Biggs' Zone

A Geek's Cogitations, Conjectures and other Cortical Experiences

Category: Technology Page 11 of 14

App Development Dry Spell

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On October 24, 2012

In Programming, Technology

When I was working my way, diligently, through a book that explained app development I was really enjoying it. Now that I have finished that book, long ago, I am constantly finding myself in a dry spell. Now that I know how to develop iOS apps, I don’t know what I want to develop. Apple keeps releasing iOS updates and new devices with new dimensions. I feel like I keep falling farther and farther behind with each new iteration of the iPhone/iPad/iPod.

It’s rather ironic, really. In a post I made a while back to other aspiring iOS developers I strongly suggested that while you are training yourself on the technology to start working on ideas of apps you want to develop. It seems I did not heed my own advice, as I’m still stuck in a rut. It’s really unfortunate because now I think I may have to go back and review several of the chapters from the book to remind myself how everything works again.

I feel like the pressure is mounting not only from the additional devices and new formats but also because I have officially purchased my developer license from Apple. I feel pressure now to develop something that I can market and hope to earn back the money I spent on the license. I feel like I first need to perhaps develop one or two free apps just to get the ball rolling and then move into trying to sell an app.

Anyone have any app ideas out there, no matter how small, that you wouldn’t mind tossing my way?

Biggs On: iPhone 5 Announcement

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On September 17, 2012

In Apple, Biggs On, Technology

I know I am about a week late to be posting a comment on Apple’s latest announcement but I had other things I was working on and other posts I wanted to finish first. Unless you are living under a rock you should be aware now that Apple has unveiled a new iPhone, the iPhone 5, and its already available for pre-order and it will start shipping this Friday (September 21st).

The Apple-haters were quick to proclaim how anti-climatic the announcement was and that expectations were shattered and thousands were left unimpressed (by the way, the iPhone 5 has broken AT&T sales records). Personally, the announcement met all of my expectations. I wasn’t really expecting the unveiling of some new technological feat, what else could they possibly do to a phone. It will be faster, more streamlined, and the camera is vastly improved; which is pretty much what I was expecting. It was a humble upgrade for an excellent device.

If you hadn’t heard enough about what to expect in the next iteration of iPhone, here are a few of the key features I was excited to see:

  • 18% thinner, 20% lighter (constructed entirely of glass and aluminium)
  • A 5th row of icons and a 16:9 aspect ratio
  • “ultrafast wireless” with LTE; wi-fi can now receive on 802.11n band
  • A6 chip (twice as fast as the A5)
  • 1080p FaceTime, panoramic pictures at 28 megapixels
  • Cameras use Sapphire lens (?)

These are just a couple of the upgraded features in the new iPhone so its just a fundamental feature set upgrade. I won’t be rushing out to buy the iPhone 5 and not because of alleged “lack luster” features but because my 4S is only a year old and I’m too cheap to try to buy a new phone every year. I will most likely wait until the next iteration (whether that is the 5S or the iPhone 6). I will admit though, if economics weren’t a factor, I probably would have already pre-ordered one.

Cheers.

To SSD or Not To SSD

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On September 10, 2012

In General Cogitation, Technology

Since I received a laptop at work with an SSD (Solid State Drive), I have been considering the investment to install one in my home PC. I know that SSDs do not come cheaply so my conundrum is whether the investment is worth the return. I would be installing the SSD on my Quad-Core Windows 7 computer with 8 gig of RAM which I primarily use for gaming. I think the most noticeable improvement will be my boot time, currently it takes my computer nearly 5 minutes to boot (from clicking OK to logout, to fully logged in and loaded). It’s extremely annoying especially considering the tumultuous behavior of every version of Windows (ever!).

I have been talking to friends and co-workers to solicit their feedback as to their experiences and opinions of installing and using an SSD. I’ve heard that its pretty straight forward (i.e. if you can install a regular hard drive, then you can install an SSD). My current hard drive is 1 TB in size and I’m pretty sure I haven’t even used half the space yet but I would probably keep it in the system as non-SSD storage. I’ve had recommendations that I should install all my main programs on the SSD and perhaps use the non-SSD for cache and other temporary files to reduce the amount of space used up on the SSD.

Granted a 1 TB drive for temporary files seems to be a bit too much. My naiveté of SSDs had me thinking that it was only used for improving the speed that it takes for the OS to boot. I didn’t realize that its literally just another hard drive but has no moving parts. So part of the conundrum is what would I do with the 1 TB hard drive because it seems wasteful to use it for non-SSD storage. If I don’t use the 1 TB drive, then should I get something smaller to accompany the SSD (and give my Linux box a bit more space).

I have seen prices of solid state drives for $1+ per GB so you don’t see to many (if any) above 512 GB. If I end up having to spend that kind of cash I want to know that it was a good investment. I don’t want it to suddenly die on me three months later, I would expect it to last 2-3 years (assuming I don’t need more space). I want to be more then satisfied with the performance boost of how long it takes to boot and the overall performance of other programs (ex: WoW, SWTOR, OpenOffice, PaintShop Pro, etc). I don’t want to do it because “it’s what all the other geeks are doing”.

It really all comes down to the price and the ROI.

Biggs On: Apple vs. Samsung Ruling

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On August 27, 2012

In Apple, Biggs On, Technology

I want to begin by saying that I am a fan of both of these companies. I own just as many Samsung products as I do Apple products though I own more traditional Samsung products (i.e. monitors, blu-ray players, televisions, etc). I admit though that a $1 billion payout was shocking so my biggest concern is how this will impact Samsung as a company and the quality of the products they produce.

In a statement issued by Samsung they expressed the ruling as a “loss for the consumer” and that it will result in “fewer choices, less innovation and higher prices”. This seems to be a little extreme because I think Samsung controls whether those statements come true or not. If anything this should help Samsung to be more innovative. Instead of trying to copy what Apple did they should create their own design. Granted I can see why Samsung wanted to use Apple as a model for manufacturing their phones considering how successful the iPhone has been. I can see the potential for a price hike on Samsung products not only from the dollar amount of the ruling but the extra cost now of additional R&D so this doesn’t happen again. The consequence of “less innovation” will be Samsung’s choice and has little to do with Apple.

I also disagree that this was a dispute over “rectangles with rounded corners”. I think that is over simplifying what the case was about. I have seen some of the images that had a side-by-side comparison of the iPhone with Samsung phones and there was a lot more in common. In fact the Samsung phone looked almost like a clone of the iPhone, with only slight variations, right down to the icons (and as we’ve seen from the MMO world, clones of more successful products are bad – allegedly).

Unfortunately the biggest consequence of this ruling will only make Apple appear to be a bigger thug (to the haters) and Samsung will probably see a surge in product sales from pity purchasing. Personally I will continue to buy products from both companies as it pertains to my needs. My brand loyalty to both companies hasn’t changed. It is amusing though that Google stayed under the radar to distance themselves from this brouhaha and Microsoft is still the laughable runt in the corner of a room full of giants.

Cheers!

Developing for iOS

By

On June 20, 2012

In Apple, Programming

So I have completed reading a book, cover-to-cover, on iOS development (as an aside, I highly recommend Head First iPhone & iPad Development) and now I am faced with the next big challenge: ideas. I have hit a dry spell in my efforts to develop apps and that is figuring out what I want to develop. I’ve thought about just developing random apps that don’t have a lot of functionality just to spark some ideas. Generally if I start on a small project I usually think of more features along the way.

My advice for anyone that is also just starting to develop iOS apps (or apps for any device) is while you are in the process of learning how to do it, start thinking about what you want to develop. I suggest this for a couple of reasons.

  1. You might find some neat trick or tool that could be very useful for the app you want to develop. Make sure you explore all the possibilities of that control or tool so you know its limits and how to implement it. Sometimes the best part of programming is extending a control to make it do things beyond its normal intended functionality.
  2. Its important to have some ideas to start building on immediately after you finish any kind of tutorial or technical manual. Unfortunately since I took such a long break between finishing the labs in the Head First book to trying to start my first app that I have forgotten a great many things to get me started. I will probably go back and revisit several chapters to refresh myself.
  3. It’s ok to re-invent the wheel. Just because there is an app out there that already does most of what you wanted your own app to do, create it anyway. I once had a professor that said to always re-invent the wheel because you might be able to do it better.
  4. Make a plan and set some deadlines for yourself. If you are already a programmer then you know what its like developing as a professional. You have a project manager (and perhaps a product owner) that is setting deadlines and expectations. Become your own project manager/product owner. Commit to a timeline and a set of features you want to have completed as your first iteration.
  5. I would think about setting up some kind of version control for yourself, especially if you plan on submitting any of your apps to the Apple Store. There are quite a few free version control solutions out on the Internet for you to use and XCode provides an option to use Git when you create a new project. If you want to read up on version control a bit, check out this website/book: Version Control by Example.

Hopefully my dry spell will end soon and I will be back in the zone writing iOS apps. You can be sure that once my app is approved to be on the Apple Store that I will be telling you all about it here. In fact I will probably create a new section on the site for each app I develop.

I hope someone finds the things I have said here to be useful and it helps you with your iOS development endeavors. Good luck!

Cheers!

Snippets: [jQuery] Highlight Rows with Checkbox

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On June 6, 2012

In Programming, Technology

It has been a while since I have posted a new jQuery snippet, mostly because I only get to play with jQuery once in a while (though I wish I could use it more). Recently I had to create an administration page for deleting multiple rows of data. I presented the data in a gridview using checkboxes as the control for selecting which items will be deleted. I wanted to make it clear which items were going to be deleted so, using jQuery, I wrote the following snippet to accomplish what I wanted.

Obviously you will need to define a CSS class called “highlight”. I think the best thing about this snippet of code is that it will work if you are using a standard HTML table to organize your data or you are using a GridView object in ASP .NET. This snippet will also ignore the row that contains the “Select All” checkbox; for my purposes the select all checkbox was in the header of the table/grid.


$('#SurveyGrid input:not(#selectAll)').click(function () {
if ($(this).attr("checked") == true) {
$(this).parent().parent().addClass('highlight');
} else {
$(this).parent().parent().removeClass('highlight');
}
});

I have posted this code on snipplr.com (as usual).

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