If you are a mac developer you might want to take a look at Google’s Update Engine that was just released as open source.  I am not familiar with either Google’s Update Engine or the Sparkle Framework because I just started developing with Cocoa but it seems like there is now competition for Sparkle and coming from a giant like Google I am sure it will be hard to compete with.

Google has provided video’s that they uploaded to YouTube so that you can see how everything works and get up to speed quick with integrating it into your applications.

Some of you may not know but 1 month ago I swore to quit smoking cigarettes.  I started the Chantix program and thought all will be good.  Well after about 2 weeks of not smoking I went out the the bar and had a few drinks.  Yea this led to smoking.  I smoked for that night then in the morning went back to Chantix.  I was doing good.

2 days ago my girl started taking Chantix as well and it led to giving her a migrane headache.  One of the known side effects after checking it.  Although after checking the lists of side effects we both said we were not going to take it again.  We were not even sure how something this dangerous could be on the market.  But then again I don’t generally pay attention to medication side effects so some others could be as bad if not worse than Chantix.  Some of the side effects are that it causes nausea, headaches, minor things.  Some of the more serious are that it can cause MS, Brain Aneurysms and Heart Attacks.

It has been 3 days now since we stopped taking Chantix and I am still not smoking.  Today was rather difficult where the other 2 days were cake.  I thought I would be good without the little blue pill but it is tough.  I’m still fighting it though, thanks to the support I get from my girl it makes it a bit easier.

If you have been trying to add me to your contact list on Instant Messenger protocols such as AIM, Yahoo, ICQ, Jabber, etc. and have been getting denied please e-mail me and let me know.  I have been getting overwhelmed with link traders requesting that I just hit deny whenever I see that dialog now.

I guess having your information on the web can be a good and bad thing.  I wish all of these so called “link traders” who can barely speak english would stop contacting me.  I am not sure what link trading does for anyone other than improve the PR of thier website.  I am not about to pay for links as they always try to sucker me into that.  This site gets enough traffic for a personal site and I find that my google listings are quite well.  I am guessing that is due to Wordpress and the nice Google Sitemaps plug-in.

Anyway if you have been having trouble please e-mail me, my intentions are not to block anyone who has a real need to contact me, just sick of the spam, wish I could just block them all with a nice filter.  Maybe someone should create a blocklist like they do for torrents but for IM, your username/ip makes that list whomever has it installed is out of your reach.  I think that is the next improvement for Adium.  What are your thoughts?

I have been smoke free for over a week now

We all know about the get a mac advertisements that are all over TV.  They really put thought into the marketing and the planning of every ad that hit tv.  Almost all of them are funny.  Microsoft has come out with it’s own commercial in which Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates co star.

I am not sure if this is supposed to be a funny advertisement like Apples or not but I did not find this even mildly funny.  The entire ad revolves around Bill Gates buying a pair of shoes at a discount shoe store and Jerry Seinfeld steps in to size his shoes for him.  They find the right size and go on their way.

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I must admit that over the last few days I have been fiddling with Dashcode.  I think it is a pretty good IDE for the purpose it fulfills.  I know almost nothing about javascript and the DOM however that was not a problem with Dashcode.  I was able to create my first Dashboard Widget for OS X in just a few hours really.  It is a Smoke Free Since..  Counting widget.

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The Mac Developer Network has released yet another video training course for your enjoyment.  The latest video focuses on Developing and Using Frameworks. A framework is a set of code that can be included in several different projects.  I have yet to watch the training video, it is currently downloading.  I doubt that I will get a chance to watch it today however as soon as I do watch it I will post a review of the course here.  Like the Memory Management course the price is $9.99 for NON-MDN subscribers and only $4.99 for subscribers.

Last week I decided to quit smoking and while at the doctors for another reason I asked about Chantix.  I started taking the medicine the day after it was prescribed.  I continued to smoke the first week I was on the medicine however it cut down drastically.  A pack was lasting me 2 days rather than 1 day.  I am on Day 3 of the second week which is the stop smoking week in the Chantix GETQUIT plan.

I am not going to say that Chantix is a miracle pill, it makes it easier I think but it does not make it so you do not want to smoke.  The way it works would take a bit of explanation.  Nicotine binds to your brain receptors which tells your brain to send out signals to release dopamine which gives you a very short high.  The Chantix binds to the receptors and does not let the nicotine in.  This makes it so that a cigarette essentially has no effect on you.  I noticed it does not effect the withdrawl symptoms as I still have them.

What is more difficult?  Claire is quitting cold turkey starting last night.  I do not know how she is doing it I know it would not work for me.  I look forward to our lives being smoke free from now on.  We already did not smoke in the house, we hated the smell.