Seattle Xcoders

May 23 - iOS to Arduino via Bluetooth LE

2013-05-22T00:00:00-07:00

Our next meeting is on Thursday, 5/23 and our speaker will be Steve Baker founder of Beepscore. Here is Steve’s summary of the talk

*Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. You can add whatever sensors and actuators you like. You can extend Arduino with modules and pluggable shields.

I'll give a brief overview of Arduino, then demonstrate a new BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) shield and show sample code to connect from Objective-C *

The meeting starts at 7pm (Thursday, May 23) and it will be held in the 1st floor conference room (room 101) of Thinkspace in downtown Redmond.

Thinkspace is a 2-minute walk from the Redmond transit center. So if you’re coming over from downtown Seattle, you can take ST Express 545 to get here quickly. Alternately, if you drive, parking is free.

Mailing List Is Back!

2013-05-17T10:22:54-07:00

We had some issues with the mailing list. In the process, we lost the archive and the subscriber list. The list has been re-created and is back. Unfortunately, everyone will need to resubscribe. Please go to the list signup page to subscribe.

We apologize for the inconvenience and the delay.

May 9 - Text Layout and CocoaPods

2013-05-07T17:12:23-07:00

This month's Seattle meeting features presentations by Kyle Sluder of The Omni Group and Aengus McMillin of the UW Computer Science Department.

Kyle is a software engineer for Omni, and will be talking about text layout. Aengus is a computer science major at UW, and will be talking about CocoaPods, an open source package management system.

The meeting is Thursday, May 9, on the UW Campus, in Johnson Hall 111, beginning at 7 pm. This is the same room where we met in April. Anyone is welcome. Both of these talks will be of interest to any Cocoa programmer, whether you're targeting OS X or iOS.

The mailing list is still down, so please keep receiving updates via one of the other avenues on the About page.

March 28 - Apple Push Notification Service

2013-03-26T00:00:00-07:00

Our next meeting is on Thursday, March 28.

Steve Baker, founder of Beepscore will talk about APNS (Apple Push Notification Service). Topics include the Push Notification Path, different components along the path, web server options for push notification (dedicated server, Heroku, Microsoft Windows Azure Mobile Services, Urban Airship etc.) and more.

The meeting starts at 7pm (Thursday, March 28) and it will be held in the 1st floor conference room (room 101) of Thinkspace in downtown Redmond.

March 14 - Windows Azure Mobile Services and Code Maintenance

2013-03-12T19:42:46-07:00

March's Seattle meeting will be Thursday, March 14 at 7PM. Josh Twist will talk about Microsoft's Windows Azure Mobile Services, followed by Paul Goracke on lessons learned from maintaining other people's code.

This month's meeting will be held at The Omni Group: 1000 Dexter Ave N, Suite 400 (just north of the corner of Aloha St, on the east side of the street). The building's garage closes at 6pm; neighborhood street parking is free after 6pm.

There may be access via the elevator, but for now assume you should meet on the 1st floor to be taken up to Omni's offices.

The building is accessible via the 26 and 28 buses which stop out front, and the 40 which stops two blocks to the east on Westlake. It's slightly less accessible via the 5 and 16—if bussing from the north, get off at Galer St and use the pedestrian bridge. If bussing from the south, get off at Prospect St. Or better yet take the 26, 28 or 40 when coming from downtown if at all possible.

Windows Azure Mobile Services

Josh Twist of the Windows Azure team at Microsoft will be talking about Windows Azure Mobile Services, Microsoft's cloud-powered backend for iOS (and other mobile platform) apps. Topics include discussions on the native Objective-C client SDK provided by Windows Azure Mobile Services and features such as sending push notifications to iOS devices.

Lessons from the Maintenance Trenches

Paul Goracke of Black Pixel will pass on tips and techniques learned from diving into existing projects which will not only help you dive into existing projects, but help you make maintaining your own code easier on Future You.

Technical Video Giveaways

I will be giving away my final iDeveloperTV videos via random draw:

Core Data for OS X, iPhone & iPad

This is the older version of the course, not the newly-released update to it. It does include Core Data Migration and Core Data Performance and an addendum covering Lion and iOS 5 additions. Lots of good info in there still.
An Introduction to Core Animation

February 28 - Windows Azure for iOS Apps

2013-02-26T00:00:00-07:00

Our next meeting is on February 28 and our speaker will be Josh Twist, who works in the Windows Azure team at Microsoft.

Josh will talk about Microsoft's cloud-powered backend for iOS apps - Windows Azure Mobile Services. Topics include discussions on the native Objective-C client SDK provided by Windows Azure Mobile services and features such as sending Push notifications to iOS devices.

The meeting starts at 7pm (Thursday, February 28) and it will be held in the 1st floor conference room (room 101) of Thinkspace in downtown Redmond.

February 14 - Core Audio

2013-02-11T22:08:29-07:00

February's Seattle meeting will be Thursday, February 14 at 7PM. Izzy Fraimow of Übermind will be presenting on Core Audio: What audio is, how computers handle audio, what Core Audio provides and how to use it for things like generating sounds, applying effects to input, music visualizers, etc. I will have two more video sets to give away: NSConference 2009 (the first, still great topics like Core Animation, Secure Apps and F-Script), and a bundle of QTKit+App Design 3-pack from NSConf mini 2012.

This month's meeting will be held at SURF Incubator (The Exchange Building, 821 Second Ave., Suite 800). There's an entrance on 1st Ave, but please use the entrance on 2nd Ave (near the Tully's) to make building security less of a hassle. The CPS garage at 1st and Columbia doesn't have awful rates for downtown parking. Street parking does open up around the building after 6pm so there is usually plenty available on Madison and Marion Streets. If you can't get into the building, please call Rob at (206) 295-1605.

Many, many thanks to SURF Incubator for the last-minute meeting location.

January 24 - Development of the Google Maps app for iOS

2013-01-21T00:00:00-07:00

The recently-released Google Maps for iOS app was a project begun at Google's Kirkland office.

Some of the developers who worked on the (Google Maps) app will make a technical presentation and also answer questions about their work on the app. Topics include their goals for the V1 version of the app, tools and techniques needed to bring maps and navigation to mobile devices and other development aspects of the app.

The meeting starts at 7pm (Thursday, January 24) and it will be held in the 1st floor co-working space of Thinkspace in downtown Redmond.

January 24 - Development of Google Maps for iOS

2013-01-21T00:00:00-07:00

The recently-released Google Maps for iOS app was a project begun at Google's Kirkland office.

The meeting starts at 7pm (Thursday, January 24) and it will be held in the 1st floor co-working space of Thinkspace in downtown Redmond.

Auto Layout Materials Now Available

2013-01-14T21:57:56-07:00

Materials from Kyle's Auto Layout talk are now available for download:

Note: There was something about the screen capture which shifted the cursor away from the actual location it should be at during demos. It can be quite disorienting, but neither Kyle nor I know how to correct it. Sorry.