I finally installed Mac OS X Lion on my main drive today. A wee bit earlier than my original plan of installing Lion only after iCloud comes out. The reason is that I’m starting a new project and I’d better make use of the latest tools and APIs that are available to me. It wasn’t…
LifeHack: Achieve real multitasking on iOS
Let’s face it, multitasking doesn’t really exist on the iOS for third party apps. Even the new “multitasking” features of iOS 4.0 is only task switching — not real multitasking since 3rd party applications get frozen when it enters the background. For example, while the Dropbox app is downloading a large file, you can’t switch…
How I said "no thank you" to Apple’s job offer
Recently I’ve said “no thanks” to Apple’s job offer. Was I stupid? Probably. But probably not. A few days ago, I’ve received a LinkedIn message from Jennifer Rakow that claims to be an Apple recruiter. She told me that she had several opportunities and asked whether I would be interested to work for her company.…
Apple should sue Microsoft for SQL Server
As companies bickering with each others about menial patents and terminologies, innovation, progress suffer. This gives rise to unnovation that hurts the world as a whole.
Top 7 Podcasts for Mac Indie Developers
You’re an indie developer. You spend your time developing your product, answering customer support, or promoting your application. You might even still have a day job or consulting gig outside of your Mac software venture. You’re stretched for time. How can you get relevant information that fits your busy schedule? One answer is podcasts. With…
Apple’s iTunes Connect gone crazy
I’m an iOS & Mac Developer but when I log in to iTunes Connect today (5-Nov-10 21:37 SGT) to check out my application sales, I was presented with a screen for music sales instead. See below. What’s worse is that there isn’t any link to check my app sales.
Supporting Leopard while developing in Snow Leopard
Apparently Apple’s Cocoa method availability documentation is not enough to determine whether something will work on an earlier version of Mac OS X. That is, avoiding 10.6-only methods doesn’t ensure that your application will also work flawlessly in 10.5. As a first-time Mac developer programming an application on Snow Leopard that is also targeted for…
Saving Quartz Composition for distribution
Today I learned a very important lesson when saving Quartz Composer composition files for use in other machines: always save the composition as a flat file. Even though according to Wikipedia that quartz composer version 4.0 saves virtual patches in the composition as a fallback, the composition may not run properly if it isn’t saved…
Choosing a crash reporting system for Cocoa
Are you writing a Cocoa application for Mac OS X? Then you’ll need a crash reporting back-end for your app. If you’re thinking of hosting your own crash reporting system, here are a few open-source libraries that you can consider.
Native iPhone Development 101
My slides about native iPhone development, presented in Singapore PHP User’s Group meet-up.
Looks like Snow Leopard is the new Vista
If John Hodgman (the PC guy) doesn’t work for Apple, I guess he’d be saying this to Justin Long (the Mac guy) PC: Hi, I heard that Snow Leopard is having crashing issues. Mac: Yeah, you’re right. Safari crashes randomly and XCode crashes persistently. PC: Seems like you’re having a bad Vista day. Wanna get Windows…
AirKill Update Delayed
Strange as it may seem, the latest update to AirKill was rejected due to the word “beta” in the iTunes app store description. Innocently I put the words “… anonymous beta tester…” as one of the commentaries in the app store description (the “beta tester” in question is actually one of my girlfriend’s colleague…
Synchronizing Nokia N9300 with Mac OS X Tiger
Not too long ago I’ve updated my mom’s laptop to the last version of Tiger, 10.4.11 and recently I found out that iSync failed to synchronize my mom’s Nokia 9300 phone. The phone’s connection is still set-up but there was an “x” on top of the phone’s icon in iSync’s window. As I remember, initially…
Speech Timer for Public Speakers
This post was originally written for iPhone App Index. In my day job (yes, I still have one and no, writing iPhone apps doesn’t make you filthy rich) we have an in-house Toastmasters club where I’m a member in. Toastmasters is a kind of special interest groups where the members practice public speaking, which is typically…