ranchero.com

Jerky email sent to Marco

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:20:46 -0700

Marco Arment: “Most of the emails I get are very nice, but occasionally one slips through that makes me question what, exactly, convinced someone that writing and sending it would be productive.”

Love that “if you want to be a bitch” part. That’s what gets developers up in the morning — the idea that today might be the day that someone finally credits us with being the bitches we try so hard to be. Sure.

Getting Pretty Lonely

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:33:14 -0700

Daniel Jalkut suggests “that the GPL does more to harm collaborative development than it does to help it.”

Daniel is brave.

When kvetchers kvetch

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:09:50 -0700

A person complains that Fraser Speirs has the “audacity” to charge for his software in this “age where social networking comes free of charge.”

Fraser’s reply is great — polite and succinct but unsparing. It’s a model for how to handle these situations.

Screencast: iPhone Tab bars and Navigation bars together

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 08:11:39 -0700

O’Reilly, Elisabeth Robson: “Combining a tab bar with a table view and navigation bar isn't very difficult, but it took me forever to figure out how to do it properly.” Her screencast shows how.

HomeSite Discontinued

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:27:23 -0700

Nick Bradbury: “These days it's common practice for programmers to actively involve customers in the creation of their software, but back in 1995 it wasn’t the norm. I certainly wasn’t the first developer to take this approach, but I like to think I was one of the pioneers.”

Absolutely. Bravo, Nick! Good job.

How Gus Uses FastScripts

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:22:10 -0700

Gus Mueller: “So, instead of having multiple spaces with Xcode in one space, or irc + iChat in another, and WebKit in its own; I create multiple scripts which hide all applications, and then brings forward just the ones I want.”

Birdfeed, new iPhone Twitter client

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:56:02 -0700

Neven Mrgan: Birdfeed is “as uncluttered as a Scandinavian rumpus room.”

And it is, as they say, a very nice Twitter client.

Nick on Tech Support

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:14:26 -0700

Nick Bradbury: “It seems so obvious: if you want to develop software that’s useful to people, you’ve got to talk with them.”

JetReader - NetNewsWire style

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 11:31:04 -0700

Jetplane Journal: The JetReader style was “designed with legibility in mind, as I’ve found that black on grey is typically easier on the eyes — particularly on the new, very glossy, very bright aluminum MacBook.”

Virtuality - new Ron Moore show

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:05:07 -0700

SCI FI Wire: “Take the first starship from Earth headed to a faraway planet, add 12 people confined together on board for a 10-year mission, and it begins to sound like the ultimate reality show waiting to happen. Throw in some virtual reality that allows the characters’ avatars to interact as if they are in a holodeck...”

Obviously, Battlestar fans (by which I mean most geeks) will need to check it out. Looks like it’s on tonight.

Type Qualifiers in C

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:40:00 -0700

Mike Ash: “The const [keyword] can be very useful and every C programmer should know how to use it. ”

iPhone 3GS and YouTube uploads

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:27:25 -0700

The YouTube Blog reports “when the iPhone 3GS came out, uploads increased by 400% a day.”

Uptake on iPhone OS 3.0

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:26:04 -0700

Ars Technica: “Conflicting data points from multiple sources give us everything but a clear answer.”

Tab bars and Navigation bars together

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:24:50 -0700

O’Reilly Broadcast, Elisabeth Robson: “I’ve created an example to demonstrate how to build this kind of app and recorded a screencast partly so I’d never forget again, and also to help anyone else out there who might be struggling with this same challenge.”

iPhone 3GS Fast in JavaScript Tests

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:43:30 -0700

Medialets: “The results of the iPhone-based tests alone are rather astonishing and seem to indicate that many of Apple’s claims about the performance gains of their 3.0 OS and the iPhone 3GS may hold some water.”

Instapaper Pro 2.0 for iPhone

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 08:39:07 -0700

Macworld: “New in Instapaper Pro 2.0 is one of Arment’s most-requested features: support for organizing articles into folders, which the online Instapaper service recently gained (at this time, Arment plans to keep this feature exclusive to the paid Instapaper Pro iPhone client).”

It’s on sale, too — just $5, half-off regular price. I’m a fan, and I recommend it.

Test-Driven Heresy

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 07:58:18 -0700

Tim Bray: “Here’s my thesis: As a profession, we do a lot more software maintenance than we do greenfield development. And it’s at the maintenance end where TDD really pays off.”

Social media made simple

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 07:51:36 -0700

John Welch: “When you’re talking about monologues, like traditional media, coupons, fliers, television commercials, what have you, you can easily manage the message. You’re the only source. It’s easy. However, when everything becomes a dialogue, you can’t do it, and if you try, you’ll look like a pack of asses.”

iPhone OS 3.0 Adoption Rate

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:13:40 -0700

Tapbots Blog: “5 days after the iPhone OS 3.0 release, we are seeing a 75% adoption rate.”

FastScripts free for less than 10 keyboard shortcuts

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:38:26 -0700

We use Red Sweater’s FastScripts here in the lab and love it.

One of my favorite uses is as email-filer. For each of my two main accounts I have a saved mailbox. When I want to put something in the mailbox, I just hit a keyboard shortcut.

I also have a script and keyboard shortcut to get a link to the selected Mail message: I then paste the link into Things or VoodooPad so I can open up the message later.