Ryan Carmelo Briones

As a programmer, I've been able to accomplish a lot of things by sheer effort alone. Working in this age, whenever a brick wall problem comes along, we're usually able to brute force it with a well-crafted Google search. These situations allow us to learn some things; they expose things about the language/platform that we didn't previously know (syntax/grammar) and sometimes they represent idioms of the language we're working with. But programmers cannot live by effort alone. It's time to refactor our minds.

Welcome to Rethink Columbus. The goals of this group are simple

• Introduce attendees to diverse programming languages and styles in order to change the way they think about solving problems with programming languages.


• Convey a pragmatic "right tool for the job" attitude toward programming languages.


• Above all: have fun.

Rethink Columbus is intended to be a gathering place for open-minded individuals who are interested in honing their skills as software craftsman. Rethink Columbus is also part lab space. It gives us the opportunity to play with languages, platforms and concepts that we might not be able to fit, or maybe don't want to fit, into the daily 9-5. The fun part is the journey. Think of it like a cruise:

• We'll start out with a destination; a place we can point to on the horizon. Maybe that's programming language or concept that can teach something; change the way we think.


• Hire a guide. When it feels right, we'll bring in someone to steer the ship a bit. Provide some experience for the exploration.


• Identify some excursions. Maybe there are a few focused exercises that can provide clear goals and more discussion points... maybe even some pairing involved?


• Enjoy the company of others. Eat, drink and be merry! Meet people. Discuss!

I think that about does it. If you're interested, sign up for the mailing list at Google Groups and stay tuned to the website. If people are as excited as I am, maybe drinks would be in order? We'll see what happens. Thanks for listening.

http://rethinkcolumbus.com
http://groups.google.com/group/rethink-columbus

When I was working on my slides for OSCON 2008, I really wanted to have a curved line in my presentation. Unfortunately there is no simple tool that creates curved lines or allows you to curve straight lines in Apple Keynote 2008. So I went to Google and search for a way to do it. I came up with a lot of results for people asking how to accomplish this and an almost equal amount of results saying it wasn't possible. Then I found this post in the Apple Discussion Forums. The first time I read it, I breezed through it and immediately went to test it out in Keynote. It didn't work for me. So, I went searching farther. Later in the day, after much failure, I found that posting again and read the directions more carefully and tried each step. The results were flawless. At that point, I decided that the internet could use at least one more resource on the subject, and this blog post was born. Here's the instructions on making a curved line in Apple Keynote 2008 with screenshots.

1. While working in your Keynote presentation, choose the "Draw a shape" tool by click on the "Shape" icon in the toolbar, then choosing the "Draw a Shape" icon at the bottom. Alternatively, you can go through the menu (Insert -> Shape -> Draw a Shape) to achieve the same results.



2. Click on the presentation to set the first point. This is where your line will start. Then, when setting the second point, click and hold the mouse button. This will give you the ability to adjust the curve of the line. While holding, move your mouse downwards on the screen and adjust the mouse left and right accordingly to get the curve that you want. When you're happy with the curve, let go of the mouse button. Hit the Escape Key (esc) to stop the drawing process.



3. Your "shape" should now be selected. If it's not (has no white boxes around it), click on the shape once. Now open up the Inspector. (⌘⌥I or View -> Show Inspector) Click on the "Object Inspector" button. Now select the drop down for "Fill" and choose "None." This will turn your shape into an empty path.



4. Last, select the drop down for "Stroke" and choose "Line". This will make your line look like a real line. At this point you're basically done!



5. From here, you can customize your line line any normal line. In my example below I added a 15px stroke and an arrow head on the end point.



Enjoy!