ironcoder

We’re now updating a page with the list of prizes and sponsors of Ironcoder 5. The total value of the prizes is now over $1100. A great thanks to all our current and previous sponsors.

Visit the page (and perhaps sponsor Ironcoder yourself) here: http://ironcoder.org/blog/sponsors/

Woot! Iron Coder 4 is this weekend! Like last time, it will start on Friday, 5pm Central US time. The API and theme will be posted here then. The submission deadline is 5pm Central time on Sunday, and then live judging will happen in the #macsb IRC channel. The rules are pretty much unchanged from last time. And remember, if you win, you get to run IronCoder 5 in the Winter.

We have prizes this time around again, such as a bunch of cool stuff from the fine folks at Griffin Technology, including Two (yes two!) RadioSharks, an AirClick USB, PowerMate, and an iTrip Auto. I’m pimping my own warez by providing an autographed copy of Advanced Mac OS X Programming for the winner, as well as some Learn Objective C on the Macintosh ebooks from Spiderworks. The groovy folks at Zutubi have provided a Pulse Standard Edition license.

Also, Daniel Jalkut is contributing The Red Sweater Bundle, one each of FlexTime, FastScripts, and Clarion. And last Iron Coder judge Gus Mueller of Flying Meat fame is throwing in a copy of VoodooPad, FlySketch, and FlyGesture.

Hope to see you on Friday.

In addition to the fame of being a winner, and getting to judge IronCoder 5, the winner of IronCoder 4 will receive a copy of Advanced Mac OS X Programming, signed by myself and Aaron Hillegass.

If anyone else would like to sponsor IronCoder 4, please drop schwatoo a line (schwa at this.domain)

Posted by Mark Dalrymple

Whoa. Wolf “Jonathan” Rentzsch is putting on a Really Cool Mac Developer Conference. Everyone should go. That’s the same week we scheduled for the next IronCoder. If everyone goes to C4, they can’t work on their IronCoder entry. Bummer. Hence therefore ergo, we’re moving IronCoder ahead a week: October 27 through the 29th. Time to put on your Halloween costumes and hack the weekend away.

Oh, and we’ve got some prizes already. Stay tuned.

The date has been set, so make sure to mark it on your calendars.

The next #macsb IronCoder contest will be October 20-22, and we’ll be doing things a lot like last time since it seemed to work out well. You’ll get the API and the theme at the same time, giving you a full 48 hours to work on your Wicked Cool Stuff(tm). The kick-off is 5pm Central Time in the US on Friday night, and real-time judging in #macsb will start at 5pm Central Time on Sunday night. (so be sure to have your entries uploaded before then.)

Hopefully we’ll have some prizes again this go-around. If you produce some nifty hardware, software, or web services, and want to sponsor the next IronCoder, please drop schwatoo a line ( at schwa at this domain) - he’ll be coordinating the prizes.

Woot!

Posted by Tom Harrington

Over recent weeks I’ve been working on my own version of Sparkle, Andy Matuschak’s uber-cool auto-update framework for Cocoa apps. I love it– but at the same time, Omni Group’s Software Update Stats page just plain makes me drool. I so need data like that, and if I’d realized that back in 2002 I might have given up supporting 10.1 by now. Or not. But at least I’d know if dropping it was going to seriously inconvenience my customers.

So, I thought to myself, “Self, why not combine these ideas? I mean, if the app’s already contacting the server to check for an update, why not have it pass along some basic information about the Mac it’s running on at the time?” Since Sparkle’s open source and has a completely non-restrictive license, I decided to do it. However, Andy didn’t think it was something he wanted in the core Sparkle distribution.

So, here’s SparklePlus– Sparkle plus basic system profile information. This version of Sparkle is, as with the original, something you can pretty much just drop into your app and have it work. Do this, and the app will ask your users if it’s OK to include anonymous system information, and do its work without asking for any help from you.

Here’s a quick movie to show you what it looks like. Aside from this it’s exactly like Andy M’s movie. (And by the way– yes, we could use some help with localizing this window from people who speak languages other than English!)

There’s also some PHP code to use on your web host, along with a MySQL database. The distribution includes a README that explains how to use it. At the moment pretty graphs a la Omni are missing, but all in good time. The data gets collected, the eye candy will fit in later.

I’d like to thank Jonathan Wight for offering to host SparklePlus here at ironcoder.org, and for fixing some problems in the PHP code. Also numerous people in #macsb have been extremely helpful, looking over the code, putting it through its paces and making sure it seems ready for public consumption.

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p>You can get SparklePlus 0.2 through SVN here at ironcoder.org. That’d be: svn co http://ironcoder.org/svn/SparklePlus/tags/release-0.2 Or if you want to keep up to date with it, grab the trunk and take your chances: svn co http://ironcoder.org/svn/SparklePlus/trunk

As of today it’s current with Andy’s latest SVN updates (that’s rev 686).

Less than two weeks until the Ironcoder \01 contest begins. Who will be judged supreme Mac OS X hacker?

Chairman Eckels has decided on the following dates & times for the phases of the contest.

• Friday, May 19, 6pm EST (23:00 UTC): API will be announced.
• Saturday, May 20, 6pm EST (23:00 UTC): Theme will be announced.
• Sunday, May 21, 6pm EST (23:00 UTC): Judging will begin.

Judging will be based on four criteria:

• Style
• Technical expertise
• Use of API and theme
• Cool factor

Some rules:

• The programs must run in their own address space- so that rules out input managers and haxies. The program must also run without authentication.
• Source code has to be included, and you’ve got to be ok with it being public.
• New projects only! The idea is to try and cram all development into a 24hr period.
• If it’s some sort of movie, or something that you have to sit through, it can’t be longer than 1:27 seconds.
• Files must be under 5mb compressed (for uploading).
• A quick little blurb on how to run your program, what it does, and how it ties into the theme is probably a good idea.
• The app has to be totally self contained. We don’t want files littered all over the judge’s system.
• The judge has to be able to compile the code.
• Instant disqualification if judge is too scared to run the code.
• You must be willing to be the next competition’s judge.
• Unless somebody wants to buy the judge a new Intel Mac, it better run on PPC. Bonus points to anyone who sends the judge hardware.

Check. Check. Is this thing on?

Ahem.

Ok, looks like we’ve got everything up and running, just in time for Iron Coder v1. It’s set for May 19 and Lucas Eckels is the esteemed judge for this round since he was the winner for Iron Coder v0. (All hail wolf!)

So what are the rules? Same as last time- head on over to Lucas’s blog and read all about it.