Solipsism Gradient

Yes, I know, it’s been over two weeks. I’ve been holding back some posts I’ve wanted to make, since they demanded preliminary work I couldn’t do at the time… scanning stuff and processing pictures, and so on. Hopefully next week…

Meanwhile, my proposed paper for the 2005 Advanced Developers Hands On Conference has been accepted. ADHOC (formerly famous as MacHack) will happen July 27-31, 2005, in Dearborn MI (near Detroit). A great conference for Mac developers.

Regarding the paper, the working title is: “Out of the Bottle: Beyond the Genie Effect”.

One Cocoa FAQ is how to do the Genie Effect. Unfortunately, the effect itself is done behind the curtain by the Window Manager. We’ll show how to do it in a few easy steps, which will teach you how to:

1) Overlay a transparent window over the screen and draw into it

2) Use OpenGL in that window to move images around

3) Make it appear that your windows are actually doing cool stuff.

Most important, this is the first paper I’ll be doing with a coauthor: Jeff Biggus, the mild-mannered secret identity of HyperJeff (cue applause!). Jeff will be doing the OpenGL part – something about which I know very little right now – and I’ll be doing the graphic interface part. He’ll also attend the conference to present the paper, as I won’t be able to make it this year.

In other news, RBSplitView 1.0.5 is nearly ready for publication. There’s still one feature request and a couple of bugs to take care of, but I hope to have it ready over the weekend. So watch this space…

ADHOC MacHack Cocoa

The Advanced Developers Hands On Conference, for the first 18 years known as MacHack, will take place on July 21-24, 2004, in Dearborn, Michigan, USA.

I’ve attended 3 times in the past and written several papers for it. As most of you know, I heartily endorse the conference – it’s smaller, more concentrated, and much more fun than WWDC. The US is off my travel routes for now, so I won’t be able to attend – but I plan to publish a paper in absentia.

I just saw on Jon Rentzsch‘ site that he’s calling for MacHack stories by previous attendees… and he kindly linked to here, too. Thanks Jon, I will contribute some stories in the near future…

As I’ve mentioned before, I won’t be able to make it to MacHack this year… however, I strongly recommend this year’s conference for anybody interested in programming for the Mac.

MacHack #18: Unstoppable will be held from June 19-21, 2003, in Dearborn, Michigan. The official theme is the Spinning Pizza of Death . Have a look at the contents; I’ve never seen so many papers and sessions, all very interesting. This will certainly be a conference to remember.

For the first time, MacHack will happen before Apple’s WWDC, which will begin immediately afterwards: June 23-27 in San Francisco. In other circumstances, this close juxtaposition would make it possible for me to attend both conferences; let’s hope they do it again that way next year…

MacHack #18 will be held June 19-21 in Dearborn MI (in the Detroit Metro area). Sessions and papers have just been announced.

This will be the first time in some years that I’ll skip a MacHack – every year from 1997 to 2002 I’ve either attended or written a paper (sometimes both). Unfortunately, between the war, possible terrorist attacks, and the mysterious pneumonia outbreaks, the situation is not favorable for a trip to the US this year, and personal concerns have left no time for writing a paper. I hope that I’ll be able to attend again next year.