iA – the fathers of @iawriter, are thrue minimalists designers

I’ve seen a new star – and it’s iA – or Information Architects. It’s not completely new star however, as I’ve used their Writer app since last year. Coincidentally, I’ve just read two brilliant blogposts related to iA’s founder Oliver Reichenstein:

 

The Document Library
The Document Library

You should absolutely read the two articles. They take you into the inner circle of Apple style design, and if you are open and concentrated, you will not be the same afterwards.

I’m writing this blogpost in iA Writer and doing it in focus mode. Glad to be back after a half year with Byword. Byword has a feature that I lacked sorely in iA, namely preview. By just pressing some buttons, I could get a HTML view of my post, and a possibility to copy it to my blog.
Today I happened also to find the Marked app, which listen to a document, and does a HTML view of the markdown file automatically. With this third party included, I could return to the simplicity of iA again.

I will cite Oliver Reichenstein from the above blogpost:

The iCloud Document Library folders, restricted to one level, guide us to use a simple hierarchical system that mirrors our mental model.

Hvorfor skal du oppdatere til OS X Mountain Lion?

Varsler kommer frem i Mountain Lion hvis du sveiper fra høyre

I dag skal jeg forklare en i familien om hvorfor jeg oppgraderte maskinen hennes. For meg som utvikler er det umiddelbart litt vanskelig å se for meg en annen mulighet enn å oppgradere, så nå skifter jeg fokus:

Sikkerhet, iPhone og iCloud er de viktigste grunnene for å oppdatere.

  1. Apple bruker store ressurser på holde Mac fri fra virus og ondsinnet programvare.
    1. I denne versjonen har de skjerpet kontrollen med hva du kan installere. Hvis du ikke gjør endringer, vil du bare kunne installere apper fra App Store. App Store apper har nå fått egne “hvelv” som de kjører i, og har fått begrenset tilgang til operativsystem og andre appers data. Dette systemet har vi hatt siden 1998 på iOS, og det gjør IT bruk mye sikrere.
    2. Antivirus og beskyttelse mot ondsinnet kode via Internett er også øket. Apple oppdaterer nå maskinen daglig for å beskytte deg mot dette – uten at du behøver å gjøre noe.
  2. Opplæring er sjelden nødvendig når du skal ta ibruk en ny app på iPhone eller iPad. Dette gjelder nå også Mac. Årets operativsystem fortsetter forenklingen med å innføre mye av elementene som gjør iOS enkelt å bruke. Noen eksempler er fullskjerm og varsler.
  3. På ett felt sparer jeg mye tid med iCloud. Ved å ha mine dokumenter og fotografier i iCloud kan jeg enkelt lage tekst og regneark på alle mine forskjellige Apple enheter. Og nå er Mac blitt fullstendig integrert i iCloud.

Jeg vil ikke forklare mer enn disse tre punktene: sikkerhet, enklere bruk og dokumenter i nettskyen. Hvert enkelt av disse punktene er verdt langt mer enn 140 kroner som oppgraderingen koster. (Jeg husker ennå at jeg brukte ti tusen kroner til slikt (utitilites) påWindows hvert år!)

A brilliant “padCast” preview of Apple’s performance by @Asymco

I’m waiting for the last quarter financial data from Apple. While waiting I downloaded the new Perspective app, and bought Horace Dediu PadCast on his expectations. As the event is just minutes away, I never been so enlightened as after 10 minutes with Horace. This is a really exiting tool, also for me!

 

Tutorial on programming ERP for iPhone with the new @sensiblecocoa database framework 3.0

The new unfinished user guide, provided as a PDF, is a good place to start. I followed Section 3 to set up the project.

I did made some errors; for instance I didn’t choose the Universal option when creating the project. And worse, I copied some invisible strange characters from the PDF into the source, and it ruined all.

But after a couple of days, and an hour a day, an empty project according to Section 3. was running.

Doing the first tests in Section 4. was also easy. So I decided to jump to Exploring Core Data Binding, which is what really interested me.

I did what the user guide told me, and again got an empty app. The guide didn’t mention to change the AppDelegate files, and after studying these I had a path to follow.

Since the PDF is not half completed, I looked at the samples provided. I got some ideas in the upgraded 2.0 samples, but these samples was written for earlier XCode versions.

What helped me, was the new ParseCom App. It was written in a new XCode version. So I used it’s AppDelegate files to rewrite my own project. And after some bug-fixing, it finally ran. And ran very nice indeed!

I make a receipt for you want to try it out here:

  1. Setup your project as explained in Section 3. in the PDF provided
  2. Do as told in the Section 4. “Exploring Core Data Binding”. Remember to check for Core Data.
  3. Change the AppDelegate.h to the following:

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>

//Added line
@class ViewController;

@interface AppDelegate : UIResponder`

@property (strong, nonatomic) UIWindow *window;

//Added line
@property (strong, nonatomic) ViewController *viewController;

@property (readonly, strong, nonatomic) NSManagedObjectContext *managedObjectContext;
@property (readonly, strong, nonatomic) NSManagedObjectModel *managedObjectModel;
@property (readonly, strong, nonatomic) NSPersistentStoreCoordinator *persistentStoreCoordinator;

- (void)saveContext;
- (NSURL *)applicationDocumentsDirectory;

@end>

  1. And the top of the AppDelegate.m as follows:

#import "AppDelegate.h"
#import "ViewController.h"
#import "iPadDetailViewController.h"

@implementation AppDelegate

@synthesize window = _window;

@synthesize viewController = _viewController;

@synthesize managedObjectContext = __managedObjectContext;
@synthesize managedObjectModel = __managedObjectModel;
@synthesize persistentStoreCoordinator = __persistentStoreCoordinator;

- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions
{
self.window = [[UIWindow alloc] initWithFrame:[[UIScreen mainScreen] bounds]];
// Override point for customization after application launch.
self.viewController = [[ViewController alloc] initWithStyle:UITableViewStyleGrouped];
UIViewController *rootViewController;
rootViewController = [[UINavigationController alloc]initWithRootViewController:self.viewController];`

self.window.rootViewController = rootViewController;

[self.window makeKeyAndVisible];
return YES;
}

Run it on the iPhone simulator and you should have a great template to do ERP database programming on our lovely Apple mobile devices!

Is the new @SensibleCocoa easier for ERP programming on iOS?

Last year I had high hopes for Sensible Cocoas Sensible Table View framework for iOS. But I couldn’t make the framework working as I wanted. And when Stanford came with its course, I shifted track.

The lasts months, changes had been promised to the framework in the 3.0 version. I’ve been following it, and when they reached 3.06 version with a complete documentation, I decided to update.

I also have to mention, that the investor presentation in Deloitte, Oslo and an hour long interview which Horace Dediu, did clarify both the what, how and why parts of my Global Accounting project. These clarified thoughts, together with what I saw at the SensibleCocoa website, somehow clicked together.

Starting programming Objective-C was far easier now. I’ve certainly learned a lot the last year, which made me pass a handful of hurdles in getting a Sensible Cocoa project up and running myself.

I get the sense however, that the normal SensibleCocoa customer is way more advanced than myself.

But the rest of us also need to do database programming in iOS, so I’ll write a short tutorial in the next post. Then you could self decide if the framework are easier to work with for us laymen.

Om utfordringer med å forene regnskap og mobilt IT

Betraktningen nedenfor ble gitt i en presentasjon av Sumanita for en forsamling av investorer på et Connect Norge sitt møte hos Deloitte, Oslo i denne uken. Møtets tittel var: teknologiske utfordringer i finans, bank og forsikring.

Jeg hadde 7 slides. På tredje slide, hoppet jeg ut og fortalte følgende: Read On…