Peter S. Magnusson's dashboard

i got good support; it turned out to be some obscure issue, so we WL:d the IP address instead. works fine. – Peter S. Magnusson, on March 25, 2009 04:41

i have a similar problem; one of my twitter accounts got whitelist approval, and it worked for a while, then it was capped again (with not notification). there is no way to check WL status (you can confirm rate status at http://twitter.com/account/rate_limit...)

Well this advice may be too late, but this is an area that is broadly misunderstood, so this might be of general interest. I learned the bulk of this stuff years ago, but after freshening up with some online guides, here's the dope on liquids and electronics:

Water per se doesn't hurt electronics, nor in general do common liquids (coffee, beer, etc) with some notable exceptions (e.g. acidic soda).

It's the residue once it's dried that can cause problems (sugar, calcium, salt, etc), shorts caused by small amounts of liquid, and rust (which can occur quite quickly).

In general when you get any liquids on electronics, it's important to *immediately* power down and unplug *all* power sources (including all internal batteries). Just pull the plug instantly and rip out any batteries. In this phase, fractions of seconds count. Don't worry about saving the file you were working on, you have other priorities! So no soft shutdowns, please. Don't think twice. Pull the plug. And pull any other cables that might feed power indirectly - like an external video cable to a separately powered monitor, or a USB cable to a separately powered hub. Pull it all. NOW!!

Once free of voltage, you can set about fixing your device, and now you're in phase 2, where seconds no longer count but minutes do. And I can stop using exclamation marks.

If what you spilled contains sugar (coffee, tea, soda, wine, yogurt, etc) then first wash it (profusely) in running warm tap water. The more the better. Shake it dry as best you can. No point in using detergents unless there's fat in the liquid, in which case just use gentle stuff, like ordinary liquid soap. This way, you will have washed the device free of most of what's in the liquid besides H2O. Be generous, better to wash with lots of water for a long time. Remember, as long as you don't have power sources, odds are that there's nothing in the device that is hurt by the tap water.

Now you're in Lane's position, with a device that's been soaked in water. At this point, you can let it dry and hope for the best. But tap water has impurities that will dry onto the circuit board and other components. To be safe, you move on to phase 3; as with phase 2, you want to do this as quickly as possible while the residue is still dissolved in the water droplets somewhere in the device.

The simplest next step is to simply wash everything in deionized or distilled water, and then just leave it out to dry. If you want to speed up the drying process, you can use pressurized air of some form (make sure everything is nicely grounded) or instead wash/clean with isopropyl alcohol. Or if you want to get sophisticated, try WD-40 or some other moisture displacer.

And try to dry it as much as possible before leaving it to dry, so to speak. If too much liquid is left inside nooks and crannies, you may get rust issues. Shaking and pressurized air works well (hairdryer will work but make sure things are grounded; be wary of static electricity, and skip the max heat setting since that might actually melt stuff if you're overly zealous).

You're probably better off taking the device apart for the above efforts, of course, but you often don't need to; and if you're unsure of how to take it apart, then you might be damaging the gear more than imperfect cleaning will. And if trying to take it apart will slow you down too much, again, that forces a tricky trade off.

If a liquid has been allowed to dry already, then you're more likely to need to take the device into parts and use a q-tip and/or a toothbrush to get rid of residue and rust, applying isopropyl alcohol as cleaning agent. (If you chose stronger cleaning agents, make sure they're actually intended for use with electronics.)

Btw if you have a battery-powered device that gets completely immersed in liquid (e.g. you drop your iPod into a pool), remove the battery (if you can) while the device is still in the water! While it's submerged, the water will provide a perfect short and protect any components. It's the instant you take it out that problems begin.

And please, resist the urge to "test" the device to see "how much damage" the liquid has done. It's the test that will do the damage! Make sure things are completely dry before assembling and adding electricity to the mix.

Apple has not officially commented on the reasons for this design decision. Good design is part of their core competency, and they have better things to do than to provide design manuals for their competition. (But it would have been nice if they had not been so dumbass as to claim "it is compatible with most portable stereo headphones".)

The recessed jack has been controversial, but there are (at least) two good reasons for their decision:

Firstly, the rounded edge. It's an excellent touch (it's simply nice to hold or pocket), and it is also structurally sound (makes the device more rigid). But there is no way to have a non-recessed 3.5mm jack on a round edge. So if you want to maintain design consistency, you need to recess the jack. And if you're going to recess it a little, you might as well recess it a lot. This is the "design purity" aspect that the marketing VP was alluding to.

But, secondly, and more importantly, durability. The biggest source of structural failures in portable devices (laptops, phones, etc) is the power connector and the headphone jack. In a small audio device, the headphone is the worst, since, by necessity, the connector will sit on the edge of a small (and thin) circuit board. By making the jack deeply recessed inside the aluminum (rounded) edge, the connection becomes dramatically more resilient. You can see the details of this if you look closely at the high precision with which the included headphone connector slips into the recessed hole (no coincidence), as well as how carefully that hole is centered on the aluminum frame. (As for power and laptops, of course, Apple has already rolled out the MagSafe solution .)

yes, there is a very high correlation of followers and followees (e.g. check out "Why We Twitter: Understanding Microblogging Usage and Communities", it's available in PDF online), and it's always good to be polite, but with some social networks (twitter included), i think active pruning is etiquette-wise perfectly O.K. i (personally) feel that the rule of thumb is that if the connection implies an active participation on your side (such as paying for SMS messages) then the bar is much lower, in contrast to something like linkedin where there is very little active consequence on your time/energy/wallet.

but etiquette per se is a social convention, of course!

that said, Twitter has recently changed how they handle followers/friends/notifications. check out http://twitter.com/blog/2007/07/frien... - so you now have a potential alternative for you, namely, leave the person as follower but turn off notifications.

That sounds like a wise strategy.

One small note: once Apple actually announces release date for Leopard, they will probably also announce the upgrade policy at the same time. That's typically such that if you buy a new Mac with 10.4 installed, you will get 10.5 DVDs for "free" in the mail or in a store (they're likely to charge you S&H, e.g. $15-30 or so vs $130). When they announced the delay, many pundits criticized them for not also rolling out something similar to the Vista upgrade program, but no such luck yet.

You're not asking for iPhone applications directories, right? But a "meta" app of some sort? (I've seen a bunch of the former but not the latter.)

First, the short version. Right now is a really good time to buy the MacBook Pro (get 4G, 15.4in version) since it just got a serious refresh in June. That's one of the reasons Apple's most recent quarter sported excellent sales numbers for laptops. However, if you were planning on waiting a "couple of months" for other reasons, then it gets a little tricky, since over the next 3-9 months we can expect some serious upgrades.

So, now, for the long ("Peter-is-avoiding-real-work") version...

In general the thing to watch for with computer updates is to see what Intel is up to, and this is especially important for laptops. Packaging matters as well, but less so. In the case of the MacBook Pro, three things in particular matter: Intel's upcoming 45 nm processors, Intel's upcoming new mobile chipsets, and the rumored "ultra-portable" edition of the MacBook Pro. Let's have a look at each one of those "rumor tracks" in turn.

Firstly, 45nm. "nm" means "nanometer" and (to make a long story short) is shorthand for the overall generation of semiconductor technology. Roughly, new generations are rolled out by companies like Intel approximately every two years. Intel is (supposedly) on track to begin migration from the current 65nm parts towards the end of this year. (Blatant self promotion: check out "The New Era of Scaling" at http://petersmagnusson.com for more details.) New generation usually means a whole slew of improvements: performance, features, power usage, cost, etc.

Now, there are several markets of processors for each generation of technology - typically server, desktop, and laptop, though Intel has said that with 45nm they will also specifically target ultraportable devices (e.g. they would really like to be competitive with ARM for products like the iPhone).

Today, Intel Core 2 Duos power *all* the laptops from Apple. The MacBooks are either 2.0 or 2.16 GHz versions, and the MacBook Pros are 2.2 or 2.4 GHz. From a semi point of view, the other family differences are graphics (Intel GMA 950 with shared video memory vs NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with dedicated memory) and amount of memory (both DRAM and graphics memory matter a lot).

Personally, the Core 2 Duo version of MacBook Pros was the reason I switched from Windows (returning to Macs after having left with NT 3.51, which kicked System 7 butt back in 1995); as opposed to the very first generation of Intel-based MacBook Pro which were based on the Core Duo.

To add to the confusion, Intel uses the "Core 2 Duo" name for a family of very different products. Specifically, the one used in the Apple laptops are based on the "Merom" processor core, and are labeled by Intel as the T5000/T7000 products. Thus, for example, the current 2.2GHz MacBook Pros use the T7500 processor, and the 2.4GHz one uses the T7700.

Looking back, the June refresh (of the 15.4in model) upgraded the processor to 2.2/2.4 vs 2.16/2.33 (and notched up the so-called front-side bus), upgraded graphics from ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 to nVidia Geforce 8600M GT, increased max memory to 4G, added LED backlighting, and lowered the weight.

The upcoming mobile 45nm parts will be based on a new processor core that is code-named "Penryn". Now, Penryn will be a big upgrade. Huge. Lots of new features, better performance, etc. It's expected to be available in single core, dual core, and quad core versions. It will also support DDR3 memory, which is the next generation of (90nm) DRAM technology; DDR3 will not only be faster but more energy efficient (but see chipset comment below).

So that sets the stage for the really big question: when will Penryn-based chips be available in volume from Intel? Well, they may be available as early as late this year. So who knows how fast Apple is planning to adapt them. Most likely is this will all happen in the first half of 2008.

Processors are not the whole story, however. The other part is the chip set technology. These are the supporting electronics around the processor that provide a number of other functions (like USB, sometimes some graphics, Firewire, WiFi, etc). The current MacBook Pros just got the most recent mobile chip set with Santa Rosa in their June refresh. With Penryn, there will be a refreshed version of Santa Rosa in Q1 2008, but it's not until the fifth-generation of Centrino technology around Q2 (2008) that the 45nm processor will get to flex it's muscles fully. That product is code-named Montevina, and will be needed for things like DDR3 (and less importantly, WiMax).

From the chip set perspective, the current 15.4in MacBook Pro is at it's pinnacle of 65nm technology. Especially once Leopard ships (since it's not until 10.5 that we get a true 64-bit OS).

Finally, there's system packaging. If size matters to you, then you might want to pay some extra attention to the various rumors that have been circulating about a 12in "ultra portable" version of the MacBook Pro. Latest rumor is that it will be launched in late 2007. Personally I wouldn't pay too much attention to this, since for me it simply doesn't make much sense. MacBook Pros are the high-end versions, and MacBooks are the smaller brethren. There is little market demand in the US (and Apple market share is mostly a US thing) for high-performance ultra-portable laptops, notwithstanding the fact that it's an oxymoron. Personally I want more disk space, more memory, and higher performance; but I'm happy with the size and weight of the 15in model. I don't see the need of a high-end 12in laptop.

That said, there is an alluring possibility here that makes a good sign-off to this brief reply. Intel has announced their intention to expand into ultra portable, specifically with the Menlow UMP (Ultra Mobile Platform), all based on 45nm technology. This might be the basis of an ultra portable MacBook - though if Menlow is 32-bit rather than 64-bit, it would seem unlikely, but one can hope.

what do you mean by "download"? the three most common ways of getting songs into iTunes is (a) copy them from a CD you already own, (b) import audio files (like mp3) that you've gotten from somewhere (like Internet music sharing sites), and (c) buy songs from the iTunes store.

(a) CDs: configure iTunes (preferences, advanced, importing) and set "On CD Insert" to "Import CD and Eject", and leave the encoder settings on default. This way, you just start iTunes, and then insert all your CDs, one by one, and they will be magically added to your iTunes library.

(b) audio files (like mp3): select "Add to Library ..." under "Files", and select which folders and/or files you want to add, and iTunes will process all of them. When you first install iTunes, there is also (I think) an option to search all the hard drives and add any music.

(c) go to the "iTunes Store" section, and create an account for yourself, including credit card information. this will allow you to easily buy and download music (and videos). the iTunes search functions are kind of primitive, but decent enough; and with some glaring omissions, it is a surprisingly well-rounded set of labels, including a lot of indie music (which Apple encourages).

as Scott said, things also depend on whether you're running a PC or Mac, but I'm assuming you're running iTunes on a PC?

Short answer is "no, not yet".

Hackers have indeed cracked much of the iPhone environment, so if you're up for that (and willing to take a number of technical risks plus patience to repeat the sequence for every iTunes push etc), then yes, it can be done. Details are available online, and several IRCs and Wikis have popped up to flesh out details. But this is not for the feint-hearted or non-techie.

Apple is expected to add this as a commercial service to iTunes. For example, savvy observers have spotted a "ringtones" tab in Apple presentations (see for example http://www.engadget.com/media/2007/01...), plus there is indeed a ringtones icon in the current iTunes distribution. The exact reason for why this was not rolled out together with the iPhone is not publicly known, but the obvious speculation is that it was among all the features that were rolled back for the initial release in the general QA panic. Personally I think it might have been a right-of-use issue relating to the current contractual structures around the iTunes store, especially since a big chunk of that library is under renegotiation with some of the labels.

The rumor is that the way it will work is that for a $0.99 fee you can convert any song that you have purchased on the iTunes store into a ringtone. In all likelyhood, AT&T will also do cross-promotions as part of their branding and overall marketing efforts.

Well this doesn't really answer the question, but I would think that the number of companies, projects, etc is quickly going to become very large. So I would more want something like a "My Companies" tab, or better yet, "My Products and Services" because that's what the typical (consumer) has to chose from. And then a separate search function for adding whatever products and services I care to follow, and then I can just follow those. This will also allow you to have a passive database of products, services, companies, organizations, whatever, that people can add to their tab without them being "active". It will also give you the user consumption and ownership patterns which will improve your CPM down the road :-) A global view will always be of interest, but customer satisfaction is more about my personal consumer habits and less like the global zeitgeist (e.g. youtube etc).

Just my 5c.