Greetings from the future.

For those of you who don’t know, I’m a big fan of speech recognition software. In particular, I especially like MacSpeech Dictate. I’ve used it successfully to dictate numerous help files, letters, reports, and even a complete 500 page book, Cocoa Touch or IPhone OS 3 . I’m even using it to dictate my next book, Objective-C Developer Reference .

For the most part, I find MacSpeech Dictate’s accuracy to be excellent. Though you have to teach yourself how to dictate to the computer, once you learn how to do it, you can dictate quite quickly.

Perhaps th…

Read Me Now, and Hear Me Later

First, let me preface this by saying, the instructions I’m about to give apply primarily to apps that are used for reading or consuming content. If your app is primarily for the purposes of creating content, then probably the user will have their hands all over your screen anyway. The usage model I’m going to talk about here has to do with cases where the user is sitting, holding their iPad like a book and reading or watching videos. The apps affected are things like eBook readers, RSS readers, Twitter clients, etc.

If you are an iPad developer, please, Please, PLEASE, follow my instructions in the rest of this post very carefully.

Step #1:

Load your app on an actual iPad.

Step #2:

Sit down with said iPad in an easy chair. Hold the iPad with both hands. Your fingers behind it to support it and your thumbs on the front.
…

I’ve been quiet lately… why? Been workin! Been busting my hump to ship. There’s this new thing from Apple… might’ve heard of it… called i… somethin… iPAD! that’s it… iPad… and yeah… we’ve been working furiously to ship a fantastic, gorgeous app for it.

I’m pleased to say, we succeeded. It’s so awesome, I want to coin a term for the new category of app it creates.

Coffee Table Apps

Like coffee table books – apps so beautiful that you want to own them just so when you’re showing off your new iPad to your friends you have something utterly great that they can play with. They just beg to be left out on your coffee table and used as a conversation piece.

This is what iZen Garden for the iPad is. I’m really proud of our efforts.

I’ll be writing more about the iPad in the coming weeks. I’m also giving a …

I’ve been asked a few times now who to follow on Twitter for Cocoa/iPhone development news and information. Sadly, I find follow suggestions to be like movie reviews. Very subjective. What I find useful may or may not be useful to you, and simply spouting off a list of names won’t give you the context of why I suggest following them. Therefore, when I recently got the question again I thought it would be useful to not just make a list, but to make a list with reasons for why I think they are good people to follow. You can then pick and choose.

A note to my friends/etc… if I forgot you or missed you on this list, or you’re mad for whatever reason because I did not include you… get over it. ;) This is a very specific list about a very specific topic, and I’m sure I left off a lot of awesome people. I apologize.

Coding:…

I’m not a huge fan of advertising. Advertising today seems to be ineffective, ignored, ignorant, and ill-conceived. But, as a businessman, I recognize that it’s vital to get the word out to people about your products. You have to let people know you exist, or you’ll never sell anything.

As a result, I recently started an Ad Campaign on the Fusion ad network for iZen Garden 2.

I’ve spent a lot of time over the last year looking at various advertising opportunities, and I thought it might be useful to others to reveal some of my thought process that brought me to advertising on the Fusion network, and also to reveal some interesting problems with Google AdWords and the like.

The Problems with AdWords.

First, I want to describe a couple of issues with Google AdWords.

AdWords seems like a pretty good deal for advertise…

We are absolutely thrilled to announce the release of iZen Garden 2 ! The next generation of our award winning relaxation app, iZen Garden!

More than likely, if you’re a subscriber to this Blog, you’ve already heard of iZen Garden. This is a totally new version with a bunch of new incredible features and content.

The biggest new features are a built-in meditation timer, a sleep timer, and the ability to share your gardens on Twitter, Facebook, and email.

A lot of users asked for the sleep timer. They found the relaxation sound tracks so relaxing, they wanted the ability to fire up iZen Garden and let it play it’s audio tracks until they fell asleep but they didn’t want their battery to run down. So we added a timer which will slowly fade the audio at the end of some predetermined period, and then when the audio is completel…

PDF parsing is a black art that most programmers avoid. “Madness lurks here.” They mumble to themselves quietly. Choosing instead to push their PDFs through UIWebViews and commit other crimes against humanity.

It doesn’t have to be this way, however. Parsing, displaying, and searching PDFs natively and at a low level is actually surprisingly easy if you’re not afraid to get your hands a little dirty with the Core Graphics PDF functions. I’m going to show you how.

Where’s it hiding?

The first thing to know is that in order to do this, you need to use Core Graphics calls. So you need to include the Core Graphics framework in your project, and in any files you want to use the calls, you have to include the CoreGraphics.h header. It’s probably also worthwhile to review the Core Foundation memory management rules…

I’ve heard various sources say that the 2010’s will be the decade of the entrepreneur, and I think that’s true. Globalization is causing more markets to open, while digital distribution and reach is making it easier for the creative class to distribute to those markets.

What this means is that all the layers between the creators of goods and the consumers of those goods are disappearing.

Today, I sell my software to people around the world. I receive emails from people in Europe, Asia, Africa – or my personal favorite, even the tiniest pacific islands thousands of miles from anywhere.

That’s cool.

For Christmas, I bought my wife a pair of baskets for her bicycle. I bought them from Cynthia’s Twigs by suggestion of my wife. I don’t know where she heard of Cynthia, but here’s someone who specializes in creating something: Baske…

For some reason, I was reminded of this poem by my father today. And when I thought about it, and re-read it, it reminded me a lot of software. So, I share it with you…

My Wristwatch is Drinking My Pulse

My work persists under the cover of the night
and I lay stone upon color
until they sound right,
and leave it all hanging in the air
like haunted conversation carried by nightwind
through a bedroom window.

Time thrusts me on
and the old enemy
closes the gap a little more each day.

I wonder -
when his hand is finally on my throat -
will my glistening webs endure?
Will I have time enough to spin it all out?

Will that hand close on a paper leaf throat
dry and already fallen
the last gold already gone brown
as the exhausted fire played itself out?

(I know one thing well
no spider spins to catch a fly.
The spider wraps forever in his string
and lives f…

I visited a Verizon store tonight to check out the new Droid. I’ve heard tons of great things about it in the tech press. The most accurate sounding review that I have heard is “If the iPhone didn’t exist, the Droid would be the must have smart phone.”

I’m not so impressed however.

Now you might think I am simply an iPhone snob. That no matter what magic they deliver in Android I won’t be convinced it’s a better platform. The truth is, I have no inner prejudice against Android. I’ll admit that since the platform requires Java for development, it’s not my first choice, but despite that, we do receive requests from customers to port our apps to Android, and I hope eventually to support the platform, if nothing else, just to expand our userbase.

No, my opinion of Droid has absolutely nothing to do with the technical viability of the device. Nothing to do with it, at all.

…

Or How I learned To Stop Worrying and Love the App Store

First off, I should state up front here that I have not actually tried this myself, nor have I had any indication from Apple that they would actually allow this in the App Store. Consider this more or less a thought experiment that I think is useful to share with you, gentle reader, in the hopes of expanding both our minds, and in the hope that someone, somewhere, will try it, and see what happens!

So, that said, your mileage may vary. Offer void where prohibited. This post contains chemicals known by the state of California to cause cancer. Wear protective clothing when handling.

Now… to the meat.

The Problem

A common discussion point among App Store developers is the point that one can’t do paid upgrades of your application without releasing a totally new version, which has, in some cases…

On Thursday, I bought a Kindle 2 . And with it, I expected to usher in the future. A bold new era, wherein I would convert my fairly massive book collection to a simple, thin device. How’s it gone? Read on dear friend and see!

Expectations

First, I should tell you the kinds of books I read and my expectations. I’m not a big novel person. Generally, I read technical books, books on business and marketing, and philosophical books. One of the books that was nudging me towards the Kindle was in fact, Richard Dawkins’ newest book The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution which is currently in …

Logging Methods As They Are Called

Been meaning to write this blog entry for a while.

When I saw a recent blog post by Guy English about creating scoped objects in Objective-C, I thought to myself “Finally!! I have JUST the problem for this solution!” and then I filed it away for when I would eventually get around to actually using it.

And time passed…

Until today.

Wait… rewind… some back story…

I started coding C++ in 1992. (Wow.. damn… that’s a long time.) Obviously, over the years, I built up a lot of utility code that helped me in debugging and in using various design patterns in C++. In particular, one of the very handy little utility modules that found it’s way into my toolbox was a method for logging the name of a method as you enter and leave it.

Of particular importance here: Note that I said as you e…

We’re tiling our house… slowly… one room at a time… moving furniture from one side of a room to the other, tiling, moving it back… etc… it is slow… laborious… tiring… but so worth it.

It looks awesome.

Here’s some pics…

Starting

Working around the nook…

The pattern we chose to do is a really complex one. It requires two sizes of tiles, 6" and 12", with the 6" titles in a windmill pattern around the 12". The end result is a really pretty stair stepping pattern that also has sort of a diamond shape to it. It’s really nice.

Here’s a pic:

!http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2634/3902210655…

In 1486, Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola penned his “Manifesto of the Renaissance”, his Oration on the Dignity of Man . In it, he wrote, “Oh wondrous and unsurpassable felicity of man, to whom it is granted to have what he chooses, to be what he wills to be!” and later, “It will be in your power to descend to the lower, brutish forms of life; you will be able, through your own decision, to rise again to the superior orders whose life is divine.’’

What he was really talking about was the liberation of the spirit of humanity. He meant that among all the creatures of creation, Man alone had the capability to be like any of them. That he could be brutish, evil, and base and succumb to his more savage desires, or, through the depth and power of his own intellect, creativity and will, he could transcend his existence, and become v…

Placed here more so I can remember them rather than for you…

To fix braces so they go on the line AFTER the if/else/for/etc….

defaults write com.apple.Xcode XCCodeSenseFormattingOptions ‘{ “BlockSeparator” = “\n” ; }’

Well, ok, technically, it was done (writing wise) last month, but I just finished Author Review this past sunday. So it’s OFF TO THE PRINTERS! Hopefully to be in stores in October. If you’re interested in a copy, visit amazon .

Was writing up an email for a friend who is a first time WWDC attendee and thought it might be of interest to others.

SF natives would probably call my list touristy – I don’t know the local lore as much as they do. So be it. I’m not ashamed to be a tourist! ;) I love SF though, and have been enough times that I have a few favorite places to go and things to do. Some of these have been covered by other folks as well.

So without further ado…

Some tips for you as a first time WWDC attendee:

1. Hope your hotel is close to the convention center. SF is the most pedestrian friendly city in the world, and parking is a pain. If it is, plan to NOT rent a car and instead, just take the BART from the airport to the station closest to your hotel. Wear good walking shoes.
2. Badge pickup begins on sunday. Get it done if you can rather than wait for monday morning.
3. You’re go…

From a book I’m reading on business development Growing a Business by Paul Hawken:

“Do you want to be a mushroom or an oak tree? Spores beat out Acorns every time in growth rates, but never in longevity or durability.”

He’s referring to whether you want to grow fast or slow.

Hawken advocates a middle-ground growth rate that suits your business and is sustainable. He says that while everyone knows growing too little can cause a business to fail, our society’s focus on the fastest growth as a measure of success is misguided, and that companies that grow too fast can quickly outstrip their ability to manage themselves.

Related, he also advises that during recessions is the time to expand, and during booms is the time to be fiscally conservative.

This is …

Tonight, I’d like to buy two books. I have the money in my hand, and I know exactly what they are.

The first was recommended by John Gruber and is Elements of Style . As a writer-in-progress, though I certainly don’t aspire to high literature, it seems useful to me to study what good writing style is, and to apply that to my work.

The second, was a book I found as a result of a discussion I had with a friend today about growing my software business, Growing a Business .

Now, it’s useful to note that both of those links are from Amazon. I said to myself tonight, "I’d really like these books… if I can get em at my …

Late Night Cocoa podcast starring ME! has been released Topic is Design Patterns. Complaints/Critisism/Rants can be sent to email, comments or null…

Preface

I got an email the other day from someone who was asking me where to start when it came to writing iPhone apps.

Those of us for whom the response to the question “What do you do for a living?” is “I make iPhone apps…” know all too well, that the very next words that follow that question are usually “Really? I have a great idea for an app…” This almost always leads to either “Do you think you could write this app for me?” or “Can you tell me how to write this app?” So the point is, we get asked those kinds of questions a lot.

So in response, I wrote up this email, and when I was finished, I said “Y’know, this would make a good Blog post…” so here it is…

“I can has iPhone code pls? kthxbai”

I’ve been writing code for 15+ years, and been thinking about interactions with multi-touch devices for at least the last 8 years as well as writing Objective-C for…

When I was about 16 years old, I was enrolled in a summertime art program at an art school in Orlando Florida. Every weekend, we would gather in a classroom and draw the subjects laid out in front of us. I wasn’t a particularly good student, partially because I didn’t really like the work of the teacher. So it was hard to appreciate taking instruction from her when sometimes I felt like she really didn’t know what she was talking about.

Being young, I was absolutely certain that I already knew everything that I could ever possibly know about everything. Ahh those were the days! To quote the song, “I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.”

That said, there was one particular incident that had a huge impact on me even to this day.

It was a warm sunny afternoon, and the class sat in a circle around a still life of seashells and fruit. The door to the classroom was op…

I’m going to start writing these things in my Blog so I can remember them myself.

Consider this a micro-blog entry….

How To Make Apache Not Prompt for a Password with an SSL Certificate :

cp server.key server.key.org

openssl rsa -in server.key.org -out server.key

This makes your server.key not require a password.

Warning: this may mean your key can be compromised, so be sure to keep it safe after you do this.

I have some exciting news to share!

Over the last couple of months I have been in negotiations with Wiley and Sons Publishing on a book proposal and we have finally settled on the final version of the table of contents. The contracts have been signed, and were moving forward. The name of the book will be “Cocoa and Cocoa Touch Programming” and it will naturally be about exactly that topic! It will be a part of their Apple Developer series of books, and should be going to print sometime this fall.

I’m really excited to be working on this project. For many years I thought it would be exciting to write a book and when this opportunity presented itself I immediately jumped at it.

Writing books is not particularly lucrative, so this doesn’t in any way supersede any of the fantastic work we’re doing here on iPhone and Mac OS X apps. This is simply an …

Just a little note… a few minor changes around the site here. New blog software that I wrote myself using Ruby on Rails … a bunch of html cleanups… better CSS… etc…

Most of which you’d never know if you just looked at the site, but I’m proud of it. It should make running things a little easier for me.

The biggest backend change is that I am slowly weening myself off Zope . It’s served me well over the last 10 years… but it just hasn’t kept up with the times. It was time to change.

Anyway, I’m liking it. It feels good.. shiny.. clean… fresh smelling…

If you run into issues with the site (broken links and the like), drop me an email.

It being the new year, I thought that I would do like everyone else, and list sort of a retrospective of 2008 technologies that have been making a significant difference in my life. However, instead of only looking at it as if it’s a retrospective, I’d rather look at it from the perspective of looking forward, meaning that this is a list of technologies that I’m currently so enjoying using that I really look forward to using them in 2009 to do more great things.

So, here’s a list of technologies that really helped me in 2008, and I really hope that I will get more opportunities to use in 2009:

iPhone and the App Store

Obviously, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the iPhone. If there’s any one thing that made a huge difference in my life last year, it’s been the iPhone and the App Store. I won’t rehash all the things that make the iPhone a wonderful platform to develop on….

Just wanted to wish all our customers and friends a very Happy Holidays!

It’s been a great year for Random Ideas, our best yet! And we’re thrilled and excited to welcome 2009 and the wonderful possibilities that it holds! We’re fortunate to have such awesome customers, and to be able to spend our time helping make a positive impact on people’s lives.

We’re particularly thankful to be bringing especially large donations to our charities this year. We realize that with the economy not doing as well as it should be, it can be hard to find the resources to donate to charity. So we’re very glad to be able to do that this year.

If you find yourself similarly blessed, I encourage you to also take a moment and try to give with your heart to those who need it.

Again, thanks for the great year! We look forward to bringing you more great products in 2009!

—

Jiva DeVoe
…

Back in November, Scotty over at the Mac Developer Network invited me to join him on his Mac Developer Roundtable podcast to talk about the iPhone SDK. I’m pleased to say it’s up now ! So head on over there and subscribe! We talk about all kinds of good stuff!

Really awesome UI testing article over at Cocoa with Love today.

From the article:

“Automated testing of application user interfaces can be tricky since user interfaces are designed for use by humans not automated tools. The iPhone is particularly challenging since existing tools that aid user interface testing on the Mac are not available. This post will show you a way to run automated, scripted tests on an iPhone app’s user interface.”