Macs Are Great!

Recently we created a new website for people with celiac disease, All About Celiac, using a content management system, and designed to act as a news aggregator for information about celiac disease, gluten-free recipes, and gluten free food shopping information. Today Apple has posted our latest widget designed to pull any of 6 RSS feeds from the site.


download

We used Dashcode, as supplied in the Leopard developer tools, to create this widget and it was really quite easy. If you’ve been thinking of trying some lightweight programming, perhaps as a way of getting into more serious stuff later on, Dashcode might be a good place to start. To install Dashcode run the Developer Tools installation package from your Leopard DVD, the devtools are not installed by default.

[tags]OS X, widgets, Leopard, Dashcode, celiac disease, Apple, downloads, gluten free recipes, gluten free diet,RSS, feeds[/tags]

written by Steve Rider

Recently I received one of the new aluminum Apple keyboards. It is the full size version with the cluster and it connects via USB. I’ve never used a keyboard in my entire life that I liked more than I like this one. It is fantastic.

I find that I’m able to type faster and with fewer errors, it is amazingly quiet, the spacing of the keys seems almost perfect, and in addition to all of that it has the typical Apple stylish good looks.

[tags]Apple, Keyboard, aluminum keyboard, review, hardware, low profile, anodized aluminum, numeric keypad[/tags]

written by Steve Rider

One of the most successful of my various websites is one for people with celiac disease, the Sensible Celiac. In case you did not know, celiac disease is an inherited autoimmune disorder that causes the immune system to attack the small intestine when a person eats wheat, rye or barley. I’ve got it. Celiac disease requires a gluten-free diet. I also sell gluten free food here.

When I installed Leopard I also installed the Dev Tools and Dashcode, and was very pleased and surprised to see how easy it is to make a widget. So I created one for my Sensible Celiac site that pulls the RSS feed from the discussion forum and shows the 10 most recent messages. It’s nothing fancy to look at, and offers only very basic and typical functionality, but Apple has posted it in their downloads section.

If you have ever wanted to create a widget, check out Dashcode, it’s drop dead easy. And if you want to learn more about celiac disease, visit the Sensible Celiac. Check out our over 600 Gluten-Free recipes.
[tags]Leopard, widgets, dashcode, RSS, celiac disease, gluten free diet, Sensible Celiac, Apple, Downloads[/tags]

written by Steve Rider