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Tom Merritt and Windows expert Paul Thurrott were talking on Windows Weekly about the last time MSFT split. Paul Thurrott said it’s split “at least once in the last twelve months.” Actually, the last split was February, 2003.
From the July 30 episode of Windows Weekly:
Tom Merritt: When’s the last time they (MSFT) split?
Paul Thurrott:
“Actually they do split the stock fairly regularly. In fact, I want to say they’ve done it at least once in the last twelve months. They are pretty good about that kind of stuff……And I think that, you know, I think they have to be, just to retain whatever investors they have and so forth. But yeah, the stock price is not a strength of Microsoft.”
I love listening to Thurrott’s show. He won’t let you bash Microsoft but it’s ok if he does. He likes Apple products but has a tough time admitting it. The regular host, Leo Laporte, often brings up Apple and you can feel Paul’s frustration build. If you haven’t listened to any of Leo Laporte’s podcasts you should. He gets great guests and doesn’t let discussions run off the rails.
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Ballmer discussing Microsoft’s lack of product in the iPad category reminded me of an HBO film called The Pentagon Wars (YTube link). The plot covers the misguided development of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle. Here’s a brief excerpt from wikipedia:
Originally developed as an armored personnel carrier by Colonel Robert L. Smith (Schiff), the Bradley, after being subjected to the changing (and often conflicting) demands of a panel of armchair generals, is transformed into a hybrid of a troop carrier, a scout vehicle, and an anti-tank weapon platform. To make room for the weaponry, its complement of troops is reduced from eleven to six men; and despite its firepower, it has to be made of lightweight aluminum to serve as a scout vehicle. In the incredulous summation of Burton and his assistant, Sgt. Fanning (Viola Davis), the finished Bradley is “a troop transport that can’t carry troops, a reconnaissance vehicle that’s too conspicuous to do reconnaissance, and a quasi-tank that has less armor than a snowblower, but carries enough ammo to take out half of D.C.”
By the time General Partridge is put in charge of the project, the Bradley has been in development for seventeen years, at a cost of $14 billion.
Tablets running full Windows had their chance.
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Or does it? Actually, iOS4 sends the photos with orientation information, but that doesn’t help if your recipients see the photo sideways because of their chosen email software. Skip down if you’re looking for workarounds.
UPDATE: This is the workaround I use now.
If you’ve moved on to iOS4 you may have noticed a change in how emailed photos appear to recipients. Apparenly Apple changed the way they handle rotation and are now using an orientation tag instead of actually redrawing the photo with the pixels arranged in portrait format. Don’t worry, we’ve got a workaround.
So - your phone is sending the photo with information about how to present the photo in the correct orientation, but the recipient’s software might not acknowledge the tag. When I open the email using Apple Mail the photo is oriented correctly. Preview and many other photo apps will display the orientation correctly as well - if I download the photo.
Here’s an example you can try: Take a portrait photo with your iOS4 iPhone. Using the native Photo or Camera app email it to a Gmail address. When you open the email in Safari, IE or Firefox you’ll see a thumbnail that’s oriented correctly. But when you view the photo it’ll be in landscape mode.
If you download the photo and open it with an app like Preview you can take a look at the tags by hitting Command + I. You’ll see an orientation entry that might say something like “Rotated 90° CCW.” (Pictured above)
Solutions:
So - here’s the workaround: Use an app like Best Camera. When I send photos using Best Camera they show up correctly in web-based Gmail. I don’t believe Best Camera has been updated for iOS4 and that could explain the difference. Best Camera is currently $2.99.
You could also use the free Gorillacam app. But the results are a little different. If you take the portrait photo with Gorillacam it’ll show up in Gmail oriented correctly. If you use Gorillacam to send a photo you took with the native Camera app it will display in landscape mode in Gmail. Gorillacam is free.
It doesn’t really matter if Apple jumped the gun by using the tag or if certain apps or web sites are behind in recognizing the tag. The bottom line: People probably aren’t seeing your emailed iPhone photos correctly. Now you’ve got a workaround.
Note: I also emailed a photo to Flickr. It was displayed properly and the tag information was clearly visible in the metadata. However, a friend in the UK reported different results when emailing portrait photos to Flickr: They showed up as landscape. Photos like this need to be displayed correctly.
Best Camera on my iPhone 3GS with iOS4 has been exiting every time I email a photo from it, but the photo is still getting sent.
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CHARLOTTE, NC - For the third time in the last year Charlotte, NC is getting in early on AT&T rollouts. This time Charlotte will be the second trial city for a Wifi Hotzone, provided free by the wireless giant. In past months North Carolina was the only state included in the initial rollout of AT&T’s Microcell product. And Charlotte was one of six cities promised an early deployment of HSPA 7.2 at the end of 2009. The first Wifi Hotzone was deployed to New York City.
Aside from the weak 3G signal in this area it’s hard to justify the site selection. The heart of Charlotte is a couple blocks up, running between College Street and Church Street. That’s where the banks are and the majority of the office space. Entertainment, shopping, residential - it’s just not present in the deployment area. Which leaves the two AT&T buildings that anchor the site as somehow being intrinsic to the selection.
Photos taken by Murphy Mac in December of 2009 show two AT&T buildings that anchor the exact area AT&T plans to serve with their new initiative. One photo was taken in front of a sizeable AT&T office building located only four blocks from another AT&T building with numerous antenna arrays on the roof. But only EDGE connectivity is available at the location.
The area to be covered includes the new NASCAR Hall of Fame at one end, next to the large AT&T office building. The zone continues along Brevard Street ending near East Trade Steet, close to the other AT&T building previously mentioned.
The Hotzone coverage will also include parts of the LYNX light rail system, although it’s not clear if that’s only in the immediate area described or a larger portion of the line.
AT&T likely chose this area for its weak 3G signal. While the convention center and the NASCAR Hall of Fame are located in the zone there isn’t a great deal of pedestrian activity. The service is not targeted at indoor use and other parts of the city typically have much higher concentrations of outdoor gatherings.
The next Hotzone could be coming to Chicago according to various reports.
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Note: This was posted before Airplay. But it still applies to the old Apple TV.
I was thinking it would be nice to watch a video I’d just recorded with my iPhone on the Apple TV. But it’s kind of a pain to do that. I’d have to run the iPhone upstairs, plug it in, wait for it to sync, add the video to a playlist…
Alternative: I could upload the video to YouTube, but you have to fill out the fields to upload and it seems sometimes my Apple TV loses track of my YouTube account. Or at least loses access.
So I’ve got a Rube Goldberg alternative that makes it really simple from a user perspective - once you’ve done the upfront legwork. Just email the video to yourself, if it’s short enough. Let your Mac automatically grab the video from your email and drop it into iTunes. My Apple TV seems to immediately sync on its own when new content is added to a Playlist that’s set to sync.
I’m using a pretty straightforward AppleScript and a rule configured in my Mac’s Mail program. Here’s what happens:
- I email the video to myself with the subject atv.
- The email arrives.
- A Mail-based rule sees the subject and kicks off an AppleScript that copies the video file to the Automatically Add to iTunes folder in my iTunes Music folder.
- The video gets added to my iTunes Library.
- The video is added to a Smart Playlist.
- The Apple TV is set to sync with the Smart Playlist.
- The video is synced to my Apple TV.
That looks like a lot of stuff but the Mac will do all the work. There are only a couple things you need to set up:
- Create a Smart Playlist and tell Apple TV to sync with it
- Create a rule in mail and have it run the AppleScript when a matching email comes in.
Then all you do is email yourself the video. If you open Finder and look around in your iTunes Music folder you’ll see a folder called Automatically Add to iTunes. Anything that gets dropped in there gets added to your library, so that’s where the script copies the file.
I threw this script together quickly, there’s nothing fancy, no error checking - so feel free to post any enhancements. My intention is to provide an example of what can be done easily with AppleScript and Mail rules. It might help someone accomplish other tasks similar to this one.
Here’s a link to the script and screenshots of a Mail rule and sample Smart Playlist settings. The script was saved as a text file. You need to change the path in the third line of script to reflect your user name. You also need to save it as an AppleScript using AppleScript Editor.
In the Mail rule you need to change the path to where you saved your AppleScript.
Mail Rule Screenshot:
Smart Playlist Screenshot:
You might come up with something more sophisticated for the Smart Playlist…
Finally - here’s a look at the AppleScript, which you can download.
Other tricks with Mail: Pick a Playlist by Email - Retrieve a File by Email - Mail a File Dropped in a Finder Folder
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