Programming Coffee

Well, the MacBook Pro was just announced yesterday, and I already know someone who’s pre-ordered one all pimped out. WIll I be shelling out close to $3k for a new MacBook Pro anytime soon? I think not! My household is enjoying the last wave of iBook goodness, and I honestly can’t justify forking out any more money for another computer this year… even if it does allow me to run Windows simultaneously.
However, lets go ahead and get the ball rolling on the MacBook, that way version two will be available when I’m ready to upgrade. Here is what I hope the MacBook will offer:

• 12″ Widescreen Monitor - Everything is going widescreen, jump on the wagon or get left behind
• Longer Battery Life - A longer battery life is ALWAYS appreciated
• Smaller Power Brick - Or none at all?
• Monitor Spanning - The MacBook Pro and Powerbook can do it… and the hardware supports it…
• Windows Support - Whatever has to be done to allow me to run IE for windows… dual-boots wouldn’t be refused, but not preferred
• Black Case - You know it would be sexy… Just look at the iPod Nano

Check out this flickr account that shows screenshots of Apple’s website over the years. Pretty cool stuff.

The new line of iBooks weren’t quite as grande as I hoped they would be, but hey, a guy can dream right? The new computers are quite nice. They pretty much bundle in a couple of the upgrades you would have normally gone out and bought anyways (extra RAM, bluetooth, larger hard drive.

$999 - 12″ iBook
1.33GHz PowerPC G4 - up from 1.2GHz!
512K L2 cache @1.33GHz
512MB memory (DDR333 SDRAM) - up from 256MB!
12.1-inch TFT Display
1024×768 resolution
ATI Mobility Radeon 9550
32MB DDR video memory
40GB Ultra ATA hard drive - up from 30GB!
Combo Drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW)
Built-in AirPort Extreme
Built-in Bluetooth 2.0+EDR - New Feature!
Scrolling Trackpad - New Feature!
Sudden Motion Sensor - New Feature!

And then of course there was the Mac Mini, these computers offered an inexpensive solution to Windows users who were skeptical about entering the “pricey” Apple market (which is not true…). But they Mac Mini really lacked as far as the specs were concerned. Its good to know that Apple felt the same way, and definately made the new line of Mac Minis a real bargain.

$599 - Mac Mini
1.42GHz PowerPC G4
512MB DDR333 SDRAM - up from 256MB!
ATI Radeon 9200
32MB DDR video memory
80GB Ultra ATA hard drive
Combo drive (DVD/CD-RW)
DVI or VGA video output
Built-in AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth - New Feature!
Optional 56k Internal Modem

I know I’ve been blabbering here and there about a possible ibook refresh and my personal iBook refresh wishlist. But I really think it’s coming soon. Why?

You’ll notice that as of today, the estimated ship time increased from "same day" to "5-7 business days". This usually happens right before they release the new models (the same tactic happened when they updated the iMacs, and the iPod mini’s). So I’m betting on Monday or Tuesday, we will be looking at brand new iBooks.

But what will they look like?? Surely they will wait to redesign the look and feel when they move to Intel proc’s (kinda like a refresh of the body AND the mind). Guess we will find out soon.

Several months ago I started working on a widget for my employer. It was pre Tiger release, and there might have been 20-30 widgets available online, and no real way (other than trial and error, and Apple’s Dashboard Documentation. How did I learn? I ripped into several of the widgets provided by Apple (I had a pre-release copy), and started learning by example. Fortunately for me, I do a lot of XHTML/CSS development, so a lot of this came quite easy.

The other day, I ran across a Dashboard Development Guide eBook. I’ve only read one other eBook before (and it was treacherous), so I decided to give this one a try under one condition… I could print it out. Hey, I stare at a screen all day long, is it wrong for me to want to do my reading on paper? Yeah, I know… my apologies to the trees, or cotton plants that were killed in order to enhance my learning experience. Anwyays, I’m almost halfway done with the eBook, and even though I haven’t really learned anything new, I do see the value of this eBook (I think it sells for $15). This eBook and accompanying tools, could have saved me hours of learning on my own. I’ll write up a full review once I’ve finished reading it.

Finally, a good iBook refresh rumor. I can’t wait to see what apple has in store for the new iBook. Widescreen monitor, extra memory, larger hard drive, better graphics card (to span displays), and faster processors. It will pretty much make recent Powerbook buyers wish they had held out for an iBook, and make those of us waiting for the refresh glad that it finally came.

And for an additional whammy, use your student discount (if you are a student), and you can get a free iPod mini with your new iBook purchase. How’s that for a deal?

The big question will be: Do I take advantage of the new iBook and enjoy the “latest and greatest”, or do I enjoy the discounted “late model” iBook? Decisions, decisions.

So rumor has it that Steve Jobs is just as heartless as Bill Gates. While that may be true, you have to give credit to Jobs. He personally called the father of the teen who was killed for his iPod to give his condolences. So today my hat goes off for Steve Jobs.

I have had a lot of good feedback for WordPressDash. The community wanted to post to multiple categories, so I gave them that support. The community had trouble configuring their widget, so I enhanced error reporting. Now the community wants UTF-8 support and QuickTags. Well, I will do my best to make WordPressDash UTF-8 compliant. QuickTags? Maybe not. Due to Safari’s inferior cursor position handling in textarea’s, Quicktags were actually turned off for Safari users in Wordpress 1.5. And According to another post about quicktags in safari.

..until they allow you to get and set cursor position and selection in a TEXTAREA, the Quicktags will suck on Safari.
Alex King

And for those wondering what quicktags in safari has to do with quicktags in my WordPressDash widget, dashboard widgets use the same engine as safari

According to Daring Fireball, Dashboard widgets stemmed from an old apple application called Desk Accessories and not the cross-platform Konfabulator. Daring Fireball goes on to state that had Konfabulator fit the needs that apple was looking for, then Apple would have either bought Konfabulator, or hired the development team to work on Dashboard. However, Apple wanted something that was more tightly integrated with the OS, and that had better resource consumption and smaller footprints.
Either way, Im glad I don’t need to write custom XML and custom Javascript in order to write software for a platform that I have to pay for (granted, I do have to pay for Tiger, but I’m getting a lot more than just a widget runtime environment…).

For all 3 of you out there who are now wondering "What happened to Kyle’s old website?", here is my official explanation. My old site was stale, and I wanted a way to keep my site current with all of my latest thoughts and activities. A blog seemed like the most obvious solution, and I decided WordPress would best suit my needs.  Besides, one of my latest programming projects has been WordPressDash, which is a blogging widget for Apple’s Tiger operating system (OS X 10.4). 

I was tired of the old site anyways.