I downloaded the logs from Amber Case‘s iPhone, and have been looking through them to see what’s there. Turns out it’s a lot more than just the cell tower positions of the phone. There’s also a list of all wifi access points the device has seen, as well as the best-guess position of each wifi access point!

There also seems to be a table in the database containing a record of all the requests that other programs have made for your location, which includes the app’s bundle ID. Here’s a snippet of the logs:

The Bundle IDs of the apps that requested location are clearly visible, and it also shows where the phone was when the app requested the location. This suggests to me that the purpose for these logs is not malicious on Apple’s part at all.

I also observed that the timestamps of the logs in the CellLocation table were not very granular. There seemed to be batches of 30-50 significantly different locations at a time, with anywhere from 1 to 12 hours between timestamps. My guess after asking Amber about her syncing habits, is that the timestamps correspond to the date the phone was synced with the computer, not necessarily the date the timestamp was recorded. This is speculation at this point, and I will hopefully be able to come to a better conclusion after some more analysis of the data.

If it in in fact the timestamp of the sync, this would seem to further contradict the notion that Apple is covertly tracking your every move, since location data is far more useful when it contains a timestamp associated with it. This data says something more like “Here are all the cell towers the phone has seen since it was last synced.” I’m not sure exactly what purpose this would serve.

Some of the other database tables that piqued my interest included:

WifiLocation – a database of all wifi hotspots seen, their mac addresses and latitude/longitudes

Fences – my guess is this corresponds to Apple’s CLRegion API, which allows iOS developers to define fences which trigger a method when the user crosses the boundary.

*Harvest – All tables ending in Harvest correlate with the different location tracking types, Cell, CDMA, Wifi, etc. These tables track requests made to the various location providers.

So far it’s been a lot of fun to look through this data, and I’m looking forward to continuing to play with the data. Many thanks to Pete Warden and Alasdair Allan for pointing out this log!

Aaron Parecki is the co-founder of Geoloqi.com, a private, real-time location sharing platform. Geoloqi allows you to securely track your location and you always have complete control over who can see your location. You can leave yourself a Geonote at a place which will be sent to you next time you’re there. Geoloqi has an API which lets you download all of your location history, as well as build fun apps on top of the platform!

How, you ask? Apple has made this possible since iOS 4.0, but not many developers have noticed it’s available. TestFlight has make a great wrapper on top of this functionality, but it’s possible to do it without using TestFlight too!

How to set up Ad Hoc distribution

First, build and archive your application from XCode. Make sure you’ve selected the Developer provisioning profile when building your app. This must pass code-signing verification or people will get an error when trying to install.

Open Organizer if it’s not already open. Select your archived application, then click “Share.” The next step is slightly misleading. Choose “Distribute for Enterprise” here, even if you don’t have an enterprise account! Make sure you select the same provisioning profile you signed the app with!

This is the critical step. At this point, XCode is bundling the provisioning profile into the IPA archive so that your users only have to download one file! No need to have them install the provisioning profile separately, since it will be included in the app archive!

Next you’ll need to fill out the form that appears. XCode uses this info to create a .plist file. If you’re comfortable editing the .plist file directly, you can do that instead. Here’s a sample .plist file that XCode creates from this dialog.

At this point, XCode prompts you to save the files to a folder. You’ll end up with two files, a .plist and an .ipa file. Now comes the easy part!

You just need to create a web page with a link to the .plist file using the special itms-services:// protocol. This might look something like the code below.

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<a href="itms-services://?action=download-manifest&url=http://loqi.me/app/Geoloqi.plist">
Download Geoloqi
</a>

When someone clicks the link from their iPhone, they’ll get a prompt that says “loqi.me would like to install Geoloqi.” Clicking “Install” will then immediately download and install the provisioning profile and the app!

Note: This is not going to get you around the 100-device limit that Apple imposes. You’ll still need to get your beta testers’ UDIDs from them and upload them to the Provisioning Portal.

You can pretty up the download page like we have done to make it look like more than just a plaintext link. Here’s some HTML and CSS to get you started making your own mobile installation page.

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<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
        <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
        <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, maximum-scale=1.0, user-scalable=no" /> 
        <title>Install Geoloqi</title>
        <style type="text/css">
                body {
                        background: url(bkg.png) repeat #c5ccd4;
                        font-family: Helvetica, arial, sans-serif;
                }
                .congrats {
                        font-size: 16pt;
                        padding: 6px;
                        text-align: center;
                }
                .step {
                        background: white;
                        border: 1px #ccc solid;
                        border-radius: 14px;
                        padding: 4px 10px;
                        margin: 10px 0;
                }
                .instructions {
                        font-size: 10pt;
                }
                .arrow {
                        font-size: 15pt;
                }
                table {
                        width: 100%;
                }
        </style>
</head>
<body>
 
<div class="congrats">Congrats! You've been invited to the beta of Geoloqi.</div>
 
<div class="step">
        <table><tr>
                <td class="instructions">Install the<br />Geoloqi app</td>
                <td width="24" class="arrow">&rarr;</td>
                <td width="57" class="imagelink">
                        <a href="itms-services://?action=download-manifest&url=http://loqi.me/app/Geoloqi.plist">
                                <img src="geoloqi-icon.png" height="57" width="57" />
                         </a>
                </td>
        </tr></table>
</div>
 
</body>
</html>

Here is the background graphic I used on the installation web page. Feel free to use it on your own pages.

The last thing I did before I actually woke up was fix a missing semicolon which finally allowed me to compile and then I was awake.

Because sshfs on OSX’s version of sshfs is wonky.

My solution is to use an intermediate linux server which does the sshfs mount, then serves that to os x over a samba share. Another benefit to this is that you only need one samba share to mount all your sshfs connections, since the linux server will be taking care of those. Also if you had a windows computer you wanted to use this with, it would also be able to mount the samba share from the linux server.

Let’s get started.

I ran into a couple tricky config issues while setting this up. This post is here mostly for me to remember them for next time I need to do them. If anybody else happens to stumble across this and finds it useful, then that’s a bonus.

On the linux server, you’ll need to install fuse-sshfs as well as samba. In Fedora, this can be done like so:

$ yum install samba
$ yum install fuse-sshfs

You need to add the linux user to the fuse group, and create a samba user account.

$ usermod -a -G fuse aaron
$ smbpasswd -a aaron

Here’s something that isn’t normally covered in fuse tutorials. In order to allow samba to access the fuse mount, you need to create a file, /etc/fuse.conf with the following contents:

user_allow_other

If you don’t do that, the mounted folder just disappears from the samba share.

You need to make some changes to /etc/samba/smb.conf file in order for symlinks to be shared to os x. I’m not sure if this is required for fuse to work, but it’s nice to have anyway:

unix extensions = no  (add this outside of a share definition)
follow symlinks = yes  (add this inside a share definition)

Of course, you need to configure the firewall to allow access to samba, (tcp and udp ports 445, 137, 138, 139 should do). And, you’ll need to make sure samba starts when the machine boots.

$ chkconfig smb on

We’re almost there.

To actually mount the sshfs folder, you’ll run a command which looks something like this. Note the extra option at the end:

sshfs username@example.com:/home/username mount_target -o allow_other

Now you can mount your home folder on the linux server over samba, and you’ll see a folder mount_target, which is the sshfs mount.

Note: you’ll probably want to set up your ssh server with public key authentication so you don’t have to enter your password every time you connect. This is not the topic of this post, so I won’t bother mentioning how. There’s plenty of other tutorials on the Internet.

I hope this covers it, but feel free to comment if I’ve left anything out.

To begin, I would stay away from anything that isn’t Dell or Apple. IBM and Toshiba are good too, but they typically market more to corporations than home users. Both Dell and Apple are pretty much the top of the line as far as home and small business go. You’ll always hear about people who have had problems with both, but they are pretty good about fixing things if you get the extra warranty. Again, the information here is applicable to any brand of laptop, but I will mention specifics of some Dell and Apple laptops.

Let me tell you about some of the things that will make the most difference when using your laptop:

1) Screen resolution. Not screen size! My Dell that I got in 2003 is 15.4″, but has a resolution of 1680×1050. This is probably the biggest reason I haven’t stopped using it yet, even though I have an iMac as well. The screen is wide enough to fit two internet windows side by side comfortably. Also, when working in Photoshop or InDesign, the toolbars sit nicely off to the side, still leaving plenty of room in the middle for your image. The toolbars are physically small because the resolution is so high.

2) Dedicated graphics card. The lower-end computers use a graphics card that is built in and shares the main system memory. This means you lose 100-200 megabytes of RAM since your graphics card is using it.

Also, the graphics card runs much slower since it has to pull data through the same bus as the system to access the RAM. Getting a dedicated graphics card means it has its own RAM and doesn’t share with the main system. If you are planning on doing any kind of video editing, this is a must. It will also make Photoshop run much faster. My Dell has a 64mb graphics card, although they are usually 128-256mb now. But even the 64mb card is better than none. Dell’s Inspiron series has the share graphics card, they call it the “Intel Graphics Media Accelerator”. The XPS and Studio series have the dedicated graphics card, either a 128mb or 256mb NVIDIA GeForce. The biggest drawback to an Apple laptop is that you don’t get a dedicated graphics card until you spend some serious money on a Macbook Pro. Their regular Macbooks have just a shared graphics card.

3) RAM. You can get away with having 1gb of RAM, but really you should shoot for 2gb minimum. 3gb is good, 4gb is more than enough for anything you’ll do, short of having all of CS3 and a video editing program open at the same time. I have slowly added RAM to my Dell over the years, which is another reason it has been able to last this long. I am up to 1.25gb at the moment. I only have CS2 installed on it, not CS3, so I can’t tell you how CS3 works with 1.25gb. A trick you can do with the Apples is buy the computer with the minimum RAM installed, then go buy separate RAM from Newegg and install it yourself. Apple charges way too much for their RAM upgrades, and it is pretty easy to install. I looked at doing that with the Dell, but they only charge $50 for an extra gig, so at that point it isn’t worth your trouble to buy it elsewhere.

4) Processor. Any of the Intel Duos will be totally fine. You really won’t notice much of a difference between the 2.1ghz and the 2.6 ghz. You will, however, notice a difference between an Intel Duo and an Intel Celeron. A lot of other brands, and also the lower-end Dells use the Celeron processors. You definitely do not want one of these. You will notice that it is much slower.

5) Built-in camera. You may not think you need it, but if you don’t get it you’ll find yourself constantly annoyed that you don’t have one and everyone else does. Video and voice chatting is becoming much more common these days. It’s all free, so it’s better than using a cell phone if you’re at your computer. Also it acts like a speaker phone because you don’t need to hold a phone to your ear to talk. I use voice and video chatting for work meetings all the time. You can’t get an Apple without a camera at this point, so that isn’t really an issue. And it looks like Dell includes a camera on all their XPS series, and has the option to add it to an Inspiron.

In Conclusion

With Dell’s Inspiron and Studio lines you can get a screen at 1920×1200. That is the same resolution as my 24″ iMac, and it’s absolutely incredible, especially for photo editing. Packing it into a 15.4″ laptop screen makes the individual pixels really tiny, but that will only make things super sharp looking.

One alternative to getting a super high resolution screen is to get one that is slightly smaller, like 1440×900, and then also get an external monitor for your desk. This will let you take advantage of an even bigger total screen size when you’re sitting at your desk, and will still be fine when you are mobile. I use an external 17″ screen along with my main screen on my iMac. I have the extra screen turned on its side so that it is more like looking at a printed page. I can leave things over there for reference while I’m typing on my main screen, like code documentation or file browsers. When working in Creative Suite, it is really nice to be able to open up all the tool palettes and shove them on to the external monitor, and use the full size of the main screen for the document you’re editing!

Hopefully this information helps someone in their search for the perfect laptop. I’m sure I’ll have a write-up comparing software some other time. Feel free to comment on your experiences in choosing a laptop. I’d be curious to hear what others think.

Well I did it! I got the HTC Mogul on Sprint’s SERO plan. Everything has been pretty painless so far. Activation was easy, text messaging works, and Internet browsing is pretty fast! Now comes the hard part: getting my data to sync between Windows Mobile and OS X.

There is an excellent program out there that is made exactly for this: Missing Sync. While not free, I do think it’s a good deal, so I went ahead and bought it. Everything transferred over flawlessly, and it’s pretty neat being able to see my call and SMS log on my computer.

However, my syncing ship has only begun to sail. I use Google Calendar as my primary calendar for everything. It has been a huge help in keeping things organized, since I can open it from any computer. My friends and I also subscribe to each others’ calendars so that we can better schedule things together. It can send text message reminders of events, which was a huge help for when I was out and about with no access to a computer. I moved to Google Calendar from iCal a while ago for these reasons.

Missing Sync can sync the Mogul’s calendar with iCal, but not with Google Calendar. I tried subscribing iCal to Google Calendar’s public url, but Missing Sync didn’t like that because it was a read-only calendar. I decided going the other way, publishing iCal to a URL, then subscribing Google Calendar to that, was a better option. I enabled WebDAV on a virtual host on my server.

DAVLockDB /www/sub.mydomain.com/dav/davlockdb
DAVMinTimeout 600
DAV On
<Location /ical>
    Options None
    SSLRequireSSL
    SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
    AuthType Basic
    AuthName "Calendar Access"
    AuthUserFile "/www/sub.mydomain.com/ssl/.htpasswd"
    <LimitExcept GET HEAD OPTIONS>
        require user aaron
    </LimitExcept>
</Location>

Publishing iCal to a WebDAV server is super easy, just choose “Publish on a Private Server” and enter the URL you have created.

Note: You don’t need to run your own WebDAV server to do this, you can use box.net to publish your iCal!

The one downside to this is that it isn’t possible to add events using Google Calendar. But I figure I’ll have my Mogul on my all the time anyway, and I can just add through there. Publishing my calendar to Google Calendar lets my friends still see my schedule.

I encountered this error while trying to export a video from Final Cut using Compressor. Obviously my sequence did in fact have clips in it, but I didn’t see why this was occurring at first.

Somehow, the “in” point had been set to the last frame of the main timeline, so essentially I was trying to export 0 frames. The solution was to clear the in and out points by right clicking on the timeline of the sequence.

Click the image for the full-size version.

I no longer need to keep an extra Windows machine around here for debugging websites! “Multiple IEs” also can install IE 5.5, 5.1, 4 and 3, although I’m pretty sure those are almost completely irrelevant at this point.

One problem I did run into was that VMware in “Unity” mode didn’t seem to play well with Spaces. For example, sometimes after switching spaces a Windows app would lose focus and I wouldn’t be able to click it anymore. Switching to “Single Window” mode and then back again seemed to fix it.

Useful software:

• VMware Fusion
• Multiple IEs

A lot of things I was reading said that because the pixel was a color, it was a “stuck” pixel. This would possibly be fixable by one of those programs that flashes different colors really fast.

I ran LCDtest which is a really simple program which just turns the entire screen a color: white, red, green, blue and black each time you press the right arrow. When the entire screen was supposed to be green, there was a black spot, but the spot did not appear in the red or blue screens. This tells me that it is not in fact a stuck pixel, but a dead pixel! And pixels don’t come back from the dead.

After talking to AppleCare on the phone, they pretty much told me that flaws in LCDs are common, and had to be expected, and they would not replace the computer. I was not convinced. I made an appointment with a Mac Genius at my “local” apple store (a two hour drive from my house) and went there this morning. I told him the problem, he took out my computer and turned it on, and then promptly gave me a new one!

So I am a happy camper again!

I bought a firewire hard drive the same size as my iMac’s, and backed up my iMac’s hard drive to it before I took it to the store. When I got my replacement back home, I was able to copy everything back, so I didn’t even have to reinstall my programs! I did this from the terminal (meaning I can make this script run every night to always have a copy of my hard drive at hand) with the “asr” command:

sudo asr restore --noprompt --erase --source /dev/disk0s2 --target /dev/disk1s3

Things to take away:

• I bought my iMac online, but since I did not customize it at all, I was able to exchange it in the store.
• Apple Care over the phone does NOT have the last word in the matter. They plainly told me they could not exchange my computer.
• The pixel was not dead when I took the computer out of the box. It showed up the second day. This means verifying that there are no dead pixels while you are in the store is not necessarily the end of the story.