Cocoa is My Girlfriend: “If you are using Core Data in a Leopard application then Sync Services is so trivial that you should be syncing if it makes sense. In this article we are going to cover syncing in a non-Core Data situation as that is quite a bit more complex.”

Macworld: “Coda 1.5 adds a variety of new features including Subversion, which allows users to check out code, make changes and check it back in. The update also allows you to find and replace across multiple local files.” And more, of course.

I use Coda to update the NetNewsWire Help book. Love it. Cool app.

David Morrison, via email: "I've been reading your site for a few years now, and couldn't think of anyone else to ask this question to. Are there any feeds or releases of the Democratic Convention speeches in just audio format. I'm traveling out of country, can't sit and watch on a computer, and don't have the bandwith to download video. Been searching for a few days, and can't seem to find anything. Seems amazing that this 'high tech' campaign doesn't have this easily availible."

As we were going into the DNC this afternoon our path was blocked by a crowd of police, press and a handful of protestors and priests.

#1: Roe v Wade survivor.

#2: Protestors.

#3: Arrests.

Just got a comment from Mark Dzmura saying that Fox and CNN are reporting that there is racial discord at the DNC, and I want to say that's absolutely not true. It's bright and sunny and hot in Denver and eveyrone here, including the Hillary people, blacks and whites and every other color, are happy and looking forward to the campaign and election. Lots of smiles, high fives and good nature. It's a much more positive feel than 2004. Glad there are bloggers here to help set the record straight. I'll be uploading some pics soon to illustrate.

NewsGator Daily: “I am happy to announce that NetNewsWire for iPhone was just selected by PC Plus for an Editor’s Choice award.”

Of course, there’s no rest, no matter how many awards an app wins or doesn’t win — I’m fixing bugs, making it faster, and adding new features. Plenty more to do!

I walked through a door I shouldn't have and all of a sudden I'm walking around among all these famous politiicans and news people. Only got a good picture of John Kerry, and a movie of Sean Hannity and a movie of John Kerry.

I also uploaded a movie of the convention floor in motion.

I'm sitting in the nosebleeds at Pepsi waiting for Jimmy Carter to speak, and then FriendFeed releases its new beta. Good timing! Gives me something to do while the speakers go on and on and...

Not sure what to do with the sub-lists feature, that's going to take some processing, but...

I found one hidden feature that's definitely worth calling out.

I can read someone else's feed and see what they see. That will, as Bret Taylor says, give us an easy way to show people what FF looks like to us. I'm sure itll be confusing to a lot of people, FF is a rich and complex product even though it has a very simple set of rules. Any way of discovering what its like in all its richness is worth it.

I was walking on 16th St in Denver at noon and saw that there were a lot more people on the street than there had been a few minutes before; all walking in the same direction, fast, reporters with TV crews. And cops, and then down Larimer we could see an entourage of black SUVs with flashing lights waiting. "Something's going on!"



So we followed the reporters, pushed our way to the front of the crowd, and asked what's going on, they said "Joe Biden." There were members of his press pool nearby. I asked how long there had been a press pool for Biden, and was told this was the first first event, in fact it was his first public appearance since being chosen by Obama as his runninng mate.

A huge crowd gathered -- a few minutes later there was a rush of energy and there he was. I held my camera over my head and snapped picture after picture, a few movies. I didn't get to shake his hand, but I did take in the scene. It was really hot. A lot of excitement and enthusiasm for the guy. He cracked a few jokes about how hungry he was and he was looking forward to the BBQ and walked up to the stand and ordered something. There was even a press crew inside the stand! The place was absolutely crrawling with reporters and cameras.

After a while we found a quiet place to upload a picture and a movie, probably the first pictures of the event to make it out of Denver (assuming there wasn't any live coverage).

It was pure luck that we happened to cross paths with Biden's entourage. If we had headed out for lunch just a few minutes earlier we wouldn't have.

Here's a quick picture of the blogger's space at the DNC, and after working here for a few minutes I ache to get back on the road. This is a far cry of the space we had at the DNC in 2004. We were in the nosebleed seats, but we had a constant view of the whole scene, the stage, the floor, and could walk around among the other press.

This year we're on the Administrative level, in a concrete bunker, flourescent lighting, and a view of nothing but TV screens. I'd do better in my office at home. I'm going to have to figure out a way to escape these confines or I'm getting on I-70 tomorrow morning and heading west.

Update -- that wasn't the blogger room. The blogger lounge is actually much nicer, softer light, couches, nerdiier looking people. I asked why bloggers get better space, no one seemed to know.

NewsGator Careers: We’re looking for someone to “manage the implementation of NewsGator’s products to their Enterprise customers, including products for enterprise server and social networking sites.”

PMC Software: “Build a Mac Software Bundle, and Help Fight Cancer!”

1. The Big Tent.

2. Google's tent. (Ahh, it's the same thing as the Big Tent.)

3. Where the bloggers are hanging out!

4. Friends from Twitter, Berkman, FriendFeed, Silicon Valley, etc.

5. Fun!

Any help would be much appreciated.

PS: Just for fun, here's how the cops get around Denver. They're all very friendly so far, even they think it's funny. So far everyone's getting along great.

Seth Dillingham is selling bundles of Mac applications to raise money for fighting cancer. Go build your own.

We clearly need an IRC space for the DNC. So here it is...

irc://irc.freenode.net/#dnc08

Hope to see you there!

PS: This could be an interesting place for people who are here in Denver to ping each other too. Let's have a Scripting News meetup? I'm definitely up for it. I hardly know anyone here!

They have a Flickr stream.

And a Twitter feed..

Samba de Amigo is coming to the Wii, and I'm excited. I owned two full sets of the maracas when the game existed for the Dreamcast, and Samba de Amigo is one of about four or five games I wish I still had. The game could be instantly played by anyone, was a big hit among the slightly intoxicated people at various parties, and had enough different music to keep you playing.

So, so much fun.

---

© Erik J. Barzeski for NSLog();, 2008. | Permalink

Uploaded a lot more pictures, and am about to upload a 2 minute tour of the inside of the DNC.

It's super hot outside, but the press puts on a good show.

Found free workspace, fast Ethernet and power. Happy blogger.

Now I'm looking for Google's tent, and the unassigned media tent (which is what bloggers are, officially, at the DNC).

Lots of the landscape is familiar, and it was true I'd need to re-experience it to recall the memories.

The photos from this part of the day's exploration begin here.

About to upload some pics and videos.

I'm posting regular updates to Twitter.

When I set out from Berkeley on Tues morning, this was my destination,. A dramatic entrance (movie) into the Pepsi Center, where the Democratic Convention opens tomorrow.

Lots more pictures following.

I'm over the first hurdle getting set up for the Democratic Convention. I've got my press credential for tomorrow. Later today I'm heading over to the Pepsi Center to take some pictures. If you're here and reading this let's get together to talk politics and tech.

Some pics I took this morning...

Security details everywhere, also lots of volunteers offering help. Everyone's friendly and upbeat.

Obama-branded merchandise is going fast.

This guy looks like Obama, but...

I'm in the hotel where all reporters get their credentials. Spotted one or two famous faces. Got my s.w.a.g. bag.

See the two segmented controls in the screenshot of the Numbers inspector? Right there in the "Page Layout" section? SEe 'em?

Thing is, they're not segmented controls. At least, they don't act like 'em. They look like 'em, but they don't quack like them, so they're not ducks.

Instead of clicking on the left or right side, it doesn't matter which side you click on - they'll toggle.

Great job, Apple.

Fortunately, this isn't the biggest problem in Numbers. I spent ten minutes today trying to figure out the whole border system (I've got it now!), and a good 15 minutes trying to figure out how to force Numbers how NOT to use the names of columns in formulas. Never did get an answer to that one, and every time I'd type the cell coordinates the names would replace the much simpler letter/number pair.

Oh, and once I merged some cells, I was seemingly unable to split them back into the cells they came from. Numbers kept dividing them in half, despite the fact that I'd originally merged three cells into one.

---

© Erik J. Barzeski for NSLog();, 2008. | Permalink

Well, pretty much 1/2 my road trip is finished. Drove from SLC to Laramie yesterday, had dinner with Isobel & Brett, then drove from Laramie to Boulder, a quick drive, and back to urban life. Tired but I've got plenty of time to rest before arriving in Denver on Sunday for the start of the DNC, where I will wear two badges. They decided I was a blogger after all, and I am credentialed press.

Meanwhile my iPhone crapped out, it says it has no SIM card. Restarting it made it work, for a while, now it doesn't work at all. I'm going to the Apple store in Boulder this evening to see if they can help.

Meanwhile I'm thinking that since I have Sprint EVDO, I could get a deal from them on a cell phone. Anyone have any ideas about that? The EVDO has been working nicely since I reinstalled the software on the Asus, and I've even been getting used to the keyboard. The big question is will I be able to blog the convention with just the Asus, without having to lug around the 17-inch MacBook Pro. The only potential reason not is the keyboard. And it's not a problem if I'm mostly going to do video and pictures, which seems to be my favorite mode these days. That and FriendFeed/Twitter.

BTW, people who have been trying to call me and can't get through, send me an email and I'll call you back if I'm near a phone. Life with a broken iPhone, esp just before a major schmoozing event, not fluid.

I wonder how this convention will differ from the 2004 convention in Boston. I had a lot of fun there, it was the event that launched podcasting to a whole new level. I'll probably remember more about that convention as I go through the routine again this year. I know I'll look for the press room sooner this year than I did last year. As much as I love being a blogger, the reporters covering the convention have interesting stuff to talk about too, and it's different.

Thinking about taking a different route back to the Bay Area.

I won't say what it is, but Brad and I have been working on an iPhone application at the target price of $1.99. It's not Scorecard for the iPhone (that's coming out later), and it's not really much of anything, but we're "testing the waters" of sorts with this app, and for under two bucks, we think it can be fun.

---

© Erik J. Barzeski for NSLog();, 2008. | Permalink

I had a random thought today as I read the press release about Amazon's new Elastic Block Store. Once again, I wish the OPML Editor ran on Linux so my software could take advantage of all of Amazon's innovation. I see the Linux guys having the all the fun and I want to play! I wish there was some way we could install XP on one of Amazon's servers. Now that they're trying to retire it in favor of Vista, I wonder if Microsoft would be willing to cut a deal allowing us to install XP in Amazon's cloud? Even better if they did a deal with Amazon so this is just a checkbox.

The WSJ reports that the Republicans will have press events in Denver during the Democratic Convention. They even say that the Republicans have found a loophole that allows them access to the floor of the convention. This is not cool.

Here's the relevant quote from the WSJ piece: "Some Republicans will do interviews on the sets of television networks operating in the Pepsi Center, meaning they and the staff escorting them will have access to the site."

At some point Obama and the Democrats are going to have to fight back, and it better be soon. McCain's involvement in corruption should be handled in a gloves-off way. Wes Clark's statement that being shot down and imprisoned, while sad is in fact not a qualification for President. The age issue ought to be brought up in a personal way -- related to McCain's stumbles and appearance. Question his mental ability, and how it's not going to get better as McCain ages. Question his health, he's a cancer survivor. Question his education, his honesty, how he treated his first wife, how he cheated on his current wife, and her drug addiction, is she paying taxes on all her property? How many McMansions does McCain need? He's had a government health care program his whole life, how in touch could he be with your life as you deal with medical issues without insurance and face the prospect of losing your home. This guy has 12 homes and a private jet. How out of touch can you get!

Just getting rid of Republican corruption and incompetence is enough change. Stop taking chances with our future Obama, and hit him back hard. And do not allow Giuliani and Romney on the floor of the convention.

Update: He doesn't know how many homes he's got. Excellent. Super-elite and senile. A perfect ad.

So, we're considering adopting a greyhound. It seems it's the only way to get one, after all. Though part of me loved being "in control" from the get-go (or, well, about nine weeks old anyway) with my former canine pal, part of me is looking forward to not having to get up three times per night to take a very small dog outside to pee and all that. If you consider them a wash, the only downside, then, is not being able to get cute puppy pictures.

Given kiddo's issues with that former canine pal, we're going to be going to some "meets" to make sure she's comfortable with a dog the size of a greyhound. From what Carey and I have read, they're pretty gentle, and you must only watch out for small animals running around outside - as a sight hound, the Greyhound might immediately take flight after said small furry object.

Target date is early next summer, but we'll see. In the meantime, feel free to post any thoughts here.

---

© Erik J. Barzeski for NSLog();, 2008. | Permalink

Picked up the iPhone 3G today. Setup was not too bad: I was able to provision the new phone via iTunes and immediately use a backup from my 2G iPhone to restore most my settings, files, apps, etc. Ran into a little trouble since the backup was from a later version of the OS (2.0.2) than the iPhone came with (likely 2.0.1, or maybe even 2.0).

Carey's phone was a bit easier to set up once I figured out that the iTunes error that kept getting thrown at me was due to the 12" PowerBook's lack of USB 2 ports. Lovely. I set her up with a MobileMe account since she still uses the 12" PowerBook as her primary computer, so synchronizing would be a pain otherwise. Anyway, after choosing to add the $20 plan (kudos to AT&T for recognizing the phone and not trying to juke me into the $35 get-up).

Now the hard part begins: training the wife on everything iPhone.

---

© Erik J. Barzeski for NSLog();, 2008. | Permalink

Good morning everybody!

This is Dave coming to you from Salt Lake City, UT.

I'm on my Summer 2008 road trip. Started yesterday at 4AM, and got me into SLC at about 4PM.

Stops include Laramie, WY; Boulder CO and on to Denver on Sunday for the Democratic National Convention. Then four days of watching, listening, talking, and thinking and then back on the road to do it all again!

I tried to set up a LAN in my car, to no avail. There isn't much Sprint EVDO on the road between Reno and Salt Lake. No matter, as it turns out there isn't much I want to say to or hear from the net while on the road.

I listened to an excellent Gillmor Gang podcast with Marc Canter and Evan Prodromou of identi.ca. I agree with Steve that identi.ca must do what Twitter does, and the things Twitter stopped doing (like the hugely important XMPP gateway) but no more.

If a user has to stop and think whether they should use 140 characters or 250 because this micro-message might go through a gateway to Twitter, well, that's the end of identi.ca right there. Doesn't make it through most people's annoyance filter. Maybe later, when and if identi.ca takes over the world, but it hasn't happened yet, so for now, do what Twitter does -- and no more.

Also, Twitter does have a hard limit of 140 characters per message. Here's an example. I wrote a script to send a 250 character tweet to Twitter. Here's what showed up on Twitter. 140 characters and no URL linking to an addendum.

Let's try the same on identi.ca. Good, it works identically. (Hence its name.) Keep it that way!

To Steve, there have been URIs for individual twits for a long time. That's not something new with the threading features in Twitter.

I loved that Kevin Marks always has one more half-baked BigCo replacement for something we've in the LittleGuy world have had working for years. Evan does an excellent job of taking it up the butt (I mean that as a compliment) -- BOGU is the way of the software world esp when you're being evangelized by IBM (in the 80s), Microsoft (in the 90s) or Google (in the 00s).

Marc and Steve have great rapport, as good as anything I've heard in podcasting. And Marc, I left a voicemail for you, but given the way the phone company works, you probably won't get it for a few days. Say hi to Doc for me!

There's something really spooky about listening to a podcast with these guys interspersed with doing Bluetooth cellphone calls to them at the same time! Oh man, technology is amazing.

Anyway, I am posting pics to Flickr (and Twitter) fairly regularly.

Today I hang out with NakedJen in Salt Lake and might have a meal with Phil Windley and then tomorrow it's back on the road heading into Wyoming.

43 Folders: “I’ve come to believe that creative life in the first-world comes down to those who try just a little bit harder.”

It's so obvious it's almost mathematical.

After eight years of Bush -- if Obama is elected, everything will be different.

Instead of a President who shoots from the hip and trusts his untrustworthy gut, you'll have a President who gets educated, and chooses teachers who really know their stuff. That's the change Obama will bring to Washington. The rest of it, if you were thinking that all of a sudden one day Washington would work in a fundamentally different way, we can argue over whether it's desirable (I'd say it's not) but we wouldn't have much argument over whether it's possible -- it's not.

And by the way -- when Bush shoots from the hip, he's probably actually doing what the defense and oil industries tell him to do. He's like Columbo, it's easier for them if we think he's a bumbler, no need to look any deeper.

So the first change you'll get from Obama is that he's not Bush. That alone is a lot of change. Now let's stop worrying about it and get on with making sure he wins. (And we, like the Republicans, should do everything and anything we have to do to win. Sorry if you don't like it, but it's too important, too much depends on it.)

Think of it like this. One day you're using Windows and wake up the next day and all your computers are running Mac OS X. It's still a computer. It's still fundamentally the same experience. But it works a bit more logically, and you don't get in trouble as often. It's not foolproof, but it's a bit better.

If you prefer Windows to Mac, switch them around.

McCain, even if he hadn't changed his tune and started acting just like Bush, saying the same nonsensical things that make you think he's now working for the same people Bush is (defense contractors and the oil indiustry), would still be a poor choice re Obama. On the other hand, want to have your eyes opened? Watch the movie Why We Fight and then ask yourself if Obama might not be owned by the same people. If he can prove he's not, then we really might be getting some substantial change.

There are truths to the way our country works that are never talked about on the national stage. Change is possible at that level, but those industries will still have a seat at the table when Obama is President. Eisenhower warned of it in his farewell speech. It's serious stuff.

Bush gave into these people because he is one of them. His VP is a defense contractor. We know at least that Obama is not one of them. Change? Big change.

I wish the leading icons of the Democratic blogosphere would listen to this and stop worrying about the superficial distinctions. This piece was prompted by a Josh Marshall piece on the subject of change. Marshall is great when he doesn't ponder impossibilities. Let's focus on who owns the Presidency and be happy if we've been able to introduce a little pushback to the defense and oil industries, this will make change, if we in fact are able to.

Seems I enjoy using my iPhone to take pictures of typos. After all, there's this, this, and now this:

---

© Erik J. Barzeski for NSLog();, 2008. | Permalink

NewsGator’s widgets business hasn’t overlapped with NetNewsWire, but I felt like learning more about it. (I take it as self-evident that it’s good to be curious about your own company’s products.)

Some other parts of NewsGator’s business, especially NewsGator Enterprise Server (NGES), have overlapped with NetNewsWire. NetNewsWire and the other client apps work with NGES as well as with the online syncing system. (NGES is like the online system, but with a whole bunch of special features that businesses need.)

But I didn’t know that much about widgets, and I got curious. I got curious more about widgets-as-software than widgets-as-business, but I’ll talk about the business part first.

The Scoop on Widgets

They’re web-page widgets, not Dashboard widgets or whatever they’re called in Windows. They embed in a page via JavaScript includes. Though widgets could be anything, NewsGator’s tend to display RSS feeds.

They’re also what the business hepcats like to call “viral” — they can spread. If you see a widget you like, you can add it to your own weblog, social networking thing, whatever.

Why would anyone make a widget? I can guess at some business uses:

1. Get the word out about your site.

2. Get more people to visit your site.

3. Make money from advertising. You could include an ad in a widget.

The more a widget spreads, the better you do with the above. Since anybody can spread a widget, I will guess that an important goal of a widget-maker is to make widgets that people want to spread.

Here’s where it got more interesting for me — I wondered what it was like to build a widget. I’m a developer, after all: I like making things.

Editor’s Desk

Business hipsters call this the “self-serve” model — NewsGator doesn’t have to make every widget by hand: we provide the tools to make widgets and the system to run them. (We do make some widgets, but other people can make widgets too.)

We have a web app called Editor’s Desk where you can build a widget. You can add content from one or more feeds, and there are templates that let you pick the look and feel. Advanced users can edit the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

I decided right away that I was one of those advanced-user-snobs. (Chianti-drinking, Plato-quoting, CSS-editing…)

So I started futzing around to see what I could make, and at the same time I tried to figure out the basic principles of widget design. (Which is what most geeks would do, since it’s never enough to just learn how to make a thing: we have to get under the hood.)

My first widget

I wondered if the widget design tools were flexible enough for me to create a widget that looked like my weblog. Answer: yes.

Here’s a screenshot, since the actual widget might not make it through your RSS reader.

(You can view the live, running widget.)

My second widget

Then I did a widget that people might actually want to spread: it displays the NetNewsWire news feed. Here’s a screenshot:

(Again, the live version is on my widgets page.)

By this time I’d figured out a few things about widget design.

1. Widgets should be in a bordered box of some kind.

Seems obvious, but worth noting. Rounded corners are nearly a must.

2. Widgets are guests on a page. And no part of the widget starts drawing until after the JavaScript include returns.

This said to me that keeping resources low is a good idea. My widgets all use just one graphic. They don’t even use graphics for the rounded corners — they use the support built into Firefox and Safari for rounded corners. (You get square corners on IE, but I was willing to make the trade-off.)

3. The small canvas means keep things simple.

For each widget I used a limited color palette. News items are separated by space rather than with bullets or lines. The one graphic I use adds visual interest plus a clue to what the widget is about. (Business daddy-Os would call the graphic a “branding” thing.)

I could have also added a mini-toolbar for each item, with an email-this link and a place to rate the article. But I didn’t quite buy the workflow, that you’d open a page, read it, and then come back, find the link on the widget, then email or it or rate it. I think you’re going to email a page when you’re actually on the page, either via a link on that page or your browser’s email command. And I didn’t think you’d remember that you want to come back and rate the page. Not including the mini-toolbar meant I had room to display more news items, and the overall look was more clear.

4. There’s a natural layout: title, feed or feeds, and Get This Widget link.

It’s like so many other things — desktop apps, web pages — with a header, main content area, and footer.

To keep things simple (and, I hope, more striking, better able to compete with other things on the page), my headers and footers are always the same background color, and they’re darker than the news items list (the lighter news items list helps with readability).

I’m sure there are more things to know about widget design, but I've only made a few so far, and I haven’t seen them running on other sites yet, so I’m just a newbie.

My third widget

Now I was on a roll — making widgets is fun, it turns out — so I made a multi-feed widget: Seattle Mac & iPhone Developers. Here’s a screenshot:

And I made one last widget with news from the weblogs of some of my co-workers. (I know about the weblogs of J. B. Holston, Greg Reinacker, Jeff Nolan, Karyn German, Walker Fenton, Dan Larson, Nick Harris, and Nick Bradbury. Apologies to anybody whose weblog I don’t know about. ;)

(I’ve already posted enough screenshots — BRENTSCOWRKRSBLOGSOMG appears on my widgets page.)

FlickrFan, like all rivers of news, is about flow. In this case it's a flow of pictures, from your contacts on Flickr, from AP and AFP, and from anyone else that you know that provides a feed of high-def pictures.

I like to view the pictures on a big-screen TV that's hooked up to a Mac Mini, but I also use it on my desktop, and various laptops -- no matter where or how you watch, it's an interesting way to view the news.

Then I thought, why not scroll the pictures through a web page, one every few seconds? So last night I put it together, on an experimental basis, and it's pretty interesting! It's just a taste of what you get with FlickrFan, but it doesn't require any software other than a web browser.

http://show.flickrfan.org/

Click on the link and kick back for a few and let the pics scroll by. Today the news is mostly the Olympics and General Musharraf of Pakistan (he resigned). Last week there were lots of Russian tanks. Tomorrow I bet there will be hurricane pics from Florida. Watch out cause sometimes the pics are not work-safe, usually not because of sex, rather because of blood, even death. But that reflects what's actually happening in the world.

Thanks to two very fine organizations for their support: AFP for their fire-hose of wonderful news pictures, and WordPress.com for hosting the pictures and providing bandwidth. I couldn't afford the hosting myself.

Hope you like it!

Update: Interesting to see Boston.Com going in this direction too.

I really, really like Whispering Woods, and I'll likely be a member there next year exclusively (instead of being at both Lake View and Whispering Woods), but someone might want to check their spelling before posting signs:

---

© Erik J. Barzeski for NSLog();, 2008. | Permalink

I print a lot of 4x6 images from Aperture. I just crop to the right ratio (2x3 = 4x6), export full size to preserve as much detail as possible, and upload to the Wal-Mart website. An hour later I pick up the 4x6 prints.

Today Carey asked me to print four images per 4x6, giving her a bunch of 2x3 images that she could use as a border across a scrapbooking page. I figured "hey, no problem, Aperture can probably handle that."

Turns out I was wrong and Aperture seems to have no capability whatsoever to export four images (or two, or nine, or six, or any combination) per JPEG (or TIFF or whatever output format you choose). And no export plugins fill the hole from what I can tell.

LAME.

Perhaps I'll write a plugin to do this, but if I do, I won't start until the winter. Spring/summer/fall is too busy.P.S. I exported them all and made my own über-JPEG in Photoshop. I believe they've printed fine, but I'll find out in a few days since I sent these to the wrong Wal-Mart.

---

© Erik J. Barzeski for NSLog();, 2008. | Permalink

I've written about Torero's before, but let it be known: they don't give you a small amount of food.

I'm sure there's a little optical tomfoolery going on here (those are my wife's arms, after all, and not those of a two-foot-tall doll), but I can assure you the plate is a full foot wide, and the Coke is one of those fairly large 32+ oz. styles.

---

© Erik J. Barzeski for NSLog();, 2008. | Permalink

Anyone have a tip on buying a domain that is about to expire? Like, say, September 12th?

I know the original owner has a period of time in which they can renew, even after September 12, but I have reason to suspect they won't be doing so, and I'd like to be first in line to buy it when it's available.

I could have sworn I used my preferred registrar Dotster to buy iacas.com a few years ago in this sort of way, but they don't seem to offer that tool anymore.

P.S. Yes, I'm reading this article.

---

© Erik J. Barzeski for NSLog();, 2008. | Permalink

Riverfold Software: “Wii Transfer 2.6 is out with brand-new Mii support and dozens of major improvements.”

NetNewsWire 1.0.8 is now on the App Store. The main thing is to fix a crashing/hanging bug some folks were having. I posted 1.0.8 change notes on my weblog last week.

Now back to working on 1.1. ;)

I just got word that NetNewsWire 1.0.8 should be hitting the App Store — if it’s not there yet, it should be soon. (I believe.)

Macworld: “The public perception of Apple is that it’s a technology juggernaut with immense power at its disposal as it steamrolls over everyone else in the technology industry while creating one industry-busting product after another. There’s just one problem with that image: It’s not true.”

I’ve wanted a good Jabber client for iPhone. One of the guys at Jabber has been looking at MobileChat.

43 Folders: “It’s amazing how many sociopaths are out there dashing around, playing entrepreneur, and yelling into a phone about drilling-down — with what appears to be no idea how to actually get something amazing to market.”

When I decided to remove the Sites Drawer from future versions of NetNewsWire, I replaced it with something else: a feed that lists interesting feeds that I find.

It’s called, simply, the Interesting Feeds feed. You can subscribe.

I thought about doing other things — loading OPML files written by other people into the Sites Drawer, for instance. But every idea like this meant a bunch of work for little benefit — and a big part of the reason to delete features is to be able to spend more time working on the features that matter most.

(Aside: people who don’t write software generally underestimate how much work a given feature takes. People who write just a little software — scripters, for instance — underestimate even worse.)

So, finally, I decided to go with writing a feed. It has the advantage of being low-tech — I don’t have to build anything new. I use MarsEdit to add items to the feed (since it’s just a category on ranchero.com). And there aren’t any deadlines or pressure. I just post whenever I want to.

I’m considering making it a default for new users (for NetNewsWire/Macintosh), though I haven’t decided yet.

Suggestions for the feed are, of course, welcome. I won’t use everything I get. Probably not even half or even a quarter. And it’s not a self-promotion thing: don’t tell me about your feed, tell me about some other interesting feed.

(If you tell me about your feed, I’ll tell my cat on you, and he’ll make long red ribbons of your skin, then eat parts of you that are supposed to stay inside you. Just a warning. ;)

I just uploaded NetNewsWire for iPhone 1.0.8 — I can’t say when it will appear on the App Store, of course, but it’s in the review process now.

Changes in 1.0.8 (since 1.0.7):

- Fixed a hang/crash at startup affecting some people.

- Fixed a bug restoring a feed or post at startup -- it now makes sure the feed and post still exist in the database.

- Removed the Feeds title and the horizontal stripes from the startup image, so it doesn't look like it's switching views at startup.

- Removed some logging code for when a download fails -- it shouldn't have been left in there.

- No longer showing title in navigation controller in news item detail view -- it was redundant, and it didn't hardly ever fit anyway.

- You can turn off the unread badge count on the home screen via a pref in Settings. (Note: the change in pref doesn't take effect until you next launch NetNewsWire.)

- Fixed a bug parsing dates in news items on systems with non-English date formatting. (It will fix dates for items in the future, but it can't fix existing wrong dates.)

Adam Engst has a nice list of iPhone productivity applications. My favorite, by far, is OmniFocus. I also like PCalc.

Jason Fried:

This ad borders on bait-and-switch and it’s disappointing to see Apple go there. If the ad wasn’t about speed it might be a different story. If they were just showing off as many features as they could in a 30 second spot it would be understandable. If they exercised poetic license and cut out a few frames to make a different point we’d understand.…But Unslow is about selling speed.

Instant Cocoa: “pTerm is a very simple SSH client and xterm terminal emulator for the iPhone and iPod touch.” (Via TUAW.)

Evan DiBiase writes that “if you’re only using a method in once place, you have no idea how it’s going to generalize. Maybe you can reuse it, as-is, in many other places. Perhaps it will need to be decomposed.”

Despite the previous post, I still do use categories. ;) They’re not banned-in-BrentLand.

For the iPhone version of NetNewsWire, I put them all in one file: NNWExtras.m. (“Extras” instead of Categories because there are also a few C functions and one macro defined in that file.)

What I like about this is the discipline it brings. I don’t want that one file to become big, so I’m more reluctant to add a category or category method.

Rob Griffiths:

Changing your DNS servers isn’t very difficult to do, and by using OpenDNS, you’ll get the benefit of an active and constantly-updated anti-phishing tool, regardless of your browser of choice. If you don’t feel you’ll always be able to spot a potential phishing scam in your e-mail, using OpenDNS is a great solution that will allow you to keep using Safari with some peace of mind.

Via John Gruber, who says “it makes web surfing noticeably faster than using the default DNS servers I get from Comcast.”

Applications quietly removed from the App Store:

• BoxOffice (now called Now Playing, was reliable for me, though I like OneTap Movies better; I prefer both to Movies.app)
• I Am Rich (useless, but seems too simple to have caused any problems)
• NetShare (some service contracts allow it)

Update (2008-08-07): John Gruber relays a theory about I Am Rich.

Update (2008-08-08): The LA Times reports that I Am Rich was not removed at the developer’s request (via Dave Dribin). Apple removed Slasher from the App Store, citing “objectionable content.” The developer has removed the popular PhoneSaber since THQ Wireless owns “the rights for Star Wars apps on mobiles” (via John Gruber).

Update (2008-08-14): Now Playing is back, although it still appears as BoxOffice in the search results.

Ben Lynn has written a Git cookbook:

As Arthur C. Clarke observed, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. This is a great way to approach Git: newbies can ignore its inner workings and view Git as a gizmo that can amaze friends and infuriate enemies with its wondrous abilities.

Rather than go into details, we provide rough instructions for particular effects. After repeated use, gradually you will understand how each trick works, and how to tailor the recipes for your needs.

Testing wordpress app for iPhone.

Daniel Jalkut:

I’m ashamed to admit that this is how many a unit test has been put off. Other laziness incubators include the friction of adding a suitable unit test bundle target to a project, and the difficulty of deciding how to factor your unit tests so that they make sense in the context of your project.

[…]

But now you’re bound to run into a vexing question: “how the heck do I debug this thing?”. Since unit tests are generally built into a standalone bundle, there’s nothing for Xcode to run. But when you come across a failing unit test and you can’t figure out why, you find yourself wishing you could step through the code just as you might in an application.

Jalkut points to various tips for unit testing with Xcode. That’s how I originally wrote and ran my unit tests (using ObjcUnit, since Xcode didn’t yet have built-in testing support). Now I’m taking a different approach: using Python and PyObjC to write the tests and py.test to run them. You may prefer not to deploy an application written in Python or Ruby, but that’s no reason not to take advantage of those languages during development. The strengths of dynamic languages are a good fit for writing and debugging unit tests, and the weaknesses don’t matter so much in the context of testing.

Mike Ash:

I’ve come to realize that the iPhone platform is really pretty crappy in a lot of ways. And these ways are mostly not due to hardware limitations, but rather artificial limitations put in place by Apple. And mostly these are limitations which have been put in place For Our Own Protection, and which have been, shockingly, praised from many quarters.

Well, there was also a crowd who praised the announcement that developers would only be able to write Web applications and ridiculed those who wanted native ones.

Apple’s focus and attention seems to be on the iPhone, and the sentiment coming out of Cupertino is one that the iPhone is good, all of the stupid, crippling restrictions on how it works are good, and Apple always knows best.…This is the same keynote, let’s remember, where high-up Apple people ridiculed the idea that anyone would ever have a legitimate reason to run applications in the background. Unless that application is made by Apple, of course. And then they came up with their brilliant idea of push notifications, which totally replace the need for background processes, unless you’re writing a music player, or a Web browser, or GPS logger, or a terminal emulator, or file downloader, or….

I think most of what Apple has done is defensible. With a new platform and limited engineering resources, a case can be made for a conservative approach that starts with a very closed platform and slowly opens it up. You don’t maximize the device’s potential, but you prevent any bad surprises from occurring. Theoretically, by controlling everything, you can keep the quality of the experience high while you build market share. You can get away with this for a while because there are no significant competitors. This is not the approach I would have taken—I like Ash’s idea of third-party developers stepping in to do what Apple won’t or hasn’t yet—but I can easily believe that Apple thinks it’s a good idea, and they may be right.

What’s not so defensible is what Apple has been saying these past few years. It’s been spinning like crazy. They introduced the iPhone as a platform that included Cocoa and lots of great developer technologies, but soon it became clear that these were only for Apple’s use. First there was, “Cingular doesn’t want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up.” As far as I can tell this was just FUD. Then: “You can write amazing Web 2.0 and AJAX apps that look exactly and behave exactly like apps on the iPhone. And these apps can integrate perfectly with iPhone services.” Turns out there were significant look and behavior differences compared with native applications, and nearly all of the phone’s data and services were off limits. It was reasonable for Apple not to have an SDK ready at that time. It was not reasonable to suggest that Web applications, which we already knew would be supported, were something new and “innovative” and “a very sweet solution.” Since Steve Jobs said that this was something Apple had just “come up with,” some people assumed that there would be a JavaScript API or perhaps a widget environment. In fact, there was nothing. The touted integration ended up being that Google Maps and YouTube URLs would open in those applications rather than in Safari. Then, finally, the SDK was announced, and developers saw that far more was missing from the OS than the Mac desktop patterns and sounds. How would iPhone applications be developed and deployed? With music, Apple had given the appearance of being against DRM, but for applications it delivered one that was even more restrictive.

On the Mac side, Apple encouraged developers to write 64-bit Carbon applications, but then quietly removed this option. Developers would have been better off following the conventional wisdom, that Carbon was a transitional API and Cocoa was the future, than listening to Apple’s explicit statements to the contrary. At WWDC 2006, Steve Jobs declined to demonstrate Leopard’s top secret features because “We don’t want our friends to start their photocopiers any sooner than they have to.” Once Leopard shipped, we saw that there were no such features. At WWDC 2008, Jobs looked sickly and Apple PR claimed that he just had a “common bug,” though he eventually admitted off the record that this wasn’t true.

Ash now worries about what Apple has planned for the future of the Mac. It could be bleak. It seems like a crazy idea, but Apple is known for betting (often successfully) on crazy ideas. I don’t think Apple would go that far, but it’s frightening that it would be possible.

I think the bottom line is that, because of the way Apple has behaved, people don’t trust it as much. This makes them less willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. And it increases uncertainty, which makes it difficult to plan. Mac developers were encouraged to learn how to write Web applications when a Cocoa-based SDK was just around the corner. It ended up being better to act based on supposition (that there would be an SDK) and experiment with a jailbroken phone, than to do what Apple had recommended. I’m not suggesting that Apple should reveal all the details or make commitments prematurely, but in most cases I think the spinning is counterproductive. I would prefer candor. If the reality doesn’t match the rhetoric, people will find out. They could be unhappy that they were talked down to and misled, or they could appreciate being told the straight story, even if it’s less than insanely great.

Gus Mueller:

Why is this so important to me? As a developer (and specifically an indie developer) setting up and testing my applications on a clean install of Mac OS X can be a pain in the ass. I’m not the type to have multiple machines for this purpose since I can’t stand the clutter. Plus, once I’ve run my one of my apps on the clean system, it will leave little bits of debris around the file system in the form of preferences

I’ve been using multiple Macs and SuperDuper, but using virtual machines would be better in some ways. This would be best for testing with older versions of the OS, some of which require older hardware that I might not want to keep around. For how long after a version of Mac OS X Server is discontinued does ADC provide serial numbers?

The August issue of ATPM is out:

• Cover
• Sponsors
• Welcome
• E-Mail
• Apple Talk: Microsoft, Revisited
• Mac About Town: A Midsummer Night’s Mare (a comedy in multiple acts)
• MacMuser: Rowing Through Roquefort
• MacMuser: How to Get Pxl SmartScale Running on Intel Macs
• Next Actions: iPhone App Roundup, GTD
• Photoshop For the Curious: What If I Just Left It Alone?
• Desktop Pictures: San Francisco
• Cortland
• Software Review: Comic Life Magiq 1.0.1
• Software Review: Knapsack 1.1
• Software Review: SmartMask 2.0
• FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions

Call Me Fishmeal: “Every time I do a software release, no matter how minor, even if I just change one word, in French, to another French word, someone will send me mail or post on a forum, ‘Thanks, this release seems a lot faster!’”