bencoffman.com/blog - Mac

Commerce Bank iPhone App

Ben Coffman — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 13:50:55 GMT

Apple expects to sell 1 million to 1.4 million iPhones this weekend, this is excluding the 900,000 pre-orders. It has the possibilty to be the biggest selling product release in history!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704629804575325661775151320.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_LEADTop

UPDATE: They sold 1.7 million. Apple's most successful product release in it's history.

When to use the * (star) with Objective C

Ben Coffman — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 15:59:04 GMT

It's a good question.

There are some types that are not derived from NSObject, these types are called "Primitive Types." Some examples of these types are

int
bool
short
long
double
char

Sooooo basically any type that is not derived from the NSObject class is a Primitive type and does not require a "*".

Now I bet you are wondering how do I figure out if it's a primitive type or not.

An easy way is to look at the color of the syntax in xCode, is it deep blue or a sky blue? Deep blue = primitive type, but this is not entirely reliable as the standards for coloring syntax can fluctuate or change.

You can option-click on the object after you have typed it in xCode, click the little book in the upper right hand corner, when the class reference viewer comes up, look and see if it inherits from NSObject. If it doesn't it's Primitive and you don't need a "*".

Note:

int

NSInteger,

Just for fun:

value types

int i = 5;

System.Int32 i = new System.Int32(5);

Mission Repair -- Getting all things Apple repaired outside of the Apple store.

Ben Coffman — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 02:48:33 GMT

Last night around 3:30am I was having a little trouble sleeping, consequently I picked up my laptop pulled up the most recent edition of Diggnation and hoped the wonderful drunk-tech humor would push me off to a restful sleep land. It worked! Then disaster struck, as I was closing the laptop on my night stand, the laptop fell off. In slow motion I watched my laptop hit the ground and the backlight on the monitor break. Damn, I’m more tired than disappointed; I’ll address it in the morning.

I woke up in the morning hoping the laptop would have somehow healed itself. It didn’t. Apple store here I come. $1200 bucks, ahhh no thank you, any other solutions I ask the genius dude. He gently says, yes, Mission Repair. Doing a little research I find them online, engadget has recognized these guys! Instantly a legit shop in my mind and they are based in KC, happiness throughout the body, though most of their business is web based mail-ins. I walk in and find out a good amount of their employees are ex-Apple employees. My lapy is in good hands. They quote me $400 for a new glossy screen, a third of the cost of Apple, I asked if they could fix it in the next hour, they replied with a warming, "yup." At this point I want to hug somebody, anybody really. Flash forward 10 minutes and Mission computer says they are out of the glossy screens, they can have some in tomorrow or they will install a mat finish for 100 dollars less, due to the inconvenience, making my total 300. Done Deal. 30 minutes later I walk out with a fully functional screen on my Macbook

I will be working with Mission Repair quite a bit more for my out of warranty repairs.

Objective C -- When to use dot notation vs bracket notation

Ben Coffman — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 00:50:48 GMT

When is the right time to use dot notation vs bracket notation in objective C, or should I not use dot notation at all? I searched around for information on this, read quite a few opinions, but this blog post seems to give an answer of why. I quote the most important part; I suggest you don't read the blog post. The post is very technical and what you really want to know is right below here. If you need to know the details, eschatology does a great job at giving them.

Most important parts of blog post:

Use dot notation to get and set objects’ state.
Use bracket notation to invoke objects’ behavior.

Eschatology -- http://eschatologist.net/blog/?p=160

A bit of a dark name for a blog, but the name doesn't affect the quality of the post.

Comparing Values with Objective C, Alpha Or Numeric

Ben Coffman — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 01:51:02 GMT

The Problem:
Not being able to do a simple compare in an "if statement" between two alpha or numerical statements while programing in objective C.

The Solution:
NSOrderedSame

Example Of Use:
This compares the value of "key" to the value of "support." If they are equal then you get a return value of true.

if ([key compare:Support] == NSOrderedSame)

Explanation:
For some reason Objective-C decided to make it a little bit harder to compare values. Instead of just using the traditional way "[key compare:Support]" return a true value for the if statement OR "([key compare:Support] == 0) OR "([key compare:Support] == true)" they decided to make it a little bit more complex. As demonstrated above. I'm sure the writers of Objective-C have a good reason for this, but one more level of abstraction could make Objective-C that much friendlier to it's programmers and isn't that what it's all about in the end...getting more people to develop in your language.

Some of other comparisons you might want to use are:
NSOrderedAscending -- The left operand is smaller than the right operand.
<" in most languages.
This is equivalent to using "
NSOrderedDescending -- The left operand is greater than the right operand.
This is equivalent to using ">" in most languages.

unable to read unknown load command 0x80000022

Ben Coffman — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 02:01:43 GMT

Error Readout:
unable to read unknown load command 0x80000022

Fix:
Upgrade to xCode 3.2 with the 10.6 libraries.

Explanation:
This error doesn't do anything to your application except provide some really annoying output to your Debugger Console. File under annoying. You can get xCode 3.2 DOWNLOAD HERE for free at the apple website. It will require you to create a login.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard

Ben Coffman — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 20:10:00 GMT

Snow Leopard has only been out since Friday, but a few people got the OS upgrade early and blogged all the good stuff. Knowing this, I'm still going to blog about the new OS from Apple.

I'll cover the price, the security upgrade, the cool new features, the size reduction and make a fun little video demonstrating some of the features in Snow Leopard.

$29 dollars. The low price is largely because Snow Leopard is more of an upgrade than a whole new OS. It offers only a few new flashy features that mac users have come to expect. Most of its added features are in unseen functionality such as Grand Central Dispatch, that most will never see or care about. Just knowing their computer runs faster is good enough. Examining these aspects Apple marketing said $29 bucks is a fair price. I agree, skip a few drinks this weekend and you have your new upgrade.

Security has always been a big aspect enthusiast place on Apple vs. Windows. Sadly even with this new upgrade, Snow Leopard is not as secure Windows 7. Windows 7 has some new security functionality, such as Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) and Data Execution Prevention (DEP). Elinor Mills wrote a great article on it here. The real question about Max OS X security: does Apple need to have the latest security practices incorporated into their OS? If their OS isn't being targeted, yet, why put a large costly focus on having the newest security practices when it doesn't reduce any potential threats on their OS. This is a small advantage Apple has by having 5% market share next to Windows world domination market share.
SIDE NOTE: This will most likely be changing with future generations, have you seen a college lecture hall these days, it looks like a glowing apple orchard.

Finally the upgrade has the potential to reduce the size of the OS's footprint on your hard drive up to half in some cases. Curiosity has me wondering how they did such dramatic size reductions while still adding functionality.

My Mac is better than your Dell

Ben Coffman — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:36:42 GMT

The love I have for Apple continually grows stronger. Here's why. Other then Apple's continual innovation, leading the market in trends: iPod, iPhone, iTunes, superior technology in their OS, and overall beauty, their customer service really wraps up the complete package nicely.

My latest example is an expanding battery (see image). An issue that has been tracked back not to a specific computer manufacturer, but to the company who makes the batteries. This company sells these batteries to Dell and Apple. Understanding the fact that each manufacturer (Apple and Dell) gets the batteries from the same location, how they deal with the situation is the issue at hand.

Scenario 1 -- Dell
Had I bought a Dell with Microsoft Windows, I would have to call Dell, speak with an Indian representative (work through a language barrier that is only exasperated over the phone), have Dell email a return slip, print the return slip, mail the battery back and have Dell send me a new battery, a 2 day process at minimum. In my experience I would estimate 3-4 days.

Scenario 2 -- Apple

Not the case with Apple. I go online, make an appointment at my local genius bar for 7:15 PM the very same day, (note: Apple store is open until 9:00 PM on a Saturday...wow), walk in at 7:15 PM, an "Apple Genius" sees me promptly; takes one look at the battery and tells me I have a defective battery. Next the "Apple Genius" goes in the back gets a new battery, scans the old battery's and new battery's barcode and slides the new battery into my laptop. He then looks at me and says, "You are good to go." Wait?... what?... 7 minutes, that's it? No out of coverage warranty talk or I need your name, your address and the name of your first born? ...Nice, peace "Apple Genius". It took more time to walk from my parking spot to the store than the appointment itself. That is what makes a lifetime Apple customer!