Inferno by Dan Brown
Dan Brown’s Inferno thrusts Harvard symbolist Robert Langdon into a race against time in Florence, waking with amnesia to stop a bioengineered plague linked to Dante’s Inferno.
Books
Blog
NSUUID /CFUUIDRef /UIDevice -uniqueIdentifier /-identifierForVendor
Apple stopped letting apps use the unique device identifier, called UDID, from iOS 5 onwards. Apple blocked new apps using it after May 2013.
Development
The Office
The Office is an American comedy series. It aired on NBC from 24 March 2005 to 16 May 2013. Greg Daniels adapted it from the British series by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. Steve Carell plays Michael Scott, the bumbling but well-meaning regional manager of Dunder Mifflin, a paper company in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
TV Series
What is cloudd?
If you see cloudd running on your Mac or using a lot of CPU, here is what this iCloud process does.
Mac
Monthly update #0277 • May 2013
Monthly update 277 • May 2013 • 2013-05-01 - 2013-05-31
Monthly Updates
What is DataDetectorsSourceAccess?
If you see DataDetectorsSourceAccess running on your Mac, here is what this data detection process does.
Mac
Pentecost
Pentecost continues to shape my adult life. The events of that first Pentecost bring lasting peace.
Christianity
NSCoding / NSKeyedArchiver
Apple gives options like Core Data or NSKeyedArchiver with NSKeyedUnarchiver. These turn objects into data and back again.
Development
Ascension Day
Ascension Day continues to shape my adult life. The events of that first Ascension Day bring lasting peace.
Christianity
Monthly update #0276 • April 2013
Monthly update 276 • April 2013 • 2013-04-01 - 2013-04-30
Monthly Updates
MKLocalSearch
MKLocalSearch lets your app search for places (restaurants, shops, etc.) using normal language, all powered by Apple’s own data.
Development
What is secd?
If you see secd in Activity Monitor, here is what this macOS process does and why it is running.
Mac
Iron Man 3
Iron Man 3 (2013), directed by Shane Black, follows Tony Stark after the events that nearly broke him. Robert Downey Jr. plays Tony, who suffers from panic attacks and buries himself in building suits he cannot stop making.
Movies
Useful macOS defaults: Disk Utility
Handy defaults write commands for com.apple.DiskUtility, controlling what Disk Utility shows.
Mac
What is findmymacmessenger?
If you see findmymacmessenger running on your Mac, here is what this Find My messaging process does.
Mac
NSSecureCoding
NSSecureCoding is a protocol from iOS 6 / OS X Mountain Lion. It adds the class method supportsSecureCoding.
Development
Monthly update #0275 • March 2013
Monthly update 275 • March 2013 • 2013-03-01 - 2013-03-31
Monthly Updates
Happy Easter
Easter continues to shape my adult life. The events of that first Easter weekend bring lasting peace.
Christianity
Good Friday
Good Friday continues to shape my adult life. The events of that first Good Friday bring lasting peace.
Christianity
Borgen
Borgen is a Danish political drama series. It aired on DR1 with three seasons from 26 September 2010 to 10 March 2013. Adam Price created it. Sidse Babett Knudsen plays Birgitte Nyborg, a politician who becomes Denmark's first female Prime Minister by chance.
TV Series
What are the xpc system daemons?
If you see xpc.roleaccountd, xpc.smd, or xpc.uscwoap running on your Mac, here is what these XPC processes do.
Mac
Monthly update #0274 • February 2013
Monthly update 274 • February 2013 • 2013-02-01 - 2013-02-28
Monthly Updates
NSAssertionHandler
In Objective-C, Foundation has macros like NSAssert for methods and NSCAssert for functions. They also have versions for parameters: NSParameterAssert and NSCParameterAssert.
Development
The Janus Reprisal by Robert Ludlum
In Robert Ludlum’s The Janus Reprisal, co-authored with Jamie Freveletti, Covert-One's Jon Smith survives a terrorist attack in The Hague and chases a Pakistani warlord across Europe.
Books
NSURLCache
NSURLCache is the built-in, automatic HTTP(S) cache used by NSURLConnection, NSURLSession (default/ephemeral configs), and WKWebView.
Development