.. on Linux
Apple
Further Xcode – HelloWorld
Apr 14th
The inevitable HelloWorld application is a staple in learning a programming language, and provides the learner with the feeling of accomplishment as their first program speaks back to them… or something. Either way, this example will present us with a basic framework which we can use to build upon.
To break it down this example consists of,
- Creating a blank project in Xcode
- Using the default Delegate class and adding our own method (interface)
- Linking the GUI to our class
- Adding code to our method (implementation)
- Drinking tea
Xcode Primer/Tutorial/How-to
Apr 13th
A Google search for Xcode examples and how-to’s etc.. returns a lot of results, however after following a few steps it becomes clear that the older tutorials simply can’t be followed. The newer Xcode (3.2.1 is current) has had it’s UI changed so much, especially the interface builder and the majority of instructions no longer apply.
I’m writing up the steps i’m following to learn, so that I can follow them when I have forgotten something (which I frequently do) and so that anyone else can follow them if they wish. I don’t intend to ever go too far with Xcode development, so don’t expect to find a how-to to developing a game or a photoshop alternative.
More >
Converting DTS audio to AC3 (.mkv file container) on OS X
Sep 11th
I have a lot of .mkv files that contain the audio as a DTS stream, which usually means that it can’t be read by my particular brand of media player (Netgear EVA8000). The DTS audio stream requires a paid for license to decode and/or special equipment to deal with the codec. However the AC3 codec which is another Dolby Digital codec has a free library implementation meaning that there are no licensing issues with using this codec, hence it being used with my media player. This obviously resulted in trawling the internet to find some solution to carrying out this conversion, which led me to this windows only solution:
– VID2EVA http://www.vid2eva.com/
This can be used on a mac by downloading virtualbox / vmware fusion / parallels and creating an XP machine and installing it in there and it will work fine.
However the issue that I personally have is that, the amount of extra CPU cycles needed for a virtualization layer sitting between the heavy amount of re-encoding of a data stream just bugs me. After a bit more research I found a script called mkvdts2ac3 that replaces the GUI of VID2EVA and with the right third party binaries will allow you to complete the re-encoding. A look into what would be required to build these third party binaries led me to a few other guides telling you to install xcode, download various tools, compile this, install that… It took quite a bit of messing around however I’ve gotten all of the Intel binaries sorted and the script and packaged them for convenience
– Please find the archive (tar.gz) here
–Installation instructions
Once extracted their will be a bin and a lib directory. As root move everything from the bin to /usr/local/bin directory, and move everything from the lib directory to /usr/local/lib directory.
–Usage
Open Terminal.app and execute mkvdts2ac3 as normal.
iPhone 3G unlock for a UK iPhone
Jan 6th
UPDATE: Version 0.9.6 has been released, and …. I can confirm that T-mobile works on an iPhone in the UK 
I think it’s prudent to inform anyone reading this article, that it didn’t work. However I have read on a couple of forums that this is due to changes made in version 0.9.5, which should be repaired when 0.9.6 comes out any day now. I would like to also point out that as good as the iPhone-dev team are, the naming of their software (yellowsn0w) conjures up images of spotty 15 year old kids saying things such as “hax0r” and “zOMG”.
So, i’ve written a quick how-to for installing the unlock on the iPhone which when a new version comes out may be relevant. So read on for more details …
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