Changes
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This is a story about the last 3 months of my life.
So my work history is pretty hilarious. If I was in any other industry, you'd think I was a deadbeat that can't hold down a job. It's slightly different for engineers in San Francisco, but that doesn't change the fact that I change jobs a decent amount.
Anyway, I was doing Nothing Magical for awhile. It was amazing. I was bootstrapping a company all by myself off of my savings. It turns out when your rent is $3,200, cash goes pretty quickly. (I now live in a much cheaper place, but more on that later.) Anyway, I ran out of money. I had the option to pursue freelance to support myself and not get a day job.
Reverse Minimalism
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I sold all of my stuff when I started Nothing Magical and work on Cheddar. It was refreshing. All I had was my bed and my desk. For productivity's sake, this was the best thing I ever did. I'd wager that Cheddar wouldn't have been done as quickly or at the quality it was if I had more stuff to distract me.
If you've never sold all of your stuff, I recommend it. It's a great experience. You'll discover how much time you waste doing stuff that doesn't matter and how not doing that stuff effects your happiness.
That said, I now have stuff again. It's nice. I started working at an office with some friends. Getting out of my apartment is really nice. After biking home from the office for the first time, I was tired. I realized all I had was my bed and my desk. "Well, time to get a couch."
A Good Talk Show: Episode 1
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Alex Arena was kind enough to have me on the first episode of A Good Talk Show.
We mainly talked about Nothing Magical, Cheddar, and all of the stuff it takes to run a company. Give it a listen if you get a minute.
Testing Retina Graphics with ResolutionTab
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There is a great app called ResolutionTab on the Mac App Store that lets you toggle Retina graphics. Makes it great for testing if you don't have access to one of the new amazing Retina MacBook Pros. Highly recommend.
Developer ID, Mountain Lion, and the Keychain
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Recently, I released a Cheddar for Mac beta. Since it's a beta I'm distributing on the Cheddar website, I'm signing it with Developer ID. Basically, if you're running Mountain Lion with the default settings and try to open an app that isn't signed with Developer ID or downloaded from the Mac App Store, it won't let you open it.
I'm all for Developer ID. I'm really glad Apple spent the time to make it. There is one problem though. If you are using Mountain Lion, it's totally broken. You can't reliably use the Keychain if you build with Mountain Lion. Writes work alright, but every read gives a –25293 ("Authorization/Authentication failed.").
I have read lots on this topic in the two days I spent trying to solve this. Most of them said use 10.7 or 10.8.1. Since I was already on 10.8, I tried 10.8.1, but it don't work for me. I tried the release of Xcode and the latest developer preview. Both didn't work on 10.8 and 10.8.1. Finally, I resorted to installing 10.7 on an external hard drive and booting from that, and that worked!