have been putting up ads for a new campaign to educate people about being careful when listening to music with headphones. Why wasn’t this an issue with the Walkman?

Apple’s theme for MWSF this year might hint at a wireless backup device for Time Machine, but rumors also say big things for the Apple TV.  And don’t forget the iPhone SDK that’s supposed to be “in developer’s hands by February.”

Though it’s a bit out of place, I’d like to also use this site to write about a project I’ve been working on for over 2 years, a fully realistic, functional, wearable Batsuit as seen in Batman Begins.  It’s been a labor of love, searching out various chemicals, fabrics, metals, wood, tools, artists, and building it all from scratch as much as possible.  To quote my About page on the site where I host the image gallery:

IS IT REAL?

In as far as a wearable, functional, Batsuit can be made real, yes it is real. It is not bulletproof, but it will protect you from hard punches and blows, and the torso armor will likely stop a small knife. The gauntlets are hard fiberglass around a steel armature. They would probably get damaged in actual combat, but they could also practically be used as defensive armor or weapons. The utiliity belt is probably not adequate for suspension — no single strap waist belt is good for that. But it is magnetized and can carry plenty of gear.

HOW MUCH DID IT COST?

It is difficult to say, given that it’s taken over 2 years to acquire, modify, and construct. Along the way some of the price tags have been forgotten or overlooked. A very rough estimate is that the suit is in the $1500-2000 range. The storage and display closet in the $600-$900 range. The weapons probably fall under $300. This does not include labor or the purchase of special tools. Nearly every component was created by a separate entity and assembled or modified to suit the task. There is absolutely no single source supplier. Because it took so long to complete, the cost was spread out. Having patience and dedication was more difficult than financing it.

IS ANYTHING ORIGINAL?

“Screen-used” original props are highly sought after by collectors and film fans. They make great conversation pieces due to their rarity and having actually been used on set. There is also an aura of mystery surrounding actual screen-used props because many of them were never intended to leave the possession of the studio, and only have because of theft or as is usually the case, a breach of contract between the studio and the prop makers. Owning an original piece that you are not supposed to have can be a thrill. However, many used props suffer damage. Film studios do not usually just create one prop for the film, but many copies so that damage is an acceptable loss during production. None of the pieces in this project are screen-used originals, but some were taken directly from the same molds of those actual originals. I am not at liberty to say which ones, but careful eyes will know.

CONSTRUCTION

The suit starts out with a four-way stretch neoskin bodysuit that zips up in the back. The bodysuit is neoprene on the outside and a soft nylon on the inside. There are also hidden black zippers in the sleeves to make it more form fitting to the arms. Between the undersuit and the armor sections is a layer of durable flexible foam for padding. The main armor section, sculpted and cast in urethane, covers the chest, torso, shoulders, upper back, and spine. Additional sections of urethane armor protect the forearms.

The cowl is cast in a slightly harder shore urethane than the suit armor. The ears are solid filled, and there are no seams anywhere on it.

The gauntlets are made from steel-reinforced fiberglass and painted satin matte black. They can actually be used defensively or offensively.

The boots are a faithful reproduction of the originals. All leather exterior, suede lining inside, zipper along the inner side, and rubber hiking boot soles on bottom for gripping.

The utility belt is made from a bronze composite, not painted, is lined with dangerously strong neodymium magnets for holding the weapons and gear. The belt has been reinforced on the inside with nylon and soft imitation leather to keep it from damaging the suit. A climbing buckle in the back secures the belt up to a 12kN pull force.

The cape has been cut from a single, seamless bat-wing shape of bamboo cotton fabric.

The Batarangs are solid 1/4″ laser-cut steel replicas, identical to screen used production items.

The batsuit closet is a scratch-built reproduction of the closet that Bruce Wayne keeps in the batcave. It is made mostly from white pine with brass and steel hardware. An automatic sensor switches on the lights when the doors are opened.

From time to time I’ll make posts in the Batsuit category here, off the main site to track the progress of this project. Since this is the first post about it, here’s what remains to be done:

I am always updating the gallery at http://seraphim.ecsis.net/~gregday/batman with the most current photos.

http://kde.org/announcements/4.0/

I’ve been following the development of KDE 4 since the beginning, and there’s never really been a point where it wowed me.  I used KDE on my Linux computer and I think it’s great.  But maybe it’s just after using OS X for so long, I just got used to a lot of polish in the interface.  I’m not sure a novice could sit down in front of KDE 4.0 and perform basic tasks without help.

NYT’s David Pogue writes:

My brand new Apple MacBook doesn’t have the embedded numeric keypad the Macbook used to have; there are no small numbers on the U, I, O, and other letter keys, and no NumLock key on the top row that normally activates those keys. I was on the phone with Apple’s tech people for more than a half hour (2 people) and all they could figure out was that Apple must have quietly eliminated that feature in the new MacBooks. They found no announcement of such an omission, but could not find it listed on the specs.

They even had me take a digital photo of my keyboard and send to to them by e-mail, and were surprised themselves that it no longer seems to be included in the MacBook.

I asked my PR contact at Apple, and she confirmed that it’s true: the embedded number pad was eliminated to make the MacBook more closely resemble the aluminum Apple keyboards, even though the MacBooks manufactured up until now had one.

I can’t say I’ve ever used the keypad on my MacBook Pro, or on any regular keyboard, aside from a previous part time job where I had to do a little accounting.

Server is back up after much downtime.  New redesign coming soon.