John’s Home

If you program on the .NET platform and you want to try something other than the goliath incumbent Visual Studio, you have a new option:

Rider 2017.1 – JetBrains .NET IDE hits RTM

Supports F# too! I hope to give it a spin soon and see how it compares to VS for F#.

Well, you would be mistaken if you thought it would be easy to download all of your photos from iCloud. It is easy if you only have 50 photos, or if you are some kind of super twitch gamer who can click the mouse 10000 times in 5 seconds.

Apple, in their infinite wisdom, removed the ability to select all photos. You cannot shift click to select many photos. Boo!

I eventually figured out a solution. It takes a few steps. I posted this on stackexchange as well here:

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/283630/downloading-all-photos-from-icloud-photo-library-without-photos-app

It would be appreciated if this works for you if you could vote my answer up.

Here’s the details:

I was able to figure out a workaround for this. It will force the underlying structure to select all of the photos on the page and allow you to click the download selected photos button. It will download them all separately as if you had selected all of the photos by hand (but without RSI).

You need to use Chrome dev tools. I am sure you can do it with other browsers, I just haven’t tried. The following steps are involved, and I would appreciate if someone can tell me how to get the “this” value for the object I need in a simpler fashion (steps 4-10).

Here’s the steps:

1. Make sure chrome dev tools is closed.
2. Go to photos in iCloud, then All Photos
3. Right click any photo on the page and select Inspect.
4. Click Sources tab at the top of dev tools.
5. Click braces {} at bottom of the sources window to format the code.
6. Search for case m$408$0.TOGGLE (should be around line 41706)
7. Set a breakpoint on the line above which is a switch statement.
8. Click on any photo in the main window.
9. Go back to dev tools and see the scope window (below source for me).
10. Right click on “this” variable and choose Store as Global Variable.
11. Look in the console. Should see something like temp1 which is set to this.
12. Remove the breakpoint in the source window.
13. Click the Resume Script Execution button in main window.
14. Go to the console, and type the following and press enter:

    temp1.selectAll()
    

15. Nothing appears to have changed, but it has underneath.
16. Now click the download selected items button at the top.
17. You will now see a bunch of downloads happening.

Saw this headline:

Here’s What 56,785 Homers Look Like On A Map

this is what I saw:

this is what I expected:

at least one of the images is useful. Not sure what you would use the baseball one for though.

I was a little shocked when I went to google recently and saw the following doodle…

…I  immediately wondered which famous person had the same birthday as myself!!

Turns out it was me! Definitely an opportunity for businesses to make a personal connection. Only three did it this year, google, starbucks, and my vision dr.

First one from Troy Hunt again, with advice for sites that provide logins:

https://www.troyhunt.com/passwords-evolved-authentication-guidance-for-the-modern-era/

Second one from gizmodo, which shows the most secure way to lock your smartphone, and in typical click-bait style, the answer may surprise you:

http://fieldguide.gizmodo.com/whats-the-most-secure-way-to-lock-your-smartphone-1796948710/amp

Although, if you watch enough Mission Impossible or Man from U.N.C.L.E. then the answer is more obvious.

I saw an enterprise version of FizzBuzz today and could hardly stop laughing:

https://github.com/EnterpriseQualityCoding/FizzBuzzEnterpriseEdition

Reminds me of this:

It can be difficult to use non-Apple apps that provide built-in functionality. One app I really want to like is iCab Mobile. It is really powerful when compared to Safari or Chrome on iOS. The problem I have had is harnessing that power and knowing what features I can use when I need them. A bit like using vim to edit one line of a text document.

Check out this article on what is so great about iCab:

http://www.macdrifter.com/2016/01/a-few-nice-icab-tricks-for-2016.html

Give it a shot and see if it can creep onto your home page.

Some of the guidelines for security answers are ridiculous:

• Answers must be at least 4 letters long and can’t have more than 2 repeating letters in a row. What if my answer is “zzz” or “beeeater”?
• The same answer can’t be used for more than one question. I guess this makes sense because it would theoretically make it easier for a hacker to guess the answer.
• Pick questions and answers that are easy to remember and that don’t change over time.  Most sites I have seen don’t let you choose your own questions.

Some questions are priceless:

• What was the one food you have tried, but would not eat under any circumstance?
• What is the most unusual job you have had?