iPad 2 Jailbroken!
As you can see in the heading above, I changed the blog name as well as its description to cover more development topics. In addition to web development, I will also discuss mobile development, mainly iOS and Android since I owned iPad 2 and Nexus One.
With the recent jailbreak for A5 devices (iPad 2 and iPhone 4S) released, my iPad 2 has been very useful to me like never before. I installed some Cydia apps such as VLC Media Player, iFile, and Transmission as well as some other Cydia apps and tweaks
Installed Jailbreak apps on my iPad
Installed jailbreak tweaks (extensions) on my iPad
Now that the jailbreak for my iPad is completed, I will be focused on developing Cydia apps. I will post some tutorials on how to develop for Cydia as I learn from across the web, as well as any tips I found when I’m using my iPad.
Switching to Mac
After several months of deciding which OS I’m going to switch next because I don’t like how Ubuntu is going since 10.10, I have been giving Mac OS X a try.
I bought an old 13 inch Macbook Air first generation from eBay one months ago and have kept using it since then. When I used this Macbook Air which is from 2008 for the first time, I immediately felt love for it.
Perhaps because there are some similarities between Mac OS and Linux commands, working in the Terminal app is like a second nature to me. Plus, with my experience with Windows in the past, I already knew most of the common operations on the Mac.
The main reason I like to try Mac is because of the influence of my iPod Touch. Yes, I’ve still kept my old second generation iPod Touch along with my Nexus One, with the latest iOS installed. After I switched to Android (Nexus One) for a long time and restart using iPod Touch to perform the iOS-specific tasks, I feel that the Android interface is kind of old compare to the iOS’s.
Several weeks after the purchase of Macbook Air, I upgraded to the latest version of Mac OS X, Lion (10.7). I love this upgrade, especially the Full Screen and Mission Control features.
As a developer and programmer, I like trying new programming languages such as Objective C and AppleScript. Oh, except Java, because I think Java is too complicated for me to understand, that’s why I avoid programming for Android. With the Macbook Air, I could use Xcode to learn and experiment with these programming languages in no time.
For future posts, I will explore some of these programming languages. This blog will have the same topic (web-related programming) plus new programming languages. I will redesign the blog corresponding to my Mac usage in the near future as well.
Of course, I will continue to use Ubuntu 10.04 as my laptop is still running it. Right now and for the time being however, I’m using Mac more than Ubuntu because I just can’t resist the Mac OS’s interface 
Not only its interface, I also enjoy using its hardware. I especially chose to buy Macbook Air over other Macbook laptops because of its lightness and fast processing power.
Look forward to my future posts which will be written in the new OS environment.
Do you have any experience on how to use Mac OS X and Ubuntu/Linux together without sacrifice Ubuntu/Linux? Discuss your experience below.
Ubuntu One Contacts iPhone App (Updated)
UPDATE: Screenshots from iPod Touch uploaded
Ubuntu One is a cloud service similar to DropBox. It syncs files in Ubuntu One folder between computers that are running Ubuntu. Recently I discovered an iPhone app called Ubuntu One Contacts that allows you to sync the contacts on the iPhone with the Ubuntu One server. Apparently it is developed by Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu development. One thing that confuses me is how does it accept to the Apple App Store. As I know, developers need to pay almost one thousand dollars to Apple in order to develop official (non-jailbreak) applications on the iPhone. That’s why I never want to develop iPhone apps, except for the jailbreak community. I will post some screenshots for the Ubuntu One Contacts app from my iPod Touch this evening when I get home because for some reason, my college blocked both DropBox and Ubuntu One website:( Here are some screenshots I took from my iPod Touch:
Touch Book is the GNU/Linux version of iPad (Updated)
UPDATE (04/02): It seems that my order is PRE-ORDER. They are currently backlogged. After searching around the net, I think I will wait at least two months before I receive it. If I received the device after one month, I will make a video overview of the device. Otherwise, I might make a video review depending on my schedule.
iPad is going to launch this Saturday and open source community already has Touch Book, an GNU/Linux version of iPad. According to its official website, it doesn’t have hard drive. It depends on the 8 GB SD card that included with the system. You can order it with keyboard or without keyboard. The touch screen is $299, and add $100 more if you want the keyboard. It has 3 external USB ports and 4 internal USB ports. For me, I will use an USB keyboard that I already own instead of spend $100 more for the keyboard once it arrives. I think those 4 internal USB ports allows you to connect other USB receivers. It means that you can take apart of the touch screen by the open source hardware means. It also contains many major GNU/Linux distros on the SD card, including their own OS: Ubuntu, Android, Mer, Gentoo. According to the website, Google Chrome OS and Maemo are coming. For more information, please visit its website. I might create a review video about the device once I received it.
First Time experiencing with GNU/Linux
I just came across an interesting article that talks about Fedora vs. Ubuntu. It makes me remember the first time I was experiencing with different GNU/Linux distros.
Back in the summer of 2009, I was frustrated with the slowness of Windows Vista. I was searching for the solution on how to fix this. Unintentionally, I watched a film from Discovery that talked about the history of the Internet. From the film, I learned that Bill Gates illegally avoided the competition between Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator and other illegal activities that Bill Gates did to avoid competition, as well as to avoid being sued. I thought that it’s time to switch the operating system.
Initially I was planning to switch to Mac. Because of the high price of the Macbook and Mac OS X only woks on the Apple products (I tried the Hackintosh hack and my laptop doesn’t support it), I downloaded two of the main GNU/Linux dstros, burned them to CDs, and tried them out. First I tried Ubuntu. I booted the OS with live CD many times and it kept go into the terminal. I looked for the problem online and found out that it’s the ISO problem. At that time, I didn’t have enough connection speed to re-download the ISO, so I continued to try Fedora live CD. It booted successfully. After playing around inside the live CD, I decided to install it. The installation process was very easy,. I chose to use the whole hard drive and removed Vista. The installation took about 10 minutes. After the installation, I could easily install my preferred web development tools right from its repositories, Netbeans, Apache, and PHP & MySQL. Later I upgraded to Fedora 12 when it came out.
During my later usage of GNU/Linux, I involved with Open Source movement to promote software freedom and fight against proprietary software. It enabled me to learn more about the bad side of proprietary software, especially Microsoft.
GNU/Linux is Slow to Compete Against Mac Mobile (Updated)
Apple announced the release of iPad during the event last Wednesday. That puts the GNU/Linux platform behind the mobile computing. Come to think of it, GNU/Linux haven’t even had any open source device that is equivalent to the iPod Touch. The Google Android OS is only available on some of the smart phones. For some people, like me, only need a device with Google Android OS on it but without paying monthly fee.
Fortunately, I found an open source device called Zii Egg that supports Android OS. When I first read about its hardware specs, I was surprised – it has more features than iPod Touch. The hardware components that are only available on Zii Egg include a SDHC card slot on the side of the device, a HD camera on the rear and a VGA camera in front of the device for better social interaction, a GPS receiver, and a microphone.
As you can see on the Zii Egg website, the device is currently on the development stage. I will definitely purchase this open source device once it’s on the market. Until then, I will stick with my jailbreaked iPod Touch.
UPDATE: I have found a list of the upcoming Android devices that are without phone compatibility: Technical specifications about upcoming Android Devices (This post was just out today, 02/02/2010)
Message from FSF about Apple’s DRM Restriction
The following email message is from Free Software Foundation (FSF) to stop the DRM restrictions on the new Apple iPad device. The message title is “iPad is iBad for Freedom (Peter Brown)”. I strongly recommend to visit the URL mentioned in the email message and sign the petition.
*With new tablet device, Apple’s Steve Jobs pushes unprecedented extension of DRM to a new class of general purpose computers*
Please sign our petition to Steve Jobs at:
http://www.defectivebydesign.org/ipadSAN FRANCISCO, California, USA — Wednesday, January 27, 2010 — As Steve Jobs and Apple prepared to announce their new tablet device, activists opposed to Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) from the group Defective by Design were on hand to draw the media’s attention to the increasing restrictions that Apple is placing on general purpose computers. The group set up “Apple Restriction Zones” along the approaches to the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, informing journalists of the rights they would have to give up to Apple before proceeding inside.
(images from the action http://i.imgur.com/nUtZK.jpg, http://i.imgur.com/0wpvY.jpg, http://i.imgur.com/iL2vT.jpg)
DRM is used by Apple to restrict users’ freedom in a variety of ways, including blocking installation of software that comes from anywhere except the official Application Store, and regulating every use of movies downloaded from iTunes. Apple furthermore claims that circumventing these restrictions is a criminal offense, even for purposes that are permitted by copyright law.
Organizing the protest, Free Software Foundation (FSF) operations manager John Sullivan said, “Our Defective by Design campaign has a successful history of targeting Apple over its DRM policies. We organized actions and protests targeting iTunes music DRM outside Apple stores, and under the pressure Steve Jobs dropped DRM on music. We’re here today to send the same message about the other restrictions Apple is imposing on software, ebooks, and movies. If Jobs and Apple are actually committed to creativity, freedom, and individuality, they should prove it by eliminating the restrictions that make creativity and freedom illegal.”
The group is asking citizens to sign a petition calling on Steve Jobs to remove DRM from Apple devices. The petition can be found at:
http://www.defectivebydesign.org/ipad“Attention needs to be paid to the computing infrastructure our society is becoming dependent upon. This past year, we have seen how human rights and democracy protesters can have the technology they use turned against them by the corporations who supply the products and services they rely on. Your computer should be yours to control. By imposing such restrictions on users, Steve Jobs is building a legacy that endangers our freedom for his profits,” said FSF executive director Peter Brown.
Other critics of DRM have asserted that Apple is not responsible, and it is the publishers insisting on the restrictions. However, on the iPhone and its new tablet, Apple does not provide publishers any way to opt out of the restrictions — even free software and free culture authors who want to give legal permission for users to share their works.
“This is a huge step backward in the history of computing,” said FSF’s Holmes Wilson, “If the first personal computers required permission from the manufacturer for each new program or new feature, the history of computing would be as dismally totalitarian as the milieu in Apple’s famous Super Bowl ad.”
Most of the Linux Code Comes From Companies
Most of GNU/Linux users are contributing to the Linux community either through Corporate Contribution or through Community Contribution. Recently, I found an interesting post at theregister.co.uk states that most of the Linux code(75%) comes from Corporation Contribution (which is paid to write the code), another 18% comes from community contribution (which is volunteered), and another 7% of the code is unclassified (which might also be volunteered).
The following are top companies that contributed to the 75% of Linux code:
Google and Apple, which both use Linux-based system, are absent from the GNU/Linux Contribution list. Perhaps those two companies have very little contribution to the Linux code? I know that Google has several Open Source projects and it’s building its own Linux distro, Chrome OS. Personally I don’t like Apple because its expensive hardware and almost all of the digital contents that come from Apple are DRM-restricted.
NOTE: This post is the correction of the earlier post. Some of the comments below might not reflect content of this post.