Mike Cohen

ICHC 1.5.3 is broken, wait for 1.5.4 to be approved

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I Can Has Cheezburger 1.5.3 crashes immediately at startup because the feed it uses is broken. You don’t have to email me to let me know – I get about 10 reports a day.

Apple still hasn’t approved version 1.5.4 free although they approved 1.5.4 Pro in 24 hours. The updated version uses a different feed which I’m hosting myself. See this post from Dec. 24 which gives the gory details about why 1.5.3 crashes.

Not quite rejected

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I just got the following email from Apple regarding the free version of I Can Has Cheezburger:

Hello Mike,

Thank you for submitting your application update to the App Store. Unfortunately, the update to I Can Has Cheezburger 1.5.4 cannot be posted to the App Store because the Release Notes mention features that are only available in the Pro version of the application. It currently reads “Save to favorites is available for all items in the pro version.” instead of accurately describing this application’s update, which may lead to user confusion.

While your iTunes Connect Application State is displayed as Rejected, it is not necessary to upload a new binary. Once the necessary modifications are completed, please reply to this email and we will proceed with your application review.

Regards,

iPhone Developer Program

I changed the description as requested, so hopefully it will be approved soon.

links for 2009-12-30

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  • Is aviation security mostly for show? – CNN.com
    Despite fearful rhetoric to the contrary, terrorism is not a transcendent threat. A terrorist attack cannot possibly destroy a country's way of life; it's only our reaction to that attack that can do that kind of damage. The more we undermine our own laws, the more we convert our buildings into fortresses, the more we reduce the freedoms and liberties at the foundation of our societies, the more we're doing the terrorists' job for them.

    Ditch the invasive mass surveillance systems and new police state-like powers. Return airport security to pre-9/11 levels. Remove swagger from our foreign policies. Show the world that our legal system is up to the challenge of terrorism. Stop telling people to report all suspicious activity; it does little but make us suspicious of each other, increasing both fear and helplessness.

    (tags: security theater psychology terrorism schneier politics travel tsa)

The Christmas Effect

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Since iTunes Connect has been down for the holidays, I wasn’t able to check my app store sales until today. I got a very pleasant surprise when I checked the reports. Both the free & premium versions of I Can Has Cheezburger had their best sales day since their release. Even iDjembe had a huge sales spike. Unfortunately PicSlide (which is my favorite application & which I consider my best) didn’t see any such increase.

Screen shot 2009-12-28 at 6.22.48 PM
Screen shot 2009-12-28 at 8.43.34 PM

I Can Has Cheezburger 1.5.4 submitted

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I just submitted the 1.5.4 update for both the free & pro versions of I Can Has Cheezburger.

New in this version:

  • Uses new feeds for all sites which are more reliable & should fix most crashes
  • Better handling of bad items in feed.
  • Movies are once again included in the stream, although some Viddler movies aren’t iPhone compatible.
  • Save to favorites is available for all items in the pro version.

ICHC Update

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Good news: there will be an ICanHasCheezburger app update sometime after the holidays. This isn’t the fabled Three20 based version 2.0, but a minor update which simply changes the feed URL. However, by doing so, it should fix most of the crashes.

Our application uses a ‘scraped’ feed generated from the site content rather than the site’s own RSS feed. We do this because the standard RSS feed only has a limited number of items and must be loaded in its entirety. By scraping the site, we can create multiple pages with unlimited items, which load a lot faster since it only loads 10 or fewer items at a time.

The feed scraper was originally developed by the folks at ICHC for their dashboard widget. I later modified it to support all of their sites and change the output from JSON to simplified XML. Unfortunately that feed scraper has a major flaw. It uses regex pattern matching to parse the HTML, which is a Very Bad Thing. The script can easily get confused by changes to the site and often produces invalid data. It also hasn’t included videos since a format change at the site broke it.

Last night I started hacking at it with PHP’s XML parser and DOM commands and came up with a much more robust script that uses element classes to identify valid items and to avoid outputting bad data that could crash the application. I’m also hosting it on my own server at DreamHost, so I can easily fix it myself instead of having to go back and forth for fixes as we do now.

Unfortunately a few Viddler movies still won’t play, since they must be explicitly enabled for downloading on the site.

Top albums of the decade

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Here are my picks for my favorite albums of the decade.

  1. Funeral – Arcade Fire

    2. Arcade Fire changed the face of indie rock with their powerful, exciting sound. Although there are a lot of familiar elements, their music sounds totally unique.

  2. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot – Wilco

    3. The drama surrounding this album is almost as exciting as the album itself. After being dropped by their record company for not being commercial enough, they regained control of their music and got it released. Wonderful pop songs with cryptic lyrics and noise which only adds to the music.

  3. In Rainbows – Radiohead

    4. Another artist that went against the record industry and won. Beautiful blend of electronica, pop, and rock.

  4. Egypt – Youssou N’dour

    5. Youssou is Africa’s most important musician who has always used his influence to bring the world’s attention to the issues that affect Africa. On this album, his greatest achievement, he shows the beautiful, poetic, tolerant side of Islam that we rarely hear about. This is a sharp departure from his usual style, featuring a large Egyptian string orchestra rather than his usual band, the Super Etoile.

  5. Neon Bible – Arcade Fire

    6. This album is even more epic than “Funeral” with the addition of a pipe organ and full orchestra, although the songs aren’t as consistent.

  6. The Crane Wife – The Decemberists

    7. One of the most intelligent & literate groups, bringing back classic rock with a concept album.

  7. Aman Iman: Water is Life – Tinariwen

    8. They bring their intoxicating desert blues sound from the Sahara desert to the world. They blend traditional vocals with blazing electric guitars for a unique sound.

  8. Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes

    9. Modern folk music with breathtakingly beautiful vocal harmonies.

  9. Illinoise – Sufjan Stevens

    10. Sufjan is one of the best singer/songwriters around, who also plays every instrument on this album. Some of his songs like “Chicago” are instant classics.

  10. Ágætis Byrjun – Sigur Rós

    11. One of the most beautiful sounding albums ever. The stark, haunting beauty makes me want to visit their native Iceland.

I also really want to include Vampire Weekend for their wonderful afro-pop touches and intelligent lyrics that make it a worthy successor to Paul Simon’s “Graceland”. Hopefully like Graceland it will introduce a new generation to afro-pop.

Update: Hear all 10 albums in this 8track mix:

MacMegasite is changing hosts

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I’m moving MacMegasite back to DreamHost, after I got an email from MediaTemple warning of a large GPU overage of over 300 GPUs (which is around $30). The site should be down for a few hours, but for now you can see it at macmegasite.dreamhosters.com.

According to MediaTemple’s GPU usage report, the biggest offender is macmegasite.com/feed, which is being redirected to FeedBurner using a plugin, with 150433 hits for a total of 218.4496 (22% of the total).