Sunday, November 23, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Monday, November 17, 2008
Ants in pants (hard drives).
Combo Apple bug Web 2.0 and Google App Engine, yes please.
-------------------
Quoting "Open Rader,"
Open Radar: using social networking to squash Apple bugs
By Erica Sadun | Published: November 16, 2008 - 05:16PM CT
It's always great when you see developers take matters into their own hands and turn ideas into something new and real. This weekend, developer Dave Dribin tweeted that he'd love to see a public rdar database. Rdar, better known as Radar, is Apple's internal bug reporting and tracking system. A big problem with Radar is that it is not publicly searchable or open in any other way. This frustrates developers who want to know if Apple is working on a particular bug and see what the status of those bugs might be.
After tweeting back and forth, Tim Burks decided to build an Open Radar database. He set to work creating a Google App Engine site that allows developers to submit copies of their Radar bug reports and search through Radar reports from other devs.
Open Radar (github source) is not a replacement for bugreport.apple.com. It is, instead, a developer community intended to supplement your rdar filings. You cannot post any confidential information or bug reports regarding prerelease software but you can keep other developers up-to-date on your nonconfidential enhancements and fix requests. The site basically offers three functions at this time: you can submit a Radar bug, you can see a list of Radars you have submitted, and you can browse through the Radars others have added.
The site already hosts dozens of open and duplicate bugs and is growing rapidly. Jonathan 'Wolf' Rentzsch is working on a Radar scraper that automatically uploads reports to OpenRadar. The open-source code can be found at his SVN repo.
Open Radar also offers a JSON-based API for anyone who wants to integrate searches into web pages. That interface is still under development and is due to break at 1,000 radars, although one surmises it will be fixed before hitting that number.
So why is Radar so secure to begin with? Apple cannot discuss upcoming or unannounced features and bug and enhancement handling; often the way Apple responds to Radar requests is tightly linked to this knowledge. Opening Radar internally might give away too many hints.
The developers of Open Radar hope that their system will increase rather than decrease the number of duplicate bug requests. For important bugs, massively duplicated Radar reports get noticed. Apple treats duplicates like a voting system; i.e. the Digg system of bugg fixx requests. Becoming aware of ongoing bugs allows developers to help vote up problems they think are critically important. In this, Open Radar hopes to utilize its social network aspect to promote change at Apple.
Open Radar is geared toward both the iPhone and desktop Cocoa communities, and members of both groups are encouraged to join. If you'd like to contribute to the project or just request new features, stop by the Open Radar Wiki at github. Even though the project was just put together in the last 24 hours, it's already gaining momentum, members, and interest. You can follow a good deal of the ongoing discussion by tweetscanning Open Radar on Twitter.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081116-open-radar-using-social-networking-to-squash-apple-bugs.html, Accessed Nov. 17, 2008 @ 8:30 pm. File in house with author.
-------------------
Quoting "Open Rader,"
Open Radar: using social networking to squash Apple bugs
By Erica Sadun | Published: November 16, 2008 - 05:16PM CT
It's always great when you see developers take matters into their own hands and turn ideas into something new and real. This weekend, developer Dave Dribin tweeted that he'd love to see a public rdar database. Rdar, better known as Radar, is Apple's internal bug reporting and tracking system. A big problem with Radar is that it is not publicly searchable or open in any other way. This frustrates developers who want to know if Apple is working on a particular bug and see what the status of those bugs might be.
After tweeting back and forth, Tim Burks decided to build an Open Radar database. He set to work creating a Google App Engine site that allows developers to submit copies of their Radar bug reports and search through Radar reports from other devs.
Open Radar (github source) is not a replacement for bugreport.apple.com. It is, instead, a developer community intended to supplement your rdar filings. You cannot post any confidential information or bug reports regarding prerelease software but you can keep other developers up-to-date on your nonconfidential enhancements and fix requests. The site basically offers three functions at this time: you can submit a Radar bug, you can see a list of Radars you have submitted, and you can browse through the Radars others have added.
The site already hosts dozens of open and duplicate bugs and is growing rapidly. Jonathan 'Wolf' Rentzsch is working on a Radar scraper that automatically uploads reports to OpenRadar. The open-source code can be found at his SVN repo.
Open Radar also offers a JSON-based API for anyone who wants to integrate searches into web pages. That interface is still under development and is due to break at 1,000 radars, although one surmises it will be fixed before hitting that number.
So why is Radar so secure to begin with? Apple cannot discuss upcoming or unannounced features and bug and enhancement handling; often the way Apple responds to Radar requests is tightly linked to this knowledge. Opening Radar internally might give away too many hints.
The developers of Open Radar hope that their system will increase rather than decrease the number of duplicate bug requests. For important bugs, massively duplicated Radar reports get noticed. Apple treats duplicates like a voting system; i.e. the Digg system of bugg fixx requests. Becoming aware of ongoing bugs allows developers to help vote up problems they think are critically important. In this, Open Radar hopes to utilize its social network aspect to promote change at Apple.
Open Radar is geared toward both the iPhone and desktop Cocoa communities, and members of both groups are encouraged to join. If you'd like to contribute to the project or just request new features, stop by the Open Radar Wiki at github. Even though the project was just put together in the last 24 hours, it's already gaining momentum, members, and interest. You can follow a good deal of the ongoing discussion by tweetscanning Open Radar on Twitter.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081116-open-radar-using-social-networking-to-squash-apple-bugs.html, Accessed Nov. 17, 2008 @ 8:30 pm. File in house with author.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Just for Mac's (ATTN: everyone from 1923: I mean Computers not men).
Above is a screen shot to the new Browser App for Mac, Cruz.
Although not getting paid, clearly by the level of writing herein, I highly recommend the new hottness. There are some drawbacks, as with any beta release of something open source (re: releasing skeleton and having users build it up, etc.) but the coolest features are built right in and are highly usable.
First, as located in the right screen tilt, is the BrowsaBrowsa plug in. Fully user-oriented these task pains auto-refresh. "Why is this any better than tabs?"
...Good question, because Cruz has a tabs feature built in this really is an enhancement, or icing on cake. The full goodies aren't really harvested less you twitter or ebay frequently (re: something that needs constant monitoring and refreshing) however another more ubiquitous use is that of monitoring RSS feeds plus the GUI is nice. Further though, it is clearly the first stretching of legs that will become more and more viable.
In the lower screen is the money shot, the CSS compressor. For a discussion of CSS one might look here. A great tool and truly navigable (also very slick looking) this makes migration around cumbersome, content heavy sites...like CNN's blog pages or something, much more manageable and friendly. This way, no one has to miss a single word Wold Blitzer every commits to the 'net, and you thought you wouldn't live to see the day.
True, as it sits now the beta has flaws. Mainly they lie, as I see them, in the bookmarking functionality...which is limited (mesozoic) at best, but being open source and only in V 0.1, we're still looking pretty good.
Currently, it is a fun secondary browser (if for no other reasons than, as mentioned above, you cannot import your bookmarks from your primary browser...which is a real drag) that is nice to have when you're cruising content, bidding or coding. It looks to be a framework upon which something truly impressive could one day sit (me).
-AJS
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