The new IPod Touch 4gen
Apple unveiled the release of Ipod Touch 4gen on 1st September ,2010.
The new Ipod Touch is amazing. It is somehow identical to Iphone 4 (without sim card slot of course), and is much better than the previous version, with nearly the same price.
Let's take a look at the technical specification:
Highlights:
- With Camera, photo taking and video recording are made reality.
- With built-in microphone, user doesn't need to carry the headset with mic anymore.
- The Ipod Touch 4g implements Iphone 4 high resolution retina display.
- Ipod Touch 4g also introduces three-axis gyro sensor. That means, you can play whatever game Iphone 4 can play.
- Ipod Touch 4g 's memory capacity is increased to 512MB, which is 2x more than Ipod Touch 3g.
- better processor.
- Even thinner
Drawbacks (compared to IPhone 4):
- Still Photo taking is available at 0.7 megapixels. (It's enough for facebook photo)
- No flash light
- still, no GPS & Compass
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Yahoo! charged $34.95 for a domain name
Yahoo charges $34.95 ( in USD!) for just a domain name. Other companies, could easily sell you a domain for just under $10 per year.
My sister was lured into this plan few years ago when Yahoo is doing promotion. It cost only $1.95 to register a new domain, if not mistaken, and saved consumer a total of $8.00 for petty cash.
Once the term expired (after the first payment), if user wishes to continue using Yahoo domain services, user has to pay $34.95/year. That's a lot! I can extend my domain services for 3 years from other companies!
Yahoo domain pricing
Furthermore, the domain is auto renewed, by charging the credit card user placed in your Yahoo Wallet. There is no option to deactivate the auto renew, unless user opt-out the services from Yahoo by canceling the plan.
If you are new customer to Yahoo, you probably will see the terms stated that the domain will be auto renewed. I am not sure when did Yahoo change the terms as I am not the user. My sister is the one.
Yahoo auto renew on Domain expired
Apparently, Yahoo targeted consumers who run business website, and won't mind being charged for extra 25 bucks a year; and not for those, like us, using the website for part time hobby.
If your domains are still with Yahoo, I highly recommend that you transfer your domain away. I have been a customer for namecheap for more than 1 year, and I am happy with their services. Though I haven't look into the auto renewal services, but I think this services should be available for company like namecheap, certainly not activated by default.
Related reading:
Solving Uncaught CurlException: name lookup timed out in facebook.php
If you are facebook developer, and are using the latest facebook php sdk, facebook.php grabbed from github.com, and are facing the problem similiar to as defined below:
PHP Fatal error: Uncaught CurlException: 6: name lookup timed out thrown in /<location>/facebook.php on line 592
This is probably the host is not given enough time to contact with facebook server. To solve this problem, open facebook.php with your editor, and go to line 89 to find the code below:
public static $CURL_OPTS = array( CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT => 10, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT => 60, CURLOPT_USERAGENT => 'facebook-php-2.0', );
Modify CURLOPT_CONNECTION to increase its value to, 30 or higher.
CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT => 30,
and test your facebook application again to see if it works.
Suggestion: Change to a better host to resolve the problem without modifying the facebook.php script 
WordPress: Fixing Error during API request
Using WordPress 3 and above, some web hosting service would return "An Unexpected HTTP Error occurred during the API request". Most of the solutions provided by wordpress users are, modifying php code in the class-http.php under wp-includes/ (and it is http.php with wordpress 2)
The code involved would be (and there is only 1 line with such code in class-http.php:
'timeout' => apply_filters( 'http_request_timeout', 5),
change to
'timeout' => apply_filters( 'http_request_timeout', 30),
and thus allowing webserver to fetch external site data with longer time.
However in my case, I still have to use Core Control in order to get rid of the problem. I have written similar post regarding Core Control in the past, to upgrade my wordpress; and you may read it if interested.
Search plugin for "Core Control", install and activate it. Go to Core Control configuration under Tools > Core Control.
Next, check HTTP Access Module 1.0, and click save modules choices, as depicted on screenshot below.
After save changes, you will see External HTTP Access link on the menu bar, beside the Main Page. Go to the new link, and you will see the screenshot below:
For normal server, as you click on Test Transport, you would get the success message as below:
Successfully retrieved & verified document from http://tools.dd32.id.au/wordpress/core-control.php
For my current web hosting, whenever I click on Test Transport for cURL, I get the error message:
An Error has occured: name lookup timed out
In this case, you have to disable cURL Transport by clicking Disable Transport.
And this would probably solve your "An Unexpected HTTP Error occurred during the API request" error message in wordpress.
Enable Multitasking on older iDevice (2)
Previously I have written a post regarding "Enabled Multitasking on older iDevice", which require user to get IFile (a cydia app), and modify the system file N72AP.plist .
Now, I am going to show you an alternate way to enable the Multitasking.
What you needed:
- Jailbroken iOS as well
- Features (can be found from Cydia)
- Winterboard
Follow the steps to get a Multitasking iOS in old device:
- Go to Cydia or Rock
- Search for "features". Download Features according to your iDevice. There are 2 different labels:
- Features (for iPhone 3G)
- Features (for iPod 2G)
- After installing the features, reboot your iDevice.
- Go to Winterboard. Look for Multitasking item in the list. Tick it, and move it to the top.
- Now, reboot your Springboard.
- You should get your multitasking feature working now!
* If you are unsure how it works, simply open any application, and then double tap the HOME button.
WordPress upgrade problem: encountering blank page
I upgraded to WordPress 3.01 and to my surprise, I found out that my blog is in blank page state.
After some trial and error, I found out the plugin wp-table is causing the problem.
If any one else is having the same blank page issue, follow the guidelines here:
- Under /wp-content, rename plugins to plugins-old (we removed all plugins installed)
- Navigate to your wordpress website. It should be working fine now.
- create a new folder plugins
- now move your plugin folder under plugins-old back to plugins, 1 by 1 or group by group, whichever you prefer.
- Retest your wordpress blog everytime you done movement.
- By this way, you should be able to identify which plugin is outdated and causing problem to your wordpress.
If your wordpress is still showing a blank page after step (1), you should google for other workaround as the plugins are not the one that causing the problem.
Enabling MultiTasking on older iDevice (iPod 2g, iPhone 3g)
It has been a while since the release of untethered jailbreak, jailbreakme, which support firmware iOS 4.01 or lower.
Older iDevice, such as IPhone 3G, IPod 2g can upgrade to iOS 4.01 as well, but with some features disabled, due to limited memory amount and processor speed.
However, some people, like me, would like to see the features introduced into those devices.
I will show you how to enable multitasking. (Tested on Ipod Touch 2g)
What you need:
- Jailbroken iDevice
- iFile app. Can be grabbed from Cydia.
And here are the steps to enable multitasking:
- Open iFile, browse to /System/Library/CoreServices/SpringBoard.app
- Select N72AP.plist. This is an XML format file.
- Under <key>capabilities</key>, put the string below, right after <key>wifi</key><true/>, and before </dict>:
<key>wifi</key> <true/> <key>multitasking</key> <true/> </dict>
In the example here, the keys are rearranged alphabetically and <key>multitasking</key><true/> has been moved up automatically by the system. You may insert the <key>multitasking</key><true/> in this way too, as long as the xml format is correct. - Save it.
- Reboot your iDevice.
After the steps above, you should be able to use the Multitasking feature! Test your multitasking feature by double tap the home button. Enjoy!
Solving Oracle OCI problem with PHP
Have been struggling to get rid of the error OCIEnvNlsCreate() failed and ask user to check the Windows Enviroment PATH settings.
The error message appear when I am using php function oci_connect() to connect to oracle database.
When starting Apache, it also throws me windows error relating php_pdo_oci.dll, php_
I installed Oracle instant client basic lite, set the PATH and PHP extension correctly. The error just appear there and PHP script stopped executing.
If the script is using PHP PDO with OCI, it doesn't throw any message, instead return me a blank page whenever assigning new PDO() .
Some guys in the internet advise to copy whatever files reside in instant client folder to apache\bin folder, but that does not work for me either.
Finally, I downloaded Oracle instant client basic (non lite version) and my problem gone. Seem like trying to save some spaces and bandwidth isn't a good idea. (Lite version ~ 20MB, non-Lite ~ 50MB)
Instruction on installing instant client: http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/notes/technote_php_instant.html
PHP Security
Most of the people who are new to programming are unaware of hacking. This applies too to those who are doing programming task for small organization, as there are no "hackers" interested to hacking the site they are building.
But when the site is growing bigger and popular, the website not only attracting the potential customers or clients; it also attract the attentions from hackers and opponents in the same industry.
Browser backup and restore
Firefox as my primary browser, and Chrome as my secondary browser, I need to restore my profile after Windows re-installation.
For Google Chrome, just backup the folder Default, and put it back to the correct folder after a new installation:
C:\Documents and Settings\<Username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default
For Firefox, the location of your profile folder are as follow:
Windows XP location:
C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile folder>.default
Windows 7 location:
C:\Windows\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile folder>.default
To restore the profile, copy backup profile folder back to the location above, and then click on "Start" > "run" > firefox -profilemanager.
From the window above, choose "Create Profile"
Click "Choose Folder", and browse to your own profile folder, then click "Finish".
