Sodeso

Again: Comments are working again..

Ronald Mathies — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 07:56:35 +0000

Don’t understand what the problem is with the comments, the permissions of the captcha are changing constantly so it cannot store the images…

But for now the problem is solved again.

Sparrow 0.9: New Xcode Templates

Ronald Mathies — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 17:35:05 +0000

Sparrow has released a new version of their game development framework. This release

contains some really great features among the most important:

Performance improvements!
Support for high resolution screens
Texture atlas generator
Some other medior and minor changes

For a complete list and code samples check out their over at:

No chicken: Sparrow 0.9 is out!

I have also updated the project and file templates for Xcode to include support for the 0.9 release. The following changes have been made:

Compatible with Sparrow Version 0.9
Changed installation method to using an Installer instead of extracting and installing it yourself.
Added iOS4 Compatibility for multitasking (as described in de Blog: Multitasking )
Changed base SDK and default deployment target to iOS4.
Added project templates for iPad and universal iPhone / iPad projects.

The most noticable change is the method of installation,

Safari: GShortcut extension

Ronald Mathies — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 16:59:37 +0000

The GShortcut extension for Safari enables you to have a browser bar containing all the shortcuts to Google’s service. The browser bar is fully customizable, you can re-arrange the icons, discard icons, group them together with space in between them and more…

Find out more about this plugin (intallation / usage details) over here.

Objective-C: Detect when running on iPhone or iPad

Ronald Mathies — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 19:19:40 +0000

Apple has introduced a new macro which enables you to detect if you are running on a iPhone or on a iPad. The USER_INTERFACE_IDIOM() macro will return either UIUserInterfaceIdiomPhone or UIUserInterfaceIdiomPad corresponding to the device that it is running on.

if (UI_USER_INTERFACE_IDIOM() == UIUserInterfaceIdiomPad) {
// Running on a iPad
} else if (UI_USER_INTERFACE_IDIOM() == UIUserInterfaceIdiomPhone) {
// Running on a iPhone
}

The check can be used in the following way, since it is used at runtime you can use this check for example to generate a different UI for both the iPad / iPhone.

Apple releases Xcode 4 developer preview 2

Ronald Mathies — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 19:19:05 +0000

Registered developers can now download Xcode 4 developer preview 2. Xcode 4 introduces some major improvements since version 3, the various application like Interface Builder are now integrated into Xcode itself making it easier to work with it. One of the biggest advantages is that the multi-window setup has now changed to single-window setup. So when you have multiple Nib files open you won’t have a large amount of small windows anymore.

Another big advantage to the integration of Interface Builder with Xcode is that there is now more interaction between your code and the user interface designer. For example, it can now generate the outlets and actions for you. Just drag the component to your source file and it will make suggestions.

Another nice feature that was already present in other popular development environments is the ability to suggest solutions to simple programming errors called Fix-It. It will… Read more >

Objective-C: Detect when running in Simulator or on Device.

Ronald Mathies — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 08:58:03 +0000

Sometimes it can be convenient to be able to detect when you are running inside the simulator or when you are running on a device. For example, suppose you have a service which supplies data it might be useful when you want to retrieve data from a testing server instead of the production server when you are running in the simulator.

The check below works for both the iPhone / iPad, however, keep in mind that this is only a compile time check, so the code included in the binary depends on your compile target.

The detection mechanism is very simple:

#if TARGET_IPHONE_SIMULATOR
// We are running inside the simulator
#else
// We are running on a device
#endif

If you only want to check if you are running on a device… Read more >

Objective-C: Check for Wifi connection and keeping Wifi alive.

Ronald Mathies — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 08:26:46 +0000

When you are creating an iPhone / iPad application that requires a Wifi connection, or when you want to change your applications behavior when you are working on a Wifi connection or 3G connection you need to be able to check if you are connected to a Wifi network.

Behavior difference can for example be if you want to retrieve the ten latest headlines or fifty latest headlines, a Wifi connection can be fast enough to retrieve more data in the same time window as you would using a 3G connection, which could enable a better user experience.

The following code samples require the use of the Reachability class provided by Apple, you can download the class from the following location:

Reachability code

The following code sample checks for the existence of a Wifi connection:

if ([[Reachability reachabilityForLocalWiFi] currentReachabilityStatusRead more >

Objective-C: Using an Image Cache for improving memory usage.

Ronald Mathies — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 08:30:36 +0000

When developing for the iPhone you often use images, for backgrounds, icons, and other places. When you use the same images in several locations it might be more efficient to use an image cache to prevent the application from loading the same image several times since this uses unnecessary memory and unnecessary I/O.

The following class is a singleton that keeps track of all the images that have been loaded. However you need to remember the following, it will load the images but it will never release them until the application quits. So don’t store any avatar (user icon) images in it unless you add the code that can also remove it when it is needed. Otherwise the memory usage will continue to grow.

I use it for storing icons (for example, calendar images, one for each month). Since i use these calendar images everywhere in my application this is… Read more >

Apache Cassandra 0.6.3 (stable) has been released

Ronald Mathies — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 18:41:03 +0000

Apache Cassandra version 0.6.3 has been released and this release contains some very nice fixes. The download can be found at the following location:

http://cassandra.apache.org/download/

The following is a complete listing of all the changes in this release (i have added URL’s to the Jira issues so you can easily look them up for details):

retry to make streaming connections up to 8 times. (CASSANDRA-1019)
reject describe_ring() calls on invalid keyspaces (CASSANDRA-1111)
fix cache size calculation for size of 100% (CASSANDRA-1129)
fix cache capacity only being recalculated once (CASSANDRA-1129)
remove hourly scan of all hints on the off chance that the gossiper missed a status change; instead, expose deliverHintsToEndpoint to JMX so it can be done manually, if necessary (CASSANDRA-1141)
don’t reject reads at CL.ALL (CASSANDRA-1152)
reject deletions to

Sparrow 0.8: New Xcode project templates

Ronald Mathies — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 21:18:33 +0000

Sparrow has released a new version of their game development framework. This release

contains some really great features among the most important Audio Support, SPMovieClip and new transitions for your tweens. Some of the other enhanchements / changes include:

SPJuggler now supports the handy method ‘removeTweensWithTarget:’
SPDisplayObjectContainer now supports the method ‘removeAllChildren’
The rotation property has changed a little bit: angles are now clamped between -180 and +180 degrees (before, it was 0-360 degrees). This should make most common rotation tweens easier.
Flickering at application start was removed
The stage property is now accessible in the REMOVED_FROM_STAGE event
Many other bugfixes and some performance improvements

For a complete list and code samples check out their blog.

I have also updated the project and file templates for Xcode to include support for the 0.8 release. It now directly includes the extra frameworks needed and it will setup the… Read more >