Mac Rants

I pulled the great blunder today. When installing software, I didn't read the READ_ME, despite its glaring capital letters and brazen authority. This was, of course, my own fault of being in a hurry and "knowing what I was doing". Pride cometh before the fall, so they say.

Apple's developer pages led me to install the latest OCUnit framework on my 10.5.6 iBook, so that I could continue on with the lovely tutorial about writing Obj-C unit tests. Had I been reading the READ_ME, staring at me down the barrel of the gun, I would have learned that installing OCUnit is for 10.3 and prior. Anything after that already includes the framework because Apple wants to be nice to it's developers (except when it comes to updating their documentation!).

I went along, happily overwriting my very wonderful, preexisting copy of OCUnit with it's older, more evil ancestor. After my first unit test was complete, I was stumped at the error I received. Google provided some helpful hits from other developers telling me that what I did was in fact, the wrong thing. READ_ME clicks back the hammer on his gun, grinning the whole time.

I thought, well, I'll just uninstall it and everyone will be happy. Oh, OCUnit overwrote any other preexisitng OCUnit frameworks I had anyway, so I'm screwed, mister know it all, right! READ_ME laughs as the hammer of the gun crashes with the bullet sending it careening down it's course.

Ok, XCode installer... out of the CD. There's no repair?! What?! Windows installer has been doing this for years... let's learn a lesson from the borg, eh? Bah! Fine, if I can't repair, I can at least go looking around in the installer for the files to see what package I could install instead of going through the full hour process of reinstalling XCode, right? Wrong. If I select only one part of the package, Apple Installer thinks that I want to UNinstall the other things and quietly does that in the background like a dumb child. Right, that's the incognito UNinstaller! And when I load up XCode... oh, yeah, it's not 3.1.2, it's 3.0, what came with Leopard!

So here I sit... waiting. Waiting on the hour to fully install XCode 3.0 again. Waiting for the 3.1.2 download so I can install that. Waiting for the light to dawn in my noggin about reading READ_ME files again. Waiting for Apple to create a smarter installer. Waiting to code... the worst of it all.

वेइर्द

Apparently Blogger has somehow made my post titles into Hindi.

Well, this particular post is about me teaching. My enthusiastic self has gotten me into the Sun Prairie School District tutoring AP Computer Programming people at the high school in Java. Really exciting opportunity for me.

As of yet, the schedule is pretty undetermined as well as any details, but I look forward to participating in education!

13949712720901ForOSX : Vote for Java 6 on Leopard!

Funny

TUAW has a great article today about screen sharing in the version of iChat that comes with Leopard. The funny bit is this quote

There's a story in Christian tradition about St. Paul, who was a grumpy old sourpuss until the day he decided to take a road trip to Damascus. That's when the Lord himself showed up and, to make a long story short, turned that frown upside down.

Home ice cream

I came across an ice cream recipe by David Lebowitz today, Guiness Milk Chocolate Ice Cream. Whoa baby. If only I had one of these wonderful attachments for my Kitchen Aid. Some day I too, will create awesome home made ice cream and then perhaps I won't miss Rome so much. At least in terms of ice cream.

iPhone

So I had a short experience with an iPhone recently. My friend in Berlin wanted one, so he ordered it through me because they are cheaper her in the US--Same thing happened when I bought my first TiBook from Germany through the US, taxes must suck. Anyway, I received it in the mail and was able to touch the cellophane wrapper before closing it back up and slapping a US Mail tag on it to ship it off to Berlin. Here is my friend with his new phone, rubbing it in.

Come on, take a lesson Steve

I was induced to gagging when I saw this today

An anonymous reader writes "Apple's iPhone software development kit is already drawing complaints due to the strict terms of service. Voice over IP apps like Skype that attempt to use the cellular data connection will be blocked. Competing web browsers Firefox and Opera are forbidden. Even Sun is now backpedaling on its recent announcement of a java port, noting that there are some legal issues. Critics are already comparing Apple's methods to Comcast's anti-net neutrality filtering, and Microsoft's Netscape-killing antitrust tactics. Could Apple face government regulators?"
(slashdot)

Come on, Apple. Aren't you better than this? Why forbid competition in the browser market? I can understand the Skype thing. You've got this deal with Cingular going on and you have to protect your business partners. But this business with preventing Firefox and Opera is just plain Micro$oft. Haven't we all learned a lesson from them?

Honestly, I think it's greedy. People are going to buy iPhones because they are sweet, not because they run Safari. Firefox is great because it allows plugins. WebKit doesn't, at least for now. You guys aren't content to be the best computer provider in the world, the best operating system creator in the world, you have to try and swallow this whole browser thing too.

Kinda takes the innocence out of Apple, Steve. That whole "makes me giddy" thing is shadowed by your greed.