Tweetboard is a cool little piece of java coding that lets you add a forum to most any website or blog using Twitter as the engine. It will allow threaded replies like no application I’ve seen yet. As the Tweetboard website explains it:

“Tweetboard is a fun and engaging micro-forum type application for your website. It pulls your Twitter stream in near real-time (max 1 min delay), reformatting tweets into threaded conversations with unlimited nesting. Conversations that spun off the original conversation are also threaded in-line, giving your site visitors full perspective of what’s being discussed.

Tweetboard is also a powerful viral tool that engages your website visitors. Each time someone posts (or replies) via your board, a link back to the corresponding conversation is appended to their tweet, creating a viral stream of Twitter traffic to your website.”

Written by the folks at 140ware, this little piece of java heaven is a little tab that resides on the left side of your site. When there are new Tweets to be read the tab color becomes red and displays the number of new tweets since your last visit.

Warning: This post in not about programing. It’s about an Apple ID security breach.

Updated: 07.02.09
Updated: 06.28.2009
Updated: 06.26.2009

I have always had a fascination with the idea of developing for the Mac. I guess those seeds were planted “… way back in the days of old” when I was creating custom stacks in Apple’s HyperCard, or creating custom databases in Filemaker. Developing for the Mac, or now for the iPhone, is one of those dreams many Apple Fan Boys and Girls have had. To build that one illusive application that everyone wants. Needs. Must have! Cha ching! Hey … I didn’t say my motives were altruistic.

It was with these thoughts in mind that I went out the other day and bought “Programming in Objective-C 2.0” by Stephen G Kochan and Erica Sadun’s “The iPhone Developer’s Cookbook“. Yesterday I started reading Programming in Objective-C 2.0. To get started I needed to log into my Apple Developer Connection account and download the latest version of the Apple developer tools which includes Xcode, Apple’s programing environment.

While I was there I also registered for the iPhone Dev Center. To do so I had to register with my current Apple ID. I then needed to fill out an iPhone developer questionnaire. With that done I could then download the latest version of the 2.08GB Apple iPhone SDK.

Sometimes things don’t always go as planned …

Woke up this morning and I got myself a …. PwnageTool. Been waiting for this since iPhone OS 3.0 was released in iTunes Wednesday (6.17.09). Well me and thousands of others who were “refreshing” the crap out of the Dev-Team blog/website the past several days, or following the Dev-Team on Twitter, waiting for PwnageTool to post. That may not seem like a long time to most, it’s like seven lifetimes to those caught up in the iPhone reality distortion field. But here it is, with its new updated app smell. And it’s ability to unlock my 1st Generation iPhone.

You have to love these guys. They are modern day heros. Now Apple might think contrary, but you have to admire the Dev-Team’s vibrato. Their stamina. Their commitment. This disparate group of programmers, hackers, telecom industry workers, et al, from all over the world, doing what Apple should have done all along. Make the iPhone open to any and all GSM networks around the world.

Sound the horns! Release the doves! Call your Mom! iPhone OS 3.0 is coming! Tomorrow! (06/17/2009) There has been so much hype leading up to this release you’d think it was the second coming. But it’s not. It’s the third … coming of the iPhone OS that is. Along with it will come a new iPhone too. The iPhone 3G S. They say the “S” is for speed. I think the “S” is for “Sales” through the roof. Even before its release, preorders are sold out. Undoubtedly there will be lines starting at an Apple or AT&T store near you.

There has been a huge ramp-up for the release, starting long before last weeks “World Wide Developers Conference” (WWDC). The fan-boy blogs and the Twitter-verse has been on fire.

I always use to think that the squeaky wheel always got the proverbial grease. In most case this may be true. With Apple … not so much.

Apple just released Mac OS X 10.5.7 update. Being a consultant I always have to do updates on the day they arrive. I do this to try to see what my clients might have to deal with if they choose to do it on their own. Though most of my clients will wait for me to “feel the pain” so they don’t have to.

This update, I did feel the pain! Since I bought my new MacBook Pro, I have been doing updates via Software Update. This time around I chose to download the Combo Updater & give it a whirl. Once downloaded I opened the image and started the process. When the 729 MB update was finished, I restarted the computer. Or at least tried to.

In my previous post “A process to a kill” I outlined an issue with Apple’s Mail.app creating too many IMPA processes on the web hosting server it was connecting to. Read the previous post for the details. With the help of a senior tech at blueHOST.com I have found a temporary fix, until Apple addresses the issue.
For those with access to the cPanel for their hosting account, you will need to create a Cron Job. At blueHOST.com I have access to this feature. Using the blueHOST GUI interface for the UNIX crontab program, I created a cron job via the cPanel to run every two minutes (because I have so many users running mail at the same time.) And the command is “killall imap” (without the quotes). This will do as advertised, kill all imap processes, old and new, every two minutes. You can set the amount of minutes to anything you want.

Just completed a new website for my client Compass Point Yachts. This was a huge project. My first undertaking was to try to eliminate as much if not all Adobe Flash from the website as possible. I chose to work with MooTools javascript framework. This way I could do slide shows, as well as nice sliding menus, and other visually interesting elements. Nice eye candy without all the Flash baggage. The most difficult part was getting all the CSS & javascript to play nicely in MS Internet Explorer 7. But in the end … it came off swimmingly!

My second task was to try to break away from making “yet another black website”. The last website, and gee … the website before that were all black backgrounds. Very dark and brooding … but colorful and exciting in their own way. So we went for the polar opposite, white. I also tried to keep the color pallet to green, blue & gray. I think this really made the boat images pop.

Since one of the more recent updates, (I wish I could pinpoint the exact one) when starting up Mail.app multiple processes are opened on my web hosting company’s (blueHOST.com) server. Most times between 8-10. The big problem is they won’t die until either I close Mail.app or kill the process manually via my cPanel’s process manager. As a single user in a one man company, this doesn’t really effect me. In an office of 3 or more people this is a BIG issue. Especially if their website or blog is hosted by the same company, on the same server.

I discovered this issue while working on a clients website. Each time I tried to connect to their blog I’d get a server side page that said, to many processes try again later. Or something to that effect. I called blueHOST.com but got a 1st level tech who had to put me on hold, ask someone questions then come back with not many answers. To be fair to blueHOST this was an exception to always stellar tech support.

As a consultant I wear quite a few hats, as it were. I troubleshoot issues with Macintosh computers. I set up & install new Macintosh systems. I develop and implement FileMaker databases. I also do web design and development.

Wearing the chapeau of web developer I have several tools that I use regularly. Besides the obvious ones like Adobe Dreamweaver CS4, I use a little coding application from Panic called Coda.

I use Coda regularly. As they say on their website “text editor + file transfer + svn + css + terminal + books + more = whoah.” I don’t know if I could have explained it better. It’s a text/code editor, with full color formatting

When the going gets tough … the tough go shopping!

Took a little trip down Portland way this past weekend. It was a Valentine’s getaway. Little did I know I’d be coming home with a new computer and display. Up until this point my Al SiO2 iMac and my old school MacBook Pro 15″ G4 were doing the trick.

Then there was that fateful trip to the Portland Apple store that Saturday. I laid my eyes on the new Apple 24″ LCD display, connected oh so nicely to a new uni-body MacBook Pro. I was in love … or at least certainly in lust.