Volume Number: 26
Issue Number: 02
Column Tag: Editorial

From the Editor, February 2010

We're still getting over Macworld from earlier this month. It was a great show and we were happy to be a part of it. For us at MacTech Magazine, it has been a particularly thrilling time. When most print media is dying, we're seeing increases in subscriptions. We've launched a new version of the mactech.com website that looks better, performs faster and unifies some of the disparate elements that the previous site had incorporated over time. In all, it has been a great start to the year. This month's issue continues that upward trend.

Speaking of Macworld 2010, we have a summary of what we found at the show. We're happy to say that we'll be writing more of these in the future.

Returning contributor Mihalis Tsoukalos writes, "An Introduction to Gnuplot." If you haven't seen Gnuplot or other plot/graphing packages, you owe this free software package a look. Data visualization is more important than ever. Gnuplot is an excellent way to start to maneuver through the raw data that you have.

At MacTech, there's a common refrain we hear: that of people that want to start learning a topic, but just don't know how or where to get started. This month, The Mac in the Shell column tackles this issue for people. Want to get started working in Terminal.app, learning the shell environment and scripting? (Hint for System Administrators: you do). Here are some ideas for you.

Our cover story this month covers some non-Apple frameworks that allow realistic 2D animation inside the iPhone OS SDK. This means you're covered for iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad. If you've ever wanted to write a game or simulation for this platform, get set to learn how.

In the continuing series on living the Independent Service Vendor life, Michael Göbel and Oliver Pospisil return with tips on how to create the most striking web site for your product. We can all get so deep into creating the thing that we're going to offer, that our website-often someone's first impression of your product-suffers. Check out the tips in "Websites that sell" while going over your own website.

In "The Flat Package," José Cruz dives into the newer package format from Apple. Not everyone is creating flat packages as they want compatibility with older versions of the operating system. One day, though, the bundle-based package format will be gone-or severely deprecated-and the flat package will rule the land. Find out the benefits here.

Greg Neagle continues ways to run a screen saver over the login window in Mac OS X v10.6. This time, rather than just any screen saver, Greg shows you how to create a custom SlideSaver-style screen saver so you can get out announcements or news on idle machines.

We round out this issue with several regular features. Kool Tools is back in force and introduces you to some very cool Mac-based software and hardware. In the MacTech Spotlight, we feature Andy Kim from the Potion Factory. Andy is doing some very cool work with "The Hit List," "Tangerine," "I Love Stars" and more. Check out what he has to say about life as a Mac developer in this month's MacTech Spotlight.

Thank you, dear reader, for being one of the people that is helping MacTech have a great year-so-far and validating what we do. As I always recommend, help influence what you see here each month! Let us know what you'd like to see at letters@mactech.com. See you next month.

Ed Marczak,

Executive Editor