Disclaimer

Now that I've announced that I'm going to work for Apple, I want to make sure that expectations for this blog are clear:

This is my personal blog. Things I say here are my thoughts and opinions, not those of Apple. Links I post here are items I found personally interesting, and do not necessarily represent Apple's interests. Please do not link to or quote this blog as as evidence of any action or future action on Apple's part, since nothing on this blog is written as part of my position at Apple.

To quote Eric Albert :

What, explicitly, does all of this mean? It means that if I say something here, it isn't Apple's viewpoint, nor is it the viewpoint of my team at Apple, nor does it mean that Apple is engaged in an internal debate on the issue, nor does it mean that I don't have a completely different perspective on the issue when I'm at work.

For further reading, I refer you to the disclaimers written by Eric Albert and Chuq von Rospach , which I agree with whole-heartedly.

Starting at Apple

Yes, in case you haven't already heard, I'm starting work at Apple on January 17th! I'm really excited. The team I'll be working with seems like a great group of people and, let's face it, I've always been a Mac geek.

I accepted the job back in November, but I didn't post about it until now for a couple of reasons: (1) I haven't had time to do much blogging lately, and (2) I wanted to have a disclaimer ready so that my comments on this blog are not misconstrued.

Roku SoundBridge

My dad and I got my mom a Roku SoundBridge for her birthday. I hooked it up today, and was really impressed with it. Once connected to your home network (via wired Ethernet or WiFi), the SoundBridge finds all machines with iTunes sharing enabled and makes their music libraries available to be played on your stereo. You can browse your library using the remote, and when you find a song, you can either play it immediately or queue it. Everything just worked, even a software update (the SoundBridge unit downloads and installs updates seamlessly). It will be nice to have the SoundBridge when I go home for Christmas, because as soon as I connect my G5 to the network, my entire music library will be accessible in our living room.

If you are looking for a way to play your iTunes library on your home stereo, I highly recommend the SoundBridge.

Steve Jobs is Wrong

... about online music subscription services . Yes, many people would prefer to buy their music, rather than renting it. But if I want to own my music, I'm not going to purchase it from the iTunes Music Store, I'm going to buy the CD. That way I'll have all of the liner notes, and won't have to worry about "authorizing" computers to play the music. The online music subscription services are neat precisely because they break the traditional music buying mold, and give you incredible breadth, which you can leverage to find new bands and "try before you buy". I'd gladly pay $10 a month for a subscription to everything in the iTunes Music Store, but as it is, I spend about $0.50/month at iTMS. C'mon Apple, you're leaving money on the table.

Update: News.com recently posted an article with projections that subscription based services will soon overtake a la carte downloads.

Running a Mac Software Business

Niall Kennedy has posted an MP3 of the discussion from the "How to Run Your Own Software Business" panel at O'Reilly's Mac OS X Conference. Lots of interesting discussion about pricing, expenses, legal issues, payment systems, and more.

iTunes Movie Trailers

Why would I want to watch movie trailers in iTunes ? When I heard that movie trailers had been added to ITMS, I thought it was a pretty useless thing to do, but harmless. Now, in order to watch the fullscreen version of the trailer for The Incredibles, you have to go to ITMS. My main objection to movie trailers in ITMS is that they aren't listed in any meaningful manner. The trailer organization on the Apple movie trailers website is much more coherent.

IRC Client

I don't use IRC much. Usually, I just lurk in #geeks on irc.cwru.edu. Thus, I just need a simple IRC client that's free. I've tried 2 or 3 different clients for Mac OS X, but they've all either sucked or been non-free. Recently though, I've come across a really nice, free client called Colloquy . It's got an elegant, unobtrusive interface, a plugin architecture, and it's open source. It's also got support for AppleScript and DCC file transfers. It seems positioned to become the IRC client for Mac OS X. I'm glad to finally see an IRC client that's a free and worthy companion to Safari and Mail.

LaunchBar vs. Quicksilver

Anyone who has ever talked to me about Mac OS X knows that I think LaunchBar is the best utility ever. As soon as I install a copy of Mac OS X, LaunchBar is the first application I install. If it's not installed, then I find myself hitting command-space and wondering why nothing is happening.

Yesterday I found out about an upstart competitor to LaunchBar named Quicksilver . Lots of people were writing gushing reviews, so I decided to download it and try it out. It's a lot like LaunchBar, but it has more eye-candy and visual modes. It also claimed a few improvements over LaunchBar, such as Internet searches and iLife integration. I thought it had promise, but I decided to move back to LaunchBar since I ran into some bugs while trying to configure my Quicksilver "catalog". (In fairness, QuickSilver is still in beta.)

Today, Objective Development has launched a counterattack with the release of LaunchBar 4 Beta 1 . It has all of the features of Quicksilver and then some. Probably the biggest new feature for me is "Fast, multithreaded indexing engine, performing live index updates in background." It was always annoying to install a new application, try to use LaunchBar to launch it, and then remember that you hadn't rescanned your Applications folder recently. This LaunchBar update should make that a thing of the past.

The Mac OS X application launching utility market is in for some interesting times. Quicksilver has the visual edge, but LaunchBar 4 has more features. Quicksilver is free (at least during the beta), and LaunchBar is $20. Hopefully this competition will result in a wave of innovation that will benefit all Mac users.

Hardware RAID for Power Mac G5

Lately I've been thinking that I should take better care of my data. A hard disk in an old PC of mine died. Fortunately the data on it wasn't important, but it made me think how much data I'd lose if my G5's drive died. I'd like to setup a RAID mirror on my G5 to protect against data loss. Apple has software RAID support in Mac OS X, but I'm wary of software RAID. There are often compatibility and booting issues with software RAID. Also, according to XLR8YourMac.com , using Apple's software RAID to create a mirror can reduce disk performance by up to 40%, which is unacceptable.

As for hardware RAID, there seem to be a number of external Firewire solutions , but most of them are very expensive, and overkill for what I want to do. I'd also prefer internal RAID, since I plan on making the RAID mirror my startup drive. The only product I've seen that fits my needs is the Acard AEC-6890M . It supports hardware RAID 0 and 1 using Serial ATA drives. The problem is that I haven't been able to find many reviews of the card. Also, the company's web page is a bit difficult to navigate, and doesn't inspire total confidence that updated drivers will be available (if needed) for future Mac OS X revisions. I have seen a few good reports on the card on messages boards, though.

Anybody ever dealt with Acard, especially with their RAID cards?

Is This Anything?

In the tradition of David Letterman's Is This Anything? skit, I must ask, is this anything? I won it at a raffle held during a Case MUG meeting, and nobody seems to know what it is. My guess is that it was some sort of combination display piece and mousepad for a Newton. Can anyone tell me what this is?

(Note: The text at the top of the item is "L03126A".)

Just wondering...

If you hook an iPod up to a Mac using USB 2, does the iPod icon contain the USB icon instead of the Firewire icon?

Good to know...

20 Years of Macintosh

Today is the 20th anniversary of the introduction of Macintosh. MacMinute has a roundup of coverage across the web.

Update: Andy Hertzfeld, a member of the Macintosh team, has created Folklore , which contains a number of anecdotes about the development of Macintosh. Very interesting. (Via NSLog(); )

ITMS RSS Feeds

You can now create your own customized RSS feeds at the iTunes Music Store. You can choose to see new releases, most popular songs, newly added songs, and more. You can also select the genres you're interested in. Cool!

Apple/HP iPod Deal

John Gruber has some lucid commentary about why the Apple/HP iPod deal is possibly the biggest news coming out of Macworld San Francisco, even though it wasn't mentioned in Steve Jobs' keynote.

Habeas Spam

I noticed a few pieces of spam showing up in my inbox today, which is very rare, since I use SpamSieve . Michael Tsai (author of SpamSieve) has posted an explanation for this. Spammers are now putting Habeas headers into their email. Habeas has threatened to sue anyone who does this, so we'll see what happens. For now, you can just disable Habeas support in SpamSieve.

iCal RSS Feeds

Tonight I was setting up my calendar for the upcoming semester, making sure that all my classes were entered, holidays noted, and special events recorded. I started thinking that it would be nice to have an RSS feed of my calendar, so I could quickly glance at my schedule during my morning aggregator pass. Then I noticed that PHP iCalendar has RSS support. I created a password-protected directory on my web server (since my calendar contains some events that I don't want to broadcast to the world), uploaded PHP iCalendar, and set iCal to publish my calendars using WebDAV. NetNewsWire supports HTTP authentication using URLs of the form http://user:pass@site.com, so I've now got my calendar in my aggregator. Cool.

Advanced Programming in the Mac OS X Environment

The title may be a a take on Richard Steven's well known work , but the content on Amit Singh's Advanced Programming in the Mac OS X Environment site is original and well done. Lots of interesting details here about the Mac's boot procedure, kernel, filesystems, and programming enviroments. Recommended for Mac geeks.

Ballmer + iPod

Steve Ballmer meets the iPod . Hahaha.

That Switcher Thing

At WWDC, Apple solicited name suggestions for "that switcher thing", which is used for switching between icon, list, and column view in the Finder. It appears to have been named NSSegmentedControl . The name seems a little bit too generic to me.

NSController

Dissension in the ranks: Aaron Hillegass blasts NSController .

Exposé Quirk

Small quirk in Exposé : If there is a tooltip on screen when you hit the "Desktop" Exposé key (default F11), the tooltip is treated like another window. The tooltip is not treated as a separate window when you ask Exposé to display all windows.

Panther Weblog

Ken Bereskin, Apple's Product Manager for Mac OS X, has started a weblog about Panther. Ken did the same thing when Jaguar came out, and his posts were usually very interesting. If you use Panther, or just want to read about the new features, check it out.

(By the way, this is my first post from Panther.)

G5 Arrived

My G5 arrived Wednesday. I had a midterm exam and a project due on Thursday, so I only took it out of the box and admired its industrial design on Wednesday night. (Observation: The Power Mac G5 has a very supple power cord. :-)) On Thursday night I got down to business and hooked up the G5.

So far, I am extremely pleased with the G5. I haven't done any major benchmarks or stress tests, but I have been unable to find anything at which it is less than very responsive. Almost all apps launch in two bounces or less, project compilation is speedy, and activating a background app is instantaneous. (I did install an additional 512 MB of memory, bringing it up to 1 GB.) All of this is a very welcome improvement over my aging 400 MHz PowerBook G4.

G5 Shipped

My Power Mac G5 has finally shipped! It should be here next week. Here's the configuration:

Processor 065-4227 Dual 2GHz PowerPC G5
Memory 065-4356 512MB DDR400 (PC3200) - 2x256
Hard Drive 065-4376 160GB Serial ATA - 7200rpm
Optical Drive 065-4168 Super Drive (DVD-R/CD-RW)
Graphics Support 065-4449 ATI Radeon 9600 Pro
Fibre Chl PCI 065-4491 None
Modem 065-4166 56k V.92 Internal Modem
BlueTooth 065-4292 BlueTooth Module
Airport 065-1899 None
Keyboard Language 065-4161 Apple Keyboard & Mouse
Mac OS Language 065-4160 Mac OS X
Country Kit 065-4159 Country Kit

iCal 1.5.1

iCal 1.5.1 was released today. As a recent switcher from Entourage to iCal, I'm pleased with the upgrade. The drawer is somewhat better than the utility window, but the features I'm most excited about are the new reminder features. You can now ask to be notified about To Do items, and you can also snooze any reminder. Snoozing was something I did all the time with Entourage - I would ask to be notified about an event one week in advance, then snooze the event for a few days.

One annoying thing about iCal 1.5.1 is that the new "event location" field doesn't show up when a calendar is synced to an iPod. I've filed feedback .

My Dock

This article on the O'Reilly Network has touched off a spate of Dock picture postings. I keep my dock on the left side of the screen. I started doing that when I got a widescreen PowerBook, since I had some "extra" room on the sides of my screen. The apps in my Dock, from top to bottom, are: Finder, Safari, Entourage, MT-NewsWatcher, iCal, System Preferences, Terminal, Project Builder, Interface Builder, AppKiDo, BBEdit, iTunes, iChat AV, Adium, MSN Messenger, NetNewsWire Lite, Kung-Log, SpamSieve, SSH Agent, Stickies, Watson, TextEdit, OSXvnc, and Preview. In the documents section, I just have my home folder and Trash. I've also got LaunchBar running, but not in the Dock.

Lisa

Dilbert: Lisa . Good timing - just yesterday, Jason mentioned that one of the questions at this year's WWDC Stump the Experts was, "What date does the Lisa reset to when the battery dies?"

WWDC Debrief

Jason and I will be giving a talk on WWDC 2003 at 6pm Thursday in Hatch Auditorium . Come if you're a student interested in learning about how you can attend WWDC, or if you want to see demonstrations of technologies unveiled at WWDC. You won't want to miss the no lines of code web browser using WebKit! :)

G5 Cluster Photos

Virginia Tech has posted an extensive photo gallery of the installation of their new supercomputer consisting of 1100 Dual 2GHz Power Mac G5s. Almost cool enough to make me forgive them for getting the first 1100 dual G5s when I have one on order. Almost...

Apple Announcements

The new 15 inch PowerBooks are out, and they look very nice. The enclosure is similar to the 12 inch and 17 inch PowerBooks. Bluetooth, USB 2.0, and FireWire 800 are welcome additions. I am a bit disappointed that the resolution is still "only" 1280x854. At work this summer, I had an IBM ThinkPad with a 14-inch 1400x1050 resolution display, and I really liked it. Heck, Dell sells a laptop with a 1920x1200 display! Still, I think the new 15 inch PowerBook is a hit.

The new Bluetooth keyboard and mouse are disappointing. The keyboard looks good, but its $70. The mouse doesn't look very good (only one button) and it's also $70! Looks like I'll have to go with the Microsoft Bluetooth Intellimouse Explorer if/when I get a Bluetooth mouse.

Mail.app Images

Jason and I were talking last week about the sender pictures that Mail.app displays for messages sent from a .Mac email account. Now Dan Wood has posted a tip about attaching your photo to outgoing messages even if you don't have a .Mac account. Basically, you add a X-Image-Url header with a link to a 64x64 picture.

iSight Talk

Tomorrow I'll be giving a talk on iSight for Case SIGMAC . It's at 6pm in Hatch Auditorium (in Baker Building ). I'll have two PowerBooks and two iSights. I'm going to give a brief overview and demo of iSight and some of the software you can use with it (iChat AV, EvoCam, QuickTime Broadcaster). Then everyone will have a chance to play, and we can talk about Mac news and answer audience support questions.

Cocoa Sockets

For one of the classes I'm taking right now (Computer Networks), I'm going to need to do some sockets programming. We are allowed to use pretty much any programming language and framework that we want, so of course I'm going to use Cocoa. What are the best libraries for socket programming in Cocoa? So far I've turned up SmallSockets , NetSocket , and AsyncSocket . So far I've played with SmallSockets a bit, but haven't had time to try out NetSocket and AsyncSocket. Has anyone these or other socket libraries for Cocoa? If so, any suggestions?

Power Mac G5 Developer Note

The Power Mac G5 Developer Note has been posted. Here's an interesting tidbit:

Power supply: The Power Mac G5 computer comes with either a 450 W or 600 W power supply.

600W power supply? Wow.

iPod Carrying Case

I decided to order a carrying case for my iPod for back-to-school. Previously, my iPod was primarily used while sitting at my desk at work, so it wasn't in much danger of getting banged up. Now that I'll be using it while walking across campus, I'll need more protection, so I ordered the PodPaq014 . It looks like a capable and rugged case. I may also get some new headphones for my iPod. The included earbuds are fine when you are not moving around much, but, when walking or running, they tend to fall out. I'll probably get some headphones with ear clips, like the w.ear headphones .

iCal

I've decided to try switching from Entourage to iCal for scheduling. My scheduling needs aren't very complicated, and iCal is prettier and has better Internet sharing features than Entourage. Also, when Panther comes out, I may make the switch from Entourage to Mail.app, so this will give me a head start on that transition. As an example of some of the cool things possible with iCal, I set up WebDAV on my server, and you can now subscribe to my calendars. I also set up PHP iCalendar, so you can view my calendars via a web interface.

Power Mac G5

I ordered a dual 2GHz Power Mac G5 today. Stock configuration with the addition of a Bluetooth module. I want to upgrade the RAM to 1GB, but I'll buy the memory from Crucial , since Apple's memory prices aren't very good. Estimated ship time for the Power Mac is 7-10 weeks, but I'm hopeful that it won't take that long. I'd really like to have it by mid-September.

ITMS Ideas

My latest experience with the iTunes Music Store, and the buzz surrounding Buy.com's imminent launch of a competing service , got me thinking about the problems with ITMS. It's a great store, to be sure. Being able to browse by category with 30 second full-quality previews is awesome. However, there seems to be a core flaw with the ITMS experience: shopping at the iTunes Music Store is like shopping in a store with no other people.

As you browse ITMS, there is no indication that other people are also shopping in the store. About the only network effect is the "Listeners who bought this also bought" section. Apple really needs to be careful or Amazon will eat their lunch with reviews, comments, wishlists (!), and other advanced collaboration features. Jason tipped me off to the huge potential of a wishlist feature. Wouldn't it be great if you could create a list of songs you wanted to buy, and other people could purchase songs from your list for you? At 99 cents a pop, I'm sure a lot of people would have fun purchasing songs for others to thank them, or just to send them a greeting.

I'm sure the bright minds at Apple are aware of these issues, I just hope they are correcting them quickly enough to beat the Amazon juggernaut and other online music store wannabes.

Kickass Video Chatting

(The original title of this entry was going to be "Videoconferencing for the Rest of Us," but "kickass" seems to be the 2003 version of "for the rest of us". Also, "videoconferencing" seems to imply business use, so I prefer the term "video chat".)

I had my first real video chats using iSight and iChat AV today. I talked to Jason from his office at Apple, and Andrew from his apartment in California. Everything worked spectacularly. I just clicked the video camera icon next to their names, waited a few seconds for them to accept the chat, and away it went. Audio and video quality was excellent. I think Apple possibly has a real hit on their hands, especially if they can get iSight under $100 by the end of the year.

iSight

This week at WWDC I got a complimentary iSight . So far I have only used it to videoconference with my hotel roommate, which was pointless but fun. iSight seems like a pretty decent video camera. One of the most important things is that it attaches to the top of your display, to take a straight-on shot of your face. This makes the conversation seem much more natural and interactive than with cameras that simply sit on the table.

Anyone else out there got a video camera and iChat AV? Let me know, and we can try to videoconference.

NetNewsWire Web Interface

I really like NetNewsWire . It's a great RSS aggregator. However, I spend many hours a day at work, where I don't have a Mac with Internet access. What I would really like is a web interface to NNW, so I could read my subscriptions from a web browser at work. I think this should be possible by building an app with a simple HTTP server and web interface that communicates with NNW via AppleScript. Does anyone know of such a beast?

Chronos rips off LaunchBar

Looks like Chronos has ripped off my beloved LaunchBar . Chronos' new F10 Launch Studio includes a "Chameleon Filter":

The Chameleon Filter uses adaptive searching technology to produce lightning fast launches. The Chameleon filter learns from short abbreviations you type to find and launch an application or document. For example, you might type "cal" to launch the Calculator, "pc" to launch the Print Center, etc. Since the Chameleon Filter adapts to your abbreviations as you use it, no setup is required.

Those of you who have used LaunchBar know that this is exactly how LaunchBar operates. I have not used F10 Launch Studio - for all I know it could be better than LaunchBar. Still, not giving any credit to Objective Development and LaunchBar is lame.

Mac OS X Development Tools and Eclipse

Michael Tsai and Buzz Andersen are talking about Eclipse and Project Builder . Ever since I started using Eclipse and developing an Eclipse-based product full-time, I've been meaning to say something about Eclipse and Apple's developer tools.

Eclipse JDT (Java Development Tooling) is an IDE par excellence. After primarily using Project Builder, the move to Eclipse was quite a shock. Eclipse was so powerful that I was stunned as I found feature after feature that made me say "wow". Even now, after using Eclipse full-time for four months, I am still finding features that amaze me. I haven't used Project Builder in a while, and now I'm worried that I will face withdrawal when I try to go back to Project Builder to do some Cocoa development. What am I addicted to? Automatic compilation constantly happening in the background, with errors displayed in your code in real time. Content assist that shows available types, methods, and variables, with associated documentation. Effortless refactoring support. Wicked CVS integration.

Project Builder and (especially) Interface Builder are fine tools, with lots of Apple and NeXT style. However, Apple does not have the resources of Microsoft or IBM. Apple will never be able to deliver a world class IDE (e.g. Visual Studio .NET and Eclipse) as long as they continue trying to write the whole thing themselves. That leaves Apple with a couple of options. One is to continue down the path they are on, turning out charming and sometimes innovative development tools that lack the feature set of major IDEs. Those who "get it" (see the beauty of Cocoa and Objective-C) will like, or at least put up with, these development tools. However, professional developers who may have heard the buzz about Mac OS X will investigate the platform, take a look at Apple's development tools, and recoil in horror at the feature set of Project Builder. They will leave the platform, having never had a chance to see the beauty of Cocoa. The second option for Apple is to find a way to build a world class IDE on par with Eclipse JDT, even with their limited resources. How can this be done? Well, as Steve Jobs has pointed out, "good artists copy, great artists steal." Apple could use (steal) code written by others for the foundations of an IDE, leaving them free to concentrate on creating features that developers crave. Eclipse is a tool platform - Eclipse JDT is just an example of an application for the Eclipse platform. What if Apple created a new Project Builder based on Eclipse?

Although this sounds promising, there are major issues with such a proposal. First of all, an Eclipse-based Project Builder would not feel Mac-like. Perhaps if Apple jumped in and did a really amazing port of SWT it would feel more Mac-like, but there would still be look and feel issues. Another problem is that Apple might be viewed as not eating their own dog food. Eclipse is written in Java and the Mac port of SWT would probably use Carbon. Pundits might say, "Look, if Cocoa is so great then why isn't Apple using it to build their development environment?" So, although the idea of Eclipse MDT (Mac Development Tooling) sounds tantalizing to those of us who have drunk the Eclipse Kool Aid, it doesn't seem to be in the cards.

The crux of the problem here is that Apple doesn't have the resources to implement the plethora of features available in IDEs like Eclipse. They need help. But maybe my pipedream of Eclipse MDT was the wrong way around. Perhaps, instead of Apple piggybacking off of Eclipse, Apple should rely on people piggybacking off of them. Instead of scrambling to catch up with the features of more advanced IDEs, perhaps Apple needs to rearchitect the very core of Project Builder with an amazing plugin scheme (quite possible given the elegant dynamism of Objective-C). Then Apple can sit back and watch as their fanatical developers, those who understand the beauty of Cocoa, pump out plugin after plugin providing whizbang features like code completion and refactoring. Given the creativity of Mac developers, we could see the next great IDE feature developed for Project Builder, and then watch as Microsoft scrambles to introduce it in Visual Studio .NET.

Although I hate to see duplication of effort, it seems that we need something similar to the Eclipse platform's scheme of massive plugability, but implemented in Cocoa. People have clamored for Project Builder plugins for some time, but I believe Apple needs to go beyond a simple plugin scheme, and create a Project Builder extensible to its very core. Apple - if you build it, they will come, and they will create a world class IDE for you.

What does the future hold for Apple's developer tools? Could WWDC 2003 bring big changes? I don't know. I want to believe.

Woz

I went to a talk by Steve Wozniak today at NC State . It was a very entertaining talk, mainly due to Woz's great stories about getting started in electronics, adventures in phone phreaking, the Homebrew Computer Club, and designing the Apple I and Apple II. Woz is an amazing storyteller. Even though I had previously read about most of the incidents described today, Woz really engaged me with his friendly style and ability to provide a level of detail not seen in published material. After the hour long talk, there was a Q&A which allowed Woz to discuss more current issues, like his educational projects and his (fairly) new company, Wheels of Zeus .

WWDC

Yay! I got a WWDC scholarship from Apple. Now I just have to see if I can get the time off work. Jason got a scholarship too.

If I go, then I'll definitely have to take Alpha TransAirporter from SJC to the hotel. :-)