If you're a Mac software developer or a die-hard fan, you probably know that WWDC is Apple's World Wide Developer Conference. For developers, this is the place to go to suck in as much knowledge as we can in a five-day period. Apple hosts sessions to teach about development tools and related topics and they also give us labs to sit and talk to the people that designed the Apple's systems. It's geek nirvana!
It's also a chance for developers, who are spread around the world, glued to their computers, and typically carry on conversations limited to 140 characters at a time, to actually sit face to face and have a real conversation. This is my first time to go, so I don't know which I'm looking forward to more—the schooling or the socializing.
The Mac developer community is so giving and open and has helped me tremendously with my development of both Debt Quencher and MoneyWell. I'm not sure I've sold enough copies of both to pay for all the drinks I owe these guys, but I'll do my best to pass around my gratitude. I'm more excited than my daughter if she were told that everything is now available in pink... and free. Just yesterday she asked if we could get a ping pong table... in pink... with pink paddles... and zebra striped balls. The girl scares me sometimes.
The only difficult part is continuing to run a microISV company while I'm MIA. My wife, Judy, is set to come on board full time to work with me at No Thirst Software, but that doesn't happen until July 1, and I'll be at the conference from June 7 through June 14. This means that my average one-hour response time for support will suffer a bit. It will be worth it, though, because what I learn at the conference should greatly accelerate our two pending MoneyWell projects (2.0 and iPhone versions), which means more software goodness for our customers.
Even if you're not a geek, you should pay attention to Steve Job's Keynote on Monday morning. What he announces may very well make you want to create a new expense bucket in MoneyWell.
Peace.
