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How to Migrate Feedburner Feeds to Google Adsense

move Feedburner feeds to your google adsense account

Google’s acquired Feedburner back in June of 2007. Feedburner has since been integrated into the Google Adsense platform. Bloggers can now place adsense units into their RSS feeds. In order to take advantage of of this service I needed to migrate my three Feedburner feeds into the new Google adsense feeds system.

According to this Google/Feedburner FAQ, February 28, 2009 is the deadline to migrate feeds. After that users will no longer be able to access their Feedburner accounts.

The migration process is simple for regular Feedburner users.

I use the MyBrand service – see my earlier ‘Google Turned Feedburner into ‘Free’burner Without My Knowledge’ post.   A few more steps are required to migrate MyBrand feeds.

General Migration Steps

You can initiate the migration process from inside of Google Adsense or Feedburner. I initiated the transfer from within Adsense.

Note: You’ll need to set up an adsense account before you initiate the migration.

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Windows 7 is Really Windows 6.1

windows 7 is really windows 6There has been quite a bit of debate recently on why Microsoft named Windows 7, Windows 7. There have been, in fact, a dozen or so versions of Windows released over the years (not including the multiple SKU’s per release).

As you can see from the picture above, Microsoft’s internal version number for Windows 7 is version 6.1. Ha!  You can see this for  yourself if you are running Windows 7:

  • Start
  • All Programs
  • Accessories
  • Command Prompt
  • type ‘ver’ and hit enter

Tada! 🙂

Continue reading “Windows 7 is Really Windows 6.1”

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Why and How to Integrate Facebook Connect with Disqus

 Using Facebook Connect with Disqus
The primary reason I switched from Intense Debate to Disqus, is Disqus’s integration with Facebook Connect. Below I describe why this is important. I then provide a step-by-step ‘how-to’ guide on how to integrate Facebook Connect with Disqus.

[This Post was Updated on April 18, 2009 to reflect the changes made to the setup process, both on Disqus and the Facebook developer pages.]

1. Why Facebook Connect is a Big Deal

Discussion via comments draws users back for repeated visits to their site while engaging them in conversation with the blogger and other commenters. Bloggers want traffic to drive more ad sales and, frankly, they want more people reading their content. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Users are understandably reluctant to leave comments on blogs. Most bloggers, including myself, require users to leave a name, email address and an optional URL. The reason for this, at least in my case, is to weed out spam commenters and to develop a sense of community among commenters. Requiring such information has the unfortunate side effect of dissuading most readers from commenting because they don’t want:

  1. the ‘sign up’ hassle just to leave a comment; and
  2. to provide personally identifying information.

Facebook Connect solves these two problems and provides other terrific benefits.

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How to Integrate Disqus within WordPress 2.7 Blogs

disqus logo

Earlier this month I described How to install Intense Debate in WordPress 2.7 blogs. In my ‘Why I switched from IntenseDebate to Disqus’ post [coming soon] I describe why I made the switch.

The Disqus installation instructions are out of date (written for pre WP 2.7 blogs) and surprisingly difficult to follow.

Happily, both Disqus and IntenseDebate mirror/sync comments within a blog’s databases (though there are still problems with threaded comments not retaining structure – see part 6 below). This makes it possible to switch back and forth between the two at will.

Below I provide a step-by-step guide for integrating Disqus within a WordPress 2.7 blog. I first make some preparatory recommendations. Then I describe the steps needed to set up with Disqus, download and install the Disqus WP plugin, how to import your historical comments into Disqus and, finally, how to reclaim straggler comments.

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Windows 7 Beta – First Impressions, Problems, Bugs, Likes and Dislikes

Windows 7 Beta - Start screenOn Sunday January 11, 2009, I upgraded my 64 bit Windows Vista  production PC to the 64 bit Windows 7 Beta (‘’W7B’) (available here until Jan 24 February 10, 2009).

The installation was straight forward. It took about two hours to complete on my system (I understand clean installs can be done in about 20 minutes). After answering a few questions, the upgrade took care of itself.

[Update: On Sunday January 18, installed W7B on my Lenovo x41 Tablet in dual-boot mode. So far so good. I hope to write a separate post about my tablet experiences with it soon.’]

Below I describe the problems, bugs, likes, dislikes and other observations I’ve made after constantly using the beta in a production environment for five days.

1. Upgrade Problems, Issues, Bugs

The upgrade went smoothly for the most part. But, I did experience the following problems, issues and bugs:

  • Windows Desktop Gadgets Do Not Work When UAC is Shut Off: This bug took me several days to isolate. As you’ll read below, I shut off UAC because, among other reasons, Woopra wouldn’t start automatically with it turned on. Isolation was tricky because when you first turn off UAC, the gadgets don’t immediately disappear. But they will be gone after your next reboot. In my case the next reboot came after I installed a sound card driver (see below). For days I though my sound card driver was knocking out my gadgets … until I found this article explaining the bug. Suffice it to say, in Windows 7 Beta, if you turn off UAC, your gadgets will disappear. For now I’ve set UAC on the lowest settings to keep my gadgets going. This means Woopra won’t auto-start any more (see below) and I have to manually bypass the UAC warnings each time I manually start it up.
  • Multi-monitor & Screen Resolution Setup Issue: I have four monitors connected to my Dell XPS rig. Both: (i) the Windows 7 Beta - Chante the appearance of your displays screenrelative positioning settings (ie: where monitors sit next to each other); and (ii) the screen resolution settings s (ie: 1900 x 1200);  used in Vista were futzed up after the upgrade. Plus, the procedure used to adjust the relative monitor positioning has changed in W7B. It took me some time to figure that out. To adjust each of these settings in W7B, right click on the desktop and select ‘Screen Resolution’  (click image for larger view). From there you can position your monitors and set the screen resolutions back to where they should be. 

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Windows 7 Beta Available Today

windows 7 logo Starting today, anyone can download the Windows 7 beta (W7B) here. Microsoft’s promotional W7B  page is here. The definitive WB7 blog post (by Brandon LeBlanc) explaining how it all works is here. The W7B FAQ is here. Paul Thurrott’s W7B info is here.

[Jan 10, 2009 – 2:30 pm EST Update: Official Microsoft Servers are back up!  Get it here now! Microsoft has removed the 2.5 download cap. Anyone can download beta for two full weeks (ending Jan 24 until February 10, 2009).]

[Jan 10, 2009 – 1:34 pm EST Update: Get it now! Click here for instructions on how you can easily bypass the official download channels and get official Microsoft beta keys and links to the download. I just did this and got two keys – one for each of the 32 bit and for64 bit versions.]

[Jan 9, 2009 5:49pm EST Update: Warning: As you can see here, the Microsoft servers were slammed. Check back at the windows blog from time to time to be notified when download servers are back up.]

Warning: From this download instructions page:

The Beta will stop working on August 1, 2009. To continue using your PC, please be prepared to reinstall a prior version of Windows or a subsequent release of Windows 7 before the expiration date. You won’t be able to upgrade from the Beta to the final retail version of Windows 7.

You’ll know you are starting to get through when you get to this sign-up screen (click for larger view):

windows 7 beta test-drive download screen

You’ll be all set with the key and ready to download when you see this screen:

Windows 7 Beta Product Key Page 
The beta is limited to the first 2.5 million downloads will be available to all until January 24, 2009. Both 32 bit and 64 bit versions are available. You will need a Windows Live ID (such as a Hotmail, MSN, Xbox Live account etc.). The beta will only upgrade computers with Vista SP1 installed. You can, however do a clean install from an XP machine (wiping out the OS and starting from scratch).

[Update: Sunday January 11: I have installed it. There’s been a few hiccups. It’s certainly faster than Vista. I intend to write a complete post about my experiences soon].

The download is an iso file. You’ll have to burn an .iso to a DVD in order to install. You can burn it to a DVD with Roxio or Nero. If you don’t have those, the free ImgBurn software will do the  job.

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Scoble Convinced me to Join friendfeed

friendfeed logo

Since joining Twitter a few months back, I have wanted to understand how it overlapped/interacted with the web-content aggregator friendfeed. I looked at friendfeed at least two or three times and never quite ‘got it’ – until today.

Robert Scoble was a guest on the recent episode 81 of net@night. This guy is quite the friendfeed evangelist (Arrington suggests he’s addicted to it). So much so that the net@nite discussion made me want to take another look. Leo mentioned that Scoble had done a ‘how to’ type video on friendfeed. A quick Google search lead me to this very informative 26 minute video: ‘Robert Scoble: 20 Things About Friendfeed”:

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How To Install IntenseDebate in WordPress 2.7

intense debate logo

Since listening to this net@night podcast back in May 2008, where Amber and Leo interviewed Daniel Ha, the founder of the Disqus, I have been interested in implementing this kind of a community-oriented, commenting/discussion system on my blogs.

Early on, I had compared the feature set of Disqus and its competitor, IntenseDebate (“ID”), and Disqus’s feature set and looks won. Concerns surrounding the ability to import, export, sync and otherwise control my comments, held me back. I was not going to join any system where I lost ownership/control of my users’ comments.

In the interim, both Disqus and ID have added dynamic comment importing, exporting and synchronization features. I became comfortable that I would not be locked into any commenting system if/when I chose to leave. Scot Jangro’s December 30, 2008 post, ‘Comment System Review Redux’, compared the the two systems afresh and gave me substantial comfort that ID’s feature set had evolved to near parity with Disqus (see other comparisons: inquisitr.com | Mashable).

But the clincher came on Sept 23, 2008 when Automattic, the owner of WordPress, purchased IntenseDebate. (See: Matt Mullenweg’s comment – IntenseDebate’s comment – Disqus’s comment). I expect Automattic to integrate IntenseDebate’s community comment / discussion system into the WordPress core at some point. So, as a WordPress user, it seemed a no brainer to go with IntenseDebate.

[January 23, 2009 Update: Despite what I wrote above, I ultimately switched to Disqus not long after implementing Intense Debate. In my ‘Why I switched from IntenseDebate to Disqus’ post [coming soon] I describe why I made the switch.]

IntenseDebate’s WordPress Plugin features are discussed here.  The newest WordPress Plugin (v 2.0.18) has been completely overhauled, making the installation and comment import/export/sync process much easier than it was.

Below I describe why I installed ID. I then walk you, step-by-step, through the IntenseDebate installation process in WordPress 2.7.

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Drobo Recovers from Drive Crash as Promised

droboData files on each of my web server, laptops, primary computer and iMac are regularly and automatically backed up to my networked Drobo. I also use the Drobo as a primary repository for 100’s of Gigabytes of centralized data – accessible from any device on my home office network, including my Apple TV, TiVo, PS3 and Xbox 360.

drobo flashing red lightAs of three days ago,  I had two 500 Gigabyte drives and 1 Terabyte drive installed in the Drobo. Two days ago a flashing red light appeared beside one of the 500 Gig drives. This meant that the drive had failed. I purchased a 1 Terabyte Western Digital replacement drive for $114 at infonec.

True to data robotics claims, I was able to hot swap out the defective 500 Gigabyte drive and slide in the new Terabyte drive without incident. It took about 15 seconds to do. Subsequently, it took about six hours for Drobo to reconstitute data redundancy – ie: to format the new drive and redistribute my data across the newly constituted drive array such that data would once again not be lost if any drive failed. During the recovery process, lights beside the three drives blinked green and red. This page on the drobospace.com website says the lights blink green and yellow. It looked more like green and red to me.

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How To Move the iTunes Library to a Home Server while Keeping its Underlying Media Structure Intact

iTunes - dale's iTunes after move

Is the size of your iTunes music library starting to overwhelm your C: drive? Do you want to make your iTunes music library available to more than one PC over a network?

This post is about how to move all the files in your iTunes Music Library (including music, podcasts, videos, TV shows and audio books) from your PC’s drive to a network drive (or another drive on the same PC) while retaining both: (i) the integrity of the underlying file names and organization structures; and (ii) playlists, play counts, ratings etc.

This post is for the gear-head types like myself. Those that have spent time ‘under the hood’ organizing their music the way they want – naming the underlying files with names of their choice, organizing the files into directories of their choice, etc.

If you are like most people and let iTunes do its own thing (ie: let iTunes handle file naming and organization), this post is not for you. There are much easier ways to move your files if you let iTunes do this it’s way. See, for example, here, here and here.

Background

First PMP – The Creative Nomad: My first portable music player was a 32 Meg (yes, Meg, not Gig) Creative Nomad. I organized my music at that time with Windows Media player (‘WMP’).

Dale’s Early Music Organization: Over the years, I spent an enormous amount of time and energy ripping songs from my CDs, keeping my underlying music library file names, file organization/directory structures and meta data pristine. All the files were contained under my C:\Files\MP3 hierarchy, making it very easy to back up my media from time to time by simply backing up that directory.

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How to Upgrade to Apache 2.2.10 with Windows XP

apache http server logo For weeks now I have had a persistent problem with my wishhh.com service. It was taking an inordinate amount of time to connect to the service (sometimes as much as 2 minutes or more). After ruling out every possible issue, I decided to upgrade my Apache server to the latest release (version 2.2.10). I’m delighted that the upgrade solved my problem.

I had installed Apache server three years also and made only a few changes to its configuration files since. Being a bit rusty, I searched for an online ‘how-to’ upgrade guide. The only guide I found was Evaria.com’s upgrade tutorial here. It was helpful but a little bit for my tastes. I followed that tutorial and took notes along the way. This post fleshes out the details a bit further.

Note: This post describes my upgrade from Apache version 2.0.54 to the latest version 2.2.10 (as of December 1, 2008). If you are upgrading from a different version, you’ll need to make adjustments to the instructions below to reflect your specific circumstance. If needed, you can view my server specs at the end of this post for.

Before you Begin

  • Gather Your Info: Information on the latest version of Apache HTTP Server can be found  here. 
  • Download the Package: Before de-installing your current version, be sure have the latest version at the ready. You can download it from one of the mirror sites linked into here.  I downloaded this ‘Win32 Binary without crypto (no mod_ssl)’ .msi installation file was: 

          apache_2.2.10-win32-x86-no_ssl.msi

  • Upgrade Info: Basic upgrade information can be found here. Unfortunately, I could not find step-by-step upgrade instructions on the apache.org site -  hence this post.

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Give your PC a Check-up with Microsoft’s PC Advisor

Microsoft PC AdvisorHere’s another Paul Thurrott tip from the Windows Weekly 81 podcast (also discussed on his blog here).

Microsoft’s free PC Advisor (download here) falls into the ‘does no harm and just might help’ category. I would recommend it to friends and family who find their computer is having problems. Hey, it can’t hurt.

I downloaded it (here) and installed it all of my Vista 64 and XP machines. I run a pretty tight ship so I wasn’t expecting much. As you can see from the pictures below, it recommended I take certain actions to speed up my PC, clean things up, update software etc.

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How to Get Rid of the Annoying Warning Message When Opening Attachments in Outlook 2007

grayed-out and checked 'Always ask before opening this type of file' box

If the warning above annoys you as much as it does me whenever you open an attachment in Office 2007, here’s how to get rid of it.

[FEB 21, 2012 UPDATE: I posted a video of how to do this in Outlook 2010 here.]

The Problem

Microsoft has understandably made security a cornerstone of its recent software releases. Each time you attempt to open a possibly malicious attachment in Outlook 2007, a warning dialogue box like the one above appears. It presents an always-checked, always-grayed-out box that reads: ‘Always ask before opening this type of file’.

Because Word, Excel, PDF and other document types can contain malicious code, you should, as the box warns, only open attachments from trustworthy sources. But, if you have a modern Anti-Virus program such as AVG or Microsoft’s Security Essentials (both of which are free), attachments in your emails should already be checked for malicious code. When this is the case, this warning dialogue box is an unnecessary interruption that becomes increasingly annoying if, like me, you receive emails with attachments many times a day.

The Solution in  Windows 7

Warning: You should only do this if you have anti-virus software installed on your computer that checks for, and quarantines, all emails that contain attachments with malicious code. And, as the warning says, you should never open attachments from anyone that you don’t know and trust! 

OK, you’ve been duly warned. Here’s how to do it:

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Solving the: ‘Windows Media Player Won’t Start in Vista’ Problem

image

Sometimes Windows Media Player (“WMP”) refuses to start. I’ve had this problem since I first installed Vista in January 2007.

Through most of this period I had thought there was a conflict of some sort with iTunes. Why? Because iTunes is almost always running and, well, it just seemed to make sense since iTunes and Vista were not very friendly for most of Vista’s first year. I had hoped/thought various Vista and/or iTunes updates had solved the problem. But, no, this problem has persisted to this day. Sometimes Windows Media player starts, other times it won’t and I never understood why.

The solution

I have Googled this problem probably a dozen times with no resolution until today. My heart-felt thanks go out to Rob for this post in the Vista x64 forums. Since his answer to the problem was exactly correct and succinct, I reproduce it here:

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The Ultimate Gadget Recharging Cabinet

ultimate gadget cabinet front 2Awhile back I watched this Cali Lewis Geekbrief podcast (episode 108) where she created a gadget recharging cabinet from a shoe organizer cabinet. It was OK but I didn’t love it.

Marc Spagnuolo (pictured in the third image below) was recently a guest on Leo Laporte’s TwitLive webcast. He was inspired by Leo to create TheWoodWhisperer podcast. He built this customized gadget recharging cabinet for Leo as a gift in thanks for  inspiring him to start his own podcast. Leo loved it. I like it.

[more pics after the jump – click on pics for larger views]

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Bell & Telus Announce Canada-wide HSPA/GSM Network Starting 2010

bell logo  telus logo

Bell and Telus have announced the joint development of a long-rumoured, fast, nation-wide, HSPA wireless network to begin service as early as 2010.

In the near term, the network will support both existing CDMA mobile handsets used by current Bell and Telus customers, plus GSM–based handsets.  GSM is the global standard currently used by Rogers in support of the iPhone, among other mobile devices.

Over the longer term, this 4G network could ramp Canadian wireless download speeds to as fast as 100 Mbps. Current Canadian 3G networks have 7 Mbps maximum download speeds.

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Three iPhone Relaxation and Sleep Apps Reviewed

imageSometimes I have difficulties falling asleep – I can’t seem to shut the mind off. For years I’ve considered purchasing rather high-priced sleep assist devices such as this white noise machine.  The idea is to help you fall asleep by distracting the mind with pleasing, relaxing sounds. But they always seemed too expensive and I was concerned they wouldn’t work.

I was delighted to see the 99¢ “White Noise” app on the iPhone’s App Store “Top 25 Paid”  list. I thought for 99¢ I couldn’t go wrong. Turns out White Noise wasn’t so useful. So I went on to check out its competitors, Ambiance and aSleep, each of which are also 99¢.

They  all provide essentially the same functionality – selectable looping sounds that can be set to turn off after a preset amount of time. But they all suffer from the same two problems:

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How to Sync ‘Work’ and ‘Home’ Email Addresses Between the iPhone and Outlook 2007 – Error Free

iPhone to Outlook Contact Sync ExampleWhen adding contacts into each of the iPhone and Outlook 2007, there are built-in, distinct ‘home’, ‘work’/’business’ and ‘mobile’ telephone number fields. Yet, surprisingly, Outlook 2007 does not provide built-in, discreet ‘home’, ‘work’ or ‘other’ email address fields. Yet, the iPhone does!

As a result of this disparity, you can get very odd results when synchronizing your iPhone and Outlook 2007 contacts. Unless you are aware of, and properly handling, how the syncing works, it will seem as if the iPhone randomly categorizes email addresses originating from Outlook 2007 as either ‘home’, ‘work’ or ‘other’.

Happily, as described below, the Outlook and iPhone email fields do sync in a predictable way. With little effort, you can make sure that ‘home’, ‘work’ and ‘other’ email address fields are properly synched between Outlook 2007 and your iPhone.

The Problem

As you can see from the picture below (after the break), when adding new contacts in Outlook 2007, there are no built-in, discreet ‘home’, ‘work’, ‘business’ or ‘other’ email address fields. The only choice you have is the default non-numbered ‘E-mail…’ field, and the ‘E-mail 2’, and ‘E-mail 3’ fields (available from the pull-down menu).

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iPhone’s iPod Touch Features NOT Bricked with SIM Removed

removing sim from iphone Back when I was doing my Rogers iPhone research, see here, I asked numerous representatives from Rogers (both on the phone and at the Rogers store) whether I would be able to use my iPhone as an iPod Touch-like device if/when I cancelled my iPhone service. The uniform answer was no! – that the iPhone would be bricked (wouldn’t even turn on beyond a warning screen) if I removed the SIM card.

Two months after purchasing my iPhone I set out to finally transfer all of my remaining contacts from my old Nokia phone to the iPhone. This required me to remove the SIM from my iPhone and put it back into my Nokia phone (the Nokia would not turn on without the SIM). In doing so, I tested Rogers’ theory that the iPhone would be completely bricked with the SIM removed. I discovered this was untrue.

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Simple, Free Group File Renaming with Ant Renamer

ant renamer during This tip comes from Paul Thurrott on the Windows Weekly 76 podcast (available here).

How I long for the old days of DOS commands. It was so easy in those days to rename groups of files. X-Tree was (and still is) my all time favourite Swiss-army knife utility for the PC for this kind of thing. Though the developers tried, X-Tree never made the move from DOS to Windows successfully.

The Problem – Cryptic Digital Camera File Names

The most common need for file renaming these days is to properly name digital photos. My Cannon Elf creates thousands of .jpg files that look like this: IMG_1894.jpg. What the heck is that? I want to rename groups of photos by the event they depict (eg: Dad’s 77th Birthday 1.jpg).  While there are ways of renaming groups of files in Windows Explorer (see here for example) the method is painful and error prone – I screwed up many a photo file name using this method.

The Easy and Free Solution – Ante Renamer

Along comes the free utility, Ant Renamer – available for download here. In seconds it can rename dozens/hundreds of IMG_### files, for example, to appropriate names reflecting the occasion they represent. It works in both Vista and Windows XP.

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Best Demos at Techcrunch50

TechCrunch50 logo

I just listened to the TWiT podcast 161 were Jason Calicanis described two of the most interesting demos shown at the recent TechCrunch50 conference – tonchidot and swype.  I also briefly mention the contest winner – yammer.

Tochidot:

tonchidot logo This demo, by Japanese “tonchidot”, got the best audience response at the recent Techcrunch50 show. Watch the demo here.

It starts off slow. It’s hard to understand the Japanese presenter. About 4 minutes in an English presenter takes over and describes the technology. The idea is really cool.

tochidot demo 
It’s an iPhone app that interacts with the world around it. As you are walking around the real world, and looking at the iPhone screen, tags (text/audio) about your surroundings, that others posted earlier, appear on the screen in real-time. It uses the iPhone’s built in GPS to know where you are and the iPhones accelerometer to know which angle and which way you are looking. Anyone can add tags about anything they are looking at that anyone later can read/listen too. Ultimately, if this catches on, the world around us could be tagged full of information left by users that went before.

Suggested uses include, restaurant/store reviews, site-seeing guides, museum/painting guides, tourist destination information. Restaurants could post their menus that users could read just by pointing their iPhone at the restaurant. Theatre goers can get reviews of the current show by pointing their iPhone at the theatre.

The question and answer period was hilarious because the presenters clearly could not speak English. “We have a puppet” was an answer to one tech question.

The obvious answer to the unanswered question-and-answer question (what happens when surroundings change over time?) is that the tags would/could be organized by date. The most recent tags would be presented first (to reflect the world as it is now – or most recently was) with the possibility to dig down to older tags to read/hear about how the thing/place you are looking at was in the past.

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No Crapware on a Mac

Stuffed Mac Ad Paul Thurrott makes a very good point in the latest Windows Weekly podcast (Episode 74 at time index 50:10). It hadn’t occurred to me until he mentioned it, but there is no crapware installed on a Mac. He makes the very good point that part of XP’s and Vista’s negative reputation is due to the fact that Microsoft has no control over how the OS is tuned or what crapware hardware manufacturers like Dell, HP etc. install on Windows machines.

Every time I set up a new PC (whether for myself or for friends and family), I spend hours removing the inevitable crapware. This is such an endemic problem that there are third party crapware removal tools like The PC Decrapifier available to assist with the problem. Most new PCs come with the CPU-cycle-sucking McAffee or Norton anti-virus software which also needs to be removed but which can’t be fully removed without registry editing skills (I recommend the free version of AVG). To make things worse, with most every peripheral my family and friends purchase, they inevitably install the crapware that comes with it, which almost never needs to be installed for the peripheral to function. Most of these ridiculously unnecessary programs sit in the system tray, always turned on, never needed,  constantly sucking more and more life out of their poor XP or Vista OSs.

When I look back on my recent Mac Mini and iMac setup experiences, it was a delight turning them on and not having to deal with crapware – not having to deal with system performance degradation from the unnecessary use of system cycles – not having to uninstall anything. That’s how a users first experience with a computer should be.

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iPhone App Development – Where to Start

iPhone App Development - Harder Than You'd Think

[October 4, 2012 Update]

On September 27, 2012, Apple accepted my first app, Fine Tip – Tip Calculator (buy it here, read about it here) into the app store. For reasons I won’t get into, I abandoned iPhone app development back in the fall of 2009. In August 2012, I took up the torch again. Within one month I was able to complete my first app.

Much has changed in three years. While most of what I wrote below still stands, ignore the book recommendations below. Instead, I strongly urge you to buy the two books below. Had they existed three years ago, I would have been able to develop my first app much quicker. I purchased them in August 2012 and had my first app done in less than a month:

[End October 4, 2012 Update]

[Original Post Last Updated: April 2009]

How hard could it be, I asked myself. I’ve developed my own applications in Basic and C. I can configure an Apache Server, install and use PHP, MySQL and other server apps. I develop and maintain websites and blogs from my home server. Over the last 15 years I’ve taught myself HTML, PHP, MySQL, CSS and the basics of Java. How hard could it be to develop a small application for the iPhone?

Let’s step back for a moment.

I have a very particular program in mind that I’ve wanted for years. It’s a very simple program – perfect for the iPhone (more on that in future posts). I could whip it up in C or PHP in about a day. I’ve never owned, or even used, an Apple computer of any kind in my some 27ish years of computing. I regard the iPhone App Store as a revolutionary new idea that pries control of mobile device apps from the big-bad telco giants and puts it in the hands of average consumers and developers — where it belongs. I see cloud computing as a very important part of our collective computing future. I want to get in on the ground floor. If my first simple program works out, I want to develop an iPhone app to work with my wishhh.com service. After that, who knows.

So, in August 2008 I registered to to join Apple’s standard developer program,  purchased a Mac Mini (subsequently replaced it with an iMac) and set out to develop my first portable application for use on the iPhone.

Minimum Hardware

To develop for the iPhone you will need an Intel-based Mac running Leopard (OS X 10.5.3 or later). Any Mac released since 2006, laptop or desktop, should work.

Piece of Cake for Mac Cocoa Developers

If you have a solid grounding in Cocoa development (Apple’s Objective-C framework) with the xCode development on the Mac platform, developing iPhone Apps should be a breeze. Not so much for the rest of us.

Learning Curve for the Rest of Us

Below is a discussion of the  hurdles I have had to overcome and the online resources I’ve found useful in my bid to become the newest iPhone App developer:

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iPhone Firmware 2.1 Promises

iPhone 2.1 Software Update

I’m updating my 3G iPhone Software as I type this.  The installation screen above is promising the following improvements. I for one am looking forward to the “significantly improved battery life” – my only real issue with the iPhone 3G hardware.

iPhone 2.1 Software Update

iPhone version 2.1 contains many bug fixes and improvements, including the following:

  • decrease in call set-up failures and call drops
  • significantly improved battery life for most users
  • dramatically reduced time to backup to iTunes
  • improved email reliability, notably fetching email from POP and Exchange accounts
  • faster installation of 3rd party applications
  • fixed bugs causing hangs and crashes if you have lots of 3rd party applications
  • improved performance in text messaging
  • faster loading and searching of contacts
  • improved accuracy of the 3G signal strength display
  • repeat alert up to two additional times for incoming text messages
  • option to wipe data after ten failed passcode attempts
  • Genius playlist creation

I’ll update this after I’ve had a chance to test.

[Sept 17, 2009 Update: I’ve now had a few days to test and the battery life does seem to have improved. But not by as much as I first thought. My subjective guess would be that the battery is lasting about 10% to 15% longer than it has before the 2.1 firmware update.]

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I Traded-Up to an iMac

iMac with Leopard and iPhone SDK

I took advantage of the Apple Store’s 14 day return policy and traded up to a 20" iMac ($1,299 Cdn).  I returned the Mac Mini that I purchased two weeks ago.

I’m using the Mac as an iPhone App development platform. The Mac Mini just wasn’t quite enough for my needs.

Extended Desktop

Mac Mini with Red XThe Mac Mini was gorgeous on, and took full advantage of, the 1920 x 1200 screen resolution of one of my 24" Dell monitors. But, you cannot extend the Leopard desktop to a a second monitor with a Mac Mini.

[Update March 3, 2009: The new Mac Mini that came out in the beginning of March 2009 supports dual monitor setups with a Mini DVI port and Mini DisplayPort on the back.  With this change it now makes the Mac Mini more suitable for iPhone development. Here are the full new Mac Mini specs.]

I am used to having my Vista desktop extended across four monitors. Having just one monitor on the Mac Mini (even a 24" monitor) was just too small for comfortable application development.

You can extend the iMac desktop to a second monitor and that’s exactly what I’m doing. The iMac has a mini-DVI port on the back for this purpose. I purchased a mini-DVI to VGA dongle and extended the iMac desktop to my second Dell 24" monitor (I switch that monitor back and forth between my iMac and my Dell XPS PC as needed – its my furthest right Dell monitor and to the left of my iMac). For now my XPS Vista machine is plugged into that 24" Dell monitor’s DVI input.

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