Casey's Tumblelog

Invites to App.net

Wed, 15 May 2013 10:55:00 -0400

App.net began life as a Twitter clone, with aspirations of being more. They aspired to be user-centric, not advertiser-centric. They aspired to be more than just a microblogging platform, but rather a platform upon which many different kinds of services can be built.

I’m very pleased to say that they are realizing that goal now. As an example, local friend Zac Bir just released Swing, which is a really awesome tool to quickly leverage the free file storage you get with App.net. Yes, you get free file storage too.

Use the link above to get in with a free account; that works as your invite.

Full disclosure: If you use that link you’ll auto-follow me.

Cashing the Perfect Swing by Getting in the Driver's Seat

Sun, 05 May 2013 08:14:38 -0400

This article was written with the hope of appearing in The Magazine, but Dan Moren’s fantastic article beat me to it.

I do not play golf.

I am a prototypical engineer—not terribly athletic, though I did make my fifth grade travel basketball team¹ I do not play golf, but I think I can understand the draw.

From those I’ve spoken to whom do like hitting the little white ball around, one of the things they tell me is that each swing is a new challenge. Each swing is a moment of opportunity. Each swing is a chase… a chase for the perfect swing.

“Crap. I’m so sorry, Dad.”

I’m fifteen years old, and sitting in the driver’s seat of a 1994 Saturn SL2. My father sits next to me. While he has a long list of admirable qualities, patience never made it on the list.

“It’s okay.” He says, summoning restraint that clearly isn’t natural. “Try letting out the clutch slower this time.”

I spent many afternoons–as many as Dad had time for–in his car, making a circle of our western Connecticut neighborhood. I was learning how to drive, but I was also leaning how to operate a manual transmission.

Start. Stop. Stall. Sigh. Start. Stop.

It must have been infuriatingly boring. Doubly so, since I needed to have the radio off, to better hear the four cylinders of fury. (If by “fury” I mean “frailty”.) With the radio on, my success rate was halved.

Start. Stop. Start. Stop.

I was surely taking years off the life of that clutch. But I was also falling in love.

I learned to drive in 1997’s America. At this point we were probably a little less fat, but just as lazy as we are today. During the majority of my life, if not all of it, nearly every car I saw had an automatic transmission. When my friends were learning to drive, precious few of them learned how to drive a stick. Generally speaking, those who learned to drive a stick did so because it was compulsory. Perhaps by parental decree. Perhaps by sheer necessity due to the car or cars they would be driving. But if a friend or classmate was learning to drive a stick, it was because they had to.

For me it was compulsory, but it was also a dream. It was a dream I had nursed for a long time.

“Now I understand.”

It is an absurdly beautiful late October afternoon in 2004. The kind of fall afternoon that restores your faith in the world as you’re nose-diving into winter. I’m thinking to myself about anything, about nothing, as I drive south on the Blue Ridge Parkway. I’m a freshly minted adult now, fresh out of school and two months into my first real job.

The leaves around me have almost all changed, unlike the ones down at the bottom of the mountains, near the interstate, hundreds of feet below. As I pilot my 1991 Nissan 300ZX toward my alma mater, I can almost see the line between the trees who have succumbed to winter, and those which defiantly cling to summer. The trees up here in the mountains are a cacophony of greens, browns, reds, and yellows. Combined with the view of the uniquely Virginian landscape, I’m left breathless.

Though I’ve been in Virginia for four years already, during school, I miss the northeast. Southwest Virginia, where I had just left, is too rural for my tastes. The DC suburbs of northern Virginia are too busy. Suddenly I get it, though: central Virginia is just right. All it took to realize it was a few hour drive at 45 miles per hour in my beloved Z. A few hours of me, my 5-speed, and my music. Three months later, I met my wife. Nine years later, I’m still a proud Virginian. My life was forever changed while I was rowing the gears in my car.

“Holy hell, that really is fast.”

Faster than the blink of an eye—quite literally. That’s how fast it shifted.

It’s 2009, and I’m sitting in my friend’s Volkswagen R32, which is in effect a GTI hatchback cranked to 11. It is one of the earliest regular production cars with a dual-clutch transmissions; these incredible boxes have traditional clutches, but they are computer-operated. The cars have only two pedals, just like a traditional automatic.

My how these dual clutch transmissions can shift. The R32 shifts gears faster than I am capable of even in my wildest fantasies. In fact, to this day, it’s the best point-and-shoot car I’ve ever driven. Point the wheel, mash the throttle, and go.

But I was along for the ride; I didn’t feel like I was driving.

If a car is meant to propel you from point A to point B, a supercar (think Ferrari, Lamborghini, etc.) is meant to do so as quickly as possible. To do so, they need to move the power created in the engine to the wheels. That involves many mechanical bits, but of note to me is the transmission.

In modern times, supercars almost exclusively choose dual-clutch transmissions. These come in various trade names, despite often times being from one of only a handful of gearbox manufacturers. BMW has the DCT. Volkswagen the DSG. Porsche the wonderfully German “Porsche Doppelkupplungsgetriebe” (“Porsche double-clutch gearbox”), abbreviated as PDK.

Dual-clutch transmissions are, to oversimplify, two traditional manual transmissions that have been intertwined. They are stored in one housing and work as a single unit. By having two transmissions in one, the next gear can be queued up and ready to go at all times. Thus, when “shifting”, what’s really happening is one clutch disengages whilst the other simultaneously engages. This makes shifts virtually instantaneous.

These transmissions, as in the R32, operate the clutches using a combination of computers and mechanicals. They have paddles which allow you to request a gear—thus borne the derisive term “flappy paddle gearboxes”. Critically, however, they don’t have clutch pedals. Us humans are too slow, so we’re removed from the equation.

As was aforementioned, supercars tend to like dual-clutch gearboxes. Ferraris, Lamborghinis and the like are purpose-built to consume tarmac as quickly as possible. Dual-clutch boxes are most especially suited for that. It’s arguable that having a human-operated clutch would neuter those cars, if not ruin them.

But would they be as fun?

Which brings us back to golf.

I view driving a traditional manual transmission, with a manually-operated clutch, as my golf swing.

Every time I start from a stop, I’m chasing the perfect swing.

When I take a turn quickly, and rip off a heel-toe rev-matched downshift while braking, I’m chasing the perfect swing.

Every time I start off on a steep hill, I’m chasing the perfect swing.

Every time it’s a new challenge.

Sometimes I’m rewarded with perfection—either a completely smooth start, or perhaps a perfect rev-match combined with smooth brake application and quick release of the clutch—three pedals with two feet. Sometimes I’m rewarded by not seeing my wife’s head bucking back and forth when leaving a red light. That’s often my favorite of all.

No matter what though, every time, I’m chasing the perfect swing.

That’s what makes driving so much fun. Such a privilege. Such a true and absolute joy. I long for a reason to get into my car, take off, and just drive.

The pragmatist and engineer in me knows that the manual transmission is going the way of the dodo. It really makes no sense—it’s arguably a distraction during the extremely dangerous operation of hurtling a several thousand pound weapon down the road at breakneck speeds. Traditional manuals are slow. They’re error-prone. There are no advantages, except perhaps the most important one. So. Much. Fun.

The dual clutch transmission is everything the traditional manual is not. Most importantly, reliable, consistent, and fast. But it’s not as much fun. Not to me.

I believe that all cars, eventually, will use dual clutch transmissions. Certainly all sports cars. We’re almost there now with supercars. Take the BMW M5 for example; it’s widely understood that traditional manuals are only offered due to incessant whining by the press and potential customers.

While I know it’s for the best, and it’s time to let go, it makes me sad. I’ll miss the hunt for the perfect shift. I’ll miss the feeling I get when I launch an all wheel drive car with a quickness, without leaving the drivetrain behind. I’ll miss driving being more than just sitting still.

I’ll miss you, old friend.

It was known that I was moving shortly after the season started, and as an adult I finally realized that’s undoubtedly the reason I made the cut. Even if I was a liability, I wouldn’t be for long. ↩

Thoughts on WWDC

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 20:06:17 -0400

Two years ago, in June of 2011, I went to WWDC for the first time.

I have a very basic¹ app in the App Store. I had written it when iOS 4 was in beta, because MFMessageComposeViewController permitted my app to do something that was new at the time: send text messages.

I decided to go to WWDC for a few reasons. Firstly, it seemed fun and interesting. Secondly, I was a novice iOS developer and desperately wanted to scratch that itch. As a bonus, I somehow swindled my then-employer to pay for it. Finally, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

Going to WWDC was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

As Marco noted tonight, WWDC is about so much more than just the sessions. The sessions are wonderful; don’t get me wrong. I’ve already raved about them. But it’s about so much more than that.

Perhaps my favorite part of WWDC is the energy I get from it. Being around so many people whom you so deeply respect (too many to name) will do that to you. Both times I’ve left WWDC, I’ve spent the entire cross-county plane ride coding.

There have been many calls to end WWDC, or perhaps to dramatically change it. These arguments are logical, just, and intelligent. Acquiring tickets this year was–on the surface–fair, but it sure didn’t feel that way.

I can’t begin to theorize about ways to make WWDC better. There are a plethora of different and often contradictory desires at play:

Giving tickets to “the best” attendees
Giving new developers a fair chance
Not totally screwing inconvenient time zones
Making WWDC more accessible
Not diluting what makes WWDC so awesome

One thing I will say, however, is that ticket or not, I knew I would be there this year. There are too many inspiring, amazing people in one place not to go. If 2013 is the last year of WWDC as we know it, I’ll be sad to miss the sessions. I’ll be sad to miss the access to Apple. But I’ll be most sad to miss having the excuse to get together with my friends–my inspiration.

See you in June.

And if I’m honest, rather crummy. ↩

Neutral

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 18:18:27 -0500

Neutral:

Today I am extremely privileged and lucky to announce the launch of a new podcast–my first! I’m joining my good friends Marco and John to do something I’ve dreamed about for a year or two now.

Neutral is, as Marco put it, “A casual car show from people who should know better than to do a car show.” I think that’s an apt description. We’re three computer geeks that have a genuine interest in cars, and will spend a little time each week chatting about it.

None of us are mechanics, nor have jobs in the industry. Factual errors will surely be a regular occurrence. That said, it should be fun, both for us and for those with whom we share a common interest in the world of automobiles. The idea of the show is to have no formal ideas; it will be about whatever strikes our fancy and will last until we stop having fun with it.

My deep thanks to both Marco and John, longtime and beloved podcasters, for allowing me to attempt to hang with the big boys. I’m still finding my way, but after listening to our first episode, I didn’t want to crawl in a hole for days. Thus, a moral victory.

My thanks also to Squarespace for going out on a limb and sponsoring us so early on (and for hosting our site!).

I hope you’ll join us on the ride…

New [to me] car. Or, in early 2000s parlance, “new...

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 06:25:18 -0400

New [to me] car. Or, in early 2000s parlance, “new whip”. (Taken with Instagram at West Broad Village)

Current desktop.

Wed, 11 Jul 2012 09:29:25 -0400

Current desktop.

On the Rumored iPad Mini

Tue, 10 Jul 2012 08:16:55 -0400

Peter Oppenheimer, Apple CFO, on Apple’s Q2 Earnings Call:

We remain very confident in our strategy, and we’re very excited about the fabulous new products in our pipeline.
…
Well, we view [our heavily increased spending on R&D] as a good thing. We are investing in engineering to continue to bring out the most innovative products in the world to delight customers. We are making investments in our hardware and software engineering teams. We’re shipping the best products that Apple has ever shipped today. And we’ve got some fabulous new products in the pipeline.

Tim Cook, Apple CEO, at All Things D:

For years Apple’s been focused on innovation. Never have I seen the things I can’t talk about today…the juices are flowing. And we have some incredible things coming out.
…
Our north star is to make the best product. Our objective isn’t to make this design for this kind of price point, or for this arbitrary schedule, or line up other things or have X number of phones, it’s to build the best.

Tim Cook, Apple CEO, iPad (3rd Generation) Release:

Only Apple could deliver this kind of innovation in such a beautiful, integrated and easy to use way. It’s what we stand for. And across the year, you’re going to see a lot more of this kind of innovation. We are just getting started.

On Being a Mac User in 2012

Fri, 06 Jul 2012 19:03:24 -0400

When I was growing up, and through college, I was a a Windows user. At that time, part of being a windows user was to do a “freshie”–a clean installation of Windows–every six months or so.

To do that, you needed to:

Back up all your files to another computer
Delete everything on your computer
Reinstall Windows
Reinstall all your programs
Put your files back on your computer

This was an exceptionally painstaking process, even in the time before hard drives were littered with mp3s and HD video downloads.

A year ago, I got a new MacBook Pro. When I switched to using it from my polycarbonate MacBook, not much of the above had changed.

Now, everything is different.

I was just issued a new-to-me, refurbished, MacBook Pro for work. I had my personal machine with me, on the same network, so I could have started the decades-old dance again.

But I didn’t have to.

E-Mail: Stored on the internet
Music: Stored on the internet
Documents: Stored on the internet (for the most part)
Applications: Stored on the internet

What’s left, that I haven’t moved yet?

Pictures

So, thanks to Google Apps, iTunes Match, Dropbox, iCloud, and the Mac App Store, I was able to effectively transition to a new computer in less than an hour.

Sure, there are privacy implications to putting your life on the internet. And developers have been justifiably complaining about how difficult it is to put an app in the Mac App Store. That’s all absolutely valid. But by me weighing those tradeoffs, and choosing to look past them, my life got so much easier.

It may be a difficult time to be a developer, but it’s a great time to be a user.

First and foremost, that’s exactly what Apple wants.

"It does take quite a man to remain attractive and to be loved by a woman who has heard him snore,..."

Sat, 19 May 2012 08:17:51 -0400

“It does take quite a man to remain attractive and to be loved by a woman who has heard him snore, seen him unshaven, tended him while he was sick and washed his dirty underwear. Do that and keep her still feeling a warm glow and you will know some very beautiful music.”

- –Ronald Reagan, 1971 (via Letters of Note)

Paid Upgrades on the iTunes App Store

Tue, 15 May 2012 14:43:03 -0400

I agree with Marco in that I don’t see that paid upgrades will happen on the App Store anytime soon.

However, I do see an alternative angle. What if there was a way to discount “upgrades”?

Let’s take Tweetie for example. When Tweetie 2 was introduced, what if Atebits/Loren could have said “charge $3 for those whom don’t have Tweetie 1, but charge $1 for those whom do have it.”?

I haven’t thought this through that much at all, as I’m sure is obvious, but what if developers could specify that certain bundle IDs (ostensibly only their own) will qualify their applications for a different, discounted price point? So, say for example, you had:

com.atebits.Tweetie = $3
com.atebits.Tweetie2 = $3, unless a user already has com.atebits.Tweetie, in which case, $1.

This allows Atebits/Loren to:

Continue to make [the same] money from those that had never purchased either app.
Earn money from those whom upgrade–this wasn’t possible previously unless you forced the user to pay full price for the new app.
Keep those whom upgrade happier by not charging them $3 all over again–this wasn’t possible previously.

This begs some interesting questions though:

What does the UI look like for users? My thought is, iTunes could query this and just give the user whatever their relevant price is.
What does the UI look like for developers? It shouldn’t be too hard to add a place to specify a discount ID and a price for that discounted version.
Can you still sell Tweetie “1”? I would think not, but this does solve the problem of making it still a standalone entity in the App Store for the purposes of bug fixes, etc.

I’m sure I’m missing stuff here, but it seems like the most Apple-like answer I’ve heard or come up with.

WWDC Tips as Accumulated by a Veteran of a Staggering ONE WWDC

Tue, 15 May 2012 07:35:00 -0400

In 2011, I was somehow able to convince my employer to send me to WWDC. It was, without question, the most fun and inspiring week of my career. This year, I’m going again.

There are a lot of great guides on what to make of WWDC that are available; this one is a great example. I also compiled many last year. Most of these guides were written by people whom have quite a bit more experience than myself. But, I couldn’t resist the chance to throw in my $0.02.

So, let’s try to take this step-by-step.

Travel

You absolutely want to get into San Francisco sometime Sunday afternoon. This is for a couple reasons:

Acclimate yourself to the area and the new time zone [if applicable]
Even more importantly, get your badge, and your swag.

You do not want to get your badge Monday morning; you’ll almost surely want to be in the keynote line long before registration opens. More on that later.

If you’re anything like me, you’ll probably want to book a mid-afternoon flight back home on Friday–the conference pretty much shuts down by lunchtime¹. For those on the east coast like myself, you can usually avoid a redeye if you get an early afternoon flight, and that’s well worth it to me.

If you don’t really care, Sunday and Friday afternoons are a great time to go explore San Francisco–in fact, expect those to be your only times.

Packing

By no means an exhaustive list, here are some of the items I would not leave at home:

iPhone battery pack
Laptop (an iPad is not enough)
If you have a MacBook air, an ethernet adapter
The long cable for your MagSafe brick
At least enough iDevice chargers and cables to cover charging all your devices simultaneously
Clothes to handle violently shifting weather conditions. It will be warm, sometimes even hot, during the day. If you’re out after sunset, it will be stunningly cold. Wear layers.
Extremely comfortable shoes

Registration

In 2012, the attendee registration runs from 9a - 7p. In 2011, I went sometime around 2p and the line was very short. The process is fairly straightforward; you provide a government ID, and you are asked (at least, in 2011) what size sweatshirty/jackety thing you want. They then hand you a sample that hundreds of other people have tried on first, which is mildly skeevy, but also super-awesome so you know for sure what you’re, well, getting into. Once you decide on a size, they give you your sweatshirt and your badge.

As everyone will tell you, that badge is just as important as your license/passport for the next few days. Apple will not replace it, and if they do, expect to shell out another US$1600 for the privilege.

No, seriously. Don’t lose it.

Sunday afternoon/evening

I didn’t know until long after arriving Sunday that often times, there are informal groups that will make a pilgrimage to the Apple Company Store on their campus in Cupertino. I’ve heard that this is, on the whole, fairly unimpressive, but I was definitely bummed to have missed out on it.

That said, from what I’ve gathered, you cannot go anywhere on campus except the Company Store, and they have a satellite company store open in Moscone² for pretty much the duration of the conference³. So, by no means is a trip to Cupertino requisite.

If you don’t catch wind of such a thing, don’t sweat it. Sunday afternoon is, as I said above, one of the only times you’ll really be able to explore San Francisco. Now is the time to meet up with friends whom happen to live in town, or generally goof off.

That said, go to bed early, as you’ll need to be up early for

Keynote

The Outside Line

I’m not sure how things are going to be this year for the keynote, but I have no reason to believe it’s going to be any different than any other year. In 2011, I agreed with a friend to meet up in front of the Intercontinental Hotel, which is adjacent to Moscone, at 6:30a. We expected to run to Blue Bottle Coffee and then get in line. We walked three feet out of the hotel, and that was the end of the line. It had wrapped nearly 100% of the way around the block, back to the entrance again.

So, if you want to be in the keynote and not the overflow room, get in line earlier than you think you’d need to, even in your wildest doomsday scenario.

The wait in line is long, it’s tiring, it’s cold, and it’s what you make of it. Now is the time to try your darndest to be social. There is a camaraderie amongst the line goers–everyone realizes this entire act is somewhat absurd, but that’s okay, because we’re in it together. Even the least social among them are happy to talk to kill some time.

Unless you’re liveblogging, or your hotel is far away from Moscone, there’s no need to bring your laptop. You won’t use it, and you’ll almost definitely have the time to pick it up after the long lunch break, before the sessions really start.

However, do not forget your iPhone battery pack. It doesn’t matter what your battery pack of preference is; just remember to bring it. The keynote line is long, and no matter how social you are, it’s boring. You’ll end up playing with your phone a lot, and you’ll end up nuking your battery. Bring a battery pack.⁴

The line has a tendency to move inches, and to do so sporadically. This is, in most cases, due to the Apple folks telling you (with varying degrees of aggression) to move forward and generally not leave a comfortable amount of personal space between you and your other line goers. Don’t get excited though; it’s absurdly late that they actually let you into Moscone.

The Inside Line

Somewhere around 9:30, which seems impossibly late to me, they’ll let you into Moscone, and up the escalators to the second floor, if memory serves. In here, you’ll find basic breakfast items like bagels, and juices. You’ll find people will sit down in the middle of the hall, relax for a bit, and shove something in their gullet. You’ll also find that people use this opportunity to try to line jump by sprinting any time the line is not stopped. This is, unless you’re extremely aggressive, fruitless. You’re almost certainly not going to make any significant improvement in your ~~lot in life~~ place in line.

At just a few minutes before 10, you’ll notice a lot of agitation, and a wave as people start standing up again. This is it; you’re about to enter the keynote.

The Minefield

Getting into the keynote is an interesting endeavor, because people are assholes. Especially nerds trying to get as close as they can to what they think is the most exciting moment at WWDC–the keynote. So, what do these nerds do? They dump their breakfast leftovers exactly where they were sitting, and leave them. Thus, you’ll find yourself navigating a minefield of diemboweled pastries, decapitated bagels, gutted juice drinks, etc. It’s really quite revolting, and was one of my least favorite parts of WWDC.

We’re all adults. If you can’t find a trash can, just take the stuff with you. It’s not hard to leave it under your chair until after the keynote, when you can dispose of it properly.

Once you navigate the minefield, you’ll go up to the third floor, and see another mad dash into the keynote room. I would argue that mad dash is also fruitless. However, I will also concede that if you’re going to run, now is the time to do it. You may get a couple rows closer, but not much.

Where to Sit

Naturally, your inclination is going to be to run to the front as quickly as possible, and sit wherever. I’m not going to argue against that. I will, however, propose an alternative.

In the keynote room, there is the stage in the front, but halfway back there are two large screens hanging from the ceiling. We positioned ourselves just behind one of those screens, so we could strain and see the stage, but easily see the side screen for times when we wanted to see something up close. That means, effectively, we watched most of the keynote on the screen, rather than straining to see the stage, which was no less than 300 miles away. I liked this setup, and will probably attempt to repeat it this year.

Some of you may be extrapolating that there is really little benefit to getting up early, waiting in line for hours, only to look at a screen instead of the stage. Why not go to the overflow room? I have no answer to that question.

The Keynote

The keynote is pretty amazing. Being in the same room as Steve that year, I can tell you the reality distortion field is real. I was so amped after that presentation I didn’t know what to do with myself.

This year, I’m curious to see how things go. I suspect the sheer spectacle of it all will have far more impact on me than I would have otherwise expected.

In 2011, if memory serves, I didn’t try very hard to get on Moscone’s WiFi. Throughout the conference it’s actually quite good, but during the keynote everything is crippled. I will say, however, that I had a stunningly easy time getting a reception on AT&T, especially given all the rumors as to how bad it was the year prior.

That said, do yourself a favor. Put your phone down. Put your iPad down. Just watch. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and your 30 Twitter followers don’t care about your thoughts as you’re watching; in fact, they hate you for being there. Just watch.

Post Keynote / Food at WWDC

After the keynote, you’ll be pretty ready for a break, and for food. Apple will usher everyone to at least the bottom floor of the building.⁵ Then they serve lunch. Lunch was fairly long on Monday, if memory serves, so you’ll have time to eat, socialize, and still run back to your hotel and grab your laptop.

Generally speaking, Apple will provide two meals a day, both in the bottom/street-level floor of Moscone. Breakfast is always fruit and bread-derived items like bagels, pastries, etc. Juices of various flavors are provided. They were not spectacular breakfasts, but they were by no means bad, and they were fast, which is of paramount importance as you’ll be tired and will not want to waste time doing a fancy breakfast.

Lunches are typically boxed lunches, and they typically have roughly three different kinds, each on their own tables. Often times they are sandwiches, sometimes they are salads, and they are always decent. A couple of them were actually really tasty. If you’re a food snob, you’ll be disappointed. If you consider Apple is providing you easy and “free” food twice a day for five days, you’ll be pleasantly surprised like I was.

Sessions

Sessions are like nothing I’ve ever seen. They’re led by geeks like us–you can tell this is not a part of their normal day-to-day activities. Many of them are clearly uncomfortable in front of a large audience.

I like to think of myself as a pretty good public speaker. I’m almost never fazed by audiences of any size. That said, the speakers at WWDC make me look terrible. These sessions are so well-rehearsed and so well delivered that it’s stunning and humbling just to watch. It’s clear anyone who presents at WWDC has spent an inordinate amount of time preparing.

There are conflicting theories as to what to do during the sessions. There is a valid argument that the session videos are available online shortly after WWDC, so just sit back and pay attention.

I know I do best when I take notes, though, so that’s what I did. And I did it using SubEthaEdit. SubEthaEdit allows you to take notes collaboratively. Someone will create a document, usually titling it with the number and name of the session. As they type, you see it. In nearly all cases, they’ll also make the document editable by peers, so that many people can be typing and whatnot at the same time.

No matter how god your notes may be, the notes of you and 5+ other geeks are better.

I’d definitely recommend purchasing SubEthaEdit and using it during each session.

I also took a tip of Marco’s and, on a couple of occasions, went to sessions I was at best tangentially interested in. Those were absolutely valuable and I learned extremely interesting things during them. Don’t feel compelled to go to every session, but definitely don’t sit around bored just because you didn’t think any sessions were that interesting. Pick one at random and go.

Social Life

Most sessions end around 5. After that, you’re on your own on every day except Thursday, which is the bash. You’ll often find yourself organizing dinners with friends old and new during the day or at the last minute. If you’re type-A like myself, let go of that this week. You’re just going to have to roll with it.

One of the best parts about WWDC is being able to meet other developers in the community. They’re almost all universally really nice people, whom will talk to anyone. In my experience, The Chieftan and the bar at the W Hotel were both popular watering holes.

I cannot overstate how great it was to meet a bunch of people that I now consider friends. The social aspects are extremely fun. No matter how nerdy/geeky/socially inept you may be, you’re amongst people whom are just as bad, if not worse. You won’t embarrass yourself. Make friends.

Quick hits

Stump the Experts: Worth seeing once, but wasn’t that exciting unless you’re a serious Apple nerd.
Pixar Lunch Talk: Apparently almost every year the same gentleman from Pixar⁶ comes and does a talk during lunch one day. We’ll see if it happens this year, but if it does, go. He’s an excellent speaker and gives you really unique and interesting insight into how Pixar works.
Bash: Depends on the band, which creates a fun game of gossip during the week. Free food and beers are nice, but otherwise it was… okay. And cold.
Finding Your Friends: Twitter is the key to communicating amongst people, though SMS does work fairly well. I’m very anxious to see if Find My Frends actually takes off this year.
Getting to and from SFO: I took a taxi last year, though I don’t recall how much it cost. I’m really considering trying to take the BART this year, which I hear is easy.

Moscone is a ghost town by the time Apple serves lunch on Friday, though I was bummed to have missed a really good lunchtime talk due to an early afternoon Friday flight. Also, for those that were concerned like myself, Apple provides complementary baggage drop on Friday so you can check out of your hotel prior to entering Moscone. ↩
Pronounced “moss - cone - ee”. Not “moss - cone” nor “moss - cone- ay”. ↩
If you use the store in Moscone, do so early in the week; they’ll be out of stock of anything good by the end of the week, when I went. ↩
Consider this a useful general tip for the entire conference; it’s just particularly important keynote morning. Furthermore, any time you have the opportunity to charge your phone, do it. You’ll be glad later. ↩
I can’t, for the life of me, remember if we were told to get out of Moscone entirely. ↩
Update: Marco pointed out to me that this “gentleman from Pixar” is actually Michael B. Johnson ↩

Yes, piracy is totally killing the movie industry

Wed, 09 May 2012 06:29:51 -0400

Yes, piracy is totally killing the movie industry:

This means that roughly 100,000 Americans have downloaded a copy online through BitTorrent. Now, IF all these people bought a movie ticket instead then box office revenue would be just 0.5% higher. Not much of an impact, and even less when you consider that these ‘pirates’ do not all count as a lost sale.”

thedailywhat: Short Film of the Day: A fascinating short film...

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 07:45:12 -0500

thedailywhat:

Short Film of the Day: A fascinating short film about how the now-iconic “Keep Calm and Carry On” WW2 propaganda poster went unseen by the public for decades before being discovered and distributed by a small secondhand bookshop in Alnwick, Northumberland, called Barter Books.

[devour.]

I am not a book nor bookstore nerd, but that is far and away the coolest bookstore I’ve ever seen.

It’s also a really brief but really interesting video.

Using Alfred.app and Messages.app together

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 11:34:53 -0500

Using Alfred.app and Messages.app together:

bradleychambers:

David Ferguson:

I was looking around at the new Messages (beta) this morning and just because I’m curious, got to looking through the Info.plist. Yes, I’m that kind of nerd. :) Guess what I found… an iMessage URL scheme.

Works perfect.

I’ve come to swear by Alfred; this tweak allows you to send iMessages using the Messages Beta when viewing a contact using Alfred.

Valid Multipart Form POST to Twitter Image Service

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 11:01:00 -0500

I’ve spent pretty much all week trying to figure out how to use Twitter’s upload service (API: statuses/update_with_media) in an app I’m writing. I had constant troubles—often HTTP 500 errors. Sometimes OAuth errors.

There was a thread with 5 pages of comments that showed many people having similar issues. For the life of me, I couldn’t get it to work.

I have finally gotten in right today, after roughly my fourth rewrite. The entirety of my successful POST, as captured by Wireshark, is below. I’ve snipped the image data for brevity:

POST /1/statuses/update_with_media.json HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=77730E6D-83EC-4BFE-BB8F-588DE6599945-40749-0001ECDF5F417127
Content-Length: 61398
User-Agent: Sedge/1 CFNetwork/520.3.2 Darwin/11.3.0 (x86_64) (MacBookPro8%2C2)
Authorization: OAuth oauth_consumer_key=">>>consumer key<<<<", oauth_token=">>>>token<<<<", oauth_signature_method="HMAC-SHA1", oauth_version="1.0", oauth_nonce="4584850382758356094", oauth_timestamp="1328971545", oauth_signature=">>>>signature<<<<"
Accept-Encoding: gzip
Accept-Language: en-us
Host: upload.twitter.com
Accept: */*

--77730E6D-83EC-4BFE-BB8F-588DE6599945-40749-0001ECDF5F417127
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="media[]"; filename="./image.png"
Content-Type: application/octet-stream

>>>>> IMAGE DATA HERE <<<<<<
--77730E6D-83EC-4BFE-BB8F-588DE6599945-40749-0001ECDF5F417127
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="status"

This is a test upload.
--77730E6D-83EC-4BFE-BB8F-588DE6599945-40749-0001ECDF5F417127--

The code that is generating this is written for Mac OS X/Cocoa in Objective-C. It is part of a Twitter framework I’m writing¹ called CLTwitterEngine. The method in question that performs the image upload is found in CLTweet.m, and is called

+ (void)postTweet:(NSString *)text withImage:(NSImage *)image completionHandler:(CLTweetHandler)handler;

I’m posting this in the hope that some day, maybe it will save someone else the days it took me to get this right. If it does, I’d love to hear it.

Yes, I know many of these already exist–most notably MGTwitterEngine–but I wanted to try writing my own, for the hell of it. ↩

Bill Maher talks for around 3 minutes on education in...

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:28:18 -0500

Bill Maher talks for around 3 minutes on education in America.

As the husband of a teacher, this hits home. My wife works harder, longer, and more passionately than anyone I know. Her reward? An absurdly small salary (especially given the affluent area in which she teaches), getting blamed if her kids do poorly (especially by parents), and being woefully under-appreciated. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Do yourself a favor: if you can read this, thank a teacher.

Current Desktop.

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 08:32:05 -0500

Current Desktop.

gothamatic: HO HO HO, BLUE GIANT - after the game, I stuck my...

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 07:26:17 -0500

gothamatic:

HO HO HO, BLUE GIANT - after the game, I stuck my head out the window and there it was Big Blue The Empire State Building: Zoran Milich’s Eye on New York City/Gothamatic.com

As it should be.

Ideal OS X Twitter Client

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 08:16:46 -0500

I’ve been trying various twitter clients for OS X lately, and none of them suit my needs exactly. My list:

Be able to read and post tweets, mentions, DMs.
Be able to read and perform saved searches.
Synchronize my position with Tweet Marker.
Allow me to upload images to Twitter’s image service.

And, optionally, for bonus points:

Show profiles in a native UI
Easy reporting of spam
Allow muting users and/or clients.

I’m seriously considering hacking together my own as something to keep me busy outside of work, but I’m really scared of the UI. The iOS developer in me thinks UITableView with custom UITableViewCells, but naturally UIKit doesn’t (strictly speaking) exist on OS X.

We’ll see…

"Piracy is easy. Piracy is reliable. Piracy is fast. Buying a movie is none of these things."

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 07:27:15 -0500

“

Piracy is easy. Piracy is reliable. Piracy is fast.

Buying a movie is none of these things.

”

- Peroty. While I’m not advocating piracy—and I don’t think he is either—this extremely succinctly explains what’s wrong with buying movies today.