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Remember the controversy with using PayPal’s website with a Safari browser? The issue was that since Safari did not detect and announce that the site you are on is using an EV certificate, one that takes more extensive validation by the Certificate of Authority to obtain, you should use another browser. Well it seems that Safari 3.2.1 can in fact detect those super duper all-might EV certs.

I was logging on to one of my bank’s website when I noticed next to the usual lock symbol was “Bank of America Corporation” in green. Could this be EV detection? I went to another secure website that I know didn’t have an EV certificate and saw just the lock again, no green writing.

Both sitekey.bankofamerica.com and www.paypal.com show up in IE with a green address bar indicating an EV certificate and both now show up in Safari with the name of the organization that’s on the certificate in green writing.

My last Safari update was the 25th November, 2008 bringing the version to 3.2.1. I’m not sure if this update introduced EV certificate detection or how long it’s been available; Apple’s website only says:

About Safari 3.2.1 for Leopard

This update includes stability improvements and is recommended for all Safari users.

Maybe this will be announced with the release of Snow Leopard

All iPhone 2G and 3G owners are now able to update to the long awaited 2.1 firmware (as of approx. 12th Sept, 2008 9:15 AM EST). We’ve seen a glimpse of it since the iPod Touch version was debuted on Tuesday at Apple’s “Let’s Rock” event. Here’s some of what we can expect:

1. fewer dropped calls
2. faster backup times to iTunes
3. faster installation of apps
4. less crashing (such as the case is when you have many 3rd party apps)
5. better responsiveness, such as in the contact list
6. better battery life
7. iPod video playback will have a longer scroll bar for a more granular scan through your video

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When Rogers first announced that they were going to carry the new iPhone 3G, boy did everyone have lots and lots of questions. I know I did. I must have called at least 2 or 3 times a day for like a week, hashing out details and trying to make sense out of the myriad of conflicting answers from various reps. It’s been 13 days now since the launch so I though I’d write as much detail as I could for those Canucks out there still trying to decide if to get one and how to go about doing so.

I’m not sure if folks are still lining up at the retail outlets, but there really is no need. You can order one over the phone or on the Internet and you should get it within 5 business days. They told me 2 to 5, but I got mine on day 5.

One source of confusion is the cost of the iPhone itself. Advertised, it’s $199 for the 8GB model and $299 for the 16GB models, white or black. This turned out to not be entirely true… if you are an existing Rogers customer. I’m not going to say “existing Fido customer” simply because I dealt with Rogers, but from what I’ve read, and the two being the same company and all, it seems like just about everything is the same on both ends. So, how much is it then?
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Lately, I’ve been enduring painstakingly slow log offs in Mac OS 10.5.1. At first, everything seems fine; applications start closing one by one, the dock and menu bar and desktop icons disappear, then it’s off to dreamland for a few minutes. Sometimes, there is the good ol’ spinning progress indicator, other times just a blue screen. Because of some feint disk access noises, I decided to wait… and eventually the machine shuts down — not counting those nasty lock up times when you’re really lucky if you can shut your machine all the way down to the euphoria you feel when you get that total black screen, your machine makes a weird click sound, and yaaaah it’s OFF.

Well, the solution seems to be to activate “fast user switching”. Fast User Switching allows multiple users to be logged in at the same time. Even if you have only one user on your system, you should activate this feature to circumvent this apparent bug in Leopard.To turn on, open System Preferences and under the System section, click on Accounts. Then click on Login Options. You’ll see the “Enable fast user switching” option, but in order to check it, you’ll have to first click on the lock in the bottom left of the window next to the wording “Click the lock to make changes” and authenticate.Hopefully you can now log off, reboot and shut down your machine lickety split.

Header Article: Using libmimic in your Cocoa application

I am building a Universal (Intel/PPC) libmimic library on an Intel platform using Mac OS X 10.4.10 and with the aid of libraries installed via MacPorts. Based on your setup (PPC platform, fink, etc.) things might be slightly different for you but hopefully you’ll be able to make the adjustments once you see how I’ve done it.

Note: I’ve tested this on OS X 10.5 (Leopard) and it does not work as of 28th Oct, 2007.

libmimic needs the following libraries to be present: gperf, libiconv, expat, gettext, pkgconfig, glib. If you are using MacPorts, you should be able to install all of these by simply installing glib. The following command will do this:

$ sudo port install glib2 +universal

There are some caveats to the Universal build that will be explained later. Also, if you already have some of these libraries present on your system, you may have to manually uninstall and re-install them as a Universal build in order for the libmimic build to work. Additionally, if you later bundle all the necessary libraries needed for a Cocoa application that uses libmimic, all the libraries that you bundle into the application should be Universal libraries, if you want the application to work properly on both Intel and PPC platforms. For example, to re-install libiconv:

$ sudo port -f uninstall libiconv
$ sudo port install libiconv +universal

Now that you have glib installed, now on to libmimic itself. First, download and un-tar libmimic to a convenient location. I’ll use ~/libmimic for simplicity.

1. Open a terminal session and change to your libmimic directory:

$ cd ~/libmimic

2. Following Technical Note TN2137 on Apple’s website:

$ env CFLAGS="-I/opt/local/include -O -arch i386 -arch ppc" \
 LDFLAGS="-arch i386 -arch ppc"

-O is for code optimization
-g is to generate debug info (I’ve left this one out, but you can add it if you need it)

3. Now you can configure the Makefile for the Universal Build. The default installation path is /usr/local and you can change that to another location for testing.

   --prefix=~/Desktop/libmimic_build

   Keep in mind, however, that the final library will have headers which use this pathname so if you want to change the location, you can’t just move the files; you’d have to re-configure, re-build and re-install. Also remember that for multiple -arch targets, we need to use

   --disable-dependency-tracking

$ ./configure --disable-dependency-tracking

4. A problem arises because of the PPC architecture. During the configuration step, libtool gets copied (I’m not sure from where) and put into the libmimic directory. However, this version of libtool can’t handle the PPC architecture on an Intel platform. I’ve tried to figure out how to get the configuration process to put the right version, but haven’t been successful. So instead, I remove libtool and add a soft link to the version that will work:

$ rm libtool
$ ln -s /opt/local/bin/glibtool libtool

5. Now we can proceed as usual:

$ make
$ sudo make install

If you’ve used the default installation directory, the following files get installed:

/usr/local/include/mimic.h
/usr/local/lib/libmimic.0.0.1.dylib
/usr/local/lib/libmimic.0.dylib (soft link)
/usr/local/lib/libmimic.a
/usr/local/lib/libmimic.dylib (soft lilnk)
/usr/local/lib/libmimic.la
/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig/libmimic.pc

Now let’s examine the dynamic library to make sure it’s a Universal library:

$ file /usr/local/lib/libmimic.0.0.1.dylib
 

/usr/local/lib/libmimic.0.0.1.dylib: Mach-O universal binary with 2 architectures<br /> /usr/local/lib/libmimic.0.0.1.dylib (for architecture i386): Mach-O dynamically linked shared library i386<br /> /usr/local/lib/libmimic.0.0.1.dylib (for architecture ppc): Mach-O dynamically linked shared library ppc

Libmimic is an open-source codec library for the Mimic protocol designed by Logitech and Microsoft. The Mimic protocol is used in the Windows Live Messenger client for webcam image encoding/decoding.

Part 1: Building libmimic on Tiger
Part 2: Notes on glib and Universal builds (pending)
Part 3: Using libmimic in a Cocoa application (pending)
Part 4: Bundling libmimic and its dependent libraries in your Cocoa application for distribution (pending)

7007-10-26 Update: Now $109

You can pre-order your copy of the upcoming Mac OS X Leopard at amazon.com! At the time of this writing, it’s going for US $129. However, have no fear; according to their website:

… if the Amazon.com price decreases between your order time and release date, you’ll receive the lowest price.

Update (2007/10/05):

Special offer: Buy Parallels 3.0 when you pre-order Apple Mac OS X Version 10.5 Leopard or Apple Mac OS X Version 10.5 Leopard Family Pack at Amazon.com through 10/31/07 and receive $20 via mail-in rebate.

I’ve seen three different approaches to solving this dilemma. Well, in the real sense of the word, it’s not so much a dilemma to me. The choice is clear if you’re a Cocoa programmer.

One approach uses an undocumented API call CGSSecondsSinceLastInputEvent, which is generally considered not a good idea as future versions of the operating system may break your application. Apparently Adium uses this approach, but I haven’t verified this, don’t know which version, don’t know if it still uses it or not.
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