Page 1 of 4
Hello, and welcome to issue #33!
It has been some time since the last issue of the newsletter, but here we are again. A lot of new and exciting things have been going on around the Tech world. For example, the release of Apple’s M1 Chip, and all the positive reviews. It’s a shame that I won’t be buying one just now. I had an emergency and had to get a new computer a couple of months back, so I’ll have to wait a little bit longer.
Read More...
Hello, and welcome to issue #32!
How are you doing? I hope everything is going well wherever you are. Things seem to have been settling down around here, so I’ve got more time to write. I completed my guide on macOS network programming in Swift. It covers three main frameworks:
- BSD Sockets
- Apple’s Network.framework
- SwiftNIO
With that, you should be able to build a wide range of network applications in macOS. As always, my guides are “pay what you want”. Including $0.00, so they are free, but if you find them useful and want to support me, you can buy them. Networks is a topic I always found fascinating, it is at the core of the Internet. But network programming also touches other areas like security, system administration, software engineering, and telecommunications. So it is a broad topic, but super fun to explore. Have a look at the guide and build some network applications, I bet you’ll have fun.
Read More...
Hello, and welcome to issue #31!
I’m still amazed by how the Internet has become such a fundamental part of society. I wonder what the world will look like 100 years from now. And all of this runs on protocols created decades ago. It’s truly fascinating.
As you can tell, many of the posts I write are related to networks, and this week is no exception. I believe that we all have some responsibility to try to make the world a better place, and we, as technology enthusiasts, can make it better by building the infrastructure for future communication. So maybe I can give back by teaching what I’ve learned about networks. Hopefully, all of us can be part of building a better future.
Read More...
Hello, and welcome to issue #30!
Sometimes I feel a little nostalgic of the “good old days” when the command-line received so much love. I still believe that it is the most useful tool if you want to increase your productivity. Using graphical interfaces feel sluggish compared to a fine-tuned terminal interface. Typing is faster than moving the mouse across the screen, especially if you have a big monitor. So when everyone is so excited about SwiftUI or React, or any other graphical interface framework, I go back to working on the command-line.
Read More...
Hello, and welcome to issue #29!
I hope you are well where ever you are. These are weird times we live in, a lot of terrible news around the globe. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t make it better. Make sure you help improve your little part of the world, sometimes small gestures have a big impact on people’s lives (including our own).
These last few weeks, I’ve been busy working on a few open-source projects, trying to give back to the world of open-source. And having a good time doing it. The following are some of the project’s I’ve been contributing to. And a tool I’ve open-sourced for everyone to use:
Read More...
Hello, and welcome to issue #28!
I’ve been working with computers for most of my life, and especially on *nix systems. It always surprises me how much there is to learn. It’s always interesting to read about the history of some part of the OS that you thought you understood, and learn something new. That happened when I was reading the following article:
Tales From a Core File - Lessons from the Unix stdio ABI: 40 Years Later
Read More...
Hello, and welcome to issue #27!
This week is an exciting week for all the Apple fans out there. A lot of new changes, as is the custom for WWDC. We finally got the announcement of the move to Apple Silicon (Apple’s own ARM processors), which has been a rumour for some years now. If you are a macOS developer and are interested in building universal binaries that will run on both the Intel and ARM processors, you can apply to the Universal App Quick Start Program. The program costs $500.00 (USD), it includes a small computer with the new ARM processor, which sadly is owned by Apple and you have to return. But if you are interested, and meet their criteria, you’ll have fun playing with it before anyone else.
Read More...
Hello, and welcome to issue #26!
Did you manage to see the launch of SpaceX first crew mission? It was a success! There were 10.3 million concurrent watchers on the stream, that’s massive. If you somehow miss it here is the link to space.com article, it includes videos. It was cool to watch. It felt like the beginnings of a sci-fi story.
Anyways, Important news for humanity aside. There was also other important news around. In the previous newsletter (#25), we talked about the new unc0ver jailbreak for iOS. This week Apple released new updates, iOS 13.5.1 and iPadOS 13.5.1, that fix the kernel bug that allowed this exploit. You can read the release notes here. I guess some people won’t be wanting to apply that patch if they’re going to jailbreak their phones.
Read More...
Hello, and welcome to issue #25!
How is your week going? I hope you are doing ok.
A lot of exciting news this week. First, there is a new jailbreak for iOS. Whatever your stance might be with jailbreaking. I’m always impressed by the depth of knowledge and ingenuity of the jailbreaking community. Many people view it as something wrong and illegal. But it has some real security benefits, it allows researchers to deep dive into iOS and help find vulnerabilities that otherwise would be known only to bad actors. As the famous security researcher Patrick Wardle shown on his research used in a NYTimes article. He used a jailbroken phone to continue the analysis he was doing on an app suspected of spying his users. Very interesting stuff, if you are into Apple security, you should check his writings.
Read More...
Hello, and welcome to issue #24!
I wonder why we always seek novelty. Maybe it is because there is the illusion that this new thing might finally be the perfect solution without tradeoffs. I began many years ago to explore Linux because it might be different than MS Windows. Then I changed to macOS because it was the solution over both. And now, I’m exploring more about FreeBSD because it’s more integrated. In any case, it is fun to explore different topics and learn about different technologies. And who knows, maybe after exploring enough we can help make our options better and finally get us closer to a “perfect solution”.
Read More...