Singletons in Cocoa applications

Part of the Singletons series. The Singleton pattern is a powerful tool in every programmer’s toolbox. But singletons today are widely overused in most codebases. The consequences of misusing such a powerful tool are too far-reaching and long-lived to take lightly. And overuse or misuse of this tool leads …

The Value of ReactiveCocoa

This post is largely in response to Soroush Khanlou, via Jason Brennan. Edited to add, 2014-02-17: Soroush has posted a response, which you shoud also read after this post. It’s undeniably true that ReactiveCocoa can be difficult to wrap your head around. Really understanding it — really making it click …

Objective-C

Context: Soroush Khanlou, via Jason Brennan. And I’m drafting a less-snarky response now. I was reading an article on Objective-C, and I still don’t quite get it. Lifting a simple example from the post, are we really down to say that {% highlight objc %} import <Foundation/Foundation.h& …

Serving from your Dropbox folder with nginx

Long ago, Dropbox provided a Public folder that had some special capabilities. Those capabilities are now better integrated into Dropbox, but I still use my Public folder for things I intend to share. I set up a server to make that folder available over the web. I can now share …

I FOIA'd Myself with the FBI

In August I sent the FBI a FOIA request to see what would come back. The results were boring, which I suppose is a good thing even if it's a little disappointing. 📝Update: in 2016 I did the same thing, with the same result. …

Do programmers use serial commas more often than other people? (No.)

A few weeks ago, I accidentally got into a Twitter discussion of the serial, or Oxford, comma (this happens to me every couple months). A few programmer friends chimed in, and Dylan asked an interesting question: are programmers generally biased toward the Oxford comma? 18 minutes later, this survey happened. …

ArborWX

Introducing a new hyperlocal weather blog for Ann Arbor: ArborWX.

CDZLinkOpenManager

Part of the Project Announcements series. Update: the software described in this post is no longer maintained. While developing BuyVM Manager, I built a little framework that allows your app’s users to select a default browser, and open links from your app in that browser. It’s now on …

Where is this awesome airplane playground?

Updated: some additional Googling reveals that this is at the “Lugansk aviation museum”. Some relevant links: a biography/history of the museum; additional information about the museum; notes and many photos from someone’s blog; another large photo gallery. Googling “Lugansk aviation museum” will let you find some more info. …

CDZPinger

Part of the Project Announcements series. Update: the software described in this post is no longer maintained. While writing BuyVM Manager, I was disappointed to find there was no good, easy-to-use ICMP ping library for iOS projects. Apple provides a SimplePing code sample that you can adapt into your codebase, …

The UGLi

A brief investigation into the origin of the nickname “UGLi” for the University of Michigan’s Shapiro Undergraduate Library.

Elegant UITableView row selection behavior based on edit state

If you're a Cocoa Touch developer, you've undoubtedly implemented -[UITableViewDelegate tableView:didSelectRowAtIndexPath:] a few hundred times. I did this recently and needed different behavior based on whether the table view was in its editing state (whether -[UITableView isEditing]). In this particular case, the best …

Collaborating with Git and Github

Introduction to collaboration using Git and Github. I gave this talk for Michigan Hackers in September 2012. The slides, with speakers' notes, are available in PDF. I've also posted a screen recording of the presentation, with audio. …

1.5 Years of UMich Magic Bus Data

An archive of collected University of Michigan Magic Bus data.

Shooting Theatre, Dance, and Music

Intro to photographing plays/musicals/dance/opera/concerts, with particular focus on plays, musicals, and dance. I gave this talk for the Michigan Daily's photostaff in 2012. Alternative title: "Shooting Things That Move Fast in the Dark". The slides, with speakers' notes, are available in …