A browser tooltip: one of those annoyingly, informative little yellow boxes that magically appears when your mouse hovers over certain interface items. Some people like them, but I am one of those that doesn’t like them in the browser. But how do you get rid of them in Safari or Firefox? There is no simple preferences selection to disable them. But it can be done.

First, to disable in Safari, open up the Terminal application (in Applications/Utilities folder) and paste the following:

Been some time since my last post, but it doesn’t mean I haven’t been working on my app. Progress on ScoutTrail has been slow, but steady. The latest? While teaching myself about Core Data, I decided it would be better if my input data (rank and merit badge requirements, etc) was Core Data based rather than xml. Justification is that I want to track completion of each requirement and coming up with a data model that would stay coordinated with the XML input data would prove more difficult IMHO than creating a data model to handle both.

Seeing, hearing and reading about good design are how I learn to design better. Here is an interview with Dieter Rams, Braun’s chief of design from 1961-1995, on his design philosophy.

Ram’s 10 principles to good design

Last week was spent at Bayport Scout Reservation with Boy Scout Troop 317, of which I am the scoutmaster. It was a busy week for the scouts and myself. We had two 11 year old scouts wake up early each morning to train for the mile swim, and they both successfully completed the mile swim on Thursday morning after swimming 32 laps in the 50m pool. I originally thought about trying for the mile swim, but never having swam more than 1 lap in a pool and not knowing how to pace myself in swimming, I decided not to try…maybe I should have at least tried to see what I could do.

Did not do much to continue my chain yesterday, because it was filled with Father’s Day activities. I know, Father’s Day is tomorrow, but my youngest son is heading to AWANA camp tomorrow and he did not want to miss My Day. We started by seeing Toy Story 3, then lunch at Five Guys, followed by gift unwrapping and Friday night homemade pizza and a movie.

While at Five Guys, we heard a song by Queen, but one that was unrecognized. My daughter pulled out her iPhone and Shazam’d it. If you don’t know about Shazam, it is one of our favorite apps. You use your phone to listen to a song clip and it identifies artist, title, album and other info.

My current project is an iPhone App to be used for Boy Scout record tracking. The initial release will just contain the requirements for all ranks and merit badges. After that release, I will work on adding the capability to check off completion of each requirement. That will entail creating some custom UITableViewCells and using Core Data. Something a little bit advanced for me right now. My first goal was to get up to speed on Objective-C and the basics of UITableView. My guide for this journey has been Bill Dudney and Chris Adamson’s book iPhone SDK Development (The Pragmatic Programmers). I have been reading the book and trying out code for the better part of a week before I decided it was time to jump into my app.

Just got an email from Apple Developer in which they are announcing the release of all WWDC 2010 sessions on iTunes for all registered Apple Developers.

Can’t wait to dive into the material.

Day 1 of My Chain.

I heard about Chain’ng from an IgniteRailsConf talk I heard by Chris Strom. As Chris talks about on his blog, ”Don’t break the chain”, is attributed to Jerry Seinfeld.

The gist is a daily production of something related to your craft. Daily production is the key. You want to keep growing the chain. The thought of “breaking” the chain is offensive.

However, the chain is not the goal, it is part of the journey. The goal is acquiring and improving skills while building the chain.

The goal of my chain is to improve my craft and become a better blogger as I document my chain.

I’m an amateur photographer, and have learned that it takes a lot to get a good picture. There are many variables: exposure settings, subject, lens selection, lighting, foreground, background, focus, etc. Here is one of my favorites: The subjects are 3 of my 4 kids…my Arrows. The reason for my company name. And part of the reason for going out on my own.