def myBlog(self):

Test BlogMate Post

I thought I’d give Todd Ditchendorf’s blogging plugin for TextMate a try. It’s pretty neat, if a bit on the Spartan side.

I’ve been making good progress on Changes.app. I’m finishing up the directory comparison view and moving on to the line-by-line comparison.

Originally, I thought I’d make the line-by-line file comparison work like the one in FileMerge.app.

However, I liked the way that Beyond Compare 2 allows the user’s eyes to track horizontally across the window to the matched lines, using blank lines to space and align the text.

I’ve settled on an approach which tracks more closely to the Beyond Compare 2 solution, while preserving the polish of FileMerge.app.

Jordan Langille (of OneToad Design) has designed an awesome icon for Changes.app. I’d highly recommend him to anyone looking for application icon design for OS X.

Check out his portfolio here.

The new icon will debut when Changes.app is released.

I’ve started working on a new app in my very scarce spare time. It’s a bit of a secret right now, but here are some hints:

• The app’s working name is “Changes”.
• It’s for Cocoa.
• Leopard-only of course.
• An app that is widely-used in Windows but has no direct competitor on the Mac
• Will scream on multi-proc machines.

Still trying to figure out if I want to use CoreData to store the saved sessions or just write out the session data to plists. I’m currently leaning towards using CoreData.

Objective-C 2.0 rocks the house, kudos to Apple for improving upon an already excellent language.

The Good:

• Aaron Hillegass’s Talk on Solving “Real Problems” - My thoughts on this: Do we really need another blinged-out CD burning app?. How about solving some real problems, like law/medical/business problems???
• Jak’s Tap - Great night, lots of booze and camaraderie.
• Talking about Needed Community Projects - Apple isn’t going to help us here. Some serious love needs to be given to the web services (XMLRPC, REST, SOAP) and ORM (think CoreData + mysql/psql). WebServicesCore.framework is a travesty.
• A Code Repository for OS X OSS - A place to store all of the aforementioned projects. MacOSForge doesn’t cut it, an independent site needs to be made available because as Aaron said, “Apple is not your friend.”
• The IO Language and Actor Patterns - Steve Dekorte gave a great presentation, perfectly timed due to the popularity of the multi-core chips. Threads are not the answer.
• The Presenters - All of the presentations were top-notch… props to Fitzpatrick who was able to make a talk on version control interesting.

The Bad:

• The Chicago Marathon - This event caused me to miss the Adler Planetarium trip. Oh well, there’s always next time.
• The Weather - This isn’t really fair since I live in Phoenix
• “Pitcher Remorse” - ask Daniel (a.k.a. dcj) about this, he coined the phrase describing my condition Saturday morning.

Overall, C4 was a tremendous success. Congratulations to Jonathan “Wolf” Rentzsch for putting on such a kick-ass conference!

Update: For more thoughts, opinions, and comments on the whirlwind experience which was C4, check Wolf’s link summary.

I’m at the C4 developers conference this weekend geeking out with my fellow OS X devs. Gruber is giving an interesting chat this evening on the “Death of the HIG”, how and why Apple is making the design decisions that go into their products (such as iTunes). Interesting talk, compelling arguments, probably the first time I’ve said that about anything Gruber has written/said.

Ahh, in the realm of other cool stuff, try Wallstrip.com by Howard Lindzon and crew. Hopefully, I’ll track him down at the Esplinade for a cuppa’ Joe later next week.

So, I’ll put it out there… is there any interest in starting a Greater Phoenix Cocoaheads group? After I finish my MS (the universal caveat), I really want to start up a chapter. Comment or ping me at (ibaird) at (gmail) dot (com) if you are interested in this.

Here’s an article that explains what it takes to create a Cocoaheads chapter. Promoting OS X development in the Phoenix area is a good thing!

Congratulations to Arclite (from the super-awesome #macsb channel gang) on his release of “Pencils Down 3″, an innovative test creation solution for OS X. He’s a super dude and I wish him the best of luck in this endeavor.

Pencils Down 3 by Elgebar Studios

Trying out this WordPress stuff. Got tired of all the spam hitting blojsom.

Finally, after 2 major rewrites of my research code, I have results that are promising to say the least. Hopefully, this is the light at the end of the tunnel for my Computer Science Master’s Degree. 
 
On another note, is there any interest in a Python RPC/Synchronization framework based on network rendezvous synchronization and matrix timestamps? If so, feel free to email rtmfd at mac remove_this dot com or comment below. I’m thinking of hosting my research code on my company’s web site along with my thesis after I complete it.