Month: February 2008

Adobe AIR and Mac OS X Server Admin?

Today I’m logging in to a server remotely using Mac OS X Server’s Server Admin tool and I get a dialog asking “Server Admin wants to use the PrivateEncryptedDatak keychain”. Which is interesting as I have no idea what the password is, and googling the term only seems to find a few references which mention Adobe AIR, which I installed earlier today. Curiouser and curiouser.

The Bleeding Edge of Thunderbird

Somewhat tired of Thunderbird continually mysteriously hanging on me I downloaded and installed the current nightly trunk build. So far, not as much hanging, plus a new update every day, seemingly fixing some bugs (certainly crashing ones I experienced and reported). However it did seem to handle some account settings differently as it complained that my mail server didn’t support SMTP-AUTH, whereas it’d never complained about this previously. I managed to fix this by opening the ‘Account Settings’ panel, scrolling to the end where the Outgoing SMTP accounts are listed after all the accounts for receiving mail, and then unchecking the “Use username and password” option for the appropriate accounts.

Multitouch MacBooks and MacBook Pros

After introducing the multitouch user interface in the iPhone and iPodTouch, and then in the MacBook Air Apple has now introduced it across the MacBook and MacBook Pro lines.Interestingly, this means that the desktop machines don’t have multitouch, which given it will no doubt be more widely adopted by developers as SDK’s for it become available, which may leave desktop users in the lurch. The obvious move would be for Apple to incorporate multitouch in the screens it manufacturers. However this answer would probably be a bad solution given the problem of gorilla arm. Perhaps a multitouch pad built into keyboards? A third party Kensington multitouch USB trackpad? Then again the MacBooks already use a different input method to mice, however it’s not clear how easily the rotational gestures would map to a mouse (scrolling and zooming is already usually mapped to the scroll wheel/ball). Mouse with a knob?Or perhaps Apple has an even more revolutionary input device up its sleeve…

Leopard eats ITC Zapf Chancery?

Having upgraded a PowerBook to Leopard, it seems that the “ITC Zapf Chancery SWA” font has vanished, which is annoying for all those documents that used it. Probably I’d guess it was being loaded from the Classic System Folder or something. Will have to hunt it down in the pre-Leopardisation backup.

Mac server hosting

Edition.net are offering dedicated Xserve server solutions for US$250 (presumably per month, plus US$400 setup). For that you get “MacOSX Server featuring Xserve – 1.33Ghz PowerPC G4, 60gig storage, 512MB ram, WebObjects 5”. Although the RAM (and storage) seems a bit small. There are other options available which include WebStar V, FileMaker Unlimited (version 5?), and Lasso Pro 6 (not 8!). They do offer “flat-rate pricing with no traffic surcharges”.

digital.forest offers an Enhanced plan for US$30 setup and US$19/month (+US$10/month for MySQL) with perl, PHP5, Python, Mac OS X and more, 100MB of storage, and 3Gb of data transfer. Not sure what their colocating price is like though as you need to contact a salesdroid. Digital.forest have been around since 1994 and have a long time association with Mac newsletter TidBITs.

MacJobs with Sling Media

Via the MacDevJobs mailing list and the Sling Media job page


Sling Media, the makers of the Slingbox–a popular device that lets

you watch your TV remotely over the Internet–is seeking three more

experienced Mac developers to join our software team here at our

headquarters in Foster City, California, located between San Francisco

and the Silicon Valley.

 

[1] Req #176: Senior Engineer, MacOS X Client Application UI Developer

 

We’re looking for an experienced Mac OS X developer, someone who can

create a truly exceptional Cocoa UI for the Mac SlingPlayer.  We want

to enhance the user experience by including an integrated program

guide and the ability to record and upload video clips to share with

others, as well as other sharp ideas, including yours.

 

[2] Req #165: Senior Engineer, Web Services Client Integration

 

We want to extend the Mac SlingPlayer application to include all kinds

of web services, but keep the “out-of-browser” experience that native

applications do best.  That means WebKit.  And Javascript.  And the

Cocoa-Javascript bridge.  And SOAP.  And…well, join us and show how

an experienced web services client developer brings this all together.

 

[3] Req #139: Senior Engineer/Staff Engineer, MacOS X & Cross-Platform

 

The Mac and Windows versions of the SlingPlayer share a lot of key

technology, but need to share the code base more.  Join us in the

design of cross-platform interfaces to audio and video streaming,

Slingbox setup and configuration, and much more, and then use your

solid knowledge of MacOS X multimedia, networking, and related

frameworks to implement them.

 

We offer these positions with preference to candidates seeking

full-time or contract-to-hire on-site employment in Foster City, CA.

MacJob with small Microsoft team

For those who don’t mind being in Seattle, Washington (a nice place, aside from its proximity to the evil empire):

Are you ready to dive into a new technology that pushes the envelope to create new markets and products? Do you get stoked by the idea of working in a start-up atmosphere as part of a growing incubation team that bridges the gap between research and product?We are a small incubation team inside Microsoft creating innovative new content visualization technologies. We’re seeking a hardcore Mac developer to work on our graphically rich, highly performance-oriented platform. We’re looking for someone with broad knowledge of the Mac OS X platform (minimum 3 years experience) and at least a passing familiarity with Windows programming, who enjoys cross-platform development. Experience with OpenGL and mixed C++/Objective-C Cocoa projects is a must. Experience with 3D, real-time performance, threading, and networking is strongly preferred, but you would be expected to contribute to all levels of the Mac side of our engine and applications, so versatility is key. Job Post