Sam Sargeant

iPad apps you should try

The iPad. Some love it, others hate it. No matter which camp you’re in the device is popular and continues to attract new users. I see people asking “what apps should I get” frequently so here’s a sample of iPad apps I think you might like.

Chat & Social

• Friendly
• BeejiveIM for iPad
• LimeChat or Colloquy
• AIM
• Twitter

Reading and News

• Reeder
• Pulse News Reader
• Kindle
• iBooks
• Instapaper
• New Zealand Herald
• NPR for iPad
• WeatherNZ

Productivity

• iWork (Pages, Numbers, Keynote)
• OmniGraffle
• Penultimate
• Things for iPad
• Dropbox
• GoodReader for iPad
• Simplenote
• iA Writer
• iSSH
• MindNode
• Screens
• Remote
• 1Password Pro
• AirVideo

Games

• Angry Birds
• Cut the Rope
• Flight Control
• Plants vs. Zombies
• Fruit Ninja
• Carcassonne
• Chopper 2
• Infinity Blade

Music

• Aweditorium
• KORG iMS-20
• Magic Piano

Apple conspires to make email users appear foolish

Mac OS X has a system-wide keybinding which I find really useful, although it doesn’t work in all applications. If you hover your mouse over a word and press ⌘⌃D a popup window appears with the dictionary definition of the word. It looks like this:

Meanwhile, Apple Mail has a default keyboard shortcut of ⌘⇧D to send the email you’re currently editing.

If you mix up the ⇧ and ⌃ key you will send that draft email when you were just trying to confirm the definition of a word. I bet you can guess how I came to notice this.

I use Twitter and while they have a feature-rich website I prefer to use a client application. It feels faster and I can use the style of interface I prefer. What do I mean by that? Take a look at this TweetDeck screenshot. This app is a popular Twitter client. It’s far too complex for me. I loathe their aesthetic and interface design. There are too many buttons, too much information, too many features crammed into one window.

I previously used Tweetie and loved it, but it hasn’t been updated in a long time and lacks features I’d like. @nzkoz recommended Echofon to me and it’s excellent. Here’s a screenshot:

This is the style of interface I like. Minimal, clean, useful. I can dig down and get more information when required. If anything I’d like to trim more things from the UI. I don’t need to know that you tweeted “via Twitterpants v1.2” or “via foursquare”. See that green pin by the Geonet tweet? That means the tweet has a geolocation tag. I click on the pin and get this window:

It happens that I was visiting friends on Two Chain Road around Christmas, so a quick NYE text was called for. Fortunately the family was doing fine.

Yearly Recap: 2010

This past year has been the biggest of my life. Our son Leopold was born on Christmas Eve 2009.

Throughout 2010 we’ve been challenged by our new role as parents. There was frustration and tears but also so much joy. I wouldn’t give it up for anything. 

My wife Amy took the year off work to stay home with Leo. At the time I was a work-from-home contractor which proved tricky to balance. Early in the year it was too tempting to leave my office and spend time with the family. It took until March before we had settled into a routine that allowed for work as well as daddy-time.

In May I turned 32. On the day itself I was in Auckland for a contract job. I had to be up at 5am and worked through most of the day. I think I got back home to Wellington around 10pm and fell asleep within minutes. My profile picture since then has been a photo I snapped while working that day:

My parents live in Christchurch, so I was somewhat concerned when Amy woke me early on September 4th. The earthquake hit my old neighbourhood hard. Flooding, damaged drains and sewage, structural damage to houses, spooked families. My parents home will be demolished and rebuild. Today they are still waiting to find out when the rebuild will start. Being stuck in limbo is difficult, especially when you’re still living in the house that is “uneconomical to repair”. I’m hoping 2011 will resolve all that.

In November I wound up my contracting business and started full-time at FX Networks as Chief Information Officer. My role is to manage IT and information systems for the business. I’ve had a similar job before, but that was in a smaller company I founded. Now I’m working with some amazing people and very excited about the work ahead of me.

I think that’s all the interesting stuff that happened to me in the last year. We did a little bit of travel, but mostly I spent my time with family. If I had a resolution for 2011 it would be to spend more time with friends.

IRD bumbles, but with good intentions

IRD issued this Revenue Alert a few days ago. In short, it says that New Zealand business are required by law to keep their records in New Zealand. Some online accounting packages may not. It appears that Xero, the only credible product in the market, stores customer data off-shore.

The law they are talking about is the Tax Administration Act 1994, section 22.

[…] every person who carries on any business in New Zealand shall keep in New Zealand sufficient records in the English language to enable the ascertainment readily by the Commissioner [of] the assessable income derived by that person from the carrying on of that business […

Various people think it’s a stupid move by the IRD and they don’t “get” the Internet. I have sympathy for this; I’m a Xero user and I’m eager to ensure my tax compliance.

I think the IRD has a scenario like this in mind:

<IRD> Hey, you’ve been fiddling the books. Show us your records.

<Company> No way.

<IRD> No really, we’ll take you to court if you don’t.

<Company> Whatever. I use CloudAccounting Corp. Talk to them.

<IRD> Hey CloudAccountingCorp, give us the records for this company. They have been naughty.

<CloudAccountingCorp> Whatever. We’re incorporated in the Cayman islands. We don’t pay attention to your silly colonial rules.

<IRD> Fine then, we’ll get a court order that forces you to hand over the data.

<CloudAccountingCorp> The data is kept in Botswana. Good luck with that!

<IRD> Okay fine, we’re going to take the company to court for not keeping records in NZ.

It’s a very contrived situation. But I can see how some public servant bought into this scenario and reacted by warning NZ business to keep their data in this country.

I look forward to some clarity from Xero and the IRD.

Why the P2P DNS project will not work

You probably know that the Internet is full of “domain names” like these:

• facebook.com
• google.com
• trademe.co.nz
• wikipedia.com
• thepiratebay.org

These all exist in the “domain name system” or DNS for short. It’s the system that allows people all over the Internet to use friendly text names to connect with websites, email, and nearly all the Internet services we use today.

The DNS is run by cooperation among a large number of stakeholders but it boils down to a centralised system. The organisation many consider to be in control is ICANN: The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Over the years there have been various attempts to dethrone ICANN. Usually the antagonists want to replace the authoritative organisation with their own, claiming ICANN is corrupt or harming the Internet.

Recently a number of domain-names were seized, effectively removing the websites from the Internet. The websites involved were targeted for a number of reasons. Mostly because they helped people to download music and movies for free. Obviously the companies that make money from entertainment and other forms of intellectual property want to remove this threat to their livelihood. They successfully lobbied the authorities to take action and remove the domain-names from the Internet.

In reaction to these events Peter Sunde, co-founder of The Pirate Bay, said the following on Twitter:

Hello all #isp of the world. We’re going to add a new competing root-server since we’re tired of #ICANN. Please contact me to help.

I pointed out to Peter that there have been a number of alternate root server attempts over the years. None of them have gained any traction because they need widespread uptake before they are usable by consumers. He replied:

Alternative dns root is step 1. Step 2 is the new DNS system that is in the making. It’s not advanced, it’s p2p and more secure.

It would appear based on this short tweet and a single blog post they are building a new top-level domain called “.p2p” using a decentralised model. This would create domain-names like:

• google.p2p
• thepiratebay.p2p
• wikileaks.p2p

P2P is short for peer-to-peer; the idea is that everyone using the system shares information about domain-names so it’s impossible for a central authority to shut things down.

I’ve had dreams about building a decentralised DNS too, but I always run into a very hard problem. How do you trust the answer you receive from a peer?

If I joined the P2P DNS network, I could start sending fake answers for domain-names to other people. At best, this would simply disrupt their Internet usage. At worst, I could redirect their web-browsing to a malicious server which captured passwords and other private details.

Some people have suggested that cryptography is a solution but that has the same problems with trust. Anyone can generate the cryptographic keys required to fake records so you need some form of centralised authority that validates keys. This authority would then replace the role of ICANN in today’s DNS and fail to solve any of the problems as stated.

Perhaps this doesn’t matter. If the goal is to distribute information far-and-wide without concern for authenticity or reliability then .p2p may succeed. The ability for some people to download content is arguably better than a situation where no-one can. It will not be used by your bank’s website, Facebook or Google.

For now, I don’t think anyone is even remotely concerned by the P2P DNS project.

Updated: Will objected to my use of “intellectual property theft” so I have edited for clarity.

Live from New Zealand

I finally got around to retiring my old WordPress blog and migrating the domain over to Tumblr. It’s 2010; running blog software yourself is not a smart move, unless you have some insane requirements.

Most of the thoughts I want to share publicly usually fit into 140 characters, so my Twitter account @svs is way more active.

That being said, I like having an outlet for longer writing. So here we are.