Saoud's Thoughts

Category: apple

  • Oh My Zsh and Powerlevel10k in macOS in iTerm 2

    First of all, install iTerm2 (because it provides a much better experience with Oh My Zsh and Powerlevel10k); either download it and install it from here iTerm or use “homebrew”:

    brew install --cask iterm2

    Then, install Oh My Zsh; since I have “curl” installed, I’m using this command (otherwise, see the Oh My Zsh URL for alternative options):

    sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"

    Then, we install p10k:

    git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k.git ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-$HOME/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/themes/powerlevel10k

    To enable it, edit “~/.zshrc” and set the variable ZSH_THEME accordingly:

    ZSH_THEME="powerlevel10k/powerlevel10k"

    Now, either “source” the .zshrc file or open a new instance of iterm2 to see the initial configuration of p10k (remember you can always reconfigure it by running “p10k configure”):

    Meslo fonts are recommended to have nice icon fonts, so it’s best to accept the proposal to install the Meslo fonts (in macOS, you have this nice automatic procedure). Let’s wait for the fonts to be downloaded.

    Then restart iTerm2 or open a new tab.

    Now, we start a new iterm2 instance, and we start p10k from scratch, it will prompt you with questions for checking whether we can see the font icons correctly.

    Then, we can start choosing our preferred options, pick whichever ones you prefer and look best to you.

    Now, I install two other useful plugins (to have syntax highlighting on the command line and to have suggested commands as you type based on history and completions):

    git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting.git ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-syntax-highlighting

git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-autosuggestions

    The plug-ins must be enabled in the proper section of ~/.zshrc:

    plugins=( ... exsiting plugins...
zsh-syntax-highlighting
zsh-autosuggestions
)

    I also like to have fzf, a general-purpose command-line fuzzy finder. This must be first installed as a program, e.g., with homebrew:

    brew install fzf

    I like to add a few more plugins and then enable the corresponding plug-in which include fzf:

    plugins=(
  git
  zsh-syntax-highlighting
  zsh-autosuggestions
  zsh-interactive-cd
  zsh-navigation-tools
  fzf
)

  • Here’s how to install Android on your iPhone 2G


    Last week, planetbeing claimed he’d ported Android to the iPhone. This week, Android A Lot says you can, too. If you’ve got an original iPhone 2G handy, there’s now a 68-step guide that can walk you through the entire process. In a nutshell, you’ll use iPhone Explorer to copy over the Android files, then turn your Mac or PC into an Ubuntu virtual machine to install the OpeniBoot software. When you’re done, you’ll probably have a dual-booting iPhone that can swap between iPhone OS and an experimental version of Android 1.6 at startup, but don’t quote us on that — we haven’t had a chance to test the unholy matrimony for ourselves. We’re going to try to give this a shot next week, and we’ll report back from the other side… if there is another side. Blurry video walkthrough after the break, useful step-by-step text at our source link.

    Guide to Installing Android on iPhone 2G from AndroidALot on Vimeo.

    Source Android A Lot

  • Official: Apple now offering iPhones contract free (updated: not unlocked)

    We heard from 9 to 5 Mac that Apple was due to begin selling a contract-free variant of the iPhone in the near future “at list price.” And guess what happened when we inquired to an Apple store? That’s right folks — you can now pick one up for $499 (3G), $599, or $699 (3GS). We’ve confirmed this info at no less than five stores, so you should be hearing the same message at your local Appletorium. Given the current unfriendly climate between Apple and Google, this could be seen as nasty jab, though the devices are still carrier-locked to AT&T, so you’re not being given much freedom… and it’s certainly not much of a statement. In many parts of Europe (France and Poland, for example) you can pick up the carrier-unattached device (and we mean totally unlocked), but that doesn’t appear to be the case here.

    These devices are still locked to AT&T — so you’re just looking at an off contract pricing scheme. Which is also totally lame.

    Source:9 to 5 Mac

  • Apple vs HTC: a patent breakdown

    Apple suing HTC over 20-odd patents before both the US District Court and the International Trade Commission has certainly caused some chaos this morning, but we thought we’d take a quick breath now that we have the complaints and tease out exactly what patents are at stake here. Of note, most of the patents were granted in the past year, but overall they span a range from 1995 to February 2. Yes, last month. That’s a pretty big gap, and most of the patents are pretty dry and technical — and none of them cover anything like pinch-to-zoom. In fact, you might remember #7,479,949, “Touch screen device, method, and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics” — we blew apart the myth that it was Apple’s “multitouch patent” back when Cupertino was making noise about Palm. It’s impossible for us to say exactly how this case is going to play out — just like the Apple / Nokia lawsuit, it could settle tomorrow, or it could last for 10 years — but what we do know is that Apple’s going after Android as much as it’s going after HTC. Some of these patents are from 15 years ago and cover OS-level behavior, so it’s hard to see how they can relate only to HTC’s implementation of Android and not Google’s OS as a whole. Yeah, it’s wild, and while we’re not going to blow out all 20 patents to sort out what they mean — not yet, anyway — we can certainly walk through the claims. Let’s see what we’ve got. (more…)