This is going to be a short blog post since I’m using a public terminal in between the Apple Design Awards and Stump the Experts - the evening activities. I’m using a public terminal because I finally decided to go over the Apple store at 4:00 PM, sign up for a genius bar time (7:00 PM), and send my PowerBook in for repair. It’s got white dots on the screen that really suck - it’s not a big deal normally but when working in Word or other applications that are predominately white, you can see three or so spots where the pixels have either died or … ? Whatever the case, it’s being sent in to Apple (the genius took one look at it, said it sucked, and then had me backup my files). Let’s hope that it gets repaired properly!
This morning was more of the same. Woke up, walked to the Moscone Center, had breakfast, and then it was start of the sessions. I went to Using Bindings to Help Sync your Data and UI and then to the Advanced Document-Based Application Techniques. Both were good sessions but half way through, I realized I didn’t really follow anymore. These are things that I definitely need to read more on. Lunch came, I ate the food, and then went into the Union Square area to do a bit of shopping. Then it was time for more sessions and they were really good. Went to .Mac integration, Sync Services, and then Core Data. Core Data rules. It really is an amazing technology and so much is provided for us. It’s built upon SQLite (XML and Binary too) and it’s fast. It’s also really easy to use. They showed a very good, clear example, and it used zero (yes, zero) lines of code. That’s the beauty of Xcode, Interface Builder, and Bindings.
It’s time to go now- the final activity is starting. Tomorrow will be more sessions, followed by a trip to Apple’s campus in Cupertino for the Campus Bash … music and food and drinks. I’ll post more when I get a chance…
For dinner tonight, Mathieu, Varun, Padraic, and I headed out to the North Beach section of San Francisco for dinner. To get there, we had to brave our way through China Town and the people trying to get us to eat in their restaurants. If there’s one thing that turns me off from a place is a pushy waiter or waitress trying to get our attention. We’ll choose a place that we want to go, thank you very much.
North Beach is a pretty hip area, with some seedy places on the edges and a lot of Italian restaurants within. We ended up eating in a place called Calzone which wasn’t bad. We sat outside and watched the traffic and passerby’s, talked shop, and had Californian style Calzone and Pizza (long, bruscheta like pies). After dinner, we walked back, again via China Town, and stopped in a decent crepes, ice cream, tapioca place. I had a crepe with lemon sorbet that after the carbs, tasted delicious. I’m by Union Square now in the Borders but in a little while, I’ll be heading back to the hotel to crash. I’m tired from being outside all day and I’d like to spend the full day (9 AM to 10 PM) at the conference tomorrow. Till later…
Day two of the conference and things are settling down into a nice routine. The confusion felt yesterday with Apple’s switch to Intel seems to have mostly been forgotten and the focus of the event, Tiger and developing for it, are being pushed to the forefront.
I arrived this morning at the Moscone Center just before 9:00 AM this morning in time for a decent breakfast and plenty of coffee. The first session I attended was Cutting-Edge Interface Design for Mac OS X, a session that gives tips and tricks on how to design for the Mac OS, what to look out for, and of course, presented some examples. A lot of things that I just knew were right were explained and I left the session feeling confident on Apple’s emphasis on UI. Of interest, Mike Matas of Delicious Library, as well as Geoff Pealman of REAL Software, spoke to use on their design and re-design (respectively) of their software. Very interesting session all together.
After a snack and more coffee, I headed to my second and last session of the day, this time on Core Image. I followed along well enough in the beginning, finally understanding how filters work on top of images, and was able to fully appreciate their early source code. As soon as they began to talk about image units, I knew they were far beyond my simplistic approach to images and I left to find an ethernet point (as they are the only way to get online at the conference reliably).
Soon after, it was time for Lunch and Mathieu and I met up with one of my roommates from last WWDC, Padraic, and we had lunch. Chicken faijtas and tortilla chips were served, and as is with almost all mass produced, conference food, it was decent but not good. As soon as lunch was done, it was time for me to head out in to San Francisco and start sightseeing.
Alcatraz from a Distance
7:30 AM
Monday. The official ‘Day 1′ of the WWDC Conference. Mathieu and I are excited. In a couple of hours, Steve Jobs will take center stage in the Presidio conference room, in front of 3800 developers eagerly awaiting a comment on the rumors that have been flying around in the past few days. Will Apple move over to Intel? Or is this just a hoax? What new machines will be released? Is the iPod 2 GB rumor true?
9:15 AM
We’ve been sitting/standing in line for the past hour and a half. The wait is getting long. The New York Times and SF Gate provided by the Hyatt have been read and discarded and with the WiFi down, there’s very little to do. I’ve talked with a couple of attendees from Syracuse University and listened to a REAL Software developer discuss the benefits of REALbasic with others, but I’m bored. Developers are just like everyone else, cutting in front of one another and in general, the organization so far has been fairly poor. At least there’s plenty of coffee available and to make things better, it’s even called Aram’s Blend.
Waking up at 7:30 this morning, jet lagged and still groggy, I got ready to head to the Moscone West, a ten-minute walk from our downtown hotel, to check-in and receive our free swag from Apple. Like last year, they provided us with laptop backpacks, our badges, and a conference schedule. However, in addition, much to my enjoyment, they also provided us with mini-nalgene’s of just the right size. After checking in, Mathieu (who I am rooming with) and I headed over to the Argent hotel to begin the student Sunday program.
Apple provided us with a very decent continental breakfast and it didn’t take long to meet up with other students in the program, as well as, those who I roomed with last year. The morning went by mostly quickly, although the introduction to Cocoa presentation was the same as the one from last year. Realizing this, Mathieu and I decided that instead of sitting through the afternoon sessions, we’d have lunch (on Apple’s expense) and then head out to do some sightseeing on this sunny Sunday.
Japanese Tea Garden in the Golden Gate Park
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