X World is our major training event for OS X and iOS system administrators. It takes the form of a 3-day conference from 4-6 July 2012 at UTS, Sydney and will feature keynote presentations, hands-on workshops, lecture presentations and a number of social events to facilitate networking. X World 2012 will cater for up to 200 attendees, and is the largest single training event we will undertake this year.
Author: aucadmin
Cocoa Workshop
We are pleased to announce 20 scholarships to our annual AUC Cocoa workshop to be held at the UNSW Kensington campus from the 11 – 13 April 2012.
This workshop is aimed at developing an understanding and appreciation of Cocoa, iOS and other OS X development technologies and is for students (and staff) who have an interest in programming on OS X or iOS.
Spaces are limited and applicants will need to complete an application form and pay a deposit to be considered for this workshop.
Student Developer Scholarships
We’re seeking up to two students who have a talent for, and demonstrated experience in programming on Mac OS X and/or iOS, a strong academic record, and an innovative project idea that doesn’t reinvent the wheel. This is a golden opportunity for top-tier student developers to further their development skills and produce a great software product.
The Scholarships are valued at nearly $10,000 over a two year period and includes travel to Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference, a MacBook Pro, access to the latest developer tools through the Apple Developer Programs and much more.
Applications close on 23 March 2012.
WWDC 2012 Staff & Student Scholarships
We are pleased to announce our WWDC Scholarships to University staff and students to attend this years Apple World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) being held in the USA in 2012.*
To be eligible to obtain a competitive scholarship, you should be a staff member or student of an AUC Member University and have a background in programming (Mac, Unix or Windows) and in interest in learning about the latest OS X & iOS development.
Successful Scholarship recipients in 2012 receive a financial subsidy to assist in covering the cost of:
- Return economy airfares to San Francisco, USA from Australia or New Zealand.
- Twin-share Accommodation in San Francisco at a designated hotel for up to 7 days.
- WWDC 2012 E-Ticket (staff only)
Staff interested in the Allocated Scholarship should contact their local AUCDF Co-ordinator to check on their local closing date. An application form is available on the AUC web site.
Staff and Students interested in the Competitive Scholarships must apply by completing an application form available on the AUC web site. Applications close 23 March 2012.
* Dates for WWDC 2012 have not yet been confirmed by Apple Inc.
Welcome to our new site
We’ve been putting a lot of work into the new site over the past few months, and we rather proud of what we’ve accomplished. The new site is built on a modern CMS, and is running on new hardware. Pages should load faster than before, and look great as well.
We’ve added new features like comment support (via DISQUS), so you can share your thoughts on our content not just with us, but with your friends on most of the popular social networks.
We still have a way to go with the redesign, and we still have quite a bit of content to bring over from the old site, so please bear with us as we continue the process of renewal. And please, feel free to provide feedback on the new site, and let us know of any problems you find. We’ll be grateful for your input.
Tony Gray
Chair, AUC
Wheels Summer 2011 Edition
The Summer 2011 issue of Wheels for the Mind is now available for download. This issue includes:
- Turning Quartz into Gold
- /dev/world/2011 Report
- iTunes U @ SCU
- Don’t Let iCloud Rain On Your Parade
- AUC & Apple Updates
and much more including the popular Crossword competition where you could win an iPod nano.
CreateWorld 2011 – Register Today
CreateWorld 2011 is a 3 day performance, presentation, and professional development event, specifically for academic and higher-education technical staff in the digital arts disciplines. Registrations are now open, but they close soon.
Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs
1955-2011
The Apple University Consortium in Australia was founded in 1984 with the release of the Macintosh computer and was based on a similar model to that setup by Steve Jobs in the USA. Steve knew that tomorrow’s leaders and innovators were studying at Universities around the world, and he wanted them to have the latest technology in their hands to make sure they could appreciate the role technology would have in the future.
This year the AUC in Australia is celebrating its 27th year of supporting users of Apple technology amongst Australian & New Zealand Universities however our celebrations will be tinged with sadness as we remember Steve for his vision, inspiration and support of teaching and learning for all.
Mastering MapKit
Tim Nugent, University of Tasmania
Audience: Intermediate
Abstract:
This talk will cover the basics, and a few of the advanced features of CoreLocation and MapKit frameworks to use the location and map services provided with iOS devices. Starting with how to add maps into your apps and how to show and follow the user on the map, moving onto adding annotations and overlays for additional information, how to geocoding and display addresses. Moving onto how to do both foreground and background location monitoring, with different levels of accuracy, and finishing up with some some techniques to debug and test your apps.
Speaker Bio:
Tim is a UTas PhD student in the School of Computing and Information Systems, and his research area is awareness systems – systems that allow people to get an insight into what other people (and occasionally themselves) are doing. He is particularly interested in further exploring what use location has in promoting awareness amongst groups of friends towards the goal of task completion, and has a good knowledge of iOS development both from his own tinkering and from his university studies. For his honours research Tim wrote a custom MapKit and CoreLocation based app to try and enhance awareness amongst a small group, and has since refined and enhanced that application for his first round of PhD experiments. Tim presented at /dev/world/2010 on using and enhancing the MapKit Framework.
An Introduction to the Bump API for iOS Applications
Zac Fitz-Walter, Queensland University of Technology
Audience: Intermediate
Abstract:
Bump is a service that allows two users to connect and transmit data to each other by ‘bumping’ their mobile devices together. Bump works in two parts, an app running on the device and a smart matching algorithm running on the Bump servers in the cloud. Using the accelerometer the app can determine when a physical bump occurs and send that information to the cloud. The matching algorithm listens to bumps from around the world and pairs phones together that bump at the same time.
This presentation will provide an overview of Bump, explore how it works and provide an introduction to integrating it into your iOS application. We’ll work through developing a simple Bump application in Xcode that covers creating a Bump session, transmitting data to another phone and then terminating the session.
Speaker Bio:
Zac is a Phd Student, tutor and guest lecturer at QUT. His achievements include the award of a Student Developer Scholarship from the AUC in 2011, an APA scholarship for PHD studies and a top up scholarship for PHD studies from the Smart Services CRC in 2012.