I moved the blog to WordPress. I was able to import all the posts from the old blog and from the even older Blogger site. The comments from the Blogger site survived the import, but not the comments from the other blog. Images are missing from some of the newer posts, but I should have them up soon.

For now I’m using one of the standard WordPress themes. I am working on getting the blog to match the look of the rest of the site.

I moved the blog. Here’s the new blog location.

In a previous post on Xcode 3’s new locations for project and file templates, I said project and file templates needed to be in the following locations:

I installed Mac OS X 10.5 and Xcode 3 last night so I can now answer Xcode 3 questions. As I spend more time with the new Xcode Tools, I will take note of changes Apple made in Xcode 3 and write about them here.

Because I don’t have Leopard yet, I don’t have Xcode 3 so I can’t answer your Xcode 3 questions. You can still ask them if you want, if you don’t mind the response “I don’t know”. Apple has an Xcode mailing list where you can ask Xcode 3 questions as well as questions on other Apple developer tools like Interface Builder.

I will post on the blog when I get Leopard, also known as Mac OS X 10.5.

I recently got one of the new iMacs, and I had to move my local Subversion repository to the new Mac. Getting the repository to the new Mac was a little tricky. Most of the Subversion tutorials on the Internet deal with creating a repository from scratch so I figured an article on moving a Subversion repository to a new computer would help people.

Moving the Repository

Moving a repository to a new computer requires three steps.

1. Dump the repository’s contents to a file.
2. Create a repository on the new computer.
3. Load the repository with the contents of the dumped file’s contents.

Run the command svnadmin dump to dump the contents of a repository to a text file. Navigate to the directory above the repository, and run svndadmin dump.

svnadmin dump RepositoryName > DumpFile

Running svnadmin dump like I just did will write the contents of your repository to a file called DumpFile. Ideally you would dump the repository contents before you get your new computer and copy the dump file to your new computer. But I was able to copy my repository folder to the new computer and run svnadmin dump on the new computer.

After creating the dump file, run the command svnadmin create to create a new repository. Navigate to where you want the repository to reside and enter the following command:

svnadmin create RepositoryName

Now it’s time to fill the newly created repository with the contents of the dump file. Run the command svnadmin load to fill the repository.

svnadmin load RepositoryName < DumpFile

Now you’ve managed to copy the repository over to the new computer.

Changing the Repository’s Path

After recreating my old repository, I opened an Xcode project that was in the repository to see if the version control information was appearing in Xcode. The only information that was appearing was the files’ local revision numbers. There was no information on previous versions of the project’s files.

The cause of the problem was the repository path on the new computer did not match the path on the old computer. I needed to tell the files in the repository the new path to the repository.

The svn switch command accomplished this task. To tell the files the new repository path, move to the directory where the project’s files reside and run the svn switch command using the –relocate option. When using the –relocate option, you first supply the old repository path, then the new path.

svn switch –relocate /Path/On/Old/Computer /Path/On/New/Computer

After running svn switch, all the version control information began to appear in Xcode.

Apple did me a favor as a writer by delaying the release of Mac OS X 10.5 from June to October. With a June release I would have had a difficult decision to make: delay updating Xcode Tools Sensei until I finished the OpenGL book, or delay development on the OpenGL book to update the Xcode book. Apple gave me another four months to finish the OpenGL book.

All updates for Xcode 3 and Leopard will come in a new edition of Xcode Tools Sensei. Xcode and Interface Builder are going to have major updates. Trying to juggle Xcode 1.x, 2.x, and 3 in one text would be difficult for me to write and you to read. I also will have to take a bunch of new screenshots so it makes sense to have two versions of the book: the current version that supports Xcode 1.x and 2.x, and a new version specifically for Xcode 3. The electronic edition of the Xcode 3 version would be available at a discount for everyone who has the current version of the book.

Skim is a free, open-source PDF viewer for Mac OS X. Mac OS X comes with Preview, which views PDF files, and Adobe Acrobat Reader is freely available so what makes Skim special? Skim has features that make reading technical articles and academic papers easier.

The first of these features is the ability to add notes to a PDF document. It’s the electronic equivalent of adding sticky notes to a paper document. When you’re reading difficult material, being able to make notes to yourself helps in understanding the material.

A second useful feature is the ability to highlight areas of text by putting a circle or box around it. A third feature is snapshots, which let you keep important pieces of a document in easy reach.

Skim is at version 0.2, which means it’s far from a finished product. But if you read a lot of PDF technical articles, you should give Skim a test drive.

I haven’t posted anything about the OpenGL book for a while, but I am writing to let you know I am still working on it. Progress has been excruciatingly slow, which has been very frustrating to me. On the code front, I’ve been working on the physics code. On the writing front, I have a lot of material written on several chapters, but I still don’t have a finished chapter. Whenever I write about something, it brings up several additional topics I have to write about. When I write about those topics, it brings up more things to write about, which makes finishing difficult.

I have started moving the Me and Mark Publishing website to a new host. Everything should be transferred within the next 1-2 days. Hopefully there won’t be any problems. I will add an item to the Latest News section about the switch. If you see the item on the Me and Mark Publishing home page, you’re viewing the site with the new host.