My wife recently traded in her old iPhone 3G for a shiny new iPhone 4S, and within 10 days had exceeded her 200MB AT&T data plan limit when she has never exceeded it before. So what gives? It’s a new phone, and Siri does transmit voice data back to Apple’s servers, but could that really have caused the usage?

Fixing The Data Usage Problem

Turns out the problem is that Apple ships iOS5 with iCloud data syncing over cellular networks ON by default. This means all the documents and data stored on your phone for all the applications you have installed on your phone will be automatically uploaded to iCloud, decimating your puny cellular data plan you thought you’d never burn through.

If you are experiencing super high data usage on iOS5, just follow these steps:

1. Navigate to: Settings -> iCloud -> Documents & Data -> Use Cellular
2. Turn it OFF
3. Fight with AT&T (or other wireless carrier) about your excessive data usage charges

Usage Before iPhone 4S

Some months have clearly higher data usage than others depending on how long we were away from home or what we did while we were out with out phones, but we were never in any real danger of going over the low 200MB limit before.

Data Usage after 10 days with the iPhone 4S

On the left (green) is my data usage with an Android device, Right (red) is my wife’s data usage this month with the new iPhone 4S.

My wife got a text alert for 65% data plan usage on Monday, and then one on Friday for 80%, and one the day after on Saturday saying she had gone over her limit (exceeding 100% of the plan) and that we would be billed an additional $15 by AT&T for the overage.

1. Open the iPhone Simulator
2. Browse to the photo you want to put into the simulator (Finder or web browser)
3. Click and drag the photo over the simulator window. A green “plus” icon should appear under your cursor with the simulator frame highlighted. Drop the photo.
4. Mobile Safari should open on the simulator to the location of the image you just dragged and dropped over it
1. Note that if the image you dropped is linked in a webpage, it will open the link instead of the image URL.
5. Click the mouse down over the image and hold it until a popup window appears.
6. Click “Save Image”

The usage looks like this:

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// Geocode input text location
app.utils.ajax({
    url: 'http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=' + txtLocation.value +'&region=us&sensor=true',
    method: 'get',
    success: function(xhr) {
        var data = JSON.parse(xhr.responseText);
        Ti.API.info(data);
 
        if("OK" == data.status) {
            var res = data.results[0];
            if(res) {
                alert("Location: " + res.geometry.location.lat + ', ' + res.geometry.location.lng);
            }
            // Do something with coordinates
        } else {
            Ti.UI.createAlertDialog({
                title: 'Geocode Error',
                message: 'Unable to geocode location input'
            }).show();
        }
    },
    error: function(xhr) {
        Ti.UI.createAlertDialog({
            title: 'Geocode Error',
            message: 'No location matches found. Please try something else.'
        }).show();
    }
});

And the actual code for the utility function:

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/**
 * Application Utilities and Helper Methods
 **/
(function(_app) {
    _app.utils = {};
 
    // AJAX method that mimmicks jQuery's
    _app.utils.ajax = function(_props) {
 
        // Merge with default props
        var o = _app.combine({
            method: 'GET',
            url: null,
            data: false,
            contentType: 'application/json',
 
            // Ti API Options
            async: true,
            autoEncodeUrl: true,
 
            // Callbacks
            success: null,
            error: null,
            beforeSend: null,
            complete: null
        }, _props);
 
        Ti.API.info("XHR " + o.method + ": \n'" + o.url + "'...");
        var xhr = Ti.Network.createHTTPClient({
            autoEncodeUrl: o.autoEncodeUrl,
            async: o.async
        });
 
        // URL
        xhr.open(o.method, o.url);
 
        // Request header
        xhr.setRequestHeader('Content-Type', o.contentType);
 
        if(o.beforeSend) {
            o.beforeSend(xhr);
        }
 
        // Errors
        xhr.setTimeout(10000);
        xhr.onerror = function() {
            Ti.API.info('XHR "onerror" ['+this.status+']: '+this.responseText+'');
            if(null !== o.error) {
                return o.error(this);
            }
        };
 
        // Success
        xhr.onload = function() {
            // Log
            Ti.API.info('XHR "onload" ['+this.status+']: '+this.responseText+'');
 
            // Success = 1xx or 2xx (3xx = redirect)
            if(this.status < 400) {
                try {
                    if(null !== o.success) {
                        return o.success(this);
                    }
                } catch(e) {
                    Ti.API.info('XHR success function threw Exception: ' + e + '');
                    return;
                }
            // Error = 4xx or 5xx
            } else {
                Ti.API.info('XHR error ['+this.status+']: '+this.responseText+'');
                if(null !== o.error) {
                    return o.error(this);
                }
            }
        };
 
        // Send
        if(o.data) {
            Ti.API.info(o.data);
            xhr.setRequestHeader('Content-Type', 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded');
            xhr.send(o.data);
        } else {
            xhr.send();
        }
 
        // Completed
        if(null !== o.complete) {
            return o.complete(this);
        }
    };
 
    // And it does depend on this code below to combine object properties:
 
    // Extend an object with the properties from another 
    // (thanks Dojo - http://docs.dojocampus.org/dojo/mixin)
    var empty = {};
    function mixin(/*Object*/ target, /*Object*/ source){
        var name, s, i;
        for(name in source){
            s = source[name];
            if(!(name in target) || (target[name] !== s && (!(name in empty) || empty[name] !== s))){
                target[name] = s;
            }
        }
        return target; // Object
    };
    _app.mixin = function(/*Object*/ obj, /*Object...*/ props){
        if(!obj){ obj = {}; }
        for(var i=1, l=arguments.length; i<l; i++){
            mixin(obj, arguments[i]);
        }
        return obj; // Object
    };
 
    // Create a new object, combining the properties of the passed objects with the last arguments having
    // priority over the first ones
    _app.combine = function(/*Object*/ obj, /*Object...*/ props) {
        var newObj = {};
        for(var i=0, l=arguments.length; i<l; i++){
            mixin(newObj, arguments[i]);
        }
        return newObj;
    };
})(app);

The particular organization of this utilities file assumes that your app structure follows the organization model shown in the Tweetanium example app (using the ‘app’ namespace within a single window context), but is easy to adapt if you are not.

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files.length

Which returned undefined. So if there is no length property present, an easy way to count the number of keys or properties of an object in ES5-compliant javascript environments like Node.js is to use the Object prototype directly:

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Object.keys(files).length

A little more typing, but it is fast, efficient, and most importantly: already built-in.

php|tek in Chicago was fun as always. It is the best PHP conference I have ever been to, which makes sense, given that it is focused solely on PHP and surrounding technologies. The best thing about the conference is the community feeling in general. You get a real sense that everyone there really cares about PHP and is heavily invested in it, which is good for moving the whole language and ecosystem forward.

I myself gave two talks – one about Stackbox CMS, a new CMS project I have been working on, and one about Apppcelerator Titanium Mobile since I have been working with it a lot lately. The presentations are embedded below.

Cross-Platform Mobile Development with Titanium

Stackbox CMS: Next-Generation Content Management

The first two pictures are of the iPhone app, and the last one is of the Android app. SEMTab SEO Pro was built with Titanium using all native cross-platform UI controls, so it builds both the iPhone and Android app from a single codebase and a single development effort.

The nice thing about SEMTab is that it makes extensive use of Titanium’s event system to fire off simultaneous asynchronous HTTP requests to the various web services and APIs to fetch data about the current domain you are checking. This prevents the application from locking up while fetching rank or share information, and it prevents the HTTP requests from stacking up in a queue and waiting for the ones in front of it to finish. The end result is a pretty slick & simple SEO app that gets the results you want quickly, without feeling sluggish or unresponsive.

Check out SEMTab SEO Pro in the App Store or the Android Market when you get the chance — and don’t forget to leave some feedback with a rating.

Having a few well defined extension points force the developer to extend your library the right way instead of hacking your code.

The problem is that this kind of thinking is a slippery slope that kills the spirit of programming. It alienates the more pragmatic developers within communities. Telling other developers that you are going to force them to work with your code in some pre-determined “right way” is an incredibly arrogant statement to make. Instead of letting the codebase grow organically and be modified or extended at will, you handcuff developers and send them a different message. Allow me to re-phrase it using my own words:

I know the right way to use this code and I have thought of all the possible use cases. If you don’t agree, then you have to prove me wrong and wait until I either agree or figure out a better right way for you.

This is the real message developers hear when internal code is private scope or marked with the final keyword – a message that they have arbitrarily limited power and ability to make changes where they need to. But it doesn’t stop there.

When you take the position that all methods should be private unless proven otherwise, you plant a seed of fear in the developers that use your code. Fear that whenever they may have to veer off the beaten path to meet a project requirement they won’t be able to. Fear that they might miss deadlines waiting for the “right way”  to enable the functionality they need. Fear that they might have to modify or hack the actual file or class they need to change the behavior of to achieve the functionality they want within the project deadline because they are not able to extend it.

Using private scope removes the fun from programming and kills the hacking spirit by creating fear through the knowledge that you will not have the ability to make changes anywhere in the codebase you need to when you need to. You are no longer in control of your own code. You were forced to submit to a nanny state mentality by sacrificing your freedoms to modify the code for the promise of future stability and safety. That’s not a fun place to be when you’re on the receiving end, and it’s not a policy I would ever consider enforcing with my own code. I sincerely hope this line of thinking does not proliferate within the PHP community and infect other projects.

There is a lot to consider in a decision like this, and I did not weigh it lightly. Somehow after running through all the options, now still seemed like the best time to take the leap. Here’s to a bright future in 2011 and beyond.

I did a lot of researching, and basically, there are a few primary culprits I was able to identify that will hopefully save you some time.

Check your /tmp directory

MySQL will produce this error sometimes when the temp directory is not writeable.

1. Ensure that /tmp (and/or /var/tmp) has the correct permissions (777)
2. Check the my.cnf file and search for a tmpdir=/tmp flag. Ensure the value is pointing to the correct temp directory.
3. Ensure your /tmp directory is not full

Check your my.cnf

1. If you made changes recently, revert them and restart MySQL (especially InnoDB Buffer Pool settings)
2. Restore my.cnf.back is there is one
3. If you are using InnoDB tables, ensure the skip-innodb line in my.cnf is commented out or removed.

Clear InnoDB Log Files

This step ONLY APPLIES IF THE ABOVE STEPS DID NOT WORK.

Read the MySQL Manual page on removing InnoDB log files for a safer backup and restoration procedures. Basically, the steps are:

1. Shut down MySQL
2. Remove ib_logfile* files from the MySQL data directory (move them or rename them if you want to be safe)
3. Re-start MySQL

My specific problem was that somehow the “skip-innodb” line got added back into my “my.cnf” file, so MySQL was expecting a different table format when loading data. I suspect this had something to do with my cPanel/WHM setup overwriting the file, but I’ll never know for sure.

Good Luck!

1. Open a Terminal Window, Run This Command:
   

   1	keytool -list -keystore /location/of/your/com.example.keystore

   Make sure “keytool” is either in your PATH, or “cd” into the “tools” directory where your Android SDK files are.

2. Enter your keystore password when prompted (you didn’t forget that too, did you? Did you?)
3. See results!

You should see something like the picture below if you did everything right. The alias is circled in yellow. If you have multiple aliases in your keystore, they will all be listed, one per line.

And since you already forgot your keystore alias, I might as well remind you to put your keystore in a safe location so you don’t lose it. Remember – if you lose your keystore, you’re screwed. You won’t be able to release any updates for the apps you packaged with it. I put mine in my Dropbox for safe keeping. It is synced to three of my personal computers and backed up to an external USB drive in addition to being stored remotely on the Dropbox servers.