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AddOn Studio for WoW
For a big chunk of the gaming population, addons are mysterious things you download and hope will run. But for many talented people, they're an opportunity to help the community and make things easier for the rest of us. Well, some of the tedium has been taken out of addon writing with the help of Microsoft. What?? Yep, you read that right. Microsoft loves WoW, too. Using CodePlex, their open-source project site, they have helped create an Addon Studio for WoW based on the Visual Studio package. The download contains everything you need to create addons, so don't worry if you aren't the owner of Visual Studio already. So what does this mean exactly? The project team has converted the addon writing process from text and code to drag and drop. You get the look and feel of common programs like Visual Basic but with the command structure of WoW. By having the process be graphic, you just pick and choose what you want from the list. Specifically, Addon Studio will provide an interface that allows addon creators to build in familiar surroundings. You'll also have the ability to auto-generate items like the table of contents or lua events. Error checking for FrameXML and Lua parsing also helps to speed the addon process up. Likewise, they have included Ace2 templates so you can still tap into one of the most commonly used addon libraries and updater systems. Long-term, this should open up addon creation to those that enjoy dablling with programing, but don't have the time or skill to build them without a bit more structure. And that can only be a good thing. [Thanks, Jason!]
iPhone / iPod touch v1.1.1 jailbreak code posted
Well if you like looking through line after line of incomprehensible programming gibberish, make sure to hit up the Read link below, in which the TIFF exploit-based firmware v1.1.1 jailbreak code from team Toc2rta is posted in its entirety. More of an academic exercise for curious geeks than a useful bit of knowledge for the average iPod owner, we're sure there's still some interest out there in seeing exactly how this hack was developed. And as usual, if you do decide to go about 'breaking your device as previously described on these pages, we're, like, totally not responsible for any undesired consequences.
Community goes extremely overboard on iPhone Extreme
Tom from iPhonebuglist.com was poking around in Apple's online feedback form, and as you can see above, he found something interesting hidden in the HTML code. There was a product tag on the form not for the iPhone, but for the "iPhone Extreme." The page has since been fixed, and there's no trace of it ever appearing.We completely agree with Apple Insider on this one: it's a stretch to say this is anything more than a coder mixup. Still, there it is, right there (in a Windows window! Tom, how dare you!). Could it be a "sport" version of the iPhone? Or a home device designed to serve as a standalone, Mac-less dock for your iPhone on your Airport Extreme network?Probably neither. I'm pretty sure a comment over at 9-to-5 Mac has it right (although the site themselves went way overboard, calling a February release on what is really an imaginary product): whoever coded the page just used the Airport Extreme template, and did a mass cut-and-paste with "iPhone" and "Airport." Amazing that the Mac community can get so worked up over what almost surely is simply a coder's mistake.Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
Free iTunes song for UK SMS users
Alan dropped a quick note about a chance for our UK readers to get a free iTunes song. Those of you overseas may have been complaining that Apple treats you like second class citizens, but Britons, worry not, because they're bribing you with a song. Send an SMS with the words "ROCK," "POP," "LIVE," or "ITUNES" to 85100, and Apple will send you back a code for a free song on the iTunes UK store.The promotion ends on September 30th, so you've got to get it done quick, and this is definitely a YMMV situation. It won't work outside of the UK, and I even tried to send the code using iChat, but no dice -- apparently it has to come from a phone number there. It's not exactly free, either -- as you may have figured out, it's actually the cost of sending and receiving an SMS. If that's more than £0.99, it's not worth it.But if you're in the UK and have an itchy SMS finger, send it along and see what happens.
Blizzard putting a new sound engine into 2.2
So as you've probably noticed by now, 2.2 is not coming today. Bummer-- that means I was wrong on the podcast. First time for everything, I guess (I'm kidding!). Now I have to hope it won't come for a while, since next week I'll be way too busy playing Halo 3.But the CMs are sharing some info about why the patch is so delayed. The main culprit seems to be the voice chat system, and more than that, the fact that Blizzard completely updated their sound engine while including it. Blizzard, like many other companies, didn't write their own sound engine for WoW. They licensed one called FMOD, by a company called Firelight (the same engine used in Bioshock, Metroid Prime 3, Heavenly Sword, Crysis, and many other games). Firelight just released a new version of FMOD-- their website mentions 4.08 as the latest, though I'm not sure that's the exact version Blizzard is using in 2.2 (Blizzard may be a version behind, just to make sure there are no problems with the system before they push it out to all 9 million clients). 4.08 also just dropped a few days ago, it seems, but maybe Blizzard, as one of Firelight's biggest customers, had access to the new version before anyone else did.At any rate, that's why 2.2 is taking so much longer-- they're working on code, not class balance. Hopefully, whenever we do see this patch drop, it'll sound that much better.
Cabel's Coda toolbar and the Three Pixel Conundrum
Panic's Cabel Sasser has updated his blog (finally! His Miis were cute and all, but I was tired of seeing them every day) with a really interesting post about how he designed the toolbar for the everything-web-development tool that apparently is the bee's knees, Coda.Instead of using the standard rounded bevel of OS X's unified toolbar, Sasser decided he wanted to do something a little different, and created a tab-ish vertical indent. Unfortunately, the way OS X's toolbars work didn't vibe with his idea (there were just three pixels at the bottom that couldn't be edited the way he wanted), so the Panic team ended up developing their own entire toolbar. That, he says, is why you can't rearrange the icons in Coda-- because the app isn't using the system toolbar.But the best part is saved for last. All the hard work paid off, because even though Sasser had to drive his team nuts just to figure out a way to get around those three pixels, Apple eventually agreed with him. And the new toolbar in Leopard looks strangely familiar. Great story, and a real shot in the arm to developers who might not otherwise be pushed to bother with all the coding required to get the look they want exactly right.[ via DF ]
Math teacher gives kids questionable SMS homework assignment
A Grand Prairie, Texas teacher is in hot water with parents after a homework assignment doled out to his students this week. Rather than your typical 2 + 2 exercises, he went high tech and had them decode 20 text message abbreviations. Unfortunately, the exercise went pear-shaped when parents of the grade six students noticed things like NIFOC (Nude In Front Of the Computer) and IWSN (I Want Sex Now) was in their evening duties -- at least this teacher wasn't using SMS to buy pot. We dig tech like no other, but, those might have been omitted and replaced with things like LOL (Laugh Out Loud) or TTIAB (Talk to you In A Bit). The teacher now waits for the school district to make up its mind on his fate -- though we'd hazard a guess he's likely learned his lesson.[Via textually.org]
Night elves are latest shrinking shoulder casualties
First Orc males, then Draenei, and now Night Elves? It appears that Night Elf shoulders have shrunk (just a bit-- not nearly as dramatic a change as the Orc shoulders were) over on the PTRs. We talked about this on the WoW Insider show last week: what is up with Blizzard's code that changes like this are happening? What variables are they editing that makes the weird stuff like this happen?At any rate, there is good news. Hortus says the issue is unintentional, and will be fixed in an upcoming PTR build. So your Night Elf will still be able to wear his broad shoulder pieces with pride.
Journeys inside the iPhone's SDK
I have now spent a pretty solid week writing applications for the iPhone. And what an exciting week it's been. I've been privileged to view and interact with the iPhone in a way that few other people have had the opportunity to. The iPhone is tight, robust and its SDK--even seen through such imperfect tools as class-dump--is beautiful. Let me give you an example. This morning I decided to write a basic word processor for the iPhone. In about 30 lines of code, I was able to create an application that saved all changes to disk and reloaded that text launching the application. That kind of success doesn't happen because I'm some sort of phenomenal programmer, it happens because Apple makes amazing, usable libraries. I was able to use classic Cocoa strategies like reading a string to and from disk and combine it with new UIKit strategies like creating a keyboard that automatically knows how to enter and edit text.
BigRedKitty: A little deeper with hunter macros
Each week, Daniel Howell contributes BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the hunter class sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary. After the overwhelmingly positive critical reviews of last week's introduction to hunter macroism, and Mathew Porter's outstanding coverage of all things macro, we feel that one more week of instruction in the art of macroistics is in order. It is certainly not our goal to steal the thunder from our resident macro maven, but we have had a lesson plan in mind from the beginning of this short series of columns, as we usually do. We wanted to start with the basic one and two-line macros we showed you and follow that by expanding on those ideas to make macros that respond to specific key-clicks, macro sequences, and if-then structures. Many folks will find these simplistic but that's OK. The BRK Email Coffers have overflowed with thanks from those people for whom macros are a new idea and that's where our bread is usually buttered. The comment section from last week, and hopefully today, will continue be a great place for you macroheads to show us your particular masterpieces.
Computer uses webcam to play Pong with itself
As Pong attempts to solidify itself as the most hacked up game in the history of mankind, Ashish Derhgawen has programmed his computer to actually play a homegrown version of the title without any human interaction at all. By utilizing a webcam as the machine's eyes, he was able to write up an image recognition program that could detect borders and make appropriate movements based on where the ball currently was. Nothing too dramatic in terms of execution, but teaching an old computer new tricks always brings about a certain sense of pride. Check the video after the jump.[Via hack a day]
Xray your code with new dev tool
A few tipsters have dropped us notes (thanks!) that on Apple's Developer Tools page, there's a new tool. Along with Xcode and Dashcode, there's a new, very pretty app called Xray. The flavor text itself says the app takes "interface cues from timeline editors such as GarageBand," so what we're looking at here seems to be a realtime application tester and analyzer.The three windows in the screenshot show stats on "Network Traffic," "CPU Load," and "Reads/Writes," and Apple also says devs will be able to track user events and even the OpenGL video driver. Looks like it will bring all the new tracking tools and analysis junk (technical term) together in a browsable, graphical interface, which means an easier time for devs, which means better apps for all of us. Groovy!
Rakuten exploits cameraphone craze for advertising purposes
Although this certainly won't go down as the first attempt to integrate cellphones into discrete marketing, Japan's largest online shopping mall operator is apparently taking advantage of the country's oh-so-superior handsets and offering up tantalizing "promotional videos" for consumers who snap pictures of ads. Rakuten is reportedly set to hand out thousands of pilot issues of a magazine, Zero90, in hopes that mobile-wielding readers will snap photos of certain articles in exchange for a free commercial intellectually stimulating media clip. While this sounds an awful lot like QR codes, the actual technology used in the pages isn't mentioned, but we do know that Japan-based Clementec is behind it -- and you thought print media had too many plugs as is.[Via Physorg]
Google Summer of Code kicks off with Camino, Adium, Thunderbird and more
Google's Summer of Code is a really cool, really massive project focused on open source that first started back in 2005. It functions on a pretty simple concept: the company gives out grants to student developers (this summer they brought on 900 from a list of 6,200 applicants) to work on open source projects for the summer, and we all subsequently benefit in one way or another. Take a gander through the long list of projects on the menu for this summer, and click on any to see what the goals are. Whether or not these goals are met by the end of the summer is another thing entirely, but there are some great projects and features on the list for such apps as Adium, Camino, Thunderbird, Inkscape and much more. Adium, for example, might gain features like basic voice chat, AppleScript and Bonjour support, while a juicy feature on Camino's todo list is Tabsposé, bringing the window management wonders of Exposé (much like the WebKit-based Shiira features) to the more Mac-like alternative to Firefox. In fact, one of the developers involved with working Tabsposé for Camino is blogging the effort, with a few posts already online covering developer-oriented topics like getting caught up with minor details and coding resources, but also including teaser mockups of what Tabsposé might eventually look like. Long story short: Google's third round of Summer of Code looks like it will again do some great things for Mac OS X software and open source on a broader scale. Heck, those open source developers are even getting paid, which must be a nice change of pace for some of them. We'll keep an eye on what new features arise from this Google-funded coding powwow at the end of the summer.
Garmin Developer website unloads APIs, toolkits
If you're tired of tirelessly hacking your navigation system in order to get the features you want up and running, Garmin is making things a good bit easier, by opening up a developer website that gives users free access to a plethora of APIs, toolkits, and web services. Put simply, the idea is to give customers the ability to "make their website, applications, and data content compatible with Garmin navigation systems." Currently, the six core offerings include the Communicator Plugin, MotionBased Web Services, Content Toolkit, PeerPoint Messaging System, LBS Toolkit, and Fleet Management Interface." Of course, you can't take advantage of the niceties until you put those coding muscles to work, so be sure to hit the read link and flip a coin to see which application deserves first dibs on getting your attention.[Via GPSReview]
BackRow SDK unleashed for Apple TV
As if the Apple TV hasn't been hacked up enough in its infancy, Alan Quatermain is keeping the fun rolling with the unleashing of his BackRow software development kit. The completed SDK includes headers for the BackRow framework, iPhotoAccess framework, and QuartzComposer frameworks, which are reportedly all that's necessary in order to build and run your appliance plug-ins and the BackRow Test application. Additionally, you'll find a project template for Xcode, which "creates the Info.plist with the required elements, Appliance and ApplianceController classes, and links in the appropriate frameworks (Foundation and BackRow) for you." Of course, the possibilities are far too numerous to cover in this space, so do yourself a favor and hit the read link if you've managed to hold back your trigger finger 'til now for a detailed account at what the SDK entails.[Via iLounge]
Japanese hardware sales, Apr. 9 - Apr. 15: 433420-302039 Edition
"You n00b sunnuva bitch," said the legendary knight 3494-5541-9771. "Pwnage ... is inevitable.""Hah!" said his adversary, 7111-9463-2931. "If you wish to grok your princess once more, you'll taste the fury of my skillz!" He raised his arms high in the air. "363171-765491, I summon thee from the shades of hell! Rise forth and rock this bitch!"The ground shook, and from a spewing chasm came the beast, hideous and deformed. 3494-5541-9771 stood his ground. No creature would keep him from his princess. He dodged a 7612-8113-4353-1919 and drew his 1913-1564-8328, shining in the darkness. With one deft blow he severed the 363171-765491's head, and leapt toward 7111-9463-2931."Boom--" shouted 7111-9463-2931, raising his staff. The two collided--"HEADSHOTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!"And all was silent. 3494-5541-9771 had won. He sheathed his 1913-1564-8328 and approached his beautiful princess, 654232-918811. Her eyes fluttered open."Did you ... did you pwn him?""I did, fair princess.""Well done, knight. And now, your just reward..."She slowly began to disrobe..."Wait," she said suddenly. "Do I have your Friend Code?""What? I don't need your friend co--""Sorry, sweetie," said 654232-918811, donning her gown once more. "No code, no multiplayer." She walked away."I ... but ... FRAK!"(Seriously, Nintendo. This crap is ridiculous.)- DS Lite: 133,325 22,480 (20.28%) - Wii: 75,759 23,176 (44.08%) - PSP: 24,850 6,653 (21.12%) - PS2: 12,872 1,362 (9.57%) - PS3: 11,948 2,572 (17.71%) - Xbox 360: 2,900 63 (2.13%) - GBA SP: 654 179 (21.49%) - Game Boy Micro: 617 105 (20.51%) - Gamecube: 167 88 (34.51%) - DS Phat: 146 56 (62.22%) - GBA: 26 14 (116.67%) [Source: Media Create]
Free HTML snippet file for TextExpander
TextExpander is another favorite utility in the TUAW tool belt, as it can save a boatload of time with repeatedly typing anything from email signatures to canned customer service replies and even code. In fact, SmileOnMyMac just made HTML coding a bit easier on web designers and hackers everywhere by posting an HTML snippet file that contains abbreviations for over 60 common pieces of HTML, ripe for cutting down on the time it takes to hand code your sites. This file should serve as a great example of the power of TextExpander, since SmileOnMyMac made sure to use some of the app's tricks that insert the cursor in a useful place after expanding a snippet, such as in between the quotes of: <a href=""></a>, allowing you to easily fill in the blanks. But don't stop there - a little exploring of how these snippets are put together should enable you to build your own for the specific kinds of work and code you use.This snippet file is free from SmileOnMyMac's site, and the highly recommended TextExpander sells for $29.95 with a whopping 90 day money-back guarantee.
Puzzle Quest's AI doesn't cheat, but you can!
If the number one complaint gamers have with Puzzle Quest is its limited availability at game shops, then the second most common point of protest would be the Puzzle/RPG's cheating AI. People are just as apt to sing praises about its addictive gameplay as they are to howl over the AI's godlike prescience. We've spent more than a few battles shaking our fists at the game as computer-controlled enemies racked up lucky combos and more extra turns than chicken on a rotisserie.Sensing that the mob was two forums threads away from storming his house with torches and pitchforks, Infinite Interactive's Steve Fawkner made a public statement assuring players that the AI has no unseen advantages. Having worked on the code himself, Steve reasoned that he's too lazy to have programmed anything that advanced.If that explanation isn't convincing enough, there are still steps you can take to even the playing field. You can unlock a debug menu by pushing in a complex set of keypresses, allowing you to activate several hidden features. Check past the post break for more details on the cheat code and a comic about Puzzle Quest's AI.
Infamous MacBook WiFi hack demonstrated, dubious code to go public
This on-again / off-again storyline surrounding the infamous MacBook WiFi hack has us all in a bit of a whirlwind, but it looks like the responsible party is finally coming clean. David Maynor, who is now the CTO at Errata Security, broke the silence regarding the questionable WiFi vulnerability that he claimed existed in Apple's MacBook by actually demonstrating his findings in front of the crowds at the Black Hat DC event. The meddlesome duo elicited all sorts of backlash from Apple after the story surfaced, and a showing at the ToorCon hacker convention in San Diego was actually axed after Cupertino threatened to sue Maynor's now-former employer, SecureWorks. Yesterday, however, Maynor streamed rogue code from a Toshiba laptop while his MacBook (running OS X 10.4.6) scanned for wireless networks; sure enough, the laptop crashed, and he insinuated that the code could actually be used to do far worse things, such as control functions of the computer -- but interestingly enough, it wasn't noted whether the MacBook's WiFi adapter was Apple's own or of the third-party variety. The angst still felt by Maynor primarily stems from Apple's outright denial of his claims, only to provide an elusive patch that fixed the issue in OS X 10.4.8, essentially making its operating system more secure without giving David his due credit. Mr. Maynor also said that he would no longer attempt to work with Apple and wouldn't report any further findings to them, and while most Macs have certainly done their duty and upgraded to the latest version of OS X, users can reportedly expect a public release of the rogue code to hit the web soon.
