Archive for the ‘General’ Category

Ever since we released Today a few months ago, I have wanted to take the time and give the Second Gear Web site a fresh coat of paint. The old site, while still good looking to me, had a focus on building custom software solutions for clients. We have not been accepting new clients in the past seven months, so it didn’t make much sense to highlight this former aspect of our business.

While most of the content is the same, we slapped a fresh, modern look on the site that we hope will scale well into the future as more Second Gear products are introduced over the coming months.

With the new Second Gear site we wanted to put the focus on our products and interacting with customers. My favorite feature of the new site is the integrated support. We’re big fans of Get Satisfaction and use it exclusively for handling the support for our products, but the major tradeoff was having to send our customers to a third-party site. The Satisfaction folks recently introduced the ability to use their API to integrate your Satisfaction forum natively onto your own site and we’re happy to be using it.

The site is still not perfect and there are some things that still need to be updated (most notably the Store, but we’ll be working on tweaking those things over the next weeks.

We hope you enjoy the new site.

Now that WWDC has wrapped up, we’re back at Second Gear HQ recovering from a long week of sessions on the iPhone, Leopard and the upcoming Snow Leopard. WWDC is a great way to get up to speed on new technologies, get help from Apple engineers on those lingering bugs and issue you run into and to just meet with fellow developers. I’m sure it is no surprise that there aren’t too many Cocoa developers in southern Indiana!

The focus now shifts back to working on getting Today 1.2 released. 1.2 is the biggest update since Today shipped back in April and will offer a lot of great features that people have been clamoring for. I don’t want to announce too much just yet, but it is coming very soon.

Oh and we’re working on an iPhone application. More details soon.

photo courtesy of chakote

A lot of people have posted their tips on how to get the most out of WWDC over the week. The Knapsack offer great advice on how to get the most out of the conference itself. Joe Goh, on the other hand, offers some advice on how to survive the amenities and social aspects of WWDC. The Mac Developer Roundtable also recently did an episode which offered other tips for new WWDC attendees.

Having been to two WWDCs in the past, I thought I would offer a different set of advice: how to be healthy at WWDC. Conferences like WWDC are great ways to brush up your development skills, meet with friends and colleagues and just take a break from sitting in front of the computer. Conferences like WWDC are also physically draining. Here’s my tips on how to lessen that drain.

1. Water. Not Juice: Between sessions, and at lunch, there are several stations available that will offer Odwall juices, soda and bottled water. Go for the water. The sodium in the the juices and soda won’t quench your thirst, only make you still feel thirsty. Water will keep you hydrated and your mind fresh.
2. Avoid the heavy lunch food: Like Joe Goh said, avoid Moscone’s food. I realize it is included in your conference fee, but it’s awful tasting and many times unhealthy. Stuffing yourself with Lasagna and garlic bread in between morning and afternoon sessions is going to make you feel fatigued. Instead, get out of the building for an hour, head to Metreon or a restaurant nearby for foods with food which have a lot of proteins, complex carbohydrates and vitamins in them.
3. Fruit > Cookies: Picking up on #2, the in-between session snacks usually include cookies, bagels, and fruit. Go for the fruit. It’s probably the same sugar wise, but you are going to fill up on the fruit faster than the cookies because of the water and fiber contents. Less food in your belly equals less of a food coma.
4. Sleep: While the evening activities associated with WWDC are a great time, you should really try to get 8 hours of sleep a night. If you’re tired, your not going to be able to easily retain information in the sessions and labs.
5. Exercise: Every morning I start my day with a trip to the hotel gym, or if weather permits, a quick run through the streets of San Francisco. Exercise is a great way to wake your body and mind up. The endorphin production that can occur from a great workout has been shown to be beneficial to your brain function and response.

If you have any other tips you’d like to share, feel free to do so in the comments.

Twitter is definitely a favorite of the Mac community and Second Gear is no different. We did create the most popular Twitter client for the iPhone after all.

I’ve personally been using Twitter for almost two years to chirp about what I’m up to or thinking about, so it seemed obvious to create an official Second Gear account to discuss company-related stuff. Periodically I’ll update the account with product updates, contests and maybe some coupon codes.

We also have a separate Twitter account for PocketTweets that we have been using to keep users up-to-date on updates to our favorite iPhone client. And just for fun, if you’re interested in following me personally, you can too.

• Second Gear
• PocketTweets
• Justin