Hello, iPhone
I finally did it. I got an iPhone. I have been interested in purchasing one for some time, but still had about a year left in my T-Mobile contract. Using the advice from Consumerist, I was able to cancel my contract early because they were going to raise text messaging rates.
It took me two days to actually get the phone. Actually, it’s a funny story.
Day One
On Monday, I went to the Valley Fair Apple Store. When I arrived at 7:31pm I was told that the line had been capped and they would not be able to let me stand in line. I told them that I had taken the bus there, could not get off of work any earlier, and I was wearing an Apple t-shirt (thankfully). After some convincing, I was finally let into the line.
Then, my three hour wait began. At around 10:30pm, a group of six people and I were let into the Apple Store. At 10:35pm I was told, “Sorry, the AT&T servers have just shut down.” My response, “WHAT!?” Apparently, all of AT&T’s activation servers were unresponsive nationwide. Awesome. Thankfully, I was given a card that stated I had 24 hours to claim my iPhone with the guarantee that I would not have to stand in line again.
Day Two
I arrived at the Apple Store at about 9:10pm waited about 10 minutes for someone to actually be available to help me (the employees looked really drained by this point). Finally, I was handed by 8GB black iPhone and within 10 minutes my activation was complete. 
Cupertino, CA
So, I realized I never officially announced this, but this summer I am working at Apple as an intern in the Development Technologies group. Specifically, I will be working on Core Data with a small team of engineers.
Core Data allows Cocoa developers to create sophisticated data models which are automatically stored in XML, Binary, SQLite, or their own database formats. Through the use of Xcode’s Data Model Design tool developers can graphically specify entities, their attributes as well as their relationships to other entities. During runtime these objects are represented through NSManagedObjectModel objects. Data is saved, loaded, and fetched through the NSManagedObjectContext object, which serves as the front end controller for the database. Data can be distributed across multiple database and multiple NSMangedObjectContext objects can interact with a single database.
For useful tutorials on CoreData, take a look at:
- Core Data Class Overview
- Tutorial:Build a Core Data App
- More advanced:Low-Level Core Data Tutorial
- For developing your own atomic store:Atomic Store Programming
PsyStar, a hoax?
Apparently, after my last post, someone from Gizmodo investigated the company and discovered that they might be phony. According to the Miami Chamber of commerce and the Better Business Bureau, PsyStar does not exist! When visiting their supposed addresses the first was a residential address, and the second, a packaging company called USA Koen Pack. Aren’t web rumors wonderful?
Blog++
Welcome all to the new, updated version of my blog! I decided to move from my own blogging engine in Ruby on Rails to WordPress simply because I never had enough time to add additional features that I wanted to.
My current plan is to post more often, but have less detail in each post. This will hopefully keep things from becoming stagnant as the have been, and allow me to post at least once per day.
Happy New Year!
I hope 2007 was a great year for everyone! Here are the things that I am looking forward to in 2008 (MMVIII):