Table37

I’m pleased to announce that our biggest project to date is now available on the App Store and Google Play.

Table37 is a full-featured restaurant management system. When Table37 came to us with the idea of modernizing everything about how a restaurant manages its contact with customers, we thought it was a terrific use of technology. Read More

CocoaConf Columbus 2012

CocoaConf is returning to Columbus August 9-11, 2012. They have a great line-up of speakers again this year and Light Year Software is proud to be a sponsor of this year’s conference.

It is common for conferences to offer a full-day beginner’s tutorial the day before the full conference begins, but being a beginner’s tutorial, there isn’t anything to draw in the more experienced developers. CocoaConf is trying something new this year. Chris Adamson, the author of Learning Core Audio, is doing a full-day deep-dive on Core Audio.

I’m returning to do a pair of talks on networking, expanding on last year’s single session. The first will cover NSURLConnection and other basic networking APIs, plus a discussion of tips you can use to make the best use of the network and keep your app feeling fast and responsive. The second session will cover more advanced material, including how to use raw TCP and UDP sockets with Cocoa and discover services on the network with Bonjour and GameKit.

Ita

My friend Ben Lachman (@blach) has started a new venture called Nice Mohawk and they released their first iOS app yesterday: Ita. Ita is a universal, Retina-ready list-making app that syncs across all your devices with iCloud.

It’s available at an introductory price of 99¢ for the next two weeks. I’ve been beta testing it for the last couple of weeks and it is a beautifully designed and finely polished app.

Your Own Free L2TP/IPsec VPN

If you have a VPS for web applications, it’s relatively easy to set up your own L2TP/IPsec VPN for use by Mac OS X or iOS clients. When you’re away from your home or office on someone else’s Wi-Fi (at coffee shops or a conference), it’s a good idea to use a VPN to keep your network use secure and private. While there are free VPN services (Cloak is one), the free plan is time and bandwidth limited. You can pay to lift the time limit, but why pay for another service if you can piggyback on another you already have? Read More