I’ve updated the blog to WP 3.4 Beta 2, and slapped on a new theme.

The header will feature whatever decent photos I’ve taken.

The twitter widget is dead (I wasn’t tweeting anyhow), and seeing how infrequently I post here, I’ve killed the post calendar widget as well.

I’ve added Eric Mann‘s WP Core Contributions Widget plugin, and modified it to show WP iOS contributions as well.

Also, I’ve taken the time to write about a recent code project of mine.

One of the many perks at Voce is the opportunity to contribute back to open source software.

In some rare free moments, I was able to add HTTP authentication to the WordPress iPhone app, which had been on the ‘future enhancements’ list for quite some time.

I’m really quite elated that I now have code in the App Store, and that I could help such an awesome OSS community.

Feel free to view the patch submission, and mention on the WordPress iPhone blog.

Screenshots!

Movement (which I haven’t even had time to write about yet) is out!

Check it out here: http://jeffstieler.com/movementapp

After some encouraging words from the founder of the Orlando Python Users Group (and a Twitter-based kick in the ass), I have decided to start an Orlando chapter of CocoaHeads. I’ll setup a Google group and website shortly, as well as a Twitter account for the group.

As I am a Cocoa/Objective-C newbie myself, the Orlando CocoaHeads will welcome developers of all levels of familiarity with the Mac development tools!

UPDATE: Google group and website now exist!

For never touching Objective-C or Cocoa in his life, he took on a rather ambitious volley: turning my simple “speaking magic eight ball” into a speaking RSS feed reader.

He found Apple’s Publication Subscription framework, and went to town trying to get it to work. I took a quick look at the code, and it seems I’ll have to do some reading in the documentation before I can fix it.

Hopefully this doesn’t spell the end for our Code Tennis match..

Check out the code on github.

I’m sure you can see where this is going… yes, Code Tennis!  A quick google showed me that some other people had this idea before me, and setup a nice looking website, although no one is using it.

Code Tennis has some cool features: Twitter notification of volleys, bitchin’ graphics, and a timeline of commits/volleys.  I just hope that it all works as expected since it doesn’t look like the creators have had any external testing yet.

I’m playing my friend Pete (his site). So far the only ground rule is that the app has to be a Mac desktop app (NOT document based) written in Objective-C.

First Volley before click

My first volley (above) is a Magic 8 Ball that uses the OS X speech synthesizer to “say” the 8-Ball’s response.  I can’t wait to see what Pete does with it!

First volley after click

New glasses!

I am completely satisfied with my purchase.  You simply can’t beat getting 4 pairs of glasses with anti-glare coating for $124 shipped! (Ok you can, but still – this is a great deal).

I opted to get 3 conservative pairs, and one “odd” pair (the under-the-lens-frame design).

The frames are all of good quality, and came with nondescript white hard cases.  I will definitely consider Zenni Optical for my next glasses purchase!

Expect the project page to be editted several times.. it’s in pretty rough shape at the moment.

Please do check it out on the Projects page!

An IDE that really helped me out when I did write said python was Stani’s Python Editor (SPE).  It has a host of useful features including (but not limited to) debugging, UML, GUI creation, and Blender support.

Without modification, SPE is simply a .py to be executed, which can be a bit cumbersome on OS X where you may be used to launching apps via the dock or spotlight/quicksilver.

Over on Stani’s blog, Krzysztof Olczyk posted an OS X packaged version of SPE.

I have simply updated the version to reflect the latest as of this post, which is 0.8.4.h

If there are issues, check the forums over at Berlios, or contact me.

You can snag it here.