PHP Web developer, Robert Kern

Subversion 1.6 quick reference card

Robert Kern — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 03:56:00 +0000

Collabnet have produced a pdf quick reference card for Subversion 1.6. If you’re wanting to get started with Subversion, get a free Subversion account at Storehouse.

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iPhone app crash reports

Robert Kern — Sun, 03 May 2009 14:38:11 +0000

Apple has updated their interface for managing iPhone Apps, by adding a section to view customers’ crash reports. This will make debugging apps much easier.

So far, version 1.1.3 of Recipes App has never crashed on me, and it appears has never crashed for anyone else either as there are no crash reports available for it (yet!). But if crash reports start coming in, I will be able to look into them and hopefully fix the bugs before they affect too many other people.

If you have downloaded Recipes App, please submit an app review in the App Store.

Web development tools

Robert Kern — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 17:32:39 +0000

I always find it interesting to know what tools other people use for their web development. Here’s my list:

MacBook (black) – I love the portability
Bluetooth Mighty Mouse – Apple please fix the scroll ball.
TimeCapsule 500GB – Backups, to be honest its mostly got videos on it. I need more space.
LinkSys ATA – VOIP to the office in NZ.
Software:
- Firefox 3.0.9 – Im getting tired of how long it takes to open Firefox. Being a developer, I usually have lots of tabs open… right now I have 34 tabs open.
- Firebug – Best development helper ever.
- Coda – panic.com/coda – Best code editor I’ve ever used, but please fix the search feature (why doesnt it find all strings that match the search text the first time?! – I have to to a Search/Replace multiple times to get all matches, ew)
- Versions – versionsapp.com – Subversion client. Love.
- Things – culturedcode.com/things – Keeping track of to-do’s, ideas etc. I also have the iPhone version.
- Terminal – multiple windows always open. I made a custom theme that looks like the first computer we ever had (black background with yellowy-orange text)
- Mail – Great built-in mail app.
- VMWare Fusion – vmware.com – All my development is done on local virtual machines (VM’s/VPS’s) running Debian Etch/Lenny. I always have at least one open, often more. I generally run them with only 128MB RAM each (my MacBook only has 2GB RAM which doesnt seem to be enough).
  I also have non-cli operating systems installed for testing code on different browsers.
  I would love to move this off to another machine to save me some memory: http://twitter.com/robertkern/status/1605041064
- VPN – Built-in Mac VPN client for connecting to the office.
- Adium – Chat connected to multiple chat systems including our own OpenFire installation for internal communication.
- Transmit – panic.com/transmit – Great FTP client. I dont need to use FTP too often, but when I do, this is a great app to use.
- Photoshop – When I need to make image edits I use Photoshop, although I think i’d like to move over to Pixelmator.
- FileMerge – For diff-ing files.
Pot of tea with damnfinetea. Or a plunger of coffee. Bottle of water.

I generally have most of these apps open at the same time (excluding probably Transmit and Photoshop which I dont use often enough to keep open).

New MacBook lineup

Download codes for Recipes App v1.1.3

Robert Kern — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 05:17:33 +0000

Below are five download codes to download the Recipes App v1.1.3 for free: (US Store only)

3WKWM9T4A4LP
HHX3RM4RNKK6
XYYJWL994LPJ
FX7N6HXHKTHH
RMNA6YARP777

Use them in iTunes to download the app for free. If the code doesnt work, try the next one. If you’ve tried them all and they’ve all been used, contact me and I may be able to send you one.

Recipes App update available on App Store

Robert Kern — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 03:28:23 +0000

The Recipes App 1.1.3 update is now available on the App Store (download here).

This update improves the whole experience by letting you drill down to all recipes in the database. A number of bugs have been fixed, improving the reliability of the app. You can now save your favorite recipes to My Recipes.

I highly recommend downloading this update ASAP!

App Store process

Robert Kern — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 03:26:50 +0000

Sorry for the delay in getting the next version of the Recipes App out. Its been 2 weeks since it was first submitted to the App Store. After one week, i received an email saying i needed to change something to adhere to Apple guidelines (when there is no Internet connection available you get a pop-up now… they didnt point that out in the first version!). Its been another week since submitting the updated version (with the popup) and it’s still in review.

Hopefully it will get the all-clear soon. I certainly hope they dont find something else and force us to wait yet another week or so.

Multiple categories per recipe

Robert Kern — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 02:04:03 +0000

I have rolled out an update to the Recipes App backend that allows the recipes to be in multiple categories. This makes sense with recipes as many of them seem like they should be in more than one category. You wont be able to take advantage of this until you install the new version of Recipes App. It is in the App Store review stage now. I havent gone through and put all the recipes into multiple categories though, only a few.

I have also added support to keep track of where recipes come from. So if people have free recipes that they want to share with this app, I can keep track of which recipes came from which people/companies.

I have also knocked off the Help tab from the app as it was a bit redundant. Hopefully the new version will be available very soon. The new version makes a big difference.

Recipes App – Version 1.1

Robert Kern — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 14:24:00 +0000

Recipes App

Last night I submitted the next version of the Recipes App to the App Store. Hopefully in a few days it will be available to download. There are a number of improvements in this version including the ability to browse through ALL recipes (finally!), and a new option called My Recipes. You can save any recipe and it will be available in My Recipes. In the current version of the app, some of the recipes dont display correctly and are cut off. This has also been fixed in the new version.

You dont need to create an account or anything like that to make use of My Recipes. It uses your iPhone’s device ID to remember which recipes you have saved, so the whole process is seamless to you. If you have use the ‘I Like’ button in the current version of the App, then those recipes will be in your My Recipes list.

Skype on the iPhone

Robert Kern — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 14:08:18 +0000

I downloaded Skype for the iPhone this morning and made a SkypeOut call (I phoned my bank’s helpdesk in NZ) to a) arrange for something, and b) to test the quality of the call. I was pleasantly surprised that the quality of the call was very good. My Internet connection here in Honduras is fairly poor, and there were a couple of jitters but in general the quality was as much as could be expected – or better – for an international phone call. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that my bank in NZ has people working at 3am NZT!

If Skype can use the Apple Push Notification system to alert of incoming calls when Skype isnt open, this will be an amazing app. I dont see why they shouldnt be able to either. In version 3.0 of the iPhone OS – when push notifications finally arrive – the developers can specify an audio clip to be played when a notification arrives, perhaps even a vibration. So if in the Skype app settings, I specify a certain ringtone from a list of available ringtones specified by Skype (im not sure if custom ringtones would work – actually, im not sure if the name of the audio file is sent through the push notification, or the actual audio file?), then those settings could be synced with Skype’s servers. When a call comes in, the Skype servers would send the message to the Push Notification system along with my chosen ringtone. How much data can be sent in the Push Notification’s? Would it only pop up as a standard notification box on my phone?

The revolution will not be televised

Robert Kern — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 02:21:03 +0000

Re post: “Announced last week in Nature Magazine, MIT Researchers have developed new lithium batteries that take less time to charge than it just took you to read this sentence. Clocking in at 10 seconds or less, these new turbo-batteries also discharge energy quickly. Imagine this: You’re cell-phone dies, or your laptop. Instead of waiting hours, you can be fully charged in seconds!” via SuperForest.

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