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Midwestern Mac, LLC

Below, you can read through the latest blog posts from Midwestern Mac, LLC. We blog about Macs, Drupal, web development, app development for the Mac and the iPhone, and whatever else suits our fancy!

Mac OS X Lion/Mountain Lion - Could not join network/timeout

Submitted by Jeff Geerling on August 10, 2012 - 10:12am

I was migrating all the data from a friend's old MacBook (which was running Mac OS X Tiger) to her new MacBook Air (running Mac OS X Mountain Lion), and besides a WiFi hiccup, everything went smoothly (I had to clone the old MacBook's drive to a USB disk, then use Setup Assistant to migrate the data from that disk to the new MacBook Air).

During the Setup Assistant, I could easily connect to my WiFi network, but after the migration was complete, I couldn't connect anymore. I kept getting a pesky error: "Could not join [network]. A connection timeout has occurred." (see picture of error dialog here). Looking through Apple's forums and elsewhere was not much help, because this message seems to be a very generic 'something weird happened' error, happening in many different circumstances.

However, knowing that the keychain and old WiFi connection data from the old Mac had transferred over to the new Mac, and knowing that something might've gone screwy with the network information, I decided to do the following:

App for iOS/Android - Jesuit Conference App

Submitted by Jeff Geerling on June 29, 2012 - 9:41pm

The Jesuit Conference partnered with Midwestern Mac, LLC to create a new app for the 450-year old Society of Jesus; the app includes three sections—Locations, News and Prayers—that offer users the ability to find Jesuit retreat centers, parishes, and schools, follow along with Jesuit news from National Jesuit News, and join in with users around the world in different Jesuit prayers and spiritual works.

Jesuit App for iOS - Locations

Download the app: iTunes Link | Android Link (coming soon!)

The App for iOS was built on top of the Catholic Diocese App, an open source project originally created by Midwestern Mac after the development of Catholic STL (for the Archdiocese of St. Louis). The Android version of the app (not yet available) was built natively for Android devices, on an entirely new (and now open-source) codebase, Catholic Diocese App for Android.

Android Map Marker Drawables/Icons - Original Vector Illustration

Submitted by Jeff Geerling on June 25, 2012 - 12:16am

I've been looking around for a good set of Android map marker icons (drawables), and I've only seen a few that included a vector image (Illustrator or EPS graphics) so I could customize the icon however I wanted. So, I just created my own icon, saved five common colors to a set of xhdpi, hdpi, mdpi, and ldpi sizes, and posted them to a new repository on GitHub: Android Map Marker Drawables (icons).

Please see the GitHub repo for more information about the icons, how to use them, and for the original vector image. Here are examples of the icons (in hdpi resolution):

Map Marker - RedMap Marker - GreenMap Marker - PurpleMap Marker - BlueMap Marker - Yellow

Here's an example app screenshot using a MapView with these icons as the map's Drawable:

Use delegation, threading, and queues to speed up operations

Submitted by Jeff Geerling on June 18, 2012 - 9:09pm

I posted this to my personal site, but I wanted to mention it on this blog, as it's a performance optimization that I use quite often when programming for the web or for native applications: Don't Wait, Delegate! Proper use of threading and queueing.

There are hundreds of ways you can improve your app or website's performance, but few have the potential to improve your app or website's responsiveness as much as queueing or using background processes.

Computers are amazing

Submitted by Jeff Geerling on June 18, 2012 - 5:51pm

In a break from the typical kind of writing I do here, I'd like to mention a few thoughts I've had after reading some opinion pieces on the reparability (or lack thereof) of the new MacBook Pro with Retina display.

Early PCs and Macs

The first computer I owned was a scrap-parts 386 DOS-based PC. I found a working 386 processor from a broken computer, scrounged 1MB of RAM from a couple dead motherboards, found a small hard drive and floppy drive, and slapped it all together inside a huge metal case. It ran great, except when one of the components failed—which seemed to happen on a monthly basis.

My First 386 PC - Gutted
My first PC - and all the tools necessary for PC repair!

While using early PCs, I had to deal with IRQ addresses, serial port driver conflicts, floppy drive cables malfunctioning, hard drive errors, and power supply fuses breaking... not to mention the myriad software incompatibilities with various bits of hardware (and I couldn't just Google "<device name> + <windows 3.1>"!).

I even spent quite a bit of time hardware hacking with the first few Macs I owned (a Mac IIci, a PowerBook 180c, and then a few other Mac desktops and towers—more history here).

Throughout high school and college, I helped a few hundred people repair or upgrade their computers, first through 'Jeff's Computer Service' (as a side/hobby job), and then through Midwestern Mac, LLC (this site's company). I loved working on computers, and still do! From the earliest computers until the past five or so years, most computers required some level of technical knowledge to be used effectively, and required repairs and upgrades at least once or twice a year.

But times have changed; I've since dropped 'computer repair' from the services I provide, because the only service requests are for Windows users who have found some way to clutter up their computer with strange search toolbars and other junkware.

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