iPhone SDK now available

I totally forgot that today Apple had an iPhone event scheduled for today. I'm currently watching the session while I write this. I just signed up for the iPhone SDK and cannot wait to get back into Objective-C. I used to be a NeXT (predecessor to Mac OS X) developer so seeing some of the familiar API's and language will be great. The best part is the Exchange integration that will be coming in June, finally I will be able to get my work email on my iPhone (wait, is that something I really want?). So are you going to build your own iPhone apps? As I start to develop some apps, I'll post my experiences here asap.

JavaPosse Roundup 2008

I'm off to the JavaPosse Roundup 2008 tomorrow morning (Monday March 3, 2008). Three of us from Overstock.com are going together. It should be a real blast. Late last year, James Ward of Adobe came out to speak at the November UJUG meeting about Flex. After the meeting we were out at a local pub called, Red Rock and James said if there was one conference you were going to go to in 2008, the Java Posse Roundup 2008 should be it. So I'll be there tomorrow afternoon, and cannot wait to meet everyone and to go skiing at Crested Butte. I also put together a collection of past Posse episodes for the drive down, here they are:

• Episode 9, interview with Josh Bloch
• Episode 14, interview with Jonathan Schwartz
• Episode 25, first episode with Joe Nuxoll
• Episode 32, interview with Gavin King
• Episode 70, interview with Brett Porter of Maven
• Episode 99.5, interview with Charles Nutter and Thomas Enebo (JRuby)
• Episode 100, the number says it all
• Episode 107, special from JavaPosse Roundup 2007
• Episode 155, interview with Martin Odersky (Scala)

See you there!

Update on my dad

A quick update on my dad. After having a stroke on January 31, 2008, and a good family friend passing away a few days later, I'm happy to say that my dad has come home. After being in the hospital for about three weeks and catching the virus that caused the hospital to be locked down (meaning that he had no visitors for 10 days right after Bill K passed away), he was discharged because the virus had another breakout. Last weekend was a little scary, his blood sugar levels were way up, and his blood pressure was too high. My mom tried to reach a doctor but no one was available (the Canadian health care system for you). My folks finally got to a doctor on Wednesday and it turns out that he had the wrong prescription for his diabetes. Once the prescription was straightened out, he started to feel better. It will take several weeks for him to really feel the full impact of the medication but I can hear it in his voice already. He is starting to do much better. One more good thing, he can talk like his old self, fortunately the stroke only affected his balance which he is working on correcting. To everyone that contacted me, thank you very much for your thoughts, concerns, and comments. Dad - its great to have you back home, I love you very much!