Either OS X for Windows or Visual Studio supporting Obj-c, Cocoa and other Apple’s frameworks.

I want to hear…”Hello, again from general Windows H/W.”

Don’t want slimmer notebooks, non customizable H/W. non-retina MBP and polycarbonate MB had easiest upgradability of RAM and storage devices.

They got rid of those options from MBs and even from Mac minis. Instead of making adding or replacing internal storage in Mac mini, they removed memory slots, and kept it difficult to upgrade.

Look at HP’s Mac mini-like mini PC!

Due to the cylindrical Mac Pro, extension card manufacturers need to design additionally for Mac Pro and hire device driver engineers. It reduced chance for video card companies to prepare one designed for general Windows PC for Mac with a driver for Mac.

It also raised costs

Seriously, other than S/W developers who know the benefit of Cocoa, who will choose Mac over Windows when they have the same Photoshop, Adobe Premiere etc?

I like Apples aesthetic side of MacBook Pros, but do Dell’s XPS notebook look bad? No!

There can be less expensive but good looking computers with good qualities! Why do 🍎’s product decision makers overlook that fact?

It will be better if there is OS X for Windows box. (Anyway there is no difference in their H/W arch.)L

Or if Visual c++ also supports Obj-C, Cocoa and Av foundation etc!

freshmeat ( now freecode ) and sourceforge.net… then and now…

In early 1990’s, project hosting or listing started to boom.
Since then, I’ve visited freshmet and sourceforge.net very frequently.    They were sleek and listed and hosted lots of good open source project respectively.

However, as I mentioned in one of my post a while ago, iPhone actually killed lots of energy in open source field.
People could make money by making apps for iPhones while working a side. Open source could be good strategy for maintaining your skill and appeal what you can do. However, before iPhone, except for several famous big projects, it was a kind of waste for many people.

When distributed source code management became more popular than centralized one, github, bitbucket and others pulled more people than fresshmeat and sourceforge.net. Since then, those two sites, i.e. freshmeat and sourceforge.net, looked to become ghost towns. They lost their sleekness somehow.
Although I couldn’t concentrate on open source stuff after I migrated to the US, I was involved in many open source projects and spent lots of time in them.

Well.. I feel sad to see how things change… GitHub and BitBucket are quite nice.. there is nothing wrong about them.. but….

Bad convention of Microsoft

Currently I’m refreshing my knowledge on C#/.NET
When MS introduced .NET, I picked it up and studied it. One thing I found was that they changed very basic syntax or keywords whenever they introduced new version. For example, the character for pointer type was changed. It looked to me that they didn’t decide or finalized their design with languages/frameworks but made it public without caring confusion it would introduce.

After a while Bill Gates announced that their.NET failed and gave it up. I believed it. So, I stopped studying it. However, it was not true and they have introduced so far. Still MFC is quite alive although programmers working in business logic/financial industry would not agree.

Recently they announced that HTML/JavaScript will be the next generation of dev. environment. Well, it’s not bad. However, it sounded like that they are going to give up C/C++, C#, .NET/MFC/Win32 environment.
Probably people learned lesson from MS history. I read a few articles saying that MS was not going to abandon their existing languages/frameworks.

OK. It’s good, and they should.

However, still I see fundamental problem of Microsoft.
Instead of using well established terminology in this industry, they creates their own terminology. If their new terminology is easier to understand, there is nothing wrong. However, theirs is not clear and thus doesn’t convey what it means.

About 1 year ago, I had a chance to read WPF document, because I thought I would implement codes with .NET/WPF. I found out that they still used their own terminology there. Code-behind and what else?
In this industry there are well known words for those : Model-View-Controller or MVC pattern.
I had to read their whole document to figure out what they intended to mean.

Today, I ran into the same problem. GAC and Strongly Named Assembly.
OK. GAC (Global Assembly Cache ) is what I could guess, but I think calling it “blah-blah cache” is odd, very odd. It’s not actually cache. It is persistent there in Windows directory. It is not to be stored there for the time being for faster access to them. It is rather central repository of shared libraries.
In the case of GAC, it is OK, because at least I could guess it.
However, what about “strongly named”?
What do they mean by saying “strongly named” assembly? Is the assembly, or library ( assembly is also a new term they invented ), with its name engraved deep? What is a strong name?
It turned out that it was a digitally signed assembly.

Well, I didn’t follow the C#/C++ .NET development for a while, because I had to work on C/C++ MFC projects and Objective-C/Cocoa projects. ( It made me very busy because I had to work on many projects at the same time. I was responsible for up-to 4 Windows projects and 5~6 Mac projects. I had to give up some ideas on iPhone programs called “Video Journalist” or “Street Journalist”, and “Social Parking” program. I have heard that CNN and others introduced very similar program for iPhone/Android phones, and some Indian people in Boston or New York started a company with the “Social Parking” program. )
So, it can be my fault. However, MS should make their terminology easy to understand either by :

• Use well adopted terminology in this industry
• or invent their own which is easier to understand like Apple does with Cocoa

 

People who work on Windows platform only don’t seem to realize this kind of problem. However, I have worked on Unix ( SunOS and thus Solaris, HPUX, SGI Irix and also Linux ), Mac OS X, Windows. Virtue of that is I could compare differences how different group of people approach similar problems. It is also possible to see shortcoming of specific approach. It gives me a chance to think differently when I need to solve problems. Because I need to understand all of them, my understanding starts with their philosophy. Without understanding the philosophy, it is practically impossible to understand the difference, styles, architectures pushed by each of them. Once the philosophy is understood, it is not really necessary to memorize all the small details. ( This is where I got misunderstood when I had been interviewed by people who knew only one platform, one language. If I didn’t answer to their questions with the term they wanted, they seemed to think of me as “Oh, this guy didn’t know about this.” )

MS would have been successful by making their languages/frameworks hard to understand when they ruled the earth. Actually I understood their pushing .NET either as a mean to sabotage Java or steal time for programmers’ studying and writing Linux application programs.
It worked great for MS. However, right now although their market share is still amazing, it doesn’t seem to work anymore. People spend their time in developing iOS or Android apps.
About 10 years ago, it was not like this. Many programmers would not know or see the strong technology side of new cool non-MS tech or even though they saw it, they tended to say “Well, it is good, but it’s not from MS. It would not be successful.” I would like to give a credit to Steve Jobs. He successfully introduced iPhone SDK by introducing HTML/JavaScript dev plan first, saying “There is no iPhone SDK. You can just use your knowledge of web development”, and after it drew enough attention from dev. community, they announced native SDK for iPhone. And after that, the MS’s hegemony seemed to be ended.

So, please, MS. Make your words easier to understand. It doesn’t help you guys anymore.
If you want developers to jump on your platform easily, please do so.

Machine translation between Korean & English for Apple dev. documents

This is not ordinary post for this blog. It will not have any codes, or technological insight. However, this is about computer science. So, instead of posting it to my HotPotato blog, I decided to post here.

From my Twitter :

Apple provides Japanese pages for their dev web site and references there. I have heard that some people at Samsung Elec. and Apple Korea were surprised by my “free” translated Apple refs., a while ago. I don’t have time to rewrite Apple’s doc for Koreans and not motivated any more. Wouldn’t it be better if Apple provides Google’s translation for their references? (for locally saved docs an for the ones accessible with web browsers.) Because machine translation doesn’t make sense at all, it can be great if people can contribute each line of translations as Google translation does nowadays. Also if those are used for improving machine translation, it can be even better. BTW, companies like Samsung & LG should fund researchers also.

I think machine translation in Korea was dead long time ago. Are there any people over there who still research on that topic?

How about MSDN?
Well, for MSDN, even their English page is not good.
They need to enhance their “search” first. It can’t be called “semantic search” at all. If I provides some keywords or phrases, it gives a long list which are not relevant usually.

ADDED : Actually I asked this a few years ago, but didn’t hear anything. sigh…

About NeXT nomenclature

Well… I don’t remember how to refer NeXT related terminologies properly. So, I looked up Wikipedia and found this.

The name was officially capitalized in many different ways, initially NextStep, then NeXTstep, and also NeXTSTEP. It became NEXTSTEP (all capitals) only at the end of its life. The capitalization most commonly used by “insiders” is NeXTSTEP. The confusion continued after the release of the OpenStep standard, when NeXT released what was effectively an OpenStep-compliant version of Nextstep with the name OPENSTEP.

NeXT에 관련된 기술을 언급할 때, 어려움이 있다. 바로 그 이름때문인데, 그래서 위키피디아를 검색해 보았다. 그랬더니 위와 같이 나왔다.
정리해 보자면 이렇다. 원래는 NextStep이었는데, 그것이 NeXTstep으로 변했다가 NeXTSTEP이 되었고, 나중에 NEXTSTEP이 되었다 한다. 하지만 내부적으론 NeXTSTEP이란 것이 주로 쓰였다고 한다. 오픈 스텝이 나왔을때, OpenStep으로 나왔다가 OPENSTEP이 되었던 것을 기억한다. 아마 NEXTSTEP이라고 했던 것도 그와 같은 맥락이 아닐까 한다.

아무튼, 위키피디아에 나온게 다 맞다곤 할 수없지만, 저렇단다..

The power of dedicated swap partition!

I have partitioned my HDD at least into 2 partitions. One is for general purpose and the other is for swap partition. My desktop computer is still a 17″ PowerPC 1Ghz iMac with 512MB of main RAM.

Although many people complaint slow performance of Mac compared to Windows machine a few years ago, I didn’t have any performance problem same to what they have suffered. Actually I have more performance issues with my Windows machines whose HDDs were also partitioned to have dedicated VM space.

However, recently I noticed that my iMac slowed down a lot. I thought it was due to bulkier Safari, Firefox, and video files which demand high data bandwidth. So, I got to use my MacBook more often. Launching Xcode was pain. So, my iMac became a file server nowadays.

But I noticed that there is no activity on my Mac’s dedicated swap partition, and investigated what happened. Strangely swap files were created on its main partition not its swap partition. So, I checked its /etc/rc file and found out that all the custom settings to use a dedicated swap partition was gone. So, I looked up Move swap to another partition, revisited again

After setting a dedicated swap partition again, it felt like that I got a new computer! Everything is snappy!
It is clear that a dedicated swap partition on a dedicated HDD can give much better performance.
But just dedicated swap partition is fast enough for end-users!

Stabs is deprecated

According to Lap Cat Software Blog, the Stabs is deprecated.

So, it is time to move on to the DWARF or DWARF with dSYM.

Is Steve Jobs OK??

Last night, I watched the iPhone SDK announcement. It is very brilliant and I could see the strategy behind it. There are lots of things to talk about it.

However, I would like to talk about Mr. Jobs himself. When the QuickTime broadcast started, I was surprised because how he looked. Something must be wrong with him. When a person get old, his/her muscle collapses, or diminishes. However as far as I know it happens after his/her mid 50s. Nowadays it happens even later because people eat well and they exercise well nowadays. So, I was so surprised.Well.. one thing.. I can think about it.. the cancer in pancreas…. Will it be the cause? I don’t know.. Isn’t it cured? I don’t know. One problem with western medicine is that M.Ds say very definitely, but sometimes the nature shows that it is not really. 
I hope he will be very OK. I really worry about his health and thus Apple’s sound foundation.  

In recent stock holders’ meeting, it is said that a successor to Mr. Jobs was mentioned. I doubt why…? Well.. Yeah.. probably they need to train and raise the next Mr.Jobs, or Jobs 2.0 for the future Apple. According to him, there are many brilliant people at the Apple, however I don’t think it is enough. Before, Mr. Sculley was an outstanding CEO. Dr. Amellio was said to be a quite good leader. There are more people that I remember. However they didn’t make the Apple as successful as Mr. Jobs. How good they are is one important factor to make a company great, but not all. There is something small – I mean, big – , but critical thing missing.

I wish he would be OK.Really… 

Brilliant design if it is real

Rumor says that the Apple Inc. is going to announce a ultra portable MacBook. I am waiting for buying one, because my old iMac shows its age, and would like to use the Xcode 3.0 and the Objective-C 2.0.

However, nowadays there is even more shocking news, the dock for the ultra portable.  At the Gizmodo, someone posted a mock-up photograph, and the Apple is said to get patent for it. Seeing is believing. So, let’s take a look at it.

This is very brilliant, because it solves some issues of computers nowadays. What are those issues?

1. People buy notebooks more than desktops, but if they use notebook computers heavily, they want to use it comfortably. So, they want a desktop too. But it is waste of money to keep two computers although you don’t use the both at the same time. So, why don’t you buy a one computer which can transform as you need them?
2. Usually LCD screen last longer than the computer itself. Apple’s all-in-one design was bad in that sense, because you should replace the whole thing although the built-in LCD screens and others are still good to use. With this design, only the computer part, i.e. the ultra slim MacBook, can be replaced to a better one later. You may like a modular tower more. I do. I want a mini Mac Pro tower on my desk. However, the Apple doesn’t make such a computer. Mac mini doesn’t have a enough big enclosure for better air ventilation. So, this design can be a good compromise.
3. It looks cool and less messy. You may say, “So, what?”, when you see the design at first. Yes, it is true. You can attach an external monitor and a keyboard to your notebook. So, This design can be overkill. However, it looks neat on your desk. To some people, looking nice is big plus

However, people should ask Apple that they should maintain this form factor longer. If not, it is of no use. If they don’t manufacture a new notebook which fit the enclosure, it becomes obsolete, So..

Apple already announced similar one before, the Duo docking station. However, it looked bulky and expensive. It doesn’t look like as complete design as this new one.

I would like to have one, if the Apple Inc. really announce this.

Motorola Razr v3m에서 대조영 보기

에.. 회사에서 서버 머신과의 네트워킹이 너무 느려서 USB flash memory를 샀다.
이왕사는거 IOGear의 miniSD adopter를 샀는데..
뭐냐면 일반 USB 메모리와 달리, SD 메모리를 착탈식으로 낄 수있는거다. 그러니 좀 비싸긴 한데..
필요에 따라 나중에 메모리만 사면 되니까 더 좋다. microSD를 넣는 것을 살까 했는데, miniSD로 사는게 더 유연해서.. 왜냐하면 miniSD를 바로 낄 수있고, microSD는 miniSD 카트리지에 넣어서 넣으면 되니까..
메모리도 1GB로 샀는데, SD, miniSD 어댑터가 따라오는..

(근데 이젠 miniSD가 필요할까? 용량은 microSD도 miniSD와 같게 나오는데?)
근데.. 내 Motorola Razr v3m도 microSD를 쓴다. Transflash SD라고 불리우는데, 엄밀하게 microSD와 틀리지만, 이젠 microSD가 거의 transFlash로 나와서..
그래서 폰에 넣어 봤더니 아하.. 바로 인식한다.

자.. 그래서 대조영을 QuickTime player를 이용해서 3GPP2 포맷의 비디오로 컨버젼해서 넣어봤다.
ㅎㅎㅎㅎ 잘 나온다. 근데 보통 3GP 포맷은 170어쩌구 by 140어쩌구 정도의 사이즈로 만들어지는데.. 그렇게 하면 Razr에서 Full screen으로 하면 많이 block현상이 생긴가 그래서 320x어쩌구로 바꾸어 봤는데..
오.. 화질은 괜찮다. 근데 영 처리 속도가 못마땅하다.

24fps에 약 1500bps의 데이터레이트, 그리고 약 24frame마다 I-frame을 넣도록 해봤는데..
화면 속도가 소리 속도를 못 따라간다.
그래서 최대한 맞추어 봤더니.. 한 200~300bps의 data rate에 10~15 fps로 하니 대충 맞는다.
근데 이러면 역시 데이터 크기가 폰의 처리 속도에 비해 많아서, I-frame을 약 45frame마다 넣도록 하였다.
즉 약 3초마다 I-frame이 발생하는데, 너무 큰 값을 주면 화면이 겅중 겅중 뛸거 같아서..
근데..폰에서 비디오 녹화를 하면 약 60bps인가에.. 9fps로 찍히는데.. 170x어쩌구 정도로..
사실 못봐준다.
3GP 포맷은 글쎄.. 편안하게 볼 수준은 아닌거 같다. 아.. 이렇게 넣어주니 폰에서 찍을때의 촬영시간 제한은 없다. 아뭏든.. 3GP 포맷은 스트리밍에 더 맞추어진게 아닐까 한다.
사실 포맷이야.. H.263을 이용하는 MPEG4니까 별 상관은 없느데, 요새 새로 나오는 폰들도 보면.. 별로 프로세서의 속도가 좋지 못하다. 제대로 비디오를 보려면 Simple Profile을 지원하는 iPhone이나 PSP를 이용해야 할거 같다.
PSP도 하드웨어는 마음에 드는데.. 그리고 요샌 소니가 게임보다도 media쪽에 맞추는거 같긴한데.. 내가 별로 게임에 관심이 없어서 별로다. iPhone이 마음에 들긴하는데.. 스마트 폰치곤 비싼건 아니지만.. data 사용료도 추라고 드니까.. 좀 그렇다. edge 네트워크를 안쓰기로 하면 굳이 데이터 사용료 안내도 될텐데.. 가입 조건이 무조건 내는 것으로 안다. 에이..

아무튼 줄거리 볼때는 볼만한거 같다.. 폰에서 비디오 보기.. 10fps대라 좀 겅중 겅중 화면이 뛰고..
빠른 전투 장면등엔 쥐약이다. 배우 얼굴이 확대 되서 나오는거나.. 뉴스 보도 같은거엔 괜찮을거 같다.