[MyAppleMenu] Feb 18, 2012

[applesurf at myapplemenu.com]

MyAppleMenu
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**** The iOS Permission Dialog Dilemma ****
<http://www.macstories.net/stories/the-ios-permission-dialog-dilemma/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+macstoriesnet+%28MacStories%29>
Graham Spencer, MacStories


> Essentially, my suggestion is that rather than let users face a stacked barrage of blue permission dialogs, is to flatten them all out on one clear screen when they first launch an app after installation. Users would see a list of what the app would like permission to access and the user would be able to (with one tap) allow all, or individually deny permission for the various databases.



**** Growl's Response To Notification Center: Welcome To The Party, We Were Worried That We Were Being Stood Up ****
<http://growl.posterous.com/growls-response-to-notification-center-welcom>
Growl


> Growl is alive and kicking - We are still actively working on shipping two future versions of Growl. Our understanding from press reports at this point is that Notification Center is only available to apps from the Mac App Store, which effectively locks out the entire class of applications that aren't or can't be in the store.



**** WinZip Releases Free iPad, iPhone Apps ****
<http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2400438,00.asp>
Michael Muchmore, PC Magazine


> The app not only lets you see what files are zipped inside the archive file, but lets you view the contained documents if they're one of 11 very popular formats.



**** How To Get Out Of Tracking On Safari ****
<http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2012/02/16/how-to-get-out-of-tracking-on-safari/>
Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, Wall Street Journal



**** iOS Permission Dialogs ****
<http://www.marco.org/2012/02/17/ios-permission-dialogs>
Marco Arment


> Ultimately, I think Apple’s current implementation of dialogs on first access, then settings to revoke later, is the better, more understandable, less annoying solution with fewer negative side effects for users and developers. They just need to add another dialog and setting for Contacts access, and that’s probably exactly what they’ll do in iOS 6.



**** A Gate With Destiny ****
<http://waffle.wootest.net/2012/02/17/a-gate-with-destiny/>
Waffle


> There are still important things to sort out, and the choices Apple makes will determine the future of the Mac platform and deeply impact those who use it going forward.



**** Fix The Sandbox ****
<http://www.red-sweater.com/blog/2324/fix-the-sandbox>
Daniel Jalkut, Red Sweater Blog


> To increase adoption, Apple should expand the current list of entitlements until it covers every reasonable behavior that users expect from Mac apps. A good test for this is any app that is currently available in the Mac App Store. Having been approved by Apple’s own reviewers, and purchased by Apple’s own customers, the merit of these apps should be considered implicit.



**** Mountain Lion: What You Need To Know ****
<http://www.macworld.com/article/165460/2012/02/mountain_lion_what_you_need_to_know.html#lsrc.rss_main>
Macworld


> According to the information Apple has provided with the developer preview, you need to be running at least the latest version of Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6.8) to install Mountain Lion.



**** Google Explains How And Why Safari Privacy Settings Were Circumvented ****
<http://www.tuaw.com/2012/02/17/google-explains-how-and-why-safari-privacy-settings-were-circumv/>
Kelly Hodgkins, TUAW


> Google says it was using a known bit of Safari functionality to provide features that were only enabled when users signed into Google using their browser. Google used this functionality to provide personalized ads and the ability to +1 items for signed-in Google users.

> Google then pins the problem on Safari; the statement says the browser "contained functionality that then enabled other Google advertising cookies to be set on the browser." The search giant said it didn't expect this to happen and is now "removing these advertising cookies from Safari browsers." Google insists that the original cookie enablement was done anonymously and no personal data was collected.



**** Mac Developers: Gatekeeper Is A Concern, But Still Gives Power Users Control ****
<http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2012/02/developers-gatekeeper-a-concern-but-still-gives-power-users-control.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss>
Chris Foresman, Ars Technica


> While developers we spoke to seem mildly excited about the new functionality, their immediate focus was on the implications of Apple's new Gatekeeper security feature.



**** Apple Counts Down To 25 Billion App Store Downloads With Contest ****
<http://www.macworld.com/article/165452/2012/02/apple_counts_down_to_25_billion_app_store_downloads_with_contest.html#lsrc.rss_main>
Lex Friedman, Macworld



**** Apple Removes X11 In OS X Mountain Lion, Shifts Support To Open Source XQuartz ****
<http://www.macrumors.com/2012/02/17/apple-removes-x11-in-os-x-mountain-lion-shifts-support-to-open-source-xquartz/>
Eric Slivka, MacRumors






The Tomorrow Weblog
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**** Talking The Talk, For Posterity ****
<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204880404577228982976760026.html>
Robert Lee Hotz, Wall Street Journal


> The villagers had no written alphabet, no electricity and no computers. But they had heard of the Internet and believed that if their language were to survive, they would have to put it on the Web.



**** BrailleTouch Keyboard Allows Typing On A Phone Without Looking ****
<http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2012/02/brailletouch-keyboard-allows-typing-on-a-phone-without-looking.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss>
Ryan Paul, Ars Technica


> A group of researchers at Georgia Tech have created a new piece of software called BrailleTouch that allows users to type on a smartphone without looking at the screen. It takes advantage of gestures and multitouch interaction to support a chorded typing system that is modeled after Braille keyboards.






MyAppleMenu Reader
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**** Book Review: 'Watergate' ****
<http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/books/la-ca-thomas-mallon-20120219,0,5837423.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+features%2Fbooks+%28Los+Angeles+Times+-+Books%29>
Scott Martelle, Los Angeles Times


> A few months ago I attended a book launch party for Adam Hochschild's World War I history, "To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918," where he offered a concise dissection of the difference between writing novels and writing history. To write history, he said, the story needs only to be true. To write a novel, the story must be plausible — an often much more difficult thing to accomplish.

> With writer-critic Thomas Mallon's new book, "Watergate: A Novel," we have something of a hybrid. It's fiction in which Mallon novelizes historical events to find human insights that may have eluded the shelves of nonfiction books spawned by the 1970s political scandal that toppled President Richard M. Nixon. So within the framework of the true, Mallon also has to find the plausible, which he has done in satisfying ways with one large asterisk — context.



**** Neighbour ****
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/feb/17/adam-thorpe-neighbour-saturday-poem?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+theguardian%2Fbooks%2Frss+%28Books%29>
Adam Thorpe, The Guardian



**** Learning To Love Airport Lit ****
<http://travel.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/travel/high-brow-lit-for-high-fliers-not-me.html?partner=rss&emc=rss>
Dominique Browning, New York Times


> To what did I owe this newfound oblivion about where I was? This insouciance about fraying schedules? This good cheer about the dismaying ritual of herding, shuffling, squeezing, starving, sitting and suffocating that characterizes air travel today?



**** An Enlivening Heritage: Reintroducing Robert Coles ****
<http://www.thecommonreview.org/article/article/an-enlivening-heritage-reintroducing-robert-coles.html?sp=1>
Jef Kelly Lowenstein, The Common Review


> To understand Robert Coles’s two latest books, it helps to have seen his writing chair.



**** Don’t Mock The Artisanal-Pickle Makers ****
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/adam-davidson-craft-business.html>
Adam Davidson, New York Times


> A couple of years ago, Chris Woehrle grew sick of corporate life and decided to become an artisanal food craftsman — any kind of artisanal food craftsman. “I spent a month making every item I could think of: kimchi, harissa, salsa, every kind of pickle imaginable, a bunch of different herb mustards,” says Woehrle, who worked for a music conglomerate. And every time, he quickly discovered, “there were eight companies already doing it well.”

> This is because Woehrle lives in Brooklyn, ground zero of the artisanal-food universe, where competition is intense. Eventually, though, he and his partner stumbled upon a hole in the market: handcrafted, all-natural beef jerky. And so Kings County Jerky was born.






SingaporeSurf
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**** Budget Speech 2012 An Inclusive Society, A Stronger Singapore ****
<http://www.channelnewsasia.com/annex/budget2012speech.pdf>
Singapore Government

(This is a PDF document.)


**** Low Thia Khiang's Plans For Hougang ****
<http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1183847/1/.html>
Joanne Chan, Channel NewsAsia


> Workers' Party (WP) Secretary-General Low Thia Khiang said he will have to spend more time looking after the residents of Hougang, after the party expelled Yaw Shin Leong over a lack of accountability in the face of allegations of an extramarital affair.

> When asked about Mr Yaw being given one week by Parliament to appeal his dismissal, Mr Low said it's up to Mr Yaw, who remains uncontactable.



**** No Hair But Got Heart? ****
<http://feedmetothefish.blogspot.com/2012/02/no-hair-but-got-heart.html>
Feed Me To The Fish


> I'm not much of a PAP fan, but I believe fair is fair and I write with heart. Where Tharman is concerned, he's got not much hair, but he's got heart!



**** S'pore Must Adapt And Learn To Manage Social Diversity: Grace Fu ****
<http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1183804/1/.html>
Hon Jing YI, Channel NewsAsia


> Senior Minister of State for Information, Communications & the Arts Grace Fu said the challenge of increasing social diversity is likely to become greater as the society evolves.

> She said while diversity makes Singapore a unique melting pot of cultures and heritage, it can only be so if its social fabric is strong.



**** Singapore Shifts Priority From Growth To Curb Income Inequality ****
<http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-02-17/singapore-shifts-priority-from-growth-to-curb-income-inequality.html>
Shamim Adam and Weiyi Lim, Bloomberg


> Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has moved to address public discontent over rising prices and an influx of foreigners after his ruling party suffered its smallest electoral win since independence in 1965. Measures announced yesterday to tighten the inflow of foreigners follow similar steps taken in the past two years which have increased the cost of hiring overseas workers at hotels, offices, factories and construction sites.

Talk is cheap. We will need continue for the coming years to press on for public data to judge whether PAP is fulfilling its promise.


**** Budget Tweaks : Small Fixes For Big Problems.... ****
<http://singaporemind.blogspot.com/2012/02/budget-tweaks-slow-fix-to-big-problems.html>
Diary Of A Singaporean Mind


> So the major move in a budget that sets out to build a an inclusive society and a stronger Singapore is one that merely restores what was already there in 2003. You call this progress?

I believe in the future, Singaporeans will look back at the 2000-10 decade as the era where Singapore lost its way and took big steps backwards.


**** Additional Carriage Could Solve Overcrowding At MRT Stations ****
<http://www.todayonline.com/Voices/EDC120218-0000043/Additional-carriage-could-solve-overcrowding-at-MRT-stations>
Yeo Choon Seng, Today


> As ridership increases, the stations may not even cope with the demand. The authorities should extend the length of the stations and consider a trial on seven-carriage train services. 

I will even say this: increase the number of carriages now without extending the length of stations.


**** The Worry For Business: Will This Worsen Tight Labour Market? ****
<http://www.todayonline.com/Commentary/EDC120218-0000062/The-worry-for-business--Will-this-worsen-tight-labour-market?>
David Sandison And Charles Collett, Today


> In a year when Singapore's GDP growth is estimated to reach between only 1 and 3 per cent, some may question whether this is the time to initiate such immediate restructuring of the workforce and economy. 

> And what may preoccupy the minds of most CEOs is whether the tight labour market is likely to worsen in the short-term as a result of this Budget, and how they will continue to have the right talents to deliver growth in a relatively tough economic climate.



**** SDP's Response To Budget 2012: How Can We Trust The Government?	 ****
<http://www.yoursdp.org/index.php/news/singapore/5145-sdps-response-to-budget-2012-how-can-we-trust-the-government>
Vincent Wijeysingha, Singaore Democratic Party


> The real question is: If the Finance Minister said in 2010 that we would increase the foreign-workers levy to reduce our over-reliance on foreign labour and Government did the exact opposite the following year, how do we know that the policy would be adhered to this time? This is especially significant in light of PM Lee saying that we would need to raise the number of foreigners coming in to Singapore with a weakening economy.

> How does one trust a Government that says one thing and then does the exact opposite?