Objective-C Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide

by Brian on January 3, 2012

Objective-C Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch GuideI’m a web developer by trade but in 2011 I started to get the urge to do some “real” programming again. What I condescendingly mean by “real” is writing software that you compile and run outside of a web browser.

I had brief affair with iPhone Apps last year but I ultimately felt uncomfortable the entire time I was making them. So for Christmas I asked and received a copy of Aaron Hillegass’ Objective-C Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide.

My bookshelf has six books about C++ on it but they were bought and read back when I was in college. And, for reference, I was a freshman back when the calendar year started with the number 19 so to say that I was a bit rusty probably goes without saying. The Hillegass book is thankfully written for people with little to no knowledge of how C works so I was grateful he spent so much time going over concepts that had collected dust in my brain for so long.

Once you get through the basic C portions of the book things move smoothly into Objective-C and the differences and similarities. If you have any kind of programming background heading in to reading this book it basically breaks down into learning the syntax of Objective-C and making sure you’ve got a handle on how pointers work. Side note: if you want a brief swim in the waters of Computer Science then check out that Wikipedia entry on pointers.

The book itself is composed of 37 chapters of varying length but most of them are between five to seven pages long. This was especially nice because slogging through a programming book, with all of its dense terminology, can get a bit tiresome. Short chapters make progress seem quick and it doesn’t discourage you into taking breaks.

You’ll spend most of your time making command-line tools in C and Objective-C but there are two short chapters on making a simple task management program for the iPhone and Mac. If you’re looking to jump right in and make iOS or Mac OS X applications then this book is the first step in that process. You won’t know learn enough from this book alone to become a full-time application writer but there are other books you can buy after finishing this one to get you on your way.

If you’re a nerd who wants to learn Objective-C and, eventually, start writing iOS Apps or Mac programs then this book is highly recommended.

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2012 Wish List – General Life Stuff

by Brian on January 1, 2012

The Shelly Beach made a list of things she wanted to do last year and I thought I’d try something similar myself for 2012. This list isn’t “career” related so hopefully those that get really sleepy reading about nerdy things won’t be bored. I’ll make those folks suffer through that list in another post.

Here is my 2012 list of things to do, in no particular order:

  • Take one photo a day. Either with my fancy SLR or just my phone. Sharing them on the social Internets is optional.
  • Facebook. I really don’t use Facebook so I need to either get active with it or just dump it completely. I’m leaning towards a dump because, quite frankly, the whole thing kind of gives me the heebie-jeebies. (Editor’s Note: I knew that word was hyphenated without having to look it up. It appears I don’t need to add “Confirm how smug and smart I think I am.” to this list).
  • Survive the Mayan Apocalypse. Or really any other apocalypse be they of Mesoamerican or zombie origin. I think years of playing video games has prepared me pretty well for any zombie scenarios but I’d rather not have to test that theory.
  • Write more. I think the word “blog” is stupid when used as either a noun or a verb. So I resolve to write more “posts” on this site and we can just ignore the irony of it all being done on the back of popular blogging software. I want to release a Kindle Single just so I can impress strangers by calling myself an author so I need all the practice I can get.
  • Move my legs in a high tempo fashion. I have $90 running shoes, a big treadmill and a FitBit so there’s really nothing else I need.
  • Become less bitter about being crushed by a professional athlete. LeBron James broke my heart but 2012 is the year I learn to love again. I’m looking at you, Kyrie Irving. This does not mean I will avoid reading The Whore of Akron though.
  • Read more history books. There once was a time when I would read over a dozen history books a year. I feel like one book a month is a nice average that falls somewhere between unthinkable to high school dropouts and pathetic to librarians and I’d like to get back to that spot this year.

There you go. Some of it is obviously a bit tongue in cheek; except the part about the zombie apocalypse which I couldn’t be more serious about.

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The Freelance Life: August to December 2011

by Brian on December 30, 2011

I’ve wanted to sit down and review all of the work I’ve been doing over the last few months as a freelancer. This is mainly for my own personal benefit but if anyone else finds it interesting that’s great too.

August

My last post here was from the beginning of August and since then things have gotten pretty hectic. Any side project plans I alluded to in that August post went up in a blaze of glory almost immediately after it was published because of the additional workload I took on.

One of my larger clients had a shift in structure and the new management asked me to come to their location, one day per week, and work out of their office. It’s a 200 mile round trip commute to get there so since the start of August I’ve only been working from my home office four days a week. This new schedule has forced me to get creative with how I handle incoming requests from my other clients but I’ve held up pretty well so far.

August also saw the launch of a mobile version of the Toledo Walleye website. They had existing Android and iPhone apps at the time but the relationship with their mobile developer was starting to show some cracks and they needed a more flexible alternative before the start of the season. The mobile site has live score updates during both home and away games which is something the now defunct apps never managed to include.

One last website launch in August was for a small apartment complex in my hometown of Tiffin, OH. Country Set Apartments has a brand new site that runs off the same content management system I built and wrote about back in November of last year.

I also dabbled a bit with WordPress by writing a custom plugin for the Scripps Legends Poll. The Scripps Legends Poll is a Top 25 College Football Poll that is voted on by former collegiate coaches like John Cooper and Bobby Bowden. The plugin I wrote helps their staff process and compile all of the votes and publish the results on their site each week.

September

The month of September included another mobile site. This time a mobile version of the Huntington Center web site was put together. There was some discussion about going forward with a full-blown mobile app (starting with something for the iPhone first) but we eventually decided on just the simple mobile site and I think that was the right decision in the end.

I also had a request to do some data collection and manipulation for a friend of mine at The Ohio State University. I probably can’t talk much about what I worked on but it wasn’t something I normally handle and it was nice to do something a bit different for a change.

There was also a brief WordPress plugin project during September. This plugin adds a “Cite this artice” link on every post and page. When a reader clicks on that link they are asked to choose a format (Harvard, MLA or APA) and then are presented with the proper citation for that particular URL.

October & November

In both October and November I was working very heavily for my on-site client and I didn’t take on many additional projects. At the on-site client, I was in the middle of a huge overhaul of their inventory system that tracks almost 10,000 SKUs and over 13 million individual pieces of product. It’s been exhausting.

The only new client I took on was a small jewelry merchant that needed a web-based calculator for their customers interested in getting a quote on custom jewelry. This was a WordPress plugin and came together quite nicely.

I filled in what little downtime I had by releasing a template for mobile app developers to promote their apps and it wasn’t very successful.

December

I finished out the year by redesigning the website for Fraser Clemens Martin & Miller LLC. They’re a local law firm that specializes in intellectual property and technology law. Once again, this was a WordPress project (a common theme in the second half of 2011 for me).

Some of my sports-related iPhone Apps received updates in December as well. I’m going to put a much more focused effort into learning the ins and outs of iPhone programming in 2012 so I can goose my revenue options a bit moving forward.

My “offical” business website was revamped this month for the first time in an embarrassingly long stretch. You can see it at iamjacksdesign.com. Fancy t-shirts and vinyl stickers with the logo will be available soon. Order today. And by order, I mean ask me for one the next time you see me.

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That Time I Turned 30

by Brian on August 9, 2011

There’s been a lot happening lately: I’m working on a new “side project” that I’m really excited about, I’ve been pumping out updates to my iPhone Apps, and my WordPress plugins have crossed some nice download milestones. Oh, and I got old. I figured I’d write a bit about everything that’s happened over the last month in one convenient post.

Old Man

The most devastating development in July was turning 30. See you in hell, twenties, because there’s no going back to the days of my youth now. A nice one-day trip to Cleveland, the city of my sports love, was in order to celebrate my birthday. We went to the zoo and an Indians game where my age was announced to all 27,000 fans in attendance on the scoreboard.

Happy Birthday, Old Timer

iPhone Apps: Updates, Lites and Sales

A change in seasons means new schedules for dozens of teams that my sports apps support. Luckily, I’ve worked out a nice little system for maintaining the schedule databases and I’m able to push out updates for each state’s app in only a few minutes. All of my current apps were updated and published on the App Store without a hitch and downloads have picked up as a result.

My US Golf Courses app has seen a significant sales decline. I’m afraid a few bad reviews basically sunk that ship. Even with the stagnant revenue I’m still on pace to do ok considering the amount of time I put into it. I also released a new version of the app, cleverly called US Golf Courses Lite, that is ad supported. I can safely say that this has been a money making disaster. I would provide you with a graph of the income the ads have generated but it would essentially be a straight line at $0.00 so I’ll save myself the trouble.

Overall, I’m on pace to do ok financially with these apps over the course of the rest of the year if things keep at their current pace. I’m not sure I’d dive right into another app idea if one sprung into my head but I’ll leave the door open to the possibility just slightly ajar.

WordPress Plugins

Two of my plugins for WordPress hit some nice download milestones worth mentioning only because my original estimates had between 1 and 5 people giving a damn about them.

WP Word Count has managed to almost reach the 2,500 download mark at the time of this post. That’s especially satisfying to me since the plugin it’s modeled after, TD Word Count, still hasn’t had 2,000 download in its lifetime.

Export Comment Authors passed the 1,000 download figure just recently. That’s not setting the world on fire but it’s nice to know that a lot of people have gotten some use out of a relatively simple little plugin.

Side Project

I don’t have much to say about my new side project yet but I’m sure I’ll write about it here in the future. It involves aggregation, of course, because I’m obsessed with that. There’s also a strong emphasis on making everything 100% automated but I’m not sure I’ll have the time to make that a reality yet. There’s a lot of spiders and crawlers involved and so far, on my local web server, everything is running very smoothly so I’m optimistic I’ll have more to say and show soon.

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