Tag Archives: mac

Where the rounded rectangles in OSX came from…

Bill had added new code to QuickDraw (which was still called LisaGraf at this point) to draw circles and ovals very quickly. That was a bit hard to do on the Macintosh, since the math for circles usually involved taking square roots, and the 68000 processor in the Lisa and Macintosh didn’t support floating point operations. But Bill had come up with a clever way to do the circle calculation that only used addition and subtraction, not even multiplication or division, which the 68000 could do, but was kind of slow at.

Bill’s technique used the fact the sum of a sequence of odd numbers is always the next perfect square (For example, 1 + 3 = 4, 1 + 3 + 5 = 9, 1 + 3 + 5 + 7 = 16, etc). So he could figure out when to bump the dependent coordinate value by iterating in a loop until a threshold was exceeded. This allowed QuickDraw to draw ovals very quickly.

via Folklore.org: Macintosh Stories: Round Rects Are Everywhere!.

Transparent Mac SE/30

Transparent SE/30

How do you make sure all the parts fit correctly in a new design? You test “shoot” the mold with clear plastic before the mold is textured.

At Apple, some of these test shots were built until finished and given to key team members as awards for a job well done.

You may still buy a nice poster.

After much research I have learned that no more than 10 of these clear Macs were ever built.

via Transparent Mac SE/30 – Boing Boing Gadgets.

Awesome. I like it – in my opinion, more things should be transparent. Us geeks like knowing what’s inside the box, you know?

A Fun Fact!

Fun fact: in the old days of Macs, when the faster 68020 processor came on the market, it was put in the new Mac II. When the the 68030 processor was later introduced, Apple dictated that an “X” be added to the end of the model number. So the Mac II became the 68030 Mac IIx. Well, that naming scheme worked fine until Apple decided to upgrade the SE to a 68030. I guess Apple didn’t want to try and explain the Macintosh SEx.

via weaselsnake: The Mac SE/30: Adored by Spies and Psychopathic Geniuses Alike!.

15 Links: The Browser Clear Out Edition

It’s that time again – my browser desperately needs a clear out, so here we go…

  • Weebly
    Their tagline is “Create a free website and blog.” I don’t know how well it works, but it seems to be a nice version of either Tumblr, or WordPress.com – except not purely related to blogging. Sure, do it. Whatever.
  • Wikipedia’s List Of People Who Have Mysteriously Disappeared
    This is pretty freaky, actually – it’s not like we know for _sure_ that those people pre the 1800 actually did disappear under mysterious circumstances. Only two entries in 2008, however – some Russian who could have been the victim of a political murder plot, as well as a Florida resident who has recently been taken off medication. Mysterious? You be the judge.
  • Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Trailers
    If the trailers are that good, then you know the movie will be. Hopefully it isn’t too long, though – last time my sister and I went, the queues were massive. The movie is out July 17th, so strap yourselves in – July seems to be gearing up for a ripper of a month.
  • 30 Exceptional CSS Navigation Techniques
    Another smashing post from Six Revisions (not to be confused with Six Apart, mind you), this article will not only tell you how to achieve stunning navigation, it’ll also tell you how to do them using CSS – which is, of course, completely awesome.
  • Gizmodo explains the difference between $100 and $100, 000 speakers
    An interesting read, if a little long. Wait, I think that’s been said before – in that case, it’s a great read, however, it’s a little long. Filled with information, though – so read it anyway, and hopefully you’ll have learned something by the time you get to the end. 🙂
  • 12 Gauge Shot Glasses
    Yeah, you read that right. 12 Gauge. Shot glasses. Not shotgun, but shot *glasses*. What could be more awesome (or stupid, if you’re so inclined) than alcohol and shotguns? 😛
  • Tweetlite flashes tweets in morse code
    To be compltely honest, I don’t quite understand the point of this one. It’s actually quite pointless, unless you really love Twitter and your morse code. Well, whatever brings in the green, yeah?
  • Cosmic Nitro
    From the guy who developed Galcon for the iPhone [iTMS Link], comes his latest creation, Cosmic Nitro. It’s basically a pretty rehash of the “space-invaders” like genre, similar to Missile Command, where you have to defend your city from waves of incoming stuff (including toxic waste, comets, asteroids, aliens, etc). It’s not bad – and at $1.19, it’s probably worth it. [iTMS link]
  • iTypeFastr
    From the dark side of jailbroken iPhones, comes a custom keyboard. Unlike other keyboards for the iPhone, this keyboard comes with a custom layout. No, it’s not dvorak, (someone make this, please), but it does change the size of the keys to reflect an updated QWERTY layout. It makes the most-frequently used keys larger (so they’re easier to press), all without making any of the other keys smaller by using up all the available keyboard space. Again, your mile may vary – I haven’t personally tested this cos I can type fine on the standard iPhone keyboard anyway.
  • Tweetie for Mac
    The excellent @chartier takes a look at Tweetie for Mac, from the guy who made the iPhone app of the same name. It’s damn slick – the interface is as good as any, and besides – it’s nice to see Cocoa-based Twitter apps (AIR sucks, btw). You can tell it is a beta, though – there are certainly features missing, and the current feature-set seems a little lightweight for my liking. It’s not as featured as Twhirl is, for instance. It is being released on Monday, so keep your eyes on teh (sic) interwebs (sic). 😉
  • Apple market share shows negative growth
    Oh great. I’ll pin this one on the Global Financial Crisis, then – thanks to the PC market crashing haphazardly around the US (see what I did there?), Apple’s market share has also taken a tumble as a result. Sure – it’s not right to pay $500 for a logo, but it’s so much more than just the brand, you know?

And lastly, we have:

  • Apple WWDC developer videos
    The interview from Cultured Code was the only one I actually watched, but I’m sure they’re all excellent. It’s especially interesting to see if they actually went through all the steps in the video, or if they were putting on a show for Apple… I’m sure it’s the former, though. Those Germans know how to do things right. 🙂

And we’re done for another week. Cya, and as usual, comments below. Doing links (esp with “Smart Links”) in WordPress actually sucks. Next time, I might just be a lazy blogger and put in the links – none of this fancy <a href=”link here”>some text here</a> crap. Pfft. Screw that. 😛

I’m Getting Things Done. I think.

So, I’m currently getting into the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology.

While I’m usually pretty good at remembering things, sometimes I feel like I’m juggling too many things at once, or alternatively, I think of something on the bus or while I’m daydreaming in lectures at uni and forget it later on. Good blog posts are notorious for this.

I’m not a huge fan of carrying around a notebook around, so something I always have with me is my iPhone – and while it does notes, it doesn’t do them well enough to warrant using on a daily basis. The iPhone’s Notes don’t currently sync with the Mac in any way (that’s going to be fixed in iPhone OS 3.0, though), and while it’s simple and easy to use, doesn’t offer the functionality I’m looking for.

So, what exactly am I looking for? A couple of things:

  1. Syncing between iPhone and Mac. If I think of something while I’m out and about, I’m going to write it in my iPhone. When I get home, I want to have the same lists on my iPhone as well as my Mac, so syncing between the two is a must-have. I don’t care if it’s over Wi-Fi or over USB – either way, syncing is too important to ignore.
  2. I want something that will act as my second brain – things that I can just push items (be it text, a URL, a list, or anything) into, and forget about. While ShoveBox fulfils this requirement, it doesn’t have any sort of “list” support – and for the GTD mentality, that’s a huge negative.
  3. I need the ability to cross things off once I’ve done them – if not for the fact to show myself that I’m actually accomplishing things, then for the ability to see what I’ve already done, and can now forget about (so I stop worrying about it later on). Things currently does this, and comes with an iPhone app to boot! It’s on my shortlist, but the price for the Mac version scares me… 😮
  4. While “Projects” are good for things that need to be done that have a lot of steps, they’re not good for lists and stuff. One of my main gripes with Things is that there’s no support for folders, only areas of responsibility and projects (which can then contain projects). However, The Hit List does have support for simple lists and folders, so for usability in that area, The Hit List wins. No iPhone app as yet for The Hit List, though, and it’s not as polished as Things. 🙁 For now, The Hit List is on my shortlist.

For now, there’s no clear winner in the GTD department. When I find a winner (in roughly 15 days, as that’s when my Things trial ends), I’ll be sure to tell you right here.

Comments below – I’d appreciate it if you could point out your GTD methodology, and what apps you use to accomplish it. 😀

30+ Amazing Mac Apps for Developers

Saying that Transmit is a superb FTP program for Mac would be an extreme understatement. Just look at all the features of the program on their homepage, there are far too many to list here. If you are looking for a high quality FTP program for Mac, Transmit is a great choice.

via 30+ Amazing Mac Apps for Developers | Website Design Blog.

Transmit is an excellent program – and this website gets the website of the week award.