Sparktivity was excited to attend Apple Inc.’s annual Worldwide Developer’s Conference this year, held in downtown San Francisco, California. A week-long conference for developers and systems administrators who utilize Apple technologies, WWDC combines detailed seminars with personal opportunities to work with the Apple engineers who build the company’s products.

Sparktivity attended excellent seminars including:

• Scripting for SysAdmins
• Discovering Wiki and Group Services in Leopard Server
• Bending Directory Services To Your Will: Best Practices
• Deploying Large-scale Storage Solutions using Xsan and Xserve RAID
• Building System Images for Large-scale Deployment
• Creating Custom Installers with Leopard’s New PackageMaker
• Managing and Deploying Open Directory

All in all, WWDC ‘07 was an enjoyable and informative conference which provided solid information about Apple’s offerings coming in the next year. The knowledge will be invaluable as we continue to build solutions for our creative clients in 2007 and 2008!

With the release of the updated iLife suite in early 2006, Apple Inc. added a new consumer-level web publishing tool called iWeb to their roster of exciting multimedia programs. In the year since iWeb was released, it has become a popular tool for non-technical users who want to create content for the web. Right out of the box, iWeb contains several ready-made visual themes to enhance the appearance of a user’s creations, but the program is not designed to allow additional themes to be installed.

In addition to newcomer iWeb, Apple has a pre-existing stable of consumer programs which utilize visual themes, like iDVD and Keynote. Many third-party developers sell additional themes for existing Apple programs, having reverse-engineered the components and install locations necessary for their designs to appear alongside Apple’s default offerings. Adding third-party themes to iWeb presents a similar challenge for these developers who want clear guidelines on how to build their themes and present them to potential customers for effortless installation.

Lamiavia.com, a leading developer of custom themes for iWeb came to Sparktivity to assist in the development of a custom packaging and installation tool for iWeb theme creators. Third-party iWeb themes can now be installed onto an end-user’s computer using a standard Mac OS X package file (.pkg), and Sparktivity has licensed this tool to both theme resellers.

Well-known in US professional quilting circles for her award-winning designs and superior craftsmanship, in October 2006 Patsy Thompson decided to take the leap from course instructor to content-creator. The launch of Patsy Thompson Design Ltd.’s online presence included an in-depth blog for quilting enthusiasts, free sample patterns for download, and extensive image galleries. The site also allowed visitors to purchase the company’s instructional DVDs which star Ms. Thompson demonstrating her techniques and advice.

By May of 2007, after a six-month rush of both retail and wholesale sales, it became clear that demand for the instructional DVDs was outstripping the flexibility of the existing lightweight eCommerce solution. Patsy Thompson Designs, Ltd. turned to Sparktivity for assistance with building a more flexible eCommerce platform which would allow all the security, convienience, and ease-of-use of a modern web store. With the new eCommerce platform successfully in place, Patsy Thompson Designs, Ltd. can invest less administrative time on the complexities of fulfillment, and put more focus on developing further creative offerings for their customers!