Seriously Apple?

Try opening this file with Keynote 09

Russ Bishop
April 01, 2014

I understand you updated your apps; that's totally cool.

What isn't cool is giving me a message that my presentation is too old and to try opening it with Keynote 09. Which I no longer have.

Would it have killed you to take that conversion code, package it up, and embed it in the new Keynote? You know, like a sane . . .

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UIScreen.wantsSoftwareDimming

tl;dr: it doesn't work

Russ Bishop
March 29, 2014

A quick heads up: apparently UIScreen.wantsSoftwareDimming doesn't work on iOS 7, the iPhone 5S, or both. I was unable to detect a difference in the brightness levels no matter what that setting was at; previously you had to set that flag then adjust the brightness to make it take effect. (I've always felt that LCD brightness levels . . .

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Interlocked.CompareExchange

I've got a hammer and you're all f**king nails

Russ Bishop
March 28, 2014

Interlocked.CompareExchange is magic. No, seriously.

Yes, it does a comparison and replaces a value if the comparison is true. In all cases, it returns the old value. Why is that so interesting?

Well, you can read a value: value = Interlocked.CompareExchange(ref _location, null, null). If _location was already null, it will . . .

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On Rediscovering the Classic Coordinated Transaction Problem

Everything old is new again

Russ Bishop
March 28, 2014

While working on the new immutable engine of chaos today, I wrote myself into a corner and in the process re-discovered the classic coordinated transaction problem:

If you have two separate transactions that both need to commit together or roll back together, how can you ensure that happens as an atomic operation?

If I . . .

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ContextLocal

the best thing you'll never use

Russ Bishop
March 28, 2014

If you are doing parallel operations on immutable data you may run into a problem. A lot of us are used to using [ThreadStatic] static fields to hold ambient state that exceeds the built-in ThreadPrincipal or CurrentCulture settings. If you are running in a web context you certainly have access to HttpContext, but otherwise you appear to be . . .

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Github Renamed Me

We will change your SSH keys and you will like it

Russ Bishop
March 28, 2014

In preparation for a new post, I logged in to GitHub recently. I created my account two years ago in anticipation of being able to open-source more code and I wanted to reserve my name; I had a couple of forked repos but that's it. A new baby and a wife with major back surgery will do that to you.

Imagine my surprise when I . . .

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Provisioning Profiles for Dummies

I hope you like public key cryptography

Russ Bishop
March 26, 2014

Let's break down a .mobileprovision file piece-by-piece:

1 - The app ID prefix

 <key>ApplicationIdentifierPrefix</key>
 <array>
 <string>X00X0X000XX</string>
 </array>

2 - When the profile was created and when it expires

 <key>CreationDate</key>
  . . .

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