Local Seattle software developer and friend of the sheep, BusyMac, have just released their latest creation into public beta. BusyCal is a fully integrated replacement for iCal.

We use iCal heavily around here and to be honest, it feels rather neglected these days. I’ve been using BusyCal for a little while now and I can report if you are looking for an iCal replacement you’ll not likely be disappointed. My two favorite features so far include publish and subscribe of calendars on the LAN and an event editing interface that is so much smoother than the changes brought to iCal with Leopard. I also love the live weather integration.

Head over to BusyMac’s site and sign up for the public beta and get some relief for your calendaring ailments.

The University of Washington is now offering a certificate course in Macintosh and iPhone programming.

This program is offered in 3 parts, with the first class that introduces objective-C and Cocoa starting this fall. Our good friend Hal Mueller is teaching the first course. The advisory board for this program is comprised of many of the best and well-known Mac and iPhone developers in the region, so you know the content is going to be great.

If you are in the Seattle area and looking to become a master of Cocoa and Objective-C, you don’t want to miss out on this opportunity. I know that the classes will fill up quick, so apply soon.

for the RogueSheep Army.

Things are really starting to cook around here lately. We have a variety of new clients discussing fresh projects and long-term partners coming back with some exciting plans for the remainder of this year. We are also fully engaged in work on our own technology platform that is centered around automated publishing. It has been a busy year and I think I can still see January back there not too far down the timeline.

Those of you that know me, know that I hate saying no. Having to turn down excellent opportunities and slowing down work on our internal projects one to many times has finally tipped the balance. We are ready to shepherd in a new engineer in the Seattle office in the very near future. The full details and job application form are available online.

Send us your résumé if you are interested or pass the word on to anyone you know that might be a good fit. I’m really looking forward to seeing a few fresh muzzles around here.

Craig Hockenberry, developer of fine applications such as Twitterrific and other goodies over at the Icon Factory has called on developers to join his crusade to convince Apple to support virtualization on the desktop.

Currently, Apple’s licensing restrictions for the Mac OS prevent the desktop client from being used as the guest operating system in a virtual machine. Because of this limitation virtualization tools such as VMWare Fusion or Parallels Desktop prevent you from installing the MacOS into a virtual machine.

This limitation in purely for licensing compliance. With the release of Leopard, Apple has modified the software license so that virtualization is allowed for OS X Server. Both VMWare and Parallels have betas that allow installation of Leopard Server in a virtual machine. This relaxation of the restriction for servers is a step in the right direction. We may even put that to use on our intranet here at RogueSheep.

Still, I believe that nearly all developers can benefit from virtualization of the standard MacOS. Craig makes excellent points about testing in various versions of the OS and easily having parallel installs of your development environments such as Xcode. In our work, we run into even more situations on a regular basis that I wish we could use virtualization for.

We often have multiple projects in progress for several different clients or our own in house development. Frequently, work for a particular client will require all manner of supporting frameworks and libraries as well as specific configuration of InDesign, InCopy and the various Creative Suite applications to enable the proper operation of a workflow environment.

Many times as one project is winding down, a new project is beginning. Sometimes the components required for two projects that any one of us happen to be working on at one time will conflict. Other times the pain comes from just having to juggle the configuration of the development environment and supported applications when switching contexts between projects.

If we could virtualize the MacOS, each project could start with an image that was prepared with our needed development environments and configured properly for the system that is being developed. Only one person would have to do this configuration and the result could be shared with all members of our team. When any one of us was forced to switch projects for a quick bug fix or consultation, it would be as simple as launching the appropriate virtual machine. The benefits to our work and our clients, Apple’s customers, I think is clear!

I’m not going to claim I know the exact reasons for Apple’s restrictive licensing. I will suggest though that I would be absolutely fine with requiring Select or Premier membership in the developer program to gain this support. If Apple wants to work with VMWare so that the only desktop OS that will install virtually are those downloaded as assets from our ADC benefits, I’m game.

I chatted briefly with the VMWare folks at MacWorld this year. They said they would love to add support for virtualization of the standard Mac OS. They encouraged all of us that need virtualization to contact Apple and let them know about our needs. Personally, I’ve done just that.

If you are developer using a Mac, I urge you to read Craig’s blog posting and then file your own bug, referencing the bug he notes.

My favorite application for creating web layout and sites has quickly become Panic’s excellent web-editing swiss army knife, Coda. Before Coda I used to really dread any website duties that fell on my shoulders. Now I sail through those tasks with ease and even, dare I say, enjoyment.

Steven Frank, Panic co-founder and Mac programming sage, has recently posted several screencasts for web developers seeking an introduction to Coda. If you haven’t tried Coda yet, these short tutorials will surely excite you into downloading the trial. If you are already tinkering around in the application, you will probably find a few goodies you may not have discovered yet in your personal explorations.

Attention Macintosh Programmers : Iron Coder 7 has been scheduled. Clear your weekend and put on your creative-codin’ hat. I think 7 may be my new lucky number…

Update : IC VII is going to be 9 days long and the Grand Prize is now an 8GB iPod Touch! Thanks to our Seattle brethren at Brain Murmurs for providing this enticing booty. Look for the API and theme at 7PM CST on 11.09.2007.

I’m late to the party as usual, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t urge any of you reading that don’t already know to check out Flying Meat’s new image editor : Acorn. Acorn is a light-weight bitmap image editor with a focus on ease of use. Gus took a moment to rethink the typical Photoshop interface cloning technique that most alternative editors use as a launching point and has given us something innovative and refreshing.

Rather than pummel you with a plethora of separate floating palettes, Acorn concentrates the tools you need to get your most common tasks done in a single, straightforward palette. Under the hood, Acorn leverages Core Image and the rest of Apple’s excellent graphics frameworks to bring you excellent performance and a good dose of power.My personal favorite Acorn feature : the filter panel. Flying Meat licensed RogueSheep’s Core Image filtering library found in our Magma Effects InDesign plug-in for Acorn. Applying image effects in Acorn uses the very same core component found in Magma Effects! There’s a little sheep in that nut. I’ll let you in on a secret: there is also a sheepy easter egg in Acorn as well. Good hunting!

Gus tells me Acorn has been doing quite well. The reviews across the web are very favorable. Acorn also enjoyed being in the top 10 of Apple’s most popular downloads for a good run over at the Downloads site. If you haven’t downloaded it yet, be sure to check it out.

I’m looking forward to seeing what Gus builds on top of this excellent premiere release.

My last weekend was spent at the C4[1] Macintosh developer conference hosted by Jonathan “Wolf” Rentzsch in the fabulous “Windy City” otherwise known as Chicago.

The regulars have been weighing-in all around the web so I won’t bother you much with specifics on the sessions, other to point you to Gruber, Jalkut and Zornek for their excellent coverage. In addition, Alex Payne of Twitter rolled with us at the conference and has some seriously detailed summaries of the sessions here.

The conference was great and I am really satisfied with my decision to attend this year. I loved the variety of topics that ran the gamut from the business side of our industry to the really deep technical topics. The crowning jewel was Cabel Sasser’s history of Panic and the juicy details of their design cycle for Coda. Capping it all off with the excellent display of iPhone hacks (shout-out to Wolf for using my theme this year) made for a Macintosh conference that was a real breath of fresh air from WWDC.

As always it was great to reconnect with all my Mac-development buddies. Besides all the Seattle regulars, It was great to see folks from WWDC like Ian, Jonathan and Guy again. I also really appreciated being able to meet a few more of the faces behind the bits such as fellow rogue-brethren, Paul Kafasis.

Clearly, the most controversial event of the weekend was the now infamous DrunkenBatman panel. No point in going over the details again here, but I will add one small thing: I spent some time chatting with DB after dinner that evening. It was good conversation and he is clearly an interesting guy with intriguing points and considerable insight. Unfortunately, his fire-in-the-hole method of kick-starting the conversation didn’t work this time. Sadly, he squandered what should have been a unique opportunity to tap into the collective wisdom of the gathered panelists.

I had always lamented not getting it together and making it out to MacHack. With C4 to take its place, I no longer have that little empty place inside me. You can count me in next year and I’ll put the pressure on a few of the other sheep to go as well.

I have posted an iPhoto Web Gallery and Flickr set of the handful of snaps I grabbed with the iPhone. No flash, slow shutter, low quality…but better than nothing.