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Blogging from an iPhone?

Who writes blog posts using their iPhone? I did it while on a road trip in 2014. I used the iOS WordPress app, which was fine, but to use it required JetPack. I’ve been trying to limit plugins on my weblog to make it render faster and help with securing it. Two big reasons why I wanted to switch to a static publishing system; speed and security.

I digress. The long and short of it is this. What other apps are there I could use to publish directly to a WordPress site? I know I can do it with the Micro.blog client but are there other apps that can do it?

I keep hoping Daniel will bring MarsEdit to iOS and I’ve thought about writing one but I never manage to have the time to work on other things.

Maybe I can configure the Micro.blog client to post only titled posts to my WordPress weblog?

Food for thought.

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I’m a Professional Developer

On episode 268: A Tarnished Brass Age the ATP boys talk about the rumor of Macs moving to ARM and away from Intel chips.

If Apple does go this route I can only see one possible candidate for the switch: the 12in MacBook.

The 13in and 15in MacBook Pros could be a mistake to convert for all the reasons John outlines on the show. Most of the developers I work with at Agrian use 15in MacBook Pros for development. Most are backend developers. We don’t use desktop computers.

What kind of development do we do? Well, the backend is a mix of Ruby (RoR), Scala, a little .Net, and some Rust. On the client side we have a browser based application written in JavaScript on Ember and our iOS App is a mix of Swift, Objective-C, a small amount of C++, and a new library written in Rust that’s shared with the backend team. Basically our tools run the gamut.

I maintain two of our old .Net services so I run VirtualBox with Windows 10 and Visual Studio 2017 in addition to Xcode for iOS App development and all my other Mac tools; multiple terminal windows, SourceTree, Evernote, Slack, and BBEdit as well as multiple tabs open in Safari. Yeah, there’s a lot going on and my MacBook Pro handles it without batting an eye.

Add the MacBook Pro to the list of devices Apple needs to keep in mind when it comes to Pro users. Not all Pros use desktop computers.

It’s worth noting I’m still using the 2014 MacBook Pro I was given when I started work at Agrian. I recently opened it up and replaced the 256GB SSD with a 1TB model. It works great. I’m not sure I could do that with a modern MacBook Pro.

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Development Uncategorized

Far from perfect

Free Code Camp: “VS Code’s success story is interesting because it’s far from perfect: its UI has that Microsoft-y clunkiness that seems to infect all their products, it’s a big resource hog, and it can be kinda slow to initialize.”

If you go read the article and don’t see the irony in the above statement I’ll point it out for you. Visual Studio Code uses Electron which allows developers to write desktop-like applications in JavaScript. Is the author saying Electron is slow, JavaScript is slow, a combination of the two, or that maybe Microsoft developers made it a fat — slow — pig?

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Middle Class

Newsweek: “On Thursday, House Republicans issued a fact sheet about their new tax cut plan that referred to Americans earning $450,000 a year as “low- and middle-income” — even though that income level would put those taxpayers in the top 0.05% of all individual Americans.

The median household income in the United States is $59,039, after all.”

Jerks.

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Where should Google land in Detroit?

Curbed Detroit: “Big news yesterday as Google has decided to ditch their suburban Birmingham offices for new digs in downtown Detroit.”

If you’ve followed me over the years you know I love cities and I have a real thing for Detroit. I can’t explain my fascination other than to say it’s full of beautiful architecture. Beautiful architecture that’s rotting.

I hope Google finds a great space in downtown Detroit to bring back to life. People bring life to cities. It’s nice to see Detroit coming back to life.

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Development Uncategorized

Making your iOS App embrace the iPhone X notch

After yesterdays announcement I decided I’d rebuild RxCalc with the iOS 11 SDK. I figured things would rebuild and my app would fully embrace the new iPhone X without change, but it didn’t work. When I built the app it ran in what I’d call letter boxed mode. The top and bottom were cropped. It was like running an older app on iOS 7, if you’ve ever seen that.

UGH! Why you letterboxed bro?
UGH! Why you letterboxed bro?

I was puzzled. I tried all kinds of jiggery-pokery and nothing worked. So I finally did what any self respecting lazy developer would do. I asked Twitter for help, and Jeff Johnson saved the day.

I was — quite honestly — surprised something so little could make it work, but darn it, you gotta trust the experts. I added a new launch screen at the recommended 1125×2436 size and it worked! Yippee!

Hey, that worked!
Hey, that worked!

So, thanks Jeff! Also, if you’re looking for a bonafide Mac and iOS Developer you should consider reaching out to Jeff — he’s available for work — and has a history of shipping great Mac and iOS Software.

And remember — EMBRACE THE NOTCH!

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Indie Life Uncategorized

Indie Itch

AHHHHHH!I’m getting that itch again. I have so many ideas and never enough time to execute on them. I have a feeling this is a fairly common trait in people. We have big dreams but don’t possess the skill, patience, or business acumen to pull it off. It can be quite frustrating and lead to unnecessary stress in your life.

Distracted. That’s me. I have too many ideas and seem to like bouncing around a bit too much. Besides thinking about too many projects I also value an occasional side job that pays a little bit. When I find those jobs they’re prioritized over my own work, but never over the day job.

Lately I’ve been focused on the day job, one side gig I’m advising on (a startup), and my weird obsession to make RxCalc‘s Pharmakokinetics math library cross platform. Ultimately I’d call the last two a distraction from what I’d really like to do, which brings us back to the Indie itch.

I still dream of having a small company, say one to five folks, all dedicated to creating a business graphics like Visio or OmniGraffle

Why? Because I love those apps. I loved my time contributing to Visio and there is plenty of room on the platform for more great productivity tools.

There is, of course, another great option. Go to work for Microsoft or The Omni Group and contribute to these awesome apps. 

This ties neatly back into a post from earlier today. Yeah, I’d love to to to work at Microsoft working on the Mac and iOS versions of Visio, but I kind of doubt Microsoft cares much about porting Visio to either (I’ve heard rumor of an iOS viewer for Visio, which would be great.) 

Sorry for the stream of consciousness dump. Had to get these thoughts off my chest today. I’m felling really restless, this helped calm my mind.

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fun Life Uncategorized

Dumpster Bike: Day 1

When I was a kid my brothers and I were into BMX racing. We were good, big fish in a little pond you might say. We rode for Dick’s Bicycles here in Exeter, California. We were co-sponsored by Vans so our team racing shoes were supplied to us. We just picked a style, back then it was high or low tops. They were blue and gold like the rest of our team uniform. Jerry, my middle brother, was co-sponsored by SE Racing so he had the privilege of riding new gear before SE released it. 

Anywho, long story short, we know bicycles and spent many a day tearing them down, re-greasing, and reassembling them. Good time.

Move ahead almost 40 years and I still admire nice bikes. Especially older steel frames with beautiful lugs. I’ve wanted to rebuild and old steel lug frame into a fixed gear cruiser for a few years know, but I’ve never been able to happen upon a nice steel lug frame (I have one that might be worth something, so I’m afraid to strip it down to bare metal.) 

Recently we had a City cleanup day. Basically you can take anything you want to our local City Yard, pay a $5US fee, and the city properly disposes of it. This year I needed to cut down a dead tree so the cleanup day way the perfect opportunity to dispose of it. 

While I was there I thought to look for some bike frames and parts. I happened across a 2007 Giant Boulder SE. Frame, forks, and cranks just laying on the ground. I adopted it. 

Giant Boulder SE

I spent day one stripping off the chain, derailers, and handlebars. I was unfamiliar with how the forks and headset were assembled so they’re still in the frame and the bottom bracket is pretty rusty so I need a crank puller to remove the cranks. A guy at our local bike shop taught me how to take apart the headset so I can get that taken care of next. 

Once I get this thing stripped down I plan on stripping all the paint and giving it a nice fresh coat of Burnt Orange paint. Then I’ll reassemble it into a nice casual to ride bike. Nothin fancy.

I plan on keeping a little journal as I fix up what I’m calling “Fahrni Dumpster Bike Mark 0.”

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Life Movies Uncategorized

Rob’s 2016 Summer Blockbuster Must See List

There are a few things to point out about this years list. It’s a bit long, I started from mid-April (which is a bit short of May, the “traditional” blockbuster season), it runs through September, and all the trailers links are pointed at my new favorite site for watching movie trailers; Trailer Town.

The Jungle Book April 15
Green Room April 15
Criminal April 15
Captain America: Civil War May 06
Free State of Jones May 13
Money Monster May 13
High-Rise May 13
The Nice Guys May 20
X-Men: Apocalypse May 27
Alice Through the Looking Glass May 27
Warcraft June 10
The Conjuring 2 June 10
Central Intelligence June 17
Finding Dory June 17
Independence Day: Resurgence June 24
The Legend of Tarzan July 01
The BFG July 01
Ghostbusters July 15
Star Trek Beyond July 22
Genius July 29
Suicide Squad August 05
Ben-Hur August 12
Pete’s Dragon August 12
War Dogs August 19
Snowden September 16
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children September 30
Deepwater Horizon September 30

While I’d love to see all of these at theaters, I know I won’t. This is the shorter list I really hope to catch in theaters; Captain America: Civil War, Central Intelligence, Warcraft, Finding Dory, Ghostbusters, Star Trek Beyond, and Suicide Squad.

Prior years 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010 and 2009.

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Nice Day

  
I know it’s only mid-March but it’s really beautiful here in the Valley.

The sun is sharing time with the occasional cloud. It’s warm, the birds are singing. 

It’s a great day and the weather is nice too.