RyanErwin.com

Ever since Safari 3, the History Menu added “Reopen Last Closed Window” and “Reopen All Windows from Last Session”. The session information is stored inside ~/Library/Safari/LastSession.plist. When Safari crashes, the crash causing tab will typically be opened again, and Safari will crash again. Download the “LastSession” python script from radiotope to get a list of the Safari sessions that were last active.

For easiest use, download the LastSession python script, make it executable, and save it to your /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin folder:

chmod 755 ~/Downloads/readLastSession..py
sudo mv ~/Downloads/readLastSession..py /usr/bin/lastsession

You can also use the Window/Merge All Windows command followed by Bookmarks “Add Bookmark for These 99 Tabs” to easily save you’re entire workspace.

Mac OS X Hints posted about creating “Time Machine” like Session History for Safari by storing version history of the ~/Library/Safari/LastSession.plist file. Version history can be combined with the “readsession” script to get an even longer list of URLs…

There are currently three session management options for Safari, all of which have been updated to work with Safari v4.0.

• SAFT: InputManager plugin, SIMBL plugin, or Safari Launcher. $15.

  • Add bookmark folder here and add bookmark here in every bookmark menus
  • Save and load browser windows
  • 

• Safari Stand: SIMBL plugin. Free.

  • Bookmark Shelf for visually managing multiple browsing sessions
  • 
  • Restore Last Workspace Window that is 100% crash proof
  • 

• GLIMS: Free.

  • Re-open last session when Safari starts
  • Re-open tabs in single window
  • Undo Close Tab (CMD+Z)
  • Unfortunately, GLIMS “re-open last session” is only updated when Safari exits, so it doesn’t protect you when Safari crashes. GLIMS provides a ton of interesting options, primarily related to the Safari “Search Field”, but doesn’t do much in the way of Session Management.

• Forget Me Not: SIMBL plugin. Open Source. Free.

  • Reload windows and tabs when you relaunch Safari
  • File / Unclose Window
  • Edit / Undo Close Tab
  • Forget Me Not is about making Safari easier to use, rather than specifically about managing your session in Safari.

Bottom line: The only plugin that really brings Saft session management to the next level is Saft.

To minimize Safari crashes, you can also use the excellent Click To Flash plugin, which has the pleasant side effect of forcing Youtube to play back in QuickTime rather than Flash.

Next project: Synchronize Safari sessions across multiple machines

ryan Geeking Out（奇客通道)

I stayed up late to follow the iPad announcement via Twitter and the Gizmodo Live Blog. I talked with friends and read far too many online comments. The overall sentiment seems to be:

This can’t possibly replace a laptop or even a netbook. No Adobe Flash. No Multi-Tasking. No Camera.

For the people that really know how to Multi-Task, they should also be able to figure out how to Jail Break their iPad and use Kirikae or another multi-tasking app as many of us do on the iPhone right now.

Personally, I use Saft to disable Flash in Safari on my iMac, so I’m happy to avoid Flash on my iPhone and soon my iPad. Increasing the share of the internet who does not have Flash will hopefully force web designers to gradually abandon flash.

An expensive gadget in this economy that doesn’t replace better/faster/cheaper something I already think I need every day, and instead proposes to tell me there I things I didn’t think I needed that I now gotta have and

If it is bigger than pocketsized, it enters a class of “it doesn’t matter how much bigger than pocketsized, it might as well be WAY bigger since I have to carry it in a bag or under my arm.”

I’ve been using a MacBook Air as my primary computer for the last 2 years. Tasks like compiling software or running Photoshop are downright painful on the Air though. Fortunately, the iTab should be able to basically replace my Air on a daily basis: (Email, RSS, Books) and do so in a much more comfortable form factor than either my iPhone (screen is way too small) or my Air (how do you use it on the sofa? do you like looking like a geek at the airport?)

During these 2 years, I’ve basically had my Air with me every day, 24×7. Almost anytime I’m out, I’ve got my Air in my bag. At only 3 lbs, it’s been working great. However, getting almost the same resolution (30% less pixels) with 4x the battery life, half the weight, and for more adaptable to every day human life. Use it at the dinner table, sitting on the sofa, or standing and chatting with friends.

ryan Geeking Out（奇客通道)

Using Web Applications is getting easier every day, but there’s generally not quite as convenient as desktop applications. The only two exceptions I’ve found so far are Remember The Milk for task management and Google Reader for my RSS feeds.

This evening I found a way to bring RTM one step closer to “Native Application” like performance – now I can simply press “CTRL+ALT+R” or click the cute “Cow” icon in my Menubar and immediately add tasks to my RTM account.

Screencast of the Process

(Note that the video has narration – be sure you’re sound is enabled)

1. Download Fluid from fluidapp.com
2. Download the RTM Menubar Icon from Flickr
3. Copy this URL http://m.rememberthemilk.com/add

Once you’ve downloaded Fluid and the RTM icon from Flickr, open RTM and choose: * URL: http://m.rememberthemilk.com/add * Name: RTM Add Task * Location: Applications * Icon: The Icon you downloaded from Flickr

After choosing create, go to the Application menu and choose Preferences, then select the “General” and select the Global Shortcut.

Next, go back to the Application menu and choose “Convert to MenuExtra SSB”, choose OK on the prompt, and you’re done.

ryan Geeking Out（奇客通道)

For years browsers have included options for “User Defined Styles”, allowing users to define a custom style sheet. But recently there has been massive innovation in allowing website users to customize the underlying sites.

The core of this innovation is XML and CSS, which has succeeded in finally separating the content from the presentation of websites. This is for practical purposes fully realized. Now for the next revolution.

The Revolution: User Scripting Websites

When we visit YouTube, Google, NY Times, or any other website, we’re never quite satisfied. The site always could have been better. It could have been easier to navigate. It could have been less cluttered. It could have included some key feature that would have made the site so much more useful. Like every engineering problem, the solution has always been possible – but the cost has outweighed the value, so modification of websites has not been wide spread.

Greasemonkey/Userscripts are leading the way into a new future. It can be commercialized. This will be bigger than Peer-to-Peer. Bigger than BitTorrent. Once this is integrated into every frequently used browser (IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera) UserScripts will become as important as XML RPC is to the modern internet.

User Scripts allow users to customize the look of any given website to match their preferences. Moreover, User Scripts allow the customization of the way that the given website actually works! For example, want Google Reader to look more like iTunes?

Default Google Reader in Safari

Google Reader Customized with “Mac OS X Snow Leopard” User Skin

Want to download .MPEG4 videos directly from YouTube?

Default YouTube in Safari

YouTube Customized with YouTube Perfect

Not only does this provide the ability to download FLV or MPG4 videos directly from Safari, it provides the ability to automatically select “HD”, to turn off the “Auto-Start” and even to change the color of the buttons!

Want to get rid of all the adds on the page you’re reading and focus only the content in a big, pleasant to read font? Usually the only rescue is to hit the “Print” button and try getting a reasonable page.

However, thanks to the “Readability” experiment, you can save yourself from any website and just focus on what you want to read – in a style that is most comfortable on your eyes.

Consider how many people enjoy “tuning” cars? Adjusting the suspension, the exhaust system, the interior, the lighting. Look at how much people customize their icons, their desktops. Once you can customize the software that you use, online, in an easy way, it’s going to unleash a revolution unlike any that have been seen in traditional software development to date.

1. Some customizations can be very efficient, saving users time or bandwidth
2. Customizations can change the feel to match the needs of certain groups of users (teens, employees of a specific company, seniors, students at a specific university)
3. The “cost” of customization will be much lower than what’s ever been seen in software because the changes are done automatically on the client side at runtime
4. The scale of such customizations will be vast. Imagine if Windows, Office, and Internet Explorer were released as Free Open Source software in 2000 – we would have hundreds of different versions of each. This will be even bigger!

ryan Geeking Out（奇客通道), Web （互联网）

I’ve been using WordPress for my blog for 5 years, and it’s been working great. Over that time, I’ve encountered some issues and have some suggestions for you.

• Use the Antispam Bee plugin to eliminate SPAM comments from your blog without annoying your users with CAPTCHA tests that us humans seem to be unable to enter correctly.
• Remove the meta name=”generator” content=”WordPress” header to prevent automated attacks against your blog.
• If you need a VBulletin like forum site, use the BBPress version of WordPress.
• Enable WPtouch iPhone Theme so that iPhone, iPod, Android, Storm and Pre users can easily view a mobile version of your WordPress blog.
• Enable the SyntaxHighlighter Evolved plugin so that syntax highlighted code blocks can be inserted directly into your blog.
• Use MarsEdit to manage your blog offline.
  • Use “Save Draft to Server” to keep multiple computers in Sync.
  • Use the Preview window’s “Edit Template” to create a true WYSIWYG preview.
  • Use Markdown inside MarsEdit to edit blog text.
  • Use the “Markdown for WordPress and bbPress” plugin to enable Markdown in your WordPress blog.

I used Ecto for offline editing for a long time. It’s picture uploading, especially for Thumbnails is still superior to MarsEdit, but Ecto has bugs that haven’t been fixed for ages and no update has been released for over a year.

I used re-CAPTCHA to overcome the army of web robots automatically submitting comments on my Blog, but this makes posting a comment for normal people irritating. I recently switched to Antispam Bee and haven’t gotten any new SPAM.

Occasionally an army of bots will start a distributed attack on your WordPress blog hoping for a blog that hasn’t been patched to prevent security issues. I’ve found removing the “WordPress HTTP Header” has stopped many of the bots from even looking at my blog.

ryan Geeking Out（奇客通道)

If you are a China Unicom user roaming in Taiwan, and you want to contact a friend in Taipei who’s number is 999-888-777, To send a text message you have to use: +00886-999-888-777 but to make a phone call to the same friend you have to press +886-999-888-777. So, you’re address book is basically useless.

Int’l Text Message: + 00 [country code] [number]
Int’l Dialing while Roaming Overseas + [country code] [number]

ryan iPhone iPhone

To do unconditional call forwarding, to “13611881234″, you would enter:

**21*13611881234# (call)

Co cancel call forwarding, you would simply enter:

##21# (call)

For more information, call 800 858 2293. This configuration for call forwarding seems to be quite standard as it even works for T-Mobile.

ryan iPhone iPhone

我用了中国移动，用了快四年。从前没觉得好，但相对来说平稳。 为用3G服务我换到了中国联通。这个联通服3G服务的确很快，而186号码选择不错，但其它方面都没联通那么承受。

1）联通服务信号经常很弱。在许多地方移动完全有信号，但联通就显示“无服务”

2）“12593″。如你得打国际电话，移动的12593非常优惠。联通的“10193”也不错，但是无法跟3G服务一起用，所以就能通过“17900的美加直通车”，但是这种每次打电话浪费30秒钟在输入电话号码，原来的12593不用等 － 就存号码在练习簿里。

3）VIP客户服务。打电话到移动的10086，会自动的转换到VIP热线，但联通的服务就让大家一起排队，一起等等。

4）国际长途加“+00”。这个很麻烦因为反对国际标准。国际标准电话号码是：＋ 国家号 区号 本地号，但联通是“＋00国家号”。所以，如同步你的电话簿到联通的手机，而也同步到移动或AT&T或其它公司的手机，永远无法同步。这个真麻烦。

Additionally, China Unicom has supposedly purchased 500,000 iPhones that it expects to resell to customers in China, but I don’t think this is possible with the pricing plan that they’ve created. See iPhone @ CHU.

For a 3GS that does not have Wifi and is locked to China Unicom, if you sign up for a 2 year contract, you can spend: 386元 ($56) or 586元 ($86) per month you can get an iPhone for 1799元 ($264) or 99元 ($15). However, there is a deposit of 5200元 ($794) or 6900元 ($1014).

Meanwhile, for a real 3GS iPhone from Hong Kong – the official Wifi Enabled “Apple Unlocked” version that you can use with China Mobile, China Unicom, or any other carrier on the planet is HK$ 5388 ($695 / 4747元).

Apparently the target is the “186元” per month, on a 2 year contract which gives you an iPhone for 3500元. If they could move the 225/month phone down to 1999元, I think they could move their target quota.

Without the change, I expect the grey market from Apple Hong Kong will take the most market share.

ryan iPhone iPhone

My iPhone 3GS was working just fine, then it suddenly stopped booting. Now I get a message on the screen saying: “iTunes could not connect to the iPhone “ryphone3gs” because it is locked with a passcode. You must enter your passcode on the iPhone before it can be used with iTunes”. [Cancel] [Try Again]

Of course, while displaying this message, my iPhone simply displays a “swipe for emergency call” message and provides no way to actually unlock the phone.

When going into Hardware restore mode, I simply see “Error 23″ in iTunes, which according to some online information may mean my hardware is toasted.

I tried using “irecovery” to get at the source of the issue, but each time I boot up, I get:

Boot Failure Count: 0 Panic Fail Count: 0
Radio failed to respond.
Radio failed to respond.
Pinging Radio Failed, 4
Entering recovery mode, starting command prompt

Apparently I’m not the only one having this “pinging radio failed” problem.

The last ditch effort may be to prepare a custom Apple iPhone RAM disk apparently called “Bypass_Passcode.bin” (created with iLiberty+) and use irecovery to load that RAM disk onto the iPhone, and then use the disk to disable the password. Seems like a lot of work considering that my iPhone is new, that it’s never been hacked, jailbroken, sim-unlocked or anything else.

There’s also some information about downgrading the 3GS from 3.1 to 3.0, but that seems specific to the sim-unlockers and jailbreakers of the world. Sad that even playing by Apple’s rules, the iPhone still isn’t very reliable.

Following the directions of the Apple support website, I entered in my serial number and other iPhone information and submitted my case, only to get an error from the Apple support website saying: “We’re sorry, but we’re unable to complete your request at this time. Please try again in a few minutes or start over now”. Of course after a few minutes I started over and did the process again, and got the same error. Forgive me for being a skeptic about AAPL at $300/share.

ryan iPhone iPhone

ryan iPhone

30 years ago Nixon and Kissenger agreed with Beijing on the “One China Policy“, breaking off relations with Taiwan as the “Republic of China” and officially recognizing the People’s Republic of China as the legitimate government of China. The US Embassy in China put together a nice logo in honor of the event, and combining it with an iPhone wallpaper template I’ve converted it into a nice iPhone wallpaper. For reference the Chinese says:

中美建立外交关系30年
Meaning:
30 Years of USA – PRC Diplomatic Relations

Click through the image below to download the “wallpaper” version or the Photoshop template.

ryan China (中国）, iPhone iPhone

Unfortunately Twitter in China is blocked by the Great Firewall, so if you are in China and want to Micro Blog, you should choose from one of the local alternatives.

1. Komoo
2. Zuosa (做啥网 zuòshá wǎng)
3. Taotao (滔滔 tāotāo)

Previously there were several other local alternatives such as Fanfou, Digu and Jiwai, but all of these are either under “server maintenance” or simply offline.

UPDATE: SINA just launched an online twitter service that should never be blocked by the great firewall. t.sina.com.

ryan China (中国）, Geeking Out（奇客通道)

Unfortunately Twitter in China is blocked by the Great Firewall, so if you are in China and want to Micro Blog, you should choose from one of the local alternatives.

1. Komoo
2. Zuosa (做啥网 zuòshá wǎng)
3. Taotao (滔滔 tāotāo)

Previously there were several other local alternatives such as Fanfou, Digu and Jiwai, but all of these are either under “server maintenance” or simply offline.

ryan China (中国）, Geeking Out（奇客通道)

If you can’t get to a website, or if your company has a website or other system that you would like to know whether or not are “online”, the following tools may be of use:

• TraceRoute.org: Run the “TraceRoute” command from servers in a variety of locations to see if there is a routing problem. See TraceRoute in Shanghai.
• InternetSupervision: Check how a given URL is responding to traffic from nine locations across the planet. Including Beijing, LA, DC, Sydney, UK, etc.
• IsThisDown.com: Check if the website is working properly for others – or if it’s only offline for you.
• mon.itor.us: Free online monitoring tool to check any port on any site. SMS notification, high frequency polling, and a monitoring client that can be installed on your systems are all available as paid services.

ryan Geeking Out（奇客通道)

[From Network Overview /// Internet Traffic Report]

ryan Geeking Out（奇客通道)