Category / regular

by Alex

Fix your FJ60’s horn

Using the information in a thread on IH8Mud (1985 FJ60 Wagon Horn Problem), I just got the horn working in Dawn’s 60. I used some teeny little rubber grommets, sliced in half, as spacers. Glad that did the trick, since the screws on the cover are stripped.

I’m sure this trick works on FJ40s (at least the late models with the smaller steering wheel, since I’ve got one of those wheels on hand) and FJ62s, too.

(To get the wheel off without a puller, I pulled out the emblem, removed the 19mm nut, and wiggled and pulled until it came off. Didn’t take long, and I didn’t lose any teeth. It’s probably no more crooked now than it was before, either…)

by Alex

Manifesto tab sweep

I’ve had a few manifestos open in tabs for a while now. There’s some good stuff in these, and I keep meaning to find a home for them…

Right Brain Terrain‘s manifesto, written in the pages of a Moleskine notebook. I think I like their logo most of all, though much of their work is also pretty great.

The Holstee manifesto. “If you don’t have enough time, stop watching TV. … Stop over analyzing, life is simple.”

The Workisnotajob manifesto. Lovely prints, too, though shipping to the US is pretty spendy.

(Someday, my own manifesto might find its way here. I’ll have to write it first, though.)

by Alex

Inside Apple’s Q2 Numbers

Jean-Louis Gassée takes a look at Apple’s Q2 numbers in his latest Monday Note column. His columns are almost always interesting and insightful; this one’s no exception.

To me, one of the most interesting numbers is the Asia-Pacific growth (76% growth, vs 28% overall) of the Mac platform, accompanied of course by overall 151% revenue in the region. Also interesting, but unsurprising, to note that desktop sales are still going down by single-digit percentages every quarter — 6% this quarter — while laptop sales grew by 59%.

Is any other company having as much success in Asia at the moment as Apple? Seems like a huge growth opportunity there, and touch interfaces lend themselves very well to multi-byte character sets. Very, very interesting times are ahead.

Regard Asia. In China the iPhone is +250% year-to-year (vs. +155% in the US).
The number is especially interesting because this ought to be where iOS goes to die, snuffed out by a swarm of locally produced cheap handsets running Android or its mutant cousins Tapas and Ophone. You’ll recall Stephen Elop, currently Nokia’s CEO, cautioning against aggressively priced MediaTek based Android devices in his Burning Platform memo.

Instead, Chinese customers appear to insist on The Real Thing. We now hear that the Shanghai Apple Store does more volume than the historic 5th Avenue location, with a new store, China’s largest, in the works.

by Alex

The Atavist

The Atavist (iTunes link, also available on Kindle, nook, and others) publishes long-form nonfiction: shorter than a book, longer than a magazine article, that they sell individually for $2.99 per article.

Their publishing platform, Periodic Technology, also looks really interesting: write once, export to a bunch of formats and devices. In other words, give away the app, then sell the content within it.

I love that they point out that it’s easy enough for an editor to use, too.

by Alex

Mac users listen up! Enable certificate checking

Mac users listen up! Enable certificate checking.

Do it now. It will take you a minute if you’re slow, and there’s no downside to speak of:

The only downside to this extra checking is possibly a slight delay to perform the request the first time you go to a web site and when the cache expires. This should be less overhead than downloading a small image, so I’m not worrying about it.

I am very surprised that OCSP (online certificate status protocol) hasn’t been enabled by default in every version of OS X and Safari ever. I’m also surprised at how weak and uninformative the warning from Safari is.

(Via O’Reilly Radar’s Four Short Links today.)

by Alex

Hmm, those are my questions, too

So, an immediate follow-up to the last post, since I forgot to add it. Sarah Carpenter concludes her article with this:

So, I pass the challenge back to you, Waylon: how can you achieve your goal for inner and outer peace, connecting within and beyond the choir to the masses, how to live a mindful life, without being so caught up in fame and money and dictatorship? And is anyone else making money off the publication besides you, yet?

Exactly some of the questions I’ve had for a few years, now. I wish Waylon success, and think he’s a good guy at heart, but I also question his strategies and tactics on a regular basis.

by Alex

Why Xcode 4 is on the app store

When it released Xcode 4, Apple stopped giving it away to folks with free developer accounts. Now you need a $99 developer account to get Xcode. Or, you can buy it on the App Store for $4.99 (coincidentally, the same price as Angry Birds).

From the looks of things, adding a price tag hasn’t interfered with people acquiring it:

Top Grossing apps, March 12, 2011

(Screenshot is from the App Store today.)

by Alex

Is buying a house really better than renting?

So many people mindlessly repeat the line that “buying a house is better, because when you rent, you’re throwing your money away.” That’s true in some cases, and false in others, so check your assumptions at the door. This calculator from the NYT is great. Click Advanced Settings to play with the underlying assumptions.

(Quick reminder that, historically, the stock market beats the housing market in the long run. Your current bubble may vary.)

Given housing prices in Boulder, the likely stagnation or fall in house prices, and cheap rent where we are, buying here makes little sense. In your own situation, what actually results in you spending less money? Quit assuming, and play with the numbers!