KDBDallas

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.

As my last post mentioned I went to WWDC a couple of weeks ago, well while I headed to San Fran to get my Geek on, Nancy and Tyler took a trip to Utah to visit family.

The first part of the week they visited Nancy’s family and then the last part of the week they visited mine.

Right before Nancy and Tyler were going to fly home, Nancy tells me that Tyler is throwing up.
Great…. throwing up is not good in our house for more then the normal reasons, as Tyler throwing up only once has not been a sign of a Shunt malfunction.

Well now it is twice… it was not a shunt malfunction.

Good news right? Yes, and no.
Yes because he doesn’t deserve to go through another brain surgery.

Why bad?
Well as I was getting ready to leave to go pick them up at the airport my mom informs me that my little sister (who they just spent half a week with, mind you) has been diagnosed with the Swine Flu!

Yes… that’s right… the Swine Flu!

We immediately head from the airport to a night time pediatrics office and they put Tyler on some medication called Tamiflu which is supposed to help you get over the Swine Flu faster.
Tyler was pretty sick for about 2 days and then was back to good old normal happy Tyler.

Well around day 2 Nancy and I started feeling gross.
Another trip to the doctors and Nancy and I are also put on Tamiflu.

Unfortunately for us we didn’t get Tyler’s 2 day version and instead we are BOTH STILL sick!
At least at this point we don’t feel like we are going to die.
All the same symptoms still but just lessened to the normal “being sick” level.

According to the CDC we are supposed to stay away from people for at minimum 7 days, more if you still have symptoms. They say at least 24 hours after ALL your symptoms are gone.

So we are all still locked up in the house, feeling like crap.

I guess it serves me right for joking about the Swine Flu when it first came out….

Anyways, if you live nearby and want to bring us some food we will pay you and you don’t have to come in if you don’t want (food options are getting really boring).

I have been back from WWDC for a little over a week now, but haven’t had a chance to say anything about it or post any pictures. (I will post an explanation shortly)

WWDC (Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference, in case you don’t know) was amazing!
This was the first time that I have been able to justify going (it’s not cheap) but man was it great.

I had the chance to meet so many amazing people that I talk to all the time on Twitter, but now I got the chance to meet them in real life.

Besides all the great developers and parties, it was a chance to learn about new and upcoming enhancements to the Mac operating system and the iPhone, as well as learn the best way to do certain things in code, coming from the people that write the language!

Apple also offers what the call labs during WWDC.
Labs allow you to take your code and sit down with an Apple Engineer that works on whatever particular topic you want, and they are there to serve. They will look over code and tell if you how you could have done it better, or they will help you debug an issue you are having, or anything else.

There is so much information flying at you all day that it can be overwhelming at times.

And when the sessions and labs end each day, WWDC does not end….
I have never seen more back to back, double/triple booked parties in my life.
Parties that go until all hours of the morning.

So with sessions and labs all day and parties all night, by midweek you are the walking dead but it doesn’t stop the fun. (and I didn’t even go out every night!)

Around the end of the week Apple throws a big party and this year had the band ‘Cake’ come and perform.

Overall it was a GREAT time and I can’t wait until next year, yet it is always nice to come back home to family as well.

We are talking about Nancy coming along next year and being able to tour San Francisco while I am in the sessions.

My WWDC 09 Photos – http://www.flickr.com/photos/kdbdallas/sets/72157620059169940/

iDeskCal is currently a Featured 3rd Party Download on http://www.apple.com/downloads/, as well as in the Productivity section: http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/productivity_tools/

Even cooler is the fact that iDeskCal is the #8 Top Download on all of apple.com/downloads!

It is ranked up there with iTunes, Safari, and above Google Earth and Firefox on Apple’s site.

iDeskCal has been downloaded (as of this posting) 10,617 times since Tuesday May 19th (less than a week).

Now lets hope that all of those downloads purchase after the free trial!

(Click the images for a larger size where you can actually see it)

[prMac.com] Mesa, Arizona – HashBang Industries today is delighted to announce iDeskCal 2.0, a complete rebrand of their popular iCal-to-Desktop embedding solution, Desktop Remind. At its basic, iDeskCal embeds the users iCal calendar directly on their Finder Desktop, right above their wallpaper but below desktop items, making it a perfect choice for designers, freelancers or anyone who needs to keep up with their busy agenda.

Users can quickly and effortlessly know exactly what is on their calendar for the current day, and beyond. Among iDeskCal’s most prolific features is its ability to quickly add calendar events using keyboard shortcuts, as well as the ability to add and manage to-do lists quickly and easily. iDeskCal is user configurable, allowing users to place it precisely where they want on the desktop, as well as configure the font and font color to match taste and/or wallpaper. iDeskCal also plays well with multi-monitor setups too.

Feature Highlights:
* Embeds directly into the Desktop
* Configure Font and Font Color
* Add/Manage To-Do Lists quickly
* Keyboard Shortcuts
* Supports Multiple Monitors

“Desktop Remind was acquired from Code Genocide, and I’m very excited about the new version. It has a new name and icon to go along with a major overhaul of application” said Dallas Brown, founder of HashBang Industries. “We’re looking forward to a long and exciting roadmap ahead.”

Language support:
English, Spanish, and Portuguese

Minimum Requirements:
* Mac OS X Version 10.5 Leopard or later
* Universal Binary for PowerPC and Intel
* 2.6 MB Hard Drive space

Pricing and Availability:
iDeskCal 2.0 is priced at $12.99 (USD) via their online store, and available as a fully functional 14 day free trial. HashBang Industries is offering free upgrades for customers that purchased Desktop Remind in the last 2 months and is offering upgrade pricing for all other existing customers of Desktop Remind. Existing customers can easily retrieve their upgrade coupon code by entering their email address used to purchase Desktop Remind.

Located in sunny Mesa, Arizona, HashBang Industries is a privately held company founded in 2009 by Dallas Brown. With a focus on the Mac platform, HashBang’s aim is to develop unique Mac and iPhone products, complemented by first-class customer support. Copyright 2009 HashBang Industries. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, and iCal are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.

On Tuesday of this week Nancy and Tyler were in a car accident in my Jeep.
Thankfully everyone was ok.

My Jeep on the other hand was not so lucky.
Granted it could have been much worse.

Found out the other day that it will cost about $6K to fix.
Luckily I have full coverage insurance on it, so our part will only be $600.
However, it will take a couple of weeks to get fixed, so until then we are down to one car and I am without my Jeep.

I am at happy that at least Nancy and Tyler were ok.

I have been offered a gig of being the Technical Editor for an upcoming iPhone programming book.

The book is called “Cocoa Touch for iPhone 3.0″ and is being written by my friend Jiva DeVoe and published by Wiley and Sons Publishing.

You can visit the current pre-emptive webpage for the book at: http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470481072.html

I was previously a Technical Reviewer for the programming book: iPhone SDK Application Development, 1st Edition

It will be interesting the see the differences between being a technical reviewer and a technical editor.

Today I decided to take some time and design new business cards.

I figured with WWDC coming up (Apple please tell us the official date), I will be needing them. (WWDC is the Apple World Wide Developer Conference)

Let me know what you think.

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I am VERY happy to announce that iDeskCal version 2.0 is now in private beta!

If you don’t already know, iDeskCal was formally called Desktop Remind.
Version 2.0 was such a dramatic change, taking the application from a useful little tool, to a full fledged desktop calendar solution.

With such a dramatic change I felt it was also time to give the product a real name.
A new icon should be coming soon as well.

You can learn more about iDeskCal at: http://hashbangind.com/ideskcal.php

If you are interested in joining the beta make sure you match the following criteria and then email support [at] hashbangind.com

Beta testers MUST meet the following criteria:
1. Have a Macintosh computer running OS X 10.5 Leopard
2. Must use iCal or a iCal compatible program, or be willing to start using iCal
3. Must be willing to give feedback, submit bugs, and be willing to answer questions about submitted feedback/bugs.

I have been finalizing the beta for iDeskCal 2.0 and in the process came across ChocTop.

ChocTop is a system for rapid mac software DMG packaging.

In setting it up and using it I found that it lacked a feature I wanted.
Mainly the ability to specify that it should you a Debug build instead of the standard Release build that you would usually use.
The reason for wanting a Debug build is simple… I am packaging up a Beta.

So even though I don’t know Ruby (which is what ChocTop is written in) I set foot to add this feature.
Luckily like most computer languages I was able to understand it enough to understand what was going on and enough to add this new ability.

Once I was done and used it myself, I sent it back into the developer and he has already integrated it into the repo version of the code.

If you are a Mac developer checkout http://drnic.github.com/choctop/