KDBDallas

I was VERY disappointed that I was unable to make it to Apple’s WWDC (World Wide Developer Conference) this year (it was last week).

The sessions are always VERY informative, but it is also a excellent chance to not only meet with other Mac/iOS developers, but you have the chance to talk one on one with the very people who are writing the software and API’s (Application Programming Interface) that we write software for/with.

Apple does make the videos of the sessions (along with the slides) available to everyone that attends, and allows those that didn’t attend to purchase the videos.
Before last year, these videos usually took around 6 months to become available, however last year they had them released within a month.

This year Apple TOTALLY outdid themselves and have released the videos all today!
That is LESS than 1 week!
Not only did they release everything within a week, but Apple has made all of the videos and slides available to ALL registered developers (even the free developer accounts) FOR FREE!!! That is a $500 savings for those that couldn’t attend!

I only have 2 things to say…

First: Good bye to my Hard Drive space (The videos are available in HD and Standard formats this year)

and Secondly… Classy Apple! VERY VERY CLASSY!

Reminder: Even though the videos did not cost this year, they are still covered under an NDA that you agree to when signing up for a developer account. Don’t make them sorry that they were so giving.

On January 24th, 1984, Steve Jobs pulled a 128K Mac out of its case in front of a crowd of reporters, turned it on, and let the computer introduce itself to the world. The rest, as they say, is history.

On January 25th, 1982, I was born.

It’s kind of sad that I am only 2 years older then the Mac.

Recently I was doing some performance stress testing on my upcoming iPhone app, Newsprint, and ran into a little Core Data gotcha that I thought I would document for both myself and for Google to index for others.

Special thanks to Jeff LaMarche for guiding me in the right direction to figure this out. You can find his blog at: http://iphonedevelopment.blogspot.com/

This issue came to play when I needed to do a fetch request from Core Data and then run a couple of Predicate “searches”/”filtering” on the data.

My original thought was that doing a single fetch request and then running my different predicates on the returned set of objects would have better performance then doing multiple fetch requests since I would only have to pull from the Core Data SQLite DB once and then I would have everything in memory and I could just simply manipulate it.

Turns out that this is HIGHLY incorrect.

If instead you just do multiple fetch requests and implement your predicate into your fetch request, that Core Data and SQLite are smart enough to scan the records more efficiently and without causing Core Data Faults to fire.

This gives a MASSIVE speed increase!

So if you are ever doing something similar, make sure to check this method and see if it to can speed your app up.

MacHeist is giving away six free apps this week!

If all that software makes you hungry for even more, take advantage of the “OneFingerDiscount” coupon code, and get 20% off (that’s 1/5 free!).

SOME of the participants include:

• HashBang Industries
• Red Sweater Software
• Centrix.ca
• Calf Trail Software
• Watchmac

AND MANY MORE!

Check out One Finger Discount for a list of all of the participants and quick note about the type(s) of software each company specializes in.

Try them all, buy what you like! It’s almost a steal!

I got an email earlier this month from Macworld, letting me know that iDeskCal had received coverage in the October 2009 issue.

Needless to say it is the first issue I was eagerly awaiting to show up in the mail.
(not that it’s not a good magazine normally, just not as good as with me in it)

When it finally came I was even happier to find that it was mentioned not only once, but twice in the same Months magazine!

The first was what I was expecting, a review of iDeskCal.
(If you have been following this site for a while, you will remember that several months ago Macworld had done an online review of iDeskCal)

(click image for full size version)

The second mention was smaller, but still nice…
It was in a section they did this month called “Budget Mac”.
The idea was for three Mac users to build their ultimate setup for $300.
iDeskCal showed up in the “Student’s” setup.

I took the liberty to create a little collage of the main items.
For the full text please pick up a copy of the magazine.

(click image for full size version)

Apple® announced today that Mac OS X 10.6 (aka Snow Leopard) will be released on Friday August 28, 2009!

I have been using developer preview versions of Snow Leopard and I can say with all honesty that Snow Leopard is a wonderful update to the already amazing 10.5 (Leopard).

The speed and performance updates in 10.6 make this a release that all eligible users should upgrade too, and at only $29 USD for the single computer upgrade and $49 USD for the Family upgrade, you should not need to even give it a second thought.

The main thing to know with 10.6 is that it will only work on Intel machines, so unfortunately you are out of luck if you are still using a Power PC computer.

The second main thing to know about 10.6 is that iDeskCal runs great on Snow Leopard!
I have been running it full time on Snow Leopard without any problems.
If however you do run into any issues with running iDeskCal on Snow Leopard, come Friday, Snow Leopard has special additions behind-the-scenes that make it even easier for us to track down reported bugs.
Unfortunately this is all I can say right now as my NDA with Apple is still in effect.

I have included links to pre-order Snow Leopard today!
Currently (Monday 24th) if you order from Apple, your upgrade DVD will be delivered the day Snow Leopard is released (Friday). I am not sure how long that will be the case, so I recommend you pre-order now!

Apple Online Store 10.6 Upgrade (Single computer & Family versions)
Amazon.com 10.6 Upgrade (Single computer version)
Amazon.com 10.6 Upgrade (Family version)

It is now official!

I no longer work for PayPal and I am now an independent Mac and iPhone developer!

Along with this change, me and my wife have decided to move us and our son back to Utah so we can be closer to family.

We move into our new place in Utah on Sept 1 (1 1/2 weeks from now).

We are really excited about both changes.

Macworld.com hash posted a writeup of iDeskCal in its “Mac Gems” column.

You can read the article at: http://www.macworld.com/article/141687/2009/07/ideskcal.html

iDeskCal was recently reviewed in the French Mac magazine, VVMac and received 4.5 out of 5 stars!

The issue is on news stands for the next two months.