Command-Tab

Wednesday, October 1st, 2008 at 10:19 AM

After hearing the cries of thousands of upset iPhone app developers, Apple has lifted the non-disclosure agreement covering (released) iPhone software. Developers can now freely talk about the inner workings of their applications, write books, publish blog entries, etc. Communicating developers means solutions to common problems get solved and shared, resulting in better software, making the iPhone and iPod Touch platform better as a whole.

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…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 1st, 2008 at 10:19 am and is filed under Apps, Programming, iPod. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Saturday, September 20th, 2008 at 5:09 PM

While working on some iPhone and iPod Touch apps, I found that the iPhone OS automatically masks and overlays your application icon for quick and easy development. You supply a square 57×57 pixel image, and it rounds off the corners and overlays the Mac-like gloss to create a consistent look.

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 (seen above, the template overlaying the great-looking Summizer icon)!

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 20th, 2008 at 5:09 pm and is filed under Apps, Photoshop, Programming, iPod. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Saturday, September 13th, 2008 at 2:40 PM

For those eagerly anticipating Widerbug: Widescreen Firebug for Firefox 3, the wait is over. Firebug 1.2.1 was just recently released, and I’ve merged the Widerbug modifications into the latest version and tested them under Windows XP and Mac OS X on Firefox 3.0.1.

Head on over to the Widerbug page to grab the latest version and get coding, widescreen style! (Please leave comments and note any bugs on that page, just to keep things centralized.)

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 13th, 2008 at 2:40 pm and is filed under Programming, Projects. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Saturday, September 6th, 2008 at 9:43 PM

The result of the “Tunes” sidebar element on the Command-Tab homepage, fmTuner is a small WordPress plugin for retrieving song details from your Last.fm profile and publishing them anywhere in your WordPress theme. It provides options for choosing among your Recent, Loved, or Top tracks, as well as tools to adjust the update frequency and appearance:

Of particular note is the customizable Display Format option. Using simple tags like [::artist::] and [::image::] intermixed with regular HTML, you can tweak your Last.fm tracks exactly how you like, or however your WordPress theme requires. You have full control!

Requirements

• WordPress 2.5 or later.
• PHP 5 or later (fmTuner uses PHP 5’s SimpleXML for decoding Last.fm data).
• Basic knowledge of PHP, HTML, and WordPress.

Installation

• Upload “fmtuner.php” to a directory inside “/wp-content/plugins/” directory. For example: “/wp-content/plugins/fmtuner/fmtuner.php”
• Ensure “/wp-content/plugins/fmtuner/” is writable by your webserver (chmod 755 fmtuner).
• Activate the plugin through the “Plugins” menu in WordPress.
• Set up options in the “Settings” menu in WordPress.
• Place “if(function_exists(’fmtuner’)) { fmtuner(); }” in your templates, between PHP tags.

Release History

• fmTuner 1.0.3
  Released on Nov. 15, 2008
  By request, a [::number::] fmTuner tag has been added, which emits a sequential number for each track (starting at 1). This is particularly useful for CSS and JavaScript display purposes.
• fmTuner 1.0.2
  Released on Oct. 5, 2008
  Added a cURL-based alternative to file_get_contents to hopefully resolve “URL file-access is disabled” issues. If allow_url_fopen is disabled in the php.ini, cURL will be used to fetch the Last.fm feed instead.
• fmTuner 1.0.1
  Released on Sept. 9, 2008
  Added better failure checking and informational messages, removed development code, and updated instructions.
• fmTuner 1.0
  Released on Sept. 6, 2008
  Initial release.

Released under the MIT License. Do with fmTuner whatever you wish. Mod it, mash it, hack it. Make it yours.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 6th, 2008 at 9:43 pm and is filed under Programming, Projects, WordPress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.