Holy Preview Update Batman!!
I have new respect for TextMate. I had the web preview open and I made a change to some javascript (switching the username from a sample user to my username) and the preview updated immediately to show me the changes.
Slick and very handy for editing this web app.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Thursday, March 3, 2011
PlayBook App
Well, my first PlayBook app is in development. I am going to write it using the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK which boils down to; I am writing a web app. I don't know the latest web technologies to save my life so this should be a good experiment to see how easy it is to develop something.
I've found two Javascript libraries to help me along the way and handle a large portion of the work I need for this app. Now I just need to do the gluing and get to work on getting something running in two weeks.
I will be doing a PlayBook Hackathon in 2 weeks and I want to be able to demo the app at the end of the event so I am taking my experience from my last Hackathon and going into this one with the basics of the app laid out. Then at the Hackathon I can get some advice on any areas that are giving me trouble.
Expect some further posts as I progress and once I get the demo completed.
I've found two Javascript libraries to help me along the way and handle a large portion of the work I need for this app. Now I just need to do the gluing and get to work on getting something running in two weeks.
I will be doing a PlayBook Hackathon in 2 weeks and I want to be able to demo the app at the end of the event so I am taking my experience from my last Hackathon and going into this one with the basics of the app laid out. Then at the Hackathon I can get some advice on any areas that are giving me trouble.
Expect some further posts as I progress and once I get the demo completed.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Preparing For Sale
Been a crazy weekend. In the last 24hrs I have been violently ill with food poisoning, picked up paint supplies for our painter that start yesterday, and filled one side of my garage with stuff to give away or throw out.
Just another fun filled day getting ready to leave my frozen homeland for milder climes in Washington state.
The house prep work is going well. Selling a house is probably easier in a sense when you are also moving to a new city, country, job (for my wife), and need to down size what you are taking with you.
Part of our big move is that we must inventory everything we own and assign a replacement value to it. This is for insurance purposes. Hence, you can tell that we are motivated to count less and throw out more. I mean really, if I have not used some of this stuff since we moved in here 6 years ago, is there really a chance I am going to be needing it when we settle in our new home? Nope, thought not.
Our first house showing to a prospective buyer is tomorrow. This came about due to word of mouth which is cool. Let's hope the fact our house is in a shambles since half of it is in a state of being painted, just painted, or about to be painted.
At least the house is clean and less cluttered by the minute.
Just another fun filled day getting ready to leave my frozen homeland for milder climes in Washington state.
The house prep work is going well. Selling a house is probably easier in a sense when you are also moving to a new city, country, job (for my wife), and need to down size what you are taking with you.
Part of our big move is that we must inventory everything we own and assign a replacement value to it. This is for insurance purposes. Hence, you can tell that we are motivated to count less and throw out more. I mean really, if I have not used some of this stuff since we moved in here 6 years ago, is there really a chance I am going to be needing it when we settle in our new home? Nope, thought not.
Our first house showing to a prospective buyer is tomorrow. This came about due to word of mouth which is cool. Let's hope the fact our house is in a shambles since half of it is in a state of being painted, just painted, or about to be painted.
At least the house is clean and less cluttered by the minute.
Friday, January 21, 2011
HackOTT: A BlackBerry PlayBook App
What is HackOTT?
Hack Ottawa = HackOTT is part of the HackDays across Canada. Here's how it works:
- Gather developers
- Provide food, space to work, and APIs (Application Programming Interfaces, the building blocks for applications that programmers use to like you know, build stuff)
- Let them code for 8 hours.
- Judge the results
Read more here: http://hackdays.ca/2011/01/hack-ottawa-is-here/
Register Here: http://guestlistapp.com/events/42672
I've signed up for the event here in Ottawa and am starting to prep for the event. So, let's get down to the title tagline of this post: A BlackBerry PlayBook App.
If you don't know, I work for Research In Motion, better known as RIM. The RIM tablet offering is the PlayBook and it's coming soon. Being a geek, lover of new tech, and always in pursuit of a challenge; I've decided I'll design my app to run on the PlayBook.
Dude a PlayBook, Like Let Me See It
"Cool, Mark, you've got a PlayBook to use already? They aren't even for sale yet," you say. Well, the truth is I don't have a PlayBook and if I did I would not be bringing it out to play. So, don't expect me to be toting one around to show you and demo. I have to wait for them to be available for sale like everyone else.
Well then how am I going to develop for the PlayBook? With the dev tools including the BlackBerry Tablet SDK and the BlackBerry Tablet Simulator for VMware Fusion; on my Mac Book Pro of course. All further discussion is specific to programming on the Mac. If you are a Windows dev, sorry, this might be of little use to you.
Setting Up A New Project
Let's jump in and get started.
- Setup a code repository with your favourite hosted repository site. In my case I am using http://bitbucket.org for hosting my code. Private for now but the project may go public once complete.
- Review the steps in the dev guide for the dev environment you want to develop your app in. Those would be the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK: Getting Started Guide for Mac Developers or the BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK for Adobe AIR: Getting Started Guide for Mac Developers
- Download VMware Fusion: Note, if you have a copy of Parallels on your Mac you can upgrade to VMware Fusion (until March 15, 2011) for $20 USD. Go here to take advantage of the offer: http://www.vmware.com/vmwarestore/fusion_upgrade_promo.html
- Download the BlackBerry Tablet OS Simulator ISO for Mac from the BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK for Adobe AIR page. You'll need to sign up as a dev to get the ISO. During the install of the ISO in VMware Fusion you'll get prompted to delete contents of /dev/hd0 in the sim, hit y and return to continue:
- Download and install the Adobe AIR SDK 2.5
- Download and install the appropriate BlackBerry SDK for Adobe AIR. here are the two of them for Mac: BlackBerry WebWorks SDK for Tablet OS Beta for Mac and of course the BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK Beta3 for Adobe AIR for Mac
- WARNING: The download links will probably update frequently as new releases are made. These are valid as of January 21, 2011. Check the BlackBerry Tablet OS website for the latest versions.
- A note about installing. I ran into trouble when I installed the Adobe AIR SDK into a folder that had a space in it's path. If you installed the Adobe AIR SDK 2.5 (or the latest required) and the BlackBerry SDK installer tells you it can not find Adobe Air SDK then make sure there are no spaces in the path that you installed Adobe Air SDK into. For example this path is bad "/Users/snoopy/My Projects" but this path is fine "/Users/snoopy/MyProjects". I opened a Developer Issue Tracker for this bug.
BlackBerry PlayBook Resources
Ok, got that done? Good. Let's drop a couple links to resources to help you along the way of coding up your BlackBerry PlayBook App.
- BlackBerry Developer's Blog
- BlackBerry Development Forums
- Developer Issue Tracker
- BlackBerry WebWorks on github
Ok, that's all for tonight. Next, I'll be reading up on the WebWorks SDK and the Adobe AIR SDK to see which one I'd like to use for the project.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Nintendo Jumps the Shark?
If you don't know by now, Nintendo made the surprise announcement of a new Goldeneye game rebooted (as they call it) for the Wii. Since it is 2010 and Pierce Brosnan is no longer James Bond, they have redone the game with Daniel Craig.
Now don't get me wrong. I love James Bond. I think Daniel Craig is an excellent Bond.
But Nintendo, how bad are things when you have to reboot not the franchise but one of the best first person party shooters of all-Nintendo time?
I look forward to seeing and playing the game but Nintendo you have big shoes to fill rebooting Goldeneye. If you can pull it off excellent. If it is a dud, has Nintendo jumped the shark?
Now don't get me wrong. I love James Bond. I think Daniel Craig is an excellent Bond.
But Nintendo, how bad are things when you have to reboot not the franchise but one of the best first person party shooters of all-Nintendo time?
I look forward to seeing and playing the game but Nintendo you have big shoes to fill rebooting Goldeneye. If you can pull it off excellent. If it is a dud, has Nintendo jumped the shark?
Sunday, February 7, 2010
HockeyTweet 1.2 Now Available in the App Store
HockeyTweet version 1.2 is now available in the Apple App Store. This is a minor release which fixes a change to Twitter's OAuth system used for user authentication.
You can download the upload today if you are already a user. Enjoy!
You can download the upload today if you are already a user. Enjoy!
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Fix for Twitter-OAuth-iPhone Due to Twitter Mobile OAuth Update
Today at 6pm EST Twitter pushed a new OAuth update for the mobile web page that users use to authorize an application to send tweets on their behave. This is great since they made the user experience on mobile devices and specifically the iPhone better.
I am using Ben Gottlieb's Twitter-OAuth-iPhone library to handle the retrieving of the pin that Twitter assigns to the an app for the requesting user. Ben's library is great and makes it very easy for a dev to drop OAuth support into a Twitter enabled application, like HockeyTweet.
There was a small problem with this mobile update. The web page element that contains the oauth pin was changed from oauth_pin to oauth-pin. This broke any app using the Twitter-OAuth-iPhone library.
The fix is simple. Go into your code and so a search for oauth_pin and change that to oauth-pin. Here are the files from Ben's library that are impacted by today's change:
Make the change, recompile, and retest your app. You should be sending tweets again in no time.
HockeyTweet was updated (submitted to Apple for review) to version 1.2 tonight as part of this fix. I'll send an update when the fix is pushed to the App Store.
I am using Ben Gottlieb's Twitter-OAuth-iPhone library to handle the retrieving of the pin that Twitter assigns to the an app for the requesting user. Ben's library is great and makes it very easy for a dev to drop OAuth support into a Twitter enabled application, like HockeyTweet.
There was a small problem with this mobile update. The web page element that contains the oauth pin was changed from oauth_pin to oauth-pin. This broke any app using the Twitter-OAuth-iPhone library.
The fix is simple. Go into your code and so a search for oauth_pin and change that to oauth-pin. Here are the files from Ben's library that are impacted by today's change:
- Libraries & Headers/jQueryInject.txt
- SAOAuthTwitterEngine/SA_OAuthTwitterController.m
Make the change, recompile, and retest your app. You should be sending tweets again in no time.
HockeyTweet was updated (submitted to Apple for review) to version 1.2 tonight as part of this fix. I'll send an update when the fix is pushed to the App Store.
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