Volume Number: 26
Issue Number: 07
Column Tag: Editorial

From the Editor, July 2010

A s announced last month - in MacTech Magazine and elsewhere - MacTech is hosting a conference. A tech conference, of course, but it's also more. Hopefully, you've been following along at http://www.mactech.com/conference and @mactechconf on Twitter. As this issue is going to the printer, we're just about to open registration. We're incredibly excited by the ideas that people have been bringing forth and by the schedule that's in place. Even better are the informal discussions and meetings waiting to take place. We're looking forward to seeing you in November.

Speaking of excitement, this month brings some changes that are exciting for everyone. First bit of news is about columnist Dave Dribin. Dave created and has written The Road to Code column in MacTech for three years. He has taken readers from how to get started in Mac development through many more advanced topics. Go back and take a look at the first column online (http://macte.ch/mtrtc01) and see just how much ground The Road to Code has covered. Well, Dave is moving on and we want to congratulate him. Thanks for a great three years, Dave, your work here will be missed. Dave leaves us with a review of this year's NSConference.

Also exciting are the possibilities of how MacTech will continue to present developer-related content. The first entry is in this very issue: Boisy G. Pitre brings us an article on writing daemons in Mac OS X.

Mike Hjörleifsson brings another installment of CoreSec, "Understanding 802.1x." Need to ensure that only authorized machines access a given network? Need audit trails for machines that access a network? The 802.1x standard is the answer.

Exciting? Adobe has released AAMEE, a utility designed to aid in mass installs of Adobe software. Exciting? AAMEE is possibly not the panacea that Adobe may think it is. Greg Neagle brings his usual experience and pragmatism to a review of AAMEE to help you decide if it's a useful tool for you.

This month's Mac in the Shell tackles math in the shell. Performing math and array operations in bash aren't always the most straight-forward of procedures. This month's column clears up both aspects of bash.

Did you ever get curious about Apple's choice of Objective-C as a language for Mac and iOS development? Michael Swaine shares some facts (and non-facts) about Objective-C, just so you have the background when talking with other developers.

Mihalis Tsoukalos is back with an article that shows you the technique of adding copy and paste ability to a Dashboard widget. If there's anything - particularly a text field - on a widget, people will expect to be able to copy from, or paste to that element. Make sure you know how to implement this.

Our cover story delves into mind mapping. If you're looking for a new way to explore and communicate ideas, mind mapping may be just the tool you need. Apple consultant Shelley Watson shares her experiences using this technique and shares examples of ways it can help you.

This month, the MacTech Spotlight finds Jacob Gorban, developer at Apparent Software. Personally, I'm fascinated with anything that lets me use the mouse less in any way possible. It's in this way I found Blast, and by extension, Jacob. Check out what makes him tick in this momth's MacTech Spotlight.

Exciting things are all around at MacTech. We hope you join us at MacTech Conference 2010 in November. Until then, though, see you next month right here.

Ed Marczak,

Executive Editor