• Cocoa Dev Central and Become an Xcoder are both excellent tutorials for beginners, written in a clear, straightforward manner. They also explain the ins and outs of memory management, which is critical on platforms like the iPhone and iPod touch.
• Stanford’s CS193P lecture notes and examples have proven to be one of the best resources for learning Cocoa, particularly for the iPhone. These notes and tests offer Cocoa Touch in bite-size chunks, with a little bit of “on your own” work to ensure you know your stuff before moving on.
• Google Code Search is a good last resort for examples of how others are using a small bit of code or a particular class. For more accurate results, append “lang:objectivec” to your search string to narrow results to only Objective-C code.

If you already know Cocoa, feel free to share your go-to places for information in the comments!

For some time I’ve been worried that the NDA was going to remain in place indefinitely, silencing those who Apple needs the most, but it appears Apple has finally taken a positive action to help their App Store environment grow further. If you thought there was some cool stuff on the App Store now, just give it time…

When developing an icon for a Touch-based application, it’s handy to be able to see what your rendered creation will look like without going through the hassle of exporting your icon, compiling your code, and running your software every time a change is made. To that end, I present a small Photoshop file which very closely mimics the iPhone-applied mask and gloss, which you can place over top of your in progress icon layers to approximate the final result. Also, if you dislike the gloss, or have something special in mind, you can set a certain flag in the application’s Info.plist to disable the gloss… I hope my Photoshop file will help others create great looking Touch app icons!

April 4, 2009 Update
By request, I’ve added a 512×512 version of the template as well, so you can get a good feel for what your icon will look like when displayed in iTunes. Both files are now combined in a zip archive, downloadable below.

If Coda is your primary tool for web development, and you already use Subversion, you’re most likely aware of Versions and Cornerstone, but now you can toss both of those apps and have your source code management built right into your leafy-green development environment. And, after reading how to go about setting up Subversion on MediaTemple, your Mac web development paradise should be complete, ready to start developing all those killer web apps you’ve been pondering. Check out Coda and get coding!

For those that do web development, though, the 3.0 release means another round of website compatibility testing in both the earlier release and now the current one. For the most part, this isn’t a new challenge, but Firefox can be a bit peculiar: Upon launching Firefox, it checks to see if another instance is already running, and if found, brings up a new browser window of the currently running version. So, launching Firefox 2.0 while 3.0 is running results in two 2.0 windows, and vice versa for 3.0. This effectively stops the casual user from simultaneously running both Firefox 2.0 and 3.0 side by side. As an added side effect, when you completely shut down Firefox and launch a different major version, your profile information can get skewed, resulting in sometimes strange bookmark appearance and lots of checking for updates to installed add-ons. With a little tweaking, though, Firefox 2.0 and 3.0 can be convinced to run independently, each with their own bookmarks and add-ons.

Mac OS X Instructions
Running two versions of Firefox under Mac OS X couldn’t be simpler. The freeware application MultiFirefox takes all the guesswork out of the process by automatically detecting Firefox versions in your main Applications folder and presenting you with a list from which to choose the Firefox versions you’d like to launch. Complete with self-updating (thanks to the ubiquitous Sparkle framework), MultiFirefox is the easiest way to pull off this multi-browser stunt.

Windows Instructions
If you already have Firefox (2.0 or 3.0) installed, it’s important to back up your crucial information before getting started. Navigate to C:\Documents and Settings\YourName\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox and copy your “Profiles” folder somewhere safe.

Once backed up, download Firefox 2 and/or Firefox 3, depending on what you already have installed. Launch each installer and begin setting up Firefox, but make sure to choose Custom settings. When asked for a place to install Firefox, change the path(s) to C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox 3\ (or …\Mozilla Firefox 2), instead of just “Mozilla Firefox”. In doing so, you’ll place Firefox 2 at C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox 2\, and Firefox 3 at C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox 3\. Both versions of Firefox should now be in separate folders. (If you already have one version of Firefox installed at C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\, you may choose to leave that where it is and just install the other version in a separate folder, however you’ll have to make a note of which is where, and modify the following instructions accordingly.)

Create a new shortcut to Firefox 2.0 by right-mouse-button-dragging C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox 2\firefox.exe to your Desktop (for now), and choosing “Create Shortcuts Here”. Name the shortcut “Firefox 2″. Repeat for Firefox 3, changing “2″ to “3″ where appropriate.

You’re almost there, but now we have to tell Firefox to keep the two instances separate. Open the Properties window for the Firefox 3 shortcut, and add “ -ProfileManager” (space key, minus sign, ProfileManager) to the end of the string of text in the Target field. Click OK, then run that same shortcut to bring up Firefox’s Profile Manager. Rename the existing “default” profile to “firefox3″, and also create a new “firefox2″ profile:

Once profiles are set, exit Firefox completely. With two profiles in place, each version of Firefox can have its own bookmarks, extensions, and other settings, without interfering with each other. Open up the properties windows for both the Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 shortcuts you made. Remove the -ProfileManager addition from the Firefox 3 shortcut Target, replacing it with -no-remote -p firefox3 (space key, minus sign, no-remote, space key, minus sign, ‘p’ key, space key, firefox3). Add the same to the Firefox 2 shortcut, again changing the 3 to a 2. Both shortcuts should now have the -no-remote option set, as well as -p followed by the designated profile that matches that Firefox’s version. In short, Firefox 3 gets the firefox3 profile, and Firefox 2 gets the firefox2 profile, seen below:

Click OK on both shortcuts to confirm the changes, and finally double-click each to run Firefox 2 and 3 at the same time!

Also, don’t miss LifeHacker’s Power User’s Guide to Firefox 3 for some excellent 3.0 tips and tricks, as well as ArsTechnica’s briefing of what’s to come in Firefox 3.1.

6/28/2008 Update
Here’s another excellent tutorial on running Firefox 2 and 3 at the same time, including notes on the -no-remote switch and how it can make Firefox claim it’s “already running but not responding.” That firefox.exe switch appears to be a bit of a double-edged sword.

One week ago, I purchased Coda. No, it doesn’t have Subversion support. No, it doesn’t have fullscreen mode. What I did find, though, is a unique application that neatly organizes most of the tools I need to get web development done. A syntax-completing text editor, visual or textual CSS editor, terminal, and live web preview are among my most used tools, any of which can be swapped for another, or split into multiple views. With my preferred syntax coloring set up, Coda’s split tabs make me feel right at home, editing HTML and CSS side by side with a preview of the results just a click away.

Get Back to Work
Coda makes getting back into “the zone” really quite easy with its Sites feature, which keeps track of each project’s tab arrangement, FTP settings, public URL, and more. Double-click a Site to start working right where you left off. As for publishing, Coda leverages Transmit’s FTP engine, which keeps folders in sync between your computer and web host with little effort.

A Few Shortcomings
I often work with MySQL as my data store and use CocoaMySQL as a front-end, but switching applications goes against the one-window flow that Coda tries so hard to bring together, so I installed phpMyAdmin and just use it inside a Preview tab within Coda — couldn’t be simpler. The same goes for online documentation not covered by the built-in PHP and JavaScript references. For Subversion, I’ll just use command-line ‘svn’ calls within a Terminal mode, as it’s surprisingly straightforward for a command-line utility.

Only the Beginning
As of this writing, Coda is just at version 1.1, so there’s plenty of room for it to grow (pun intended). At the very least, I hope to see fullscreen mode similar to NetNewsWire’s in the near future, so I can really get into my code and ignore little distractions like menu bar extras, Mail badges, etc. Panic has dropped their biggest application yet on the Mac web developer community, and overall, I’m very satisfied with Coda and am getting so much more done in so fewer windows.