Throughout my adult life, and even sometimes when I was a teenager, people have told me that I have leadership qualities, or that they’ve noticed people looking to me for direction. For a long time, I never really paid much attention to this idea. Now and then, someone would ask me to help lead their club or organization, because they looked at me and saw what they thought was a leader. But most…
It happened. As I sadly predicted last Feburary, Donald Trump won the Republican primaries, went on to win the general election, and is now the President. I didn’t watch the inauguration, but have seen highlights or maybe lowlights during the weekend. The day after the inauguration, there were wonderful, peaceful protests in cities around the world, and I applaud and appreciate these, but also…
Anyone paying attention to Apple this fall has surely noticed the new MacBook Pro models where the upper row of function keys is replaced by the new Touch Bar. Along with the disappearing function keys, the escape key also goes away. In many apps, the escape key will still exist as a virtual key on the Touch Bar, but for many people (vim users, heavy terminal users in general), this feels pretty…
In an unexpected turn at this point in my life, I have become a fashion blogger. That’s right. I started a tumblr called Jack Shirt and have been showing and describing the shirts I’m wearing each weekday. Two weeks solid so far! It’s early days still, but I’m sure that at some point this will end up with corporate shirt sponsorships and possibly some sort of bribery scandal. Check it out !
He started off as an outsider, came into the race unexpectedly, and seemed to mock the very institution whose presidency he was running for. From the outset, he painted all of his opponents as cronies, and himself as someone who would bring some plain-talking common sense into the presidential race, and hopefully to the presidency itself. I’m not talking about Donald Trump. 1988 The candidacy I’m…
I’ve had what you might call an email problem. Before Getting Things Done was published, and long before Merlin Mann started talking about Inbox Zero , I was already in a deep, dark pit of email messages, both read and unread (and plenty that were actually read but were marked as unread). I’m going to tell you how I got there, and how and why I got out of it. Habits and residue I’ve been using…
Anyone who knew me as a teenager or young adult is likely to remember that music was a big part of my life back then. I was constantly joining or forming bands, writing songs, and playing in front of people as often as I could manage to find gigs. This was never something that I did with any idea of earning anything. The only times I can remember getting paid at all were two occasions where one of…
My first attempt at Vogon Poetry, inspired by a joke I made on the thoughtbot chat today. The Sligulous Prondle-Garg Like franticores on Gibulax we sloked our nurmy gelbs, While o’er the crutted blige a foetid krax our booge did fell. To see that crenulacious crange I would conflay numolic spange! And though flatsolicorpulatic flugs engaled the flelf, Our liprosatchic gormistles withheld their…
(reposted from Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots , where it originally appeared May 30, 2014) In the iOS 7 SDK, Apple gave developers programmatic access to Text Kit , an advanced text layout system that lets you easily display and edit rich text in your applications. Although these capabilities are new to iOS, they’ve existed in other contexts (OS X since its first release, and…
(reposted from Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots , where it originally appeared February 19, 2014) From time to time I’ve been asked to do an independent code review, to determine the overall health of a client’s code base. Unlike a code walkthrough, where someone familiar with the code shows the main components, this is a code review where an outside expert examines the project, takes…
The time has come to once again for the Beginning iOS Development Workshop. This time it’s actually in central Stockholm instead of out in Norrtälje, so those of you who don’t want to ride that bus are in luck! It takes place September 18-20. Details are here . I hope to see you there!
After two and a half years, the time has come for me to move on. I’m proud to have been a part of Toca Boca’s infancy, and working on some of the greatest kids’ apps the world has ever seen has been fantastic fun, but a few months ago I decided to move on, and today was my final work day at Toca Boca. I’ve had plenty of job offers during my time at Toca Boca, so what’s the new shiny that finally…
I should point out that I’m running another iOS Development Workshop next week. The third one since I started doing this as “a real thing”! Pretty excited about this, it’s a lot of fun for me and educational (I hope!) for my students. There’s still time to sign up, just barely.
At the latest Beginning iOS Dev Workshop this September, I was showing my students some Core Data by walking through the template application that Xcode gives you if you create a new master-detail Core-Data-backed iOS application. If you haven’t done so yourself, you should check it out, because it presents a pretty nice way of constructing a pair of view controllers that give the user access to a…
I’ve had this idea floating in my head for a while. How about running some iOS developer training here in Stockholm, to help newcomers get up to speed with Objective-C, Xcode, and the iOS SDK? This sort of thing has been done successfully in other parts of Europe and in the U.S., but really hasn’t been tried much here as far as I know. In my career, I’ve done my fair share of training and…
I’m pleased to announce that Beginning iOS 5 Development has made its way into the world. The text was completed in November, the ebook was released just before Christmas, and the print book should be shipping any day now. This book is the latest edition of what was previously known as Beginning iPhone X Development , where most of those X values were in sync with the latest released iPhone at the…
So, the time has come once again for Americans of all stripes to gather with their families, have a great meal together, and remember all the things they’re thankful for in their lives. Of course I live in Sweden where this is just a normal work day (my family and I celebrate the holiday with friends on Saturday instead), but hey, it’s the thought that counts. And so I thought: How about skipping…
A couple of weeks ago, when I accidentally (and temporarily) wiped out all the older content on this blog, some other things were disrupted as well. One of these was a little chunk of the website dedicated to Scapedog , my old college band from 20 years ago. Nowadays everyone with a band is typically documenting the hell out of it, but back then we didn’t have digital cameras or digital recording…
Last week I attended the [Oredev conference][oredev] for the second time, and thought I’d share some thoughts about the experience. I wrote a bit about last year’s conference a year ago (which at the current snail’s pace of this blog is just about 4 posts ago). [oredev]: http://oredev.org For anyone who doesn’t know, Oredev is a software development conference that brings in speakers from around…
OK, calamity averted, I managed to bring all the older entries online. Fortunately I had written a script months ago to convert them all to textile, I had just never gotten around to switching to jekyll. Octopress made it all a bit more straightforward, and I could just drop all the old posts right in. Hoo. Ray. 4. Everything.
Just started messing with Octopress in the hopes of replacing my old blog with it, and an rsync accident actually wiped out the old blog entirely. Oh snap! Until I have time to fix that, I guess it’s just time to start blogging from scratch. Let’s start with the links to the presentation I gave today at the Oredev 2011 conference: Become a Blockhead (PDF version) Become a Blockhead (Keynote…
My latest book project is now done! Unlike what I ve done before, this isn t an entirely new book, but instead a new update of what s been a highly popular series of books [ 1 , 2 ] by Dave Mark and Jeff Lamarche . Now I ve been added to the mix, and I think that what we ve come up with is a great new edition that will appeal to anyone starting off with iPhone/iPad development. Even if you already…
A couple of weeks ago, I had a chance to visit this year s Øredev conference. Øredev is a software development conference that s been held each of the last 6 or 7 years in Malmö, at the southern tip of Sweden. Not only was this my first time in Malmö, it was also the first time I ve given talks myself at such a large conference, and I thought I d share some thoughts with…
After trying and failing to get any satisfaction from hostingrails.com about some issues, I discovered that the nice little company whose service I signed up for years ago has been purchased by some bigger company that is totally lousy. So, I m in the process of moving all my domains, and perhaps changing the technology that powers this blog. In the interim, I ve turned off some features that I…
Spent all day yesterday at the Nordic Mobile Developers Summit, where I gave a talk on developing iPhone/iPad apps, a lightning demo of how some of the dev tools work, and took part in some panel discussions and Q&A. Several of the other speakers and panelists are people who are more deeply involved in the handset manufacturers side of things, including representatives from Microsoft, Nokia, and…
This is the sort of evening where Stockholm flirts with me. I ve spent too long with colleagues I seldom speak to, talking about things we never talk about during work hours. It s so entertaining, I lose track of time, and suddenly it s too late, I m missing my train, and I may as well wait. A few colleagues invite me out to a pub, but I m just short of time; going there would mean I d miss even…
It s true! At long last, after months and months of late nights, the book is done. Available in digital and paper form from Apress , as well as Amazon.com and elsewhere. I ve also set up LearnCocoa.org to be a gathering-place for readers of the book; Right now, there s not much there except for links to buy the book, and to a discussion forum where you can post questions, and also find the source…
For years, I ve been running a comment system here that s been plagued with a variety of problems. I ve gotten tired of fixing it, and it looks like Disqus is a much more capable system anyway, so I ve changed. The old comments are still around, and will probably still be around forever, but for new comments, it s all Disqus now.
My wife just pointed out that I haven t blogged at all since last August! But, I have a good excuse: I ve been writing Learn Cocoa on the Mac . And to top things off, I m basically done! The book itself isn t yet in print (though it will be soon), but as of a couple of days ago, the actual writing is done; All chapters are complete, all the screenshots are in place, and it s all passed off to copy…
It has come to my attention that I haven t said a word here about my current side project, which I m spending all my spare time working on: I m writing a book! This comes as a surprise to me as much as anyone, but there it is. Through a happy set of coincidences, I ve been given the opportunity to work on the upcoming Apress book http://www.apress.com/book/view/1430218592">Learn Cocoa on the Mac "…
At a party last night, a friend of a friend made a startling observation about my current appearance, saying that I resembled a combination of Wolverine and Swedish journalist Göran Greider, in terms of mutton-chops and wild-hairedness. See image below for astonishing proof! You have no idea how hilarious this revelation was.
I don t know if it s been exactly 1000 days, but sometime during the fall of 2007, some friends and I created Band of None . Our first 1000 days of existence have been, frankly, uneventful. The band s members and their families have all socialized on several occasions, and in fact the Band of None new year s eve we should be performing at this party discussion has become an annual tradition of its…
Yesterday I released a new pair of games for iPhone and iPod touch in the App Store, Diabolotros and Diabolotros Lite . Diabolotros is a retro arcade shooter, most of the gameplay is lifted straight from classics like Space Invaders, but I ve given it a few twists of my own, and added iPhonetastic tilt n shake controls: You tilt the device to steer your ship, and when you have special weapons…
Last night, I spoke at an iPhone-themed event hosted by Excitera as part of their Mobile Cup , presenting some information for iPhone-curious developers and entrepreneurs about the iPhone development process. I gave a non-technical presentation of the series of steps/tasks that any new iPhone developer will need to go through. The slides are available <a href=…
Some time ago I posted some charts showing how my first iPhone game, Scribattle , was doing after the release of its free sibling, Scribattle Lite . It turns out that the game was at that time already nearing the heights of its popularity (but oh, what heights it hit!) The absolute peak occurred on March 3rd and 4th; during that 2-day period, the full version sold 800 copies and the free version…
Last night, I gave a presentation at the Stockholm Cocoaheads meeting entitled I Can t Believe I m Not a Millionaire about my experiences with Scribattle and Scribattle Lite on the App Store. Scribattle Lite had a short but intense hit period when it reached the #1 or #2 spot in most countries, and has now been downloaded over 1.5 million times! See more in the slideshow .
I ve been collecting data for both Scribattle purchases and Scribattle Lite downloads, and have some results to share. Like most other reports of this nature that I ve seen, I m going to be coy and not show any precise numbers, but rather some graphs that show the relative growth for these products. These charts begin on February 10 (the day Scribattle first appeared on the App Store) and March 1.…
Since Scribattle never got any new releases exposure on the App Store (see previous entry ), I decided to go ahead an put out a free Lite version . Still a highly playable game, but with a few key features stripped out, and including a few strategically placed Buy Scribattle buttons. Hopefully this will be downloaded far and wide, and lead to some sales of the original! At some point I will post…
A while ago I posted five tips for prospective iPhone developers , and with a little more experience under my belt I ve got one more: 6: Post-date your first app s release date When I wrote tip 5, it had been nine days since my app was approved for sale, but it wasn t in the App Store due to Apple s unknown delays in finalizing my sales contract. I ended up waiting another 19 days, a total of 4…
At long last, Scribattle is available! iPhone and iPod Touch users can now get it from the App Store , load it up, and start blasting away at Scri and Flingers and Pent (oh my!) It s been quite a journey getting this game to market. I ve had very few programming challenges, but a number of small delays due to various technical details involved to package and sign the app during development, test,…
Obama s new proposal of imposing executive pay caps on firms that receive government bailout money has a problem as seen in USA Today and other places: Since firms that are doing well don t have the pay caps, there may be a brain drain wherein the best people won t want to work for the companies where the limits are in place. According to a compensation consultant named Alan Johnson, [ ] you end…
I ve been working on an iPhone game called Scribattle in my spare time since late last summer. After years of Mac OS X and previously OpenStep and NeXTStep programming, it seemed that stepping into the iPhone development path should be a piece of cake, and as far as the programming is concerned, it has been; However, there are a number of hoops that every iPhone developer has to jump through in…
I reported a bug in Mail.app, Apple fixed it, and it was specifically mentioned in the 10.5.6 release notes : Mail: Addresses an issue that could prevent Mail from quitting. I coudn t be more proud of myself! Actually that s not true. I ll be prouder when I finally get Scribattle released, for example.
Some time ago, perhaps inspired by the daily comics-watching antics of The Comics Curmudgeon and Garfield Minus Garfield , I started a new comics-oriented blog. The premise of this blog is simple: Most of these so-called comics or funnies are anything but funny; Many of them can be enhanced (I ll stop short of saying improved or made funnier ) by replacing the last text bubble with a single stupid…
Now that I ve had my iPhone 3G for just over three weeks, I figure it s time for me to share some thoughts. Anyone reading this probably already has some idea of the iPhone, just from the constant media attention, so I won t mention the most well-known features (touch interface, hi-res display, GPS ) except in passing. The Good The web, everywhere. For years I ve had phones that supported…
Tech Sweden is abuzz with news of Telia s iPhone pricing plans having been released today. Unlike the AT&T contracts in the U.S., Telia s contracts for Sweden don t directly include unlimited data transfer. Also unlike the AT&T contracts, at first blush (and subsequent for that matter) the Telia contracts seem really pretty expensive, especially the iMaxi plan, which starts at about $150/month!…
Just in time for WWDC 08, allow me to introduce you to Twucket . Twucket is a new Twitter client for Mac OS X that I am releasing as freeware. I created Twucket because I wasn t happy with any of the available ways to view my Twitter page. The actual twitter website is a hugely-rendered page, and requires you to go to the browser now and then to see if anything has come in; The standalone clients…
I ve told you before about Jonathan Coulton and why you must love him and give him your money . Lately Jonathan has been extending the range of his touring outside the U.S. with a recent show in England, and he s thinking about coming to Europe again and wonders where his fans are . He s even set himself up on Eventful to figure it out. Obviously it s time to rouse the Nuthole Army out of its…
Podcasts. Either you re listening to them, or you re not. For me, living geographically removed from the American mediasphere, podcasts are a great way to keep up with American and other English-language professionally-produced audio content, not to mention all the stuff that people are putting out there on their own. It s a bit like having your own radio station, just full of stuff you actually…
I ve been so busy (and having so much fun with) work lately, that I ve been neglecting politics to some extent, especially here. In fact, I now see that my latest entry filed under politics was 19 months ago! Well, time to catch up. Here s an interview with Naomi Wolf, discussing topics from her latest book, The End of America . In this interview, she describes having discerned 10 steps that…