Melikbilge

I know I’ve been blogging about the iPhone/iPod touch a lot lately, but I love the new things coming to them. The developers who brought Tap Tap Revenge and Twinkle to the iPhone and iPod touch have also release FriendBook, a social contacts application available in the App Store for free. Tapulous has done it again. For the past week, they have released two other applications, one proclaimed “Most Popular Free App” by Apple (TTR) and the other very quickly rising and becoming extremely popular; within one day! (Twinkle)

FriendBook was the last of their current applications to roll out for now. I’ve found it to be an extremely useful app: I’ve replaced Contacts with it after the first 3 minutes of use. It sports a very first time starting page that shows a list of your current Contacts. There is a Groups arrow at the top that takes you a page with only an “All Contacts” option, I’m not sure what you can add here. Since I am on an iPod touch, I’m sure I won’t be able to reach my full potential with this app, but it is still very nice nevertheless.

Anyway, in all views, there is a Handshake icon on the bottom right corner of every page. This page shows directions on how to “handshake” with other iPhone users and quickly swap information, like phone numbers, email, address, etc. It’s solution to the long, “Hey what’s your number?” “…” “Wait, let me type it in.” bore. Strangely, when I tried this by myself, I found an iPhone user’s “Me Card,” which is your own profile, from Ohio. (I don’t live in Ohio.) Still, it proved that it works.

However, the most important feature seems to be the little man icon at the bottom left of every page. This takes you to the top 9 friends list. This is like visual speed dial for the iPhone. You can add people from your contacts and when you tap their picture on this list, it dials their phone number, whichever you picked for them, like mobile, home, work, etc.

The FriendBook visual speed dial interface

The contact edit interface seems to be the same as the default Contacts application. Any contacts you delete or add from this app also syncs with your Contacts, so you don’t have to re-do all the changes should you ever use Contacts again (I’m serious, you might not).

What really sold me to this app as an iPod touch user is that the contacts list shows thumbnails of your contacts’ profile pictures. I love being able to see what I’m picking, so this is very useful.

FriendBook is an awesome app from Tapulous that will be attractive and useful to both iPhone and iPod touch users.

Filed under: News, iPhone/iPod Touch by Melik
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Tapulous, a great, independent iPhone developer group, released hours ago the long-awaited Twinkle app. Twinkle is free, much better in my opinon than Twitterific, the previous main Twitter client for the iPhone. As any previous Twittering jailbreaker would know, Twinkle was available unofficially through the Installer.app before the 2.0 update.

Twinkle announcements reveal that they are not thinking of an updated jailbreak version, so switching to the 2.0, yet to be hacked, is the only way to install this awesome app. It boasts improved geolocation and image posting. My tries at posting images have failed, but Tapulous already acknowledges this, and has already started on a fix.

Some pictures of this great app:

Filed under: News, Reviews, iPhone/iPod Touch by Melik
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Yesterday, I managed to update my iPod touch to 2.0, leaving my jailbreaking behind to get AppStore. As millions of iPod touch users know, the update came 16 hours late; instead of July 11, 8:00 am Eastern USA time, it came online 12:30 am the next day.

Strangely, the update downloaded with no problems, unlike all other firmwares I’ve ever tried to install. The first change I discovered after the cruiating 20 minutes of installation was the removal of all my jailbreak apps and the appearance of the AppStore. Because I updated my firmware on a different computer than the one I have my music one, my media was deleted. My contacts and other non-media items were still on because iTunes backed them up before the installation.

Overall

The 2.0 update does not change much at first glance unless you have jailbroken your iPod or iPhone and customized it. You have your regular icons, right after any other firmware install, except for the appearance of the AppStore. If the backup was successfuly, your mail, network settings, and most general settings should also be present. An interesting feature I found is that if you have changed your iPod carrier image on your iPod touch, it will stay. For example, I changed mine with Erica Sadun’s MiM application to my name, it hasn’t changed. So if you haven’t updated to 2.0, you can install MiM from Installer.app before upgrading to 2.0 to change your carrier image:

AppStore

As an Installer.app replacement, AppStore is almost like iTunes.

• There is a “Featured” page that includes a “New” and a “What’s Hot” tab.

• There is “Top 25 Apps” that includes a separate list for paid applications and a separate one for free apps. I think it can use a list for both applications too.

• A “Categories” section with assorted categories, including Games, Education, etc.

• The “Search” is exactly like the mobile iTunes, no comment.

• The “Updates” tab offers updates to your installed apps. Haven’t had a chance to try that out yet, everything so far is version 1.0.

Filed under: Uncategorized by Melik
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Well, yesterday I reported that I would update to firmware 2.0 for my iPod touch. I would lose my jailbroken apps, but it was worth Twitterific and Super Monkey Ball. Well, I’m reporting now that I’m one of the many Touch users that aren’t able to get through to Apple’s update server. I have emailed the support, and I’m told by other people that to just keep trying is the best way.

I’ll explain the problem. Any iPod touch users attempting to upgrade their iPod to 2.0 from a previous firmware, either gets an error that:

• The iTunes Store is unavailable (currently, everyone gets this)
• Gets a loop when the upgrade link is clicked that takes you to the overview of the iPod
• Is told by iTunes that 1.1.4 is the last version

These problems are synchronized all over the world, so if you’re getting one of these problems, every other un-updated iPod touch user is getting it. We are told by Apple that the server is having problems from the rush of iPhone 3Gs being activated, first generation iPhones being upgraded, or iPod touches attempting to update to 2.0. Not much time left for Apple to fix this today, so let’s hope the update works tomorrow. For an almost live discussion of the problem, check out this thread on MacRumors. (Check out the last few pages, post number is 1200+ at the time of this writing.)

Filed under: News by Melik
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I’ve known for weeks that the iPhone 3G and the iPhone and iPod touch 2.0 software update was scheduled for July 11, tomorrow, but only yesterday did I start fussing if I should update to 2.0 and get the AppStore, or stick with version 1.1.4 and have my Installer.app. As a proud “jailbroken” iPod touch user, I decided to update and since I’ve seen many signs that the iPhone DevTeam had already jailbroken the new software, I probably will not think twice when I update.

The iPhone Dev Team assures us that the firmware to be released tomorrow will not be much different from the one they already successfully jailbroke earlier. A picture from the team of AppStore application and Installer.app running side by side, “in harmony”:

However, I’m known to be problem-prone. Whatever error there is to get in iTunes while updating the iPod touch software, you know I’ll get it. Still, I’ll have a go at it.

Many self-respecting geeks have already updated their first-generation iPhone to the latest and greatest. However, the link was removed “at the request of Apple” just a few moments ago. The original thread on MacRumors is here. The worst part is that the pre-released 2.0 firmware is only for the iPhone. iPod touch users like me have to pay a $10 fee to get access to the new features, like AppStore. But I guess I’m kind of lucky: there are reports of iPhones getting bricked, running very slow, and crashing after updating and not being able to downgrade to the current 1.1.4 firmware.

Also, a warning for the ones who want to update to the 2.0 software. All data is erased from the iPhone or iPod touch, so if you have hacked your iPhone, all apps will be gone and there will be no Installer! For everyone, your music, contacts, videos, photos, etc. are erased. Make sure to back up all your data from your iPhone or iPod touch before updating tomorrow. All iPhone developers advise you to wait until they come up with a jailbreak app before you update either iTunes to v7.7 or your iPhone or iPod touch to 2.0.

I guess I can wait until tomorrow, but I won’t be getting much sleep tonight! Be sure to listen in here, because I will write a review of the 2.0 software when (if) I update.

Filed under: News, Other, Reviews by Melik
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So far as my short career as a web developer, I’ve spent several hours trying to figure out what I was doing wrong in my CSS when my page gave me errors, unwanted margins, total screw-up, etc.

Of course, spending so much time debugging, as most programmers do, I have made a list of the mistakes I’ve made that were often so simple that you’d probably smack yourself if you made them (Not too hard). As with many mistakes, they seemed to be a good idea at the time. So jump in, and find some things to learn from.

1. Closing CSS properties with their corresponding curly braces.

This one might sound very simple, but when you’re debugging immediately by code to see changes on your page, sometimes you will forget to close the rule or rules you are working on. It’s happened to me at least twice in a week. Here’s a code without the closing curly brace.

 body {
        text-align: center;
        color: #FFF;
        position: relative;
        left: 2px;

 em {
        background-color: grey;
 }

As you can see, there is no brace closing the body rule. As a result of this mistake, everything below the body rule will be ignored/messed up. I panicked when I first saw this on my page, but that’s what code does to you. On to number 2.

2. (For WordPress Users) Changing the name of your theme through FTP and not going to the Design section to reselect the correct theme.

I experienced this dilemma yesterday when I was instant messaging my co-author friend, Hayes Potter. I changed the name of my theme through FTP and everything seemed fine, until 2 hours later when my homepage would not show any content, not even the title. A blank page.

I decided to investigate and went to the Design section of my Dashboard. Sure enough, another theme was selected for the blog, which did not work correctly with my content. When I reselected my own theme, everything was back to normal. So if your blog goes blank, don’t scream. Just look for logical reasons, and if all fails, contact me.

3. Styling occasionally invisible elements without editing your code to ignore them (like navigation links if you have less than 10 posts on your WordPress blog.)

By far, this mistake was my most frustrating one and took the longest for me to understand and fix.

So I added borders to my “container” div, my “header” div, my “sidebar” div, and my “footer” div. That’s when I realized the “container’s” border was stretching at least 10 pixels below the post content. This was represented by a seemingly blank rectangle the width of the container 10 pixels high, below the posts’ white background. At first, I thought this was a margin error from the post, so I tried many things, but I just ended up losing my original code and no results.

After everything failed, I used some things that I should have used in the first place: Web Developer Toolbar and Firebug for Firefox. After I inspected the blank rectangle, both reported that the navigational links were located there. That explained why the rectangle was so stubborn at disappearing. I decided to quit the border mission, since they didn’t look that good anyway. If you have solutions to ignore some code in the CSS, post it in the comments. It will be very helpful.

4. Trying to write CSS by coping and pasting it from Google without making an attempt to learn it.

This is mentioned in an InformIT article. Again, this has happened to me. Without learning the code and the lingo, I decided to smack-dab everything into my HTML without giving a thought to how it worked. As a web developer, I don’t do this without understanding what the code means anymore, but I was foolish back then. I messed with pseudoclasses without knowing what they meant. Yes, it was that serious.

So my advice to you, when learning any computer language, or in fact, any language, don’t imitate others to get what you want. If you spend a little more time learning and understanding, it will save you time and from the embarrassment when a subscriber complains about your site and you can’t fix it.

5. Falling back on quirks HTML when you can’t figure something out with CSS or XHTML.

Last but certainly not least, using old anti-standards HTML is no way to go. It’s like throwing all your standards-compliant knowledge out the window to use what seems to be an easier way.

But noooo way, it isn’t. Anything you can do with old HTML, you can do with CSS or XHTML. Never assume that it is easier to center things or color things with HTML. CSS is always the best way to go, even though it may seem hard. Search on Google or contact experienced web designers, I’m sure you’ll find a way.

Never, ever, fall back to quirks-mode HTML!

Tools that will make your web developing or blogging career easier:

• Firebug - This extension for Firefox is like night-vision goggles in the dark. It will make your job easier trying to debug your code or to find ideas from other websites. I actually downloaded this last week and it has made my life easier. Click on the title for download and the homepage of the Firebug project can be found here. (Note: The Firefox 2 version is not being updated anymore, another reason to switch to Firefox 3.)
• Web Developer Toolbar - Officially called “Web Developer”, I’ve used this extension for months. Even though some features of Firebug are not in this add-on, I love it anyway and have both this and Firebug installed. One reason of its greatness is the Ctrl+Shift+Y shortcut that you can use to click on an item and a sidebar displays the CSS code for that particular element. The download link is again in the title and its homepage is here. Web Developer is also available for the Flock and the SeaMonkey browsers.
• Programmer’s Notepad 2 - As a program (not an extension), Programmer’s Notepad has been one of the most helpful software I’ve had. It is freeware and works as a replacement for Windows’s built in Notepad. It writes in plain text format, and you can pick the programming language you’re typing in, and the program highlights the syntax, which for me, is its best feature. I’ve written in HTML, CSS, C++, Java, and Javascript with this program, and it offers much more. Here’s a full list of features. Download from the title link.

I hope you’ve learned something from this article and remember to keep these tips in mind.

Filed under: Tips and Tricks, Uncategorized by Melik
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Please note that I think it’s pathetic to even have to do this… But its worth it.

First you are going to want to rid your hard drive of unwanted startup items.

So open up open up “C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Start Menu\Programs\startup\”
(replacing <username> with your computer username)

In the startup folder go ahead and delete everything you don’t want/need.

Then open up “C:\WINDOWS\Tasks”
In this folder delete all unwanted/unneeded scheduled tasks.

Second, Windows can look pretty hot without slowing down your computer’s performance.

• Right click “My Computer” and select “Properties”
• Select the “Advanced” Tab and click “Settings” in the “Performance” box
• Out of the bubble boxes select “Custom” and only check the following values:
  1. Show Shadows under Menu
  2. Show Shadows under Mouse Pointer
  3. Use drop shadows for icons labels on the Desktop
  4. Use visual styles on Windows and Buttons

Third, Windows has many components that most people do not use, and
of course they slow down your computer so heres what you do:

Open Start Menu and click “Control Panel”
From there click “Add/Remove Programs”
Then to left there are four buttons click the third one down which is Windows Components

A window labeled “Windows Component Wizard” should pop-up.
un-check “Indexing Services” then anything else you don’t use.
I have everything unchecked except for “accessories and utilities”

Fourth, Windows has various services, many of which you don’t need and obviously slows you down.

So we need to get rid of them. Open up your Start Menu and click “Run”.
Then type in “services.msc”. A long list of services will pop-up, to disable them right click them and click
“properties” then change the drop down menu for “Start-up Type” to “Disable”. The Following can be Disabled:

• Alerter
• Clipbook
• Computer Browser
• Distributed Link Tracking Client
• Fast User Switching
• Help and Support - (If you use Windows Help and Support leave this enabled)
• Human Interface Access Devices
• Indexing Service
• IPSEC Services
• Messenger
• Netmeeting Remote Desktop Sharing (disabled for extra security)
• Portable Media Serial Number
• Remote Desktop Help Session Manager (disabled for extra security)
• Remote Procedure Call Locator
• Remote Registry (disabled for extra security)
• Remote Registry Service
• Secondary Logon
• Routing & Remote Access (disabled for extra security)
• Server
• SSDP Discovery Service - (Unplug n’ Pray will disable this)
• Telnet
• TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
• Upload Manager
• Universal Plug and Play Device Host
• Windows Time
• Wireless Zero Configuration (Do not disable if you use a wireless network)
• Workstation

Hope it will help you!
It sure helped me! =)

Filed under: Tips and Tricks by Hayes Potter
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Htm2Pic.com has a piece of software that I found out about from gHacks.net called Image2Html. This basically is a program that converts a photo or batch converts many photos to a ASCII-art-style picture. Except, the output is color instead of the standard black-and-white ASCII art. I tested this and was sort of suspicious of its safety, since I couldn’t delete the folder after downloading the software because it was being used by a program.

Anyway, the program runs as a standalone application, so you don’t have to install it. However, it does appear on the taskbar, which I found strange. You can change the background color, the mask, etc. of the output. I couldn’t figure out how to change the color of the space behind the characters, even though I changed the settings. So I changed it manually from an HTML editor.

The output is a rather slow-loading, high size html file. The file is “result.html” if you convert a single file that appears in the program’s root folder. If you batch converted, you select the output destination yourself before the conversion. The picture on the html file looks almost exactly like the photo, except it has a border around it (which I believe you can turn off) and the small white space between the characters.

For the code-conscious, you’ve probably looked at the source code of the output. The html file uses both new styling with CSS and old quirks mode html tags, like center. With almost all pure HTML, with the exception of the CSS, each little “pixel” of the picture has its own color code, making the source code rather long (try 22 pages of code if you attempt to print the source code.)

Overall, I found the program to be excellent at making the html files accurately from each picture. However, its settings are sometimes non-responsive and the file-size is high, causing pages to load rather slowly.

The download page of Image2Html is here and a gallery of examples can be found here. I gave it a try and here’s a link to one I made. (Caution: examples may load slowly and make your fan start up.)

Filed under: Reviews by Melik
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I’m working on and learning PHP now and I’m doing an original, all-new theme soon. Sorry for the crappy look now, but trust me, it’ll get better. If you have any ideas for color schemes, pictures, and topics to post about on here, feel free to email me at melikbilge@gmail.com.

Also, I’m open to all tips on running a blog, specifically a WordPress one. In fact, I need the help. Don’t hold back the love. Send it all to melikbilge@gmail.com. Comments on posts are also very nice so I can tell that people are actually interested in my blog.

Love,
Melik

Filed under: Me, News, Other by Melik
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Hello, this is my first post on melikbilge.com. I just set up my WordPress blog and I hope you will visit soon.

Love,

Melik

Filed under: Other by admin
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