Wil Shipley's WWDC 2005 Student Talk

Omni Group and Delicious Monster Software founder Wil Shipley is a friggen genius, I idolize the man for almost everything he does, because he does it well. While scouring the net for help on coding some new uber-cool feature for Fern I found this (quite old) post providing the slide show for a talk he did for Apple Students at WWDC 2005. I downloaded the slide show (as pdf) and even though there was no sound, it was inspiring, intelligent and funny in a way only Wil could pull off. I highly recommend heading to the post and downloading the slide show, I'm about to download the podcast that goes with it, mainly to hear Wil tell the jokes :).

Whenever I get annoyed or down about coding, I slowly sift my way through the archives on his blog, just building from the little pieces of genius that he provides to build my confidence up and inspire me to keep moving. I know the post is old but the content of that presentation still relates today. I'm off to bed now...

Link (In case you missed the first one :))

More problems with the GData API

As you know I have never been able to access this blog with the GData API from Google used by Fern and a number of other applications. 3 days ago while testing the new labels feature in Fern, my test blog suddenly disappeared off the radar, thinking maybe it was the new code I fired up Fern 0.2 with no luck, I launched the BloggerSample app included with the GData API and it was also unable to access my blogs. I have been trying to get this recognized on the Google Developer Discussions but it seems to keep getting ignored, it appears that more people are having trouble as well. One example is an organisation that has 2500 users accessing blogger are reporting that they cant fetch their blogs, the exact same problem I'm having.

If you are also having problems the GData API not fetching blogs, please add a reply to this discussion so that we can build some momentum on this issue, then maybe Google will step up with a fix or a least a reason as to why it's stopped working.

Fern 0.2.5 was set to be released June 20th but that may get pushed back while I fix this issue as I cannot test a new feature without being able to post to my test blog. If there are any Fern 0.2 users out there, please drop a comment saying if you can or cant post to your blogs.

WWDC 08 Predictions :)

Its already June 9 for us Aussies but when this magic date rolls around in San Francisco the world be graced by the work of the worlds greatest computer company, Apple. The World Wide Developer conference is about to begin in a couple of hours so I thought I would share my predictions on what will be announced. I have made it known on my blog that I have a thing for the iPhone, especially since we now have official information stating the 3G enabled phone will be offered for sale in Australia by Vodafone, Telstra and Optus, I will hopefully be getting mine as soon as possible. I think there will also be this:

Wireless Time Machine backup for iPhone
Mac OS X 10.6 Preview
New Mac Pro
A mid ranged desktop mac to sit between mini and Pro (Been on my wish list for a while)
Updated MacBook (Alloy case) with Multi-Touch

This is what I would like to see from Apple, I guess I will just have to see what happens when I wake tomorrow morning to order my iPhone :) Hopefully...

Progress Update

My blog posts seem to be only about what's going on with Fern, but I would also like to discuss what else I have been up to. Yes I have been working on Fern 0.3 which will introduce support for Picasa web albums and image uploading but I have halted development to spend time on Fern 0.2.5 which is completely rewritten to take advantage of Core Data for storing of posts. This version will have everything that 0.2 has as well as a new accounts feature for keeping track of logging details. Core Data simplifies storing account information as well as posts and it supports rich text which is a major bonus, just gotta get that rich textness (it's a word now) to join blogger on the internets. Version 0.2.5 will become 0.3, all the work done on the current 0.3 will be transferred to the new Core Data Revision.

Among Fern development I have also been working on another project, Waterpoint Manager, the Mac version of my first Windows application. I'm building it to learn about Core Data and to demonstrate to my teacher my ability to build a multi-platform tool.

All the learnings of cocoa development and imminent public release of Water Manager for mac as led me to thinking about an unofficial company name, by unofficial I mean not real, just a name to release my free and donationware software under. Some of you might know my design work under Alex Mills Design so I have been floating around the idea of AMD Software, what do you think? Drop a comment if you have an better ideas :) As soon as I decide on a name I will launch a new Google Site (or possibly a hosted site) that will give you people better access to software, pre-release versions, help and documentation to complete the experience.

As always school and work override my cocoa and web development so give it time and hopefully it should all fall into place, I literally can't wait to release Fern 1.0 to the public, except it will probably have a more network/technology/connected consumer/googlelike name that I have yet to find. Any ideas, drop a comment :) I'm here making free software for the most advanced platform in the world, we might as well do it together. Soon mac users won't have to pay to post to their blogspot blogs from their leopard desktop, I think I will add more services after the release of version 1.0.

I'm also waiting for Apple to drop the delicious iPhone in Australia so I can get one :)