At a time everyone is learning Objective-C and Cocoa in order to program for the iPhone, I’ve spent most of my time programming for OSX. After doing some contributions to Sidestep during my stay at CMU, I decided to endeavor deeper and develop some apps of my own, just to scratch my back.
So during the holiday season I came up with two very simple applications:
The first app (MeuComando.app) a simple MS MediaRoom remote control app, that enables me to control my STB without reaching for the command. It follows a trivial protocol which can be easily found online (examples in java, python, etc). Thing is, I really didn’t want a crappy Java app, so I reinvented the wheel and made myself a new app.
My last app (StatusPing.app) was a request by my father. His internet connection through a router supplied by his ISP keeps dropping and unless he periodically “debugs” by opening/trying to open a webpage or firing up Terminal.app and running ping, he never knows for sure if the connection is up or not. Therefore I developed an app that stays in the menu bar of OSX right there in the top, which provides the user with a visual alert if something is wrong.
You can find my apps at github.