A few years ago I got into the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game and discovered their single-player books, like Alone Against the Dark and Alone Against the Frost. I rather thought that putting together an app version with all the rules built in would be a fun project, but never had the time.

In December 2010 I had the opportunity to speak at the MacDev|360 conference in Denver. Since this was the first big Mac-focused thing I’d had the opportunity to speak at (everything since 2008 had been all iPhone, all the time), I decided to delve into my archive somewhat and pull out the knowledge I’d gained while working on MacAdministrator, where I’d implemented OpenDirectory plugins, authorization plugins, and even process injection and runtime function patching.

Back in the Old Times, when Macs still used PowerPC processors, I worked on desktop management software that needed to override core system functionality, for example disabling a menu item in Internet Explorer or Safari, or intercepting print commands to perform cost accounting. I ultimately worked out a way to inject code into other processes (we were running as root after all) and then patch any given function by swapping out its first instruction. When the Intel switch came, I figured out how to do the same thing for x86/IA-32.

This second batch of unearthed slides comes from my years at Kobo, where I led the team that created the Kobo iOS app, then went on to work on standards conformance issues. I wound up taking part in working groups at the IDPF and the W3C, helping stitch together EPUB standards and tried (mostly failed) to get web browsers to properly implement the things that page-layout eBooks would need, rather than dynamically-sized websites.

I’ve been digging through old files lately—stuff in dropbox and on old hard drives—and realised I’d done quite a few presentations in the past for which there’s just about nothing available online. Here’s a couple that deal with iOS 4 and 5 APIs. I worked a lot with networking and data handling at this time, so I’d run into all the bad situations head-on and had to work out solutions on my own, and I’d get to talk about that sometimes.

One of the key elements of the new UI styles introduced in iOS 8 and macOS 10.10 was the use of transparency, specifically a blurred semitransparent background through which some of the underlying content could be seen. On iOS, this is implemented using a UIVisualEffectView, while on macOS the same can be obtained using an NSVisualEffectView. The two are somewhat different in the types of inputs they take, however, and their APIs don’t quite match up with one another.

If you’ve been playing with SwiftUI for a while, you’re likely familiar with the liberal use of @State and @Binding throughout the library. For instance, consider the following simple to-do item editor:

I’m back, folks, and I’m working on a book about SwiftUI.

I’m feeling rather legitimized today: none other than Adobe themselves have joined the Readium Foundation. The initial goal of our collaboration is to ensure that any reading system built using the Readium SDK will have the option to include built-in handling for EPUB 2 and EPUB 3 documents protected using Adobe Content Server 4 – the most pervasive form of DRM in the eBook industry.

From John Gruber

Tyler Hayes on iTunes Radio:

The design and goal is clearly focused on listeners purchasing music — but even so, iTunes Radio feels like the first truly modern take on what terrestrial radio wishes it could be. Radio was always meant to be a promotion tool, a way to sell more music, but without being built directly on top of the world’s biggest music retailer, it was always too distant from the marketplace to be more effectual. Now a “buy” button lives next to every song, or a wish list one for those hesitant, and it feels like this is how modern radio should function.

Agreed; iTunes Radio is well-done and well-designed. I’m a little surprised Apple is making everyone wait for iOS 7 to get it.