Well, of course they did. - [9:21 AM]

MacWorld UK: "Apple holds two-thirds of the retail market for computers costing $1,000 or more, NPD figures claim." - That's because the only Apple box that sells for less than $1000.00 is the Mac Mini. Duh!

Labels: Apple, Mac

iPhone experimentation continues - [9:12 AM]

I've been exploring the iPhone SDK lately, it's been fun. I've finally figured some stuff out so it's really starting to get exciting. My "big" hurdle had been understanding how to take advantage of Interface Builder. I finally figured out how to hookup events now that seems pretty obvious, I knew that would happen, light bulb on, bing!

Here's a question for any Mac developers. Do people actually use the Interface Builder to design visually and hookup events, or do they draw the interface and hookup events in code, or do they build the UI all in code? I know, it's a strange question, and I'm sure I'll get a strange mix of answers, if any at all, but I had to ask. I'd love for Daniel Jalkut, or Brent Simmons to chime in.

Doing Windows C/C++ stuff for years had led to a certain expectation with Mac tools. In Windows I only used the graphical tools to create dialogs (at Visio we didn't even do that), then I'd go hook up event handlers in code. It was very straight forward and after using Interface Builder once I can see how easy it would be to hookup events in code instead of letting Interface Builder generate code for me.

I was very happy to discover a hunk of old C++ code compiled and worked like a charm when mixed with Objective-C. It was a pharmacokinetics library my brother and I created a long time back, and it just built and worked. That is a HUGE leg up for me. I can use my bad habit of writing C++ and slowly move into Objective-C. Very nice.

Next hurdle, gaining a better understanding of Objective-C.

It sure would be nice to build a Cocoa version of the Endura WS5000 software, hint, hint.

Labels: Apple, C++, Cocoa, Development, iPhone, Mac, Objective-C

Low cost Mac vector apps - [8:28 AM]

The Unofficial Apple Weblog: "Today, I'm going to review four leaner, lower-cost (or free) options from four high-powered indie Mac developers: DrawBerry, EazyDraw, Lineform, and VectorDesigner." - I like reviews like this. They used a "real world" example to evaluate each application. Nice.

Labels: Applications, Mac, Vector

Win32 to Cocoa - [9:50 AM]

ars technica: "This is the second part of a three-part series describing how one developer became disillusioned with the Windows platform and was reinvigorated by the bright lights of Mac OS X." - Stash for later, I'm having a bear of a time getting used to "The Cocoa Way." Anything that'll help make that transition, I'm all for it. Currently my biggest problem is figuring out how to use Interface Builder and hooking up events so my code actually receives them. This is the most difficult platform change I've ever made. I've worked with a bunch of different platforms and frameworks and I've never struggled this much. Eventually the light bulb will go on and I'll be fine, for now I'm very frustrated with the entire exercise. Objective-C is pretty interesting and I'm sure will pose some problems for me, but I can only burn one bridge at a time, and that bridge is the Interface Builder bridge. More to come.

Labels: Apple, Cocoa, Mac, Objective-C

I really, really, want to go to this - [9:48 AM]

Apple.com: "The groundbreaking innovations of Mac OS X Leopard and iPhone OS offer two revolutionary development platforms for developers and IT professionals. The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is the only place you can receive technical information on these sophisticated platforms from the engineers who created them. Bring your code to the labs and work one-to-one with Apple engineers, applying development methods and best-practices you gain from sessions to enhance your application."

Labels: Apple, Cocoa, Development, iPhone, Mac, Objective-C

Learning Objective-C - [5:25 PM]

Cocoa Dev Central: "Objective-C is the primary language used to write Mac software. If you're comfortable with basic object-oriented concepts and the C language, Objective-C will make a lot of sense. If you don't know C, you should read the C Tutorial first." - Very nice, easy to follow, tutorial for the beginning Objective-C developer, like your truly.

Labels: Development, Mac, Objective-C

Yes, it's that important - [5:44 PM]

Gizmodo: "The meeting ended with Jobs and Razlaff, now a creative at Frog Design, figuring out how to fix the UI issues, and Jobs asked for the mockups to be made into prototypes. Three weeks later Jobs dropped a compliment on the man." - I've run into folks that don't understand how important the User Interface really is, yes, they actually do exist. The User Interface is the User Experience is the Application. Yeah, you can have really cool algorithms under the hood but if the UI to those algorithms stinks the user won't use the application. Folks will actually live with speed issues as long as their work life is improved.

Labels: Apple, Development, Mac

Indy Mac Developer Links - [9:39 AM]

The Indy Mac Developer scene is amazing. Here are a couple more shops hacking away to bring you great Macintosh applications. Enjoy.

• Stunt Software - On The Job
• mooSoftware - TabletDraw

Labels: Apple, Applications, Mac

Mixing Objective-C and C++ - [9:19 AM]

A couple of weeks back I linked to John Nack's discussion of the 64-bit port of Photoshop, it's not a trivial task, but I'd forgotten you can mix C++ and Objective-C. This will make it easier for the Adobe crew to port Photoshop, but it's still going to be one heckuva chore!

Here's a VERY simple example. The Objective-C file, main in this case, is using the C++ class named CPPClass. Please note I had to rename the main.m file to main.mm so the compiler would treat it properly. I've also heard you can name the file '.M', or find a specific compiler setting that'll do the same trick for you. I don't know what that setting is, sorry.

Anywho, here's the simple sample.

#import 
#import "cppclass.h"

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    CPPClass* c = new CPPClass();
    c->Method1(99);
    c->Method2("Rob was here");
    delete c;
    
    return NSApplicationMain(argc,  (const char **) argv);
}

Labels: Adobe, Apple, Development, Mac, Objective-C

Keynote vs. PowerPoint - [7:56 AM]

Macworld: "PowerPoint has caught up to Keynote in many areas and surpassed it in some. But Keynote’s workflow and overall feature set remain superior. Practically speaking, your choice of software probably depends more on the hardware you’ll be using to deliver your presentation (and the software installed on it) than on the features of your authoring program. For that reason, unless Apple releases a Keynote player application for Windows, which isn’t likely, PowerPoint may be a more sensible choice for many speakers." - Interesting wrap up. It looks like Apple has done a great job, as usual, of catching up to the leader, Microsoft in turn has responded. The idea of a Keynote player for Windows isn't such a bad idea, do one for Linux as well to cover all your bases.

The bottom line: Keynote 4.5 mice, PowerPoint 4 mice.

Labels: Apple, Mac, Microsoft, Windows

64-bit Photoshop - [10:48 AM]

John Nack: "At the WWDC show last June, however, Adobe & other developers learned that Apple had decided to stop their Carbon 64 efforts. This means that 64-bit Mac apps need to be written to use Cocoa (as Lightroom is) instead of Carbon. This means that we'll need to rewrite large parts of Photoshop and its plug-ins (potentially affecting over a million lines of code) to move it from Carbon to Cocoa." - This is a mammoth undertaking, and quite frankly, I'm not so sure it'll be worth it in the end. It's very rare for a team to sit down, rewrite a gigantor application, and succeed. Why? Think about it for a few minutes. You have a VERY successful product, millions of users worldwide. Those users expect a certain amount of continued support for the product, meaning new features, bug-fixes, etc... So, how do you split your team to deal with that effectively? Now, Adobe may already do that to a certain degree. Two teams, one working on this release, one already exploring and working on the next, then they switch positions, but what about the talk of going from being a Carbon application to a Cocoa application? These are different frameworks, written in two completely different languages. Adobe has a couple of choices here, as I see it, and probable a few I haven't considered. One, they can essentially write their own version of Carbon accounting for just the Carbon features they need, two, they can keep a portable core and write a new Cocoa front end around it. Either way, it's going to be a ton of work. The selfish, techie, side of me says "Yeah, do it, it would be awesome to work on this sort of problem. Go for it!" The reasonable side of me says "Will you sell enough 64-bit native bits to justify the cost? In the end it'll be a business decision and someone will figure out the technical hurdles, that's the way things work in the engineering world. The Sales and Marketing types always ask "Can you do this?" The answer is "Of course we can silly Sales and Marketing people, how much time and money do you have?"

I'm a bit jealous. Whoever works on this is going to have a lot of fun.

UPDATE: John notes the whole Cocoa vs. Carbon debate toward the bottom of the article. If Carbon is good enough for Apple to use in iTunes, it's good enough for anyone else, don't you think?

Labels: Adobe, Development, Mac

Hey Microsoft - [1:43 PM]

The Unofficial Apple Weblog: "Throughout the years, Mac OS X has definitely seen its share of changes. In these 7 years, OS X has been through 6 versions (7 if you include the first public beta version)." - Microsoft should consider releasing an update, not labeled as a Service Pack, every year. Something that improves on the Vista experience, be that performance, or a nice subtle UI improvement. It might make people feel a bit better about Vista given it hasn't been well received.

Labels: Apple, Mac, Microsoft, Windows

Very unique Mac - [12:49 PM]

MAKE Magazine: "MAKE chum Jake von Slatt points us to a beautiful remake of his steampunk Mac Mini workstation by Dave Veloz, who made it for his fiance, no less!" - Very nice.

Labels: Apple, Mac

Mac running Windows - [9:28 AM]

The Unofficial Apple Weblog: "Actually, let's not do this. Let's realize that Microsoft is a company and Apple is a company, and while yes, in some fields they are competitors, let's just put the whole Apple vs. PC idea to bed. Guess what: a Mac actually is a PC. It's a very, very well-made PC (in fact, the best made, in this blog's humble opinion)." - Yes, the Macintosh is a great Windows box. Just check out the hardware, who wouldn't want that kind of power behind Windows? And, yes, I'm fairly certain the Linux crowd would be happy with a Mac as well, but I wouldn't want to do that to my Mac, it would be like putting a pig on lipstick. You read that right "Putting a pig(Linux) on lipstick(Mac)."

Labels: Apple, Linux, Mac, Microsoft, Windows

Leopard floating clock - [11:55 AM]

I like to display, or float, the analog clock on my desktop, call me strange, but it would appear that Apple has removed that as an option from Leopard.

I for one would like it back.

Labels: Apple, Mac

Leopard upgrade issue, not an OS problem - [11:40 AM]

So I finally took the plunge and upgraded to Leopard, it went smooth as silk, until I got home and wanted to connect to our wireless network and it failed with "Connection Timed Out." Sigh...

I have a Westell VersaLink 327W DSL "modem" here at the house and that was the cause of the problem, I needed a firmware upgrade.

Following post #12 on this Mac Rumors forum post fixed my problem.

Good luck to you!

Here's a link to the VersaLink firmware upgrade.

Labels: Mac

Photoshop history - [9:17 AM]

John Nack: "On this date in 1990, the first version of Photoshop shipped to the world; exactly five years ago we saw the debut of Photoshop's Camera Raw plug-in; and one year ago today, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.0 made its official bow." - This was a big day in Adobe's history, on many fronts. Worth a read.

Labels: Adobe, Mac, Windows

Coda, never heard of it? - [10:45 AM]

Coda: "text editor + transmit + css editor + terminal + books + more = whoah. introducing coda. grow beautiful code." - This looks like a very spiffy web development tool. One for future consideration.

Labels: Development, Mac, Tools

New Mac Indy Developers - [11:26 AM]

Daniel Jalkut: "Something is changing. In the past few years, more and more of my developer friends have started talking about “going indie.” That is, going out on their own to develop, market, support, and profit from their own software. Many years ago, while I was working at Apple, the notion of striking out on one’s own was not even on the table for most developers I knew." - Expect to see more great Mac software on the horizon. I'm green with envy.

Labels: Development, Mac

Upgrading to Leopard - [10:14 AM]

I think we've all heard a story or two about Leopard upgrade issues. Here's what I've been told. If you're using apps like Shimo, or Growl, uninstall them before upgrading. Apparently they've been a source of upgrade issues. Other than that the folks I work with have had zero issues.

Labels: Apple, Mac

There's plenty of room Nick - [5:20 PM]

Nick Bradbury: "Oh, and I've been infected, too: I'm seriously thinking about buying a Mac Pro after FeedDemon 2.6 is released. Whether I'll develop anything for the Mac remains to be seen, but I have to admit I'd like to escape the DLL and device driver hell of Windows for a while." - I've been a Windows developer since 1992, I've been doing Linux stuff since 2005, and I'd love nothing more than to develop Mac software. Windows is nice, Linux is arcane, but the Mac is over the top elegant. I only wish I could find myself a nice little niche to fill with a Mac client application. That said, come on in Nick, the water's fine!

Maybe someday, when I grow up, I'll be a Mac developer.

Labels: Development, Mac

Why I hate instant messengers - [8:50 AM]

Since being called Old School the other day I decided to fire up an instant messenger so I could be available for co-workers. I chose to use Adium, apparently it's widely used. So, on to why I hate these sinister pieces of software. They're a BIG distraction! Flashing windows catch my attention. That being said is there any way to create Groups in Adium and set your online status to Invisible or Offline for the entire group? I only want my co-workers to know I'm online.

Thanks.

Labels: Applications, Mac

Hog Bay - [11:16 AM]

Jesse Grosjean: "That reaction is certainly not representative, in fact it's the only such comment that I've seen. But in the interest of full discloser, and because I think it might be fun for some people to read, I've decided to fully document everything that I can remember about TaskPaper's launch, and tell you what I think helped make it a success." - An Indy Mac developer talks his latest creation, TaskPaper.

Labels: Apple, Development, Mac

Mac Santa? - [11:03 AM]

That's right, it's time to visit MacSanta!

Labels: Apple, Mac

The Mac is now a target - [9:59 AM]

Reed Me: "After all the Mac v. PC commercials, I will laugh my considerable posterior off if Apple winds up creating a UAC-style prompt to warn their customers that an application is attempting to access critical system components..." - It was inevitable. The kiddies can't resist being destructive. I'm fairly certain they'll come up with an elegant solution, but who knows.

There is one point that's not correct in the post however, Linux does not live inside Mac OS X. It's a Mach Kernel + BSD, which is very, very different than Linux. Inside they call it Darwin, also called XNU.

Labels: Apple, Mac

Software, Beer, and Mac - [9:36 AM]

Steve Mitchell: "My parents bought me my first computer in 1984. It was the original 128K Macintosh. According to the sales guy, they'd already sold out of their first shipment, and more were back ordered. So I had to spend an agonizing six weeks waiting for my computer." - Great story Steve, and welcome back to Mac.

Labels: Apple, Mac

To upgrade, or not to upgrade - [7:25 AM]

I haven't upgraded to Leopard yet. There, I said it. I think most folks at work have and I've heard mixed results. My office mate had some minor issues and had trouble with X after installing.

So the question is, should I wait or should I install now?

Labels: Apple, Mac

Mac coding headstart - [7:13 AM]

Apple.com: "Complete with introductory video, lesson guide and sample code in an Xcode project, you'll learn to create new and compelling features in your application using the development languages, APIs and frameworks of Mac OS X Leopard."

Labels: Apple, Development, Mac

Vista help? - [8:52 AM]

Cass McNutt: "Given that last caveat, I've been thinking about either moving in more fully to Vista, or downgrading to Windows XP altogether. If I knew it could be clean, it would be an absolute no-brainer: I'd punt Vista in a heartbeat, because XP just works, and that's all I really want the darned thing to do. I'm obviously not alone in this." - Another possible downgrade to Windows XP in the works. Also, Cass, I can see how you're underwhelmed with your Mac G4 experience, the Intel Macs are amazing. In fact, they're also the best hardware to run Vista on.

Like I said in your earlier post. I don't give up a thing to run XP and Ubuntu in VMWare Fusion. I've been able to do everything I want to do, so you don't have to give up those Windows apps you rely on daily. Of course you need to do what's right for you and a lot of Windows folks have a sort of culture shock when they move into the Mac world. Yes, it does work differently than your Windows machine, but that the best thing about it.

The hardest thing to get used to, for me, are the keyboard shortcuts. I still do the wrong thing on occasion. Beyond that, it's been an eye opening experience. I won't go back to using Windows daily unless I have to. I will continue to develop Windows applications because it's something I know how to do, but if I could find a Macintosh application to develop that would allow me to make a living I'd be all over it. Yes, the experience has been that good.

Labels: Mac, Ubuntu, Usability, Windows

Interesting company name - [8:52 AM]

Circus Ponies. Yep, that's right Circus Ponies. With a name like that it must be a Mac shop. Their Notebook software looks seriously handy.

Labels: Mac

How to move to a Mac - [9:59 AM]

Apple.com: "Why upgrade to Vista when you can upgrade to Mac? Especially when you can move all your stuff from an old PC to a shiny new Mac in less time than it takes to add the memory, hard disk space, and graphics card you’ll probably need to install Vista. Here are three easy ways to make your move."

Labels: Apple, Mac

How do you use your Mac? - [12:33 PM]

A typical day with my Mac.

0) Auto start Quicksilver.
1) Start Entourage.
2) Start Safari.
3) Start VMWare Fusion.
4) Start MarsEdit.
5) Start NetNewsWire.
6) Start Terminal.

The interesting one in the list is #3, VMWare Fusion. Why? Well we develop software for Windows and Linux, so I use both OS's on a daily basis, right from within my MacBook. I'll typically start Windows or Linux(Ubuntu) up and when I have need for the other I simply suspend the current session, minimize it, and fire up the other OS. This tends to happen when I need to make sure my changes didn't break anything in the other OS, whichever it may be at the time. This works beautifully. So much so I'm still surprised by it just about every day.

I use other apps on occasion, like...

OmniPlan
OmniGraffle
MindJet Mindmanager
Chicken of the VNC
Remote Desktop Connection
TextMate
SmartSVN
XCode
Dashboard
Shimo
Growl (indirectly of course)

Labels: Apple, Mac

Why aren't you running Vista? - [12:23 PM]

The other day the VP of our little software division came into my office while I was building some code, in Windows, I'd just added some functionality to on the Linux side of my universe; making sure I didn't break anything, and he says "I'm surprised you're not running Vista?" to which I replied "I have a Mac, I don't need Vista."

The reply seemed to satisfy him.

Labels: Apple, Mac, Microsoft, Windows

I couldn't agree more Chris - [9:03 AM]

Chris Pirillo: "I’m still not so sure I’d recommend the OS (or any Linux distribution) to anybody who considers themselves less than an “average” user. OS X has geeky underpinnings (in UNIX), but Apple has rightfully gone to great lengths to hide inadvertent access that power.

For Ubuntu to succeed in widespread adoption, it must gain wider hardware support and become a lot less… Linuxy. ;)" - Ties nicely into what I said yesterday. It looks like he said it a day before I did, but you get what I mean.

Labels: Apple, Linux, Mac

Linux for my parents? - [8:32 AM]

Foogazi: "The most obvious and important reason your parents should run Linux is the security the Linux operating system provides." - I don't think so folks. The most obvious choice is Macintosh, period. If your parents already have a Windows box and $600.00 they can score a Mac mini and hook it up to their existing monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Apple pays very close attention to the user experience, everything just works. When we bought our daughter a Mac laptop she popped it open and started working day one, without Dad's help. The only reason I knew it had arrived is she called for the wireless password. I've provided ZERO technical support in a year-and-a-half. Try that with a Linux box.

The open source camp should take a close look at the Macintosh user experience and clone that instead of the Windows experience. If people want Linux to be adopted by mom and pop it's going to have to work WITHOUT configuration when the box is started, no matter what the environment. That has been my experience with Mac.

Labels: Apple, Linux, Mac, Open Source, Usability

Ubuntu on the Mac - [4:18 PM]

Sven Andersson: "It seems to me that Parallels has concentrated on getting the Windows application to run smoothly and left us Linux users out in the cold. What to do? Let's try VMware Fusion instead." - Excellent tutorial for those of you, like me, using VMWare Fusion and installing Ubuntu.

Labels: Linux, Mac, Tools, Ubuntu, VMWare

Windows to Mac development - [3:13 PM]

Now I'm using a Macintosh I have a huge desire to write applications for it.

How do you get a C/C++, Win32, COM guy over to writing Objective-C for Cocoa? I may never find the time to do anything but it would be nice to have a set of references if I ever do.

Thank You.

Labels: Apple, Development, Mac, Tools

How to create Apple Dashboard Widgets - [9:49 AM]

For future reference, Developing Dashboard Widgets.

Labels: Apple, Development, Mac

New weblogging tool - [8:31 AM]

I've been using MarsEdit for the past few days, and I'm loving it. It connected to my Blogger based and WordPress blogs without much effort. I need to figure out how to hook it up to MSN Spaces, but I'm sure that'll be just as easy.

So, if you're using a Mac, and you'd like a client side publishing tool I'd strongly recommend MarsEdit.

Labels: Applications, Mac, Tools, Weblogging

Tools for future use - [1:24 PM]

Note to self: Check out Apple's Localization Tools.

Labels: Development, Mac, Tools

Windows on a Mac? - [9:52 AM]

James Robertson: "I'm using XP Pro on my MacBook (under parallels), but I might install Vista at some point" - I've been using a Mac for two weeks now, and I love it. While James is using Parallels I decided to use VMWare Fusion to create virtual machines for my development use. I have a complete installation of Windows XP with all my development tools, and a machine running Ubuntu with all my development tools. I'm very pleasantly surprised with the performance, it's very acceptable, and I'm sure I could make it a bit better once I learn how to really use Fusion.

Labels: Development, Mac, Tools

Oh the Joy! - [11:36 AM]

For the last week I've been loving life on my shiny new 17" MacBook Pro! I haven't posted about it so I could have some quality time with it, you know, let it sink in a while, "get to know me" time.

I'm quite hooked, and I can't see going back to using a Windows box on a daily basis any time soon. Of course my job does require writing code for Windows and Linux so I'll have to continue working in those two environments but I'll do it from my Mac. I'm currently using Chicken of the VNC to connect to my Linux box and as I'm typing this post I have VMWare Fusion running Windows XP, on a separate display, installing Visual Studio.NET so I can work on Windows code. As soon as that installation is complete I'll move on to installing Ubuntu or Fedora Core 7 for my Linux develop needs.

Now all I need to do is spend some quality time with XCode, Objective-C and Cocoa.

Labels: Development, Mac