3.0 brings features such as events, pages, groups, uploading video, creating/editing/deleting photo albums, uploading photo/video to any album, “Like”, commenting, notes, notifications, news feed filtering and more. The UI has had a major overhaul and overall is much more put together and easier to use. See below for some screenshots.

In brief, all your files will appear larger (the larger the file, the larger it will be on Snow Leopard). For example, a 241.2MB file on Leopard is now 252.9MB on Snow Leopard. Technically, the files have not changed at all, and the number of bytes (basic unit of measurement) is exactly the same (252,916,507 in our example). What has changed is how Apple converts the number of bytes into KB, MB, GB, and TB.

I’m a Computer Science graduate and I consider myself very familiar with computer terminology and arithmetic. I’m ashamed to say that I had never heard that there are in fact two ways to measure bytes – a power of 1000 and a power of 2.

I’ve done a good bit of math based on numbers that are powers of 2. 2^9 is 512 and 2^10 is 1024. In Leopard and anywhere else I’ve seen the conversion, to convert bytes to KB you divide by 2^10, into MB by 2^20, and into GB by 2^30. However, according to Wiki (and not my college professors) a MB (Megabyte) is in fact 1000^2 bytes. It’s the prefix Mi(Mebi) byte that is 2^20 bytes.

What does this all boil down to? First, Apple’s calculation of file sizes will line up with their definition, but not how anyone else in the world (to my knowledge) measures files. Second, users won’t be so confused when they are looking at a “Get Info” window for a file, because the math is just moving decimal places now instead of diving by strange numbers such as 1024.

One final interesting note: Apple claims that you can free up to 7GB of hard drive space by upgrading to Snow Leopard (presumably by removing all that legacy PPC code). 7GB ( 1000 ^ 3 * 7 = 7,000,000,000 bytes) in Snow Leopard is significantly less than it was in Leopard ( 2 ^ 30 * 7 = 7,526,192,768 bytes) . So, if Apple hadn’t changed it’s conversion scheme, they could have only claimed that Snow Leopard in fact freed up ( 7,000,000,000 / 2 ^ 30 ) 6.52GB. Just to put that into perspective.

Wikipedia – Gibibyte
MacWorld UK – Snow Leopard’s New Maths
Apple Snow Leopard

Note that Snow Leopard is the first Intel-only OS release. If you are running an older Mac with PPC processors (such as a G3, G4, or G5) Snow Leopard will not work on your Mac.

I’ll be grabbing my upgrade copy later this evening and I’ll report back for everyone.

From the IconFactory and DS Media Labs (IconFactory is behind Twitterific for Mac & iPhone, as well as the wonderful Frenzic for Mac & iPhone) comes Ramp Champ.  The app is essentially a carnival or fair without the warm weather and funnel cakes.  There are 4 different “games” loaded with the app, all of which are based on the simple game of flicking a ball up the ramp to knock something down and get points.  Good old fashioned carnival games.

The levels are all very distinct, with a lot of thought put into each one (and gorgeously designed).  There are goals to meet to earn trophies, and as you rack up points you earn tickets.  Then you can use your tickets to buy souveniers, and there are a ton of fun cute souvenirs to buy.  I personally love the attention to this part of the game – when you view your purchased souveneirs, there is a quaint little description with each.  And the little blurb is hilariously funny most of the time – very reminiscent of buying items in the Sims games.

The level of polish on this game is amazing.  The graphics are stunning, game play is perfect, and the sound is a great touch.  There developers were smart and made the game extensible, as there are currently two additional in-application level packs available, each for $0.99.  I already purchased one, the pack for “Molar Madness” and “Happy Place”.  So far, “Molar Madness” is by far my favorite – I’m hooked.

I highly recommend this app at the $1.99 price point, it could have easily been placed at $3.99 or $4.99 and sold as well I believe, simply because of the high quality.  I use a Mac because the software is usually better and that same philosophy applies to iPhone software – especially because iPhone apps tend to be less quality overall, by sheer volume.  Finding one that is as well put together as this is worth more money.

Check out Ramp Champ today!

Just wondering who is planning on purchasing Snowy on launch weekend?  For the 29 dollar price point, I’m not sure that I’ll pass it up this weekend.

My favorite band by far has to be Three Days Grace. I connect with their music in so many ways and just love the sound. The previous album, One-X, was a pretty nice success compared to the ones before it and I have been eagerly awaiting another album since 2005.

September 22 is the date to remember for the new album titled “Life Starts Now”. I’m hoping it turns out to be as amazing as I hope. Let me know if you’re a 3DG fan as well!

http://www.threedaysgrace.com/

Check them out here.

Read More.

Found via | Wired.com

The closing comes as a way to save Adobe money in the global recession. Adobe also announced it would lay off roughly 600 workers in December.

I’m a little shaken as it’s the first real news I’ve heard of software engineers being hit by the poor economy.

Features include:

• New rendering engine for faster page loads
• New Javascript rendering engine – for blazing fast Javascript performance.
• HTML 5 support
• Geo-awareness
• Improved Search
• Improved Privacy Controls
• Several other features

Just to hit on a few of these, the new rendering engines will bring much faster page loads and apps that use a lot of javascript, like MobileMe, Google Docs or GMail, will see huge performance increases. HTML 5 support will bring native offline data storage, similar to GoogleGears, allowing web applications to work in “offline mode”, as well as native support for video and audio so websites can embed video/audio files and they will play without a plugin. Geo-awareness means websites can ask the browser for your location and get an accurate reading, which will actually be a HUGE deal. And of course everyone loves new search features and privacy controls.

Just launch Firefox to get the update, or head to getfirefox.com for a disk image when it’s released in a few hours.

Found via | WebMonkey

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki declared Tuesday to be “National Sovereignty Day,” complete with a military parade to display to Iraqis — and a still stubborn insurgency — its ability to maintain order in a nation ravaged by six years of war.

I hope that the Iraqi people and government are able to show the world and the insurgence that they mean business, bringing peace to their country. Sovereignty is such a beautiful thing and I’m sure they will cherish it.

Found via | FoxNews

Shaun’s motivation for developing Fever:

What if, instead of mentally processing hundreds of headlines your feed reader did that heavy—we’re talking pre-coffee—lifting and just told you what everyone was collectively talking about? And what if it weighted those “hot” topics and aggregated the ensuing discussions in your feeds together?

Fever is very different from any other RSS readers out there for several reasons.  The most interesting (and yet useful) feature of Fever is where the application lives.  To throw a buzz word around, Fever lives in the “Cloud”.  There is a relatively painless install that gets a copy of Fever on your web server.  And because Fever lives in the cloud, it can always be up to date and stay in sync no matter what device you view it on.  I could end my review there, but I’ll continue.

Installation

Installation couldn’t be simpler (unless Shaun could somehow setup a database on your server for you, which he can’t).  You register for an account on http://feedafever.com/, download a couple files and then throw them up on your server.  Then, let Fever connect to your MySQL database and make sure all is good to go before directing you through paypal and installing itself on your server.  Then you’re ready to import feeds in OPML format from your current news reader.  Seamless install for a web app.  30 USD gets you 1.x upgrades, which happen automatically I might add.  Point to take home, Shaun has set a new standard here.  I was impressed by the installation process alone.

Completely New Way of Looking at your News

I have tons and tons of RSS feeds.  And frankly, I don’t get that much out of them anymore because there is just so much to look at and I don’t have enough time in my day.  Shaun’s innovation hit home here.  First, your feeds are essentially organized into two classes, kindling and sparks.  Kindling are the feeds that you are hot about and don’t want to miss any action.  You can easily get unread counts and organize by group if you wish.  Sparks are feeds that essentially throw in duplicate data.

For my Mac news, I subscribe to several sites, which pretty much post the same thing over and over.  Before, this was a huge pain, but with Fever, it’s actually a plus.  If there are 5 sites that have posted almost the same thing, then obviously it’s important.  So it’s “hot”, maybe around 101F.  I’ll see a grouping of those 5 related articles under one heading, and I can view whatever ones I wish for further reading.  Taking that concept, I want to place feeds that “add fire” to my Kindling in Sparks, reinforcing what I really want to see.  So when I look at the “Hot” area, I see related articles grouped by temperature.  The more buzz on the internet over whatever, the hotter it will be and it will be higher on my list.  Truly remarkable thinking.

iPhone

Shaun took the time to make a truly stellar iPhone interface for the Fever app as well.  For me, this was just icing on the cake.  I have tried so many RSS readers on my iPhone and was disappointed time after time.  I mainly wanted something that would keep my read items in sync between my Mac and iPhone.  Since Fever is a hosted application online in the “cloud”, it can just keep chugging away checking for updates and when I launch my bookmarked Fever on my iPhone, I get a nice interface and get the syncing for free.

Extras

Shaun provides a nice bookmarklet that sets in your browser’s bookmarks bar so when visiting a page you want to subscribe to in Fever, just click the bookmarklet and choose a group to add it to (or to your sparks) and off you go.  Clean and simple.

There is also a beautiful icon to go with Fluid.app (now free), an application that basically creates a super simple Safari window with it’s own menu bar and icon that sits in your dock.  Nice thing about this is you get the gorgeous icon in your dock, including amazingly enough, a dock unread count.  Crazy.

And to make sure that Fever is more up to date than you are, Shaun even provides you with a short snippet to add to your server’s cron manager, so you can have your feeds update every 15 minutes with ease.  Fever will keep checking even if you’re not around and when you load the page, you’re all ready to go.  That is the last piece of the puzzle for me, I love it.

For More…

I highly encourage you to check out http://feedafever.com/ for more information.  There is a lot of great information along with a quick demo video to get you running.  This was an exceptional 30 bucks spent on my part and I hope that the web gets wind of this soon.  Shaun has a great product on his hands.

1. Open iCal
2. In the Calendar list, under Subscriptions, Control-click (or right-click) the calendar you want to copy to your iPhone or iPod touch
3. In the menu that appears, select “Copy URL to Clipboard”
4. Compose an email message to yourself (to an email address you are checking on your iPhone/iPod touch), and paste the URL into the body of the message
5. Send the email
6. On your iPhone or iPod touch, open the email and tap on the URL
7. Tap “subscribe” in the dialog that is triggered by the link

For more information, visit the knowledge base article from Apple.

Taking that one step further, Hive Logic has a couple great posts showing off some truly gorgeous monospaced fonts.  Personally, I’m in love with Monofur, Droid Sans Mono, Inconsolata, and Anonymous Pro.

Check out the two related posts here for a total of 11 great monospaced fonts.

Top 10 Programming Fonts

Anonymous Pro: A programming font with style

As always, make sure to make a backup of everything first just in case your upgrade doesn’t go as smooth.

You will have access to all the files on your iDisk on the go.  Features such as sharing are available, and you’ll even be able to view others public iDisk, which is a nice touch.

http://www.apple.com/mobileme/whats-new/

I’m slightly upset about this for two reasons. First off, the updated design had grown on me and I was used to it. Moving it back down to where it was in Safari 3.x ( and most other browsers, besides Google Chrome ) is time I have to retrain myself. Second, I was convinced by the initial argument. The controls ( refresh, home, stop, even the progress indicator and the URL itself ) are tab specific. They change based on what tab you are in. Therefore, it makes sense to have the tab be the top-level container element with the controls placed inside it.

All that said maybe Apple’s market research gave it good information and it was able to make the right informed decision.  Personally, I would like the hidden preference setting to have my tabs back up top again, but that option was removed in the final shipping version.

The top 3 applications winning awards in the Mac showcase category were Versions, Things, and Billings 3.  All of these apps are simply astounding.

I use Billings 3 for my freelance work and I save a lot of time and look more professional because of it.

Versions is slick, but I haven’t come around to purchasing this one as I’m handy enough with the command line to use version control the old school way.

And hands down the best Mac app around (and for iPhone too) would have to be Cultured Code’s application, Things.  If you want a powerful, flexible, and easy-to-use personal organizer/GTD application, you have to check out Things.  Check out my review of Things or an interview with lead Things developer Jurgen Schweizer here.

A link to the article detailing the full list of winners can be found here.

Notebook Lineup

Apple has put itself in a very nice position with its current notebook offering.  The three sizes of MacBook Pro are all very nice machines, with great tech specs and those special features that make a Pro laptop from Apple.  With the integrated lineup and price drop across the board, Apple is making an aggressive move.

The 3 year old Macbook design is showing its age and doesn’t really resemble anything else sold as a Mac.  The iMac, Mac Pro and the MacBook Pro lineups make a cohesive design.  Only the Macbook and Mac Mini stand out still in plastic.  I expect to see somewhat updated designs to better match the rest of the Apple family, or possibly the removal of the two products altogether, replaced with something else entirely.  Maybe that will be the news at MacWorld 2010?

Snow Leopard

I somewhat expected Apple to have some killer feature that we would all want in Snow Leopard, something they had help back until the last minute to build up marketing hype right before the big preview.  However, we received no such incentive this time around.

That being said, the 29 dollar upgrade price is very attractive, and is great news for the Apple community.  A cheap upgrade price point will entice most users to upgrade and since users will make the switch quicker, developers will invest the time to make their applications take full use of Snow Leopard only technologies.  It’s a great plan that should shore up the Mac foundation for some years to come.

The refinements made to Snow Leopard certainly have come about to some extent from lessons learned developing Cocoa Touch.  QuickTime X is a prime example of rewriting a Foundation level framework into a modern and robust API – something already tackled in Cocoa Touch.  It’ll be interesting to see what advancements made in Snow Leopard might make their way into iPhone OS 3.1 or later.

iPhone OS 3.0

Stating the obvious, this is a huge update.  The developer API has seen major advancements, opening up the device to developers so they can innovate and surprise users even more than before.  The biggest news I took away from the iPhone OS announcement concerned AT&T.  Evidently AT&T doesn’t feel the need to keep up with Apple’s progress.  I’m just as annoyed and peeved as every other AT&T iPhone user out there: I’m waiting for MMS and tethering to come just like the next guy.  However, I’m almost relieved as well.  With AT&T slipping behind, surely Apple can use that as leverage in future talks and either get some cool things from AT&T this time next year, or open up the platform to more providers here in the US and get the iPhone platform really off the ground.

Conclusion

If you have any comments about the keynote, I’d love to hear them.  Personally, I’ll be picking up a family pack of Snow Leopard soon after it’s available, I’m already using Safari 4 final release to type this post, and I’ve reserved my 32GB Black iPhone 3GS to pickup on D-Day.

The good news is I’ll be graduating with a Bachelors in Computer Science on Friday May 8th from the University of Tennessee.  I’m wrapping up things with final exams this week, but can’t wait to actually walk across the stage soon.  And unlike some of my graduating friends, I’m lucky enough to be offered a permanent position with my current employer since October 2008, Digital Media Graphix.  I’ll be coming on full time as the second software engineer on May 10th and I’m excited to have more time at work to tackle some really fun projects we have lined up.

I’ll also be starting a freelance project in a couple weeks, writing a custom content management system (CMS) for a HIV prevention and AIDS awareness site.  More details on that once I get into it and have something to show off.

And for the last bit of news, I’m also in talks to begin writing a Cocoa app that I will hopefully have out later this year.  Once I get some more planning done and get some of the details hammered out, I’ll have more information regarding that as well.  I’m still trying to decide if I’d like to do it all myself, or create an open source project to get some more help.  I think I have something that a lot of Mac users want and there currently isn’t anything providing a comprehensive solution.

And for those out there who would like more frequent updates, I encourage you to follow me on Twitter (macfanatic).  I’m much more adept at posting 140 character updates throughout the day compared to writing a full blog post.

Turns out that if you absolutely need Java 1.6 (to use Limewire, for example), it is most likely already installed on your Mac, just not being used by default.  To set it as the default, open Java Preferences in Applications -> Utilities -> Java and drag Java SE 6.0 to the top of each table shown.  That’s it.

Of note, Apple has only release Java SE 6.0 for 64 Intel Macs.  So if you have a Core Duo Mac or earlier, you are stuck with Java SE 5.0 and earlier.

For those having trouble setting Java SE 6 as the default VM on their Intel Mac, see the comments below for a user’s trick. Involves the Terminal and I guarantee nothing.

I did this for the first few, but as it took about 3.5 hours per project, it was a pain to schedule, and there was a lot of wasted time at night that my MacBook could have been rendering, except that after the project finished, I couldn’t figure out how to get iDVD to start on a second one.

I started writing an AppleScript to automate this, and then decided to just Google for one as someone surely had thought of this before me.  Turns out there is a very nice script that allows allows you to choose the iDVD projects you want to burn, and where you want to save the disc images.  Then, away iDVD goes.

Very nice script to have.  Mac OS X Hints.com

Turns out that you can quickly enable this feature by copying a few files according to this tip from Mac OS X Hints.com.

% echo “source /usr/share/tcsh/examples/rc” > ~/.tcshrc
% echo “source /usr/share/tcsh/examples/login” > ~/.login
% echo “source /usr/share/tcsh/examples/logout” > ~/.logout

As far as I know, this doesn’t affect any of your settings, but I didn’t look through these provided sample shell configuration files to make sure. All I know is that I can now TAB to auto-complete and nothing else has been broken so far.

I’ve discussed why I absolutely love Cappuccino for web development.  It’s a modern, full featured language and API that makes writing interactive and complex web applications much simpler.  Up until this point, writing the UI for a Cappuccino application has entailed a lot of “stupid” code for layouts and positioning of controls.  This is acceptable for people coming from Windows programming, Linux, and even Java for the most part.  You have to write a good chunk of code for even the most basic button to be on the window.

Atlas changes that.

For developers familiar with Apple’s own Developer Tools, Atlas is Xcode and Interface Builder combined into a web application, itself built upon Cappuccino.  You edit your CIB file, which contains your menu bar, windows, models, views and controllers.  It acts very similar to Interface Builder, in that you can simply drag from a button to a controller to set an action, or drag from a model to a view to set an outlet.  The Inspector even has most of the normal Cocoa conveniences.

Atlas is not yet available, but has been demoed in Miami.  You can head on over to the Atlas website, from the 280 North team ( who brought us 280 Slides and Cappuccino) to register on the mailing list.

From the doubleTwist website:

We started doubleTwist because we were disappointed by the quality of software applications offered by the major device manufacturers. We wanted to build a universal media application that helps people quickly and easily play all their stuff, on all their devices and share their experiences with all their friends.
Our vision is to provide for media what the browser achieved for the web: a single, streamlined interface that connects to any device, media source or network.

The application most notably allows you to sync content with other devices besides an iPhone or iPod with the elegance of a Mac.  I haven’t played around with it enough to get a good feel, but looks extremely well put together so far.

Desktoptopia takes a slightly more refined approach: a small Menu Bar application that lets you quickly go to the previous or next background, see the title of the current background, and assign a rating. You can change the time interval at which the backgrounds swap out, and pause if you find one you really like.

What makes Desktoptopia pleasant is you “subscribe” to categories, so you can just uncheck something if it’s not in your fancy. I’m surprised at the high quality and uniqueness of the images and have been enjoying it for a few weeks now.

Desktoptopia is free for Mac with a beta for PC.

With Layers, you can create a Photoshop PSD file and then go in and manage all the layers within. Composite PNG images, or just a bunch of individual images are also possible. Support for multiple monitors, keyboard shortcuts, and a Menu Bar application make this seem like a well thought out little tool.

If you have need to dissect your website, software, or just for fun, you should check out Layers. It’ll set you back $15 USD.

Layers App

Little Snapper

The interview provides a little insight into the design process behind Things, starting your own company, and developing Mac software.  I especially found it interesting that Jürgen was a teacher and researcher in mathematics for several years, before coming back to the Mac with the introduction of OS X.

And if you haven’t heard of Things, you should check out my review here.  It’s a great application that has streamlined my work, school, and personal tasks so that I’m more productive and reliable in all aspects of my life.  One of the most polished Mac applications I’ve run across, and it’s only at 1.0 as of writing this!

Things Review

Things

Cultured Code

MacApper

There seems to be a flood of GTD (getting things done) applications available for the Mac lately.  There is OmniFocus from the OmniGroup, which doesn’t seem to fit my needs at all.  A little too professional and over the top.  I need something very flexible and that will get me up and running quickly.  Then there is a new application about to debut from The Potion Factory, entitled The Hit List.  The Hit List takes another unique approach to task management, and I’m sure that I’ll be taking a look at it more closely in the future.  

Ease of Use

I think that one area Things excels in is ease of use.  You can customize the system-wide shortcut to create a new task, no matter what application you’re currently using.  Just hit that keyboard shortcut and a small window pops up, letting me give it a title, pressing a couple keys to tag, drag an email, website, contact or file into the notes area, set a due date if I wish and I’m done and back to working on what I was doing.

Organizing your tasks couldn’t be simpler.  There are a few focus areas: “Today”, “Next”, “Someday”, “Scheduled” and “Projects”.  Today obviously contains what you’ve deemed you should focus on today.  If you set dates on your tasks, they default to automatically showing up in Today on the day they are due.  You can make a task show up several days ahead, if that’s what you wish.  ”Next” just represents what you’re not working on today, but is upcoming in a few days or weeks.  A nice overview of what you’ll be tackling soon.  ”Scheduled” lets you create repeating tasks at your leisure, great for finances, or create a task that you’re just not ready to start on.  Just create that task in scheduled and it’ll show up when you can actually get started on it.  

Projects lets you organize your tasks according to what you’re working on.  Your tasks show up here (and in Today, just separated off by the project).  Just another way to separate your tasks.  Areas follow the same principle, allowing you to group similar tasks according to maybe work, school, or a hobby.

There’s support for People, allowing you to add teammates and keep up with what they’re working on.  If you have Leopard, Things can place your tasks as To-Do items in iCal, which can be handy.  There’s great support for dropping just about anything you can find in the Notes section of a task: drop a webpage to view later, a file that you need, a contact from address book, or an email to view.  Nice way to get everything you need grouped together so when you’re ready to tackle the task, everything is there in one place.

Tasks don’t just die when you’re done, they go to the logbook.  A simple way to look up information about past projects, who completed what, what that website was, etc.

Tagging

What allows Things to offer such great flexibility is its great support for tagging.  I can create a task, and assign it to as many tags as I want.  Then, the smart filter bar at the top lets me quickly see all tasks sharing whatever tags I want.  I can assign a group to a set of tags, so those tasks always show up there, easily manage tags and the hierarchy (for instance, have my classes under “School” and my work projects under “Work”).  

Open up the tag manager to see what shortcuts have been assigned to each tag.  In my case, I can quickly select a group of tasks and press “w” to assign them the “Work” tag.  I have a few of these memorized and it makes creating new tasks much quicker, even though Things already has great auto-complete support built in for your tags. 

Things for iPhone

I think we are starting to see a trend in Mac software: applications that want to take advantage of the Mac and provide a full set of features will undoubtedly provide an iPhone companion.  In this case, the iPhone version of Things is just as full featured as the Mac version, letting you very easily view your tasks for today, upcoming, or someday.  You can quickly enter a new task, great support for quickly tagging, set a due date, etc.  And when your Mac and iPhone are on the same wireless network, Things will automatically sync the two devices.  Overall a great iPhone application that makes using Things just that much more useful for me.  Things for iPhone will set you back $9.99 USD.

Conclusion

Things for Mac and iPhone work wonderfully together.  They provide you with a seamless way to stay on top of everything you need to be tackling in your busy life.  At $60 USD for both apps, it’s a little pricy for some.  But compared to similar offerings already available, the level of fit and finish, and the enthusiasm of the development team, I’m sure there will be plenty of new features and more exciting things to come, making Things the #1 task management and organization application for the Mac.

Links

Things from Cultured Code

Interview with Things Developer

OmniFocus from OmniGroup

The Hit List from Potion Factory

TV Shows in one of those Mac applications that I use all the time, and make my life so much simpler, yet I forget I’m even using it because it works so well. That’s the definition of good software in my opinion.

TV Shows allows you to subscribe to different, well, TV shows, and it downloads the torrent files to your computer, automatically opening your torrent client if needed. You can select whether you want HD content, if available, and so much more. The application lets me keep up to date with about 6 shows that just download automatically, usually within an hour of being on TV. Combine that with this great AppleScript for adding AVI files to iTunes (and as a TV Show with show info, no less) and I have a great workflow.

I’m not sure what version 1.0 will bring, but I’ve been using version 0.3.4 for a year and a half now, so whatever features come in version 1.0, they will be welcomed. Slated for February 2009.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/inauguration_obama_text

Jobs wrote an email to the team at Apple, and since then has been published in the PR section. It reads:

Team,

I am sure all of you saw my letter last week sharing something very personal with the Apple community. Unfortunately, the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well. In addition, during the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought.

In order to take myself out of the limelight and focus on my health, and to allow everyone at Apple to focus on delivering extraordinary products, I have decided to take a medical leave of absence until the end of June.

I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for Apple’s day to day operations, and I know he and the rest of the executive management team will do a great job. As CEO, I plan to remain involved in major strategic decisions while I am out. Our board of directors fully supports this plan.

I look forward to seeing all of you this summer.

Steve

I’m personally glad that the man is taking time to better himself. I love Apple. That has only happened since Jobs has returned, so I naturally connect the two as inseparable and codependent. But I’m with the other pundits in the blogsphere in that Apple can, and will, survive without Jobs. Maybe he knows this and that is the real reason he is taking a leave of absence. I tend to think that if he wasn’t sure things would continue, he would probably stay until his death, or the Board of Directors got up the courage to make him stay home.

Will Steve actually return this summer, to wow us with some new gadgetry at WWDC 2009? Who knows. I sincerely hope that all is well and even if he decides not to return, he can at least enjoy time with his family. The man has brought so much to Apple, the computing industry, and my life, that he deserves a break if he wants one.

Here’s to Jobs’ return. But if not, to a long and happy life doing whatever the hell he pleases. And if that’s selling some new product, I might just buy it.

Any feedback would be great!

Espresso brings a lot of flexibility to the table, and the developers are working hard at getting this core functionality working in the now open beta. One fan has already taken the initiative to launch a site to share the plugins (Sugars) and themes that are currently available for the application. Still in beta, yet people are churning these out!

My personal favorite so far is the Cappuccino theme. I just noticed that there currently isn’t support for PHP, so I’m thinking of taking that under my wing and writing a plugin. We’ll see if that comes to fruition…

Check out Coffee House here.

Espresso from MacRabbit

Faces

iPhoto has been given facial recognition as a feature called “Faces”. iPhoto automatically recognizes people in your photos and gives you the chance to give the person a name. Then, iPhoto will suggest photos that the person appears in. As you continue to use iPhoto, essentially tagging all the people that appear, iPhoto just gets smarter and can even more accurately recognize faces. To make this feature useful, you can now view your photos by Faces, in addition to Events, to view all photos that a particular person appears in.

And here is the coolest part yet: Facebook integration with Faces. You can quickly and easily publish and album to Facebook, with the album appearing in the iPhoto source list. And the photos are automatically tagged for you. And, if someone tags himself in the photo, iPhoto is aware of it and will notify you, so you can add that information to your iPhoto library. Now that is integration and makes this Facebook photo junkie happy!

Geo tagging support is built in on several levels, easily using the information from your GPS enabled camera, such as the iPhone, to place your photos by locations. Don’t have a GPS camera? You can easily add the location to your photos within iPhoto, so you won’t be left out. Great for viewing all the photos taken in Paris, for example. Or how about when creating a physical photo book and having a map in there, complete with arrows for the trip you took. Very polished indeed.

Slideshows

The slideshows feature has been greatly improved, with support for some pretty cool themes and finally the ability to quickly share with iTunes to take on your iPod or iPhone and share with your friends. And slideshows even use face detection to make sure that it doesn’t crop people out when displaying the pictures. Now that’s impressive. Another nice step forward.

I have to say that I’ll be ordering my copy of iLife 09 simply for iPhoto. The face detection and Facebook integration is well worth the 80 bucks as far as I’m concerned. A truly great release!

I’m talking about a new addition to the language being created by Apple which adds anonymous functions to the language.

The uses and implications of this weren’t immediately apparent to me, but my interest was piqued as I continued reading the article.  Mike is quick to point out that anonymous functions would allow developers to innovate and essentially add features to the language.  Fast iteration was added to ObjC 2.0 in Leopard, allowing us to avoid NSEnumerator and go straight to a for( .. in .. ) statement. 

Blocks wouldn’t exactly have the same syntax, but you could easily implement this in your own code to get the feature.  There are several other examples, some notes that Blocks have access to local variables, and then the following point which is amazing:

Another place where blocks will make things much nicer is when dealing with callbacks. If you’ve ever written much Cocoa code you’ve probably had to write a sheet callback, and it’s a pain in the ass. If you need to pass variables through to the other side then it gets really frustrating with code like this:

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 - (void)method {
        int foo;
        NSString *bar;
 
       /* do some work with those variables */
        NSDictionary *ctx = [[NSDictionary alloc] 
            initWithObjectsAndKeys:
                [NSNumber numberWithInt:foo], @"foo"!REG3XP0!>,
                bar, @"bar"!REG3XP0!>,
                nil];
        [NSApp beginSheet:sheet
            modalForWindow:window
            modalDelegate:self
            didEndSelector:@selector(methodSheetDidEnd:
             returnCode:contextInfo:)
            contextInfo:ctx];
    }
 
    - (void)methodSheetDidEnd:(NSWindow *)sheet 
            returnCode:(int)code 
            contextInfo:(void *)ctx {
        NSDictionary *ctxDict = ctx;
        [ctxDict autorelease];
 
        int foo = [[ctxDict objectforKey:@"foo"] intValue];
        NSString *bar = [ctxDict objectForKey:@"bar"];
        /* do some more stuff with those variables
    }

Wow! What a pain that is. Since I removed all the stuff that does work, nearly everything that remains is just boilerplate. Horrible boilerplate whose only purpose is to tell the sheet who to call, and to pack up local information in a way that the sheet can give it back to you later on. Now let’s imagine we were redoing this API using blocks and see how it would look:

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- (void)method {
        int foo;
        NSString *bar;
        /* do some work with those variables */
        [sheet beginSheetModalForWindow:window 
            didEndBlock:^(int code){
            /* do stuff with foo */
            /* do stuff with bar */
            /* do stuff with code, or sheet, or window, etc */
        }];
    }

There are several other examples on the page and I think Cocoa developers will be very excited to see this addition to the language, presumably with Snow Leopard in 2009.

Read the article here.

I thank everyone who’s supported this blog over the years. May we enjoy several more!

Ecto 3 Features

Download Ecto 3 Now

Theory

From Wikipedia:

A genetic algorithm (GA) is a search technique used in computing to find exact or approximate solutions to optimization and search problems. Genetic algorithms are categorized as global search heuristics. Genetic algorithms are a particular class of evolutionary algorithms (also known as evolutionary computation) that use techniques inspired by evolutionary biology such as inheritance, mutation, selection, and crossover (also called recombination).

I even took the liberty of including my paper on my findings with this project, just because there are so many parameters to test and creating the graphs can be rather time consuming. So take a look at the paper if you would like to read up on the relationships between the number of chromosomes and the average fitness of the population at any given generation, for example.

More uses of NSOperation and NSOperationQueue for multithreading in this project.

Download

Xcode Project (3.1 or later) | Leopard Only

Genetic Algorithm | Leopard Only

Biologically Inspired Computation Series

Theory

Essentially, we are running a network that we can train to recognize data, or solve a problem. We do this by giving the network sample data, and for each set of sample data, running the network through one time. We calculate the error of this run, adjust the weight of the connections between all the neurons in the entire network, and repeat. After running through all the sample data we have adjusted the weights to ‘recognize’ the data. Then, given another set of data, the network is trained to perform the same operation, such as classification (maybe determining forged vs authentic bank notes) or just solving a mathematical equation, such as we do in this particular example.

Code

This simulator is written in Cocoa, requires Xcode 3.1 or later, and is Leopard only. Subclasses NSOperation for multithreading, and have two subclassed NSViews for a ‘Safari Downloads’ style window, just showing the progress of each running experiment, with a cancel button beside it.

Download

Xcode Project (3.1 or later) | Leopard Only

Neural Net | Leopard Only

Biologically Inspired Computation Series

Back Propagation on Wikipedia

Activation/Inhibition Cellular Automaton

This is a simulator written in Cocoa for running a series of experiments and creating Excel files with the results.  Activation/Inhibition CAs are similar to how a cell on a zebra determines if it should be white or black.  There is no overall governing authority, yet patterns arise naturally.  Intermediate example of using Cocoa classes such as open/save panels, notifications and the file manager.  Excellent for examining how to code complex mathematical formulas and summations in C code.

Hopfield Network

This is a simulator written in Cocoa to test the relationship between the number of stored patterns in a Hopfield Network and the accuracy with which they are remembered.  A very interesting exercise making use of NSOperation and NSOperationQueue for simple multithreading and general Cocoa design patterns such as using a delegate.

Back Propagation Neural Network

Another Cocoa simulator written to investigate the relationship between parameters for a network.  Given a set of data, can train the network to recognize that data.  Then from there, the network can ’solve’ a problem.  In this simulation, there are two mathematical equations that are solved with this network.  Illustrates custom views, multithreading, and more.

Genetic Algorithms

The last Cocoa simulator in the series, written to investigate the relationship between input parameters for a given population of organisms over several generations.  Parameters include the probability of mutation in the offspring’s chromosomes, number of chromosomes per individual, how much sharing of chromosomes occurs when two individuals mate, and creating your own fitness function to quantify the ‘best fit’ individual based upon the DNA.  Multithreading and general Cocoa design patterns.

Going Further

I find this general area of computer science very interesting and would love to spend time researching and learning more about neural networks and genetic algorithms.  If you have any suggestions or comments about the code or projects in general, I’d love to hear from you, so drop me an email.

Theory

From Wikipedia:

  A Hopfield net is a form of recurrent artificial neural network invented by John Hopfield. Hopfield nets serve as content-addressable memory systems with binary threshold units. They are guaranteed to converge to a local minimum, but convergence to one of the stored patterns is not guaranteed.

Basically, you can fine tune the weights (connections between neurons) in the network so as to ’store’ data in the network. Imagine a square area, not necessarily flat, with a few deep potholes in it. Now, we start the network anywhere on this grid, and as the network progresses, it moves towards the nearest pothole. At the bottom of this pothole is a stored pattern, which is ‘remembered’ by the network. So given a corrupt image, the network can ‘remember’ the real image as it works its way to the sinkhole.

This simulation investigates how many patterns a network can hold versus the accuracy with which the network can recall. For example, a network with only 5 neurons simply cannot accurately recall many patterns, and this simulator allows you to investigate this relationship.

There are two PDFs included with the Xcode project, a theoretical overview and a detailed implementation guide. The simulator produces comma separated value (CSV) files, which can be opened in Numbers or Excel for graphing.

Get Started Now

Of interest to Cocoa programmers, this project makes use of NSOperation and NSOperation queue for quick and efficient multithreading.

Xcode Project (3.1 or later) | Leopard Only

Hopfield Network | Leopard Only

Hopfield Network on Wikipedia

Biologically Inspired Computation Series

Digital Media Graphix

First and foremost, I’ve been hired doing software development with a design firm here in town, called Digital Media Graphix. It has been fairly exciting so far and I’m looking forward to projects that are about to pushed onto my plate here in the next week. So far I dived head first into writing native installers for Windows and Mac, and that was actually a good bit of fun. I’ve done some troubleshooting with Ajax and PHP bugs and meddled with helping the other designers in house organize a project so it will be easier to code and maintain. 

Overall, it seems like a great fit for my personality, as the staff is relaxed and talented. There is one full time programmer specializing in Flash, AIR, Javascript, etc and I’m the apprentice, bringing useful C, C++, and Cocoa skills to the table. It’s a great first time job and I’m loving the experience and the challenge.

MacBook

I sold my trusty first generation black MacBook to a friend after the launch of the newest aluminum ones in mid October and haven’t looked back.  I absolutely love this computer and it is more than I’ve ever expected from a Mac.  The solid and sexy all aluminum enclosure, beautiful and bright glass covered display, and the sexy backlit keyboard all remind me why I love using Macs.  I highly recommend this for anyone debating whether to get a previous generation MacBook for a discounted price.  The newer versions are so much better and worth the extra 300USD.

Podcasting

It hit me today that it has been 14 months since I last produced a podcast episode. I never acknowledged the fact that I was finished with podcasting and I wanted to take the quick moment here to thank everyone who made the podcast such a success. I truly enjoyed working on it and all the listeners are what helped propel this site into the position it is in today.

If you truly miss it that much, get in contact with me. I’m looking at ways of reviving the podcast, and would love to have suggestions, or better yet, a helping hand in the project.

Facade

I’m impatiently awaiting the debut of a new theming application for Leopard, called Facade.  It looks very promising, integrating full theme management and application, along with an innovative “Theme Store” for content delivery (still have some free themes).  Definitely worth taking a look at.

Cappuccino

I can’t stress enough how amazing this framework is.  Seriously, I put my full weight behind Cappuccino and I’m working hard on a few demo applications and tutorials to hopefully publish before New Years.  I think SproutCore is certainly a viable competitor and love the competition between the two.  However, Cappuccino has changed how I approach large web development projects.

Certainly take a look at my introductory article on Cappuccino here (June 2008).

Obama

I’m both relieved and disappointed that the presidential elections are over.  I rather enjoyed the useless news coverage, and later in the campaign, the wonderfully amusing Palin.  However, I hope the American people can unite behind Obama and ultimately bring change.  Rather cliche´, but I’m okay with it.

Apple is publicly opposing Proposition 8 and making a donation of $100,000 to the No on 8 campaign. Apple was among the first California companies to offer equal rights and benefits to our employees’ same-sex partners, and we strongly believe that a person’s fundamental rights — including the right to marry — should not be affected by their sexual orientation. Apple views this as a civil rights issue, rather than just a political issue, and is therefore speaking out publicly against Proposition 8.

Speechless.

Found via | One Digital Life

Vote NO on 8!

For all those waiting for updated MacBooks, we finally have an official date. Apple sent out media invites this morning for 10am PST on Tuesday October 14th. “The Spotlight turns to notebooks”.

I have several friends waiting since school began this semester, to make the switch to Mac and I’ve convinced them to hold off. Plus, there is a good possibility I’ll be purchasing a one myself. Hopefully we won’t be disappointed!

JSCocoa bridges Cocoa to JavascriptCore (WebKit’s JS engine). It allows you to call C code, ObjC code, use C structs, and build Javascript classes inheriting from ObjC classes.

Basically, JSCocoa allows you to use Cocoa classes and the runtime, only using Javascript. An important note for those following this blog closely, JSCocoa does not perform the same mission or tasks as the two other popular “javascript frameworks” aiming to bring Cocoa to the web today, Cappuccino and SproutCore. JSCocoa would allow a developer to write a full Cocoa application only using Javascript. I’m not really sure why anyone would do this, but it’s nice to have the capability.

JSCocoa Homepage

Version 0.5.5 includes over 60 fixes, and several key new features, including: New build tools, including:

• press
• Key-Value-Observing
• CPSplitView
• CPWebView
• CPDate
• Additional Editor Support
• Major performance gains

Full list of resolved bugs since 0.5.1.

Download the update directly: Starter, Tools.

If you’re not familiar with Cappuccino, I have an introductory article to look over.

The fact that I have had so many approach me, with almost the identical question raises a very valid point. Just where does one find the best documentation and sample code to get started in Cocoa development? With so many developers making the switch to iPhone and then the Mac (and hopefully Cappuccino for web), I think this post will only gain value as time goes on.

So I have compiled a list of extremely useful resources. If you spent enough time googling, you would certainly run across these sites yourself. However, I’m saving you something very precious: time. These vary in range of beginner programmer to advanced genius, so there is a little something for everyone. Keep in mind that as of writing this, official publications on Objective-C 2.0 are just barely in print, and anything for iPhone is still in the works, as the NDA keeping publishers from releasing books was just lifted a week ago.

• THE doc on the Cocoa language, from Apple, HTML or PDF
• http://developer.apple.com – Great place to start for tutorials, etc in general
• http://cocoablogs.com/ – List of all the top Cocoa developers blogs
• http://www.cocoadev.com/index.pl – THE Cocoa message boards
• http://forums.cocoaforge.com/index.php – Another great Cocoa forum, more advanced
• http://inexdo.com/CocoaNav – Wonderful little piece of software for viewing Cocoa headers (information on classes and heirachy)

The finale comes with “Cocoa Programming Mac OS X 3rd Edition“. It assumes very little programming knowledge and yet contains a good 80% of what you need to know when designing a full Cocoa programming. Key design concepts are explained in great detail and it is a wonderful resource.

If you have anything to add to this list, please leave a comment on this post or send me an email!

Theory

Imagine a single skin cell on a zebra. How does the cell know whether it should be white or black? Simply puts, the cell takes into account the value of the surrounding cells. If it’s surrounded by several black cells, then more than likely it should be black, right? Over time the cell keep looking at the cells around it, and the system changes. Eventually, the system will reach a pattern where it doesn’t change anymore. When this happens, the system has converged. Overall this is the basic theory behind pattern formation, on which the Activation/Inhibition Cellular Automaton is based.

This project is designed to investigate how varying parameters in the mathematical equation affects the pattern formation. For example, there is a parameter that influences how many cells away actually influence the current cell’s decision to be white or black. A larger number means that cells farther away are considered, while a smaller number means the converse. By varying a total of six parameters in the experiment, one can see the effect that these parameters have on the system.

Purpose

The Xcode project, aica, is written to perform a few different tasks. First off, you can quickly run a set of sample experiments that will produce some interesting converged systems. By interesting, I mean that the images representing the patterns are visually intriguing, as well as mathematically. AICA also allows a user to quickly run one experiment with a set of parameters, or run a larger set of experiments with different parameters from file.

In designing this application for my Biologically Inspired Computation course, I needed quantitative measurements describing what is happening in the system. These measurements are calculated once the system has converged and are not very pretty equations, involving lots of summations, logarithms and probability. I’m not going to delve into the mechanics and descriptions of these calculations, even though that was part of my report.

Design

I needed this to perform the basic tasks outlined above. In addition, I also wanted to have better statistics, so for each set of parameters ran (an experiment), I might want to run this several times and take the average of the calculated values describing the system. I classified each of these as a “trial”. So, the application structure is beginning to look something like this:

• Controller code for interacting with the interface and managing the experiments to be ran
• An experiment, which will run several trials and average the results, creating an Excel file with data
• A trial, which runs until convergence, writing image files for each step in the simulation

Feel free to look through project. There are two PDF files accompanying, containing the original project description and theory behind the simulation as well as a more technical document providing hints for writing the summations and mathematical equations as C code. This also contains some specific Cocoa programming techniques of interest to newbies, including using a NSProgressIndicator, Objective-C properties, NSNotifications, sheet programming, using NSSavePanel and NSOpenPanel, as well as creating directories and files using NSFileManager.

Get Started Now

Overall, if you have any comments or questions about the project, I’d love to hear from you. Even if you aren’t specifically interested, you should download the Application itself and give it a quick test run. Universal build, Leopard only. I also included some more sample files for systematically varying the parameters as I used in my project and used to draw conclusions about the behavior.

AICA Simulator (Leopard Only)

Source Code and Project Files

Biologically Inspired Computation Series

Cappuccino is a new web development platform that implements Cocoa for the web. The language, Objective-J is super similar to Objective-C and the Cocoa classes in AppKit and Foundation can be found in Cappuccino. For my first article on Cappuccino, read here.

Download now!

Check out this article from the Cappuccino blog for more information

We have decided to drop the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for released iPhone software. We put the NDA in place because the iPhone OS includes many Apple inventions and innovations that we would like to protect, so that others don’t steal our work. It has happened before. While we have filed for hundreds of patents on iPhone technology, the NDA added yet another level of protection. We put it in place as one more way to help protect the iPhone from being ripped off by others. However, the NDA has created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success, so we are dropping it for released software. Developers will receive a new agreement without an NDA covering released software within a week or so. Please note that unreleased software and features will remain under NDA until they are released. Thanks to everyone who provided us constructive feedback on this matter.

The NDA is gone. Finally books can be published and developers can share code. Whether this will ultimately hurt things is just a wait and see.

From Apple Developer Connection

Go through the ways that browsers tell websites what type of browser it is. Including masquerading as other browsers, the browser wars of the 90s, the Gecko/Firefox/Camino/Gnome camp and the WebKit/Safari/Konquerer/Nokia/iPhone goodness that we have today. Very interesting read and nice to know that:

And Apple built Safari, and used KHTML, but added many features, and forked the project, and called it WebKit, but wanted pages written for KHTML, and so Safari called itself Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; de-de) AppleWebKit/85.7 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/85.5, and it got worse.

Read article here.

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  <canvas id="example"></canvas>
  <script type="text/javascript">
     var g = new Bluff.Line('example', 400);
     g.theme_37signals();
     g.title = 'My Graph';
     g.data('Apples', [1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 3]);
     g.data('Oranges', [4, 8, 7, 9, 8, 9]);
     g.data('Watermelon', [2, 3, 1, 5, 6, 8]);
     g.data('Peaches', [9, 9, 10, 8, 7, 9]);
     g.labels = {0: '2003', 2: '2004', 4: '2005'};
     g.draw();
   </script>

Download Bluff Library

The reasoning behind these denials is seemingly more frequently described as duplicating functionality. However, as Macworld points out, Apple seems to have no problem admitting applications that do duplicate most functionality, or even admitting applications by the same name.

… Your application duplicates the functionality of the built-in iPhone application Mail without providing sufficient differentiation or added functionality, which will lead to user confusion. …

As Dan from Macworld points out, Apple owns the App Store and has the right to admit or deny admittance to anyone. However, it would be wise to apply those rules equally and so far it seems safe to say that Apple is not doing so. Let’s hope this changes, or I sincerely believe that the iPhone platform will suffer greatly as developers lose confidence in building great applications for a device that they might never be able to sell it to.

Read complete article on MailWranger denial from Macworld

Wil Shipley of Delicious Monster fame wrote up a lengthy proposal of ways to fix the App Store and the approval process. Mostly Wil discusses the fact that Apple is having to come up with ad-hoc solutions on the fly and needs to set down and fix the real problems (such as allowing a user to buy a 1000 dollar app without a confirmation click) before resorting to censorship. Overall, a very interesting read.

The framing of Apple’s ads is not about either/or. Not Mac or Windows, a choice between two rival products, like Democrat/Rebuplican, Chevy/Ford, Coke/Pepsi. The framing instead is special vs. regular. Not Coke vs. Pepsi but Coke vs. “soda”.

This is a very important point to be had. While Apple is advertising a superior product that distinguishes your computing experience from the norm, Microsoft is advertising more of the same. More of the same that consumers are already familiar with. The larger picture is that if you want to be generic and blend in with the crowd and have a mediocre computing experience, then having a PC is for you. However, if you want to have that extra special product, and who doesn’t want the Sirius satellite radio or the leather seats in a new car, then the Mac platform is right for you.

I think John’s insight into the differing marketing strategies for these two companies is refreshing. Read the complete article at Daring Fireball.

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for ( int i = 0, NSPoint p = [self updatingCell]; i < maxIterations && p.x > 0; i++, p = [self updatingCell] ) {
// Do something interesting with this NSPoint
}

I’ve used the above approach several times, letting me compact code when in loops. However, the next trick presented by Parmanoir, developer of CocoaNav, is one I never thought of and the article gives a wonderful explanation of the comma operator in C and family.

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// Log and return
if (error) return NSLog(@"MyFunction failed with error: %@", error), NO;

OtherInbox is currently in a private beta. You can signup here. The first 25 registering from this blog can get started right away. Thanks for reading Macfanatic and enjoy the invitations!

Download Now for Leopard Only

Web version for Firefox and Safari

Espresso is still in beta testing but is slated for a November 2008 release. I’m very excited to get my hands on this software. Web design is such a tedious process, and while Coda made a valiant attempt at integrating and relieving the stress, it still lacks the poise and elegance that I’m positive MacRabbit will deliver. If you are interested in being the first to know about more MacRabbit news, you can signup at the bottom of the info page.

Also, if you are passionate about a particular language being supported in Espresso, I would encourage you to get in contact with MacRabbit for more information on becoming a “Sugar Daddy” (or Mommy). Developers releasing plugins (called “Sugars”) adding support for a language gets the prestigious title as well as a free copy of Espresso. More details on that here.

Espresso

CSSEdit

Coda from Panic Software

Mac Fanatic Coda Review

In the iTunes toolbar, there are three buttons. From left to right: List View, Grid View, and Cover Flow View. If you want to see your album artwork while in List View, in the very top left of the list, there is a small “disclosure” triangle that almost looks like a “now playing” icon on the iPhone and such. Click this and the album artwork displays inline with all your songs in List View.

It’s the same functionality as the previous view, just better implemented as far as I can tell. Can be useful at times, because you can still see your album artwork and have the list sorted by Date Added, for example. You cannot do that in Grid View because all the songs per Album, or Artist, etc, are grouped together.

The previous design, 3rd generation, were quite ugly I think.  Just the design as well as the colors.  However, the updated Nano is simply stunning in color and shape.  The updated software, including Cover Flow, is quite impressive as well.  I can’t wait to play with one of these in person.

AppleInsider | Road to Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard: 64-Bits

Flickr user Balakov likes to take photos using Lego figures.  And not just any photos, Balakov actually recreates famous paintings, photographs, and scenes in painstakingly detail.  The attention to detail in his work is truly amazing and the result is wonderful.  I especially love the recreations of Star Wars scenes and the way Balakov has even went past the series and created scenes such as one depicting a Storm Trooper with a brief case, after the fall of the Empire.  Wonderful and truly unique work.

Lego Album on Flickr

This service looks to directly compete with current market offerings such as Meebo, which allow users to login to multiple chat services through a web interface, without installing software.  Sadly, because AOL has built the AIM application using Flash, it is not usable on the iPhone or iPod Touch.  I recommend either Meebo for a web based application, or using MobileChat or AIM as an application for the 2.0 iPhone Software from the iTunes Application Store.

AIM on the web

Meebo

MobileChat for iPhone/Touch

AIM for iPhone/Touch

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!

SearchMe.com

I had put my camera in USB mode a few months ago and placed photos on there using the Finder, so I could take the SD card somewhere with me and have the photos with me.  When I was finished, I used the camera’s built-in “Delete All Files” option and everything seemed fine.  However, when importing subsequent pictures in iPhoto, there was empty boxes after all the pictures I had taken, when looking at the camera.  And after iPhoto was done importing the pictures, it could not delete those empty blocks.

I had just lived with this, until today.  I was looking online on how to format an SD card, and had a wonderful idea: I would try Apple’s own Image Capture utility already on my Mac.  Sure enough, I launched the application, clicked the ‘Download Some’ button to actually see the photos (noticing that the filenames started with an underscore, probably the root of all this evil) and easily deleted them from within the application.

I’d imagine using the Terminal to view the hidden files and deleting them would have worked as well.  Nothing showed up in the Finder, but that was probably related to the weird filenames as well.

Hope this quick tip helps someone!

Still in beta, v1.5 introduces several new features including:

• Support for .pkg files
• Support for receiving demographic information from users
• Can update bundles, not restricted to just .app applications
• Minimum system version checking for users
• Garbage Collection
• Better version comparison algorithm
• DSA instead of less secure MD5
• Won’t update if app is running from a disk image

Andy has also taken the time to dramatically simplify the Sparkle site itself, and move the project over to Launchpad for easier development. Be sure to check out this new version to incorporate into your apps to gain the new features.

Sparkle Page

Sparkle on LaunchPad

Create a document with your text layer. Duplicate that layer and flip that vertically, pulling the duplicate layer down so it is a reflection under the first. To feather this second lower layer out to make this effect more impressive, use the Square Marquee utility, with a feathering setting of 10px, to select the bottom half of the second layer and then hit delete. This effectively removes most of the reflection, and you can now play with the opacity of that layer to fine tune the effect even more.

Overall, I’m very impressed with this approach and it makes it so much easier to accomplish this task.

Sebastian Sulinski Design

For all the Knoxvillians out there, Pride is returning to East Tennessee this week. There are events each evening this week, leading up to the day long celebration of the LGBT community on Saturday, June 21st, from 3-10 in Market Square. And of course, there will be an after party at Rainbow West.

I will most likely be attending the Thursday night event, which is Sundown in the City. If you’re gay and are going to be there, wear red and show support!

Also, I hope to meet some fellow bloggers from the area at the Saturday event in Market Square. The Lambda Student Union from the University of Tennessee will be there with a table, providing information to allies and meeting people in the community. Look for our table and come up and say hi.

Knoxville Pride 2008

Lambda Student Union

There was buzz during WWDC ‘08 about Safari 4’s 1.61x Javascript performance improvement over Safari 3.1. Even more, it is 4.34x as fast compared to Safari 3.0. That’s very impressive improvements, placing Safari and WebKit out ahead of even the latest version of Firefox, version 3, released just today. Well, if you would like that performance boost today while running Javascript intensive sites, then download the latest nightly build from the WebKit site and have fun!

WebKit Open-Source Project

The community has been hard at work and before now the most notable project being developed was by the Shiira web browser team, called BlkAppKit.

Tim Davis from Binary Method has been hard at work creating an awesome framework of HUD controls. Unlike the few other kits already out there, BGHUD AppKit does not use images to create the controls. None at all. These controls are beautiful and ready for Resolution Independence. Also worth noting is the shear number of controls already available, the speed with which the developer is creating new ones and the community that is using it, including RealMac Software, developers of RapidWeaver.

Another unique feature to the BGHUD AppKit is theming. Tim has taken an interesting approach to theming the controls to better match your application, if you need something different than the default HUD style. Place your controls on the windows and set the custom class, as you would with any other custom control in Interface Builder. Building and Running the application at this time will show no difference. However, if you initiate an object controller, of either “BGThemeManager” or “BGGradientTheme” and connect the outlet of every control to this object, your controls are now updated. Using the “BGGradientTheme” gives you the default appearance, while using the theme manager lets you customize the controls.

This seems a little tedious upfront, especially if you want to just use the default appearance. However, if you needed to change the overall appearance of your application, instead of subclassing all of these controls, you can simply subclass and use the update theme manager. Therefore, it does pay off in that respect.

My personal recommendation: If I don’t set the outlet on my control to a theme manager, then use the default HUD behavior. That way I don’t even have to worry with it. But, the work put into this framework is phenomenal and it seems that Tim isn’t sleeping until he implements every last single available control perfectly. If you need HUD controls in your project, I strongly believe this is the best framework available. The work is beautiful, it’s under heavy and active development, the developer is responsive to requests, it’s easily theme-able, and all the controls are already Resolution Independent.

Update: Tim has already read the post and really liked my recommendation for simplifying the ThemeManager behavior. Even better, he’s already implemented the change into the framework, so checking out subsequent version from SVN are now more friendly. Check out his blog for more details and to get your copy.

BGHUD AppKit Home

Shiira BlkAppKit

RealMac Software

My previous post on HUD controls in Leopard

For one, the SproutCore website is now back online after being Dugg a couple days ago. And not only that, there is a very good introduction to models, records (including saving and retrieving) and a brief introduction to the local database, called the Store. If you’re interested in developing more full-featured, Desktop like apps for the web, you need to check out the SproutCore framework.

Models Tutorial

SproutCore Site

My Introduction to SproutCore

Objective-J, Cappuccino, and 280Slides.com

My Introduction to Objective-J and Cappuccino

Buy the EP on iTunes

Throughout the development of Mac OS X, Apple has reexamined the old ways of doing things in UNIX and proposed new architectures. One example is launchd, the process that manages the launching, termination, and supervision of other processes in the system. It replaces a variety of existing process managers including init, rc, inetd, xinetd, atd, crond and watchdogd. Few UNIX vendors would bother to engineer an entirely new way to do things, and if undertaken in the FOSS world, such an innovation would rarely be adopted by enough of the Linux community to ever matter.

and

Rather than expecting each developer to become an expert in the black art of multithreading, Apple has built sophisticated process management into the kernel where it belongs and added language conventions that enable mere mortals to take advantage of a wide variety of different hardware that users might have at their disposal.

Grand Central Dispatch manages processes in a manner analogous to modern networking. Old telephone equipment used to use circuit switching to transmit information over networks; a dedicated circuit path is easy to set up but it is also expensive and potentially fragile. Modern networking uses packet switching, which breaks up data, phone conversations, or video streams into packets and routes each of them independently in a far more efficient way that is also resilient to network outages. Packets get routed around the problems.

For those without a technical background, Grand Central is going to be big. The ‘black art of multithreading’ is not being said lightly. By adding elegant support in Mac OS itself, Apple is enabling developers to take advantage of multicore Macs with greater ease than ever before. The performance improvement in most applications, and indeed in OS X itself, will be available and noticeable immediately. However, just imagine the payoff we’ll see as Intel continues to deliver chips with more and more cores.

Roughly Drafted Magazine

Snow Leopard Teaser

SproutCore adds a MVC (model-view-controller) structure to Javascript. Of course, Cocoa devs will be happy to find the same features noted in Cappuccino, such as undo/redo, bindings, document management, client-side storage with HTML5, and more.

Roughly Drafted Magazine has a very interesting article detailing the implications from this powerful framework. The important ideas to take away from this article lie along the lines that this framework is basically Cocoa for web apps. Apple has already been using SproutCore for over a year in the .Mac Web Gallery, and now has fully deployed SproutCore in the rebranded and revamped .Mac service, MobileMe, in addition to hiring the developer of SproutCore himself. Putting all this effort into the framework and testing it by developing interactive and very Mac-like web applications gives the user the idea that web applications don’t have to suck. So, a new market is emerging.

This is an amazing article with lots of grounded arguments for Apple’s moves, and the industry’s attitude in general. While you’re checking out Roughly Drafted Magazine, be sure to read other articles which are just as amazing!

Roughly Drafted Magazine

SpoutCore Javascript Framework

280Slides Online Presentation Software

Signup for a free profile today. And while you’re there, be sure to check out my profile as well!

Elian Gonzalez joins Cuba’s youth Communists [From Elian Gonzalez joins Cuba's youth Communists - CNN.com]

This is one of those moments that truly put my age back into perception. I’m only 21, but Elian Gonzalez brings up memories from my youth. And now the 14yr old is a member of the Cuban Communists. Not that I don’t condone that, but just interesting that he can still make news like this 8 years after the famous custody battle.

However, unlike Latitude, Mecca is being developed by the guys who make Fluid, the Mac app that lets you save web pages as individual ‘apps’ to click and run from your Dock. If you’ve been paying attention, Safari 4 will have this exact functionality built right in. Seems like the guys from Fluid have decided to take their product another direction to stay ahead of Apple.

Check out the Mecca teaser.

Check out the Latitude teaser.

I’ve already touched on the biggest impact for users: interface improvement. 280Slides looks and acts just like a real desktop application. All the standard keyboard shortcuts for copy/paste and undo/redo are supported right within the web app itself. Take a minute to tour the application and see how it compares to other online presentation applications. It feels more like Apple’s own Keynote, right?

Developers have even more reason to be excited. The whole Javascript/HTML/CSS design process to manipulate the DOM is abstracted to a higher layer with the introduction of Objective-J. The Objective-J language allows developers to write code in a style more like writing for traditional desktop applications. The developer doesn’t directly interact with the DOM or style the page with CSS. Instead, Objective-J itself manages all the views and drawing the objects to screen. More so, the Cappuccino framework provides functionality that is traditionally lacking from other Javascript frameworks, such as:

• copy/paste
• undo/redo
• document management and archiving
• vector graphics
• animations

This is a tremendous advantage for developers, allowing focus to be placed on the unique aspects of the web application itself. Cappuccino will be open-source and available soon, so keep a lookout at the Objective-J website. I think that we will see some amazing applications begin to rise in the future and this might possibly fuel a new era of apps on the web.

Also be sure to check out a newer article about SproutCore, a similar Javascript framework already released and in use in Apple's MobileMe platform.

Objective-J website

280Slides Application

Ajaxian Interview with 280 North team

HyperSpaces boasts such features as named spaces, desktop labels, different desktop pictures and desktop tinting. It makes heavy use of Leopards Core Animation and Core Image to beautifully let you organize your work. Currently in a private beta, check out the HyperSpaces website to register for a notification when HyperSpaces comes out in public beta shortly.

Related Links:

CocoaBots Software

Tony Arnold | Lead HyperSpaces Developer

Cocoia Blog | Creating the HyperSpace Icon

[Pictures from MacWorld]

Cool features such as placing a link to a picture or easily inserting your current location with a single tap of your finger, will make the iPhone version very pleasant to use and I easily agree with Dan from MacWorld in predicting Twitterific for iPhone being the single most sought after app from the AppStore when it launches later this summer.

Read more at MacWorld

http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/snowleopard/

Twing.com today announced the debut of its new online community and forum search engine, www.Twing.com. Created to be the Internet’s best resource for helping users search and discover opinions, information and conversations that match their interests, Twing.com includes its own blogs and forums to provide updated community information and an ongoing conversation with visitors and forum owners.

“Online forums are an established medium people have been using to communicate since the early days of the internet, even predating the web. The number of users of these forums has been consistently growing year over year, and recent estimates of U.S. users alone exceeds 50 million,” said Kevin Shea, General Manager for Twing.com. “As more users become active, more forums have been created and this trend is continuing. Our goal is to help these internet users to participate in discussions, ask questions, get answers and offer advice by providing a resource that organizes this category of online content and uncovers the discussions that interest them. We expect Twing.com to be an invaluable resource for forum users and owners.”

Twing.com’s use of proprietary software and algorithms enables users to search into forum content well beyond the limitations of traditional search engines. With Twing.com, Internet users can search the rich user-generated content found in online communities and forums, and access these discussions through highly relevant, easy-to-read search results.

Twing.com also caters to forum owners by enabling them to submit their sites to the Twing Forum Directory, a resource designed to generate traffic and enhance the quality of discussion taking place on forums.

“Just about any interest area has a forum, and sometimes hundreds of them,” added Scott Germaise, Twing’s Director of Product Management. “Forums are a great source of information, especially if you’re looking for advice or help from real people facing the same issues. The advantage Twing.com offers is its clarity of focus on forum content, which is the essence of online community. By offering multiple search options plus advanced filtering and sorting tools, people can effectively search forums in ways not available until Twing.com. We believe people will not only benefit from using Twing.com, but will also become more aware of and contribute to the ongoing growth and value of forum communities all over the Internet.”

Twing.com is easily used by entering search terms to quickly locate specific discussions and/or topics. Visitors can register – for free – to become a Twing.com member and participate in Twing.com’s forums and take advantage of current and upcoming personalization options.

However, we should take this time to mourn the loss of a very dear friend: iCards.

iCards was introduced with the introduction of iTools (the precursor to .Mac) back in 2000, in the OS 9 days. The service has remained practically the same, and has always been my favorite way of sending cards to all of my friends and family online. MobileMe will see the discontinuation of iCards. Everyone should take a moment of silence to commemorate the passing of an age.

From the Versions website:

Whether you’re a designer, developer, editor or project manager, chances are you already have plenty on your mind. Versions saves you the hassle and makes working with Subversion easy for your entire team. Thanks to Versions’ clear-cut approach to Subversion, novices and power users alike will enjoy using it. And if you haven’t moved to Subversion yet, now is the time.

Spaces was one of the new features in Leopard I was most excited about, but I found the actual implementation unusable. [Henry Story wrote a fine description][d] of the problems with Spaces in 10.5.0. When I linked to his critique, [I wrote]:

I’ve tried to love Spaces but can’t, because I want to divide spaces into tasks, and some apps, like my web browser, need to have windows in every space. If I’m in, say, space 3 and Command-Tab to Safari, I want Safari to activate in my current space, not jump me to whichever space contains the frontmost Safari window. In short, Spaces seems designed for app partitioning, not task partitioning.

Take, for example, the task of writing this article. What I want to be able to do with Spaces is dedicate one space solely to the task. I want Safari windows pertaining to any web pages related to the article, and MarsEdit and BBEdit windows for the article itself. But I don’t want all open Safari, MarsEdit, and BBEdit windows in this space — I only want those pertaining to the article. There was simply no way to make this work in 10.5.0 through 10.5.2; you could get the windows grouped this way, but you’d keep getting switched to another space when what you wanted to do was switch to another app within the current space. Spaces really only seemed suited to putting all of any given app’s windows in a particular space (or making all an app’s windows visible in all spaces). This isn’t to say Spaces wasn’t usable, only that it wasn’t usable for grouping a few windows from different apps together in one Space.

This week’s release of 10.5.3 brought good news: Apple has addressed this problem with a few seemingly minor changes to Spaces. Apple’s release notes for 10.5.3 hint at the changes, but don’t explain them in any detail:

Spaces

• Resolves an issue in which switching to a different space and returning back to the original space may reorder the application windows with a different active window.

• Resolves an issue in which activating an application from the Dock switches to a different space, even if there is a window for that application in the current space.

• Fixes an issue in which Command-Tab may incorrectly switch to a new space.

• Addresses reliability issues with Spaces when syncing preferences over .Mac.

Some of these are simply bug fixes. Clearly, for example, switching between spaces shouldn’t have changed the window ordering within a space. But some of these describe new behavior which only kicks in if you turn off a new-to-10.5.3 checkbox in the Spaces panel in System Preferences: “When switching to an application, switch to a space with open windows for the application”.

By default, it’s checked, which means app switching under Spaces remains much the same as it was on 10.5.0–10.5.2. For example, let’s say you have two spaces, with one or more Safari windows in space 1, and no Safari windows in space 2. If you’re in space 2 and activate Safari — whether by clicking the Dock icon, Command-Tabbing, or by opening a link in some other app’s window in space 2, then Spaces will jump you to space 1, where there are already open Safari windows.

If you turn this new checkbox off, however, activating an app, even one that has no windows in the current space, will not jump you to another space. Once you’re in a space, you stay there until you explicitly switch spaces, not just switch apps. This makes all the difference in the world for the way I, and others, want to use Spaces.

This is a major change to the way Spaces works, but the checkbox label doesn’t exactly make it clear. (I don’t have a better label to suggest; it’s a tough feature to describe in the length of a checkbox label.) Sadly, the help content for Spaces does not seem to have been updated to even mention this checkbox, let alone describe what it does.

One non-obvious detail is that you can switch to another space by clicking an app’s Dock icon multiple times. If you click a running app’s Dock icon once, that app will activate in the current space. If it doesn’t have any open windows in the current space, it will activate without creating a new untitled window. But if you click that same app’s Dock icon again, you’ll jump to the next space in which that app does have an open window. If the app has open windows spread across multiple spaces, subsequent clicks on its Dock icon will cycle through those spaces. So if you have four total spaces, with Safari windows in spaces 1 and 3, you can repeatedly click Safari’s icon in the Dock to cycle between spaces 1 and 3. If you’re starting in space 2 or 4, clicking Safari’s Dock icon once will activate Safari in that space but without a window.

Using Command-Tab to switch between apps, you will never automatically switch to another space when this new “switching” checkbox is turned off. (It’d be nice if the Command-Tab window provided some sort of indication for which apps have open windows in the current space.)

I also ran into an issue specific to web browsers. In the General tab of Safari’s preferences window, you can specify whether links from other applications open in a new Safari window or in a new tab in the frontmost existing Safari window. I had been using the “in a new tab” option. However, with this new Spaces feature, opening a link from another app in a space that has no Safari windows will jump you to the next space that does have one. Ideally, I’d like to see Safari create a new window in the current space in this situation, but as it stands, changing Safari’s preference to open links in a new window is good enough. (This same thing applies to other tabbed web browsers, such as Firefox and Camino.)

In short, if you were happy with the way Spaces worked through 10.5.2, you shouldn’t notice any changes, because the default behavior remains the same in 10.5.3. But if, like me, Spaces drove you nuts by switching between spaces when you only wanted to switch between apps within the current space, give it another shot after turning this new checkbox off. Kudos to the Spaces team.

---

Lastly, I should mention that I had problems getting this new feature to work at all. After upgrading to 10.5.3 and seeing the Spaces-related changes in the release notes, I tried it out. Toggling the new checkbox made no difference for me, however — I got the same old “jump to another space when switching apps” behavior either way. I solved the problem by trashing my com.apple.dock.plist preferences file (which, since Spaces is controlled by the Dock, is where most Spaces-related prefs seem to be stored). After logging out and logging back in, the new checkbox worked perfectly.

[From ★ Spaces in 10.5.3]

If you find any bugs throughout the site, which will most likely happen, please send me a quick email so I can get it sorted out. Thanks!

Read Article.

My simple question is whether I should upgrade to the v2.0 release that’s been out for quite awhile now? It has a few features, mainly an iPhone pepper, which I would like, but is there any other compelling reason to fork over the money?

I’d just like to hear some thoughts from other Mint users out there. 1.x seems to be suiting me just fine as it is.

My friends and I came up with a new game this past summer and this semester I’ve created a 2-player online version. It’s a ton of fun and I would appreciate any feedback you have. I do have a few more ideas in the works, as well as expanded documentation, but all in good time. I plan to officially release it into the wild this July.

Quick overview of the game:

• You’re dealt 9 cards, 3 of which you don’t see
• Then you pick 3 cards to save for the end of the game
• You can only play cards of equal or greater value each turn
• 2’s, 8’s, and Joker’s are wild
• Aces are high
• First player to completely go out of cards wins.

Start playing now!

It seems pretty obvious, doesn’t it? Someone is referred to the site because of a Google search every couple minutes. I spend time looking at the stats to see what you are searching for and where you end up once you are on the site. All important information.

Any thoughts?

Flow is exciting for a few reasons. First, it’s Leopard only. This means that the interface is super slick (lickable as the developer describes it). Views are animated and everything is simply gorgeous and simple to use. Leopard technologies such as Quicklook are also employed in the app. Quicklook files from your servers!

The first thing you’ll notice when launching Flow, is that it just feels right. It’s super responsive and fits in perfectly with the Leopard UI. Complete with tabs and a simplistic and intuitive interface, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.

Flow provides a built-in editor as well, which is fairly decent. The bottom pane of the window provides you with a live preview of your changes, and the editor actually supports syntax highlighting for HTML, PHP, XML and CSS. However, it seems that Javascript highlighting isn’t available at this time, but hopefully will be in a future release. Note: the image below is while using Quicklook in Flow, not from my Mac.

Bonjour is also available, right in the sidebar. Because I have “Remote Login” (ssh) enabled on my Macbook, my computer showed up under the SFTP folder here. Just double-clicking on my computer and entering my password instantly logged me in and brought up my home folder. If there were more computers on my network, this could be very useful indeed.

Droplets are very useful as well. Simply create a droplet from the “Bookmarks” menu and an icon appears on your Desktop (which you can move then anywhere on your Mac). Then, just drop a file or folder on the droplet, and whether Flow is running or not, the stuff is uploaded to your server.

A few things I’ve noticed. First, If you have a tab open and double-click on a bookmark to log you in, the tab will be used for that bookmark. This is the same behavior that is in Safari. However, I would rather stay logged in to both and have the bookmark be opened in a new tab. If that annoys you, there is an easy set in Preferences to enable. Just a heads up. Second, Bonjour connections seem to be just a bit buggy still. It took me a couple clicks to get the right information to show up in the login pane when clicking on my computer, and once connected, the name of the tab wasn’t updated to the new connection. However, bugs have been filed

This is definitely an exciting new app and is very refreshing as the previous leader in the FTP space, Transmit, was getting long in the tooth. Congrats to Brian from Extended Mac on his first release!

You can download a free 15 day trial from Extended Mac Software here. Flow is 29 USD for all 1.x upgrades.

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!

For a small fee, there is an extensive video series available detailing icon design.

Icon Resource.net

Take a look here.

If you want to execute a process in the background in the shell, just append an ampersand to the end of the command. Most of the time this isn’t that useful, but the special appeal is when launch X apps from the shell. If you don’t append the &, the shell waits for the X app to terminate before returning a prompt, so the window is useless.

I spend quite a lot of time in Unix and just now found this tip out, as I’m writing my own simple shell for one of my classes. Cool tip indeed.

Yes, you could use Cmd-t or use the menu item, but sometimes I’m just right there with the mouse and that’s the quickest way. With the ability to rearrange and drag-n-drop tabs that Safari 3 added, I’m very pleased with tab support now.