Handbrake

What a fantastic tool! I have frequently heard mention of Handbrake as a great tool for ripping DVD's to a Mac (they have versions for other platforms, too). I am using it right now to rip Fight Club to watch on the airplane on the way to Ireland.

Firefly Macs

Today I met Ben at the Apple store to have a look at some computers. Ben wanted to see about getting one that we could use to "get our feet wet" with developing iPhone apps. We already have a great idea for our first one. When we met up at the store, he told me that he got approval to buy two for the company and that he and I were to be the first to use them. Within an hour or so of getting it home, the one I am using is all configured the way I like with Firefox, XCode, etc. ready to go. I have already taken to the gesture stuff on the touchpad. For instance, swiping with two fingers scrolls the current window). Thank you, Ben. I am very excited to start working on our first iPhone app.

Time Scarcity

I just got reminded of this great idea. I would like to work at a place that uses Time Scarcity.


LOLZ at their t-shirt store. Especially this one:

p.s. (not worthy of its own post) Speaking of lolz, check this.

Firefox 3.0

Despite the misery that has been reported, I downloaded Firefox just now on the first attempt. Haven't done much yet, but it looks nice. My favorite theme works. Foxmarks works (ooh! They have a new website). Google Toolbar works. The new address bar thing works. In fact, check this out, when I was searching for the link to the Google Toolbar, the address bar told me that it was already installed.



Page content seems a little "smaller" that it was in Firefox 2. However the zoomy thing ([CTRL] + and [CTRL] -) is nice. I'm happy for now.

One small step...

Here it is, the obligatory Hello World app. XCode is pretty cool. I feel comfortable with it after just a few minutes. I got a simple app together, got the iPhone Simulator to run, stepped through some code in the debugger and read some documentation. I still don't know what the frack I am doing, but it's a start.

Also, am currently reading the iPhone OS Programming Guide (in all of its two-sided printedness glory). That is probably a better starting doc than the Objective-C one.

Print is Dead

Well, reading hundreds of pages from a monitor kind of sucks.

So I bought this (image is link to Amazon, though I bought it from Circuit City for a great deal, $240.)


Amazon review here
HP review here (they're the same text in both places)

Objective C documentation

... so the iPhone adventure continues. I downloaded a bunch of PDF's from the iPhone Dev Center. I ran into a conundrum with what to do with them once I got them. I really am not the biggest fan of reading lots of text on a screen. When I want to learn a new language or technology, I usually buy a book or start a certification track. I have thusfar resisted the urge to buy some books. So on top of a new language, a new operating system and a new IDE, even the reading part of this journey is a departure from what I am used to. The printer we have at the house is an old HP DeskJet that really wouldn't be up to the task of printing hundreds of pages, I don't have access to a duplexing printer, and taking them to Kinko's is just too cost prohibitive. So I am lounging on the couch reading on the screen. Maybe this is my big chance to make the switch and save a few bucks and a few trees.

The first doc that I am trudging through is The Objective C Programming Language. It actually turns out to be a pretty good read and, despite the aforementioned difference in approach, I am getting a lot out of it. My first impression is that Objective C is much more similar to my experience than was my first forays into Ruby. There is a lot that I recognize as similar to C# and my meager experience with C++.

Widgets

Found these really nice looking widgets the other day on Telegraph.co.uk. I really like the little menu and how it gives you option to embed in lots of different sites. Reminds me of another flash widget with which I am somewhat familiar. ;)

Tag Cloud

Added a tag cloud from this guy. Thanks!

Sketches

Cool little article (http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/06/11/ars-at-wwdc-exclusive-preview-of-iphone-app-sketches) about an iPhone app when iPhone apps wasn't cool allowed. Went to these guy's blog and found this article (http://latenitesoft.blogspot.com/2008/03/leopard-time-machine-issues-solved.html) about Time Machine that I would like to read later.

a new apple developer?

The other day I downloaded and watched the Apple WWDC keynote where Steve Jobs announced the new iPhone and the iPhone SDK. Wow!!! It is one of the coolest things I have seen in a while. I decided that I want to learn how to write applications for it. I have never written a line of code for the Mac. Heck, I just got my first Mac about 6 months ago. I'm still giddy that I can navigate around in it. It looks like iPhone applications (and Mac applications for that matter) are written in Objective-C. I am an intermediate C++ hack at best. Nonetheless, I am undaunted. So here begins a running record of my experience. I started by registering a user at the iPhone Developer Center. The first thing that struck me were all the Getting Started Videos. I downloaded all of them to iTunes and watched them. They seem to give a good overview of the significant design goals. I was kind of impressed that most of them seemed geared to developers that had OO experience, but no Mac development experience. Hey! That's me! While watching those, I downloaded the iPhone SDK and the XCode development tools from the Apple website. XCode is apparently the IDE for Mac and it's free. I am just now installing those. I think next I am going to read the some documentation they have for Objective-C and maybe dink around with some sample applications. Wish me luck!

PicLens

This thing is amazing! Looks really sweet on a 52" screen. ;)

I think reCAPTCHA is a really cool idea. I am glad to come across that interface with increasing frequency. Funny word combinations are an inevitability with a service like that. I got a small chuckle out of it the other day.

That's right! American Authority! Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Firefox 3 is coming!

On the one hand, I am sure the new Firefox will be pretty cool. On the other hand, I downloaded and installed a beta a while back. It lasted only a few minutes on my box. Foxmarks didn't have an add-on ready yet for it. They do now, though. So I should be ready to go when the final browser releases.