My initial reaction to the teasers for 3.0 was excitement. My understanding of the opening up of the accessory port to developers would allow for fun innovation. I was wrong.

The dream I had was to be able to connect my iPhone, via USB, to my camera(s). This would allow my phone to act as a remote control, and as an external screen for photos & video. The gPhoto libraries looked like they could provide a starting point.

What is actually provided doesn’t allow for straight USB connectivity.

The External Accessory support requires a validated accessory, with appropriate hardware protocols, to work. You also need to be a member of two programs, iPhone Developer and the Made for iPod program.

I can’t see Canon or Nikon releasing cameras with iPod dock connectors or protocols.

This doesn’t leave many options. One is to build a hardware device that is USB in one end and a custom protocol out the other. This gets tricky fast as the hardware device needs to figure out the camera support. And I really liked the idea of a simple cable connection being all that is required.

The second option still has some merit: WiFi. There are a few downsides. Firstly, you need a camera that supports WiFi or an expensive adaptor. This limits the audience for the app. Secondly, you need a wireless network available and to also manage pairing between your iPhone and your camera. This starts to be more equipment than desirable.

If you have a laptop lying around, onOne software released such an iPhone app.

Coblyn is just released for Mac OS X. A combination of puzzle solving and action, harks back to the computing days of old. If you loved Boulder Dash, check it out.

The neat thing is that the user manual includes details on how to create levels. The site also includes a bonus pack of 200 classic levels.

Apple’s iPod Shuffle is now only $65 AUD ($49 USD). I picked up one when they cost a bit more, and found it to be a very useful way of playing music when I didn’t want to have to think about it. Like when snowboarding.

The downside? It so small and convenient, I can’t seem to find mine. Perhaps this is a good reason (excuse) to look at an iPod Touch.

- found via techmeme

I do most of my web testing and development on localhost/~gmwils. Unfortunately, the upgrade to Leopard made this very broken.

Apple kindly updated apache from v1 to v2, and as a result the configuration directory moves from /etc/httpd to /etc/apache2. The log directory also moves, from /log/httpd to /log/apache2.

Mike isolated the problem:

When a user is created on your system, a small Apache configuration file is created that enables Apache to serve content from their ~/Sites/ directory. Under Tiger, these files were stored in /private/etc/httpd/users/. From what I can tell, if you’ve done an upgrade from Tiger to Leopard, those files do not get migrated over to the new /private/etc/apache2/users/ folder.

So, in order to make your sites work again, make sure to copy your Apache per-user configuration files from /private/etc/httpd/users to /private/etc/apache2/users.

Safari has been available on Windows for a while. This provides Apple with a wider development platform for iPhone apps. It also gives Windows one of the fastest browsers around.

The 3.0.4 beta release adds a few new features that improve its usability:

• Ctrl-num keys now work. For example, Ctrl-1 launches the first URL in your bookmarks toolbar. (I love this feature)
• Improved stability
• Improved compatibility
• Spell checking
• and heaps of others…

The other nice feature is proper font rendering.

I find that I still use Firefox for lots of development, but have started to use Safari more as my main browser on Windows. It is simply faster and more pleasant.