Ziray Studio Labs

Isla Fuerte – Bushnell Laberinto Scuba Dive

Mike — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:27:00 +0000

Time in: 14:34
Time out: 15:16

Max depth: 51 feet
Avg. depth: 37 feet

This was the second dive on Bushnell. Our dive boat was so tiny that it only held one tank per diver, so a support boat had to follow us out to Bushnell to exchange tanks so we could do a second dive there. It was 50 minutes away, so there was no way we could have gone back to the resort like with the other dives. We had a 36 minute surface interval, which barely gave us enough time to do a 45 minute no decompression dive. By the time we got into the water however, we had enough time to do a ~50 minute dive to 60 feet, but since we only went to a max of 51 feet, we were well within the limits of no decompression diving.

The Labyrinth was full of canyons in the reef, most of which were big enough for one person to swim through. The reefs were high and filled with some beautiful fish. Three barracudas swam by to check us out.

Bushnell – Laberinto

Ana

Juanca hanging out

Our 3-minute safety stop 15 feet below the surface

Hanging out on the anchor line

Our divemaster taking a nap

The resort as seen from the wate

Isla Fuerte – Bushnell Laberinto Scuba Dive is a post from: Ziray Studio Labs

Isla Fuerte – Bushnell Scuba Dive

Mike — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 01:49:50 +0000

Time in: 13:18
Time out: 13:58

Max Depth: 54 feet
Avg Depth: 39 feet

The water temperature was a warm 84 degrees (according to the dive computer) while the air was only around 80. At those temperatures it’s so nice to jump in the water. Even so, Ana gets cold while diving and wore a 3mm wetsuit.

The dive site was a 50 minute boat ride away towards the north west part of the island where the sea floor raised up to a depth of about 60 feet. It’s basically an underwater mountain (see map below) with a gorgeous reef that sits on top of it (see the sketch by our divemaster in the photos below).

The dive yielded gorgeous reef formations with spots of white sandy sea floor. The sandy floor allowed us to set down in a place that wouldn’t harm the reef so we could get better look at some of the sea creatures such as a Caribbean lobster and various plant life.

Isla Fuerte – Bushnell

Barracuda

Lobster

Bushnell off the north west coast of Isla Fuerte. A mountain in the middle of a deeper part of the sea.

During our briefing on the site, our divemaster drew a rough sketch of the reef formation.

Isla Fuerte – Bushnell Scuba Dive is a post from: Ziray Studio Labs

Isla Fuerte – El Planchon

Mike — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:11:02 +0000

Time in: 15:09
Time out: 15:57

Max Depth: 36 feet
Average Depth: 23 feet

We spent the night at Moñitos, on the coast of Colombia, before taking a ferry from Paso Nuevo with Just Elena, Juanca and Ana. The morning water was too choppy for diving so we waited until the afternoon. We made sure everyone was ready and equipment was setup properly since everyone except me hadn’t dived since Florida, which was about 6 months prior.

The dive boat we dived from was small and only held about 10 tanks. We entered the water with mask, snorkel and fins and were handed our scuba tanks. We then descended along the anchor line to the wreck which was a former lumber transport that sank off the coast of Isla Fuerte. It was 150 meters long, 10 meters wide and the deck was 8 meters high.

We saw squirrelfish, French angelfish, rainbow parrotfish, a lionfish and two creole wrasse trying to mate.

Even though I had 9 lbs of weight, I, as well as everyone else, was under weight.

Isla Fuerte Dive One

Ana

First dive we encountered a sunken ship, used to carry cargo.

Juanca and Elena

On top of the cargo ship

Lion fish are relatively new to this area of the Caribbean and started showing up after a hurricane swept through.

The top of the ship has rotted away

A latter to go down into the ship

Squirrel fish swimming on top of some brain coral

Top corner of the ship

Juanca

Isla Fuerte – El Planchon is a post from: Ziray Studio Labs

Isla Fuerte, Colombia

Mike — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:02:58 +0000

On Christmas day, we woke up early, packed the car and drove 9 hours to the coast of Colombia. Colombia is the only country in South America that has a coast line on both the Pacific ocean and the Caribbean sea. Next time, we’ll try to make it to the Pacific coast for some diving.

When we got there, we had to park our car in a poor little town with muddy dirt roads and garbage all over the place. It wasn’t my car, so I wasn’t worried, but we also parked in a fenced off area where other divers had parked theirs, so we weren’t too worried.

We then took a 30 minute boat ride to get to the island in a tiny little boat that would later become our dive boat. No one spoke English so I pretty much was on my own to figure out what was going on, which is a really good way to learn a language, but not a good way when it comes to important things like how not to die on the ride over.

When we got to the island, our cabin had no hot water and no electricity; the water they did have was undrinkable, but they put a 2 gallon bottle of drinking water in our room. Electricity ran from a generator from 6PM to 6AM so that you could use the lights, charge any devices, but most importantly to have the fans on in the room.

Every meal was something that was locally grown or caught, so we ate a ton of fruit (new fruit I’ve never even seen before but terrifically delicious), fish and vegetables. It was an amazing experience and a real eye opener to how you can have really delicious food, electricity and water and still be sustainable on a tiny island like that.

Luckily for us, it only rained a little bit and was well after our scuba dives. Otherwise the temperature was perfect, as it is year round. Enjoy the photos below!

Isla Fuerte

About 30 minutes outside Medellin

At the SAME exact time, my friend took this picture of my car.

The cabin we stayed at on the mainland.

We stayed in a cabin on the coast of Colombia before heading to the island.

View from our cabin

The cabin where we stayed; complete with hammocks.

We took a walking tour of the island and saw this massive tree, estimated to be over 500 years old.

Some houses on the island

Isla Fuerte is 11 miles off the coast of Colombia, but there are sloths on this island.

More sloths.

Yet another sloth.

He noticed us and started to climb a bit higher

A little gift from our tour guide/divemaster

Water was very limited. This is how it was gathered.

The bathroom was awesome.

When it rained, the rain water drained into the shower.

These guys were all over the place eating the sugar and any crumbs we left.

Juanca and Elena

On our way back to the States, we flew over Isla Fuerte

Colombian coast next to Isla Fuerte

Isla Fuerte was 11 miles from the mainland

Isla Fuerte, Colombia is a post from: Ziray Studio Labs

Christmas Eve Night in Medellin

Mike — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:12:06 +0000

That night we spent Christmas with Ana’s other side of the family. It was a very relaxed atmosphere while Ana’s grandmother handed out gifts. Ana’s family got me some 12 year old rum made in Medellín and one of Ana’s uncles gave me a bottle of wine. I’m not sure what kind of impression I made on everyone, but apparently they think I like alcohol. It’s true, but still.

Ana and I had gotten everyone a basic gift of candy from the US. It wasn’t much, but I had never met anyone and she has a bunch of little cousins. Besides, the suitcases were full of gifts for everyone, even my suitcases, so mostly we just said things were from both of us.

Later that night we set off more balloons with candles in them. The sky over Medellin was filled with at least 4 or 5 other balloons that had be set off nearby. Some were obvious what they were while others looked like large stars twinkling in the night.

Christmas Eve

The Gingerbread house Ana, Elena and I made

Not bad for our first attempt

They also release balloons with a small flame in them. We saw at least 5 other ones when we launched this one.

Ana and Elena

Time to open presents

Ana's grandmother gives out gifts

I even got a gift, though this wasn't exactly it. I got a bottle of wine and Medellin Rum

The aftermath

Christmas Eve Night in Medellin is a post from: Ziray Studio Labs

Christmas Eve Morning in Colombia

Mike — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:03:33 +0000

Colombia is a Catholic country, and as every Catholic country I’ve been to, they celebrate Christmas on the 24th. Also, the gifts are delivered by baby Jesus, not Santa Claus. Hungarian Christmas is similar that way, but in Medellin, Colombia, the temperature is a perfect 75 degrees and sunny, so it really doesn’t feel like Christmas to me as a Hungarian Christmas would.

In Ana’s family, its a tradition to set off solar balloons and balloons with little candles in them to set them off at night. This side of the family had a big penguin that looked like Tux. Enjoy the photos below!

Christmas Eve Morning

Outside Medellin at a country house

Traditionally, people let off solar balloons that use the sun's warmth to heat the air inside.

Eventually it came down right next to the house.

Of all places.

One of the little cousins runs after it.

Coming down right on the driveway

Setting up our own solar balloon.

Tux is almost ready to go.

They hold it in the sun to heat up the air before letting it go.

It took off right away

It almost didn't make it over the giant mountains.

Christmas Eve Morning in Colombia is a post from: Ziray Studio Labs

Handling Your Initial View Controllers for iPhone

Mike — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:50:54 +0000

Programming starts with a

design

A lot of webpages and articles talk about how to program, but they don’t talk about how to design a program. Good program design separates the weekend programmers from the professionals. Sure, anyone can piece together a working application but a good design allows a power and flexibility of adding new features, for example, without having to recode half of your application.

Here, we’ll talk about handling your initial views when your iPhone application loads. This might be a simple task if your application is simple, but take the case of having a welcome screen followed by a login screen followed by a tabbed view controller. You might set it up so that one activates the other upon being dismissed itself.

Here’s an example of how the process might look:

Program loads AppDelegate

Load Welcome view from AppDelegate

Dismiss Welcome view -> Tell Welcome view to load Login view

Dismiss Login view -> Tell Login view to load Tabbed view

What if you had to add a view or remove one, say if the login was no longer needed if you gave your users the option to save their credentials. You’d have to rewrite two different view controllers at least. And this is just a simple example so you can see how complicated this chain of views would get once your application grows. For most programmers this way is fine, and sadly enough most of the time, this is the way it’s done. But true programmers are lazy. Lazy programmers are good programmers. So be lazy and write good code so that when (not if) you go back and edit your code, it’ll be a snap.

A design starts on paper

Your programs should be conceived on paper. Even with applications that attempt to do this, I still find paper the ultimate programming tool (even though I did the one below on a computer).

Class Diagram

First off, your controllers should be logically separated based on their tasks that they need to accomplish (not based on how the user will view them). So, you should have a controller or controllers to handle logging in and session creation and have appropriate UIViews and UIViewControllers to get and display info to your user. This may not be a one-to-one relationship though. For example, you may not have a UIViewController that’s associated with creating your sessions at all.

Next you will have your application’s business logic view controllers, controllers and all that jazz. The controllers sit independently to the view controllers except, of course, where there’s coupling or interaction. They are not tied directly, or rely upon any particular view. You illustrate those connections on paper (or in this case in the example diagram above). So if your “Add New Event” feature, let’s say, needs access to the session data, draw a line from your SessionController to your EventsController with an arrow pointing in the direction of the flow (from EventsController to SessionController in our case since the Events controller needs to know about the SessionController but not vise versa).

Abstraction solves everything

Since your controller code should be independent of how your views are laid out, you won’t have your AddNewEventViewController (the view that lets the user add an event) handling the actual creation and saving of events but will instead gathering and packaging the information taken from the user and given to an EventsController to handle the manipulation. Who knows, you may have several views that edit an Event in one way or another and if you change something in how the Event is saved, you’ll have to go into the code of each one that touches Event and rewrite code — exactly what we’re trying to avoid.

Abstracting the data in this way is called indirection and “All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection;” — David Wheeler, except as Kevlin Henney says, “…except for the problem of too many layers of indirection.”

Singletons, under used

and under appreciated

So, you should have a session controller that sits somewhere ready to be called by who ever needs to validate a session or login (those views that would need access could be your tabbed views, could be your app delegate when your app starts, or could be in your settings views where you type your login info or when you log out). This is usually accomplished with a singleton class where any controller can access that one (and only) instance of your controller without having to pass around references to that controller. It not only cleans up your code, but also helps data integrity by not allowing multiple objects to edit the same data.

Handling your initial views

You should really have a separate controller handle organizing your views rather than the app delegate since the app delegate should really only be used to initialize your app and handle delegation of your application, not controlling business logic. So the structure should look like:

AppDelegate -> MainViewController -> LoginViewController

I like to have an overall MainViewController that handles all the subviews, be it a tab bar view controller, a table view controller, or whatever your main view is going to be. This level of indirection allows you to easily change what your main view controller is later, should your requirements or ideas change. Having said that, the MainViewController is going to need to get and maintain a reference to the application’s window.

To actually add the views, stack them on top of each other. Add the Tab Bar Controller’s view to the Window’s view first, then if needed, add your login views after that to stack them on top, and then remove them as needed when you’re done with them. By removing them from the top, it reveals the bottom view.

In MainViewController’s implementation file, your viewDidLoad: will look like:

- (void)viewDidLoad

{

[super viewDidLoad];

[mainWindow addSubview: tabBarController.view];

[mainWindow addSubview: loginViewController.view];

[mainWindow addSubview: welcomeViewController.view];

}

Where mainWindow is an IBOutlet to your Window in your MainWindow.xib file (or you could get it programatically if you prefer). Also, loginViewController is a pointer to your view controller that you put on top of the tab bar controller. On top of your login view, put a welcome view displaying any text, graphics or video to show after your application loads; note that this is different from your Default.png initial image. Then when you’re done with your login view, call removeFromSuperview on them to remove them from the view stack. So something like this in your MainViewController (since it handles all manipulation of your main views):

- (void)removeWelcomeView

{

[welcomeViewController.view removeFromSuperview];

// Any other code you need to clean up after your welcome view is removed

}

- (void)removeLoginView

{

[loginViewController.view removeFromSuperview];

// Any other code you need to clean up after your login view is removed

}

Obviously, when you remove the welcome screen view, under it (since you added it on the stack before the welcome view) is your login view. Then, removing the login view will show the tab bar view since that was added first in your view stack:

(Top)

Welcome View

Tab Bar View

This way we’re loading all of our views at once and stacking them so the one on top hides the one below. This has a slight overhead since you’re adding all your views when your applications starts but you can always delay adding the tab bar controller to the Window’s view until all the initial views are removed, for example. Then, if you’d like, using the MainViewController, you can add views on top of the tab bar view during execution, for example if you need to login again.

There are a few different ways to handle multiple views and each case is different. This is just one idea, with a few general guidelines. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments if anything wasn’t clear enough.

Sample Code

The following sample code is provided as is for educational and demonstration purposes. I threw it together really quickly and is only used to demonstrate the use of a MainViewController. Normally, you’ll want to make your MainViewController a singleton class, but in this example I passed the MainViewController instance to the subviews in order for them to call different methods on MainViewController to change the current views. By using a singleton design, you can avoid passing around this reference since there is only ever one MainViewController.

Also, this code demonstrates how to create a tab bar programmatically. It needs to be the root view of your window, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be the root view controller. We are still allowed to use a MainViewController as our root to handle all subviews and their controllers.

Download sample code (2010-02-11_TabBarTest.zip)

Handling Your Initial View Controllers for iPhone is a post from: Ziray Studio Labs

Medellín Colombia

Mike — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:55:07 +0000

Ana took me to downtown Medellín via the metro. It’s a lot different than from where she lives up in the hills of Envigado. Since it was right before Christmas, the crowds were terrible. She and her sister went around to a small place that had eight different shoe stores all right next to each other, no exaggeration.

After about two hours later (you know women) we took the metro further north to where the botanical gardens are. Admission is free, so it’s more like a city park but they have different places where they grown different types of plants. It was really nice and well maintained. Definitely worth a visit if you find yourself in the city.

I also got to try sugar cane juice, which is amazing. They take the sugar cane stalks and put it through a press, not unlike a cloths wringer, and juice just pours out of these things. They’re also amazing to eat but are a little stringy to enjoy all the time like that.

We also visited a ton of malls over the next few days. I was looking for some shorts to wear in the coast area where we were going scuba diving. Cloths in Colombia are magnitudes more stylish than cloths in the states. South Americans mainly prefer styles from Europe but you can find a few brands from the U.S. as well. I think I got to see almost all the malls in Medellin, of which, there are quite a few.

The photos below are from after we arrived until right before Christmas. Enjoy!

Medellin Colombia

Jungle!

Strange flowers. The ones on the right are Ana's favorite.

You can't ever escape these things

Our driver for the evening was a little retarded

Outdoor mall.

Christmas decorations

Previous Christmas decorations but at night.

On our way to Rio Claro in the middle of the jungle.

Downtown Medellín

Botero sculpture

Downtown

More Botero sculptures

The city is in a valley way up in the mountains. It feels like spring year round.

Inside the botanical gardens in the middle of the city

Jungle Cat

In the botanical gardens

Iguanas were everywhere

Lake in the botanical gardens

The city of Medellin outside the walls of the botanical gardens

View from the metro station

Medellin traffic

Medellín Colombia is a post from: Ziray Studio Labs

Colombia – Ana’s House

Mike — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:33:15 +0000

We arrived in Medellín a little after 3PM. My friend who lives in Northern Virginia gave us a ride to the Baltimore airport at 2 in the morning, even though he had to work the next day, so we bought him a bottle of 12 year old rum from Medellín named Ron Medellin.

We mostly stayed at her house that day and relaxed after the long trip. We unpacked four suitcases, three of which were gifts for her family and relatives. After all that unpacking was done, we consolidated all of our stuff into one suitcase. Gustavo, her god son, got to play with his Geo-Trax trail set that we set up for him. The engine has a remote control that allows it to go forward and in reverse. He absolutely loved it and the expansion we got for it that allows him to have a longer track and also gave him the ability to switch tracks.

Ana’s brothers and sister have five dogs, but luckily a nice big yard for them to run around in. Bruna, the big chocolate lab is Ana’s and of course her favorite. Hope you enjoy the photos below:

Ana’s Colombian House

Ana's house

Bruna

Ana's front yard

The city in the valley below

Ana's godson

Gustavo

Ana's Christmas present to Gustavo

Colombia – Ana’s House is a post from: Ziray Studio Labs

How to Program for the iPhone – A Plan

Mike — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 22:58:45 +0000

This is not so much how to make applications for the iPhone, since there are so many on of those on the web already. This is more a syllabus on how to get started with the vast amount of information already out there and where to start from to quickly become proficient at iPhone development without getting frustrated or discouraged.

Development Requirements

An Intel-based Apple Mac
$99 (optional – if you want to actually publish your app)
That’s all!

Apple Developer Account

Development for the iPhone is initially free. So feel free to head over to http://developer.apple.com and sign up for a developer account if you don’t already have one. This will give you access to the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) called XCode, which is required to develop applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It also serves as a treasure chest of free information, sample code, tutorials, how-to videos and news, all of which I’ll talk about how to use later.

Once you’ve signed up for a developer account, you’ll need to download XCode and install it on your Mac. PC users are, as they always are, out of luck since a Mac is required for development. Once that’s done, put it aside as you won’t need it for a bit.

Learn to Program

An Important Design Pattern: Model View Controller

If you already know how to program a little bit, but haven’t gone through the rigors of a four year university Computer Science degree or something similar, start with learning an important design patterns, namely one called Model View Controller (MVC). Of course, a 4-year degree is not necessary, but you need to understand basic software engineering principles, design patterns and basic usability practices, which practically none of the programming tutorials, books and online articles teach. Also, a lot of practice helps as you’ll learn how to fix non-obvious compiler and runtime errors, how to structure your code, and pitfalls of each language you use.

Objective-C: The Language of Choice

After you understand the basic principle of MVC, you can then move on to learning the language of choice, Objective-C. Why Objective-C? Why didn’t Apple just choose a common language like C++ or Java? The reasons will become obvious as you learn about the language, it’s power, and how it fits into the MVC methodology better than any other language you’ve likely seen before. So here’s a nice tutorial on how to program in Objective-C.

If you already have a great understanding of programming and know a C-based langauge, skip the lengthy tutorial and take a look at this primer to get a sense of the additions to C that Objective-C brings to the table. For most people who are familiar with a C-based language, this will be all you need to get started.

The Cocoa Framework: Because Reinventing the Wheel is for Marketing Types

Ok, great. Now you speak the language, but you need to know the framework and how the language leverages this technology so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Take a look at Cocoa Fundamentals to learn how the fundamentals of Cocoa work. The Cocoa framework is a superset of the Cocoa Touch framework that is specialized to fit the paradigm and requirements of the iPhone and iPod Touch devices. Knowledge of the Cocoa framework is essential to understanding how to use such things as data structures and containers, user interface (UI) elements and the rich built-in functionality that all these components offer you for free. Many of the Cocoa framework elements carry over into Cocoa Touch, such as strings, CoreData, CoreAudio, CoreAnimation and concepts such as delegation, protocols, interfaces and application bundles.

XCode Tools: The Real Workers

Once you know how to speak the language and use the technology, you need to know how to use the tools to make it all happen. Here’s another Apple document that explains what XCode is and how to use it. Even if you’ve worked in XCode before, it’s worth checking out as XCode is a powerful code editor, debugger and provides a host of other tools and features. If you’re interested in what else XCode has to offer, there’s a more detailed explanation of the other tools that come with XCode.

Your First iPhone Application

You need to keep in mind that even though this is a lot of information to process, if you’re unfamiliar with the platform, it’s all very intuitive and will become second nature with a little practice and time. Just keep looking at a little bit every day and re-read some of the things you read early on. No one can learn a foreign language in a week, so don’t expect to be fluent in everything Objective-C and Cocoa in less than that. Spend a little time with it every day, go through sample code that interests you, read developer forums to see what other people are having trouble with and come up with a few of your own app ideas just to put all this theory to work. You never truly learn something until you have to use it in the real world.

So now that you have made all the theory, concepts and language familiar to you, you can cement it in your brain with your first iPhone application. This tutorial will cover most of the concepts you already learned (repetition is the key to really cementing that knowledge) but it will also show how they all tie together, which is the most important part. Don’t just copy and paste the code. You don’t have to memorize it, but typing it out really helps you recognize the code later when you have to use it on your own.

Beyond the Basics

This is where most tutorials stop. They pat you on the back, call you an iPhone developer and send you on your way to flail your way through haphazard development. All you really know however is how to put a few buttons on the screen and make them do something stupid (which admittedly is most of the apps that are available on the app store). There’s a lot more you need to know to be truly dangerous.

Usabilty on the iPhone: The Apple Human Interface Guidelines (HIG)

Take an afternoon and sit down and read the Apple Human Interface Guidelines. This will give you a slew of iPhone capabilities, but more importantly, it’ll give you a sense of how to properly use the interface elements of the iPhone. Nothing shows an amateur or know-nothing developer than an improper use of an interface element or using a certain interface element because it looks or acts cool (anyone remember the drawer?).

Developing iPhone Apps:

Gather those Building Blocks

Create an iPhone Utility Application

iPhone utility applications are the easiest to understand. They have two views, a front side and a back side. This type of app is great for learning how two views can communicate without worrying about complex data structures, implementing confusing protocols or dealing with the frustration when your code compiles, but doesn’t work. You can also experiment with new technologies such as CoreData, CoreAnimation, CoreAudio, WebViews, playing music or anything else you’re interested in without the overhead of managing views and other complexities like that. Keep it simple and think of a few ideas that fit the paradigm of an iPhone utility application.

Navigation Controller: Controlling Presentation

After you’ve successfully completed a working iPhone utility application, the next and most common interface technology is the Navigation Controller. This is the controller that allows you to hit a button and have a new view slide in from the right. I love this controller because it adds a lot of functionality to your app without a lot of work. Simply allocate a new view, push it onto the navigation controller and release it because the navigation controller does the rest.

Tab Bar Controller: Multiple Sections in One App

The Tab Bar Controller is a great way to segment your applications into features. It’s a bit trickier to set up, but once you know how it works it’s intuitive and flexible. For example, you can use the views that Interface Builder gives you to drop your UI elements onto, or you can tell Interface Builder to load a particular View Controller of your choice. It greatly extends your application’s functionality with minimal work.

Tableview Controller Class: Displaying Your Data

Table views are a bit more complex and involve a bit more understanding but it’s hard to get far in iPhone development without using a tableview. Invest the time to understand these creatures and it’ll give you a nice return on your investment. Take a look at the TableViewSuite sample code to learn how to do everything you ever wanted to with table views.

Tool Bar: Making Your App Accomplish Something Useful

Applications need to do something useful besides editing data. Sometimes you may want to do something a little bit different and adding a tool bar to your application is a great way to add a different kind of functionality. It’s simple to use and gives you a standard way to manipulate data in your application.

Core Data: Handling Lots of Data Without Too Much Real Work

A lot of your app ideas are going to be based on having lots of useful data that needs to be displayed and manipulated and Core Data is the easiest, most flexible and optimized way to do that. So spend some time and read the Core Data Programming Guide. Secondly, it’s important to learn how to use a fetch results controller as it will allow you to display your data in a tableview in a simpler way than straight out of the fetch request. It will also give you the functionality of indexed tableviews for free (as seen in the Contacts application).

More Programming for iPhone

This is the one of the best paths to picking up programming for the iPhone. It starts you off with the most useful items without overwhelming you. However, it does take a lot of time to read and a little more than that to understand, but take it slowly, look at it over a course of several weeks and soon you’ll be able to add anything to your application by only reading the API references.

There are a ton of things that you’ll need to learn in order to be an effective developer, so in future articles I’ll take what I’ve learned, some pitfalls and neat tricks and show you some of the basic stuff that you can’t find in the Apple developer documentation such as handling common problems, design patterns and usability pitfalls.

After all of this, you’re still not done. You’ve only grasped the basics, but at this point, the real challenge is not understanding the technologies, it’s figuring out where to go from here: what should you learn next, how can you get started programming a real app, and most importantly how you can make a lot of money. All of this will be covered in future articles as this one is too long already, but I will leave you with some of my favorite links. In the mean time, subscribe via RSS or email to get future articles on iPhone and everything else I do. Finally, frequent the Apple developer forums and try to answer some of the questions there. You won’t always know the answer, but a little research and you will be able to figure it out and learn in the process.

Additional Links

Stack Overflow – A great site for asking programming questions of all kinds.

iPhone Dev SDK – Forum-based site for asking and answering everything iPhone related.

iPhone SDK Articles – Blog-based site with lots of useful and informative examples on iPhone development.

My Apple Background

I’ve been developing Mac applications since 2003, attending WWDC 2004 and 2005. I’m the author of several small Mac applications including a Terminal GUI tool that’s been quite popular in the past. I have taught Code Kitchens at Virginia Tech on Cocoa through the Mac Users Group and I use to sell, support, demonstrate and evangelize Apple products to college kids as an Apple Campus Rep. I’m now an independent developer, working in partnership with LTZ, a company started to give independent developers and free thinkers a platform and voice from which to launch their apps or app ideas.

How to Program for the iPhone – A Plan is a post from: Ziray Studio Labs

More Photos of Petunia

Mike — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 20:18:56 +0000

Petunia

Ana with Petunia

Just a giant lap dog

More Photos of Petunia is a post from: Ziray Studio Labs

Claytor Lake – Summer 2009

Mike — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 23:18:53 +0000

Claytor Lake

Me with Elika

Eduardo

Goli

Elika

Claytor Lake – Summer 2009 is a post from: Ziray Studio Labs

Washington DC – Summer 2009

Mike — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:37:36 +0000

Washington DC Photos

A bunch of people showed up in Georgetown to protest the elections in Iran

Elena and Juanca

Sisters sharing shoes

Restaurant in Georgetown we ate at

Tourists

List of countries near the Korean Memorial

Clouds near the Jefferson Memorial

Latin guys that called Ana hot in Spanish, not knowing she perfectly understood. In DC, speaking Spanish is NOT a discreet way to communicate.

Washington DC – Summer 2009 is a post from: Ziray Studio Labs

Cascades – Summer 2009

Mike — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 03:30:23 +0000

Cascades

Elena and Juanca

Ana in the foreground

Colombian anti-guerrilla shirt

Me, Ana and Elena

Juanca and Elena

Juanca diving into the freezing water

Cascades – Summer 2009 is a post from: Ziray Studio Labs

Colombia for Christmas

Mike — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:57:58 +0000

Last year, I spent Christmas in Slovakia. We did a ton of skiing in several countries including Slovakia, Austria and then in France. Two years before that I spent it in Hungary and then traveled alone for two weeks in Germany and Switzerland and back to Hungary via Slovakia. Well, not entirely alone since I met a ton of great people along the way. This year however, we’re planning on spending it in Colombia, in the home city of my girlfriend, Ana.

There’s enough for me to see in Medellin, since I’ve never been to South America before, or a Spanish speaking country, but we’ll be traveling throughout Colombia during our brief vacation. Around Christmas will obviously be reserved for spending time with her family but before and after that we have a few excursions planned.

Colombia is a Catholic country (even though a lot of them are scared of how religious the United States seems) and as a result, the city is full of lights and other decorations during this special time. Since towns in the United States are generally discouraged from putting up Christmas specific decorations, it’ll be something entirely different to see an unabashed version of a city Christmas display. Hungary has always put up lights in Budapest, with Christmas trees and other Christmas specific things, but from what I’ve seen from photos, Medellin Christmas lights are far more spectacular.

We’re still looking for a scuba resort where we can dive for a few days for less than $1000. You can do that in Florida in the Keys for half that price, including hotel, but for some reason, we’re having a hard time finding a good/cheap one in Colombia. I really don’t want to spend that much money right now, though if we had to, it’d totally be worth it to swim with whale sharks and huge manta rays.

Other than that, we are planning on visiting some colonial era Colombian towns, the coffee region (with Juan Valdez, the guy with the donkey on all the Colombian coffee) and various other things unique to South America or Colombia. We don’t have a whole lot of time, but we’re going to make the most out of the time we have. You can be assured there will be a ton of photos when I get back.

Colombia for Christmas is a post from: Ziray Studio Labs