2020-06-27-i-wrote-this-two.gmi (7180B)
1 # I Wrote This #2 2 3 Hi! So, I just started this series and I already missed a week. Oh well. This week was a crazy week for Apple and their operating systems, as they announced iOS 14 and macOS 11 Big Sur at this year's WWDC. I've also started working on a new game project, another little side project, and finding a good alternative to Keybase now that it's owned by Zoom. 4 5 ## Jailbreaking my iPhone 6 7 When I was a kid – or at least, a younger child than I am now – I had a friend who jailbroke his phone. I thought it was super cool, and wanted to do the same. At around the same time I was watching TechSource, I got deep into those Top 10 Amazing Jailbreak Tweaks compilations. However, I wasn't allowed to jailbreak my phone because my parents said it wasn't allowed, and that was the end of that. 8 9 Until last week, when I decided to jailbreak my iPhone 7 running iOS 13.5.1 using the checkra1n hardware exploit. To do this, I couldn't use my USB-C to Lightning cable due to a known issue and instead swapped to a USB-A to Lightning cable with a USB-A to USB-C adapter. After jailbreaking the phone, I began to install a host of tweaks. One of the most interesting things I learned about the jailbreaking community is that charging upfront for apps is quite common for premium and well-known tweaks, which stands in high contrast to the iOS App Store's ubiquitous freemium payment model (a free download followed by a monthly subscription) especially in the light of the Apple-Hey.com controversy of recent weeks. 10 11 => https://checkra.in checkra1n 12 => https://github.com/checkra1n/BugTracker/issues/1#issue-519574712 checkra1n's known issues (including incompatibility with Apple's own USB-C to Lighting cables) 13 => https://hey.com/apple Apple-Hey.com controversy 14 15 All in all, I spent around USD$21 on tweaks, which is infinitely more than I have spent on the App Store – so maybe charging upfront does work. Huh. 16 17 => /static/media/ios-jailbreak-tour.mp4 A little tour of my jailbroken phone 18 19 ## Updating my iDevices to Developer Betas 20 21 Soon after completing the jailbreak, WWDC happened and new developer betas were released. Never one to miss jumping on a hype train, I updated both of my main devices to the new software. These new betas come with a whole host of bugs, as is to be expected, which I plan to write about in a blog post coming soon. So far, however, I'm liking these updates – the PiP on iOS is *incredible*, and the new design on macOS is growing on me. 22 23 Some interesting resources: 24 25 => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2aaCDNjWEg An interview of Craig Federighi by MKBHD 26 => https://gitlab.com/gnachman/iterm2/-/issues/8964 This iTerm2 issue on GitLab 27 => https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1647816 This Firefox bug 28 => https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/issues/10152 This Github issue for Homebrew users (so basically everybody) 29 30 Interestingly, I was having a bunch of issues with brew (curl was broken?) after updating to Big Sur but now it seems to be working flawlessly. Very nice. 31 32 33 ## Making a Doughnut in Blender 34 35 For my next medium-large project, I'm going to need to make some 3D art and models. One problem: I don't know how to do that, or rather, I didn't. Thanks internet! I powered through the incredible Blender Beginner Tutorial Series by the Blender Guru. 36 37 => https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjEaoINr3zgEq0u2MzVgAaHEBt--xLB6U Blender Beginner Tutorial Series 38 => https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOKHwx1VCdgnxwbjyb9Iu1g Blender Guru 39 => /static/media/blender-doughnut.mp4 My final animation 40 41 ## Replacing Keybase 42 43 Now that Keybase is compromised, I thought it would be good to seek out an alternative. Initially, I thought that keys.pub would be perfect – I thought it was a slightly-tweaked fork. However, this does not appear to be the case. Instead, it seems kinda like garbo – it doesn't have the budget Keybase had, and as a result, is majorly lacking in features. However, I've replaced it completely, and am happier with this setup than I ever was with Keybase. My new setup uses Matrix and Element for messaging, Jitsi for video chat, Syncthing for file storage, and an Indieweb h-card for identity verification. I plan on writing more about this at a later date, but I'm really pleased with the results so far. 44 45 => https://keybase.io/blog/keybase-joins-zoom Keybase Joins Zoom 46 => https://keys.pub keys.pub 47 => https://matrix.org Matrix 48 => https://element.io Element 49 => https://jitsi.org Jitsi 50 => https://syncthing.net Syncthing 51 => https://indieweb.org Indieweb 52 53 ## Future Projects 54 55 I've got a few interesting projects in the pipeline at the moment, not counting the few articles that I've already promised to write. My next major project is a dreidel game/simulator for mobile devices – I plan to code it with Godot, make the models with Blender, and do any music/sound stuff in FLStudio. Naturally, I'll keep you all updated on any progress there. 56 57 => https://godotengine.org Godot 58 => https://www.blender.org Blender 59 => https://www.image-line.com/flstudio FLStudio 60 61 I'm also working on a much smaller project that should take around a day or two to complete. The working title is "howmanyisraels.com" – essentially, it's a website that takes the size of the State of Israel, and compares it to the size of a given location and tells you how many times Israel could fit inside it. All I need to do is find a suitable mapping API (preferably not by Google) that will tell me the size of different locations and I can whip it into a static site! 62 63 I'm also planning on revamping the txtodo macOS app with Mac Catalyst, which I feel I haven't properly explored. I've also discovered a bug in the app that causes issues when tasks are modified by CloudKit instead of the user, so I'm going to have to work on that as well. Shouldn't be hard! 64 65 ## Interesting Blog Tidbits 66 67 I'm not sure what tense to write my headers in – I currently write them in present continuous tense but I am considering writing them like I do Git commits. Huh. I'm also committing to writing more non-update blog posts but we'll see how that goes. Writing is hard, and you shouldn't make false promises. I'm also working on implementing webmentions to the site, which is a little difficult with a static site but I'm going to give it a try. Lastly, I really need to learn how to use vim but it's so goddamn hard. I'm writing this blog post with it but I'm definitely not using it to its full potential at all. 68 69 ## New Music 70 71 Wow, these have been a great two weeks for the Israeli music scene. In no particular order, here are some good new songs (basically in the order they appear on the trending tab): 72 73 * Habib Albi – Static and Ben El 74 * Rak Banot – Itay Levi and Stephane Legar 75 * Shvuaim – Eden Hason 76 * Yom Huledet – Eliad 77 * Hatzi Madleket – Dudu Faruk 78 * Hayde – Peled 79 * Ze Mi She Ani – Peled 80 81 I know music isn't tech, but I like it and now it's a recurring section. 82 83 ## Wrapup 84 85 So, that's been this week's update. I'm really enjoying writing updates on this blog, and I hope you stick around. Until then, farewell! 86 87 -- 88 FIGBERT 89