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.

Late last week Apple published a software update that purports to help address “performance” problems with batteries in various MacBook and MacBook Pro models. I happen to have two batteries for my MacBook, one of which has been experiencing a problem for some time. I decided to take the plunge and install the update before leaving the office Friday, thinking it might address my problem, or at least give the clear indications of failure I needed to have the battery replaced by Apple.

As it turned out, the battery I have not had any identifiable issues with was in the laptop when I installed the update. Everything appeared smooth after the update. I packed up the laptop to head home not quite noticing one small, but crucial, detail lurking in my menu bar.

When I pulled out the laptop Saturday morning, I was surprised to find it dead. Flipping it over and mashing the small button on the battery indicated what I suspected: the battery was completely drained. It seemed a bit unusual to have packed it away with a full charge only to have it dead overnight, but it would not be the first time something like that had happened so I shrugged it off. I found the power adaptor, hooked up the juice and got to work for a few minutes. After a half-an-hour of other distractions I needed to run in the other room and quickly unhooked the power adaptor so as to de-tether the laptop.

zoink!

The screen went dead instantly. Hmmm… I reattached the power cord and powered up again. After the boot finished, I finally took a moment to pay attention to the battery status in the menu bar. Instead of the normal Shazam!-style battery icon with a percentage of charge, I found the crossed-out battery of doom. A quick check with the system profiler verified that the system was no longer recognizing the battery. I did a quick swap to my other, problematic, battery and found that it was at least still recognized as a device capable of holding an electric charge.

So the the take home point is that the software update itself seems to have turned my normal, no complaints battery into a brick. Now, I am totally willing to accept that this battery was a problem waiting to happen or even had performance problems I had not noticed yet. Still, it would have been nice to have been warned that the update might render an otherwise apparently functional battery, useless. Seeing as this new behavior is exactly one on the list published by Apple, I’m sure that I will be able to get a replacement. Fortunately, I have my other crippled battery to rely on until I can spare the time to schedule a “Genius Bar” appointment.

To all those without a spare battery in the wings, be warned : the update may send you to the Apple Store a little sooner than you planned.

Footnote

For the curious, my other battery is still experiencing its strange problem, even after the software update. For whatever reason, whenever this battery is installed the system is not able to properly go to sleep when the charge is run down to the point that that system decides to put itself to sleep. Proceeding past the warning dialog urging you to plug in the battery always results in a shutdown rather than a safe or normal sleep. I suspect it must be something wrong in how the system is gauging the charge remanning for the battery. I’m thinking if it appears to have more capacity that it really does, the act of flushing-out the RAM to disk for a safe-sleep is probably completely draining the battery causing an immediate shutdown. My other battery always manages a successful safe sleep after it decides to enforce a mandatory sleep. Hopefully the techs at the Genius Bar will recognize the problem without me needing to stage a demonstration.

Update:

I finally found the time to schedule an appointment at the Apple store. After listening to the details and investigating the not quite a brick, but clearly deficient battery the genius on duty sent me home with two new batteries. Its nice to be rolling with more than an hour of charge again!

IronCoder V came to a close last Sunday. The theme for the 48 hour hacking marathon was Life and the required API was the ScreenSaver.framework. Congratulations to Ben Gottlieb for winning with his clever screen saver, WikiPath. Hope to see you at C4 this year!

Oddly, I found it difficult to come up with anything terribly interesting around the theme this time. I’m a bit afraid to contemplate what it means when ‘Life’ isn’t inspiring! When inspiration finally did hit the requirements called for some 3-D graphics, which left me with two obvious choices : Quartz Composer or OpenGL. Having had some previous Quartz Composer experience I opted for this route, rather than a crash-course in OpenGL.

Interestingly, I quickly ran up against some of the more difficult sorts of tasks to accomplish in Quartz Composer. In the end I had something that was close to the original idea, but no where near as dynamic as I would have liked. I’m definitely more conversant in the visual language of Quartz Composer than I was before the contest. I’m also inclined to try and find a nice little OpenGL project to tackle in the near future…perhaps for Iron Coder VI?

Tree of Life is a simple screen saver that scans your Pictures folder and uses the images in it as leaves on a tree. The leaves, sprout and then fall to the ground as the cycle of life churns.

I cleaned up the code and fixed a few problems that I just didn’t have time to address before the contest deadline. I also added the ability to point it to a folder of your own choosing. There are a lot of features that didn’t make it in that might make it more compelling including :

• Choose iPhoto albums as source
• Cycle through all images in folder
• Accent the images with a frame or border ( think green )
• Maintain aspect of original image
• More variety in leaf growth and movement
• Control # of leaves with preference
• Fix falling animation to have proper start position
• Hook up sudden-motion-sensor to ‘shake’ the leaves off the tree!

Perhaps someone else will feel like adding features? If so the source code and screen saver are available here.