I’ve made the jump to Indie development finally.  While I still have one year left in school, I have managed to save some money up so I don’t have to work for awhile and I focus on getting a project under my belt.

If you’re looking for help with a Cocoa, iPhone, or web project, or have any ideas, I’d love to hear them.  I have a few ideas myself and have one in development, but I’m still up for more to take on.  Look forward to hearing from everyone!

So I can’t take credit for the actual rainbow in this illustration, as it is available on iStockPhoto.com, but I wanted to share this background that I made with it for others.  A gesture of gay pride for all others out there.  Enjoy!

Here’s a bit of local news for all those in Knoxville, TN.

The Lambda Student Union of the University of Tennessee is holding an event in Market Square, on Sunday April 6th, from 1-10pm. Women bands will perform all afternoon and evening, benefiting local charities and organizations. The event is free and open to the public.

Hope to see you there!

I just wanted to remind everyone that the presidential primaries are well underway and that your vote counts! I say that as early voting takes place on campus over the next few days, giving students a chance to vote out of their district. The official voting day for the primaries is next Tuesday, February 5th.

Please educate yourself on the candidates and vote!

Worlds AIDS Day originated at the 1988 World Summit of Ministers of Health on Programs for AIDS Prevention. Observed on December 1st each year, World AIDS Day is dedicated to raising awareness of the AIDS pandemic caused by the spread of HIV.

For more information, visit the World AIDS Day Campaign website.

So I pre-ordered my copy of Leopard from the Apple Store even though I ended up having this Friday off and will be going to a local store to hopefully grab a free Leopard t-shirt. But just wanted to say that I received a shipment notification email this morning for overnight delivery, so it really should be delivered on the 26th. That pretty awesome!

I was asked a little while back if I wanted to take on a small project and I jumped at the chance. I was given some mockups for the pages in the site and asked to turn all that into a website, in 3 weeks.

1 week early I gave the guy the files and the site went live. Overall it was an awesome experience. Was my first time working with a client and working under a time restraint. I was given a featureset and I had to implement all that. In the end I was able to throw in a trick or two and get it done early, all of which pleased the guy to no end.

If you’re interested in taking a look at the work, you can check the site out over here. The site is for a new podcast with multiple shows, called MacLive. There is a teaser episode right now which you can listen to from the homepage. Be sure to read up a little on each episode and browse around.

NOTE: At the time of writing this, the site owner still hasn’t edited some text on a few pages or got the online store working yet. He wanted the site as it was to at least have something up and will edit the other pages as the information comes available. Just saving myself a little embarassment there.

I haven’t made hardly any posts in the last several weeks and wanted to give some just general news and updates to hold everyone over for awhile.

A lot has happened with the Mac community in the last month or so, I don’t have the time or memory to accurately recall everything that has transpired. Of note, however, is that the AppleTVs have shipped and Leopard should be ready for a release within the next few months. Something worth getting excited over!

School and just life in general has been pretty insane these last few weeks. Everything is starting to die down a bit, but I’m trying to take some more personal time to just enjoy life than I have in the past, and that tends to be very time consuming in itself. I have had some time to tie up a lot of loose ends and get started in a few other areas, and I’d like to share that.

Photos
I’m working through a basic photography book and looking to book a class this summer on photography. I have also been using Aperture for several months now and it has been in the queue for a review. Since it will still be several weeks before I get around to reviewing it, I just thought I would say that it is an incredible piece of software and I especially love the vaults feature. More to come on that topic later. I have posted a gallery of my favorite pictures from my trip to Charleston, SC as well as some other general photos I like online. You can view those here. Paul, I’d especially like any comments as you have a photography blog of your own.

Software
Let me just start out by saying that my current computer class has been a real challenge. Computer Organization is the name of the game and the class focuses on digital logic, processor performance and pipelining, memory management, and the ARM assembly language. Just to say up front, I despise writing in assembly. Read in between the lines. HATE it. However, I have learned a lot and the class has been a real challenge.

Also of note here is that I have stopped development on Viewer and removed it from the site. I put a lot of work into the project, but in the end it was very sloppy and poorly written. Without the time or motivation to rework my previous work and with a lack of general interest, I’ve put it on the back burner and left it to die. On a rainy day with time on my hands and an interest in revising and revisiting past projects, I might take it up again, but I doubt it.

So the good news here, I’ve started a new project! I’ve worked through the general game-play logic and written my base code or a Phase 10-like game. I love the card game and just went through and realized that I could create almost everything needed on my own, except for the interface. So, in a few weeks I should have basic Terminal-based game play down and then I will embark on an adventure of learning all about custom drawing in Cocoa!

I’ve been away all week because of spring break and I’ve enjoyed a bit of sun and an amazing 3 Days Grace concert this week in sunny Charleston, SC. However, I’m taking a more lengthy leave of absence. Family trouble, relationship stuff and school have just taken there toll and until I get my life in some resemblance of order, I’ll be out.

You’re more than welcome to leave comments or send email and I’ll make a valiant effort to respond. Peace out, I hope to start writing more by mid-April if not earlier.

I just wanted to let everyone know that I haven’t fallen off the face of the Earth quite yet. I’ve been extremely busy with school related stuff and work and getting ready for spring break! However, I do have an episode in the works that I hope to have ready by this weekend, if not sooner. I’ll be discussing Tubular, an awesome YouTube client/converter that has been in the beta stage for quite some time now and just saw an update this week.

Thanks to all of the regular listeners and contributers to the site. It’s great to get emails from everyone and feedback, so keep that coming. I also hope to be posting a few articles from listeners that have wrote in with awesome ideas, applescripts, automator actions, etc. Those will be going up once I type and edit some more, asking for approval of my changes, etc.

Of further note, if anyone is a member of a student organzation on any campus that is Mac oriented or if you have been involved in any MUG (Mac User Group) before, please send me an email so we can talk. I have contacted my campus’s Apple Representative and finally receieved a response that there is no such group available on my campus and we’ve been talking a bit, with the possibility of me heading one up. I’d just like to get some feedback and ideas from anyone else if they have went through anything similar before.