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  • britg 4:25 pm on September 23, 2008 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
    Tags: SshTunnel   

    Accessing CouchDB Admin Without Exposing It To A Public Port 

    I’m running couchdb on EC2, but I don’t neccessarily want to expose the port it runs on (5984 by default) to a public IP address.  But, I want to be able to access the luxurious Futon admin system – so what are my options?

    Turns out, there’s a simple solution – run an SSH tunnel to the ec2 server:

    $ ssh -L 5498:localhost:5984 [mylogin]@[some-ec2-instance.com]

    When you access your local port 5984, i.e. http://localhost:5984/_utils, you’re actually tunneling to your EC2 instance. Now, you can run the couchdb server safely and still enjoy the Futon admin!

    Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
     

    • Jan 12:34 am on September 24, 2008 Permalink

      Correct, good thinking, too. It is even an FaQ :-)

      http://wiki.apache.org/couchdb/FrequentlyAskedQ…

      Cheers
      Jan
      –

    • Jan 12:34 am on September 24, 2008 Permalink

      Correct, good thinking, too. It is even an FaQ :-)

      http://wiki.apache.org/couchdb/FrequentlyAskedQ…

      Cheers
      Jan
      –

    • gochi 2:12 am on January 17, 2009 Permalink

      Yes great tip thanks.

    • gochi 2:12 am on January 17, 2009 Permalink

      Yes great tip thanks.

    • gochi 10:12 am on January 17, 2009 Permalink

      Yes great tip thanks.

    • vijay 2:15 am on July 8, 2011 Permalink

      Common uses of graphic design include identity logos and branding,
      web sites, publications magazines, newspapers, and books,
      advertisements and product packaging.Popup display

    • vijay 2:15 am on July 8, 2011 Permalink

      Common uses of graphic design include identity logos and branding,
      web sites, publications magazines, newspapers, and books,
      advertisements and product packaging.Popup display

    • M K 7:25 am on July 28, 2011 Permalink

      Well it is. It is written for the web browsers to understand what your
      site is about and also is a quick reference for the search engines in
      indexing your site. If you don’t see things that say meta keywords,
      meta title, and meta description then you are missing some very vital
      parts to having your site indexed by the search engines.SEO Canada

       

    • M K 7:25 am on July 28, 2011 Permalink

      Well it is. It is written for the web browsers to understand what your
      site is about and also is a quick reference for the search engines in
      indexing your site. If you don’t see things that say meta keywords,
      meta title, and meta description then you are missing some very vital
      parts to having your site indexed by the search engines.SEO Canada

       

    • Missyes 1:19 am on December 26, 2011 Permalink

      yeah I know this that accessing the couchdb admin without exposing it a public port. real estate toronto

    • angie 5:38 pm on March 18, 2012 Permalink

      well, I don’t think I agree with what you just have said here. It’s really awesome. web development services

  • britg 8:39 am on September 18, 2008 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
    Tags:   

    Amazon Is Working on a True Content Delivery Network 

    Just received this email from Amazon Web Services announcing that they are working on building a true Content Delivery Network!  It’s light on details, but I can see this having a huge effect on services that are using AWS and S3 for video delivery.

    Many of you have asked us to let you know ahead of time about features and services that are currently under development so that you can better plan for how that functionality might integrate with your applications. To that end, we are excited to share some early details with you about a new offering we have under development here at AWS — a content delivery service.

    This new service will provide you a high performance method of distributing content to end users, giving your customers low latency and high data transfer rates when they access your objects. The initial release will help developers and businesses who need to deliver popular, publicly readable content over HTTP connections. Our goal is to create a content delivery service that:

     

    • Lets developers and businesses get started easily – there are no minimum fees and no commitments. You will only pay for what you actually use.
    • Is simple and easy to use – a single, simple API call is all that is needed to get started delivering your content.
    • Works seamlessly with Amazon S3 – this gives you durable storage for the original, definitive versions of your files while making the content delivery service easier to use.
    • Has a global presence – we use a global network of edge locations on three continents to deliver your content from the most appropriate location.

     

    You’ll start by storing the original version of your objects in Amazon S3, making sure they are publicly readable. Then, you’ll make a simple API call to register your bucket with the new content delivery service. This API call will return a new domain name for you to include in your web pages or application. When clients request an object using this domain name, they will be automatically routed to the nearest edge location for high performance delivery of your content. It’s that simple.

    We’re currently working with a small group of private beta customers, and expect to have this service widely available before the end of the year. If you’d like to be notified when we launch, please let us know by clicking here.

    Sincerely,

    The Amazon Web Services Team

     

  • britg 7:39 am on September 16, 2008 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
    Tags:   

    Google AppEngine’s Smart Quota Doesn’t Match Reality 

    I love App Engine – I think it’s the best thing since sliced servers (bad joke)!  But one thing they got wrong is their “smart” quota management.  This has been something that has irked me ever since I heard a google rep talk about it at the Seattle App Engine Hack-a-Thon.

    Here’s how it works according to the representative:  You have about 1 million free pageviews per month, but it’s not a simple you-have-exceeded-your-monthly-limit quota.  The app engine team has developed a way to evenly spread out your quota over the full month, so it is possible that you receive a generic “this account has exceeded its limit” page at the beginning middle or end of the cycle.  See anything wrong with that?

    From what I’ve seen, most of the web properties that are looking for traffic do it in a very specific pattern that invovles two phases iterated many times.

    Phase 1 – get a huge spike in traffic somehow.  Get on Digg’s homepage,  get a mention on Techcrunch, etc etc. You now have an unusually large number of visitors over a short period of time.

    Phase 2 - a small percentage of those visitors will stick around and become loyal or engaged visitors.  This is the traffic you care about!

    Here’s a snapshot of this site’s traffic after getting linked to by a popular internet pundit last month.  You can see the two phases very clearly.

    One of the primary benefits of hosting in the cloud is that they are built to handle this type traffic profile – large random spikes!  Google’s App Engine is so promising as a platform because you can leverage their infrastructure to handle a lot of traffic.   But, very few sites have high, steady traffic – it’s mostly spikes like this.

    But, with google’s “smart” quota – you have all the limitations of a single physical server!  When their quota system detects you’ve gone over your micro quota for the day, or the hour, or however they track it, then your site is officially taken down and a generic quota screen is shown.  Ouch!  Now that bump in steady traffic doesn’t quite stay as high as you’d like because many of those visitors that would stick around never get to see your content.

    This very well may change when Google announces it’s pricing and other features, but for now this is a non-starter for sites that are looking to take advantage of google’s infrastructure to handle a lot of traffic.

     

    • Pedram 7:33 pm on November 7, 2008 Permalink

      As usual google severely limits their developer tools… It's almost the point isn't to charge but to keep competitors from getting any form of footing on their internet.

    • Pedram 3:33 am on November 8, 2008 Permalink

      As usual google severely limits their developer tools… It's almost the point isn't to charge but to keep competitors from getting any form of footing on their internet.

  • britg 1:20 pm on September 14, 2008 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    The Answer To Gaming Piracy Was Perfected Over a Decade Ago 

    The Spore DRM debacle is still making press with the latest story coming from TechCrunch.  One phrase that really rang true to me was Erick’s argument that the legitimate version of a game should never be more hobbled than a pirated version – so true!

    There is a lesson here for all media companies. Whether they are producing videogames, movies, or music, adding DRM won’t stop piracy. The best way to stop piracy is to hobble the pirated version, not the official one.

    Easier said than done, right?  No, not really – this concept was pioneered and perfected over a decade ago by none other than Blizzard Entertainment with the release of Diablo 1 and battle.net (bnet).  If you’re not familiar with bnet, it was a network integrated into Diablo that managed all of it’s multiplayer interactions (minus LAN).  It opened up a whole new, exponentially more valuable gaming experience because it was the first mainstream game that made the social interactions that we all take for granted in gaming today easily accessible!  The game was ‘complete’ without battle net, but the entire experience wasn’t.

    How did they combat piracy?  A valid CD key was required to get on – that’s it – no crazy DRM scheme, no limiting installs, none of the stuff Spore is getting a lot of flak for.  And people bought the game like crazy because no self-respecting gamer played Diablo alone!  (I mean alone in the macro sense, i.e. in the context of bnet).

    So, am I saying that every game developed today should have a valuable online component?  That solo gaming is a thing of the past and developers should be expected to provide multiplayer experiences with everything they develop?  Yes!  If the game industry wants to prevent piracy, then yes, the internet is the answer.  Ironically, the internet is also the reason piracy has become so prominent.

     

    • gishdog 8:06 pm on September 14, 2008 Permalink

      Blizzard has always cared more about their users than most game devs/publishers.

      I logged countless hours playing Diablo on Battle.net… I don't think I ever actually played the game offline… I made several friends crawling the random dungeons online and I thought every dime I spent on the game was worth it.

      Seeing that Spore was designed from the ground up to provide online users the ability to share their creations and gain access to the creations of other users it really makes the DRM approach seem incredibly greedy. Why not neuter the pirates and allow the users that paid 50 hard earned bucks to do what they please?

    • gishdog 8:06 pm on September 14, 2008 Permalink

      Blizzard has always cared more about their users than most game devs/publishers.

      I logged countless hours playing Diablo on Battle.net… I don't think I ever actually played the game offline… I made several friends crawling the random dungeons online and I thought every dime I spent on the game was worth it.

      Seeing that Spore was designed from the ground up to provide online users the ability to share their creations and gain access to the creations of other users it really makes the DRM approach seem incredibly greedy. Why not neuter the pirates and allow the users that paid 50 hard earned bucks to do what they please?

    • Wraith 10:27 pm on September 14, 2008 Permalink

      Blizzard rocks, even if the $15/month for WoW is still way too much. Good thing there's plenty of other (legally free) online games available!

    • Wraith 10:27 pm on September 14, 2008 Permalink

      Blizzard rocks, even if the $15/month for WoW is still way too much. Good thing there's plenty of other (legally free) online games available!

    • Anonymous 8:11 pm on September 15, 2008 Permalink

      Online is the only answer? No. There's one problem with that. I don't like playing online games and I don't like playing games with other people online. And if you think I'm alone in that, you're just ignorant.

    • Anonymous 8:11 pm on September 15, 2008 Permalink

      Online is the only answer? No. There's one problem with that. I don't like playing online games and I don't like playing games with other people online. And if you think I'm alone in that, you're just ignorant.

    • britg 5:12 am on September 16, 2008 Permalink

      Online is the only answer to prevent piracy without compromising customer's computers/privacy/gameplay. It's fine that you don't like playing games online, but my point is that publishers should publish single player games with NO DRM and understand that there will be piracy. If they care about piracy, the only method to prevent it is to create a valuable online component to a game that only legitimatly purchased copies can connect to! Hobble the pirates, not the payers.

    • britg 5:12 am on September 16, 2008 Permalink

      Online is the only answer to prevent piracy without compromising customer's computers/privacy/gameplay. It's fine that you don't like playing games online, but my point is that publishers should publish single player games with NO DRM and understand that there will be piracy. If they care about piracy, the only method to prevent it is to create a valuable online component to a game that only legitimatly purchased copies can connect to! Hobble the pirates, not the payers.

    • britg 12:12 pm on September 16, 2008 Permalink

      Online is the only answer to prevent piracy without compromising customer's computers/privacy/gameplay. It's fine that you don't like playing games online, but my point is that publishers should publish single player games with NO DRM and understand that there will be piracy. If they care about piracy, the only method to prevent it is to create a valuable online component to a game that only legitimatly purchased copies can connect to! Hobble the pirates, not the payers.

  • britg 10:11 am on September 14, 2008 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
    Tags: aptana jaxer, ubuntu   

    Installing Aptana Jaxer 1.0 RCB On Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 

    (I go through this process once a week and forget how I did it every damn time, so this is my reminder.  I published it in case anyone out there is trying to do the same thing.)

    This is a pretty specific setup, but works really well for playing around:

    • Running Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 on EC2 (alestic makes the defacto instance – ami-c0fa1ea9)
    • The latest and greatest Jaxer release candidate (http://aptana.com/jaxer/download)
    • Using the built-in apache in jaxer
    • port 80, publicly accessible

    Step 1 – get your instance up and running.  I recommend ElasticFox.  Instance ID I use most often is ami-c0fa1ea9.  (As a quick aside – why don’t I just repackage the instance? Because I want to use the latest and greatest Jaxer and it changes fairly frequently. When Jaxer 1.0 comes out, I’ll repackage the instance if Aptana doesn’t do it themselves.)  Instructions on how to get an AMI up and running are a dime a dozen so I won’t go into them here.

    Step 2 – grab a few necessary libs that don’t come with the alestic hardy.

    $ sudo apt-get install unzip libgtk2.0-0 libxt

    Step 3 – grab the latest jaxer zip from http://aptana.com/jaxer/download

    $ wget http://... [latest jaxer].zip
$ unzip -d /opt [latest jaxer].zip

    Then follow the instructions Aptana provides for making jaxer publicly accessble.  If you want to run apache safely, I recommend creating its own user:

    $ groupadd apache
$ useradd -c "Apache Server" -d /dev/null -g apache -s /bin/false apache

    Make sure to set your User and Group to apache in /opt/AptanaJaxer/Apache22/conf/httpd.conf.

    Voila! That should do it. Start jaxer with:

    $ cd /opt/AptanaJaxer/scripts
$ ./start.sh

    Access your site through http://public DNS instance name]/aptana and run the diagnostics.

     

  • britg 1:02 pm on September 13, 2008 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    Avacado Burgers with Homemade Potato Chips 

     

  • britg 11:16 am on September 11, 2008 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    Good vs Evil at TechCrunch50 

    TechCrunch 50 is over and congrats to the winner – Yammer.

    There were two presenters that stuck out to me, one positively and negatively, and they just happened to be gaming related (or they stuck out because they were gaming related).

    Atmosphir

    From TechCrunch:

    Atmosphir is a gaming platform and engine that allows users to easily create their own levels in a 3D world by painting basic elements into a three dimensional grid.

    …

    As far as gameplay goes, Atmosphir seems to be very straightfoward, much like a standard “Mario Brothers” game. The player’s avatar can run and jump around each level, which allows for jumping puzzles and the stomping on bad guys, but that’s about it.

    Interesting and I love it.  The recent success and all around awesomeness of Braid proves that there is still a lot more fun to be had with simple platforming games.  By exposing an abrstraction layer on top of the building blocks of a platformer, I think Atmosphir will spawn a strong nostalgic movement back towards short, fun, pick-me-up-for-15-minutes games.

    Increasingly, I find that I’m too busy to play the AAA titles while I sat down and ran through Braid in the span of a couple hours – I look forward to seeing what comes out of it.  Heck, I may try to see if I can get in the limited beta and mess around with the tools!

    Shattered Reality

    From TechCrunch:

    Shattered Reality has released Kaos War, a multi-player game with absolute transparency and social network design functionality which allows the players – not a bunch of overpaid and overfed game designers – create future expansion packs and levels based on player requests.

    Although it’s in the same vein as Atmosphir – I just don’t like the vibe I’m getting from this snippet.  Don’t know if that’s John Bigg’s fault or if he’s paroting the pitch the Shattered Reality guys gave.

    Why do we want to remove the professionals from the profession?  I know it sounds hypocritical because I just lauded Atmosphir for doing basically the same thing, but these are two separate buckets in my mind.  

    There are typically no “overpaid and overfed game designers” (horrible line – what the hell?) in the realm of short pop-cap games like the ones Atmosphir create – it’s mainly passionate independent <5 person studios.  So they are bring accessibility to the genre in my opinion.  Shattered Reality doesn’t seem to care about bring accessibility to anything.  They seem hell bent on bringing cookie cutter, cheap, and ‘user generated’ content to the AAA game market.  Do we really need that when the 1,789,327th installment of the Madden franchise just came out?

    I won’t go any further, because I run the risk of getting into the politics of cheap labor – and I vow to never get into politics.

    Anyways, I always enjoy the TechCrunch Conference.  Much more so than anything that comes out of Demo.  Looking forward to next year!

     

    • MattB 5:28 pm on September 11, 2008 Permalink

      I liked the comment by the poster that said, “they already accomplished this in second life.” He's right, they have, and in my opinion Second Life is a pile of poo. Admittedly, I haven't messed around with it all that much, but it just seems like too much work on top of my first life to try to create a second one.

    • gishdog 2:52 pm on September 12, 2008 Permalink

      I just applied to get in to the beta… I would love to try it out. Very interesting concept but it won't work unless they get a non-directX/IE version going…

    • hilos 3:45 pm on October 24, 2008 Permalink

      Nice write up and good site layout

      regards

      free online platformer game

  • britg 10:15 am on September 9, 2008 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
    Tags: , , spore   

    Revolt Against Spore’s DRM On Amazon – I Love It! 

    Right now there is a revolt going on in the gaming world.  Literally thousands of people have given Spore a 1 star rating on Amazon because of the DRM it carries.  I love it!  

    But, I also hate it.  Spore is the type of game the industry needs – innovative, fresh, and well polished.  It’s a damn shame that publishers care more about pirating software than the fidelity of the gaming experience.

    I hope this revolt affects EA’s bottom dollar so much that they realize that pissing off your customers with computer-destroying DRM is much, much more damaging than underground software pirating.  I personally will never install this game on my computer – I can’t stand hidden processes, can’t stand spyware, and can’t stand the audacity of some publisher who thinks they can get away with this trash on my computer.

    Sorry to all the people who poured their creative effort into what appears to be an amazing game.

     

    • gishdog 1:10 pm on September 9, 2008 Permalink

      Well… I'm such a Will Wright fanboy that I went ahead and purchased (rented…) Spore. I'll let you know if it's worth the bullshit DRM or not. My bet is that the game doesn't deliver on it's potential… but we'll see.

    • gishdog 1:10 pm on September 9, 2008 Permalink

      Well… I'm such a Will Wright fanboy that I went ahead and purchased (rented…) Spore. I'll let you know if it's worth the bullshit DRM or not. My bet is that the game doesn't deliver on it's potential… but we'll see.

    • MattB 5:26 pm on September 10, 2008 Permalink

      I really wanted to buy this game when walking through Best Buy yesterday. I am very lucky I read this before I bought. It drives me crazy that an otherwise quality game would be destroyed by some greedy bastards…. on both sides of the situation.

    • MattB 5:26 pm on September 10, 2008 Permalink

      I really wanted to buy this game when walking through Best Buy yesterday. I am very lucky I read this before I bought. It drives me crazy that an otherwise quality game would be destroyed by some greedy bastards…. on both sides of the situation.

    • MattB 12:26 am on September 11, 2008 Permalink

      I really wanted to buy this game when walking through Best Buy yesterday. I am very lucky I read this before I bought. It drives me crazy that an otherwise quality game would be destroyed by some greedy bastards…. on both sides of the situation.

  • britg 7:45 am on September 9, 2008 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
    Tags: , ,   

    Ok, Apple Not Stupid – They Have Just Turned Into “The Man” 

    Wow, I got a lot of feedback yesterday.  Protip: don’t call Apple stupid in the title of your blog post if you want Apple fans to read the content of your post!  I got some really thoughtful comments which I’ll go over here, but I got a lot more email that, if there were Cliff’s Notes, would read something like, “no your [sic] stupid.”

    bud says:

    I’m sure apples boilerplate rejection has nothing to do with the apps rejection.

    It is pretty obvious why they would reject it; to prevent hooks from websites into the iphone; potentially malicious hooks.

    Isn’t this obvious? If it is not obvious, you are disingenuous.

    Yes, I agree – most likely Apple is not ignorant of the implications of Big5 and phonegap projects!  There is a small chance that the review team at Apple just didn’t “get it”, but most likely they did get it and decided to keep it under wraps.

    Why? Peter agrees with bud that there are security concerns:

    As has been pointed out, this is rejected because it allows an external application to access information about the iPhone. That said, he’s right that someone at Apple should have explained that rather than using the “limited utility” explanation.

    To wander a little bit afield, though, I worry about this “limited utility to the broad iPhone/iPod touch user community” sentence.

    One of the reasons for third-party developers is to address these areas that are of limited utility to some but valuable to others. For example, medical dictionaries are not of interest to “the broad iPhone/iPod touch community”, though there are some who will find these invaluable. So is Apple now going to try to determine whether there really is a market for your application and decide whether or not enough people would be interested in it?

    He brings up a good point about the implications of Apple deciding what is considered ‘useful’ to the general public.  2 years ago if you had asked me if Twitter was useful to the general public, I would have laughed in your face.  Now, I read the RSS feeds of a bunch of different people on it and I consider it one of the best ways to access people’s raw, unfiltered thoughts.

    Imagine if Apple owned the internet platform and just didn’t see the usefulness of this app…

    But, as I said – Apple isn’t stupid (in the ignorant way), they are just turning into “The Man.”  My partner in crime got so riled up he went so far as to suggest Apple is the new Microsoft.  Personally, I would rather have the new innovative Big5 browser and then patch the security risks later, rather than shutter it out of fear.

    As much as I hate to use Internet Explorer as an example of anything but a steaming pile of sumo wrestler dump on a burning tire, imagine if the 90+% of the people in the 90′s hadn’t been exposed to it because it might have security risks?  We know now that it was chock full of nice juicy security risks, but I would say the exposure to the internet and booming of the industry that pays my bills is a far greater consequence!

     

    • rand 8:10 am on September 9, 2008 Permalink

      Hi again :)

      Assuming that without internet explorer that there would be no mass exposure to the internet is wrong on many levels. Without IE being built into the os, it may have taken a year or two more at worst, but the momentum was definitely there already.

      I have a feeling you'll like android. My personal opinion is that in 10 years, it'll be the windows of the mobile space, full of virus / trojans and whatnot. I've looked (briefly) at how they are doing security, but honestly, not stopping / testing apps before they go out will really make this a playground for a lot of nasty people. But we'll get the apps ;)

    • britg 8:26 am on September 9, 2008 Permalink

      Haha, you're right – I probably will love the wild west of Android.

      I agree that IE itself wasn't that important – but the concept behind it was – release an application that spawns innovation and fix the security holes when they arise. Windows is a nest for malicious software because they chose innovation over caution. But without that, the computer industry wouldn't be where it's at today, and Apple would have never been able to establish itself as the 'safe alternative' and the 'cool kid on the block.'

      The funny thing is, I'm writing this from a macbook pro :)

    • Andrew 10:18 am on September 9, 2008 Permalink

      It's widely known (from internal Microsoft memo's, for example) that Internet Explorer was a response to the Internet's booming success in the 90's, not the other way around.

      If 90+% of people in the 90's hadn't been exposed to Internet Explorer, they'd have used some other browser. Imagine how many fewer sites (and appliances) would require IE now. I dare you to buy a LinkSys managed switch without owning a Window's PC. And it has a web-GUI!

      So you used bad example. Fine. Your point, it would appear, might be summed up with a question like this: “to what degree should Apple manage security risks on the new iPhone platform?”

      There is a whole spectrum of positions one might take on this question. But there are a few aspects of the iPhone as a software platform to keep in mind:

      - Apple has said publicly that the iPhone/iPod Touch are a huge part of their handheld computing platform
      - Apple's 'plaftorms' since the return of Jobs have life times measured in decades (iMac, notebooks, Xserve, Mac OS X, iPod)
      - The iPhone as a software platform is only 3 months old

      Discussions like this one can serve to inform and even apply pressure as Apple continues to develop this nascent platform. But to expect Apple to treat the iPhone platform as a mature platform (even if it is fairly polished compared to other handheld platforms) might be a bit like asking a parent to make their toddler clean up her room before she can watch TV. Right idea; wrong time.

    • britg 10:35 am on September 9, 2008 Permalink

      Interesting argument, and yes I agree the iphone platform is still in its
      infancy. But, I see no reason why we can't take a look at now-mature
      platforms (like the internet) and apply the some critical thinking. Namely,
      walled gardens don't work (AOL, etc). Also, no matter how secure you think
      you are – someone is always out there smarter and more determined than you
      to break your security (DRM, etc).
      So, Apple needs to allow applications like Big5 to roam free. If it's an
      issue where they KNOW about security risks and just haven't fixed them yet,
      then be upfront damnit – Dirk spent quite a lot of time on Big5 and got
      absolutely nothing in return. There are other phonegap developers like
      myself that are frustrated for him.

    • Mjoecups 12:52 pm on September 9, 2008 Permalink

      There are plenty of ways to install whatever you want on iphone. It's called jailbreaking, and plenty of people have been doing it for a long time.

      Much like Nokia has a signing method for there S60 apps, but people can still bypass this and experiment.

      If you want to play with cutting edge stuff, jailbreak the phone and quit whining. The rest of Apple's “normal” customers are probably much better off with Apple doing a bit of QC for them first.

    • gishdog 11:48 am on September 11, 2008 Permalink

      Yea… you've completely missed the point.

      Apple is arbitrarily choosing what apps they allow and what they don't – even if an application follows all of the rules that they've set out for their developers.

      Apple shouldn't decide what apps are in the best interests of their audience… iPhone owners are pretty much as diverse as they come and Apple deciding which applications fills their users needs is impossible. I'm not an iPhone gamer, but I'd buy an “ultimate guitar chord/scale” app. I would also use an app like Big5 – because, like a lot of iPhone users – I'm technically inclined and I like the Internet – and if I could visit a site that takes advantage of the features of the $300 phone that I'm browsing a site on, I would like that.

      All of this close-mindeness and opaqueness poses a really really obvious problem – if developers are going to invest (RISK) their time and expertise developing for a proprietary platform with no guarantee that they will be allowed to actually launch their app at some point developers are going to stop innovating and the only apps on the app store will be bejeweled clones and flashlights.

    • gishdog 6:48 pm on September 11, 2008 Permalink

      Yea… you've completely missed the point.

      Apple is arbitrarily choosing what apps they allow and what they don't – even if an application follows all of the rules that they've set out for their developers.

      Apple shouldn't decide what apps are in the best interests of their audience… iPhone owners are pretty much as diverse as they come and Apple deciding which applications fills their users needs is impossible. I'm not an iPhone gamer, but I'd buy an “ultimate guitar chord/scale” app. I would also use an app like Big5 – because, like a lot of iPhone users – I'm technically inclined and I like the Internet – and if I could visit a site that takes advantage of the features of the $300 phone that I'm browsing a site on, I would like that.

      All of this close-mindeness and opaqueness poses a really really obvious problem – if developers are going to invest (RISK) their time and expertise developing for a proprietary platform with no guarantee that they will be allowed to actually launch their app at some point developers are going to stop innovating and the only apps on the app store will be bejeweled clones and flashlights.

    • Club Penguin Cheats 2:25 am on September 2, 2009 Permalink

      My personal opinion is that in 10 years, it'll be the windows of the mobile space, full of virus / trojans and whatnot. I've looked (briefly) at how they are doing security, but honestly, not stopping / testing apps before they go out will really make this a playground for a lot of nasty people.

  • britg 7:29 am on September 8, 2008 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
    Tags: , , ,   

    Apple Too Stupid to Understand Utility of Outside-The-Box Apps 

    UPDATE: Apple Isn’t Stupid – They’re Just “The Man”

    The problem with an application review process like the one Apple has in place is that there are humans on the reviewing end that are most likely too stupid or narrow minded to pick up on really innovative applications.

    I don’t care if the reviewers are the people who built the platform and think they know what it can do like the back of their hand. They will not immediately understand the usefulness of some applications, and those applications may be game changers. Instead of being introduced to the public and living or dying by a meritocracy, they will probably get a message like this:

    Dear Developer,

    We’ve reviewed your application Big Five.   We have determined that this
    application is of limited utility to the broad iPhone and iPod touch
    user community, and will not be published to the App Store.

    Sincerely,

    What is Big Five?  A very useful application developed by Dirk Holtwick.  It’s an alternative web browser for the iphone that enables websites to use the native iphone APIs.  So, as a web developer if I knew that visitors where visiting through Big Five, I could offer special functionality, like integrated location using their iphone’s GPS, or accelerometer functionality, etc.  Oh, and I could do all this without ever having to know Objective C or Cocoa Touch – I could use the javascript I already know and love!

    (Big Five is built on the phonegap project which I talked here about and contributed to here and here.)

    It’s really a very interesting application that opens up game changing possibilities for the browsing experience!  But, alas Joe Q Reviewer has decided that this is of limited functionality to the public.

    Why does apple think this application is of limited use to the public?  Here are two possible justifications (albeit bad ones) that I can think the reviewer may have.  (Oh, by the way they did not offer any of these justifications, just the short and incredibly useless message I posted above).

    “Well, it is of limited use because there are no websites out there that take advantage of big5 yet.”  Huh?  The logic behind that is so incredibly stupid that I don’t know where to begin.

    “This application is targetting developers more than it is targetting the public.”  It targets developers in order to provide a richer experience for end-users!  If Apple would provide phone-gap like functionality in Safari itself, then maybe we wouldn’t need Big Five, but alas they have not.

    The bottom line is that the application review process is tedious, narrow minded, and broken.  I wish at the very least Apple would provide a reason or some pointers to why Big Five isn’t considered useful.  I also wonder if I should not waste any time developing phonegap enabled applications because Apple is too dense to understand the possibilities it opens up?

     

    • rand 7:28 am on September 8, 2008 Permalink

      I'm sure they would prefer all web browsing to go through their implementation of webkit for consistency while trying to build this platform, whether they relax this in the future is anyone's guess.

      Also, I just looked through the Big5 site, and while it is a great idea, the implementation is very messy. Go into safari, type in big5's address, put in your new url, [done], save as bookmark on desktop. Then open bookmark (back to safari again) which then pass's off the url to the big5 app.

      Honestly, it's a mess. Not sure if the one they submitted to the app store was a cleaner version, but if it was like this preview, it's not hard to see why it was rejected.

      And calling an entire company stupid for rejecting something that really has a very bad user interface, is well, kinda over the top.

    • rand 7:28 am on September 8, 2008 Permalink

      I'm sure they would prefer all web browsing to go through their implementation of webkit for consistency while trying to build this platform, whether they relax this in the future is anyone's guess.

      Also, I just looked through the Big5 site, and while it is a great idea, the implementation is very messy. Go into safari, type in big5's address, put in your new url, [done], save as bookmark on desktop. Then open bookmark (back to safari again) which then pass's off the url to the big5 app.

      Honestly, it's a mess. Not sure if the one they submitted to the app store was a cleaner version, but if it was like this preview, it's not hard to see why it was rejected.

      And calling an entire company stupid for rejecting something that really has a very bad user interface, is well, kinda over the top.

    • britg 7:37 am on September 8, 2008 Permalink

      Haha, ok I agree the headline was a bit over the top, but it just reads better than 'Some Team In Apple's Iphone App Review Department Is Too Stupid To Understand Utility of Outside-The-Box Apps”.

      Regarding your points – the first few steps of that messy process is meant to be alleviated by getting approved for the app store. If Big5 were a downloadable app, all a user would have to do is 1) open the app, 2) type in the web address just like in Safari.

      You are probably right about apple censoring apps that act as another web browser for whatever reason. But, just compare that what Microsoft got in a lot of trouble for doing with Internet explorer in windows. Same exact situation.

    • britg 7:37 am on September 8, 2008 Permalink

      Haha, ok I agree the headline was a bit over the top, but it just reads better than 'Some Team In Apple's Iphone App Review Department Is Too Stupid To Understand Utility of Outside-The-Box Apps”.

      Regarding your points – the first few steps of that messy process is meant to be alleviated by getting approved for the app store. If Big5 were a downloadable app, all a user would have to do is 1) open the app, 2) type in the web address just like in Safari.

      You are probably right about apple censoring apps that act as another web browser for whatever reason. But, just compare that what Microsoft got in a lot of trouble for doing with Internet explorer in windows. Same exact situation.

    • Dick Mitchell 8:11 am on September 8, 2008 Permalink

      The problem with Big Five, from my perspective, is that apps would essentially be delivered to iPhones without being distributed by Apple. There are inherit security and bandwidth concerns with iPhone applications, which is the reason Apple has to review and approve iPhone apps to begin with.

    • Dick Mitchell 8:11 am on September 8, 2008 Permalink

      The problem with Big Five, from my perspective, is that apps would essentially be delivered to iPhones without being distributed by Apple. There are inherit security and bandwidth concerns with iPhone applications, which is the reason Apple has to review and approve iPhone apps to begin with.

    • James Katt 8:16 am on September 8, 2008 Permalink

      Apple is not dense at all.
      Apple constantly thinks outside-the-box.

      Realize that Big-Five is a web browser. This means it RUNS CODE.
      Apple's developer guidelines PROHIBIT an application from RUNNING CODE.

      Obviously it is simple that Big-Five would be denied from appearing on the App Store.

      To run Big Five, you would have to jailbreak the iPhone. Simple.

    • James Katt 8:16 am on September 8, 2008 Permalink

      Apple is not dense at all.
      Apple constantly thinks outside-the-box.

      Realize that Big-Five is a web browser. This means it RUNS CODE.
      Apple's developer guidelines PROHIBIT an application from RUNNING CODE.

      Obviously it is simple that Big-Five would be denied from appearing on the App Store.

      To run Big Five, you would have to jailbreak the iPhone. Simple.

    • britg 8:18 am on September 8, 2008 Permalink

      Very true and this is what scares me the most- not that the reviewers
      are stupid but that they DO understand and are intentionally blocking

    • britg 8:18 am on September 8, 2008 Permalink

      Very true and this is what scares me the most- not that the reviewers
      are stupid but that they DO understand and are intentionally blocking

    • britg 8:24 am on September 8, 2008 Permalink

      Wrong on every level – big5 uses exactly the same tools that every
      other app uses!

    • britg 8:24 am on September 8, 2008 Permalink

      Wrong on every level – big5 uses exactly the same tools that every
      other app uses!

    • Nat X 10:47 am on September 8, 2008 Permalink

      Based on your description of the product, I'd reject it for security reasons alone. Having watched the screencast I'd go so far as to say that anyone who expected this convoluted nightmare of uselessness to sell is either too stupid to understand the meaning of terms such as “utility” and “outside-the-box” or is suffering from pathological delusions of adequacy.

      Those “Pull My Finger” guys I can sympathize with, but really, you're throwing a very sad little rage against the machine temper tantrum over something any rational person should have not only anticipated but expected. The icon alone screams “amateur.”

    • Nat X 10:47 am on September 8, 2008 Permalink

      Based on your description of the product, I'd reject it for security reasons alone. Having watched the screencast I'd go so far as to say that anyone who expected this convoluted nightmare of uselessness to sell is either too stupid to understand the meaning of terms such as “utility” and “outside-the-box” or is suffering from pathological delusions of adequacy.

      Those “Pull My Finger” guys I can sympathize with, but really, you're throwing a very sad little rage against the machine temper tantrum over something any rational person should have not only anticipated but expected. The icon alone screams “amateur.”

    • britg 11:15 am on September 8, 2008 Permalink

      Saying Big5 is useless is similar to saying Firefox was stupid when it came out. Or, that any browser but Internet Explorer and Safari are stupid.

      Here's the big secret – Big5 uses the exact same SDK as every other app. The SDK provides a component to access websites, called WebView, that lots of apps use, including Big5. The security risk in Big5 is the same security risk that any application that accesses a web site has!

    • britg 11:15 am on September 8, 2008 Permalink

      Saying Big5 is useless is similar to saying Firefox was stupid when it came out. Or, that any browser but Internet Explorer and Safari are stupid.

      Here's the big secret – Big5 uses the exact same SDK as every other app. The SDK provides a component to access websites, called WebView, that lots of apps use, including Big5. The security risk in Big5 is the same security risk that any application that accesses a web site has!

    • bud 12:38 pm on September 8, 2008 Permalink

      I'm sure apples boilerplate rejection has nothing to do with the apps rejection.

      It is pretty obvious why they would reject it; to prevent hooks from websites into the iphone; potentially malicious hooks.

      Isn't this obvious? If it is not obvious, you are disingenuous.

    • bud 12:38 pm on September 8, 2008 Permalink

      I'm sure apples boilerplate rejection has nothing to do with the apps rejection.

      It is pretty obvious why they would reject it; to prevent hooks from websites into the iphone; potentially malicious hooks.

      Isn't this obvious? If it is not obvious, you are disingenuous.

    • britg 12:56 pm on September 8, 2008 Permalink

      If that is the case, Apple owes it to their developers to give us that type of explanation. I think there is a chance here the reviewer or team of reviewers just didn't think outside of the box, and decided that we don't need another web browser app.

      If they really did understand the full implications of the app and denied it with a boilerplate response then it's not worth the time and effort to make a remotely innovative iphone application in my opinion.

    • britg 12:56 pm on September 8, 2008 Permalink

      If that is the case, Apple owes it to their developers to give us that type of explanation. I think there is a chance here the reviewer or team of reviewers just didn't think outside of the box, and decided that we don't need another web browser app.

      If they really did understand the full implications of the app and denied it with a boilerplate response then it's not worth the time and effort to make a remotely innovative iphone application in my opinion.

    • Peter 3:05 pm on September 8, 2008 Permalink

      As has been pointed out, this is rejected because it allows an external application to access information about the iPhone. That said, he's right that someone at Apple should have explained that rather than using the “limited utility” explanation.

      To wander a little bit afield, though, I worry about this “limited utility to the broad iPhone/iPod touch user community” sentence.

      One of the reasons for third-party developers is to address these areas that are of limited utility to some but valuable to others. For example, medical dictionaries are not of interest to “the broad iPhone/iPod touch community”, though there are some who will find these invaluable. So is Apple now going to try to determine whether there really is a market for your application and decide whether or not enough people would be interested in it?

    • Peter 3:05 pm on September 8, 2008 Permalink

      As has been pointed out, this is rejected because it allows an external application to access information about the iPhone. That said, he's right that someone at Apple should have explained that rather than using the “limited utility” explanation.

      To wander a little bit afield, though, I worry about this “limited utility to the broad iPhone/iPod touch user community” sentence.

      One of the reasons for third-party developers is to address these areas that are of limited utility to some but valuable to others. For example, medical dictionaries are not of interest to “the broad iPhone/iPod touch community”, though there are some who will find these invaluable. So is Apple now going to try to determine whether there really is a market for your application and decide whether or not enough people would be interested in it?

    • britg 3:12 pm on September 8, 2008 Permalink

      Yeah, good points about the impact of 'limited utility'. Your last question
      has scary implications, and if the answer is 'yes' I see the application
      pool stagnating after a certain number of iPint's and 'Pull my thumb' apps
      being released.

    • britg 3:12 pm on September 8, 2008 Permalink

      Yeah, good points about the impact of 'limited utility'. Your last question
      has scary implications, and if the answer is 'yes' I see the application
      pool stagnating after a certain number of iPint's and 'Pull my thumb' apps
      being released.

    • Dirk 7:13 am on September 9, 2008 Permalink

      Hi, I'm the author of Big5. I think I have to clarify some technical misunderstandings.

      1 Big5 was developed on the basis of the current iPhone 3G SDK, no jailbreaking or other things at all;
      2 as a browser it uses the SDK's UIWebKit component and just public methods and delegates of it;
      3 The big5: schema startup shown in the screencast is an additional feature to bring Big5 apps to the home screen (that's the only way apart of submitting apps to the AppStore); the way this is implemented is a SDK compatible way (see SDK demo app “LaunchMe” for details)
      4 In the preferences of Big5 you can explicitly switch off functionalities to gain security and privacy
      5 Apple just doesn't allow software that does not use “interpreters that are not yet on the iphone” that means Big5 doesn't hurt the SDK agreement, because it uses the unmodified Javascript interpreter of UIWebKit

      Hope I got all the points. Thanks for your interest.
      Dirk

    • Dirk 7:13 am on September 9, 2008 Permalink

      Hi, I'm the author of Big5. I think I have to clarify some technical misunderstandings.

      1 Big5 was developed on the basis of the current iPhone 3G SDK, no jailbreaking or other things at all;
      2 as a browser it uses the SDK's UIWebKit component and just public methods and delegates of it;
      3 The big5: schema startup shown in the screencast is an additional feature to bring Big5 apps to the home screen (that's the only way apart of submitting apps to the AppStore); the way this is implemented is a SDK compatible way (see SDK demo app “LaunchMe” for details)
      4 In the preferences of Big5 you can explicitly switch off functionalities to gain security and privacy
      5 Apple just doesn't allow software that does not use “interpreters that are not yet on the iphone” that means Big5 doesn't hurt the SDK agreement, because it uses the unmodified Javascript interpreter of UIWebKit

      Hope I got all the points. Thanks for your interest.
      Dirk

    • britg 7:42 am on September 9, 2008 Permalink

      Thanks Dirk for shedding some light.

    • britg 7:42 am on September 9, 2008 Permalink

      Thanks Dirk for shedding some light.

    • rand 8:04 am on September 9, 2008 Permalink

      The difference is that Microsoft and Internet Explorer have 90%+ of the market, at the time they were doing it, more. That was the reason they got into trouble.

      Apple has what, world wide, a few percentage of the smart phone market? Lots of competition there.

      Thanks for the polite reply :)

    • rand 8:04 am on September 9, 2008 Permalink

      The difference is that Microsoft and Internet Explorer have 90%+ of the market, at the time they were doing it, more. That was the reason they got into trouble.

      Apple has what, world wide, a few percentage of the smart phone market? Lots of competition there.

      Thanks for the polite reply :)

    • Doug Petrosky 2:47 pm on September 9, 2008 Permalink

      The web has absolutely no patience what so ever! When the iPhone 1.0 came out Apple had plans for the iPhone SDK but there was no way to release a stable product and a wide open platform in their time frame. Now, 2 months after the AppStore opens it doors people are giving Apple a hard time about denying a very small number of applications. Apple is not evil nor too Stupid to allow this application in. It is just not ready. The developer can educate Apple on the product and it may well make it back into the store some time in the future.

      Give them some time to take a breath! They are still trying to stabilize the phone and SDK when it's developers are calling into them. Opening these to web designers takes additional consideration.

    • Doug Petrosky 2:47 pm on September 9, 2008 Permalink

      The web has absolutely no patience what so ever! When the iPhone 1.0 came out Apple had plans for the iPhone SDK but there was no way to release a stable product and a wide open platform in their time frame. Now, 2 months after the AppStore opens it doors people are giving Apple a hard time about denying a very small number of applications. Apple is not evil nor too Stupid to allow this application in. It is just not ready. The developer can educate Apple on the product and it may well make it back into the store some time in the future.

      Give them some time to take a breath! They are still trying to stabilize the phone and SDK when it's developers are calling into them. Opening these to web designers takes additional consideration.

    • gishdog 11:26 am on September 11, 2008 Permalink

      I'm sorry but the “Apple's just not ready for them” argument doesn't float with me.

      Apple is approaching iPhone development very dogmatically; from the NDA that a developer has to agree to when they download the SDK to the generic form emails they send out when they reject an app – it all stinks of premeditation on the part of Apple.

      Apple is deciding which apps get into the store and which apps don't, without shedding any light onto why they make that decision. If they wanted to encourage someone to resubmit an app at a later date when that person has followed all of the rules laid out, put quite a bit of time and effort into developing an app on their platform and been rejected with nothing to show for it then they should explain why an app has been rejected. The mere existence of the generic rejection emails suggests that tons of apps are being rejected.

    • gishdog 11:26 am on September 11, 2008 Permalink

      I'm sorry but the “Apple's just not ready for them” argument doesn't float with me.

      Apple is approaching iPhone development very dogmatically; from the NDA that a developer has to agree to when they download the SDK to the generic form emails they send out when they reject an app – it all stinks of premeditation on the part of Apple.

      Apple is deciding which apps get into the store and which apps don't, without shedding any light onto why they make that decision. If they wanted to encourage someone to resubmit an app at a later date when that person has followed all of the rules laid out, put quite a bit of time and effort into developing an app on their platform and been rejected with nothing to show for it then they should explain why an app has been rejected. The mere existence of the generic rejection emails suggests that tons of apps are being rejected.

    • Al Brown 8:00 pm on November 5, 2008 Permalink

      Apple is going to act in its own interests. And yes, that's just as evil as you acting in yours. Its a total outrage.

    • Al Brown 8:00 pm on November 5, 2008 Permalink

      Apple is going to act in its own interests. And yes, that's just as evil as you acting in yours. Its a total outrage.

    • Al Brown 4:00 am on November 6, 2008 Permalink

      Apple is going to act in its own interests. And yes, that's just as evil as you acting in yours. Its a total outrage.

    • Club Penguin Cheats 2:25 am on September 2, 2009 Permalink

      Apple is not evil nor too Stupid to allow this application in. It is just not ready. The developer can educate Apple on the product and it may well make it back into the store some time in the future.

    • Avatar Free Online Games 7:51 pm on October 15, 2009 Permalink

      Apple just likes to do things their way.

    • Luxury Car Seat 4:07 pm on October 29, 2009 Permalink

      Apple is not evil nor too Stupid to allow this application in. It is just not ready. The developer can educate Apple on the product and it may well make it back into the store some time in the future.

    • Payday Loans 12:05 pm on April 21, 2010 Permalink

      The iPad only runs apps from the App Store. The same App Store that is notorious for banning apps for no real reason, such as Google Voice. Sure, netbooks might not have touchscreens, but you can install whatever software you’d like on them. Want to run a different browser on your iPad? Too bad!

    • Club Penguin Cheats 9:35 pm on April 29, 2010 Permalink

      Well, over time Apple will be more open to niche apps in the future.

    • registry cleaners 2:17 am on June 7, 2010 Permalink

      That is right.

    • High heels for women 7:24 am on October 7, 2010 Permalink

      Apple is not evil nor too Stupid to allow this application in. It is just not ready. The developer can educate

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