Learning to program for iPhone/iPad

So after a long hiatus on this blog, I will be starting to post again by documenting some of my fun with learning to program for the iPhone and iPad. This should be interesting since I have never been a programmer but have some experience with “light programming” like HTML, Perl, and some PHP. My experience has mostly been on the markup language side and mostly related to hacking away at existing code, QA tweaking etc. I am very interested to see if this old dog can learn any new tricks.

So I am starting with the Apple Developer Videos and this book:

Wish me luck!

(And somewhere along the way I need to clean up this blog template.. ugg)

« Make a friend, eat for a lifetime

Afro Samurai Resurrection iPhone wallpaper

It’s been quite awhile since I’ve blogged, but I couldn’t resist this little bit of promo for something very cool, as well as rant against some poor implementation. But recently, Afro Samurai’s long awaited return has been released, Afro Samurai Resurrection. If you have not seen the original SpikeTV animated manga/cartoon, you really should rent it/netflix it.

So along with Season 2, there is a PSP3 and Xbox game, and a music album, and of course quite a few marketing downloads. Afro Samurai is wonderful eye candy so this is all good, and these guys have even gone so far as to create iPhone downloadable wallpapers… which gives me all sorts of warm and fuzzy feelings inside. So what do I do as a well conditioned consumer, I jump on my trusty iPhone to download said images, what could be cooler. And what do I discover, the site navigation is all based on Flash, and as anyone who uses an iPhone or maybe read mac news, Flash does not yet work on the iPhone (don’t get me started on this one). Ok, fine, I think, easy to click on a news article and see the house ad for the wallpapers… which I do. And lo and behold, what do I discover, the downloads page (for iPhone wallpapers and desktop wallpapers only) is totally Flash based. I give this a big FAIL. Does no one actually try and test a website anymore. Did no one actually think, “hey, let’s actually download this onto an iPhone from the site!”. Alas, these guys couldn’t be bothered with a non-Flash version, or gasp, text navigation links on the bottom, so here are the images for those of you that happen to land here.

Infinite Summer »« Manhattan and Idaho, Equals At Last

Plaxo on a Mac Mini Causes Screen Freeze

The short answer is… don’t install it. Spent the last couple of days trying to figure out why my Mac Mini looked to be freezing / crashing. Finally figured it out when I killed Plaxo and my machine lag disappeared. I have an older Mac Mini running an Intel Core Duo, and even the max 2 Gb ram was no match for the system+network hog.

So if your system seems to be frozen, but your mouse still moves, it might just be Plaxo 3. Plaxo used to be a much better app, but it seems so useless and annoying now. Good luck Comcast.

Obama’s Acceptance Speech »« Monitor110: A Post Mortem

iPhone Home Screen Custom Icon

It’s so easy it’s trivial. All you need to do is save a 45×45 pixel png file as “apple-touch-icon.png” in your web root.

Thanks to ADT.

BrandTags »« Washington Post’s Mensa Invitational

WordPress for iPhone

Just added the iWPhone Plugin for WordPress, that creates a really nice looking version of this blog if you are using an iPhone, like I am prone to do.

Totally easy to install and looks painless so far, took all of 2 minutes and didn’t require me to touch my current theme… beautiful.

No Internets »« Cheyenne Diner

Apple Product Evolution from 1976 to 2008

As seen on CG.

I have owned eight of these and currently use three.

(As an aside, why does DailyMotion provide embed code that doesn’t work and needs to be hacked?!?)

Big Head Todd and the Monsters »« Google Hosted App vs. Gmail

Tech Logo Evolution

A great post from Neatorama on the evolution of some tech companies logos, with an interesting history of them. As you can see by the image, Apple is included, as is Google, IBM, and others.

Rumor has it that the bite on the Apple logo was a nod to Alan Turing, the father of modern computer science who committed suicide by eating a cyanide-laced apple. Janoff, however, said in an interview that though he was mindful of the “byte/bite” pun (Apple’s slogan back then: “Byte into an Apple”), he designed the logo as such to “prevent the apple from looking like a cherry tomato.” (Source)

In 1998, supposedly at the insistence of Jobs, who had just returned to the company, Apple replaced the rainbow logo (“the most expensive bloody logo ever designed” said Apple President Mike Scott) with a modern-looking, monochrome logo.

Thanks to TechCrunch.

Spore as a Casual Game »« Man to Man Hugs

Hit Me On My iPhone

Looks like I should check out Myspace more often. But Pete has a pretty good iPhone song up, can’t argue with that!

Sexy Lil Thug »« Crowd-Sourcing Music

Leo Destruction

An interesting post on A List of Mac Freeware that Leopard has Mauled to Death.

And from my personal experience

• Adium: Huge fan of this IM client but Meebo killed this for me ages ago.
• Center Stage: I love Front Row since I use my mini for my media center, and the Leo improvements are nice, even if I am a bit annoyed that music won’t keep playing when you switch to the OS.
• Firefox 2.0: Firefox (Mac and PC) is a memory sinkhole but it still has the features I require, while Safari does not. Google Browser Sync being one.

Thanks FSJ.

Facebook Is MySpace With ADD »« URI vs. URL

PEBKAC

From Wiki:

PEBKAC is an acronym which stands for “Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair”. The phrase is used by computer experts as a semi-humorous way to describe to one another that the problem was not in the computer but was instead caused by the user operating it.

Wish I had known this one during my tech support days.

Vader and Luke »« Google Docs Presentations