I went out drinking with Brent Simmons. Everything after that is kind of a blur.

About a year ago, I happened to be flying in to San Jose on business. As the plane touched down, I did what I always do: take my iPhone out of airplane mode. At some point over eastern California, my friend Alex sent an email to myself and Brent Simmons; he had noticed we were both going to be in the area and suggested we meet up. To be honest, I felt terrible that night. I just wanted to go to my hotel and get some sleep.

I had met Brent once before at Ignite Denver, but only briefly. The opportunity to buy the developer of one of my favorite applications a drink was too good to ignore. So I sucked it up and went out.

It just so happened that Brent was in town for 360|iDev, an event organized by a guy named John Wilker, who I sort of knew in passing and — again, by sheer coincidence — had just become my neighbor. Nobody could have said it better than Wilker himself when he walked up to me outside of the eBay Town Hall that night. “Dave? What the hell are you doing here?”

When Brent and I went out, we were joined by Dan Burcaw and Joe Pezzillo — iPhone developers and friends of Brent’s from, of all places, Denver. Jay and I had just launched Coathangr, the social network for fashion, and I asked Dan how much it would cost us to build an iPhone app for it.

He told me that the conversation couldn’t even start for less than twenty grand, and that we’d be better off doing it ourselves. So we did. And we fell in love with iPhone development. And a year later, Dan’s company acquired us. I guess he was right.

Of course, I’m leaving out an entire year’s worth of blood, sweat, education, experience, and perhaps most importantly, failure. I’ll save those for later posts. So part of it was luck, part of it was the truly awesome iPhone developer community, and a lot of it is owed to my generous and patient mentors. But if I had to trace it back to a single decision that changed everything, it would be going to grab that drink.

The lesson here is that when Brent Simmons invites you out, you say yes.

As an experiment, I suggested that he accept donations. My theory is that the Apple developer community’s no man left behind attitude will inspire a flood of donations and support. Prove me right.

Link for donations.

Go here and use the code april1

This is an excellent deal. If you haven’t registered already, do so today.

We’re thrilled.

Tip One: Don’t go to South by Southwest Interactive.

I’m serious. It sucked last year, and it’s going to suck again this year. You’re kidding yourself if you think otherwise. The idea that SXSWi is a conference – or even a festival – for people doing interesting and useful things in technology is a fallacy. In reality, it’s just a non-stop orgy of bullshit fanboyism – a chance for people with stickers on their laptops to go and add more stickers to their laptops; an opportunity for sweaty dorks in Diggnation t-shirts to line up for two hours in the hope of getting Alex Albrecht to – I dunno – sign their laptop, I suppose, or maybe give them another freaking sticker. Even the parties – which are basically the only reason to go – are horrible: the free bars runs out too soon, and they’re always rammed with the kind of people who you could be forgiven for assuming have never been inside licenced premises before.

Try WWDC instead. It’s like SxSW, except the parties are accessible, the community is friendlier, and the people who attend actually make money at what they do.

Alex King once told us that he wished someone would make an iPhone app based on the PwdHash project at Stanford to make it easier to use secure passwords on the iPhone. Rather than just rush something out, we decided to put some thought into the interface, how users would really want to use the app, and how refined the process could become. Should KeyGrinder save passwords? Should there be a bookmarklet? Should there be a web version? Should access require a password?

The end result is something that I feel is an elegant approach to the problem. There is no need to store passwords because they’re so easy to generate, but bookmarking of URLs provides a fast way to re-grind. The bookmarklet should be as easy to install as the iPhone will allow (tip: not very). And passwords should be easy to recover even if you lose your iPhone or iPod touch². And because no critical information is stored, no thief can steal your passwords even if they get their hands on your device.

We’re happy with this app. We hope everyone uses it and creates better passwords.

1. iTunes link
2. KeyGrinder.com

I sure thought it was right up mine when I first spotted it last night. The game’s description warned me that it is ‘insanely addictive’. Really? An addictive game all about fonts?

Hell yes it is. Or at least that’s how I felt after roughly four hours of almost continuous play last night.

We might print this one out and frame it.

Our thanks to the Eldarion team for putting so much time into creating an API for us. Jay and I could not be more pleased.

I like Mail.app just fine, part of me wants to see some of these great ideas submitted to Apple as feature requests, but like anything, competition is the best motivator.

Plus Letters.app is just the perfect name for an email client.

(Via Patrick Burleson)

Is it possible to deactivate one finger scrolling for magic mouse?
YES, but only globally atm. You can do that in the BTT Mouse Preferences in the general tab.

(Via Tony Hillerson)

I welcome responses to why the HP webcam does not pick up negroes.

Update: Ryan Nielsen points out that this bears a striking similarity to an episode of Better Off Ted.