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June 30, 2004
[WWDC] Dashfabulator
One of the flashy new features of Tiger is Dashboard - a framework for miniapps written in HTML, CSS, and Javascript. A lot of people - myself included - initially thought it was a near wholesale copy job of Konfabulator. But John Gruber, with his typical in-depth research and no-nonsense logic, has written what will likely be the definitive piece on the matter:
Obviously, Apple ripped off the idea for Dashboard. Stolen wholesale, without even the decency to mention where they took the original idea. Which, of course, would be the desk accessories from the original 1984 Macintosh
And there's a lot more. Too bad John isn't here at WWDC - I'd buy him a beer. Already bought a membership
Posted by jim at 04:49 PM | Comments (0)
[WWDC] Back Up
Networking at the show seems to have settled down, and has generally become more reliable than it was last year. This is a Good Thing - and should help address some of Brent's problems. It certainly helped mine and my workplaces - spent the morning solving problems ranging from a wonky web server to mucked mailing lists.
The day's been pretty light on Enterprise IT stuff, so I took the morning (what wasn't taken by remote work) to do a serious pass through the Vendor exhibition area (the fact that today is the last day for the vendors contributed to that choice). Ran into some good things, seeing that I'm hunting for information on backup products, and hope to get more information at a session on OSX backup solutions later this evening.
Tonight will be the RSS on MacOSX BOF, which will seem much like a reunion of the weblogger dinner - just without the pasta. There's a threat of evening beers, though.
Posted by jim at 04:43 PM | Comments (0)
June 29, 2004
[WWDC] From the horse's mouth
Not breaking any NDA to say that Dave Hyatt was the primary presenter of the "Best Practices in Website Development" session, and that said session was chock fulla goodness. While he explored a few things that are coming in the new version of Safari, just about everything he talked about works just fine right now on "every single modern browser but WinIE". Heh. I love sessions that are focused more on "this is what you can do". Too bad I had to miss the Automator session for this one.
Had a great jam session transcribing session notes with a half dozen other folks using SubEthaEdit (note taking in parallel) but we still managed to miss some big chunks of code. Talked briefly with Dave afterwards and entreated him to post what he could of the presentation to his blog, which the PM seemed to think was okay. So who knows - you might see a nice distillation of various nifty CSS techniques soon over there.
Posted by jim at 01:18 PM | Comments (0)
[WWDC] Social
(Nothing technical in this one)
Todd and I went to Buzz Anderson's WWDC Weblogger dinner, which was an excellent time. We were a little tight-packed in Buca di Beppo, but it forced people to interact with each other ("pardon my elbow", if nothing else). Throw in a few people who were aggressive about introductions, and a lot of good cross-pollinated discussions resulted. Many thanks to Buzz for putting it all together.
After a regroup at the hotel, we made a jaunt down to Death Guild. On the way, we ran into hepkitten; she was outside the Metreon, passing out flyers for her Desktop Activist project. She's a fun person, who owes everything she is to shameless copying from Emma. Yep. Really. From there, we forged on to DG. Since Todd and I both had 9am sessions, we didn't push it into the wee hours. It's been years since I've gotten anywhere near the scene, and Death Guild was a wonderfully refreshing experience. Not something I want to dive back into - but a deliciously pleasant headspace to visit.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled Mac Geek...
Posted by jim at 09:32 AM | Comments (0)
June 28, 2004
[WWDC] Post Keynote
So, the more reliable portions of the rumor mill were right on the money. Save for the new displays (and the video card required to drive the 30" monster) no new hardware. The design matched "artist's concept" rumor sketches, and Apple is indeed going back to DVI for the interface. The Tiger screenshots that surfaced on the net were, apparently, legit.
Tiger (MacOS X 10.4) itself won't be shipping until "H1 2005" - meaning the first half of 2005, which could be as late as June of 2005. There's a fair amount of nice stuff in what Steve showed us (most all of which can be seen on Apple's site). Spotlight is Google for the desktop - it's really going to change the way people (don't) organize their files. Downside? By allowing people to easily find their stuff, they'll just dump it into one or two folders - and unless Tiger comes with some serious filesystem changes/optimizations, those humongous folders will be a huge performance sink everytime you try to open one.
Swag is good, though not as cool as last year. WWDC t-shirt, Developer release of Tiger, Tiger t-shirt, poster for the new displays, WWDC backpack (nice, but not as solid as previous offerings). The underreported surprise is the bundling of a copy of Apple Remote Desktop 2 into the Tiger package. Not sure if it's a 10-user or unlimited license, but the 10=user is worth about what last year's iSight was.
Network is, as usual, wonky. Still, providing reliable wi-fi for a few thousand laptop-toting geeks is tricky at best, especially when you insist on using your own hardware (which supports a max of 50 users/AP) - which is why I'm back at the hotel room, entering this on my pirate Wi-Fi.
Back to the conference...
Posted by jim at 01:15 PM | Comments (0)
June 27, 2004
[WWDC] Pirate Wi-Fi
The Marriott charges an outrageous $12.95/day for wired internet access. It comes with unlimited local and long-distance calling... like anyone carrying a laptop doesn't also have a mobile phone. I doubt I'll be purchasing this anytime soon unless the UW is willing to foot the bill.
However, from my room on the 11th floor, my PowerBook can barely pick up the free wi-fi of the Hotel Palomar - which is in line-of-sight of my window. The view I had from the Argent last year was nice, but I'll happily trade it for free wireless.
Did a walk by Moscone West (which was close for the night). A lot of Apple logo-work on the glass fronting of the building, and a largish billboard in the lobby that's still covered (thus hinting at product-to-be-announced). Billboards pimping Tiger - and dissing Longhorn - are visible on the second floor. We'll see if there's any meat to the claims at tomorrow's keynote.
Edit: Gizmodo has pictures of the banners. Redmond is the home of Microsoft. Longhorn (a cow!) is the code name for the next version of Windows, due sometime in 2006 - and touting several features that MacOS X already has.
Posted by jim at 10:58 PM | Comments (0)
Off to WWDC
Flight leaves in about 2 1/2 hours, and I'm off to San Francisco again for Apple's WorldWide Developer Conference. In addition to the standard Apple geekfest, I'll also be attending the unofficial WWDC Weblogger dinner, hooking up with Twid for a possible Death Guild outing, and generally trying to make the best of a trip on the company dime.
I'll blog as possible, but seeing as WWDC tends to operate under Fight Club rules, there might not be much outside the SteveNote to share. Not to mention, looks like MacRumors may have already stolen some of Steve's thunder.
Posted by jim at 03:35 PM | Comments (0)
June 09, 2004
Speedbumped G5s, no 3fer.
Most of the online Mac press leads with Apple's release of speed-bumped PowerMac G5s running at 1.8GHz, 2GHz, and 2.5GHz. All three updated models feature dual G5 CPUs using the 90nm process (smaller, cooler, less power consumption) - but things are still warm enough that the 2.5GHz model has a liquid cooling system. Much sexier (and quieter) than the ear-blasting fans of the original Xserve G4.
The good news (first update for the 11-month old G5 line) comes on the heels of Monday's well-received AirPort Express announcement - a tiny 802.11g access point that supports 10 computers, acts as a network print server for your USB printer, and (here's the kicker) allows you to stream iTunes directly to your stereo via a technology dubbed AirTunes.
Mac wags are still expecting an updated iTunes (4.6 to support AirTunes) later this week, and updated displays are thought to be on the horizon. The AirPort Express and 2.5Ghz G5 aren't expected to ship until July - then again, the Xserve G5 was announced in January and was supposed to ship in February. Yet the much-ballyhooed Virginia Tech Terascale Cluster (a mondo cluster of G5s) is still offline waiting for their Xserve G5 upgrades.
Getting just as much play is what we won't see soon - 3GHz G5s. When Steve jobs got up on stage at last year's WWDC to deliver the keynote, he stated unequivocally that Apple would reach 3Ghz on the IBM-manufactured G5 "within 12 months". A bold promise, and perhaps ill-considered given Apple's earlier problems with Motorola. When speedbumps to the PowerMac G5s didn't show in January, and the Xserve G5 was slow out the gate, people started to doubt. Sure enough, one of The Steve's minions - Tom Boger, Apple's Director of Power Mac Product Marketing - said that Apple is "[...] not getting to 3GHz anytime soon."
Boger's other "not-see" - no PowerBook G5 in 2004 - isn't surprising to anyone who's seen the heatsink on a PowerMac G5, despite the blue-skying that the Mac rumor sites have continued to bandy about the hope of one. (And I'd like a pony).
I was at WWDC last year, in the crowd bathing in Reality Distortion Field when Jobs announced the G5 and made the 3GHz promise. He's delivering this year's keynote as well - wonder if he'll do a mea culpa? Nah - more likely I'll get that pony.
Posted by jim at 09:13 AM | Comments (0)