words by patrick

Thanks to ThisService, I’ve turned the previously mentioned ROT13 ruby script into a system-wide Mac OS X service. Simply select the text you want encrypted/decrypted, hit CMD-Shift-R or select ROT13 from the service menu, and your text will be ROT13-ified.

Thanks, Jesper!

Dowload it here: ROT13service.zip

I recently got a Nike+iPod sport kit and shoes. They are really damn cool. It does what it is meant to do quite well (tracking your run and giving you all kinds of fun motivating statistics) but I had always wondered how it recorded the information, and if there was anything else fun I could get it to do.

Luckily for everyone, Apple and nike chose to record this data as clean XML. Here’s what a workout file looks like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<sportsData><vers>1</vers>
<runSummary><workoutName>Basic</workoutName>
<time>2006-08-13T00:54:49-04:00</time>
<duration>1716812</duration>
<durationString>28:36</durationString>
<distance unit="km">4.3527</distance>
<distanceString>4.35 km</distanceString>
<pace>6:34 min/km</pace>
<calories>355</calories>
<battery></battery>
<playlistList><playlist><playlistName>Running</playlistName>
</playlist>
</playlistList>
<stepCounts><walkBegin>124</walkBegin>
<walkEnd>1316</walkEnd>
<runBegin>98</runBegin>
<runEnd>3028</runEnd>
</stepCounts>
</runSummary>
<template><templateID>8D495DCE</templateID>
<templateName>Basic</templateName>
</template>
<goal type="" value="" unit=""></goal>
<userInfo><empedID>5C6284WFVSX</empedID>
<weight>79.4</weight>
<device>iPod</device>
<calibration>000000004170000001fe00230000000041f0000004a1000000002b0000000000</calibration>
</userInfo>
<startTime>2006-08-13T00:54:49-04:00</startTime>
<snapShotList snapShotType="userClick"><snapShot event="onDemandVP"><duration>313248</duration>
<distance>0.92</distance>
</snapShot>
<snapShot event="onDemandVP"><duration>528706</duration>
<distance>1.548</distance>
</snapShot>
<snapShot event="onDemandVP"><duration>755721</duration>
<distance>2.222</distance>
</snapShot>
<snapShot event="onDemandVP"><duration>790638</duration>
<distance>2.284</distance>
</snapShot>
<snapShot event="onDemandVP"><duration>1066793</duration>
<distance>2.714</distance>
</snapShot>
<snapShot event="onDemandVP"><duration>1277388</duration>
<distance>3.341</distance>
</snapShot>
<snapShot event="onDemandVP"><duration>1410509</duration>
<distance>3.552</distance>
</snapShot>
<snapShot event="powerSong"><duration>1412404</duration>
<distance>3.554</distance>
</snapShot>
<snapShot event="stop"><duration>1716780</duration>
<distance>4.352</distance>
</snapShot>
</snapShotList>
<snapShotList snapShotType="kmSplit"><snapShot><duration>339859</duration>
<distance>1.0</distance>
</snapShot>
<snapShot><duration>677423</duration>
<distance>2.001</distance>
</snapShot>
<snapShot><duration>1168834</duration>
<distance>3.0</distance>
</snapShot>
<snapShot><duration>1558960</duration>
<distance>4.0</distance>
</snapShot>
</snapShotList>
<snapShotList snapShotType="mileSplit"><snapShot><duration>549808</duration>
<distance>1.611</distance>
</snapShot>
<snapShot><duration>1236915</duration>
<distance>3.219</distance>
</snapShot>
</snapShotList>
<extendedDataList><extendedData dataType="distance" intervalType="time" intervalUnit="s" intervalValue="10">0.0, 0.0201, 0.0331, 0.0608, 0.098, 0.13, 0.1586, 0.1899, 0.2219, 0.2542, 0.2858, 0.3174, 0.3447, 0.3745, 0.4045, 0.4323, 0.467, 0.4948, 0.526, 0.5579, 0.586, 0.6159, 0.6486, 0.6789, 0.706, 0.7344, 0.7678, 0.795, 0.8255, 0.8592, 0.8852, 0.9146, 0.9445, 0.9711, 1.0004, 1.0296, 1.0563, 1.0882, 1.1148, 1.1447, 1.1753, 1.2036, 1.2338, 1.2632, 1.2934, 1.3219, 1.3515, 1.3811, 1.4105, 1.4401, 1.4656, 1.4948, 1.5246, 1.5509, 1.5808, 1.6115, 1.6395, 1.6729, 1.7034, 1.7304, 1.7604, 1.7922, 1.8245, 1.8536, 1.8847, 1.9164, 1.9476, 1.9793, 2.0107, 2.0425, 2.0697, 2.1003, 2.1317, 2.1616, 2.1865, 2.2137, 2.2369, 2.2516, 2.2664, 2.2846, 2.2988, 2.3148, 2.3308, 2.3471, 2.3633, 2.3775, 2.3936, 2.41, 2.4263, 2.4407, 2.4581, 2.4716, 2.4872, 2.5027, 2.5192, 2.5334, 2.5487, 2.5662, 2.5804, 2.5962, 2.6108, 2.6263, 2.6424, 2.6584, 2.6744, 2.6902, 2.704, 2.7188, 2.7341, 2.75, 2.7794, 2.8115, 2.8469, 2.8768, 2.9089, 2.9377, 2.9728, 3.0067, 3.0369, 3.0706, 3.102, 3.1347, 3.1682, 3.2005, 3.2293, 3.2613, 3.2906, 3.3215, 3.3471, 3.3636, 3.3782, 3.3931, 3.411, 3.427, 3.4416, 3.4579, 3.4742, 3.4888, 3.5074, 3.5213, 3.5383, 3.5518, 3.5634, 3.5822, 3.5978, 3.6106, 3.6486, 3.6933, 3.7372, 3.7769, 3.8201, 3.8626, 3.9049, 3.9381, 3.9691, 3.986, 4.0022, 4.0185, 4.0331, 4.0489, 4.0654, 4.0831, 4.098, 4.1143, 4.1303, 4.1463, 4.176, 4.2112, 4.2456, 4.2796, 4.3102, 4.3404</extendedData>
</extendedDataList>
</sportsData>

As you can see, the extendedData tag holds the real meat of the workout: the distance ran (in kilometers, since that’s how I set mine up) recorded every 10 seconds. We also get interesting snapShot items, that tell us the exact moment, to 1/1000 of a second, when we hit certain kilometer or mile milestones, or when the user hit the Voice Feedback button (the “onDemandVP” event).

You can also see, closer to the top, basic workout info such as how many calories burned duration, distance, average pace, etc.

Some things of interest include the stepCounts tag, which I guess counts steps, but isn’t used at all in the Nike+iPod interface.

It’s cool that this data is totally open and free to be hacked upon, although I’m not quite sure what I would use if for just yet, as the Nike+iPod web app seems to handle pretty much all my needs thus far. It’s nice to know that should the Nike+ service ever die, writing your own desktop app (that is much more precise and feature-ful) would not be difficult.

Hopefully this will be of use to someone or even just the curious like me.

There are a bazillion rumours floating around on the internet about what is going to be announced at WWDC next week. Everything from an Apple cell phone to Core 2 Duo “Mac Pro” machines, to the “iTunes Movie Store” and more. Hardware always seems to attract the rumour-mongers, but after getting more involved with programming for OS X I am finding myself much more interested in the obvious: Leopard, the next generation of Mac OS X. This might also be because I recently bought a MacBook, and thus don’t and won’t really care about hardware for a while.

There’s a lot of big, big things Apple could do Leopard, since they stated they want to slow down major releases. In my mind, slower releases is akin to having bigger major releases. That said, I’m thinking Leopard is going to pretty big and special so that it has a longer life-span.

Here’s my short, crazy unrealistic wish-list:

• Xcode 3 will be open-sourced, and will be able to benefit from the community just like WebKit already has.
• Leopard will FTFF (”Fix the Fucking Finder”, for the uninitiated) but it will go further than that. The entire OS will receive an slight appearance overhaul, and improve the oh-so-elusive UI consistency that is lacking in Tiger.
• Part of the new UI will have BeOS style window title bars. Okay, I know this isn’t likely… but they are just so much nicer and more efficient.
• Quartz 2D Extreme will be turned on. And it will kick ass.
• Leopard Light - Apple will offer a stripped down Mac OS X that can run nicely on older/smaller systems.