Speak at Mac OS X Con by Derrick Story
Online version of the Mac Newsletter for April 30, 2004. 04/30/2004

BBEdit: Its Unix Support Doesn't Suck Either, Part 2 by Kevin O'Malley
In part one of this two-part series, Kevin O'Malley introduced you to BBEdit's Unix support features. Now, he shows you how to put BBEdit to work via filters, scripts, and more. 04/30/2004

Basics of Offscreen Buffering by Michael J. Norton
In this second installment of Elementary Computer Graphics, Michael Norton shows you how to load an art file into your video game just like you'd see on a Game Boy. These tutorials are designed for parents and other adults to share with children who have an interest in computer programming. 04/30/2004

Mad Macs and the Unshredder by Michael Swaine
Maybe Apple Computer should avoid all that nasty litigation with Apple Corps and simply change its name. How about Mad Macs? Michael Swaine thinks outside of the music box. 04/27/2004

BBEdit: Its Unix Support Doesn't Suck Either, Part 1 by Kevin O'Malley
In this first article of a two-part series, Kevin O'Malley introduces you to BBEdit's Unix support features. He also includes a nifty hack for listing the songs on your iPod, copying songs from your iPod to iTunes, and playing a song in iTunes -- all from within BBEdit. 04/27/2004

Unit Testing with OCUnit by Jim Menard
Are you sure your code works -- all of it? If you make a change in one place, can you be sure you haven't broken something else? Testing frameworks can help you make sure. In this article, Jim Menard shows you how OCUnit can become part of the solution. 04/23/2004

GarageBand for the Musical Newbie by Giles Turnbull
If you're a musician, GarageBand is a much different animal than it is for those who don't play an instrument. So, can a musical newbie with a good ear, G4 laptop, and a piece of software create an interesting song? Giles Turnbull explores. 04/20/2004

PBTOMAKE -- Xcode to Unix by Jim Schimpf
Even in its early stages, Xcode shows lots of potential as the premier IDE for Mac OS X development. But what if you want to recompile that code for Unix? There's no export. Jim Schimpf shows you the utility he designed for this, called PBTOMAKE. 04/20/2004

Mac OS X Conference Tracks by Derrick Story
Online version of the Mac Newsletter for April 16, 2004. 04/16/2004

Component Object Model (COM) Development on Mac OS X by Christopher Hunt
COM allows software components with a high potential for reuse to be shared between programs, and has been implemented on Mac OS X as part of the Core Foundation framework. Because it's commonplace in Windows development, many programmers don't know that COM works just as well on Mac OS X. Christopher Hunt shows you the ins and outs of COM on the Mac platform. 04/16/2004

Building Applications with AppleScript and FaceSpan by Matt Neuburg
How can you take advantage of AppleScript to write stand-alone Cocoa applications? Matt Neuburg, author of AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, introduces you to FaceSpan, a self-contained, program-building environment that leverages the power of AppleScript. 04/13/2004

Virtual Book Signings by Nitrozac and Snaggy
Snaggy & Nitrozac are back this week offering their brand of humor and technical know-how to the use of video conferencing technology. They've used their virtual book signing events to demonstrate the power of iSight and iChat AV, but their aim is to stir your creative juices to find other ways to apply these technologies, perhaps to connect with friends and family around the world, or perhaps for use in your own business. Snaggy & Nitrozac are the authors of The Best of the Joy of Tech. 04/13/2004

Launchers for Mac OS X by Giles Turnbull
LaunchBar is the best known Finder enhancer on the platform, but there are many noteworthy challengers, including Quicksilver. Giles Turnbull loads up an entire lot of launchers and reports. 04/09/2004

Managing Packages on Panther with DarwinPorts by Ernest E. Rothman
Mac OS X is rich in packaging options. One popular choice is the Debian-based Fink package management system. But another excellent option is DarwinPorts, which is explained in this article, written by the coauthor of Mac OS X Panther for Unix Geeks. 04/09/2004

The Cocoa Controller Layer by Michael Beam
The controller layer is the confluence of several new and existing Cocoa technologies, including key-value coding, key-value observing, and key-value binding. In this tutorial, Mike Beam returns for a guest appearance to discuss NSController. 04/06/2004

Survey Results by Derrick Story
Online version of the Mac Newsletter for April 2, 2004. 04/02/2004

FileMaker-to-Oracle Migration with FmPro Migrator on Mac OS X , Part 2 by David Simpson
FileMaker Pro 6 is a terrific database, as long as you stay within the confines of its design. In part one of this series, David Simpson provided practical migration information using FmPro Migrator on Mac OS X to automate the move from FileMaker to Oracle. Here in part two, he goes through the steps of completing a FileMaker-to-Oracle transition. 04/02/2004

Results from the Second Mac DevCenter Survey by Derrick Story
More than 1,200 Mac DevCenter readers responded to our second online survey. Here's who you are, what you like, and the directions in which you want us to go. 04/02/2004

Creating Online Help with Tinderbox by Matt Neuburg
Apple's online help system, Apple Help, has a dubious reputation among some Mac users, mainly because of poky performance. But Panther has improved the situation. Matt Neuburg built an online help system for a Mac application using a note-taking hypertext outliner called Tinderbox. He outlines the process in this article. 03/30/2004

Setting Up Apple Remote Desktop by Wei-Meng Lee
Whether you need to administer lots of computers in the workplace or the classroom, Apple Remote Desktop will make your job easier. Here's a walkthrough of its setup and basic operations. 03/26/2004

Unix on Panther: Accessing the Internet by Dave Taylor and Brian Jepson
This excerpt from Learning Unix for Mac OS X Panther introduces Unix networking: remotely accessing your Mac from other computers and copying files between computers. It also shows you how the Connect to Server capability of Terminal can make common connections a breeze once you've set them up the first time. 03/26/2004

Dev to Dev: James Duncan Davidson Interviews Panic by James Duncan Davidson
The folks at Panic have been producing great software for the Mac since the System 7 days. James Duncan Davidson, author of "Running Mac OS X," interviews the Panic cofounders to discuss Cocoa, Xcode, surviving with Apple, and making it as an independent developer. 03/23/2004

New Developer Journal by Derrick Story
Online version of the Mac Newsletter for March 19, 2004. 03/19/2004

Panther, Python, and CoreGraphics by Mitch Chapman
Mac OS X Panther includes many updated developer tools. Among them is an enhanced version of Python 2.3 with its own SWIG-based bindings to the CoreGraphics library. Here's a look at the capabilities of the module and examples of how to use CoreGraphics to rescale and decorate images for publication on the Web. 03/19/2004

Are You Talking to Me? Speech on Mac OS X by FJ de Kermadec
Apple's recent announcement of Spoken Interface has moved speech recognition to the forefront. However, Mac OS X has included speech recognition and synthesis technologies for quite some time. In this article we delve into the often misunderstood world of talking to your Mac. 03/17/2004

You Sexy Thing! by Nitrozac and Snaggy
Just about everyone looks great behind a cursor, but the days of communicating online exclusively with text are numbered. So Snaggy and Nitrozac offer their brand of advice on how to look great on iChat AV, in spite of iSight. With tips on proper lighting, camera angles, and using the right foundation, Snaggy and Nitrozac offer more of the high-tech humor you've come to know and love in their comic and in their book, The Best of The Joy of Tech. 03/16/2004

Tapping RSS with Shell Scripts by Dave Taylor
Here's how to write a shell script that watches the news from Slashdot.org. After applying the code in this article by Dave Taylor, coauthor of Learning Unix for Mac OS X Panther, all you'll have to do is launch the Terminal to see the latest Slash headlines. 03/12/2004

Tell Us What You Think: The 2nd Mac DevCenter Survey by Derrick Story
We're asking Mac DevCenter readers to participate in our second online survey. We've sweetened the pot with a chance to win books. Here's how it works. 03/09/2004

End of Shutter Lag? The Contax SL300R T* Might Be the Sign of Good Things to Come by Derrick Story
Kyocera's RTUNE technology provides amazing performance in a digital camera that fits easily in your shirt pocket. Is this the beginning of the end for shutter lag? Derrick Story examines the Contax SL300R T* and shows you how the bar has been raised for pocket digicams. 03/09/2004

Your Thoughts? by Derrick Story
Online version of the Mac Newsletter for March 5, 2004. 03/05/2004

LaTeX: It's Not Just for Academia, Part 2 by Kevin O'Malley
In Part 1 of this two-article series, Kevin O'Malley introduced you to the popular installations of LaTeX for Mac OS X. Here in Part 2 he takes you inside document creation and shows you how to accomplish basic writing tasks. 03/05/2004

Scheduling Tasks in Panther by James Duncan Davidson
Mac OS X gives you several tools to help execute tasks at certain times of day and on a regular basis. To manage this, the system uses a set of utilities called cron and periodic. In this book excerpt from Running Mac OS X Panther, James Duncan Davidson takes you inside the ticking brain of your Mac. 03/05/2004

Listening to Bluetooth (or at least trying to) by Dori Smith
Using iChat AV with a Bluetooth-enabled headset has great potential and some immediate benefits. Dori Smith has wrestled with the configuration and shows you what works, what almost works, and what to look out for. Dori is the coauthor of Mac OS X Unwired. 03/02/2004

Cleaning iPhoto by brian d foy
When you have thousands of images in iPhoto, and don't have time to cull them manually, scripting starts to look very appealing. brian d foy shows you some helpful AppleScripts and Perl scripts you can use to clean up your iPhoto libraries. 02/27/2004

bash on Mac OS X by David Miller
In the migration from Jaguar to Panther, one of the lesser discussed changes has been the switch from tcsh to bash as the default shell (for new accounts). In this article, David Miller delves into affected areas, such as aliases and environment variables, to help you make the transition. 02/24/2004

Bookends by Derrick Story
Online version of the Mac Newsletter for February 20, 2004. 02/20/2004

A Security Primer for Mac OS X by FJ de Kermadec
A hands-on overview of the security tools built into your Mac OS X computer, including recommendations for best practices to protect your data and identity in an otherwise dangerous world. 02/20/2004

Home Automation with Mac OS X, Part 2 by Alan Graham
In the first article in this series, Alan Graham provided you with an overview of a home automation system. In this installment, he digs deeper into the hardware and gives some tips based on his experiences. 02/20/2004

Home Automation with Mac OS X, Part 1 by Alan Graham
Having more control over how your home operates isn't just a geek fantasy. You can lower energy costs, improve security, and enhance the overall ambiance of your humble abode. Alan Graham shows you how to leverage your Mac OS X computer and get started. 02/13/2004

Automated Backups with Existing Tools by Peter Hickman
Backing up your hard disc is the job nobody wants to do -- and even more so, no one wants to spend a lot of money doing it. Fortunately, Apple gives you everything you need in Mac OS X. You just have to pull it together. Peter Hickman shows you how. 02/10/2004

Mac DevCenter Content by Derrick Story
Online version of the Mac Newsletter for February 6, 2004. 02/06/2004

Failing Miserably, If Not Inventively by Kevin Hemenway
A tale by Morbus of how Panther broke his automation and how, with a few days of disjointed searching, experimentation, and dreaming, he didn't fix the problem. Instead, we simply follow one man's obsession as he makes steadily more desperate attempts to scratch a bothersome itch. 02/06/2004

First Look: OmniWeb 5 Beta by Michael Brewer
Omni Group's browser was one of the first alternatives to Internet Explorer for Mac OS X. Always admired for its beautiful interface, OmniWeb has at times suffered from lackluster performance. Everything seems to be coming together for version 5--innovation, beauty, and speed. Michael Brewer shares his impressions. 02/03/2004

LaTeX: It's Not Just for Academia, Part 1 by Kevin O'Malley
LaTeX is not a word processor. It's a document preparation system that produces typeset-quality output. LaTeX has as much, if not more, utility as commercial word processors. It's rock solid, has a long history of use, a large user base, and best of all, it's free. Kevin O'Malley covers the versions of LaTeX available for Mac OS X. 02/03/2004

Smart File Sharing Between Macs and PCs by Wei-Meng Lee
There are lots of ways to share files between Macs and PCs, and most of them are aggravating at best. Wei Meng Lee shows you a method that's much easier and cleaner than just about every other solution. 01/30/2004

Sanitizing Mail on Panther Server by Jason Deraleau
With Mac OS X Server 10.3, Apple has replaced Apple Mail Server with Postfix, which allows you to use common UNIX and open source tools to perform various tasks with your mail. One of these tools, Procmail, lets mail messages be processed with special "recipes," such as the Anomy Sanitizer. Here's how to set it up. 01/27/2004

iLife Mini-Manual by Derrick Story
Online version of the Mac Newsletter for January 23, 2004. 01/23/2004

BYOB: Build Your Own Browser by Andrew Anderson
WebKit is a fully functional set of web browsing components that developers can integrate into their Cocoa/Carbon applications. Andrew Anderson shows you how to get your hands dirty with this easy-to-use API. 01/23/2004

How to Set Up Encrypted Mail on Mac OS X by FJ de Kermadec
The latest version of Apple's Mail app, included with the Panther upgrade, supports S/MIME security and encryption. But how do you go about getting a certificate and taking advantage of this feature? François Joseph de Kermadec shows you how, step by step. 01/20/2004

Using WebObjects: More Practical Tips and Tricks by Josh Paul
In this third installment of Josh Paul's WebObjects series, he shows you more tips and techniques for configuring Direct to Web applications. 01/16/2004