512 Pixels

Unlike Apple’s once-a-year release cycle with the iPhone, Android OEMs and carriers have gone crazy, releasing as many new phones as possible, as quickly as possible.

As a result, there are a ton of Android phone reviews written. I want to make it easier for tech writers, so I’ve created a list — a recipe, if you will — to help make this easier.

• The screen is better, brighter and bigger than on previous devices.
• It’s thin, but not iPhone-thin.
• The OEM’s Android skin isn’t awesome, but in some places, it could be.
• The new launcher comes with lots of widgets that do things.
• 4G is cool, unless you like battery life. But damn, those 28 seconds of browsing are fast!
• The camera software still sucks. Also, FRONT-FACING CAMERA! Note: This can be swapped for “3-D!!!!” if the review requires it.
• While Android is open, there’s lots of crapware on this phone. Hello, VZContact Manager FREE!
• This may be the best Android phone yet, but if not, just wait a week or two.
• The current version of Android lacks some polish, but the next version of Android will be the one to have, we promise. It’s going to rival iOS. Granted, this phone probably won’t ever get to run it.

Maija Palmer:

Unlike HP, which last month announced plans to spin off its personal computer line and pull the plug on tablet computing, Mr Dell still believes in selling hardware, despite slowing growth and slim margins. “We are very distinct from some of our competitors,” says Mr Dell in a video interview on FT.com. “We believe the devices and the hardware still matter as part of the complete, end-to-end solution.” The scale of its PC operations, he says, gives Dell an advantage over competitors in the smaller but more lucrative server market.

If HP stopped selling PCs and servers today, Dell would be first and second in those respective markets.

Spencer Soper, in a piece about the Amazon warehouse in Breinigsville, PA:

During summer heat waves, Amazon arranged to have paramedics parked in ambulances outside, ready to treat any workers who dehydrated or suffered other forms of heat stress. Those who couldn’t quickly cool off and return to work were sent home or taken out in stretchers and wheelchairs and transported to area hospitals. And new applicants were ready to begin work at any time.

Terrible.

From the Instagram blog:

Clarity and detail with every shot. By far, the most requested feature from both pros and amateurs alike, we’ve increased our photo size from 612x612 to 1936x1936 on the iPhone 4 (1536x1536 on the iPhone3GS). You’ll capture beautiful moments in all their detailed glory

Also on tap: new filters, a new live preview feature and optional borders. Instagram is one of my favorite iOS apps, and this update — mainly the size increase — may let it replace Camera+ on my iPhone’s homescreen.

After reading Dan Frommer’s article, the announcement from Netflix makes a lot more sense to me.

via @lonelysandwich

It’s at $410.93 as of this writing.

I’ve gotten a bunch of emails from people since re-launching the site under the name 512 Pixels. I thought I’d answer the most popular questions here.

So, why did you change names?

First of all, it had nothing to do with this.

It boils down to this: while I loved the name Forkbombr, I didn’t think it played well, long-term.

What about old links? Aren’t they all broken now?

Old links are fine. Thanks to the magic that is the .htaccess file and mod_rewrite commands, forkbombr.net/anything redirects to 512pixels.net/anything. Here’s the code to make that happen:

RedirectMatch permanent (.*) https://512pixels.net$1

What theme is that?

I wrote the theme for 512 Pixels based on Thematic. Thematic is basically an framework on which to hang your own CSS and PHP.

It wasn’t too much work to get where I wanted to be, thankfully. I’ve still got some kinks to iron out, but everything is rendering, which is great.

It was important to me that the new site look like the old one in some ways — hence the orange links remain. The logo was done by Wet Frog Studios.

How’d you move old posts?

That was actually very easy. WordPress makes it a breeze to import and export content. I did run into this issue, but it wasn’t a big deal to fix it with Media Temple.

It’s vital with WordPress to make sure things like permalink schemes and other settings are the same between the old and new sites, or odd things may happen.

Still no Linked-List items?

There’s no denying that linked-list items are a popular feature on blogs like Daring Fireball, Shawn Blanc.net and The Brooks Review. I know that’s it is easy to make WordPress do it. I just don’t like it.

I don’t think anyone is confused by the way I do things now. I also don’t think I’ll be changing it anytime soon.

What about RSS and Twitter?

To let the 2,500 RSS readers of this site get my content without having to re-subscribe was critical to this being a smooth move for everyone.

Thankfully, FeedBurner is awesome. I simply gave my feed the URL of the built-in, WordPress-generated feed, and like magic, everyone was good to go.

Currently, the URL for my FeedBurner feed includes ‘Forkbombr’ in it. I’m afraid to touch that.

I have FeedBurner auto-tweet links to the site’s Twitter account. I simply changed the name of the account from @forkbombr to @512px and moved on.

Roger Cheng at CNET:

Piracy isn’t talked about a lot, but it has quietly grown into a major problem for many developers. It’s more of an issue in Android because its open nature and loose authentication tools allow pirates to rip off and distribute paid apps.

“This is one of those problems that seem to have been running under the radar,” said Carl Howe, an analyst at Yankee Group. “Every developer thinks, ‘it must just be me.’”

Developers, you’re not alone. A recent survey conducted by Yankee Group and location-based services and software provider Skyhook found that 27 percent of developers believe piracy in Android is a huge problem, with more than three-quarters saying that it’s easy to copy and republish an Android application. Many point to pirate forums as the largest source of pirated apps.

I don’t understand why Google allows this sort of thing to happen.

My buddy Dave co-wrote a book on OS X Lion with some other cool dudes. Major congrats, Dave. Nerds, you should buy this for someone in your life.

There seems to be an issue in OS X Lion in which, under the right circumstances, Finder will crash and restart, showing the above dialogue box for a few moments, before crashing again. The cycle is endless, from what I saw today on my iMac.

I have no idea how widespread the issue is, as I don’t spent a ton of time around sick Macs anymore, but I thought I’d share what fixed it for me.

Once Finder was up long enough for Alfred to auto-launch, I ran this command in Terminal:

sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash

After entering my password, Terminal sat for a moment, executing the command.¹

If you can’t get to Terminal from within the affected user account, you can use this command² from another user on the machine:

sudo rm -rf /Users/USER-NAME-WITH-ISSUE/.Trash

In this case, Terminal will require the password for the logged in user.

Patrick Dunstan has spent some time poking around the way OS X Lion stores user passwords, and his findings are disturbing:

This ShadowHashData attribute actually contains the same hash stored in user bob’s shadow .plist file. The interesting thing about this? root privileges are not required. All users on the system, regardless of privilege, have the ability to access the ShadowHashData attribute from any other user’s profile.

[…]

Now, if the password is not found by the dictionary file you’re out of luck, right? Well, no! Why crack hashes when you can just change the password directly! It appears Directory Services in Lion no longer requires authentication when requesting a password change for the current user.

Yikes.

via @ccgus

Cody Fink:

See, the problem is that you took a mallet when you only needed the right kind of hammer. Instead of accidentally smashing your thumbnail, you’ve gone and smacked your whole hand!