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Anything Ubuntu can do, we can do better. Except this stuff.

published on Thursday 20 December, 2007 at 11:31 pm. {31 Comments}

When I argue with my Linux-loving friends about OS X vs. Ubuntu, they’ve only really got a couple points for which I have no retorts. But they’re big ones. Let’s think about how to fix them.

Why can’t I watch this video?

On Ubuntu, if you open an .avi for which you don’t have the codec, it will fetch it and install it.

On Mac OS X, if you open an .avi for which you don’t have the codec, QuickTime will give you an entirely useless error message. It won’t even tell you what codec you’re missing, so you can’t Google it.

continued…

RubyCocoa parses Cocoa methods that return multiple values through pointer parameters! Check it out:

>> NSWorkspace.sharedWorkspace.getFileSystemInfoForPath_
isRemovable_isWritable_isUnmountable_description_
type_("/Volumes/SparkleCaster/English.lproj")
=> [true, 1, 0, 1, #<NSCFString "hfs">, #<NSCFString "hfs">]

Now we’ve just got to do something about that really ugly method name…

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Like Free Hugs!

published on Wednesday 05 December, 2007 at 12:02 pm. {Share Your Thoughts}

It’s really cool being part of the indie Mac developer community. Back when I was on Windows (shhh!), I never got to know any other coders—sharing wasn’t really part of the community.

For Mac development, there’s lots of places to go. #macsb is an old standby, but I’ve just recently discovered the magic of Twitter. I know, I know, I’m way behind. But if you head over to Twitter and sign up, you can see what a lot of awesome programmers are up to and connect with them in a really easy fashion. It’s like a big family, full of joy and swearing at Xcode!

RubyCocoa 0.13.0 is out! You can download it here, but make sure to check out what’s new.

Among the awesome new things are inspect methods for NSString, NSArray, NSNumber, NSDictionary, and others, so you can:
```
Aleph-One:Sparkle andym$ irb -r osx/cocoa
>> OSX::RUBYCOCOA_VERSION
=> "0.13.0"
>> OSX::NSDate.date
=> #<NSDate 2007-12-03 17:29:21 -0800>
```
Why isn’t this mentioned on MacOSForge::Ruby?
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An Amusing Story

published on Friday 30 November, 2007 at 12:38 pm. {1 Comment}

I was standing in my Hovse’s courtyard the other day, when the following interchange took place:

Guy in a Microsoft shirt: Hey, guys.
Guy in a Debian shirt: We must kung-fu fight!
Another student: Wait, wait, you’ve got to get Andy, too!
Me: Huh? I’m not wearing Apple clothes!
Him: Oh, yes you are!

I was really confused. Then I looked down and realized I was the only student in sight wearing a fitted shirt and designer jeans.

You know, I didn’t care about my clothes until a couple years ago. And I didn’t switch to the Mac until a couple years ago. Coincidence?

At least it wasn’t a black turtleneck.