Connor Denman's Programming Blog

My blog has been moved!

2010-04-19T19:18:00.000-07:00

So I am officially moved out of this Blogger account, so please check out my NEW and ACTIVE blog account on Tumblr: http://connordenman.tumblr.com

Thanks!

VATviewer iPhone App

2010-03-22T16:44:00.000-07:00

Today my first iPhone application officially got approved into the AppStore: VATviewer. VATviewer is a simple VATSIM live map/listing application for the online controllers and pilots. It also provides a simple airport search to find various data such as weather (METARs), airport name, flights, etc.

Check it out:
itms://itunes.apple.com/us/app/vatviewer/id361334638?mt=8

Thank you!

iPhone SDK - Easily check for an internet connection

2010-03-16T12:47:00.000-07:00

So, I have found that the simplest way to check for an internet connection in the iPhone SDK is not via the "Reachability" classes that are provided through the Apple iPhone example projects.

The easiest is as demonstrated through my video tutorial:

Simply put, you can create an NSString from a URL (in this case it is http://google.com), and check to see if that string then exists or not.

Thanks for visiting my blog!

iTunes Connect Code Signing Solution

2010-03-14T16:10:00.000-07:00

Drum line please...

I finally figured out the solution for uploading my first iPhone App (VATviewer) to iTunes Connect without getting any Code signing error.

After successfully adding your iPhone Distribution profile and provisioning profile to your project, make sure to add the string "--keychain login.keychain" to "Other Code Signing Flags" (access this by going to Project->Edit Project Settings->Build and ensuring that your Distribution profile is selected).

That was my final solution, but I cannot guarantee that it will be the solution to your iPhone SDK uploading problems.

Good Luck!

Connor

iPhone SDK Distribution Pains

2010-03-14T11:26:00.000-07:00

So here I am, finalizing an application that I have been working on for a few weeks. It has been a long process learning Objective-C and the iPhone SDK, but I finally have the application ready for upload to iTunes Connect (the AppStore). But, little did I know that Apple's code-signing certificates, provisions, etc. are even more of a pain than the coding and development process.

I have added and re-added provisioning profiles to both my device and XCode, added certificates to KeyChain, etc., and I have built my application and Zipped it. I have tried multiple times to upload the application binary using Apple's website and the Application Loader, but each time I receive a message telling me that the binary was not code signed properly.

I have tried everything based off of google searches, but with no success. The final thing that I am going to try is to install the newest version of XCode and the iPhone SDK v3.2 Beta, and see if anything is fixed.

Does anybody have any other suggestions?

Android SDK anyone?

KABQ (Albuquerque Int'l sunport, NM) LiveATC Feed

2010-01-31T10:57:00.000-08:00

A bit off of my normal topics, but I am currently hosting an Albuquerque International Sunport area LiveATC feed that currently has 4 or 5 Albuquerque approach sectors, ABQ tower, ground, delivery, and also the different pilot unicoms for the smaller uncontrolled airports in the area.

If you are in the Albuquerque area, or you are just curious about the air traffic control and pilot comms around the airport, this is a great resource for you.

On a side note: If you live in the Albuquerque/Rio Rancho/Bernalillo/Los Lunas area and you have a scanner, I would like to know. Reason being is that I have been wanting somebody to at some point host a 'parallel' feed for the Double Eagle airport local control tower. Or, a feed for Albuquerque Center would be awesome!

The link: http://liveatc.net/search/?icao=kabq

Setting Crontabs in Mac OS X

2010-01-27T21:13:00.000-08:00

It has been a while since I last posted, but I have a new tutorial for everybody... Settings cron jobs through the "crontabs" command in an SSH terminal.

To start, open up the terminal, and type ssh myUsername@myUrl. The terminal program will then prompt you for your password to access the remote server.

Once you have been successfully authenticated and logged into your remote server, you may then begin sending commands to it.

The basic crontab commands:

crontab -l (display the currently loaded cron jobs on the server)

crontab -e (add, edit, and delete individual cron jobs on the server, this will be displayed as a table)

Once this command has been issued, you simply begin typing text to invoke the INSERT mode.
Example cron: */5 * * * * http://myurl.com/index.php

This cron simply runs the "http://myurl.com/index.php" url every 5 minutes
Use the format [minutes (0 - 59)] [hours (0 - 23)] [day of month (1 - 31)][month (1 - 12)][day of week (0 - 6)] [COMMAND]

When you are done editing your scheduled cron jobs, simply press ESC, and type :wq to save the changes to the server.
That is it for editing crons!

crontab -r (CAUTION: removes all crontabs stored on the server's crontab file)

crontab -v (display the last time the crontab file was edited on the server)

If you do not want to type ssh myUsername@myUrl each time you connect, go into the Mac OS X terminal 's top bar and go into the "Shell" drop-down. Once there go to "New Remote Connection..." and add your remote server's details through the graphical interface.

Thanks for visiting my blog!

Update

2010-01-13T19:59:00.000-08:00

After a few days of coding and testing, I have begun to find my way around the Dashcode IDE.

Also, with the help of the PhoneGap UIControls class, I am able to add a TabBar at the bottom of my native application that makes it seem even more of a native Objective-C app. I am working towards making a youtube video tutorial series on Dashcode and/or PhoneGap for creating native javascript applications in iPhone.

Connor

Check Internet Connection in iPhone

2010-01-10T21:01:00.000-08:00

Here is a quick code snippet for you. In a Dashcode javascript application, you can check if the user is connected to the internet via the following code:

var online = window.navigator.onLine;

if (!online){

alert('You are not currently connected to the internet. Please try again later.');

}

The Latest Dashcode Problem

2010-01-10T16:47:00.000-08:00

I think that it sounds silly, but, now that I have figured out all the other problems in my GUI interface, I now am unable to add more than 2 views to my stack within the "browser" component. I can add new view stacks, but the problem is that they appear outside of my original browser component, requiring that I re-create that. Then, there is the problem of me not being able to edit the canvas for that new view stack (or group).

If there are any Dashcode developers out there that can help me out, please comment.

Thanks for visiting my new Blog!

Found Solution to Row Selection Problem in Dashcode

2010-01-10T11:48:00.000-08:00

So after a while of playing around, I found that my problems earlier were due simply because I was trying to get data from the wrong datasource.

A quick and simple tip for everybody so that you do not have to go through what I did:
Make sure that you are trying get your selected data from your list datasource, not the original datasource for the list (if that makes sense).

Here is some code:

function myRowClickHandler(event){
  // make sure to grab the datasource specifically for your list
  var myDataSource = dashcode.getDataSource('myList');
  // Simply alert out the selected row data
  alert(myDataSource.selection().valueForKey('person_name'));
}

Latest iPhone/Dashcode Problem

2010-01-09T22:40:00.000-08:00

So I have spent the past hour trying to pioneer my way through the iPhone web application SDK (with a minimal amount of documentation/examples from Apple, might I add). Apple does NOT include a very impressive amount of documentation, so I am required to experiment for myself.

I have binded my list with a JSON data source and all, but now I need to find out how to grab just the selected row's JSON element. I have found the "myDatasource.selection()..." object, but when I output this filtered result, it still gives me the whole dataset. Any suggestions, help, or advice? My lack of plain javascript skill shows in this situation.

Thanks for visiting my blog!

iPhone Application Development Update

2010-01-09T17:10:00.001-08:00

First off, I would like to welcome everybody to my new blog page. Here I will be posting my computer programming and web development experiences. Shall we get started?

The past 2 weeks I have been diving in to the iPhone SDK and the limited options for programming native applications on the iPhone platform. I started off thinking that it was absolutely required to know Objective-C for programming in Apple's Cocoa and Cocoa Touch frameworks, so I tried to learn Obj-C. Within a day or so, I gave up on that seemingly complex, obscure, ugly language and set out to find a different approach. I soon found PhoneGap; a framework that allows native iPhone apps to be developed in html, css, and, of course, javascript. I programmed in plain javascript (with jQuery) and html for a few days, but once again found there to be some problems. I found DashCode (that came with the Apple SDK), in which I can develop native-looking Mobile Safari applications in javascript. Combining the powers of PhoneGap framework and DashCode, I am now able to use a nice drag-and-drop IDE to build javascript-run, native-looking iPhone applications.

I will release some tutorials on my YouTube channel later on using these tools together, and write another blog post about my upcoming applications.