CategoryTechnology

Siri-ously?

I understand that Siri is still in beta, but it can still be extremely irritating how it interprets some things so oddly. I asked “How far is it from Singapore to Amsterdam” with Siri just insisting that it “cannot give directions in Singapore.” I’m sure everyone knows already, but it’s often best to prefix whatever you want to ask with “Wolfram” to increase your chances of getting some sort of sensible response. I suppose this would be much less important in the US … and have anecdotally heard that some Australians are having trouble getting the word “wolfram” itself to be recognized. <Giggle>

Before it’s suggested that SingTel has def!nd out now as a localized Siri, def!nd works fine to search for local things, but is and never was intended to be a drop-in Siri replacement despite what some deluded reporters like to put in their headlines.

iOS 5- Device Not Eligible Error

You’ve gone through the process of updating your OS X to 10.7.2, updating iTunes to 10.5, syncing, downloading iOS 5, and backing up, but after all that clicking and waiting you find that “this device is not eligible for the requested build.”

The culprit would seem to be a now problematic entry in /etc/hosts. Namely, a single line at the end:

74.208.10.249   gs.apple.com

Well, this line is not in a pristine hosts file and should be removed or commented out. By removed, I mean delete it. By commented out, I mean modify the line to read only:

#74.208.10.249   gs.apple.com

Of course, you cannot edit the file in place, so copy it, and perhaps a backup (how about “/etc/hosts.orig”) somewhere to edit, then copy that back to the original place – all as an admin user.

Reboot. Rebackup. Rejoice.

New Terminal at Folder

In the past it could be a chore to open a new terminal window at the folder you were in. Even using a launcher such as Quicksilver, you had to manually navigate to where you already should be.

In the new App Store, I noticed a little free app called Go2Shell. You could either place this in the finder window toolbar for click access, or just invoke it from your launcher whilst wherever in your folder structure.

With Lion, while looking through Notational Velocity info, I came upon a new (to me, at least) way to do the same via the Services menu – for those of that particular bent. (If you happen to be, then you already know you can set up a hotkey for any service to avoid the trouble of an unnatural right-click of the mouse). This setting is at:

System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Services > Files and Folders > New Terminal at Folder

It also allows you to open a new tab in your current terminal right here if you’re the sort who just keeps it open all the time. I selected both to see if it would be aware of the terminal running status and found that if it’s not running only the New Terminal option is available.

Go2Shell still is a great non-fiddly option and I’ll keep it installed. If you have some curiosity, you might go through all those shortcuts and see what gems may be hidden away.

update: geesh … it took me hours to absently use this Go2Shell before i got “it”. slowwww ammm ayeeee.