February 1, 2010
DenyHosts on Snow Leopard
Ever noticed your system log is chock full of this crap?
Jan 31 01:11:43 hostname sandboxd[18371]: sshd(18375) deny mach-per-user-lookup
Jan 31 01:11:46: --- last message repeated 8 times ---
Jan 31 01:11:46 hostname sandboxd[18371]: sshd(18377) deny mach-per-user-lookup
Jan 31 01:11:49: --- last message repeated 8 times ---
Jan 31 01:11:49 hostname sandboxd[18371]: sshd(18379) deny mach-per-user-lookup
Jan 31 01:11:52: --- last message repeated 4 times ---
Check the secure log file and you'll likely find thousands of ssh login attempts from a small number of IP addresses, trying various generic usernames.
Enter DenyHosts. It's a mature, configurable Python script that monitors your log and adds entries to /etc/hosts.deny if things look suspicious.
It's quite portable and there are various instructions for older versions of Mac OS X, but there's a couple of gotchas for Snow Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6, that don't appear to be addressed in one location anywhere else. Here's how to get DenyHosts up and running on OS X 10.6:
- Download the tar.gz file from the download page.
- Unless you're a command line purist who doesn't need to look up the tar man page every time you use, just double click the downloaded file to unpack it.
- Now drop into Terminal and cd to the freshly unpacked DenyHosts directory.
- Run the installer: sudo python setup.py install
- Optionally, move the installed files into local: sudo mv /usr/share/denyhosts /usr/local/share/
- Change to the install directory: cd /usr/local/share/denyhosts
- Copy the example config file: sudo cp denyhosts.cfg-dist denyhosts.cfg
- Edit it: sudo vi denyhosts.cfg
- Find and set these settings:
- SECURE_LOG = /private/var/log/secure.log
- WORK_DIR = /usr/local/share/denyhosts/data
- LOCK_FILE = /var/run/denyhosts.pid
- DAEMON_LOG = /private/var/log/denyhosts
- Optionally set this to allow entries older than 10 weeks to be removed: PURGE_DENY = 10w
- Copy the example run script: sudo cp daemon-control-dist daemon-control
- Edit it: sudo vi daemon-control
- Find and set these settings:
- DENYHOSTS_BIN = "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.4/bin/denyhosts.py"
- DENYHOSTS_LOCK = "/var/run/denyhosts.pid"
- DENYHOSTS_CFG = "/usr/local/share/denyhosts/denyhosts.cfg"
- PYTHON_BIN = "/usr/bin/env python2.4"
- Create the hosts.deny file in case it's not there: sudo touch /etc/hosts.deny
- And finally, kick off the daemon: sudo ./daemon-control start
You can monitor progress via the log at /var/log/denyhosts. You could also create a launchd service to ensure the daemon runs at boot up, but if you reboot as rarely as me, you might save yourself 10 minutes and skip it.
Posted by LightYear at 9:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 12, 2010
Kitchen preparations
A couple of weeks off work over the Christmas period proved an ideal opportunity to put some solid days into the renovations. My plans were roughly half the break for renovations and half the break for PlacesToLive.
As I began to cut into the kitchen wall however, it quickly became apparent that if I was going to be building a new kitchen, I was also going to be building a bunch of adjoining walls. Such is the case when you have a house with 80 years of "influence". Very rarely do you find a wall that gracefully flows on to its neighbour. Add to that the fact that there was some water damage to the roof in that part of the house, and the fact that that room has never been a kitchen before, and you have a bit more than a flat pack and assemble job.
And so it turned out, my annual leave consisted primarily of 10 to 12 hour days renovating. Fortunately, I enjoy it.
After ripping up the slate tiles a few weeks ago, I decided that the underlying masonite was in too bad condition to serve as underlay for the new flooring. There was no choice but to rip the masonite up too.
Underneath were tongue and groove floorboards, with plenty of holes, undulations and even an old fireplace slab to add character.
One of the renovating lessons I've learned is not to underestimate the amount of waste generated. The mass of the material that needed to be disposed after clearing a layer of slate tile and a layer of masonite was immense. Each week I'd test the council garbage truck by tentatively adding a bit more to the Otto bin, until one week I put the bin out for collection only to find it dragged on to the road but never up ended. Admittedly, to get the bin out to the kerb I had to launch all my (75kg) weight on to the bin handle just to rock it on to the wheels, and strained to roll it while keeping it precariously balanced. I estimate it weighed around 250kg and was surprised the wheels didn't bust off. I've since found on the council website that the maximum pick up is stated as 65kg.
Most of one day then, consisted of loading the ute with about 600kg of timber and heading out to the tip. At the tip the hardiness of those Otto bins was again demonstrated when I accidentally dropped the bin off the back of the tray and the entire 250kg weight fell upright, some 600mm on to the concrete. There was an almighty thud, but barely a whimper from the tank-like bin.
With the flooring out of the way, the next job was to cut down the low wall between the kitchen and the back room. Getting enough access resulted in carefully destroying most of the surrounding timber while managing to preserve the kitchen side of the wall.
This is where consideration for the adjoining walls became a serious factor. After a lot of head scratching, I decided to strip the left, top and right beams, as well as the beam adjoining the right wall. The mismatch of walls coverings and angles and profiles had always been a terrible eyesore, and it became obvious that this was the only sensible solution.
To restore strength and also provide a stud for the new wall, I installed two 35x70 pine lengths in a L-shape from floor to ceiling.
The top and right beams and also earned a new set of studs, albeit much shorter, forming the skeleton for the new seamless walls. And finally the new walls went up.
I took particular pleasure in redoing the wall above the washing machine - the wiring that had been installed here was atrocious. There were cables hanging out of the roof and terminations by double-adapter and all sorts of bad ideas. With the new wall in place there is just one double outlet with a light switch on it, and all the wiring is hidden behind the wall.
After a couple of applications of gyprock compound, some frustrating hours with the trowel and sander, and a couple of coats of white paint the walls are ready for final sand, a paint to match the room, and some cornice. My tragic gyprocking skills beside, I'm very happy with the result.
While a layer of compound was drying I made up the triangular supports for the new bar. Although trying to correctly measure the mitre cut lengths while dealing with the existing surface's various interpretations on "horizontal" was a foreseen challenge, the difficulty of working with the hardwood studs left in the wall was a big surprise to me: cut the timber put a worrying large load on the compound saw; screws had to be significantly predrilled or the heads would just screw off; and nails, despite being predrilled, would bend every time. This was some seriously heavy duty wood!
Nonetheless I managed four strong, level supports, that after a sand and a stain, look the part.
In the meantime, I also bit the bullet and purchased some new masonite and set about laying that. 'twas a pity to have to rip up two layers of flooring just to put two more back down, but at least I have discovered the history of the flooring in that room as well as and have the best opportunity for laying a nice new floor.
The masonite sheets were $16.50 each, so a new masonite underlay added about $100 to the cost of the new floor.
The doorways also received a new coat of paint to match the highlight colour from the exterior of the house.
With the kitchen finally physically prepared, I was able to put the finishing touches on my new kitchen plans. And so I present, rendered in 3D for your enjoyment, Heath's New Kitchen:
Now to get some quotes, finalise the materials, and actually get the thing ordered.
Posted by LightYear at 9:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
December 13, 2009
My sauna now has an access door
Given the hiding I've unleashed on this house over the last few weeks, an update is in order.
With the sky window in place (highly recommended - looks classy and the ventilation is tremendous) it was time to gut the room to make preparations for a kitchen. A weekend of huffing and puffing and I had the furniture cleared. Since then I've had a constructive outlet in case any frustration begins to build. Ripping into the wall and floor with a hammer really takes the edge off.
This weekend I spent some time deliberating over a new floor covering. I'm going lino for the ease of install, the softness under foot, the ease of cleaning and the stability. I brought a few samples home, but I'm none the wiser. Fortunately I've had some valuable input from the fairer gender.
Mid week I had an electrician come in to fit the kitchen and nearby rooms with some new power outlets. One of the big motivations for the work was to establish some sort of order amongst the chaos that is 90 year old wiring. In particular I was aware that access under the house was terrible, thanks to an inconveniently positioned old fireplace, and access to the roof was even worse - there was no manhole!
Months ago I invited the next-door neighbour over (he was born in my house - on the kitchen table, in fact) to show me where the manhole used to be. He hobbled into the back area and slowly raised his cane, pointing to the spot in the old kitchen near where an exhaust fan was now installed.
After meeting with the leccy I started to see a great deal of justification for installing a manhole. While he was busy cutting holes in the walls I figured now is as good a time as any to rip the exhaust fan out. That left a convenient peephole into the roof, but with no small children near by to throw into the roof, the hole was going to have to be enlarged. I drew a rough guide on the ceiling and with a run of the reciprocating saw and an explosion of dust, a manhole was born!
This weekend I had an opportunity to square the hole, install a border and cut a cover to size. Who knows how many years it has been since anyone has been in the roof, but there certainly was some dust to disturb. I made a good and proper mess.
There's something disappointingly plain about the result. Even those tell tale signs of an arrested fall from the ladder on the wall to the right were gone after a once-over with a cloth and spray.
Oh - after spending some time in the roof this weekend I actually came across the original manhole. My neighbour was right - it was right near the exhaust fan, but not quite where I installed the new one. Under a layer of dust and insulation fibre was a small trapdoor, which when lifted revealed some patchwork over a small hole - right above the bathroom wall that can be seen just to the left of the new manhole!
With access to the roof established, the opportunity presented itself to do a couple of wiring jobs. I came across some bargain ceiling fans in Bunnings and thought I'd whack one of in each of the two secondary bedrooms. Shouldn't be too hard right?
After twelve hours of crawling through the roof, dealing with incomplete and crappy hardware kits, breaking tools and screws, unraveling 90 years of accumulated roof wiring and generally having a ball of a time, both fans are installed and operational! Same old story - if I had to do another one it would probably take about an hour or two. Plenty of lessons learned!
All of a sudden it's almost midnight on Sunday, and I've spent the weekend on a ladder or in the roof. I celebrated tonight by putting my newly discovered rice skills to good use, cooking up about 1.5L of rice to satiate a weekend of sweat. One more week of work to go and then I can spend two weeks doing reno's non-stop!
Posted by LightYear at 10:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
December 4, 2009
A Call To Engineers
More than a century ago Albert Einstein laid out his theories on relativity. Ever since, countless complex debates have raged in scientific journals and physics laboratories, challenging the veracity of the theory. Even today there is little consensus on whether relativity reflects the actual state of affairs, or just conveniently models certain physical behaviour. In the meantime however, Engineers have rolled out a global positioning system that allows anyone with a few hundred dollars to burn, to plot their location on Earth to an accuracy of a few metres. If those Engineers had failed to include the theory of relativity in their calculations however, the system would accumulate errors of about 10km per day1 and quickly become a global positioning mess. Yet, despite the complex scientific principles at work, the global positioning system is accessible to a vastly wider audience than the latest debate on the challenge to relativity theory posed by, say, gravitational lensing or black hole warping.
In 2009, a century after Einstein disturbed the space time continuum, Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum delivered an impassioned plea for enhanced scientific literacy in their book, “Unscientific America”. The authors cite dismay with the lack of educated leadership on fundamentally scientific challenges such as global pandemics, climate change and the energy crisis. They voice a call to arms for an army of ambassadors to translate scientific knowledge into material ready for consumption by the wider public. The primary recruits for the new army are scientists and scientific advisors, but consider this - what proportion of the wider public you know would turn glassy-eyed in a discussion on the bending of space-time but at the same time would barely raise an eyebrow when their GPS tells them to take a left at the next lights?
Fellow engineers, our profession is the link between science and the wider public. Our craft is responsible for delivering science to the people. Make no mistake, this is our call to arms.
Before you drop your soldering irons to don iron arms however, let us consider what is at stake.
Humanity has always had unanswered questions. Are we alone? How does consciousness arise? Why do we die? And we accept that any answers to these questions are necessarily matters of faith. Humanity’s body of knowledge is not substantial enough to rely on rationality. The complication we face today however, is that these unanswered questions have extended to matters of our own creation. Are vaccines safe? How does my GPS work? Why is nuclear power generation dangerous? In these matters our body of knowledge is enough to substantiate rational answers, but it is no longer feasible for any one person to consume the entire body of knowledge. Humanity wants answers however, and as is human, people will turn to faith to find them.
So far there is nothing wrong with this scenario. It is unreasonable to expect that every question one faces should result in scientific investigation, so we need to take some answers on faith. However, like the bifurcation point in a chaotic system, the decision on where that faith is placed causes radically different paths to be taken. Due to the innate “in-group” effects of trust in human psychology, the initial formation of a source for matters of faith has powerful ramifications. In particular, the bonding effect of trust gives the bifurcation point its typical point-of-no-return quality, and is such a powerful motivator that people regularly abandon their personal values to adhere to it.
Still there is not necessarily any dilemma here. Humans will seek to place their faith in a source for matters that are beyond their immediate rational comprehension. This faith will naturally form groups and members of the group will often act in the interest of the group, rather than their own. Many constructive organisations are based on these principles. Political parties, companies and community groups all operate well when their members - initially inducted by some shared appeal - continue to row in the same direction.
The dilemma arises subtly. It starts with a group who base their faith on principles that are unambiguously orthogonal to scientifically established knowledge. Even then, no immediate peril awaits - we would be much worse off in a world without dissenting opinions. No, the dilemma arises through the interaction of incorrectly formed faith, and the perpetuating effects of groupthink. Psychologist Irving Janis describes the results of groupthink as a “fiasco”2, for once a harmless conclusion has been established due to faith in incorrect principles, it becomes exceedingly difficult to extricate members of the faith when logical application of its existing conclusions form new, dangerous conclusions.
But how exactly can an awry explanation of some physical phenomena lead to a dangerous conclusion? Consider the following hypothetical conversation between a well-intentioned enquirer (WIE), a rationally-minded aid (RMA) and a kind helper (KH):
WIE: I’ve got a crook knee. What should I do about it?
RMA: Looks swollen. It could be an autoimmune disease causing an inflammatory response. You might need some non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen.
WIE: Okay thanks. I’m going to get a second opinion just to be sure.
KH: Hmm, I think your second chakra might be blocked by stress and the healing energy is not getting to your knee. You’re under a bit of stress aren’t you? Yes, that’s okay, I have just the thing. Try this homeopathic remedy, it’s great for soothing the second chakra.
WIE: Okay. It’s safe is it? I’ll give it a try.
RMA: You tried what? It’s just bloody water! Why didn’t you try some naproxen?
WIE: Um, well, I already feel much better.
RMA: You idiot, it’s just the placebo effect!
WIE: Oh, okay. By the way, I was thinking about getting my kid vaccinated but Kind Healer was saying something about it leading to Autism.
RMA: Kind Healer is a dangerous crack pot. Don’t listen to anything she has to say. By skipping vaccination you are risking outbreaks in the general population of diseases that can be safely controlled. All drugs have side-effects but do you really want to jeopardise the eradication of plagues that have killed millions?
WIE: Um. I guess not. Um… I’m going to see what Kind Healer has to say anyway.
Individual freedom to form scientific conclusions based on faith in principles that are at odds with established scientific knowledge is worth defending. Any pressure to give up this freedom is a slippery slope towards the Brave New World dystopia of Aldous Huxley. As author Neil Gaiman says, “Freedom to believe means the freedom to believe the wrong thing, after all”3. Dissenting opinions should be welcomed, if only as opportunities to check our own assumptions.
How then, can we prevent a benign misunderstanding of the way the world works from perpetuating a destructive application of groupthink? First consider why, as “Unscientific America” claims, science has so far ultimately failed to bring about enlightenment.
For making assessments of the mechanisms of the world, to enable prediction for how it will operate in the future, the scientific method is the best we have. And it is mighty good - a great deal of the natural processes around us are well understood and can be precisely modelled to formulate generalisations about how they work. For the technically trained, the scientific method seems about as natural and suitable as eating and laughing. But, and here’s the rub, the scientific method is not a great way of sharing scientific insights with those without a technical background or a aptitude for technical thought processes.
The failure of the scientific method to garner support is particularly well illustrated by the Intelligent Design Movement. Advocates claim that Intelligent Design is a scientific theory4. Scientists claim that it fails to adhere to some of the tenets of the scientific method, in particular the requirement that predictions can be made, tested, verified and falsified. The debate often falls into a pit when an advocate asks why, since evolution is just theory, Intelligent Design can’t also be a theory. After all, isn’t having freedom to pose alternate theories what scientific debate is all about?
To most scientists, the claims are absurd. The misinterpretation of the scientific method is painfully clear to them. But arguing such is rarely a fruitful exercise and it is not long before accusations of defective intellect are made and nothing constructive will result.
The subtlety of the scientific method was no more dramatically and desperately demonstrated than on the 18th October, 2004, when the Dover Area School District board in Pennsylvania voted 6-3 to add the following statement to their biology curriculum:
Students will be made aware of the gaps/problems in Darwin’s theory and _of other theories of evolution including, but not limited to, intelligent design.
As part of the decision, teachers were required to read a statement to their Biology students in the following year that read in part:
Because Darwin’s Theory is a theory, it is still being tested as new evidence is discovered. The Theory is not a fact. Gaps in the Theory exist for which there is no evidence.
The three school board members who voted against the original curriculum change, resigned in protest. Ultimately a court order a year later ruled that the board had violated the First Amendment and that intelligent design was not a science so shall not be taught in a biology class. But the widespread misunderstanding of the pursuit of science is evident. And history does not give much hope for change on this front, since the same fundamental controversy ignited the headlines more than 84 years ago, in the infamous Scopes Trial5. In 1925, John Scopes was charged with teaching evolution in a Tennessee school and the ensuing legal case brought fame to the sensitivity of teaching a scientific theory that offers challenges to an established faith.
This disconnect between a scientist’s methods and the general public’s methods is at the core of the failure of science to bring enlightenment to the masses.
In a recent Lateline interview, Chris Mooney offered some suggestions as to why people had lost touch with science and therefore what prompted his “Unscientific America” book. Mooney explained that the problem arose because scientists are rewarded for technically dense work. They are not taught to, and not compensated for, distilling their work into approachable summaries. Mooney urged scientists to present their work to a wider audience and to make their judgements available to politicians. But what profession is based around adopting scientific developments for use by the general public? What profession is concerned with extracting the elements of science that have practical applications and producing those applications? Are not Engineers best placed to deliver science to the people?
In fact it goes deeper. Not only are Engineers uniquely placed to act as the bridge between the technically exclusive world of science and the reality of the public, but Engineers have the power of the tangible.
The truly frightening element of the declining respect for science is the parallel damage to trust. The general public is still curious enough to look for answers and concerned enough to base decisions on the word of their sources. But the impenetrable, dynamic, theoretical nature of good science has left people looking to other, more practical sources to relate to and trust. And there are few more practical sources than a tangible, physical artefact.
As psychologist Dacher Keltner6 has shown, physical touch has a strong connection to the experience of trust. For example, an experiment widely used to demonstrate the influence of touch on trust involves a host describing a task, while very lightly touching the backs of some of the participants. The participants who received the brief touch were more likely to cooperate with, rather than compete against, their partner. In short, the mechanism of trust is activated by the sensation of touch. If “I’ll believe it when I see it” then I can’t refute it when I touch it.
Fellow engineers, consider your role as the mediator between science and the people. Consider the tangible products of your work and their power to establish trust. Consider the good intentions of those without your technical training in their pursuit for knowledge. And consider the ramifications for all of us, if we fail to establish scientific knowledge as an authority for answers.
The onus of scientific enlightenment lies not with the scientists, but with the professionals who routinely create products of science - be they bridges, calculators or nuclear power plants - that the wider public can touch. Mere scientific rigour will not capture the trust of the people. A scientist’s unwavering subscription to the principles of rationality and deduction will do them few favours in capturing the minds of the people. As Rabindranath Tagore put it, “A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it.”7. Instead it is the engineer who must realise their role in bringing scientific enlightenment. It is the field of engineering that must encompass the challenge of ensuring cultural and political thought has strong rational influences. It is engineers who must be available to offer honest, dependable, humble and tangible solutions to the scientific challenges of the world.
As calculated by Richard W. Pogge, Ohio State University, published in Real-World Relativity: The GPS Navigation System and generously made available here.↩
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Irving L. Janis’ seminal work concerning groupthink is Victims of groupthink; a psychological study of foreign-policy decisions and fiascoes published in 1972 by Houghton Mifflin.↩
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From page 435 of Neil Gaiman’s book, American Gods published in 2001 by William Morrow.↩
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The Seattle based think tank, Discovery Institute, is well known for its advocacy of Intelligent Design. Their FAQ webpage summarises some of the claims made by advocates.↩
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The trial of Scopes vs. The state of Tennessee, often called the “Scopes Monkey Trial”, tested the Butler Act, which states that any theory that denies Divine Creation and states that man descended from animals must not be taught in any state-funded educational establishment in Tennessee. The text of the Butler Act is available here.↩
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Dacher Keltner, a psychologist at University of California, Berkeley, is a proponent of “positive psychology”. He is the directory of the Greater Good Science Center and explores the establishment of traits such as trust in his book, Born to Be Good published in 2009 by W.W. Norton & Co.↩
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Rabindranath Tagore was a Bengali polymath. This quote is from his 1916 poetic work, Stray Birds, translated to English by Tagore himself.↩
Posted by LightYear at 9:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
November 15, 2009
There's a hole in my roof
After some cardboard template deliberation, and too much back and forward with builders and retailers, I finally booked in a day for the roof window install.
The builder really knew his product, and lacking a sheetmetal cutter and reciprocating saw, I'm very glad I bit the bullet and paid for the install.
With the window installed I was left to my own devices to redo the wiring for the light and install the tunnel. After some significant delays getting the wiring done, and some time-consuming struggles trying to decide on design and style in Bunnings, progress started to appear.
There's some trim, filling and staining yet to go, but things are coming together very nicely.
Posted by LightYear at 10:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
October 5, 2009
Long weekend craft
This weekend I discovered that when unfolded, the cardboard from a beer carton is almost precisely the size of the sky window I'm having quoted at the moment. In fact, the excess cardboard fits into the gaps to produce a template with such precision, I just had to stick it to my ceiling.
Given that this whole measuring/quoting/waiting on builders process means that I'm not actually getting any construction done, I've had to make do. And given that my imagination can often use a little assistance, this is a useful exercise in making an informed decision about sizes and positions.
Basically my options are the size of the cardboard template, 550x980, or with some extra constructions work, the next size up, 780x980. In a room so small, 780x980 is a big window. Think it would be a better choice?
Posted by LightYear at 4:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
September 24, 2009
Newsstand, you're dumped
No response from my enquiry to Newsstand's developer, posted here, but as fortune would have it NewGator silently released their iPhone client with Google Reader sync a couple of days ago.
I make a point of saying "silently", because for the past month or two they've been very vocal in assuring us loyal users (I've used NetNewsWire on the Mac for yonks) that phasing out of their own synchronisation service would be followed by updated support for Google Reader sync instead. We'd be first to know, they said, when the iPhone client was ready. Somehow I missed the release until tonight.
And the results of synchronisation of my entire 47 subscription feed list is clear (test done with one unread post):
Newsstand: >5MB
NetNewsWire: <47KB
There's just no question about it. Newsstand is unusable and NetNewsWire is usable.
Technically, the difference is this:
Both readers start by grabbing the feed list from Google Reader. Newsstand then grabs all of the last 25 posts of every feed through the Google Reader api. Stupid. NetNewsWire on the other hand, grabs the feed list and then uses the Google Reader api to find out if any feeds have unread posts. Then, instead of grabbing 25 posts from all the feeds, it uses the 'xt' flag to only grab the unread posts from only the feeds with unread posts. In other words, NetNewsWire uses Google Reader for what its designed for!
Now I'm a bit peeved that I paid $6 (and $5 for 40MB of wasted data) for Newsstand after reading the unequivocal buy recommendation on Wired. And on a wider scale, I'm peeved that I'm relying on a Wired article for iPhone app recommendations. Either the reviews on the App Store need to become better informed and more reliable, or there needs to be some way of trialling apps! At least NewsGator have got the model right - I used their free, ad supported version to conduct this test, and once I've finished writing this post I'll be straight back to the App Store to buy their "Pro" version. I wouldn't even care if it was any different to the free version - it's only a couple of bucks and the value to me is immense.
Oh - unlike Newsstand, NetNewsWire only supports Instapaper, not ReadItLater. Argh, it appears I signed up for the wrong one. Great... another sign up process to battle through.
Stay tuned for a more considered report on the shortcomings of the iPhone.
Posted by LightYear at 11:40 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Newsstand for iPhone download stacks of data?
Sent to the Newsstand developers:
I noticed a large spike in my iPhone data usage, and on investigation I find my recently purchased copy of Newsstand is transferring about 5MB during every refresh of my feeds from Google Reader, even though only one or two new messages are downloaded.
When I sniffed the traffic, I find Newsstand is passing the parameters "?n=25&ck=535895056" to each feed on Google Reader, which downloads a heap of data every time. For example, "GET /reader/atom/feed/http://feeds.feedburner.com/WhereTheHellWasI?n=25&ck=535907056 HTTP/1.1" returns over 225KB of data.
I don't know alot about Atom, but shouldn't Newsstand be passing the "r=o" and "ot" parameters as well, to only get the posts since the last check?
If Newsstand has to download the last 25 message from everyone of my feeds, every time I want to check for new posts, it's useless to me. That's why I'm hoping I've missed something!
Posted by LightYear at 3:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
