Kevin Hoffman

Kevin Hoffman's Blog I am working on another sample application that I am using as a means of teaching me some more things about Cocoa and programming on the Mac in general. I have been particularly fascinated with Core Data, so I started using it again in a new application. I have a rather unique perspective on persistence tools because I have probably tested and developed in just about every conceivable environment for rapidly creating data-bound desktop applications, including some that called themselves "4GL" and were basically code generators that would inhale a data model and exhale an application. The general feeling I have come away with from tools that make it so that you can write a data-bound desktop application "with no code at all for the low-low price of $19.95!!" is that such tools are crap. They spend so much time insulating you from what is really ... (more)

Kindle 2 vs Nook

Kindle Session at Cloud Expo Barnes and Noble just recently unveiled their upcoming eReader, the Nook. On the blog of my non-techy alter-ego I've posted a comparison of the two readers that is entirely based on my own personal feelings of what is cool and what isn't, so take it as opinion and certainly not as a technical review. So far I've remained relatively aloof from the whole "eBook" craze. Ordinarily, given my geeky background and borderline insane craving for technology, one would think that I'd be all over these things. The problem is, my love for the written word also e... (more)

Deploying Azure Hosted Services Should Be as Easy as Deploying a Heroku Application

Recently a friend of mine showed me Heroku, an "instant Ruby platform". Basically what you can do with Heroku is build your Ruby application and the deployment to the remote Heroku site is not only brainless, painless, and simple, but it can be done entirely from the command line (which means it can be automated even further than it already is). But don't take my word for it, check out this screencast showing exactly how simple it is to build Ruby applications in the cloud using Heroku. This got me thinking about Windows Azure, Microsoft's "cloud operating system". I'm not reall... (more)

Thoughts on iPhone Hacking

Lately there's been a lot of buzz about the iPhone and people hacking it so that it can be used on different carriers and so that they can install third party apps (or possibly create their own) onto the phone itself. Apple has released a statement that indicates that when iPhones receive an update (I think next week), if the iPhone has been hacked and decoupled from AT&T;, that the phone is going to turn into a pretty expensive brick. There are really two different kinds of hacking going on here. The first kind is where people use applications of varying degrees of difficulty (it'... (more)

My Silverlight Plugin Has Expired?

So I went to go re-watch Scott Guthrie's video illustrating the new upcoming MVC (Model-View-Controller) framework for ASP.NET when I noticed that the content is in Silverlight. That's fine, MS is trying so hard to push Silverlight as the answer to the world's problems that it's probably a requirement that all new content from MS come out as Silverlight content. Whatever, I can cope.... normally. However... today I couldn't see the content. Why? Because I got a message that looks like this: Ok fine, I can accep that somehow my Silverlight plug-in has expired or is no longer va... (more)