Ideas 2.0

African App Store

2011-10-29T10:34:00.000-03:00

You have to admit, the Apple App Store completely revolutionized how people download and install mobile applications on their phones. The 70-30 model also empowered developers allowing them to easily reach a global market, with developers receiving 70% of the sales while Apple kept the other 30%.

Google, Microsoft and Blackberry were quick to follow with their own mobile application market places. However, we still haven't seen hyperlocal app stores, profiling apps created by developers in your own community. All apps get thrown under categories, but not regions.

I believe there is huge opportunity to incorporate geo-location into the market place, celebrating a 'shop local' mentality. Imagine searching for apps based on your location, 'show me apps developed within 100km of me' and allowing you easily contact that developer. This could spur a powerful synergy between developers and local companies looking to hire.

I also believe that region specific app stores, could celebrate locally developed applications. And rather than 30% going to large corporations like Google, Microsoft or Blackberry, that 30% could instead go to the community in which the app was developed. For example, you buy a mobile game created by a Nairobi developer, 70% goes to the developer and 30% goes to support local organizations like Map Kibera or Mathare Valley Group. Costumers would give back to their community, without even knowing it.

Supporting local charities was the original goal behind Apps4Good, social good organization that myself and some friends from Halifax started to give back to the community. Unfortunately the ongoing support and marketing proved a bigger challenge than actually developing the applications. And because Apps4Good is entirely volunteer based, we've struggled to sell the tens of thousands of apps like we had hoped. But the idea is still sound, and I believe there is huge potential to allow consumers to buy products they need, while giving back to their community in the process.

Thoughts? Ideas? I'd love to hear them :)

Applescript To Export And Import iOS Projects To CSV

2011-06-07T09:57:00.013-03:00

Two weeks ago I wrote an Applescript to auto-translate an iOS project by extracting all phrases, translating them via Google Translate, and then re-importing the translations back into your project. Unfortunately since publishing the script, Google has announced they are deprecating the Translate API.

So, as an alternative to using Google Translate, I've updated the Applescript to also export to a CSV file so the phrases can be loaded into a Google Spreadsheet, and then re-imported from CSV file once the spreadsheet has been translated.


set EXPORT_TO_CSV to "Export To CSV"
set IMPORT_FROM_CSV to "Import From CSV"
set GOOGLE_TRANSLATE to "Google Translate"
set CLASSES_ONLY to "Classes Only"
set CLASSES_AND_NIBS to "Classes And NIBs"

set question to display dialog "Select Your Activity" buttons {EXPORT_TO_CSV, IMPORT_FROM_CSV, GOOGLE_TRANSLATE} default button 1
set answer to button returned of question
if answer is equal to EXPORT_TO_CSV then
exportToCSV(choose folder with prompt "Select Project Source Folder", ¬
choose folder with prompt "Select Translations Destination Folder", ¬
display dialog "Enter CSV Destination File" default answer "localizations.csv", ¬
display dialog "Enter CSV Language Codes" default answer "fr,es,de,nl,it,pt,pl,ru,sw,zh,ja,ko,ar,cs,el,hi", ¬
display dialog "Export Phrases From" buttons {CLASSES_ONLY, CLASSES_AND_NIBS} default button 1)
else if answer is equal to IMPORT_FROM_CSV then
importFromCSV(choose folder with prompt "Select Project Source Folder", ¬
choose folder with prompt "Select Translations Destination Folder", ¬
choose file with prompt "Enter CSV Source File" of type {"CSV"})
else if answer is equal to GOOGLE_TRANSLATE then
translateProject(choose folder with prompt "Select Project Source Folder", ¬
choose folder with prompt "Select Localization Destination Folder", ¬
display dialog "Enter Destination Language Code" default answer "", ¬
display dialog "Translate Phrases From" buttons {CLASSES_ONLY, CLASSES_AND_NIBS} default button 1)
end if

on importFromCSV(projectFolder, localizationFolder, importFile)
set englishFolder to createFolder(localizationFolder, "en.lproj")
set importLines to paragraphs of readFilePath(importFile as text)

set firstLine to replaceCharacters(item 1 of importLines, "file,key,en,", "")
set firstLine to replaceCharacters(firstLine, "\"file\",\"key\",\"en\",", "")
set firstLine to replaceCharacters(firstLine, "\"", "")

set languageCodes to itemsFromCSV(firstLine)
repeat with languageCode in languageCodes
repeat with englishFile in filesWithExtension(englishFolder, ".strings")
set languageFileName to getFileName(englishFile)
set languageFolder to createFolder(localizationFolder, (languageCode & ".lproj"))
set languageFile to writeFile(languageFolder, languageFileName, "", false)
end repeat
end repeat

set importLines to items 2 thru -1 of importLines
repeat with importLine in importLines
set importLine to replaceCharacters(importLine, "\"\"\"", "\"")
set lineItems to itemsFromCSV(importLine)
set lineItemsCount to count of lineItems
if lineItemsCount is greater than 3 then
set fileName to item 1 of lineItems
set englishKey to item 2 of lineItems
set englishText to item 3 of lineItems
set translatedItems to items 4 through lineItemsCount of lineItems

set languageCodeIndex to 1
repeat with translatedItem in translatedItems
if length of translatedItem is greater than 0 then
set languageCode to item languageCodeIndex of languageCodes
set languageFolder to createFolder(localizationFolder, (languageCode & ".lproj"))
set translatedLine to "\"" & englishKey & "\" = \"" & translatedItem & "\";"
writeFile(languageFolder, fileName, translatedLine & return, true)
end if
if (count of languageCodes) is equal to languageCodeIndex then
exit repeat
end if
set languageCodeIndex to languageCodeIndex + 1
end repeat
end if
end repeat
display dialog "Translations Imported From " & importFile
end importFromCSV

on exportToCSV(projectFolder, localizationFolder, outputFileDialog, languageCodesDialog, phrasesDialog)
set languageCodesString to languageCodesDialog's text returned
if length of languageCodesString is equal to 0 then
display dialog "Language Codes Required"
else
set phrasesAnswer to button returned of phrasesDialog
set languageCodes to itemsFromCSV(languageCodesString)
set outputFile to outputFileDialog's text returned

set headerLine to "file,key,en," & languageCodesString
writeFile(localizationFolder, outputFile, headerLine & return, false)

do shell script "find " & quoted form of (POSIX path of projectFolder) & " -name '*.m' " & ¬
" | xargs genstrings -o " & quoted form of (POSIX path of localizationFolder & "en.lproj")

set englishFolder to createFolder(localizationFolder, "en.lproj")

if phrasesAnswer is equal to "Classes And NIBs" then
set nibFiles to filesWithExtension(projectFolder, ".xib")
repeat with nibFile in nibFiles
set nibFile to parseNib(nibFile, englishFolder)
end repeat
end if

repeat with englishFile in filesWithExtension(englishFolder, ".strings")
set languageFileName to getFileName(englishFile)
set englishLines to paragraphs of readFile(englishFolder, languageFileName)
repeat with englishLine in englishLines
if length of englishLine is greater than 0 then
set englishKey to parseKey(englishLine)
if length of englishKey is greater than 0 then
set newLine to languageFileName
if "\"" is in englishKey then
set newLine to newLine & ",\"\"" & englishKey & "\"\""
else if "," is in englishKey then
set newLine to newLine & ",\"" & englishKey & "\""
else
set newLine to newLine & "," & englishKey
end if

set englishText to parseValue(englishLine)
if "\"" is in englishText then
set newLine to newLine & ",\"\"" & englishText & "\"\""
else if "," is in englishText then
set newLine to newLine & ",\"" & englishText & "\""
else
set newLine to newLine & "," & englishText
end if

repeat with languageCode in languageCodes
set languageFolder to createFolder(localizationFolder, (languageCode & ".lproj"))
set languageFilePath to (languageFolder as text) & languageFileName as text
if fileExists(languageFilePath) then
set fileLines to paragraphs of readFile(languageFolder, languageFileName)
set hasTranslations to false
repeat with fileLine in fileLines
if "\"" & englishKey & "\" =" is in fileLine then
set languageText to parseValue(fileLine)
if "\"" is in languageText then
set newLine to newLine & ",\"\"" & languageText & "\"\""
else if "," is in languageText then
set newLine to newLine & ",\"" & languageText & "\""
else
set newLine to newLine & "," & languageText
end if
set hasTranslations to true
exit repeat
end if
end repeat
if hasTranslations is false then
set newLine to newLine & ","
end if
else
set newLine to newLine & ","
end if
end repeat
writeFile(localizationFolder, outputFile, newLine & return, true)
end if
end if
end repeat
end repeat
display dialog "Translations Exported To " & localizationFolder & outputFile
end if
end exportToCSV

on translateProject(projectFolder, localizationFolder, languageCodeDialog, phrasesDialog)
set languageCode to languageCodeDialog's text returned
if length of languageCode is equal to 0 then
display dialog "Language Code Required"
else
set phrasesAnswer to button returned of phrasesDialog
set englishFolder to createFolder(localizationFolder, "en.lproj")

do shell script "find " & quoted form of (POSIX path of projectFolder) & " -name '*.m' " & ¬
" | xargs genstrings -o " & quoted form of (POSIX path of localizationFolder & "en.lproj")

set nibFiles to filesWithExtension(projectFolder, ".xib")
if phrasesAnswer is equal to "Classes And NIBs" then
repeat with nibFile in nibFiles
set nibFile to parseNib(nibFile, englishFolder)
end repeat
end if

set languageFolder to createFolder(localizationFolder, (languageCode & ".lproj"))

repeat with englishFile in filesWithExtension(englishFolder, ".strings")
set languageFileName to getFileName(englishFile)

set languageFilePath to (languageFolder as text) & languageFileName as text
if fileExists(languageFilePath) is false then
set languageFile to writeFile(languageFolder, languageFileName, "", false)
end if

set fileLines to paragraphs of readFile(englishFolder, languageFileName)
repeat with fileLine in fileLines
if length of fileLine is greater than 0 then
set englishKey to parseKey(fileLine)
set englishText to parseValue(fileLine)

if length of englishText is greater than 0 then
if fileContainsText(languageFolder, languageFileName, "\"" & englishKey & "\" = ") is false then
set encodedText to encodeText(englishText, true, true)

set responseText to GoogleTranslate(encodedText, languageCode)
set translatedText to parseJson(responseText, "translatedText")

repeat until length of translatedText is greater than 0
set errorMessage to parseJson(responseText, "responseDetails")
if length of errorMessage is greater than 0 then
display dialog "Oops!" & space & errorMessage & space & "(Wait a few minutes, then click OK to continue)"
else
display dialog "Oops!" & space & responseText & space & "(Wait a few minutes, then click OK to continue)"
end if

set responseText to GoogleTranslate(encodedText, languageCode)
set translatedText to parseJson(responseText, "translatedText")
end repeat

set translatedLine to "\"" & englishKey & "\" = \"" & (translatedText as Unicode text) & "\";" as Unicode text
writeFile(languageFolder, languageFileName, translatedLine & return, true)
end if
end if
end if
end repeat

end repeat

if phrasesAnswer is equal to "Classes And NIBs" then
repeat with nibFile in nibFiles
importNib(nibFile, languageFolder)
end repeat
end if

display dialog "Translation Complete"
end if
end translateProject

on itemsFromCSV(csvLine)
set csvItems to {}
if "\"" is in csvLine then
set csvItem to ""
set insideQuotes to false
set previousQuote to false
repeat with c in the characters of csvLine
if insideQuotes then
if c as text is equal to "\"" then
if previousQuote then
set csvItem to csvItem & "\""
set previousQuote to false
else
set previousQuote to true
end if
else if c as text is equal to "," then
if previousQuote then
copy csvItem to the end of csvItems
set csvItem to ""
set insideQuotes to false
set previousQuote to false
else
set csvItem to csvItem & c
set previousQuote to false
end if
else
set csvItem to csvItem & c
set previousQuote to false
end if
else
if c as text is equal to "\"" then
set insideQuotes to true
set previousQuote to true
else if c as text is equal to "," then
copy csvItem to the end of csvItems
set csvItem to ""
set previousQuote to false
else
set csvItem to csvItem & c
set previousQuote to false
end if
end if
end repeat
if length of csvItem is greater than 0 then
copy csvItem to the end of csvItems
set csvItem to ""
set previousQuote to false
end if
else
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ","
set csvItems to text items of csvLine
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
end if
return csvItems
end itemsFromCSV

on parseNib(filePath, targetFolder)
set fileName to getFileName(filePath)
set fileNameWithoutExtension to replaceCharacters(fileName, ".xib", "")
set stringsPath to POSIX path of targetFolder & fileNameWithoutExtension & ".strings"
set sourceNib to POSIX path of filePath
do shell script "ibtool --export-strings-file" & space & ¬
quoted form of stringsPath & space & ¬
quoted form of sourceNib
return stringsPath
end parseNib

on importNib(filePath, targetFolder)
if fileExists(filePath) then
set fileName to getFileName(filePath)
set fileNameWithoutExtension to replaceCharacters(fileName, ".xib", "")
set stringsPath to POSIX path of targetFolder & fileNameWithoutExtension & ".strings"
set targetNib to POSIX path of targetFolder & fileName
set sourceNib to POSIX path of filePath
do shell script "ibtool --strings-file" & space & ¬
quoted form of stringsPath & space & "--write" & space & ¬
quoted form of targetNib & space & ¬
quoted form of sourceNib
end if
end importNib

on getFileName(filePath)
set {name:fileName} to info for file filePath without size
return fileName
end getFileName

on filesWithExtension(fileFolder, fileExtension)
set fileList to {}
tell application "Finder"
set filePaths to every file of entire contents of folder fileFolder as list
repeat with filePath in filePaths
if (filePath as text) ends with fileExtension then
set end of fileList to filePath as text
end if
end repeat
end tell
return fileList
end filesWithExtension

on fileContainsText(fileFolder, fileName, textString)
set fileLines to paragraphs of readFile(fileFolder, fileName)
repeat with fileLine in fileLines
if textString is in fileLine then
return true
end if
end repeat
return false
end fileContainsText

on createFolder(parentFolder, folderName)
tell application "Finder"
if not (exists folder folderName of parentFolder) then
make new folder at parentFolder with properties {name:folderName}
end if
return folder folderName of parentFolder as text
end tell
end createFolder

on writeFile(fileFolder, fileName, textString, shouldAppend)
tell application "Finder"
set filePath to (fileFolder as text) & fileName as text
try
set fileAccess to open for access file filePath with write permission
if shouldAppend is false then
set eof of fileAccess to 0
write (ASCII character 254) & (ASCII character 255) to fileAccess starting at eof -- UTF-16 BOM
else
set fileDoesExist to exists file filePath
if fileDoesExist is false then
set eof of fileAccess to 0
write (ASCII character 254) & (ASCII character 255) to fileAccess starting at eof -- UTF-16 BOM
end if
end if
write textString to fileAccess starting at eof as Unicode text
close access fileAccess
on error
try
close access file filePath
end try
end try
return filePath as text
end tell
end writeFile

on readFile(fileFolder, fileName)
set filePath to (fileFolder as text) & fileName as text
return readFilePath(filePath)
end readFile

on readFilePath(filePath)
tell application "Finder"
try
set fileAccess to open for access file filePath
set textContents to read fileAccess as Unicode text
close access fileAccess
return textContents
on error
display dialog "Unable to read filepath " & filePath
try
close access file filePath
end try
end try
return ""
end tell
end readFilePath

on fileExists(filePath)
tell application "Finder"
try
if exists file filePath then
return true
else
return false
end if
on error
return false
end try
end tell
return false
end fileExists

on GoogleTranslate(textString, codeString)
return do shell script "/usr/bin/curl" & space & ¬
"'http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/services/language/translate?v=1.0&langpair=en|" & codeString & "&q=" & quoted form of textString & "'"
end GoogleTranslate

on parseKey(textString)
if (textString does not start with "/*") then
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "="
set textItems to text items of textString
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""

if (count of textItems) > 1 then
set textItem to item 1 of textItems

set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "\""
set textValue to text items of textItem
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""

if (count of textValue) > 1 then
return trimCharacters((item 2 of textValue), "\"") as Unicode text
end if
end if
end if
return ""
end parseKey

on parseValue(textString)
if (textString does not start with "/*") then
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "="
set textItems to text items of textString
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""

if (count of textItems) > 1 then
set textItem to item 2 of textItems

set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "\""
set textValue to text items of textItem
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""

if (count of textValue) > 1 then
set valueString to trimCharacters((item 2 of textValue), ";")
set valueString to trimCharacters(valueString, "\"")
return valueString as Unicode text
end if
end if
end if
return ""
end parseValue

on parseJson(jsonString, jsonElement)
repeat with delimiter1 in {"\":\"", "\": \""}
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "\"" & jsonElement & delimiter1
set jsonItems to text items of jsonString
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""

if (count of jsonItems) > 1 then
set jsonValue to item 2 of jsonItems

repeat with delimiter2 in {"\"}", "\","}
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to delimiter2
set jsonValues to text items of jsonValue
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""

if (count of jsonValues) > 1 then
return decodeHTML(decodeURL(item 1 of jsonValues as Unicode text))
end if
end repeat
end if
end repeat
return ""
end parseJson

on trimCharacters(textString, trimCharacter)
repeat until textString does not start with trimCharacter
set textString to text 2 thru -1 of textString
end repeat
repeat until textString does not end with trimCharacter
set textString to text 1 thru -2 of textString
end repeat
return textString
end trimCharacters

on replaceCharacters(textString, searchString, replacementString)
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to the searchString
set the itemList to every text item of textString
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to the replacementString
set textString to the itemList as string
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
return textString
end replaceCharacters

on encodeText(textString, encode_URL_A, encode_URL_B)
set the standardCharacters to "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789"
set the URL_A_chars to "$+!'/?;&@=#%><{}[]\"~`^\\|*" set the URL_B_chars to ".-_:" set the acceptableCharacters to the standardCharacters if encode_URL_A is false then set the acceptableCharacters to the acceptableCharacters & the URL_A_chars if encode_URL_B is false then set the acceptableCharacters to the acceptableCharacters & the URL_B_chars set the encodedText to "" repeat with charString in textString  if charString is in the acceptableCharacters then   set the encodedText to (the encodedText & charString) as string  else   set the encodedText to (the encodedText & encodeCharacter(charString)) as string  end if end repeat return the encodedTextend encodeTexton encodeCharacter(charString) set the ASCII_num to (the ASCII number charString) set the hex_list to {"0", "1", "2", "3", "4", "5", "6", "7", "8", "9", "A", "B", "C", "D", "E", "F"} set x to item ((ASCII_num div 16) + 1) of the hex_list set y to item ((ASCII_num mod 16) + 1) of the hex_list return ("%" & x & y) as stringend encodeCharacteron decodeCharacters(charString) copy charString to {indentifying_char, multiplier_char, remainder_char} set the hexList to "123456789ABCDEF" if the multiplier_char is in "ABCDEF" then  set the multiplier_amt to the offset of the multiplier_char in the hexList else  set the multiplier_amt to the multiplier_char as integer end if if the remainder_char is in "ABCDEF" then  set the remainder_amt to the offset of the remainder_char in the hexList else  set the remainder_amt to the remainder_char as integer end if set the ASCII_num to (multiplier_amt * 16) + remainder_amt return (ASCII character ASCII_num)end decodeCharacterson decodeURL(textString) set flag_A to false set flag_B to false set temp_char to "" set the characterList to {} repeat with charString in textString  set charString to contents of charString  if charString is "%" then   set flag_A to true  else if flag_A is true then   set the temp_char to charString   set flag_A to false   set flag_B to true  else if flag_B is true then   set the end of characterList to my decodeCharacters(("%" & temp_char & charString) as string)   set the temp_char to ""   set flag_A to false   set flag_B to false  else   set the end of characterList to charString  end if end repeat return characterList as stringend decodeURLon decodeHTML(textString) repeat with entities in {{"\\u0026", "&"}, ¬  {" ", " "}, {"!", "!"}, {""", "\""}, {"#", "#"}, {"$", "$"}, ¬  {"%", "%"}, {"&", "&"}, {"'", "'"}, {"(", "("}, {")", ")"}, ¬  {"*", "*"}, {"+", "+"}, {",", ","}, {"-", "-"}, {".", "."}, ¬  {"/", "/"}, {":", ":"}, {";", ";"}, {"<", "<"}, {"=", "="}, ¬  {">", ">"}, {"?", "?"}, {"@", "@"}, {"[", "["}, {"\", "\\"}, ¬
{"]", "]"}, {"^", "^"}, {"_", "_"}, {"`", "`"}, {"{", "{"}, ¬
{"|", "|"}, {"}", "}"}, {"~", "~"}, {" ", " "}, {"¡", "¡"}, ¬
{"¢", "¢"}, {"£", "£"}, {"¤", "¤"}, {"¥", "¥"}, {"¦", "¦"}, ¬
{"§", "§"}, {"¨", "¨"}, {"©", "©"}, {"ª", "ª"}, {"«", "«"}, ¬
{"®", "®"}, {"¯", "¯"}, {"°", "°"}, {"±", "±"}, {"²", "²"}, ¬
{"³", "³"}, {"´", "´"}, {"µ", "µ"}, {"¶", "¶"}, {"·", "·"}, ¬
{"¸", "¸"}, {"¹", "¹"}, {"º", "º"}, {"»", "»"}, {"¼", "¼"}, ¬
{"½", "½"}, {"¾", "¾"}, {"¿", "¿"}, {"À", "À"}, {"Á", "Á"}, ¬
{"Â", "Â"}, {"Ã", "Ã"}, {"Ä", "Ä"}, {"Å", "Å"}, {"Æ", "Æ"}, ¬
{"Ç", "Ç"}, {"È", "È"}, {"É", "É"}, {"Ê", "Ê"}, {"Ë", "Ë"}, ¬
{"Ì", "Ì"}, {"Í", "Í"}, {"Î", "Î"}, {"Ï", "Ï"}, {"Ð", "Ð"}, ¬
{"Ñ", "Ñ"}, {"Ò", "Ò"}, {"Ó", "Ó"}, {"Ô", "Ô"}, {"Õ", "Õ"}, ¬
{"Ö", "Ö"}, {"×", "×"}, {"Ø", "Ø"}, {"Ù", "Ù"}, {"Ú", "Ú"}, ¬
{"Û", "Û"}, {"Ü", "Ü"}, {"Ý", "Ý"}, {"Þ", "Þ"}, {"ß", "ß"}, ¬
{"à", "à"}, {"á", "á"}, {"â", "â"}, {"ã", "ã"}, {"ä", "ä"}, ¬
{"å", "å"}, {"æ", "æ"}, {"ç", "ç"}, {"è", "è"}, {"é", "é"}, ¬
{"ê", "ê"}, {"ë", "ë"}, {"ì", "ì"}, {"í", "í"}, {"î", "î"}, ¬
{"ï", "ï"}, {"ð", "ð"}, {"ñ", "ñ"}, {"ò", "ò"}, {"ó", "ó"}, ¬
{"ô", "ô"}, {"õ", "õ"}, {"ö", "ö"}, {"÷", "÷"}, {"ø", "ø"}, ¬
{"ù", "ù"}, {"ú", "ú"}, {"û", "û"}, {"ü", "ü"}, {"ý", "ý"}, ¬
{"þ", "þ"}, {"ÿ", "ÿ"}, {"Œ", "Œ"}, {"œ", "œ"}, {"Š", "Š"}, ¬
{"š", "š"}, {"Ÿ", "Ÿ"}, {"ƒ", "ƒ"}, {"–", "–"}, {"—", "—"}, ¬
{"‘", "‘"}, {"’", "’"}, {"‚", "‚"}, {"“", "“"}, {"”", "”"}, ¬
{"„", "„"}, {"†", "†"}, {"‡", "‡"}, {"•", "•"}, {"…", "…"}, ¬
{"‰", "‰"}, {"€", "€"}, {"™", "™"}}
set textString to replaceCharacters(textString, item 1 of entities, item 2 of entities)
end repeat
return textString as string
end decodeHTML

You can download the updated Applescript at TranslateiOS.scpt

Applescript To Google Translate iOS Projects

2011-05-27T04:18:00.001-03:00

Translating your iOS projects can often be a painful process, so I wrote a little Applescript to help me translate the Ushahidi iOS app.

The script extracts phrases from your project with genstrings and NIB files with ibtool, calls the Google Translate service for each phrase, writes the translated text to file and then re-imports those phrases back into NIB files in the target language folder.


translateProject(choose folder with prompt "Select Project Source Folder", ¬
choose folder with prompt "Select Localization Destination Folder", ¬
display dialog "Enter Destination Language Code" default answer "")

on translateProject(projectFolder, localizationFolder, languageCodeDialog)
set languageCode to languageCodeDialog's text returned
if length of languageCode is equal to 0 then
display dialog "Language Code Required"
else
set englishFolder to createFolder(localizationFolder, "en.lproj")

do shell script "find " & quoted form of (POSIX path of projectFolder) & " -name '*.m' " & ¬
" | xargs genstrings -o " & quoted form of (POSIX path of localizationFolder & "en.lproj")

set nibFiles to filesWithExtension(projectFolder, ".xib")
repeat with nibFile in nibFiles
set nibFile to parseNib(nibFile, englishFolder)
end repeat

set languageFolder to createFolder(localizationFolder, (languageCode & ".lproj"))

repeat with englishFile in filesWithExtension(englishFolder, ".strings")
set languageFileName to getFileName(englishFile)

set languageFilePath to (languageFolder as text) & languageFileName as text
if fileExists(languageFilePath) is false then
set languageFile to writeFile(languageFolder, languageFileName, "", false)
end if

set fileLines to paragraphs of readFile(englishFolder, languageFileName)
repeat with fileLine in fileLines
if length of fileLine is greater than 0 then
set englishKey to parseKey(fileLine)
set englishText to parseValue(fileLine)

if length of englishText is greater than 0 then
if fileContainsText(languageFolder, languageFileName, "\"" & englishKey & "\" = ") is false then
set encodedText to encodeText(englishText, true, true)

set responseText to googleTranslate(encodedText, languageCode)
set translatedText to parseJson(responseText, "translatedText")

repeat until length of translatedText is greater than 0
set errorMessage to parseJson(responseText, "responseDetails")
if length of errorMessage is greater than 0 then
display dialog "Oops!" & space & errorMessage & space & "(Wait a few minutes, then click OK to continue)"
else
display dialog "Oops!" & space & responseText & space & "(Wait a few minutes, then click OK to continue)"
end if

set responseText to googleTranslate(encodedText, languageCode)
set translatedText to parseJson(responseText, "translatedText")
end repeat

set translatedLine to "\"" & englishKey & "\" = \"" & (translatedText as Unicode text) & "\";" as Unicode text
writeFile(languageFolder, languageFileName, translatedLine & return, true)
end if
end if
end if
end repeat

end repeat

repeat with nibFile in nibFiles
importNib(nibFile, languageFolder)
end repeat

display dialog "Translation Complete"
end if
end translateProject

on parseNib(filePath, targetFolder)
set fileName to getFileName(filePath)
set fileNameWithoutExtension to replaceCharacters(fileName, ".xib", "")
set stringsPath to POSIX path of targetFolder & fileNameWithoutExtension & ".strings"
set sourceNib to POSIX path of filePath
do shell script "ibtool --export-strings-file" & space & ¬
quoted form of stringsPath & space & ¬
quoted form of sourceNib
return stringsPath
end parseNib

on importNib(filePath, targetFolder)
if fileExists(filePath) then
set fileName to getFileName(filePath)
set fileNameWithoutExtension to replaceCharacters(fileName, ".xib", "")
set stringsPath to POSIX path of targetFolder & fileNameWithoutExtension & ".strings"
set targetNib to POSIX path of targetFolder & fileName
set sourceNib to POSIX path of filePath
do shell script "ibtool --strings-file" & space & ¬
quoted form of stringsPath & space & "--write" & space & ¬
quoted form of targetNib & space & ¬
quoted form of sourceNib
end if
end importNib

on getFileName(filePath)
set {name:fileName} to info for file filePath without size
return fileName
end getFileName

on filesWithExtension(fileFolder, fileExtension)
set fileList to {}
tell application "Finder"
set filePaths to every file of entire contents of folder fileFolder as list
repeat with filePath in filePaths
if (filePath as text) ends with fileExtension then
set end of fileList to filePath as text
end if
end repeat
end tell
return fileList
end filesWithExtension

on fileContainsText(fileFolder, fileName, textString)
set fileLines to paragraphs of readFile(fileFolder, fileName)
repeat with fileLine in fileLines
if textString is in fileLine then
return true
end if
end repeat
return false
end fileContainsText

on createFolder(parentFolder, folderName)
tell application "Finder"
if not (exists folder folderName of parentFolder) then
make new folder at parentFolder with properties {name:folderName}
end if
return folder folderName of parentFolder as text
end tell
end createFolder

on writeFile(fileFolder, fileName, textString, shouldAppend)
tell application "Finder"
set filePath to (fileFolder as text) & fileName as text
try
set fileAccess to open for access file filePath with write permission
if shouldAppend is false then
set eof of fileAccess to 0
write (ASCII character 254) & (ASCII character 255) to fileAccess starting at eof -- UTF-16 BOM
else
set fileDoesExist to exists file filePath
if fileDoesExist is false then
set eof of fileAccess to 0
write (ASCII character 254) & (ASCII character 255) to fileAccess starting at eof -- UTF-16 BOM
end if
end if
write textString to fileAccess starting at eof as Unicode text
close access fileAccess
on error
try
close access file filePath
end try
end try
return filePath as text
end tell
end writeFile

on readFile(fileFolder, fileName)
tell application "Finder"
set filePath to (fileFolder as text) & fileName as text
try
set fileAccess to open for access file filePath
set textContents to read fileAccess as Unicode text
close access fileAccess
return textContents
on error
try
close access file filePath
end try
end try
return ""
end tell
end readFile

on fileExists(filePath)
tell application "Finder"
try
if exists file filePath then
return true
else
return false
end if
on error
return false
end try
end tell
return false
end fileExists

on googleTranslate(textString, codeString)
return do shell script "/usr/bin/curl" & space & ¬
"'http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/services/language/translate?v=1.0&langpair=en|" & codeString & "&q=" & quoted form of textString & "'"
end googleTranslate

on parseKey(textString)
if (textString does not start with "/*") then
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "="
set textItems to text items of textString
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""

if (count of textItems) > 1 then
set textItem to item 1 of textItems

set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "\""
set textValue to text items of textItem
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""

if (count of textValue) > 1 then
return trimCharacters((item 2 of textValue), "\"") as Unicode text
end if
end if
end if
return ""
end parseKey

on parseValue(textString)
if (textString does not start with "/*") then
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "="
set textItems to text items of textString
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""

if (count of textItems) > 1 then
set textItem to item 2 of textItems

set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "\""
set textValue to text items of textItem
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""

if (count of textValue) > 1 then
set valueString to trimCharacters((item 2 of textValue), ";")
set valueString to trimCharacters(valueString, "\"")
return valueString as Unicode text
end if
end if
end if
return ""
end parseValue

on parseJson(jsonString, jsonElement)
repeat with delimiter1 in {"\":\"", "\": \""}
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "\"" & jsonElement & delimiter1
set jsonItems to text items of jsonString
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""

if (count of jsonItems) > 1 then
set jsonValue to item 2 of jsonItems

repeat with delimiter2 in {"\"}", "\","}
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to delimiter2
set jsonValues to text items of jsonValue
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""

if (count of jsonValues) > 1 then
return decodeHTML(decodeURL(item 1 of jsonValues as Unicode text))
end if
end repeat
end if
end repeat
return ""
end parseJson

on trimCharacters(textString, trimCharacter)
repeat until textString does not start with trimCharacter
set textString to text 2 thru -1 of textString
end repeat
repeat until textString does not end with trimCharacter
set textString to text 1 thru -2 of textString
end repeat
return textString
end trimCharacters

on replaceCharacters(textString, searchString, replacementString)
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to the searchString
set the itemList to every text item of textString
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to the replacementString
set textString to the itemList as string
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
return textString
end replaceCharacters

on encodeText(textString, encode_URL_A, encode_URL_B)
set the standardCharacters to "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789"
set the URL_A_chars to "$+!'/?;&@=#%><{}[]\"~`^\\|*" set the URL_B_chars to ".-_:" set the acceptableCharacters to the standardCharacters if encode_URL_A is false then set the acceptableCharacters to the acceptableCharacters & the URL_A_chars if encode_URL_B is false then set the acceptableCharacters to the acceptableCharacters & the URL_B_chars set the encodedText to "" repeat with charString in textString  if charString is in the acceptableCharacters then   set the encodedText to (the encodedText & charString) as string  else   set the encodedText to (the encodedText & encodeCharacter(charString)) as string  end if end repeat return the encodedTextend encodeTexton encodeCharacter(charString) set the ASCII_num to (the ASCII number charString) set the hex_list to {"0", "1", "2", "3", "4", "5", "6", "7", "8", "9", "A", "B", "C", "D", "E", "F"} set x to item ((ASCII_num div 16) + 1) of the hex_list set y to item ((ASCII_num mod 16) + 1) of the hex_list return ("%" & x & y) as stringend encodeCharacteron decodeCharacters(charString) copy charString to {indentifying_char, multiplier_char, remainder_char} set the hexList to "123456789ABCDEF" if the multiplier_char is in "ABCDEF" then  set the multiplier_amt to the offset of the multiplier_char in the hexList else  set the multiplier_amt to the multiplier_char as integer end if if the remainder_char is in "ABCDEF" then  set the remainder_amt to the offset of the remainder_char in the hexList else  set the remainder_amt to the remainder_char as integer end if set the ASCII_num to (multiplier_amt * 16) + remainder_amt return (ASCII character ASCII_num)end decodeCharacterson decodeURL(textString) set flag_A to false set flag_B to false set temp_char to "" set the characterList to {} repeat with charString in textString  set charString to contents of charString  if charString is "%" then   set flag_A to true  else if flag_A is true then   set the temp_char to charString   set flag_A to false   set flag_B to true  else if flag_B is true then   set the end of characterList to my decodeCharacters(("%" & temp_char & charString) as string)   set the temp_char to ""   set flag_A to false   set flag_B to false  else   set the end of characterList to charString  end if end repeat return characterList as stringend decodeURLon decodeHTML(textString) repeat with entities in {{"\\u0026", "&"}, ¬  {" ", " "}, {"!", "!"}, {""", "\""}, {"#", "#"}, {"$", "$"}, ¬  {"%", "%"}, {"&", "&"}, {"'", "'"}, {"(", "("}, {")", ")"}, ¬  {"*", "*"}, {"+", "+"}, {",", ","}, {"-", "-"}, {".", "."}, ¬  {"/", "/"}, {":", ":"}, {";", ";"}, {"<", "<"}, {"=", "="}, ¬  {">", ">"}, {"?", "?"}, {"@", "@"}, {"[", "["}, {"\", "\\"}, ¬
{"]", "]"}, {"^", "^"}, {"_", "_"}, {"`", "`"}, {"{", "{"}, ¬
{"|", "|"}, {"}", "}"}, {"~", "~"}, {" ", " "}, {"¡", "¡"}, ¬
{"¢", "¢"}, {"£", "£"}, {"¤", "¤"}, {"¥", "¥"}, {"¦", "¦"}, ¬
{"§", "§"}, {"¨", "¨"}, {"©", "©"}, {"ª", "ª"}, {"«", "«"}, ¬
{"®", "®"}, {"¯", "¯"}, {"°", "°"}, {"±", "±"}, {"²", "²"}, ¬
{"³", "³"}, {"´", "´"}, {"µ", "µ"}, {"¶", "¶"}, {"·", "·"}, ¬
{"¸", "¸"}, {"¹", "¹"}, {"º", "º"}, {"»", "»"}, {"¼", "¼"}, ¬
{"½", "½"}, {"¾", "¾"}, {"¿", "¿"}, {"À", "À"}, {"Á", "Á"}, ¬
{"Â", "Â"}, {"Ã", "Ã"}, {"Ä", "Ä"}, {"Å", "Å"}, {"Æ", "Æ"}, ¬
{"Ç", "Ç"}, {"È", "È"}, {"É", "É"}, {"Ê", "Ê"}, {"Ë", "Ë"}, ¬
{"Ì", "Ì"}, {"Í", "Í"}, {"Î", "Î"}, {"Ï", "Ï"}, {"Ð", "Ð"}, ¬
{"Ñ", "Ñ"}, {"Ò", "Ò"}, {"Ó", "Ó"}, {"Ô", "Ô"}, {"Õ", "Õ"}, ¬
{"Ö", "Ö"}, {"×", "×"}, {"Ø", "Ø"}, {"Ù", "Ù"}, {"Ú", "Ú"}, ¬
{"Û", "Û"}, {"Ü", "Ü"}, {"Ý", "Ý"}, {"Þ", "Þ"}, {"ß", "ß"}, ¬
{"à", "à"}, {"á", "á"}, {"â", "â"}, {"ã", "ã"}, {"ä", "ä"}, ¬
{"å", "å"}, {"æ", "æ"}, {"ç", "ç"}, {"è", "è"}, {"é", "é"}, ¬
{"ê", "ê"}, {"ë", "ë"}, {"ì", "ì"}, {"í", "í"}, {"î", "î"}, ¬
{"ï", "ï"}, {"ð", "ð"}, {"ñ", "ñ"}, {"ò", "ò"}, {"ó", "ó"}, ¬
{"ô", "ô"}, {"õ", "õ"}, {"ö", "ö"}, {"÷", "÷"}, {"ø", "ø"}, ¬
{"ù", "ù"}, {"ú", "ú"}, {"û", "û"}, {"ü", "ü"}, {"ý", "ý"}, ¬
{"þ", "þ"}, {"ÿ", "ÿ"}, {"Œ", "Œ"}, {"œ", "œ"}, {"Š", "Š"}, ¬
{"š", "š"}, {"Ÿ", "Ÿ"}, {"ƒ", "ƒ"}, {"–", "–"}, {"—", "—"}, ¬
{"‘", "‘"}, {"’", "’"}, {"‚", "‚"}, {"“", "“"}, {"”", "”"}, ¬
{"„", "„"}, {"†", "†"}, {"‡", "‡"}, {"•", "•"}, {"…", "…"}, ¬
{"‰", "‰"}, {"€", "€"}, {"™", "™"}}
set textString to replaceCharacters(textString, item 1 of entities, item 2 of entities)
end repeat
return textString as string
end decodeHTML

The script is still a work in progress, so any feedback is gladly welcome. You can download the Applescript at Translate.scpt

Logo Design

2011-04-29T16:09:00.022-03:00

I'm currently in search for a logo for a new project I'm launching called Repurposed Labs, giving a new purpose to old computers. During this process, I've also come to realize the brilliance behind a well designed logo. I've always loved the simple yet meaningful design of FrontlineSMS, HopePhones, MobileActive, Ubuntu, SiGeneration and SwiftRiver.

FrontlineSMS, is open source software that uses SMS to empower it's users. Their logo is a speech bubble out of the word SMS, with ascii characters \0/ inside which represents raising your arms up in victory. The brilliance behind the logo is apparent in the sister projects, FrontlineSMS:Medic \+/, FrontlineSMS:Credit \$/, FrontlineSMS:Legal \=/, FrontlineSMS:Learn \?/ and FrontlineSMS:Radio \~/ which reuse the logo but change the message inside.

HopePhones, is an initiative to collect used cell phones so they can be repurposed by community healthcare workers in developing countries. Each old phone donated can help save a life in a developing country, thus the angel wings on the phone in their logo.

MobileActive, is a global network of people using mobile technology for social impact. Their new logo is pretty ingenius, could be interpreted as four people raising their arms in protest or four mobile devices with antennas.

Ubuntu, is an open source community that provides a free and easy-to-use operating system for the world. The word 'ubuntu' is a Southern African ethical ideology which means 'humanity towards others'. Their logo could be interpreted as six components fitting together or three people of different color united.

Social Innovation Generation (SiG) is a centre in Toronto whose goal is to use technology to solve serious social problems. Their logo looks like a dandelion flower with the seeds blowing in the wind, which matches their mission to help seed innovation.

SwiftRiver is an open source platform that helps users add context to realtime data. Their logo is one of my favorites; it naturally has a river shape, a visible letter 'S', as well as the thumbs up and thumbs down which is key functionality to the platform.

So what are your favorite logos? How do their design capture the organization's mission?

The Mobile Web vs Mobile App Debate

2011-04-03T16:52:00.003-03:00

The mobile web vs mobile app debate has been ongoing. Some argue that the mobile web is the future, others are in favor of mobile apps.

I personally find this debate somewhat tiresome, it's like asking; what's better, cars or trucks? The answer, they each serve a purpose.

From a functionality perspective, although HTML5 has made great strides to support offline content with hooks for geo-location and camera capability, it's still tough to rival a well designed native mobile app. Take Google's Gmail mobile web version, it has set the bar as to what's possible via a mobile web browser. Would I choose it over Apple's native Mail app on the iPhone? Not likely, in fact I'm writing this blog post as I fly from Frankfurt to Madrid by emailing myself a draft using the Mail app on my iPhone. As for Amazon's mobile web version, it's a good example of a well designed mobile interface, clean and easy to read with expandable content. In this case, it serves my purpose for comparing book prices while I'm out shopping.

From a company's perspective, with limited budget and time, you need to ask how you can best utilize your resources. If you want the widest reach and target the most potential users, perhaps mobile web is a good option. But again, that depends on what features you want to provide. Are you offering free or paid content? What is your target audience? How can you best deliver the desired functionality?

From a user's perspective, I'd actually like to have both options. I appreciate Gmail's mobile web version if I'm checking my email on a friends phone, but still prefer the native Mail app on my own device. It's hard to ignore how easy the App Store has made searching for and installing both free and paid mobile apps. Although searching Google in a mobile web browser is also pretty easy, I don't have the luxury of reading user reviews or viewing screenshots of your search results. You're also left with the uncertainty whether the webpage you visit will be mobile friendly or not. Mobile Safari does offer a rich user experience, but I would still prefer a mobile friendly page over having to pinch and zoom, especially if the site has a lot of unnecessary graphics slowing the page load.

Another option which is sort of the best of both worlds, is using a cross platform mobile framework like Titanium, PhoneGap or RhoMobile. Develop one app and publish it to multiple mobile platforms. It however, is not a silver bullet. Do you want a consistent user experience across all platforms? Or do you want the user experience to be familiar with the target platform? It's an important question to ask. For a company, it would be easier to provide technical support for a consistent design. But for a user, do you really want your iPhone app to look like a scaled Blackberry app? Will the user say, "wow I love how this app looks exactly the same on both my Blackberry and iPhone"? Or will they say, "this app looks strange and feels different than all my other apps"? There are also risks with cross platform frameworks. One, its common for them to be behind the native OS development cycle, so you may not be able to support the newest OS features. Two, what happens if that cross platform framework discontinues development? It could mean your next version of the app is a rebuild from scratch.

If you are just serving content, perhaps exposing the data in a consumable format may be enough. Even though every newspaper company is scrambling to release a mobile version of their site, I personally would rather read that content in my own RSS reader, rather than have a separate mobile app for the New York Times, Globe & Mail and Huffington Post.

So in the end, what's better, mobile web or mobile apps? That depends ;)

Smartphone Comparison Chart

2010-12-12T20:21:00.002-04:00

Smartphone compartion chart for the iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Palm.

Original Image Source

The Mobile Developer Journey

2010-11-16T12:45:00.004-04:00

Great infographic on The Mobile Developer Journey.

Google Starred

2010-02-12T17:01:00.002-04:00

Google offers an incredible arsenal of services; Gmail, GReader, Google Calendar, Google News, Google Books, Google Dictionary and Google Maps just to list a few. But one downside to all these services, is that each implements their own "starred" functionality.

Wouldn't it be great if Google aggregated your starred items across all their services?

Imagine Google Bookmarks becoming more than just bookmarking websites, but rather a single place where I can view all my important items; calendar events, blog posts, email conversations, friends photos, search results, nearby restaurants, dictionary entries, news articles.

Now there's an exciting new product idea!

Emergency Response Symposium

2009-05-01T15:40:00.007-03:00

This morning I attended the Emergency Response Symposium at Dalhousie University. The symposium addressed "emergency response to disasters (e.g. earthquakes, fires, floods, ice storms, epidemics) that require coordination of diverse resources distributed in time and space, where decisions have to made with limited information." Dr. Mark Elmore of Oak Ridge National Laboratory was there presenting.

The first thing I noticed, was that the room was split between university academics (professors, Ph.D students) and actual disaster response people (Halifax Fire Response, RCMP, Joint Task Force). I got the impression there was a total disconnect between what the two groups were saying. The academics were talking pure theory (graph, data, matrices, analysis) and the disaster guys were talking about reality (gut feeling, life, death, response time). Let's just say, there is a lot to be said for applied-knowledge vs pure-theory. Here are some of the key points I took away:

A really fast search doesn't help you, if it gives you the wrong results. When response time is so critical, having the wrong data at the wrong time is matter of life and death.
Past data can be used to make better decisions in future, but how do you capture 'gut feeling' of a fire fighter that prevents him from going into a room on fire? How can this knowledge be applied to an algorithm for better decision making? Or does this decision need to be left in the hands of the user?
A big challenge is getting past information like building layouts and maps, combined that with real-time data like weather and position of response teams, and render in 'no user manual required' interface to allow fast decision making. Response teams don't have time to analyze charts or graphs.
There is a major problem with data lost when someone retires or quits. Imagine a firefighter retiring after 30 years, all that field experience is lost. How can it be captured? How can it be re-applied to make better decisions in the future?
How can crowd data be verified? In mission critical data, someone needs to be accountable when lives are lost, can we hold the crowd liable?
Public vs Private. There are cases like fires, where public data of the crowd can be used to help make better decisions. One recent example was the Halifax Fire, where Twitter was on fire with activity. But there are private cases like with the military, where public data is not accessible. How can similar decisions be made without access to this public data?

Zdravo Translate for the iPhone

2009-04-18T09:45:00.007-03:00

This past fall while traveling through eastern Europe, I often had difficulties communicating with locals (as most foreigners would). How much does that cost? Do you have a room available? I thought, there must be an easier way...

Thus, Zdravo Translate was born, a powerful multilingual translator for the iPhone and iTouch providing an intuitive and easy-to-use interface to Google's translation service. Some of the key features are:

Fully translated user interface
Full screen translation preview
Customizable translation preview colors
Works on both iPhone and iTouch

The application also supports 43 languages:
Albanian, Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese

Checkout a video of the application in action.

You can download Zdravo Translate in iTunes App Store or checkout the Zdravo Translate website for more details.

Mobile Tech 4 Social Change Halifax

2009-04-07T15:45:00.002-03:00

Mobile Tech 4 Social Change Halifax is an open dialog barcamp exploring mobile technologies and new media to help make the world a better place.

This active conversation of turning ideas into action welcomes nonprofits, software developers or anyone interested in how new technologies can be used to organize, advocate and provide better health, environment, human rights, citizen media and other social services.

How can Twitter be used quickly mobilize a group of supporters to rally your cause?
Can geo caching be used to increase tourism to your community?
How can Facebook be used to fund your nonprofit?
Can SMS be used to improve healthcare by providing timely intervention messages to patients?
How do you engage new volunteers to form lasting relationships for your organization?
Can mobile phones be used to gather current environmental information?
How can mobile crowdsourcing provide knowledge and skills to achieve tasks previously not possible?

Our goal is to draw together the nonprofit and tech communities to share knowledge, ask interesting questions and spark ideas.

The one-day event will be hosted at theHubHalifax on Saturday, May 23rd.

To register visit the Eventbrite page, checkout M4ChangeHFX on Facebook, Meetup, Upcoming and Twitter for details, or email m4changehfx@gmail.com with questions.

Why Bespin Will Change Everything

2009-03-02T00:57:00.006-04:00

Mozilla recently announced an excited new project called Bespin, an open-source extensible web-based framework that pushes code editing in the cloud. At first glance, it's like Eclipse that runs in your browser, however there is a hidden potential in Bespin, that I believe, will change everything.

Let's take a step back and examine how Google Docs has changed the business world. Prior to GDocs, Microsoft Office (and it's expensive price tag) was the norm. Collaborating on documents usually meant emailing a Word file and waiting for the reply. GDocs not only made real-time collaboration possibly, it also made it easy. Documents no longer lived on your desktop, but rather were accessible from anywhere via the internet. You could just as easily edit and collaborate on a document from a public terminal in a London coffee shop, as you could from your office.

Fast forward to Bespin, which brings the same benefits as GDocs to the developers world. Before Bespin, it was incredibly difficult for a developer to work without their own computer. Hardware specifications and environment settings are no longer important, because now with Bespin you could just as easily develop from a public terminal. Second, even with version control, video conferencing and instant messaging, pair programming was still painful when done remotely. Bespin not only makes real-time collaboration possible, and also makes it easy.

Great, Bespin eliminates the need for expensive hardware, software licenses and makes collaboration a snap, but what's the real impact?

Let's go one step further, and combine Bespin with Google's powerful yet under-utilized translation api. Imagine, two developers collaborating in real-time to create the next big web app. Now imagine our two developers, each working from public computers, one at a coffee shop, and the other a library. Now imagine these developers living in different continents, each speaking a different language, perhaps one Swahili, and the other French. Now imagine an integrated IM sidebar to Bespin which auto translates their dialog similar to GTalk language bots. Now imagine the code comments, being auto translated to every possible language, so the next developer speaking a different language could quickly understand and collaborate on the project. Now multiple the number of developers by 1000, all collaborating in real-time on same open source project, potentially speaking dozens of different dialects. When you combine Bespin and the power of cloud developing with something as simple as translation api, the possibilities are endless.

Imagine the potential usage for a nonprofit like Geekcorp, who already have incredible success stories of connecting technical experts to communities in developing countries.

Or the potential integration with Ken Bank's Mobility Project which "brings together some of the leading academics, technicians, educators and practitioners in the IT and mobile fields with the common goal of developing an exciting and empowering range of tools and resources to unlock the power of mobile applications development for users in the developing world"

Multilingual collaborative cloud developing could play a huge role in the bare-foot college innovative to transfer software development skills, reducing development costs, bridging language barriers and providing real-time collaboration. And with the recent success of netbooks in developing countries, Bespin has the potential to change everything.

Thanks to Kaushal Jhalla for inspiring me and sharing these ideas.

Hiding Blogger Top Banner Bar

2009-02-26T10:20:00.001-04:00

Found a great way to hide the Blogger top banner bar using CSS:

In the Blogger Dashboard, select Layout > Template then click Edit HTML
In the HTML code, find the line /* Variable definitions
Add CSS definition #navbar-iframe { display: none !important; } directly above the /* Variable definitions line

Here's a video outlining the steps.

Powerful Gmail Feature, Adding Suffix To Your UserID

2009-02-19T17:41:00.004-04:00

Gmail has an incredibly powerful, yet somewhat unknown feature, that allows you to append a suffix to your userid. This combined with a filter makes for incredibly powerful spam control!

yourid+suffix@gmail.com

The beauty is that you can use as many suffixes as you like, ideally one for each of your services:

yourid+twitter@gmail.com
yourid+flickr@gmail.com

This way (god forbid) if one of these services sell your email address to a 3rd party, it would be very easy to track down the culprit.

Fluid Turns Web Apps Into OSX Desktop Apps

2009-02-16T22:34:00.000-04:00

Have you ever wished Gmail or Facebook was a standalone desktop app? Enter Fluid, a slick OSX application which turns any web app into it's own desktop app. In the spirit of Prism, with Fluid
you simply enter the URL, app name, select an icon and like magic your pseudo desktop app is created. Checkout this screencast of Fluid in action, creating Twitter desktop app.

Centering Text In UITableViewCell (iPhone SDK)

2009-02-11T15:59:00.051-04:00

Unfortunately the iPhone SDK 2.2 has a bug that prevents centering UITableViewCell text using:

cell.textAlignment = UITextAlignmentCenter;

Here is a work-around:

UILabel* label = [[[cell contentView] subviews] objectAtIndex:0];
label.textAlignment = UITextAlignmentCenter;

NSArray vs NSSet, NSDictionary vs NSMapTable (iPhone SDK)

2009-02-11T10:14:00.029-04:00

Deciding the proper collection type NSArray, NSSet, NSDictionary or NSMapTable is critical to your iPhone application performance. Luckily Matt Gallagher wrote a great article outlining the differences:

NSArray is faster than NSSet for simply holding and iterating. As little as 50% faster for constructing and as much as 500% faster for iterating. Lesson: if you only need to iterate contents, don't use an NSSet.

Of course, if you need to test for inclusion, work hard to avoid NSArray. Even if you need both iteration and inclusion testing, you should probably still choose an NSSet. If you need to keep your collection ordered and also test for inclusion, then you should consider keeping two collections (an NSArray and an NSSet), each containing the same objects.

NSDictionary is slower to construct than NSMapTable — since it needs to copy the key data. It makes up for this by being faster to lookup. Of course, the two have different capabilities so most of the time, this determination should be made on other factors. - Cocoa With Love

Clearing DropBox Cache in OSX

2009-02-10T14:30:00.051-04:00

DropBox is an incredibly powerful file sharing system, that lets you synchronize files across multiple machines, accessible through web or from your workstation via their desktop application.

Deleted files can easily be restored because they are cached locally, because they are stored in the hidden folders /Users/username/.dropbox and ~/.dropbox/cache. However, these directories can grow incredibly larger (22 gig in my case!!), luckily I came across a slick OSX app called DBCC that can purge this cache.

You can download the app here, but I recommend visiting rudis.net for latest version.

DTerm: A Command Line Anywhere

2009-02-06T09:20:00.024-04:00

While browsing through OSX applications with Growl support, I stumbled onto DTerm, a crazy powerful popup command line.

DTerm's Philosophy: Command line work isn't a separate task that should live on its own—it's an integrated part of your natural workflow

http://www.decimus.net/dterm.php

Workbench: Lightweight Text Editor For Dashboard

2009-01-28T13:09:00.003-04:00

Looking for a simple way to store your snippets in OSX? Try Workbench, a lightweight text editor for Dashboard.

Textmate Not Recognizing Rails html.erb Files

2009-01-28T12:57:00.031-04:00

Ruby on Rails recently changed .rhtml files to .html.erb, unfortunately this file type is not recognized in Textmate. But this is easily fixed:

Textmate > Bundles > Bundle Editor > Show Bundle
Go to Ruby on Rails > HTML (Rails)
Replace the line fileTypes = ( 'rhtml'); with fileTypes = ( 'rhtml', 'html.erb' );

And once again, proper syntax highlighting in Textmate.

Jumpcut: Minimalist Clipboard Buffering for OS X

2009-01-16T20:02:00.000-04:00

Looking for a great light-weight clipboard add-on for OSX? Try Jumpcut?

"Jumpcut is an application that provides "clipboard buffering" — that is, access to text that you've cut or copied, even if you've subsequently cut or copied something else. The goal of Jumpcut's interface is to provide quick, natural, intuitive access to your clipboard's history."

iPhone Apps I Can't Live Without

2008-12-17T09:07:00.000-04:00

Here are some of my favorite iPhone apps I can't live without:

Facebook - I almost never visit Facebook through a browser anymore, because this little app does everything I need

Tweetsville - awesome Twitter client, clean interface, fast loading with offline viewing of tweets

iBlogger - a truly great blog writer; let's you write posts offline and publish once you have a connection, supports several blogging platfroms including Blogger

Shovel - slick Digg client with an in-app browser (hopefully they'll add offline browsing support in the future)

Stanza - fantastic ebook reader with access to Gluttenberg project (over 25,000 free ebooks online) or make purchases from app, all with a highly customizable interface (font size/color, full screen mode, page transitions, etc), auto bookmarking and cover flow

Google Mobile - the new voice-to-search with results based on your current location is amazing!

Nimbizz - great IM chat client with Facebook, Skype, MSN and Jabber support

Night Camera - uses shake detection so you can capture the perfect photo

Files - easily transfer PDF, images, doc files from desktop to your iPhone for offline viewing

PayPal - email money transfers to any of your iPhone contacts

RTM - Remember The Milk client for all your to-do needs

WritePad - amazing hand writing recognition, great way to compose emails

Tuner - listen to your favorite streams like Di.FM, Proton Radio, Frisky and KCRW right on your iPhone

Active Eagle - lightweight Fire Eagle client for updating your location

Last.FM - stream tunes from Last.FM with other music goodness

LinkedIn - access to your LinkedIn contacts

Brightkite - slick Brightkite app

Wikipanion - great Wikipedia client, content formatted for the iPhone

Google Earth - Google Earth on your iPhone, enough said

Shazam - not sure what song is playing on the radio? Just shazam it!

Flixster Movies - browse upcoming movies, watch trailers and get local showtimes

Brain Challenge - fun and addictive brain game with dozens of math, logic, visual and memory games

Frenzic - super addictive puzzle game (you've been warned)

Touch Physics - very original game where you draw shapes and use the shapes gravity to solve puzzles

Flick Fishing - visually beautiful and super fun fishing game (best played with a beer in hand)

Darts - very addicting and beautiful darts game

Moonlight Mahjong - mahjong game with high points for nice 3D visuals

Soduko Unlimited - my favorite soduko game with a customizable interface (notepad, newspaper, tech)

CubicMan - a challenging and addictive puzzle game

Remote - no iPhone should be without Remote, control nearby iTunes remotely, works great for parties

Numba - a mindless but fun puzzle game of connecting the sequentially numbered blocks

Got any iPhone apps you can't live without?

Dear iPhone Developers, Please Make Apps That Work Offline

2008-11-30T04:41:00.001-04:00

I am currently traveling through eastern Europe armed with my iPhone and dozens of handy travel apps. Sadly, I am finding the majority of these apps become useless without a live internet connection.

Open wifi hotspots are very limited and using 3G with international roaming charges is totally unaffordable (more expensive than lodging and food combined).

The recent iPhone developer 'gold rush' has converted traditional web developers to mobile developers overnight. But this transition has resulted in a critical mistake.

Critical Mistake: Assuming the iPhone is an internet device

The iPhone is not an internet device, it is a disconnected device with internet capability.

Developers should not assume the connection is always present. Apps should still function (example, not crash) when the internet is not available.

Data should be cached intelligently. If I just retrieved data over wifi, closed and then re-opened the app, why is internet necessary? That data should have been cached locally.

The native iPhone Mail is a good example of a well-behaved disconnected mobile application. I temporarily have wifi and pull down my data. My connection is dropped, but I can still read my mail, great success!

iCall for iPhone?

2008-11-20T12:25:00.001-04:00

Although the iCall is still in beta for iPhone, still sounds pretty sweet:

Make and receive calls over WiFi
Transfer inbound calls from a regular cell call to WiFi instantly and seamlessly - save your expensive minutes
Access your same address book
Customize your voicemail options

Enum.GetValues in Compact Framework

2008-11-19T10:56:00.006-04:00

Sadly, the Compact Framework does not support Enum.GetValues which is a pain if you need to iterate over an enumeration, but it can easily be accomplished using good ol' Reflection:

public IEnumerable<Enum> GetValues(Enum enumeration)
{
List<Enum> enumerations = new List<Enum>();
foreach (FieldInfo fieldInfo in enumeration.GetType().GetFields(BindingFlags.Static | BindingFlags.Public))
{
enumerations.Add((Enum)fieldInfo.GetValue(enumeration));
}
return enumerations;
}

And you can call the method as such:

foreach (DayOfWeek dayOfWeek in GetValues(new DayOfWeek())) {}

Enjoy!

Future Of Mobile London 2008

2008-11-18T05:48:00.003-04:00

Once again, Carsonified hosted another fantastic conference in London. Although Future Of Mobile was not as eventful as FOWA, the conference still had a number of great speakers talking about the future of the mobile industry.

Doug Richard from Trutap was my favorite speaker, gave a very strong argument thagt the future of mobile will not come from Silicon Valley, but rather driven from emerging markets in developing countries. These markets are the fastest growing in the world and willing to take risks with new technologies.

Tomi Ahonen author of Mobile as 7th of the Mass Media, gave an entertaining talk about global mobile trends, some were completely shocking!

91% of mobile users keep their phones within arms reach 24 hours a day
the mobile book market is worth $82 million in Japan, majority of these books written on actual phones
the Chinese pop song Mice Love Rice which was available free to download, made over $22 million as ringback tone for phones
the Japanese snack brand Tohato created a virtual war between two chip flavours combining multiplayer online gaming with advertising, breaking new ground in advertising with incredible sales

Other observations from the conference:

the mobile industry is worth over $50 billion
over 3 billion mobile phones worldwide, over 1 billion sold in 2007
mobile devices are: very personal, always connected, always carried, built in payment mechanism, present at creative impulse and can capture social context
the old shotgun approach to advertising does not work, we need to apply location and context to make ads relevant to users
Prior to App Store, people were not comfortable to installing apps on their mobile. Now, people demand ability to install mobile apps on their devices
Symbian and Windows Mobile have the most to lose from the success of Android
Android will be to iPhone, what the PC was to Macintosh

As usual, the conference had heavy Twitter traffic.

Future of Mobile Driven by Emerging Markets

2008-11-17T11:30:00.002-04:00

Doug Richard from Trutap gave a great talk at FOM about the future of mobile being driven by emerging markets in developing countries. These markets are the fastest growing user base and also willing to take risks with new technologies.

SolarNetOne, Solar-Powered Computer Networks For Remote Villages

2008-11-07T07:50:00.003-04:00

Ok, this is incredible! GNUveau Networks has created SolarNetOne, a solar-powered, low-energy usage, computer network targeted for remote villages in developing countries.

Thanks to White African for first blogging about this innovation.

Need A Good Color Chart?

2008-11-06T13:35:00.000-04:00

Well, here's ~~good~~ an incredible color chart: http://rgbchart.com

Mobile Ubiquitous Computing (We're Not There Yet)

2008-11-06T07:42:00.005-04:00

This past weekend while strolling through the Louvre in Paris, I observed a number of people carrying hand held devices, which the museum provides as a type of guided tour. They would walk up a painting, glance left and right until they found the reference number, then awkwardly using a stylus, type that number into their device.

It made me think of Stefan Fountain's great talk at FOWA, that mobile computing is not about a device, but about using location and context to improve your experience. During his talk, he made a funny analogy to Captain Picard starting his journal entries with the current stardate. "Shouldn't the computer already know what the date is?!"

Requiring the user to enter a reference number into their device, is similar to Picard telling the computer the stardate, the device should just know what painting its close to. It wouldn't take magic, simply sticking an RFID tag on each painting, a reader on your device and you're in business.

I think ubiquitous computing is definitely coming, we're just not there yet...

SayHear, Recording Why American's Vote

2008-11-03T05:46:00.001-04:00

What hear why and for whom American's are voting? Checkout SayHear, developed on Ribbit technology and a great example of applied VOIP in the Web 2.0 world: http://sayhear.org

LinkedIn Launches LinkedIn Apps

2008-10-29T07:36:00.001-03:00

LinkedIn, your online professional identity has just launched LinkedIn Apps, a way to embed 3rd party applications into your profile and homepage.

The nine applications that you see live today on LinkedIn include productivity enhancing applications from Amazon, Box.net, Google, Huddle, Six Apart, SlideShare, Tripit, and WordPress as well a Company Buzz application developed by LinkedIn. Each of these applications will help you stay current and competitive as a professional in today's rapidly changing business world. - blog

StumbleUpon Web ToolBar?!

2008-10-28T20:47:00.000-03:00

StumbleUpon can now be accessed without the Firefox extension by simply visiting http://www.stumbleupon.com/toolbar. And there was much rejoicing!

What The Flock?!

2008-10-15T08:42:00.006-03:00

Flock, the social web browser is now out of beta and based on Firefox 3 technology. I used Flock before, but ended up switching back to Firefox due to compatibility with some of my favorite extensions. However, looks like this new version has fixed these issues.

Flock definitely have some very cool social features:

People Sidebar combines your friends updates into single time line, much like FriendFeed, but it also has handy Actions menu which lets you Comment, Poke, Message, Share, etc on an item
Media Bar lets you browse you and your friends photos and videos
Web Clipboard lets you drag & drop text, images or videos from any website for easy storage
Social Favorites lets you easily bookmark directly to Del.icio.us
Blog Editor is a handy editor, allowing you to drag photos or videos from Media Bar or Web Clipboard right into your post

If you like Firefox and use sites like Digg, Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, Twitter or YouTube, you'll love Flock!

Fire Eagle, Update My Location

2008-10-13T09:52:00.005-03:00

There's been a lot talk about Fire Eagle lately, Yahoo's new location aggregator. At the recent Mobile Location-Based Services talk at BCS, Gary Gale demonstrated Fire Eagle's ability of aggregating your location to 3rd-party services. And at the past FOWA, several presenters used Fire Eagle as the example of a well behaved OAuth site.

Fire Eagle is basically a single entry point to update your location, then you decide what granularity 3rd-party services has to that location. For example, you may embed a BlogLoc map in your blog, but may only want it to display your city rather than exact street address.

If you got an iPhone, you should check Active Eagle, a free iPhone App which updates Fire Eagle using your current location.

Some FOWA Observations

2008-10-12T15:18:00.000-03:00

The Twitter Bug!
I've understood the importance of Twitter as a status updater, micro-blogger even as SMS platform, but experiencing it as a live conversation during FOWA was incredible! It was like the entire room was engaged in this silent conversation, everyone giving their feedback about the current presenter, truly remarkable.

How Do You Like Them Apples?
When looking across the audience, I noticed a lot of glowing Apples in the crowd. This is pretty significant, considering the conference was filled with some the brightest developers, talking about the future of the industry.

Are You Cloud Computing Yet?!
Cloud computing was definitely the buzz word at the conference, although some speakers poked fun saying we've been doing it for years, and really it's just a term so non-techies can understand.

Hey, Whats Your Handle?
Your online presence is becoming so important, people were sharing their handles like business cards, "what's your twitter?" or "you on FriendFeed?"

Financial Crisis?! Sell, Sell, Sell!
Although it's still early to know how the current financial crisis will affect web apps, it definitely was on people's minds, some predicting it could be as bad/worse as the dot-com bubble.

Future Of Web Apps London 2008 - Day Two

2008-10-11T12:41:00.001-03:00

Day Two of FOWA kicked off with Tim Bray from Sun offering many words of wisdom to developers. With the looming financial crisis on everyone's minds, Tim stressed the importance for developers to remain flexible and not limit themselves to a single platform or language. Also during these tough times, your online presence and business networks will be more important than ever. Here is a video of his excellent talk.
Following Tim's great talk, Adam Gross from Salesforce gave a quick demo on using cloud computing in the enterprise.

The late morning sessions, I followed the Developer Track listening to Chris Messina from Vidoop talk about importance of OAuth, then Bret Taylor from FriendFeed talk about the importance of your online presence.

After lunch, Jason Calacanis from Mahalo and Tom Nixon from Nixon McInnes discussed whether a startup can have a work / life balance. Tom believes that startups can have a four-day-work-week and still be successful, while Jason argued its better to bust your ass for three years and retire a millionaire. Jason also gave a pretty compelling argument on firing the average.

Cloud computing was definitely the buzz word at the conference. Tony Lucas from XCalibre and Jeff Barr from Amazon Web Services talked about the important aspects of cloud computing. Platforms like S3 can offer alot of advantages to startups; high reliability, low startup cost, scale down or up as you need, however it's critical that you maintain data portability and don't lock yourself into a single provider.

In a fireside-style interview, Ryan Carson chatted with Mark Zuckerberg about the success and future of Facebook. I personally, was very impressed with Mark, even after all the success of Facebook, still remains down to earth and carries a clear vision of Facebook's future; to allow people to easily share their information.
Thanks to the good people at Carsonified, the videos from each talk have been posted online. Can't wait until FOMA!

Fire The Average?

2008-10-10T11:40:00.002-03:00

During one of the talks at FOWA, Jason Calacanis from Mahalo made an interesting comment about firing even your average developers.

His point, average people attract other average people; great people will attract other great people. Although maybe people may not agree, it's an interesting idea...

Tim Bray's Words Of Wisdom

2008-10-10T11:36:00.001-03:00

Tim Bray from Sun gave one of the best talks of FOWA, offering several words of wisdom:

Don't be an 'X' developer. People that will only develop for a certain language or platform restrict their hire-ability. This is especially true during the tough times ahead, developers must stay flexible.
Network, Network, Network. The truly great jobs are always filled by friends of friends.
The next worst thing to a company Googling you and discovering you are a pedophile, is finding nothing online. Why would a leading edge company hire a dinosaur who does not have an understanding of web 2.0?

FriendFeed's Success?

2008-10-10T10:25:00.002-03:00

Bret Taylor from FriendFeed gave a great talk at FOWA offering some of their secrets for the increasing problem of too much user created content.

During questions, I asked what made FriendFeed successful over other social aggregators out there. Bret's reply; seeing an opportunity and executing quickly, getting the basics nailed down early, fast reliable service and keeping interface simple & easy to use.

When it comes down to it, if your page loads slow, users won't come back.

Future Of Web Apps London 2008 - Day One

2008-10-08T23:52:00.005-03:00

The first day at the FOWA was great! The highlights from the main exhibit area were definitely Adobe's Nintendo wii station, the Microsoft booth with Guitar Heroes, MySpace's double-decker bus with DJ and Sun's mechancial surf board. The Business Track and Developers Track rooms allowed you to pick & choose which presenters you were more interested in hearing, and during the breaks there were additional breakup sessions.

The Future Of News - Kevin Rose, Digg
Kevin gave a great talk about Digg's view of the future of news, focussing on how we can improve.

Web Apps Are Dead, Long Live Webg Apps - Edwin Aoki, AOL
Edwin from AOL apoligized for his previous prediction that web apps would replace desktop apps, with the recent iPhone and Android SDK allowing developers to easily create mobile native apps, which have now surpassed mobile web apps on these devices.

Languages Don't Scale - Blaine Cook, Ex-Chief Engineer Twitter & Joe Stump - Digg
Remember the old debate that certain languages don't scale, well Blaine and Joe came right out and said, all languages suck, but really when it comes to scalability, its all about servers and disk IO.
How The Future Of The Mobile Web Is Going To Change Everything - Stefan Fountain, Soocial
Definitely my favorite speaker, Stefan rocked the stage giving a great talk about how the future of mobile, is not a device but using location, context, state and visibility to improve our mobile experience.

Using Jabber To Make Awesome Web Sites - Blaine Cook, Ex-Twitter
Another one of my favorite talks, Blaine gave an interesting presentation why HTTP can't make good synchronous sites because of its pull architecture, offering Jabber / XMPP as way to create truly rich web sites.

Building Desktop Caliber Web Application with Objective-J and Cappuccino - Francisco Tolmasky, 280 North
The Ex-Apple developer, now founder of 280 North, Francisco gave a great talk about developing 280 North, an online Keynote clone which in the process of building it, ended up creating an entire web framework Cappuccino and Objective-J language to allow for rich UI experience.

Web Will Heal Itself - Crick Waters, BT
Crick, the founder of Ribbit, gave a great demo of Ribbit in action and how the future of the phone is on the web.

The first day wrapped up with a Dragon's Den style event where four new startups pitched their idea to panel of judges. After judges voting, Erepublik an online risk-style multiplayer game came up on top, winning a profile spot on TechCrunch.

It was an excellent first day at FOWA! The videos from FOWA are available online at Carsonified.

Adium And Friends With Multiple IM Accounts

2008-10-08T10:26:00.004-03:00

I really love Adium, it's a great IM client for OSX which combines your GTalk, MSN, AIM, Facebook and Yahoo! contacts into a single list.

However, I found it a bit annoying having duplicate contacts in my list for friends that use more than one IM account, for example, a friend with both GTalk and MSN would appear twice.

To fix this, you simply need to add each IM account for that person into your OSX Address Book each with a different type (Home, Work, Other), and magically the duplicates are merged into a single contact.

Now, when you first send them a message, you should see a drop down in the chat window which lets you choose which IM account you would like to send message to.

VScrollBar Width in Compact Framework

2008-10-06T13:15:00.004-03:00

Unfortunately, the SystemInformation.VerticalScrollBarWidth member is not available in the .NET Compact Framework. Knowing this value is incredibly useful when you want to resize DataGrid columns whether the vertical scrollbar is visible or not.

Simply hard-coding the width to 13 pixels is not a good idea, considering devices with higher resolution render the VScrollBar wider. And using p/invoke calls like GetSystemMetrics are never very elegant.

However, I came across a cool way to simply search for the VScrollBar in the control and check whether it's visible.

int GetVerticalScrollBarWidth(Control parent)
{
   foreach (Control control in parent.Controls)
   {
   if (control is VScrollBar && control.Visible)

   return control.Width;
   }
   return 0;
}

This works really slick for DataGrid in the Compact Framework. And there was great rejoicing!

App Store, Empowering The Developer And Why It Changes Everything

2008-09-11T10:29:00.001-03:00

The App Store is brilliant! It has had over 100 million downloads worldwide since it opened, incredible! Sure it's fun for users to browse and download a new application to their iPhone, but the really exciting thing, is that it totally empowers the individual developer.

A lot of people don't fully grasp how much of a paradigm shift this is. Before App Store, it was difficult for a developer to create an application and reach a wide market. Now, the developer has the potential to create an app in their spare time, publish to App Store and instantly have access to millions of customers. And the best part, is how incredibly easy it is to monetize.

The App Store for developers, is doing the same thing that iTunes Store did for independent artists, levels the playing field and empowers the individual. Let's just say, its a very exciting time to be a developer.

Apple's iTunes Genius, is Genius!

2008-09-11T08:54:00.005-03:00

Ok, there hasn't been many new features of iTunes that have really wow'ed me, but the new Genius feature, WOW!

I've always loved Last.FM and their recommendation radio for similiar artists, but having this integrated right into iTunes is awesome!

Just pick a song you like, click the Genius button and playlist of similar artists and songs is automatically generated for you, and its bang on.

For example, I select a Burial track and the Genius playlist includes songs by Loscil, Stars of the Lid, Cinematic Orchestra, Lamb, Apparat, Amon Tobin, Nightmares on Wax, Trentemoller and The Knife, very nice!

Adding More Searches To Chrome's Omnibar

2008-09-05T05:53:00.004-03:00

You gotta love Chrome's auto-add search feature of omnibar! But what if you want to do an image search and rather than typing "images.google.com kittens" you want to just be able to type "images kittens"? Well, easy enough, just right-click on address bar and select Edit search engines... Now just change the keyword from images.google.com to images and Bang! you are in business.

Here is a list of some of my favorite quick searches (in Name, Keyword, URL ordering):

Google Maps

map

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=%s

Google Images

images

http://images.google.com/images?q=%s

Google Video

video

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=%s&hl=en&sitesearch=

Google Books

books

http://www.google.com/books?q=%s&as_brr=0

Google Stocks

stocks

http://www.google.com/search?q=stocks:%s

YouTube

youtube

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%s

Google Music

music

http://www.google.com/musicsearch?q=%s

Google Movies

movies

http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&q=movie%3A+%s&btnG=Search&meta=

Google Blogger

blog

http://www.google.com/blogsearch?q=%s&hl=en

Google News

news

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&tab=wn&q=%s&btnG=Search+News

Google Define

define

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=define%3A+%s&btnG=Search&meta=

Google MP3 Search

mp3

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=intitle%3A%22index.of%22+(mp3%7Cmp4)+%s+-html+-htm+-php+-asp+-aspx+&btnG=Search

Google Code

code

http://code.google.com/search/#q=%s

Facebook

facebook

http://www.facebook.com/s.php?src=os&q=%s

Last.FM

lastfm

http://www.last.fm/music/?q=%s

Flickr

flickr

www.flickr.com/search/?q=%s&w=all&m=&s=

IMDB

imdb

http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=%25s

Del.icio.us

del

http://del.icio.us/search/?p=%s&fr=del_icio_us&type=all

Digg

digg

http://digg.com/search?search=%s

Wikipedia

wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=%s

Thesaurus

thes

http://thesaurus.reference.com/search?q=%s

Dictionary

dict

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=%s

Metacafe

metacafe

http://www.metacafe.com/#?s=%s&CategoryFilter=

W3C School

w3c

http://www.google.com/search?as_q=%s&sitesearch=www.w3schools.com

C/Net Reviews

review

http://www.search.com/redirect?query=%s&tag=srch&target=

Newsvine

newsvine

http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/search?q=%s&searchIn=t

EBay

ebay

http://search.ebay.ca/search/search.dll?GetResult&?satitle=%s&sofocus=unknown&sbrftog=1&fcl=4&fnu=1&from=R10&fcd=2&sacat=-1%26catref%3DC6&sargn=-1%26saslc%3D3&sadis=200&fpos=ZIP/Postal&ftrt=1&ftrv=1&saprclo=&saprchi=&fsop=1%26fsoo%3D1&fgtp=

Amazon

amazon

http://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/702-4824911-3659260?field-keywords=%s&url=search-alias%3Daps

WikiHow

how

http://www.wikihow.com/Special:LSearch?search=%s&fulltext=Search

TechCrunch

tech

http://www.techcrunch.com/?s=%s

Mashable

mashable

http://mashable.com/search-results/?cx=partner-pub-9942038924324175:lhvsj5-dt4y&cof=FORID:11&q=%s&sa=Search

Koders

koders

http://www.koders.com/default.aspx?s=%s&btn=&la=*&li=*

Google Chrome Is Out, But Look Whats Missing

2008-09-02T18:34:00.004-03:00

Google just announced their new open source web browser, Chrome. So far, I'm lovin' it! By far the fastest browser out there and looks like it's out performing IE8 and FF3 in Acid3 test. Dragging tabs works so well, especially dragging outside to make a new browser window, and you gotta love the icoginto mode.

Besides all the great features and clean interface, there still is a lot missing which hopely will be added in the next version:

No Extensions - one of the great features of FireFox and Opera is the extendability, sadly, Chrome currently does not support extensions
No Live Bookmarks - RSS support in Live Bookmarks has sort of become standard, strange this is missing from Chrome
No Social Bookmarking - I thought for sure Google Bookmarks would be baked into Chrome, but nope, all bookmarks are stored locally
No OSX Support - Windows only? Where's my OSX version?

Use Gmail Notifier On OSX With Multiple Accounts

2008-08-28T07:23:00.002-03:00

Came across a way of using Gmail Notifier on OSX over multiple Gmail accounts:

Duplicate the Google Notifier application.
Select the duplicate, control-click on its icon, and choose Show Package Contents from the pop-up menu.
Navigate into Contents, and then open Info.plist in an editor.
There is a property in that file called CFBundleIdentifier, with the value com.google.GmailNotifier. Change the property's value to com.google.GmailNotifierTwo instead.
Save your change and quit the editor.

Thanks to Mac OX Hints for orginally posting this.

Video Conferencing

2008-08-21T05:33:00.002-03:00

Ok, this is pretty funny (and slightly embarrassing). During our regular morning scrum meeting, with Ryan in Regina, myself in London and rest of team in Saskatoon, Allan captured a video of me and Ryan chatting while the rest of the team stepped out for a coffee.

The World Is Flat 3.0

2008-08-19T18:35:00.003-03:00

If you haven't already watched it, Thomas Friedman gives an impressive The World Is Flat 3.0 lecture at MIT. You can find the 48min lecture on iTunes U or watch it on Real Player here.

VendAsta Gets Funding

2008-08-07T18:25:00.006-03:00

Big news! VendAsta gets $3 million of funding to develop MyFrontSteps and StepRep.

"After recently acquiring $3 million in funding from Victoria Park Capital, Saskatoon’s VendAsta Technologies Inc. is ready to make some headway with their MyFrontSteps.com social software project."

Read more about the exciting news here, here or here.

Help Spread Firefox Day

2008-06-18T05:58:00.002-03:00

Help spread Firefox!

"Sounds like a good deal, right? All you have to do to help us set the record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours is get Firefox 3 now – it’s that easy. We're not asking you to swallow a sword or to balance 30 spoons on your face, although that would be kind of awesome. Please download Firefox 3 by 11:16 a.m. PDT (18:16 UTC) on June 18, 2008. That's 11:16 a.m. in Mountain View, 2:16 p.m. in Toronto, 3:16 p.m. in Rio de Janeiro, 8:16 p.m. in Paris, Madrid, Berlin, Rome and Warsaw, 10:16 p.m. in Moscow, and June 19, 2008 at 2:16 a.m. in Beijing and 3:16 a.m. in Tokyo."

http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord

My Google Reader Public Feeds

2008-05-04T19:05:00.004-03:00

It's A Mac, Mac World!

2008-04-15T06:48:00.006-03:00

At VendAsta, one of our core beliefs is that a developer should have the freedom to choose their own tools which help make them productive. So what happens when a group of talented developers have the freedom to choose their operating system? Well, they choose OSX of course.

This new Saskatoon software company originally decked everyone out with Dell's running Vista. Luckily Dell has a good return policy, because after numerous problems with networking, applications not running, the shiny new Vista soon became unreliable annoying Vista. Since then, majority of us have upgraded to OSX. Jason and Kevin are both kicking it with new multi-touch MacBook Pro's, Allan is floating on Air and I have been packing a MacBook Pro since January '07.

For the times that we need to use Windows, we simply fire up XP on VMWare Fusion or Parallels. Some will argument that we are still using Windows, but there is a fundamental difference; Windows is no longer our primary operating system, it has simply become a tool like Photoshop or Adobe Reader. Running XP inside Parallels on 1 gig of allocated ram, I find that everything runs pretty fast, including Visual Studio. And the beauty is that when Explorer shell crashes (as it often does) I can simply Exposé out into OSX and restart my instance of Windows.

I still have a number of pro-PC friends that argue, "a Mac is nice for my mom because she doesn't know how to use a computer". Well, this may have been the case a few years back, but since the release of Tiger and Leopard, OSX has become the world's most advanced operating system, with powerful features like Automator, Expose, Spaces, Time Machine, Spotlight and Preview, and most of all, is incredibly stable.

There was a great article yesterday, Windows Is 'Collapsing' which outlined the massive failure of Vista to innovative and impress the consumer. The reality is that many enterprises are not making the switch to Vista and simply sticking with XP.

"This is a large part of the reason [why] Windows Vista delivered primarily incremental improvements," they said. In turn, that became one of the reasons why businesses pushed back Vista deployment plans. "Most users do not understand the benefits of Windows Vista or do not see Vista as being better enough than Windows XP to make incurring the cost and pain of migration worthwhile." ComputerWorld

This is exactly the case here at VendAsta, because as more of the typical desktop apps are pushed onto the web, using Windows as your primary operating system is becoming less and less important.

Adobe Photoshop Express Launches

2008-03-27T07:27:00.004-03:00

I remember at the start of the Web 2.0 boom, when traditional desktop application were starting to migrate to the web, Photoshop has one of those applications that many skeptics argued would never make it to the web. 'Sure, the web is good for basic stuff, but you'll never see Photoshop online.'

Well, today is a landmark because Adobe releases a web version of their massive graphic application, Photoshop Express.

Online Social Identity and Reputation

2008-03-18T14:13:00.002-03:00

http://blog.nomoredoorknocking.com

VisualSVN : SVN Plugin for Visual Studio

2008-03-17T18:52:00.004-03:00

Looking for a good Subversion plugin for Visual Studio? Well, VisualSVN might be just what you are looking for:

icon status lets you know which files are modified
delete, rename and adding of files inside Visual Studio are automatically updated in SVN
quick access to SVN operations like Show Changes and Commit from context menu

PicLens : Amazing Full-Screen Photo Viewer In Firefox

2008-03-16T15:18:00.005-03:00

I remember reading about PicLens when it first came out, but sort of forgot about it until recently when a friend sent me a link, and WOW is it amazing! This add-on turns Firefox into a full-screen 3D photo viewer for your online photo galleries like Picasa, Flickr, Facebook, Google Images and more.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5579

12 Future Apps For iPhone

2008-03-13T10:28:00.002-03:00

ReadWriteWeb had a great article today about the 12 Future Apps For Your iPhone. Definitenly worth a read, pretty interesting ideas of the potential impact the iPhone may have on society and technology.

Microsoft Windows 1.0, Only $99!!

2008-03-12T18:51:00.000-03:00

Firefox Speed Dial?!

2008-03-11T22:09:00.004-03:00

I have to give Opera credit for coming up with Speed Dial, pretty powerful browser feature. But being a Firefox guy, it was a feature I longed for but learned to live without. That was, until I discovered the Firefox Speed Dial Add-On.

This extension is totally customizable, letting you change refresh rate of thumbnails, the number of dials to even use your own thumbnail images. And the best part, it's incredibly quick loading.

Speed Dial has now tied Del.icio.us Bookmarks as my #1 favorite extension.

LINQPad : Powerful LINQ Editor

2008-03-11T21:40:00.004-03:00

LINQ, is one of the most exciting new .NET features to come of late; incredibly powerful way to query SQL, XML and Objects using the same SQL-like syntax.

And just as exciting as LINQ, is LINQPad; a simple editor that lets you interactively query SQL databases, xml files or objects. Not to mention over 200 examples and code snippets built right in and at your disposal.

http://www.linqpad.net

Windows Mobile 7 Sneak Peak

2008-03-04T08:35:00.003-04:00

Here is a great sneak peak of the new Windows Mobile 7, which will incorporate a lot of new interface features like touch and motion gestures. For example, you can awake your device from sleep mode by simply shaking it.

Google Gears on Mobile Devices

2008-03-04T07:20:00.006-04:00

Google just released a mobile version of Google Gears, which would allow your mobile web application to continue to function even without network connection.

"Mobile devices are, by their nature, often disconnected from the network. Even when connected, the latencies in data connections in mobile networks can make web applications sluggish. Google Gears gives developers the tools to overcome these obstacles.

Google Gears works in exactly the same way on a Windows Mobile 5 or 6 device as it does on a desktop PC. If you've already written an application that uses Google Gears, your application will also work on a Windows Mobile 5 or 6 device."

Checkout the video on Google Gears offline capabilities for mobile devices.

Great Screen Capture App for Windows

2008-02-28T14:56:00.002-04:00

I found a really great free screen capture application browsing through the list of best freeware utilities. I've tried lots of other screen capture apps, but always found them annoying having to open to the them whenever I needed to grab a screenshot. ScreenHunter on the other hand, let's you define a hotkey, default folder and filename, and whether you want full screen, active window or drag for specific area.

For example, I got CTRL+F12 as hotkey, Desktop as my default folder, Screenshot_ as default filename and Rectangle Area capture. So now I tap the hotkey, a crosshairs pops up, lets me drag around section of screen I want to capture, then simply click mouse button, and the file Screenshot_1 is automatically saved to my Desktop.

If you are looking for a good screen capture app, checkout ScreenHunter, it's a solid little app and it's free.

Our Wait Is Over...Jotspot Arrives!

2008-02-28T06:48:00.016-04:00

It's been a long time coming, 16 months since Google acquired the online wiki service JotSpot. And since that time, has been much rumored when it would finally be integrated into the Google Apps suite. Well, the wait is now over, JotSpot finally arrives!

Google Sites is the easiest way to make information accessible to people who need quick, up-to-date access. People can work together on a Site to add file attachments, information from other Google applications (like Google Docs, Google Calendar, YouTube and Picasa), and new free-form content. Creating a site together is as easy as editing a document, and you always control who has access, whether it's just yourself, your team, or your whole organization. You can even publish Sites to the world. The Google Sites web application is accessible from any internet connected computer.

Wow! If that's not enough, checkout the features video.

Best Freeware Utilities For Windows

2008-02-24T09:27:00.002-04:00

In a recent re-install of Windows XP, I came across good site with a great collection of the best freeware utilities for Windows (rss).

Fast Food, Bad For The Environment

2008-02-07T17:17:00.000-04:00

Celsias had a good posting today about the environment impact of fast food. A recent Hong Kong study shows that a fast food restaurant making four hamburgers emits same amount of volatile organic compounds as driving a car for 1,000 miles! The article also mentions cheeseburger footprint calculator which calculates that the greenhouse gas emissions that arise every year from production and consumption of cheeseburgers is equivalent to that produced from 6.5 million to 19.6 million SUVs.

I've previously posted about idling vehicles in drive-throughs, but skipping fast food all together is probably an even better idea.

Save The Planet, Skip The Drive-Through?

2007-12-30T17:08:00.000-04:00

If UPS can save 3 million gallons of gas a year by not turning left, how much CO2 emissions can be reduced if we skipped the drive-through?

Since the 1940's, the drive-through has become a defining characteristic of our vehicle-centric society. From fast food to banking to liquor stores to even marriage chapels, we are addicted to the convenience of being served through our vehicle window.

But there is a reason why North America with only 5% of the world population uses 25% of the world's oil supply. It's not because we are incredibly advanced, it's because we are incredibly wasteful.

At what point do we start questioning the society norm and ask whether things like drive-throughs are sustainable? Does it make sense to leave your vehicle idling in a twelve car lineup waiting to order from the drive-through window?

I'd highly recommend the documentaries Crude Awakening and End Of Suburbia, both offering interesting perspectives on the depleting global oil supply.

Default Router Password List

2007-12-24T16:32:00.000-04:00

I stumbled across a massive online spreadsheet with the default passwords for almost every router, enjoy!

Expert Exchange, View Posts Without Membership

2007-12-24T12:12:00.001-04:00

I despise sites that require memberships to view content like Expert Exchange. The little trick they do to blur content from non-members is annoying to say the least. But here is an easy way to view all post content without a membership.

If you notice that one of your Google search results is from Expert Exchange, rather than clicking the actual link, instead click the Cached link at bottom of item. And surprise, the once blurred post results are now visible again!

Stephen Covey : The First Step To Reach Your Goals

2007-12-20T15:41:00.000-04:00

A few years back I was very fortunate to be able to attend a leadership conference in Saskatoon where Stephen Covey's presented his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, truly inspirational.

Remember The Milk, Hot New Gmail Integration

2007-12-20T11:44:00.000-04:00

Oh man, I've been waiting for this, Remember The Milk just launched Firefox Add-On which adds a slick right sidebar into Gmail with all your RTM Tasks.

"Remember The Milk for Gmail is a Firefox extension that allows you to manage your tasks in Gmail (complete, postpone, and edit tasks), add new tasks (and connect them with your emails, contacts, and Google Calendar events), automatically add tasks for starred messages or specific labels, and much more!"

If you haven't used Remember The Milk, you should totally check it out! IGoogle gadget, iPhone interface, Offline with Google Gears, Twitter support, Google Calendar integration, Netvibes, mapping, quick add bookmarklet, Jott support, OS X Dashboard widget, and the list just keeps on growing!

UPS Saved 3 Million Gallons Of Gas, By Not Turning Left

2007-12-18T18:09:00.000-04:00

Wow, here is an idea worth mentioning, UPS realized their trucks wasted a lot of time idling in left lane waiting to turn.

The solution, they decided to map routes that reduced the number of left turns.

The result, last year they reduced 31,000 metric tonnes of Co2 emissions.

"Last year, according to Heather Robinson, a U.P.S. spokeswoman, the software helped the company shave 28.5 million miles off its delivery routes, which has resulted in savings of roughly three million gallons of gas and has reduced CO2 emissions by 31,000 metric tons." -NY Times

Embedded Google Calendar

2007-12-14T18:21:00.000-04:00

Google Calendar is definitely one of my favorite Google Apps, so simple to use yet incredibly powerful. Subscribing to other's calendars lets you easily coordinate events among friends. The text message notifications are incredible, free reminders sent to my cell phone prior to an event including the time and location. The interface is clean, with toggling between week, month and day views. And of course we can't forget subscribing to outside sources like Weather, Last.FM, Upcoming, Eventful and Facebook, which I've blogged about in the past.

Besides consuming outside resources, I think another major feature most people don't utilize is syndicating public calendars and embedding HTML calendar snippets. Both these features are incredibly powerful.

Being a guy who loves chicken wings, awhile ago I posted a public calendar for cheap chicken wing nights in Saskatoon (iCal, RSS, HTML). Here is that calendar embedded in this posting:

I think there are many existing sites that could really benefit from an embedded Google Calendar.

For example, the Saskatoon Broadway Theatre shows foreign, independent and documentary films, I love going to these movies, but I never know when they are playing. Rather than having a single JPG image with calendar information, wouldn't it be great if they embedded a Google Calendar into their site? Similar to the chicken wing calendar, others could then easily subscribe to iCal feed and receive text message with movie notifications. I'll add that to my Christmas list.

If you digged this article, then why not Digg it?

Easiest Way To Turn A Dell Into A Mac

2007-12-14T10:46:00.000-04:00

My current contractor shipped me a laptop yesterday, knowing that I've been a mac-guy for past year now, they thought a few alterations would be helpful to make the transition back to a Dell, thanks guys! :)

How Google Works

2007-12-13T23:21:00.000-04:00

Here is a great flash video on how Google search works.

Moving Past Procrastination...

2007-12-13T16:39:00.001-04:00

I came across a great posting 7 ways to move beyond procrastination, the first thing I thought was, 'oh, this looks good, I'll read it later...'

Good Web Form Design PDF

2007-12-12T21:04:00.000-04:00

I stumbled across an amazing 112 page PDF on good web form design, filled with great examples of good and bad web forms. If you are a web developer, you should definitely take a look at this awesome documents: http://www.lukew.com/resources/articles/WebForms_LukeW.pdf

Did You Know? 2.0

2007-12-12T19:06:00.000-04:00

Using Nintendo Wii Contoller To Make Your Own Multi-touch Whiteboard

2007-12-12T13:41:00.000-04:00

http://www.wiili.org/index.php/DarwiinRemote

I Love My Dell...

2007-12-08T00:44:00.001-04:00

Skypop on Android

2007-12-07T16:51:00.001-04:00

The Next Big Thing : The Internet

2007-12-05T21:31:00.000-04:00

How Not To Run A Company

2007-12-05T00:12:00.000-04:00

My previous employer had a bit of a falling-out this week. Staff members were apparently upset with the way top execs were running the show, finally coming to a breaking point with many senior members walking out, including top management, lead architects and head designers. I believe there were key principles that were neglected, and hopefully by sharing these mistakes, they can be avoided by others in positions of authority.

Keep Your Key Players Happy - like a great sports team, there are key players of your company. These people are your innovators keeping you leading edge, the goal scorers. These are your motivators who lead others by example, the assist makers. It is critical that these key players are rewarded and stay happy. If you take away your starting lineup, you no longer have a team. Remember; don't ever gamble with something you are not willing to lose.
Avoid Keeping Secrets - for various reasons, there were many secrets throughout the company. Top execs kept secrets from upper management, and management kept secrets from staff. But this attitude spread throughout the entire company and the result was an unhealthy environment which brewed lack of trust. For example there was a hush-hush attitude towards salaries, and when you got a raise, you were told not to tell others but the result was suspicion and jealousy. If you don't want others to spread rumors or keep secrets from you, then don't keep secrets yourself. Like a good parent, you should teach through example, you can't tell your kids not to smoke with a cigarette in your other hand.
Reward Individual Accomplishment - if you want people to give 110%, they must be rewarded for their individual efforts. People work for two reasons, money and acknowledgment. If you realize this and reward employees in both ways, they will happily go above and beyond what is required, but neglect these two simple facts and you will have very unhappy employees. For my first project I was part of a small team, it took a lot of extra work to get deployed. When it was finally released, rather than giving a small bonus to each of us, the company threw a fancy lunch for all staff. And during the lunch, an announcement was made 'we'd like thank everyone involved in this project' we thought, 'wait, that's us, how come they didn't even say our names?' This is a perfect example of failure on both parts where we were not rewarded or acknowledged for our hard work.
Clear Sense Of Direction - there was a lot of talk about keeping your eye on the goal and chasing the big prize, but this message was vague, and most staff didn't know what the big prize even was, or whose goal they were chasing. It is important to have clear company-wide direction, which all employees share.
Pay For Overtime - if you are expecting or demanding that employees work overtime, then they should be paid for overtime. Unrealistic goals and deadlines were placed upon staff members who required they work on weekends and late into the evenings. And yet this forced-volunteer work went unrewarded time and time again. Management's reasoning was that your hard work would not go unnoticed and when raises were handed out, you'll be first in line. Well, you can only dangle a carrot for so long before the rabbit realizes they'll never get it, and simply stops running. Turn the tables for one second, how would management feel about paying you for hours you didn't work? A healthy relationship needs to be mutual.
Ideas Reward System - in an industry where your ideas make or break your company, it is critical that a reward system be in place to promote innovation. I could propose an idea which could potentially revolutionize the industry, but unless I know I'll be acknowledged for my idea, why would I even mention it? As mentioned in #3, unless you know you'll be rewarded for your extra effort, might as well keep the idea to yourself in hopes to someday launch your own startup. Second, when ideas are proposed, it is crucial they are fully heard. Ideas are like a little spark, unless they are nurtured when they are forming, they will never ignite into a flame.
Regular Scheduled Raises - although many companies don't offer scheduled raises, I believe it should become a standard policy. In fact, if you are not receiving a regularly scheduled raise, you are actually taking a pay cut due to inflation. Housing and living expenses rise, and your salary must also rise with that.

The goal of this posting was to help promote a positive change towards more open and rewarding environment. I also intended for the principles to be generic enough they could benefit any company. When I noticed a war was erupting in the comments and that other bloggers were following the conversation, I feared the result would have the opposite effect for those involved. This is why I decided it was best to hide the comments.

Having worked for the company for several years, I know for a fact that they are filled with incredibly sharp and talented people. I also know those who left were very dedicated to the company and I believe they had very good reasons for leaving. I wish all those involved the very best and hope the outcome results in a change for the better.

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us. - Helen Keller

I Could Always Use Another Toolbar...

2007-12-04T19:44:00.000-04:00

Bubble 2.0: The Video

2007-12-04T15:36:00.000-04:00

Windows Vista : Better go get yourself a cup of coffee, this may take a while...

2007-12-03T14:39:00.000-04:00

If Programmers Made Planes

2007-12-02T21:18:00.001-04:00

Google's Android Architecture

2007-11-29T17:23:00.001-04:00

Androidology - Part 1 of 3 - Architecture Overview

Androidology - Part 2 of 3 - Application Lifecycle

Androidology - Part 3 of 3 - APIs

Google's Android Demo

2007-11-29T17:20:00.001-04:00

Google's Android Demo

Skypop on Android

A first hand look at building an Android application

And Here's Another Reason Why I Love Google...

2007-11-28T21:44:00.000-04:00

While other companies like Yahoo and Microsoft are scrambling to keep up, with Yahoo still trying to re-invent the portal and Microsoft sadly can't admit defeat to iPod, still pushing the long failed Zune, Google is charging forward into brave new areas proving they are much more than search engine and advertisement company. First, thanks to the heavy Google funding, the recently launched 23AndMe.com bringing genetics to the average household

Welcome to 23andMe, a web-based service that helps you read and understand your DNA. After providing a saliva sample using an at-home kit, you can use our interactive tools to shed new light on your distant ancestors, your close family and most of all, yourself - 23andMe

Although it's been argued the real motivation may be the fact that Google's president Sergey Brin wive Wojcicki works for the company, it's still very cool they are bringing a science previously only available to laboratories to the average person. Gattaca here we come...

Secondly, Google is taking global warming and the environmental issues very seriously. At a press conference today Google announced $10 million towards the RechargeIT.org program, pledging to make solar, wind and other alternative energies cheaper than coal.

Google has been working hard on energy efficiency and making its business environmentally sustainable. Last spring the company announced its intention to be carbon neutral for 2007, and is on track to meet that goal. To this end, the company has taken concrete steps to reduce its carbon footprint and accelerate improvements in green technology, including:
* Developing cutting-edge energy efficiency technology to power and cool its data centers in the U.S. and around the world.
* Generating electricity for its Mountain View campus from a 1.6 Megawatt corporate solar panel installation, one of the largest in the U.S.
* Accelerating development and adoption of plug-in vehicles through the RechargeIT initiative, including a $10 million request for investment proposals
* Joining with other industry leaders in 2007 to form the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, a consortium that advocates the design and use of more energy-efficient computers and servers.
* Working on policies that encourage renewable energy development and deployment, such as a U.S. Renewable Energy Standard, through Google.org.

Don't believe me that Google is serious about the environment? Well just goto www.google.org and see for yourself.

Google Hacks

2007-11-11T12:19:00.000-04:00

Google Hacks, entering specific searches into Google that return some pretty interesting results. Here are some great videos by systemerror11 from InformationLeak, enjoy:

Unprotected Web Cams: inurl:"ViewerFrame?Mode=refresh"
Downloadable MP3's: intitle:index.of radiohead mp3

Website Disallowed Directories: robots.txt disallow filetype:txt
Find FTP Login Accounts: intitle:index.of ws_ftp.ini
Linux Passwords: intitle:"Index of" passwd.bak

FrontPage Hack: inurl:_vti_pvt "service.pwd"
PHP Photo Album: inurl:"phphotoalbum/upload"
VNC Login: "vnc desktop" inurl:5800

The Un-official GoogleOS (The End Of Microsoft)

2007-11-09T08:50:00.000-04:00

I've been preaching the idea of a GoogleOS for years now, a lite-weight operating system which really is just a container for running your web apps. I also said it would be the beginning of the end for Microsoft, which financially depends heavily on profits from Windows.
Windows is Microsoft's foundation for everything. It's the reason why IE has ~90% market share, not because its a better browser but because it comes bundled with Windows and the average person doesn't have know-how to install an alternative. The same goes for Office, the other big money-maker for Microsoft. Short while ago, Office was the required industry standard, you needed Office to open a Word document, but along comes Google Documents which now lets you open Word, Excel and Powerpoint, and guess what, its free. And look at their development environment, Visual Studio, ASP.NET, IIS, C#/VB.NET and SQL Server, all dependent to run on Windows. Windows is their entire core foundation, you take Windows away, everything else collapses.

Mac OS X has been gaining a lot of steam lately, many people making the switch over from Windows. I myself, has made the switch because hey, 'it works so well with my iPod'. Leopard has been taking a lot of the hot press away from Vista, and will continue to do so especially with much rumored Mac Tablet and the success of iPhone.

Besides OS X, Linux is another real threat that has potential to choke out Windows. But Linux is just not user-friendly enough for average person, but Ubuntu made great strides in giving it a friendly UI. And the press has already been talking about moving from Vista to Ubuntu. But the reality is, unless Ubuntu comes bundled with cheap computers, it will not break into main stream. Well, thats about the change...

News this morning, the un-official Google OS called gOS, it exactly what I've been preaching about. A version of Ubuntu with pre-configured Google applications like GMail, GDesktop, GTalk, GDocs, GToolbar and GMaps they are calling it "an alternative operating system for the masses"

"We recommend Google for just about everything... Gmail, Gtalk, Calendar, Maps, Docs and Spreadsheets, and more. We'd like to welcome you to the idea that Google already is your "operating system.'"

Here's the real kicker, Walmart has been bundling it with $200 desktop.

"We're creating an OS ecosystem that is complete. We come with all the software you need to browse the web, email, instant message... play movies, music, and connect to iPods... create and edit documents, spreadsheets, presentations, databases, images... out of the box. Plug and play!"

Now this is a big deal, offer consumers a cheap $200 easy-to-use alternative to Windows running gOS which does everything average person needs to do; send email, browser internet, write documents, listen to music and play movies. Then prove to them that they don't need a super fast leading-edge computer when they are doing majority of your activities online, and you will shake the very foundations at Microsoft.

Checkout Google Blogoscoped for a great post about gOS or visit the gOS homepage.

Painful Lesson About SKIN Files

2007-10-17T20:19:00.000-03:00

I just learned a very valuable, yet painful lesson about ASP.NET SKIN files. My goal is define ASP.NET controls in .Skin file using the CssClass attribute to reference the CSS class in stylesheet, allowing the ability for user to upload their own stylesheet. I had the following block of code defined in my .Skin file:

<asp:Table runat="server" CssClass="table">
<asp:TableCell runat="server" CssClass="tableCell" />
<asp:TableHeaderRow runat="server" CssClass="tableHeaderRow"/>
<asp:TableRow runat="server" CssClass="tableRow"/>
<asp:TableFooterRow runat="server" CssClass="tableFooterRow"/>
</asp:Table>

Notice that the Table tag wraps around the TableHeaderRow, TableRow, TableCell and TableFooterRow tags, just as it would on normal page. Looks OK right right? Well, the problem is that when SKIN is applied to page, this definition will actually override the Table of my page, creating an empty TableRow, the result an empty table!

Apparently others had the same problem, and although the compiler complains with warnings, this is how you need to define a Table in .Skin file:

<asp:Table runat="server" CssClass="table" />
<asp:TableCell runat="server" CssClass="tableCell" />
<asp:TableHeaderRow runat="server" CssClass="tableHeaderRow"/>
<asp:TableRow runat="server" CssClass="tableRow" />
<asp:TableFooterRow runat="server" CssClass="tableFooterRow"/>

Notice how TableHeaderRow, TableRow, TableCell and TableFooterRow tags are NOT nested inside Table tag, and everything is now displayed fine.

Craziness!

Naming Convention: LabelAddress Or lblAddress?

2007-10-17T12:06:00.001-03:00

Naming convention is always a much heated debate, and has been the cause of many broken marriages. Doing a search for .NET naming conventions you'll tonnes of pages outlining industry standard and I agree with about 95% of them:

Class Names - MainForm
Class Members / Properties - FirstName
Interfaces - IPerson
Private Class Variables - _FirstName
Local Variables - mailingAddress
Parameters - postalCode

So far, things look good, I'm happy. The one that bothers me, is the convention for ASP.NET controls. Many sites say that ASP.NET controls should start with control abbrev prefix starting in lowercase, then followed by CamelCase describing the control. For example, a Label that stores an address would be called lblAddress.

Gross! This goes against the rest of other .NET conventions, suddenly now we are abbrev and starting class variables with lowerCase, why?. To follow the other conventions, this variable should really be called LabelAddress. Here are my arguments why:

Visual Studio Default - Dragging a Label onto a page, the default name is Label1, and not lbl1. Why would be go against the default format that Visual Studio uses?
Abbrev Can Be Confusing - "I can't remember, did I name my Panel pnlAddress or was it panAddress?" It's easy for different developers to use a slightly different abbrev for same controls, creating inconsistency through your code.
All Other Class Members Area Uppercase - A quick IntelliSense on Page shows that the rest of it's members start with UpperCase
Easier To Read - A capitalizes full name of control is easier to read and understand

Here is the general rule I believe:

"Abbrev should be avoided when possible and all names should be UpperCamelCase; except for parameters and local variables which should be lowerCamelCase, or private class members which should start with _Underscore"

I think that statement holds true, because ClassNames, MethodNames, ClassVariables, PropertyNames, FileNames and InterfaceNames should all be UpperCamelCase.

Finally, for code to be easily maintainable by others, you have to ask yourself:

"If someone reads only this snippet, will they be able to understand what these variables are and what this code does?"

Thoughts? Arguments? Rants?

Sun's Virtual Reality Interface Demo

2007-10-15T17:35:00.000-03:00

Ok, this is cool, Sun demos their new SPOT (Small Programmable Object Technology) combined with Project Looking Glass to create virtual reality interface right out of Minority Report:

Here are some more videos of Sun's Project Looking Glass on YouTube.

Stop Dashboard Widget and Script

2007-10-14T17:14:00.001-03:00

Although I love OS X Dashboard, there are times when I'm just not using it and don't want it sucks up resources. Here is a great widget that will kill Dashboard and free its resources.

"All this widget does is kill the Dock process (which Dashboard is a part of). MacOSX will automatically restart the Dock but without Dashboard in memory. Press F12 to start it up again."

The only draw back is that if Dashboard is not completely loaded, opening Dashboard to use this widget sort of defeats the purpose. So, an alternative is to use this Apple Script:

tell application "Dock"
quit
launch
end tell

And then fire off the script using Quicksilver:

Picasa Web Albums Widget Creator

2007-10-14T15:39:00.000-03:00

Currently Picasa only let's you embed a single album into your blog, which is a bit of a drag if you wanted to show all your public albums. Luckily, phdeaux3 developed a handy little page which lets you select all your public albums, customize slideshow settings and easily embed widget into your blog. You can create your own slideshow here.