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Posts Tagged ‘Ars’

feature: How-to: real-world dates with the iPhone SDK

When you’re programming for the iPhone, time plays an important role. The core NSDate class could be refined a little in how it approaches many common tasks. Did two time events happen within the same hour? Does a given date represent a time today, or yesterday? Ars looks at this problem by building out a set of classes inspired by work done on the iPhoneSDK e-mail list by iPhone Developer Bryce Wolfson. Here, we build these ideas out, starting from scratch and pushing the concept even further, to provide a handy set of date methods and properties that you can use in your own application

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feature: Lockdown: creating a secure domain policy in Windows

The recent Google hack has brought security to the top of every IT admin’s mind, if it wasn’t there already. But securing a network is a huge investment of time and money, to the point that many best practcices are out-of-reach for many small and medium businesses. Nonetheless, there is hope. Windows shops can get a good, cheap head-start on security by simply ensuring that their domain security policy is solid. In this article, Ars shows you how to create a group policy that will secure Active Directory (AD) according to current best practices, while keeping it open enough to ensure that operational headaches remain at a minimum.

Note: For reference, all policy settings discussed in this article can be found under Computer Configuration > Windows Settings > Security Settings in the Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc)

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Upcoming Outlook for Mac remains shrouded in mystery

SAN FRANCISCO—Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit (Mac BU) announced during the 2010 Macworld Expo more information about the upcoming Office 2011 for Mac, and users are excited despite the lack of details. Scheduled to be released before the holiday season this year, the revamped Office suite is bringing more parity than ever to the Mac version while still being as Mac-like as it can be.

The bit of news that generated the most questions—at least to those of us in the Ars Orbiting HQ—is related to Outlook for Mac. Old is new again, at least for Mac users who have been begging Microsoft for years to introduce an e-mail client comparable to its Windows offerings. The company announced the arrival of Outlook to the Mac back in August of 2009, but revealed this week that Outlook 2011 would have support for .PST files. The good news, as we discovered by sitting down with the Mac BU, is that Outlook for Mac will support bringing them in from Outlook for Windows. The bad news is that the company has “nothing to announce” (at least not at this point) regarding auto-archiving to PST.

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Missing funny bone leads to DMCA for Awkward Stock Photos

One of the most recent Internet meme trends has been to launch a site of ridiculous, funny, or awkward photos of things and people that are otherwise found in everyday life. You’re probably familiar with some of them: People of Walmart, LATFH, Awkward Family Photos, Regretsy, and so on. Usually these sites become so virally popular that they end up getting book deals, but that’s not the case for one such site. Awkward Stock Photos, a site that featured some of the more questionable pictures found in stock photo databases, received a DMCA notice for the contents of its entire site, despite the fact that it removed no watermarks, linked back to the original stock photo page, and made no money off the venture.

Awkward Stock Photos (ASP) was originally born on Facebook as a give-and-take between Mark Hauge and his friends, who encouraged him to start a blog. Once he finally bit the bullet and signed up with Tumblr, ASP became an immediate hit, and Hauge started receiving hundreds of submissions from readers. An Ars reader and graphic designer himself, Hauge was familiar with how finicky some companies can be, so he made sure to try and cover his bases. Or so he thought: “I made sure to only use watermarked photos that I downloaded and re-uploaded to Tumblr (so I wasn’t hotlinking) and then linked them back to their original source,” he told Ars.

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feature: Seven Samurai in space: Ars reviews Mass Effect 2

Mass Effect made waves in the world of eastern-style RPGs, but the game had some major flaws that dulled the experience. On the 360, the vehicle sections where you drove your land-based transport were often frustrating due to unwieldy controls. You spent way too much time in elevators as the game loaded the next section. Dealing with your inventory could be a nightmare. The PC version of the game addressed many of these issues, but Bioware certainly knew where it could go to make the game better for the much-anticipated sequel.

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Week in tech: Chrome OS, HTML5, China, Ubuntu 10.04a, and Firefox 3.6

It was a busy week as controversy continued to rage over the Google-China dust-up and Mozilla released a solid new version of Firefox. But first, Google.

Ars sat down with the engineering director of Google’s Chrome OS project to talk about the past, present, and future of the project. There’s a lot of good detail about the relationship between Chrome and Android, the genesis of Chrome OS, and much more.

The Google/China story has enough legs to qualify as a “centipede” at this point. After saying that it would no longer censor Chinese search results and that it was ready to pull out of China, Google also admitted to being the victim of a sophisticated cyberattack that went after more than 30 companies. The Chinese government responded harshly.

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ASUS UL80JT spotted with automatic switchable graphics, brags 12 hour battery life

How we missed this at the ASUS booth is beyond us, but leave it to the eagle-eyes at Ars to hone in on the ASUS UL80JT with an overclockable Core i7 processor and NVIDIA GeForce 310 graphics. So it’s just a run-of-the-mill gaming rig, right? Wrong. The 14-inch laptop has switchable graphics like we have never seen before; the laptop automatically switches, “second-by-second” between the NVIDIA card and the integrated Intel one, instead of the “standard” switchable graphics we’ve seen on laptops like the MacBook Pro 15 or ASUS UL80Vt which require users to switch manually. The major foreseeable benefit of this is longer battery life even when the system is using the discrete card, and ASUS touts 12 hours with the automatic solution turned on. No word on price or availability, but we’re guessing ASUS will have more details soon and that we’ll start seeing this this in more and more laptops as NVIDIA spreads the love around to the rest of the industry.

ASUS UL80JT spotted with automatic switchable graphics, brags 12 hour battery life originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 Jan 2010 19:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Week in Apple: tablet rumors pick up, Mac mini server review, DRM

The first week of 2010 is finally over, and with it came a new wave of Apple tablet rumors, iPhone on Verizon rumors, patent applications, and buy-outs. Topped off with our review of the Mac mini with Snow Leopard server, it was a pretty busy week! Read on if you need to catch up.

Antacid tablet: As the (rumored) year of the Apple tablet dawns, John Siracusa offers his predictions. Expect the expected.

A review of the Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server: Apple’s Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server is aimed squarely at small businesses that, for any number of reasons, need or prefer to host their core Internet services in-house without breaking the bank. Ars kicks the tires on the new combo to see if Apple has another hit on its hands.

iTablet rumors: March arrival, Verizon 3G, UI learning curve: As the end of January—and an expected unveiling of Apple’s long-rumored tablet— approaches, we are starting to hear more details about what’s coming from Apple, and when.

A look at Apple’s love for DRM and consumer lock-ins: Apple makes great products—you’ll get no argument from us. But Apple also likes keeping tight control over those products, and if anyone outside of Apple’s blessed circle attempts to get in, the company is more than willing to try to use (or abuse) the law to its advantage.

CDMA iPhone may finally ship on Verizon in summer 2010: Verizon might launch a CDMA-equipped iPhone this summer if it can agree on pricing with Apple. While consumers would benefit from a choice of carriers, a CDMA iPhone still seems like a pipe dream.

Apple: pixels as touch sensors for brighter, thinner screens: How can you make a touchscreen thinner and brighter at the same time? Use the pixels as touch sensors, says Apple.

AppZapper 2 for Mac hands-on: beautiful UI, same old tricks: AppZapper has always been a fun app for the Mac that helps users delete unused applications and their associated files. Now, AppZapper 2 has seen the light of day. Is it worth the $13? That all depends on what you value.

Apple acquires its own mobile ad firm to one-up Google: Apple has acquired Quattro Wireless after Google outbid it for rival AdMob in a mobile advertising tit for tat.

Android closing in on iPhone in user interest, satisfaction: The iPhone still leads the pack when it comes to interest from potential iPhone buyers and satisfaction from current buyers, but Android is quickly closing the gap and users seem to be very interested.

Apple flirts with a 3D interface for mobile devices: A recent patent application may provide a clue to the “unexpected” UI for Apple’s yet-to-be-introduced tablet.

Nokia adds additional lawsuit in patent catfight with Apple: In addition to its complaint filed last week with the ITC, Nokia has filed an additional patent infringement suit against Apple in federal district court.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

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