Check out iOS Remote Conf!!!

 

01:27 - Hardware

06:51 - Cloud Storage

09:00 - Tools

13:14 - Continuous Integration

18:11 - TestFlight

19:57 - Desk Setups

26:06 - Coding Music

30:28 - Miscellaneous Gear

Picks

Open Radar (Andrew)
Filing radars with Apple (Andrew)
Twin Peaks (Jaim)
Torrentz (Chuck)
Come see the iPhreaks at Microsoft Build Conference! (Chuck)

 

Hey everybody and welcome to episode 147 of the iPhreaks Show. This week on our panel, we have Jaim Zuber.

Hey everybody.

Andrew Madsen.

Hello.

I’m Charles Max Wood from DevChat.TV. This week we are going to be talking about our coding setups. Oh, I forgot. I was also going to mention the call for proposals and ticket sales— early bird ticket sales are available for iOS Remote Conf. It’s coming up middle of April so get ready for that. Alright—

I just [crosstalk] just heard— heard the news. I’ll be speaking at iOS Remote Conf. I’m going to talk Unit Testing in Swift.

And I’m still figuring out my proposal.

Awesome! I’m excited. Alright, well, so coding setups, I’m curious. Lay it on us. What do you got?

A Mac.

That narrows it down. Which model?

I use a 27 inch iMac. I can’t remember now. I think it’s the late 2012, early 2013 something like that. It’s not a Retina iMac and I’m still really happy with the Retina – iMac’s tempting me.

Andrew’s kicking it old school.

What do you mean?

No Retina? Come on.

Yeah, well.

Yeah.

I do have a Retina MacBook Pro that I use when I’m not at home but I much prefer to use a desktop.

Do you actually work from home?

Yeah. I work from home all the time. I want to say, when I’m not working from home it means like when I go to an XCode or neither CocoaHeads or something like that.

Right. Yeah. I primarily do most of my work on its— what is it late 2013 MacBook Pro? Yeah it’s got into the point now where I’m needing to upgrade. So what happens is that I’ve been watching the memory and the CPU and I max up my CPU when I do podcasts.

That’s no good. My reason for not upgrading so far is that the Retina iMac can’t drive a second Retina screen. So there.

Oh.

You can have a Retina iMac and you’re can hook up second screen to it but the second screen won’t be Retina. Well, I think maybe they can drive a four case screen but I want to drive a second 5K, 27 inch screen which I don’t even know if anyone makes one yet. But that’s what I’m waiting on.

Got you. That’d be cool. Yeah. I’ve thought about getting an iMac and I’m always like 'nah'. Cause most of the stuff I do, I can do just fine on my MacBook Pro. What do you—?

Jaim what do you use [crosstalk]?

Yeah.

Yeah. I use a MacBook Pro, too. I don’t remember what year it is, probably 2014. It still works pretty well but yeah if you’re doing video conferencing like we’re talking hanging over right now, I can hear the fan going pretty good. So it cranks the CPU pretty hard. But now I’m pretty happy with it and for development, it works great. I’ve had huge projects that I’ve had to compile and it works just fine. And I'm itching to buy a new one. They come up with something pretty cool which they may in the next few months. I might upgrade but no compelling reason to.

Yeah, that’s the other thing is if I upgrade, I’m going to upgrade everything. I’m going to get more RAM. I’m going to get the highest NCP they have and all that stuff.

Yeah. Remember upgrade is basically the top of the line. Maybe not the absolute top CPU which— thousand dollars for an extra point one megahertz doesn’t make sense but— gigahertz.

Yeah [crosstalk].

But decent CPU with the max up memory whatever the max they can do because we’re developers, we can always use it.

Yeah. My thing is like I said, if I’m on one of these calls, I max up my CPU. It’s funny though because otherwise, it usually don’t. So I’ve been tempted also just to get another machine for these calls and do some a little bit less expensive because I would only use Skype on it then but I don’t know.

So I’ve seen people developing on the Air for doing iOS stuffs, smaller things. So did anyone had success with that?

MacBook Air?

Yeah, MacBook Air.

I had an 11 inch MacBook Air. It was the first generation when they first came out with the 11 inch. So I think it was end of 2010. I really loved that computer. I did do development on it but it was pretty cramped. And if you wanted to try to use interface builder, you would just— out of luck. It was— you can’t even fit like an iPhone screen on the— it is—. [Chuckles] A lot of scrolling and zooming if you want to use interface builders or story boards. But I really— I did like that and I think a 13 inch Air would actually be an okay machine if it wasn’t your main machine or if you could hook it up to a monitor. A little slow but supportable. They’re really nice.

Yeah. I know a few people that use them. I know a few people that use them for iOS development and depending on what they’re doing on it, most of the time it works fine. They’re build stick a little bit longer but other than that, seems okay.

Yeah. About twice a year, I get some project test massive C dependencies where I have to build a huge library.

Yeah.

I think so. It would work for me for what I do generally but it’d be nice to just have something light pick up and put in your bag and take with you.

I have to say, though, that I’ve handled the MacBook Airs— the 11 inch and the 13 inch. Over the years I’ve handled several MacBook Pros including the 17 inch behemoth. I have to say that my MacBook Pro’s the 13 inch and between that and the MacBook Air, for me, [inaudible] it and carrying it on really isn’t that big a difference so I’d rather have the extra power.

Alright. Do either of you Swift in Macbooks or development machines frequently?

Well I do because I do all my work on my iMac normally but I have a MacBook Pro that I occasionally use. Like I said, I use it when I’m not at home and I need to work which is not that often, but happens sometimes like when I’m on vacation or out of town, that kind of thing.

I know a lot of people really don’t like switching back and forth but where most of my work is programming and I’m already using source control, it’s not actually that big of a deal because stuffs are always already on GitHub. It’s just a matter of committing and pushing my changes on one machine then pulling them on the other.

Yeah. I usually switch when I’m doing Ruby. I do some of the development on my local machine and some of my development in the Cloud on a box in Digital Ocean because I can and I could beat that sucker up as much as I want. It doesn’t cause hardly anything. So yeah, my experience is the same there as far as iOS projects— I’ve been playing with Native Script lately and I’m also playing with Swift lately and it doesn’t seem to be— make a big difference cause I’m used to the workflow with Git so my experience mirrors what Andrew said.

Okay. So if you’re using your GitHub or whatever your repository is for keeping your code up to date, you just got to make sure you’re pushed on a branch or whatever.

What about documents? Like random stuff that you have around, specs. Can you keep those update or do you have a— [crosstalk].

Dropbox.

Yeah Dropbox is what I use. The Dropbox and to some degree iCloud. I actually like iCloud Drive. Dropbox sometimes annoys me for reasons [chuckles] that are not Dropbox's fault but just because I’ve got a lot shared folders.

Yeah [crosstalk]

Somebody else uploads a bunch of files and then I’m on a [inaudible] connections, suddenly I’m downloading a bunch of stuff that I didn’t really expect so I actually don’t keep it running all the time.

Yeah for me, with Dropbox, what I do is I— you can set it up to only sync certain folders. I think they call it selective sync. So most of my shared folders are not synced to my computer so then [crosstalk].

Well I do that but then [crosstalk] inevitably, I do need one of those shared folders and so I have to turn, go to selective sync to turn it on. Anyway, it’s a little bit of a pain but that’s not really because I have two machines, it’s because if you’re going to use a device that’s tethered and want to avoid huge downloads, then Dropbox has that problem.

Yup.

[Inaudible] the free plan for Dropbox or are you paying for it?

ANDREW. Unfortunately, pain for it but I guess, they’re given a terabyte of a space now so it is nice.

Yeah. I’m paying for it as well and yeah, I get a terabyte of space that can cost me hundred bucks a year or something. It’s some number that’s ridiculously low compared to the amount of space I can put up – put stuff up my cloud so I just pay for it. But I also use it to transfer all of the podcast episodes and stuff so that Mandy can edit them.

I mean, that is a little bit big.

Yeah, I haven’t even come close to maxing it up yet. But yeah, it definitely takes up some space.

Now I’m still on a free plan and I get a video for a concert I recorded with my band and a guy recorded it, drop it on Dropbox and now my Dropbox is full. [Chuckles]

For an hour show and like, “Alright. I get to figure out to sing off there or upgrade.” If I’m just having more than one development machines which I haven’t had for a year or two, probably pony up.

Yeah.

Still keeping it free.

But even then, there are other options for documents. You can put them all into Google Docs or something. They’re free up to a certain amount, too. So, I’m curious are there tools that you use? I think XCode’s given most of the time. I know there are other options. But what tools do you use to build your iOS apps like IDEs or other development tools?

XCode is certainly, by far, the primary thing. As far as other apps, I use BBEdit and TextMate. I switch off between them for text editing cause— BBEdit’s good at something’s that TextMate’s not and vice versa. But I don’t really code in either of those. I use them— I open them and use like there nice fine replace feature or something like that. But it’s not where I’m writing most of my code, XCode for that.

Another really big one for me is Dash which I think we’ve— I’ve at least picked it if we haven’t talked about it on an episode but Dash is a documentation viewer that’s not specific to Mac and iOS development at all but it’s really nice for those and I like it better than XCode’s built in documentation viewer.

Yeah [crosstalk]. I’ve used Dash as well and I really liked it. One other tool that I use pretty frequently is Emacs and it’s just because I have so much muscle memory tied up in it that when I’m writing stuff I tend to just go there. XCode does a lot for you with the iOS and Mac development so I’m definitely in there a lot when I’m building those apps but anything else that I can do, I will do in Emacs.

Yeah. I've mostly used XCode for iOS development. I tried using AppCode with one project a while back and it was one of the most massive projects that I worked on that was 20 minute compile time if we built everything. That’s because we had 20 years of code in some of the libraries and AppCode would give them [inaudible]. Hopefully, they fix it now but it just look like living on overnight and just didn’t happen. We ran the memory and just going to hang there and I never got around to working with them to give that result.

They were actually very helpful. They were, “Hey can you send me these files?” I send a few but I didn’t get too much farther with it. I would really like AppCode. [Inaudible] really good work in general. If you’re in the .net world, they do a lot of Visual Studio [inaudible] for that. I can’t remember the name of it right now, but it's one of the standard, really great tools for refactorings. ReSharper?

ReSharper. Yeah.

Okay, [inaudible] that’s a really solid tool and I’m not doing that much C#. I haven't been in any .net in quite a while. For the Ruby stuff, I use Sublime Text and I have had a good jump doing lot of different languages sometimes. Most of the work is iOS but I get the occasional backend I need to figure out. I just— I like Sublime. It just has reasonable default for Java Script, Pearl and Ruby. I tried to get Emacs for Ruby development and I— every time I mess with Emacs, I ended up not [inaudible] and messing with Emacs for three hours.

[Chuckles] That’s half the fun.

It is half the fun but I wanted to get something done and Sublime is just reasonable. Okay defaults [inaudible] get dones, doesn’t give me the super workflow but like you, I have Emacs key bindings in my fingers. So I dropped on Emacs when I need, like to setting bug files or current files, that kind of thing. But for certain development the Sublime or XCode.

Now, I’m curious, do any of you use Continuous Integration or anything for your apps or doing any kind of Continuous build or deployment?

I do and I want to talk about that but I want to ask you guys first if you don’t mind. Do you either of you use anything for Source Control besides the command line?

No, just the [crosstalk]. I wouldn't mind Git.

Yeah [inaudible] command line, personally.

I use the command line 99.9% of the time but I do have Tower and SourceTree. Git Tower and SourceTree can do both Mercurial and Git. I have those installed. I don’t know— occasionally I find something where I don’t really know how to do it on the command line but if I fire up one of those, I can figure it out more easily so I’m just curious.

Yeah. I think Git Tower— I’ve used it a few times but it’s only when I get into a really, really, heavy merge, otherwise yeah.

Yeah, so that’s what I use it for is difficult merges. There’s a GitHub client called GitHub for Mac or something like that. It’s not really just— it could be used this way but it’s really of meant to go with a normal GitHub workflow and can do pull requests and that sort of thing. That’s a pretty nice way to manage working on a GitHub repo, use it occasionally.

Yeah. It’s a cool tool. It does a lot. It also does a lot to just help you like you said, manage the project, not just manage your source code.

Right, which is what I like about it.

So Continuous Integration?

Yeah, so we do this at MixedInKey and I’m the one that is— has somehow ended up responsible for the whole thing. We use Jenkins. The main reason we’re not using the XCode bot stuff that XCode has now is that we use Mercurial and XCode only supports Git. But beyond that, Jenkins— we’ve been using it, I think we’ve been using it since before XCode bots came out and I know it pretty well. I know how to set it up.

We run it on a Mac mini that I host here at my house so that’s nice. It has its upsides and downsides but machine is in my house so I can reboot it if I need to [chuckles] or hook it up to a monitor and do something if needs to. I put a new RAM not very long ago, that kind of thing.

It’s just like message [inaudible] kicked the server. Okay.

Yeah. It happens. Well it doesn’t happen very often but it does happen. Seems it happens right at the middle of the vacation usually.

Sorry.

Yeah. Let me just reach through the internet and poke it. Yeah, I do it for Ruby. I do Continuous Integration. I’m working on Continuous deployment. I haven’t really done it for iOS and that’s mainly just out of a pure lack of desire to figure it out. I think once I get little deeper into the iOS ecosystem then I probably be a little more interested in it but right now I’m not yeah— I’ve been using CircleCI for my Continuous Integration.

I used Jenkins in the past, past employers. Setting it up, isn’t too terribly difficult but getting it to work with something that’s not Java, in some cases was painful. The other thing was that we almost always wanted something custom out of it. So in order to go customize it, we had to go dig in to a bunch of Java code and try not to do anything stupid cause we didn’t understand everything that was going on in it. So that was the real issue that I ever had with Jenkins was just that it wasn’t as easy for me to hack as anything else. Of course now, I’m using Close Source systems.

We’ve had really good luck with Jenkins overall.

Yeah. Well yeah, once we had it set up, it was great.

Yeah but it did take me a while. There was a learning curve. It took me a while to figure out how to massage it into a point where it did what we need.

One thing that we use it for— I don’t know— I get a little confused by the terminology but it not only does builds when people push changes to make sure that the build's not broken and run test and all that. It uploads those builds to our deployment system, so our OS 10 builds. For iOS, it uploads them to TestFlight automatically. So it’s also used essentially for distributing our builds. We have to go flipped a switch of course to release a particular build to the wider world and not just for internal testing but that’s extreme lining of our release process has been really nice. It helps us to release updates much more quickly and easily and more often than we did before.

So you’re just building of Master or do you have other branch you build of?

Yeah. We build of Masters so Master is our release branch. Then we develop features on separate branches. Those don’t get released until they’re merged in. Sometimes if we’re going something really big where we want, where we need builds of the feature as it goes. I’ll just set up another Java on Jenkins that will build that branch on our deployment system which we wrote has support for that kind of thing so you can have multiple channels for a given app. For our OS 10 apps, TestFlight’s not quite so simple because it’s Apple’s thing.

Yeah, the client I’ve been working with, we’ve got a Jenkin system. We do something similar with those auto builds of Master. It also develop so— something or checking in to get tested. We also build feature branches. [Inaudible] mention so we can name the branch a certain way and it gets tagged, associated with the GR ticket.

The great thing about that is it also gets compiled and the set up for the enterprise distribution. So if I’m working on a branch, I get a feature tagged through it. I tagged it with a feature, named it something and the designer I’m working with can check it out to see what I’m doing, see if it list correctly or QA can take a look at it and make sure everything is working.

So that’s one of the things where CI can really help. If other people on the team that need to review what you’re doing— I did this button and this background, just looks great— they can just do it; otherwise, you’re going to the whole TestFlight dance, whatever you do to make it give – build that someone else can see. So that save a lot of time and I’ve had a couple of clients that use Jenkins but we've always had someone full time who is in charge of that role in doing operations and keeping Jenkins going. It's a fair amount of commitment to it but it’s worthwhile and allows the developer’s keep developing and let everyone else see what they’re doing.

Yeah, that makes sense.

For us, having our iOS apps go out to TestFlight twice a day, which is what we do, has been really good for the same reason Jaim said because we can make changes and then for people that need to review them, I don’t have to do anything. I just wait and they know – a new build would pop up at about one o’clock and another one at six o’clock every day and I don’t have to go through the annoyance of submitting to TestFlight twice a day which is not horrible but it’s distracting.

So how is— how you use TestFlight changed since Apple brought it in the house?

Well, fundamentally I don’t think it’s changed. We’re using it for internal testing and also for external beta testing before Apple bought it but maybe not directly related to Apple buying it but since that happened, Fastlane has come out. That’s really— Fastlane is really what made it so easy for me to set up Continuous Integration system that we’d upload to TestFlight which is with that whole app set on Fastlane. But haven’t mentioned it yet today but that’s now – Fastlane is a huge part of our Continuous Integration set up. It’s hard to believe we used to not to have it.

Yeah. I found TestFlight to be very useful now that’s set up with an Apple but a huge pain to set up. Before, setting up a TestFlight for a new client was just was easy. It took me half hour to get setting up there so they can download. I do it through a huge [inaudible] just to get everything set up because first the Apple IDE has to set it up, invite you. You need to be an iTunes Connect user; you can’t have the same email address between two ones so I have to create a new email alias.

They fixed that.

They did? Okay.

Yeah. Just Not very long ago.

Okay.

That’s quite nice.

Yeah, last summer when I had to do all this and I had to create a new email add. Okay, add me again and iTunes connect [chuckles] but I’m glad that’s fixed.

Yeah. For me, I don’t where I’m not doing contract work for multiple clients, it’s not a big deal to set up a new app but it is quite a pain when you want to get added to a new team especially if the person that’s helping you doesn’t really know how to do it cause the UI for iTunes connect and the developer portal's not exactly easy to figure out if you’ve never seen it before.

The CEO and something non-technical, they’re running the company. They want an app but yeah they don’t know what’s going on. So it’s like, “Okay, walk me to these steps. Add me here. Do this.

Quit these things.” That’s how it goes.

Yeah, so how about your desk setup? I’m curious if you’re watching the video, we are recording this on Google Hangouts. You can probably see that I’m standing up. I’m actually kind of sitting down.

I’m leaning on this Mogo seat and it’s specifically made for standing desks if I’ve been up and about a lot during the day then I’ll pull it out and sit on it. It’s nice but I feel like it gets me up right and that’s a good thing. It’s just the Lifehacker Ikea Standing Desk that I’m standing at but most of the time when I’m coding, I’m sitting down. But I actually have – a lot of people are amused by this but it’s basically a cubicle in my home office. Yeah, so I just sit here. I’ve got a ton of desk space. It’s a total disaster right now. So I’m not going to turn the camera but— then I have Herman Miller Air on chair that is very nice to sit in. I bought a foot rest, of Amazon for 20 bucks, slithered under my desk so I put my feet up when I code.

Then I’ve got two monitor arms where I sit. I’ve got a dual monitor arm thingy where I stand that makes your borders right below my laptop. I’ve got another— a second monitor on that and a tray for the laptops. So that’s my two screens over here. Then I have a docking station, a thunderbolt docking station for both places where I sit. So I just move the laptop. I just unplug it, move it over and plug it back in.

that’s cool. Yeah, I’ve got a standing desk, too. I’ve had it for about a year. I bought the Fairy desk which allows you up and down within a few— probably take five to ten seconds if I want to go up and down.

Is that [crosstalk] is that one of the ones that you stick on a regular desk? Then lift it up and down?

Yeah. It just sits on – it’s pretty huge. I bought the huge— I bought the biggest one which is really bigger than I need. I’ve got a thunderbolt display which is pretty wide. I used to have thunderbolt in my MacBook set up side by side. I wanted to do that. I thought I’d be wide enough, but I bought the 48 inch which is massive and I really can’t fit them both side. I can’t fit the [inaudible] in the middle of my MacBook of the side a little bit. So that doesn’t quite fit. So I didn’t need one this big but it’s massive. I get a lamp on sitting on my desk just to keep vibrant. But it’s cool; I can go down in ten seconds. So I’ve been working, coding along [inaudible] sore, go back down and I’m sitting. One drawback is it raises your desk about four inches and with the thunderbolt monitor, you can’t lower it. So I had to buy a new chair; I had a chair I was recently happy with and I had to buy a taller one.

I had my heart set on a Herman Miller chair— great chairs and no standard chairs go high enough for me to work at this desk as it is. I had to buy a drafting chair. You could buy the Herman Miller drafting chair but it’s 1200 dollars. Well let’s try this out so I tried a cheaper one which— it's an okay chair. Not the greatest thing but I’m happy being able to stand up and sit down as I need to, though I’m pretty happy with my [inaudible] desk but you don’t need 48 inches.

[Chuckles] Nice. I’ve been looking at those motorized ones that are sit stand desk but I haven’t sprung for it yet. What about you Andrew?

My Desk Setup’s a lot more boring than you guys. I just have a desk for my Ikea— I can’t remember— you just buy the desktop and the legs. I’ve had it forever and my chair is also for my kids. It’s— I don’t know— it’s one that comes up on list good, decent chairs that are not super expensive. I’d really like to get a standing desk setup but just haven’t yet. I do use two monitors. I have my 27 inch iMac and then I have another 27 inch screen by Dell that I put next to it. So I need a fairly wide desk and this one is but one of these days, I’ll get a standing desk.

Yeah. My issue was that, I kept trying to talk to my wife into the thousand dollar sit stand desk with the motor in it and she kept saying, “Ugh, do you need it?” I’m— strictly speaking no but I could talk her into the 30 bucks I spent for the parts for the Lifehacker Ikea desk. So yeah, I have to move my laptop back and forth. So that’s— now that I use it all the time, I think I could talk her into it if we were in a position where we had the extra money to spend on it.

Is there anything else to your set up? Anything else that you have that you can’t live without with your coding or just your habit as you work throughout the day?

Yeah. So I do some hardware engineering, partly just for fun but I also have a project that working on now that’s not just for fun where I’m doing hardware. So to my left, I have a full work bench set up with the stereo microscope and soldering iron and [inaudible] stores and all that. And having that close to my computer is nice because the stuff I work on typically has software that goes along with it. Then, of course, another big one is music. During the time I’m working, I like to listen to music so I have decent speakers. I’ve got my tape decks and that kind of stuff right next to me.

Nice. Yeah. For my music I just use— I have a little can Bluetooth speaker. I’m usually listening to podcast so the fidelity isn’t as important because it’s just a voice but when I am listening to music, I usually just pop in some headphones. So I’ve got the Sony headphones that I’m wearing right now as we do the podcast that I'll use a lot. I also have some post-noise cancelling headphones that I use at the coffee shop or cafe. Then the rest of the time, I’m just using the regular Apple ear pods.

I think Jaim is also a music junky though. What is your music set up Jaim?

So for coding, it’s quiet most of the time. If I had to really think on the problem which is a lot of my developments, I usually don’t have it on. If I do have it on – you know, doing some brain dead task where you're copying and pasting, stuff like that, I just got Spotify going and I get it going through my thunderbolt display which isn’t the greatest quality but decent for computer speakers. So I do that and every once in a while, I listen to music and work then I go upstairs to my regular stereo setup, put on a CD or LP or something and like, “This sounds so much better upstairs.” Listening to that stream music removes your ability to enjoy music after a while but gradually.

There’s something to be said I think for being used to listening to that kind crappy of sounding music and then you go listen to it on your real stereo and it just sound so much better, it blows you away cause you’re not used to it.

True. I get that quite often. It’s been a few days before I listen upstairs for a CD and like, “Wow! This sounds really good.” You don’t notice how bad it sounds when you’re listening to it but you can tell the difference for sure.

Yup.

What about coding music? So Chuck, you listen to podcast. What type of tunes do you listen to Andrew?

I can’t listen to podcast while I’m working because I can’t. I just won’t be able to. I’m listening to it but it’s going in one ear and out the other so I don’t really listen to podcast like when I’m driving, but I listen to all kinds of music. By that I mean, I listen to all kinds of music that I like while I’m coding. There’s not really particular kind that’s good for me or bad for me. I listen to a lot of classic rock. I listen to a lot of new music. I like modern classical and handful of other things. It just depends on what mood I’m in. I know some people thought that they only listen to instrumental music when they’re working or something like that but that’s not how I do things.

Yeah. If I need to get into the zone and I’m listening to music then it has to be instrumental. You can’t have lyrics to it because I just get totally distracted.

Yeah. So anyway I have a collection of classical music that I bought off of iTunes. We’ll see if I can find it, put a link to it in the show notes. Then I listen to some electronic music. It’s really funny though because I’m picky about that. Some of it is really good and some of it isn’t.

There’s also a program out there called Focus at Will and they play music and it’s oriental or eastern style music and all kinds of stuff. But it’s got a very specific cadence and types of sounds that help to get in the zone. Sometimes it really works for me well and sometimes I’m just— I put it in and I’m just like, “Okay. This would put me to sleep.” So it just depends on what I’m after. But a lot of times what I’m doing is I’m sitting down and I’m doing some busy work to manage something for the podcast or do social media or I’m just browsing through email and cleaning out all the stuff that I can answer in two seconds or less without thinking too much. So when I’m doing that, I'll usually listen to a podcast because I have enough free cycles in my brain to process through whatever it is. So it just depends on what I’m doing more than anything else. Yeah, I'll put a link to the classical music.

Then somebody got me turned on to Dead Mouse which is sometimes I’m in the mood for that. Sometimes I’m not just depending on the music and the rhythm and things like that. But there are few others, I can’t think them off the top of my head but I got a playlist in iTunes that I just turn on. Then if I really need to get pump up then I have a couple of songs that I do use for that, too.

Usually it’s stuff off of a rocky sound track, believe it or not.

I was about to say that [crosstalk] but Chuck’s got the rocky theme going.

Yeah.

It is a good one.

No, I’m pretty particular about the music I listen to when I’m coding. I need to focus. It’s usually instrumental that’s partly classical or jazz. Bach Cello Suites are pretty cool. It keeps going. I like Mahler, his symphonies which most people wouldn’t like that much but I’ve heard them enough. They can just go on the background.

Bill Frisell, jazz guitarist. Jazz doesn’t really describe what it sounds like. It’s really spacious, ambient music that’s in the background really well so I listen to quite a bit of Bill Frisell. But if it’s in [inaudible] of place I turn on the white noise; put on the headphones and I just play some white noise and do some playlist on Spotify which do okay just to drown out extra sounds here.

For those who don’t know what white noise is, it’s just random sound and it sounds like television. Well, television do the same more but if you got a television hooked to a no signal, it just sounds like static. It’s noise so it max out other noise but your brain doesn’t focus on it. So it just let’s you – it's there [inaudible] the sound but your brain’s not paying attention to it. If I listen to songs with lyrics, I listen to lyrics and I’m thinking about the lyrics instead of my code so [inaudible] I just drop down the White Noise. Especially if I’m in a co-working spot; it’s a little loud. White noise works pretty well.

Yeah. I have a white noise app on my phone. I think it’s called White Noise. I’ve used that at hotels. I think the worst that I ever had it at a hotel, I went to Ruby Conf in Atlanta. I booked myself into The Hyatt that was around the corner from the conference venue. And the center of the hotel was just a big open-to-the-air space all the way down to the lobby so even though I was on the 11th floor, I was getting all the echoes out of the main place. So yeah I hooked my phone up to my little can speaker then turn on some White Noise and they have rain and heavy rain. They have ocean waves and things like that. But then they also have just generic white noise that as Jaim said as random soft noise that just drowns everything else out.

One other thing I’m going to briefly mentioned with my gear is I have a little tower that I take when I go co-working – especially if I’m going co-working. It has eight plugs on it and four USB plugs. Anyway, it just sits on the table and has a reasonably long chord that you can plug into the wall wherever you’re at. So that way we can have eight or so people sitting around the table, all plugged in to the same power source and share power. And because it has the four USB plugs then people can plug their phones in the [inaudible], too.

The other one that I have – and this is something that Alondo picked a while back – I bought the PlugBug because I was going to Amsterdam. And one thing’s that’s really nice about it is that it hooks on to your power supply— the chord or the little short, I don’t know what to call it, but anyway, it has the little attachment for the plug. This goes on like that and it adapts for different international power things if you get the PlugBug World. It also has a USB port on it so you can charge your phone and your laptop at the same time off the same plug which is nice.

You’ve got a call, if you did sales and travels a lot, he’s got devices like that. He takes with them to airport. He calls them his friend-makers.

Umhum. Yup.

It can always— if you could help some out, all the plugs might be full but hey, if I plug in here you can plug in and everyone can plug in and you’re all good to go.

Yeah. They’re really handy that way. Should we get to picks then?

Let’s do it.

Alright. Andrew, what are your picks?

I’ve just got one pick today. I had another one but I couldn’t— I know I was thinking about it but I couldn’t remember. So I’m going to pick Open Radar which I’ve probably picked before but— and going along with Open Radar, I’m also just going to pick Filing radars with Apple. I think filing— so for those that don’t know, filing a radar with Apple means filing a bug report with Apple. You can use this to file – to report bugs in the STKs or in Xcode or even just in apps that are Apple apps that come with the Operating System. You can [inaudible] file bugs that are Operating System bugs. It has a little bit of a bad reputation. Partly, it deserves that because it’s a black hole and it could be designed better for external users but at the same time this is our only way to tell Apple about problems that need to be fixed. It’s really true that Apple can’t fix things that they know about. There are good engineers inside of Apple that do care and wants to fix things that we report.

So File Radar’s and then Open Radar is site where you can post your radar – your bug reports so that other people can see it. Open Radar’s public and it’s basically like a mirror of bugs that are filed with Apple but it does require you to file a bug there yourself. So I like it, though I sometimes just go visit and look through the bugs that people file today because there’s a list of recent bugs on the top page. It also makes it easy if you’re hitting into a bug that somebody else’s also had, you can file your report as a duplicate of theirs. That helps Apple organize things. So that’s my pick.

Alright. Jaim, what are your picks?

Alright. I’m going to do one pick. I’m going to do a TV show pick. I’m going to go to the way back machine for this one. Twin Peaks made the news in the past years or so, they’re doing a sequel series or another season I guess, call it but I had never seen the actual [inaudible] episodes. I remember it was on— maybe watch one episode and people talk about it. It was a thing. I just tuned it out for 25 years whenever I went through and watch it. It’s on Netflix and it’s really great. The first season is amazing. If you're familiar with David Lynch's work, it’s weird and occasionally disturbing and that’s just how it goes. So if you’re okay with that, it's worth checking out but a great mystery.

Season one’s pretty concise. Season two basically sprawls; there’s 22 episodes which when I first look at them like, that’s insane. I’m not going to watch it. I’m going to get bored halfway through but I'll see how it goes but I’ve made it through all 22 episodes. I thought it was great. It just sprawls out like a soap opera. I was trying to explain— I was watching it until my wife came in like, “What’s happening here? Who’s that person?” "Well he's –," and as I explain it, I realized I was actually watching a soap opera because the plot was [chuckles].

I had no way to explain who this person was without going out half hour but it’s really good. So I recommend Twin Peaks and they’re redoing – they’re shooting yet but they’re going do season three, 25 years later and do TV show so I’m pretty excited for that but yeah, check out Twin Peaks.

Plus one on that app. I love Twin Peaks. The second season is a little odd because I think they thought they were going to get cancelled halfway through. Then they ended up not getting cancelled or yeah— something like that. Anyways, so the story went off in a weird direction but I’m excited for the new one and that’s definitely worth watching if you’ve never watched it. I also just want to say I really love David Duchovny’s role in Twin Peaks. [Crosstalk] Pre X-Files.

Plus one. [Chuckles] Yeah, definitely stuff they applaude to [inaudible] right there.

But we'll leave it as a surprise.

After 25 years though. Spoilers don’t count, do they?

No, [chuckles] but you’re trying to get people to watch the show.

That’s right. That’s true. And Heather Gram, a very young Heather Gram shows up at the end.

Alright. I’ve got two things. One pick is— sometimes I miss events like – I’ve been watching the presidential debates and I want to stay up on what’s going on. So I’ve been going to torrentz.eu. That’s torrentz.eu. You can find other stuff that is questionably legal but anyway, I generally, just use it for things that I don’t want to miss that are timely like that. So anyway, I’ve been using to get those and watch those and yeah. You can find all kinds of great stuff on there.

The other thing that I want to just want to just let people know about— I don’t know if we’ve mentioned it on the show and by the time the show comes out it might be too late for people to make plans. But we are going to be in San Francisco on March – what is it 29th, 30th, 31st?

30th and 31st and some of us will be there the 1st.

Yeah. I won’t be there the 1st but these two guys will. We’re going to be at Build Conference. We’re going to be participating in their podcast area. We’re going to be talking to a lot of people at the conference. Hopefully getting some Microsoft input on some of the stuff going on in the mobile world. So if there are particular ideas that you have, of course I think this comes out on the 30th if I remember right, so let us know. Also, I’ve been working – I’ve been talking to a few people, particularly Pete Hudson, about pulling together a meet up for people who like this show and the JavaScript Jabber show who are also going. So if you want to meet up with us, we’ll be meeting up somewhere near the conference on 30th is what I’m looking at or the 31st. I don’t remember. Anyway, it would be one of those nights. I’m going to be sending emails around if you get updates on this show or any other shows that we do on DevChat.TV. So yeah keep an ear out for that.

If you’re not in San Francisco, I’m just going to throw a few other dates and cities out because I am travelling a bit this year. So I’m actually flying from San Francisco to Las Vegas. I’ll be in Las Vegas from the 1st until the 6th so if you’re in Las Vegas. I think I’m pulling something together on the 3rd is what I think I figured out. So if you’re in Las Vegas again, I’m going to be sending emails out, letting you know where to go and where to meet up. Then in May, the Adventures in Angular and JavaScript Jabber crews are getting together for ng-conf and we're going to be doing sessions at ng-conf, and that’s in Salt Lake City. So if you want to come hang out in Salt Lake City with us, and we’ll see if we can get Andrew to come, too. We’re going to be doing that somewhere around the conference venue which is the Grand America Hotel downtown. Yeah so that should be fun.

Then in July— on July 9th, I’m going to be doing another get together in Chicago because I’ll be there for podcast movement and so we’re working all that out. Then it looks semi likely that I’ll be in Nashville sometime in November. So if you’re looking to meet me in Chicago or Nashville, yeah, just keep an eye out or an ear out. If you’re a fan of those other shows then definitely come out and see us.

And like I said, if you’re on the mailing list, you’ll get notified. You can get on the mailing list by going to iphreaksshow.com. If you haven’t been on the page before, it will slide down with a little thing that says,” Get the Top 10 episodes of the iPhreaks Show,” in your inbox. If you enter your email address in there, then you’ll get these notifications, too. I’m trying to get together a landing page for that. I just— I’ve been busy and haven’t gone into it. So, anyway, long winded, come meet us, come meet me.

The thing’s that’s really nice about these meetups though, is that it’s one thing to speak into a mic and know that it’s getting recorded and going out people. It’s another thing when we get a chance to talk, say, on Skype or something with a listener and I’ve done that fairly frequently. In fact you could do that by going to iphreaksshow.com/15minutes. However, it’s an entirely different thing and for it’s much more fulfilling because I really get to know who people are and feel like we connect in a person to person manner when we can do it in person so please come out. Especially if you’re in San Francisco since Jaim and Andrew and I will all be in the same place. I know Pete will be there because he said he was going to come. So definitely please come.

And with Pete there, we're having a local [inaudible] the spot so it’s all good.

Yup. Yeah, he’s already giving me a recommendation or two. So I’m just ironing out the details and I’ll make a reservation but I am also collecting RSVP's that. So if you haven’t gotten an email about it cause I did send one already, just shoot me an email. Check DevChat.TV or tweet at me @cmaxw and say you’re going to come and I’ll add you to the head count. Even if you think you might be able to come, if it's a better than 50% chance you’ll show up then let us know and we’ll count you in.

I’m looking forward to it.

Yeah, that’d be fun. If you’re going to be at Build Conference, come find us. I guess we’ll leave it there. We’ll wrap up and we’ll catch you all next week.