IPhone applications and objective-c
Posted on May 19th, 2009
So I wanted to post a little about the things I’ve found now working with Cocoa and the application I chose to target first was an iPhone application. I haven’t really had much time to dig into a native mac application yet.
Firstly lets talk a little about XCode. This great IDE comes free when you own a mac – pretty cool. Unlike Visual Studio which must be purchased if you want anything besides the free version. XCode is a great IDE, it is fast and simple enough to use. Apple has included everything you need including performance and memory profiling tools.
The extensions to support iPhone development are totally seamless so that was a nice find. Once I started getting into objective-c I thought my eyes were going to bleed :) Really, it is too old. The future is with managed languages and the thought of any form of memory management is pretty lame but right now, I have no choice. If you want an iPhone application you’re going to be using obj-c.
The language did have a couple positive points, at least what I’ve discovered so far. The way it passes around messages is a cool idea. Parameters are named when passing values to a method. (msg) – this makes for more coding but it makes it a hell of a lot easier to read the code later.
I did like Apple’s take on controller and view separation. Even using a separate tool for the interface design is a great way to keep the UI developer out the controller code. Up until Microsoft released the new ASP.NET MVC framework all views and code behind files were tied together. Unfortunately for traditional ASP.NET and WinForm development this is still true.
So right now I’m impressed and enjoying the development process. I think Microsoft could learn a few things from Apple however …. I do feel strongly that Apple need to connect the dots and that their code needs to move to a managed environment. They could adopt Ruby more rather than just supplying the API bridge.
Tags: iPhone, obj-c, xcode
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Keep your GMail page closed!
Posted on May 19th, 2009
Just a little something here that I’ve noticed especially on my macbookpro which I routinely overload. I used to always have a browser window open with my gmail in it. Turns out GMail puts a lot of load on the browser process, way too much to just have it open all the time. I’ve noticed this in FireFox 3 on the mac for the most part.
Since I’ve had plenty of issues with FF on the mac it may just be that. Safari 4 beta seems much better but still, it generates too much load. I can imagine it is busy checking for mail and other things but it is not really an acceptable back ground process.
Of course on my workstation who cares … 8 cores can deal with it :)
Tags: firefox, gmail
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Rails, Grails and .NET MVC
Posted on May 3rd, 2009
We certainly do have a lot of choices when building applications these days! :) Here is a little insight into my latest project application choice. It might or might not work for you and it is not intended to be a guide per se since as good programmers know – pick what makes sense for your application.
I needed a new web application that was only going to be used for internal administration and so I could do something fun and not care about how it scales. Here are a couple key requirements so we can discuss over them. Firstly, I need page authentication and I have no need for a database since I’ll use SimpleDB so the DAL isn’t as important.
My initial thought was, lets just roll with Rails since in the last couple months I’ve been doing a lot of R&D using Ruby and Rails however I recently started some work on Grails and so the decisions begin.
Let me prefix first by saying I could have built this using .NET MVC and I believe that would have been the fastest way, sorry but it is – that isn’t bias for Microsoft just a fact especially since my skills lie heavily in that area … but I wanted something more fun :)
ASP.NET MVC
- Easy to use for sure, especially if you’re already a .NET developer.
- Tools are fantastic.
- Authentication is as simple as using the [Authorize] decoration on your controllers.
- Data is via an existing SimpleDB Provider I wrote.
- Doesn’t run well on anything but IIS
- No exposure to other technologies <- the fun part :)
Ruby on Rails
- I think Ruby is pretty easy to learn.
- The tools are getting better – don’t be a hero, use and IDE like NetBeans/Eclipse.
- If you have complex database requirements activerecord is going to be painful for you.
- I’ve found the community a bit broken with Rails, you can generally get help but not always the easiest to understand.
- Far too many depreciated gems floating around and even the Rails wiki is out of date.
- As for authentication, well nothing easy to find – does require more code than I’d like. Not sure what is best.
- SimpleDB access was OK but not great, relative name spaces break when importing classes while using Amazon libraries so that wasn’t cool. Had to hard code some paths.
Grails
- Just started R&D on this and I didn’t feel like jumping into Groovy although it is close to Ruby I’d rather learn one new thing at a time.
- Does have the huge benefit of running on the JVM and also being able to use existing java classes.
- Can be deployed on well established application servers, so that is great.
- Tools are ok, new at this stage but Netbeans seems to do the job.
- Authentication is ok, there is a good plugin but still requires far too much code for my liking compared to .NET
- I can’t find a Grails/Groovy SimpleDB library but there is one for Java so I guess I can just use that.
and then I found ….
JRuby
- Will allow me to keep on the learning curve with Ruby but
- Lets me deploy in single packages and do java application containers.
- Exposes me to more java technology.
- Tools are pretty good and I’m using NetBeans right now.
So that kinda sealed the deal. I wanted something fun and like Ruby so JRuby lets me keep that knowledge but also I get better exposure to Java technologies. You might wonder, “If you want Java exposure why not use JSP or similiar” … right, no thanks :) Keep it simple!.
I’ll post when I’ve deployed my first working JRuby application and I plan to run it on Tomcat/Ubuntu 9x.
Tags: grails, MVC, rails
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Blackberry App Store (World) … 5/10
Posted on April 24th, 2009
To be fair to Rim I thought the store would be a disaster, hard to use or just clunky but it wasn’t. I had an iphone for awhile and I can say that it basically works the same way. Of course you don’t get any of the “cool” applications since Rim believe they know better and that business users don’t want accelorometers or anything groovy in their phones.
The biggest problem is stability of the phone once you start using applications from the store. It basically sucks – even just running 3-4 applications caused the phone to become extremely slow and within a few days unstable until it reboots or I reboot it.
Apple don’t allow applications to run in the background, for good reason! Rim of course, knowing better – let you do this and it kills the device. I tried using just a single application and closing it down when done but the load speed is too slow. Leaving just this single (weather) app running makes the phone un-usable. Who is to blame … not sure – might be a crappy application but I never had a bad iphone app kill my phone so I blame Rim :)
So right now, I give it a 5 out of 10 – nice to get some useful applications for once but hardly worth the effort since the phone is now dog slow. I was testing this on the Bold (9000) with .247 software package.
Tags: blackberry
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Microsoft’s latest: We’re good when you’re poor
Posted on March 29th, 2009
Have you seen Microsoft’s latest campaign? I call it, “We’re good when you’re poor”. It started with a speech by Balmer (twit?) about how Apple’s sales have fallen during the bad economy and that Microsoft sales were going up.
Wow, I couldn’t believe my ears. They’re actually touting that their OS is great now that the economy sucks rather than, we built something better. What is really sad is that Windows 7 is going to be great, really great – yet they decide instead to go out Apple bashing. A game they can only lose.
I’ve also seen posts on the Windows blog site along with TV commercials about finding a “Computer that fits your needs” but for under $1000 … duh – of course nobody can then pick a Mac and Microsoft make out as if this is a good comparison. Maybe for monkeys…. that is like giving someone $10k to buy a car and then saying, well they picked a Kia – must be better than a BMW.
*clap* *clap* ….
Tags: microsoft, stupid
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Why you should never buy Winzip!
Posted on March 8th, 2009
And no, not because it sux :) I like it, it works well and does handle massive numbers of files with good compression.
The story goes as follows – after using some form of Winzip since the dawn of time I decided I’d like to do my bit and buy my own license. I mean it is just $30 (or was!) and so off I went happy to have my own license.
Well that was on Winzip 10 and after some security updates, they now have version 12 out. So what is the problem? They suck, not the software – the idiots running the company. I can no longer download version 10 of the software that I OWN. If I want a download I’m forced to upgrade to version 12, which isn’t going to happen. If you can’t make money as a company, squeezing it out of existing clients is a really bad business model. This coupled with the fact I get spammed by Winzip and 3rd party crap really grinds my gears. (ref: FG) <- duh
So, I’m now going to “attempt” the same thing with WinRar – buy a license and go on my merry way. I doubt those guys will be as quick to try screw me over. As for Winzip, you guys can kiss my ass.
Tags: winzip
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How to buy a Mac (and my setup!)
Posted on January 25th, 2009
Oh .. you think you already know? :) Read on….
It may seem quick and easy to just pick your next Apple Mac up directly from their website but many people don’t know you can get a much better deal by buying through a reseller such as Amazon. Not only are their prices better but currently Amazon are offering rebates which can save you a few hundred $$.
I thought I’d list out my hardware and directl purchase links for those who are interested. Let me start with the laptop, a must have at least for your first Mac purchase. There is a slightly cheaper version of this but I’d pay for the extra memory and speed – This link is the MacBook Pro 15″, 4 GB of Memory.
After that I decided that since I run a lot of virtual machines a laptop is never really going to be enough so I then went for a Mac Pro, the 8x Core XEON beauty and then added 10 GB of memory. Some of this was not purchased from Apple since their cost for memory and drives isn’t acceptable. I did still buy premium stuff and certified to work on those machines.
- Mac Pro, 8x Xeon
- 8 Gig Memory Kit (plus the 2 with the machine) give you 10 total
- 2x 500 GB SATA II, 3 GB, 72K11 storage drives
- 24″ Dell Monitor, a much better deal than a cinema display from Apple.
That workstation is definately the way to go. I can run 3-4 powerful virtual machines with several gigs of assigned memory with no performance lose what-so-ever! Not the cheapest setup in the world but definately a great working system.
Tags: hardware, mac
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For mail, I’ll wait until Snow Leopard is released.
Posted on January 11th, 2009
So as you can tell I really need a good email client. I do far too much work over email both work and private. When I posted earlier that I went back to the default Mail.app on OS X I forgot that I had seen a link for a beta of Thunderbird 3 from Mozilla.
After some searching I found the download link:
http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/early_releases/downloads.php
Turns out this does solve most of the issues I was complaining about. There still isn’t any background sending options but it is a beta, maybe they’ll be nice and turn that on just before release … you know … who doesn’t save a few gems for the end :)
Anyway, I had for other reasons started to look at the features that will be available in Snow Leopard the next big OS update from Apple. Turns out it will have, what they’re at least calling, full Exchange 2007 support for native applications like iCal and Mail. If this really is the case and it supports offline and remote email (RPC?/or OWA) then I’ll be rocking.
So I’m using a mix of Mail and Thunderbird 3 beta and it does the job. Fingers crossed for a release soon from Apple for the OS.
Tags: mac, snow leopard
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Back to Mail.app
Posted on January 10th, 2009
Well that didn’t last long did it! :) It only took two days to realize that Thunderbird is stuck in the 90′s. I can’t Q messages for back ground sending, you can’t drag an attachment into a new message (really!!?) and you can’t paste image data from the clip board into a message.
So for the time being I’m back to the native Apple mail client. Bummer.
Tags: mac
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OS X Email Clients … or lack of
Posted on January 8th, 2009
These posts are for my x-fellow windows users who might have or want to switch over the using a Mac. Not everything is 100% perfect and for some reason Email software is probably the biggest missing piece of Apple’s offering.
The default Mail.app that comes with os x is Ok but that is about it. If you’re like most people you need to connect to your work exchange server and the only way to do that is via IMAP. The IMAP integration in Mail just sux, no other way to put it. It jumps off messages while reading, gets out of sync with the server and other macs and sometimes gets really slow.
So I shopped around and besides Microsoft Office 2008 … you don’t really have any great choice. Sorry. I’ve heard MS Office 2008 is fine but I really only need Entourage (Outlook) and you can’t buy that on it’s own. Open office for the Mac is just dandy for almost everything else.
Right now the best IMAP client I can find is Thunderbird from Mozilla. It is fine but not great either, not enough editing options. As I stated in another post my personal email is kept on GMail so no worries with that.
So for now this is it – not great but still, better than living in a Vista world.
Tags: mac
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