stve.cx

If you are doing animation intense stuff with jQuery[^1] you probably have noticed that there can be problems with animations, especially when you try to run multiple animations at the same time.

Without going into details how you should handle the new features (you can go thru them at the jQuery release note[^2]) just 2 quick fixes for your current projects:

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You probably Know the problem commonly referred to as a deadlock: Two simultaneously running tasks both don’t complete because they are waiting for the other one to finish.

As I am currently on vacation in Italy I was really amused having a similar problem with the beach’s toilet door.

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As a registered iOS and Mac OS developer I am officially allowed to use the previews of upcoming software. Ever since the first 10.7 beta, the default scrolling direction was what you would call “inverted”, the opposite of in 10.6 but the same as in iOS.

Of course it was strange at first sight but worked out pretty well, because it makes much more sense: When you want to see the contents of the lower part in a page, you no longer push the “viewport” down (as this is an abstract thing in reality) but push the page upward.

It feels really natural, at least on a trackpad. You do the same thing as you always did on your iPhone, and I got used to it so much I inverted scrolling on 10.6 as well (with the little tool Scroll Reverser¹).

And because “bloody edge” is my second name, I used the same tool on my iMac with the Apple Magic Mouse. Surprisingly, this works, too. Only in the very first moment after a “break” from scrolling I’m still practicing the old habit, but then It’s a good feeling to scroll the right way.

What is this?

This is part 1 of a series of posts in which I will write down my thoughts about computers and most important all the stuff that’s behind it. The world seen as a developer.

It happens quite often, that we… uhm… nerds(?) are laughed at for being different. Sometimes a guess this is how it must feel when you are different in any way.

But what’s so awkward about discussing the latest Minecraft¹ change logs and what a bad performance Java has. About explaining an exciting algorithm you found out about lately? About designing class diagrams in math lessons while the other students are playing on their iPhones?

I can’t tell, because I’m one of the people being different when seen that way. And frankly, I can’t see why it is better to know the football league by heart then the ASCII table (no, I don’t ;).

Because for me, a computer is not only a computer. A computer is the greatest tool mankind has ever invented, because it can redefine itself. As computers enable new ways of doing something, there are new problems which then can be solved by computers.

And most people see a computer as a messy box that has a monitor attached but that never does the thing they want. (sounds like a windows specific problem) Anyway, they have no good attitude towards technology because of their experiences.

They navigate to Facebook and want to chat with their friends and when the chat doesn’t work, their computer fucked it up. That’s a bad experience of course, and computers are full of them.

But that’s not what I see when I see a computer

to be continued

Tomorrow night there’ll be one of the 3 or 4 big Apple events this year, the WWDC Keynote in San Francisco. Here are my thoughts, this is what I expect:

• Steve Jobs will be on stage. The already announced products simply sound too amazing not to be presented by the “iGod” (cough) himself

• iOS 5 which was announced earlier by a press release (only the fact that it will come, not what it will bring). It will bring a new notification system, maybe with some sort of lockscreen overview or widget system (which is rumored by many “sources”) Also I think we’ll see a very tight integration of “CoreServices” (as I call them now) which could be used e.g. by Twitter to integrate their new photo service¹ or dropbox etc.

• iCloud could give us the current feature set of Mobile Me (for free) including a very small space to store files. Additionally, rumors grew loud² over the last few days that Apple plans to do something with music and the internet. I hope we’ll see a service like spotify³ which essentially is great but unfortunately not available in my country (Germany. We got used to that phrase by using youtube -,-)

• Not to forget Mac OS 10.7 Lion which will be a huge step in usability and freshness by taking the good parts from iOS into the Mac OS. As I looked into the betas, I’m really looking forward to it. I could imagine, though, that neither Lion nor iOS 5 will be available today as there are no iOS 5 betas around yet and the 10.7 beta 5 still seemed a little buggy (but hey, it’s a *beta’ ;))

Keep in mind, that these are only my expectations and/or wished so feel free to comment and share what you’ve got in mind for the WWCD Keynote 2011!

Or as I would normally say:

    NSLog(@"Hello World!");

You should be able to guess now what kind of person I am (if not, see my personal website¹), and what this blog will be about.

Let me do a quick

    // set the whole thing up!
    [[NSBlog alloc] initWithTitle:@"stve.cx"];

and we’re ready to go.

You’ll find my thoughts about the tech scene, Apple, OS X and iOS as well as code or tips & tricks I learned about while coding apps for the Apple platforms. Also, check out my project AppDump², it’s worth it!