KDBDallas

I am very limited government (for the most part). However I know from the experiences in my life that health care is so bad that something has to be done and the government is the only *person* that has any type of ability. I don’t care if they have a public option or not, but they need to put in place some regulations (such as not denying for pre-existing conditions, and not raping us on price) If they did just those 2 things then I would be happy and my family would be able to get insurance. Currently we are forced to play Russian roulette with not only our lives but the life of our son.

What if you or someone in your family had something happen, and then say even years later you lose your job? You would look to get coverage some other way, but they won’t take you because of that pre-existing condition, or they will but want you to pay 2 mortgage payments worth every month, plus a huge deductible and 20-50%.

Even getting another job isn’t enough all ways. If that company is not large enough or is just getting setup with coverage they will drop the entire company or will charge everyone in the company so much that they can’t offer it…. (I have been in this exact situation so I know it’s true)

I agree that the Govt should not provide universal health care for everyone, and the current bills aren’t trying to do that. (we have read through many drafts of the bills because its so important to us) So using that as a reason to stop reform isn’t valid.

Hope that helps to explain my families views of health care reform.

My latest application, Newsprint, is now available in the iPhone App Store!

Newsprint is a professional grade feed (RSS/Atom) reader for the iPhone and iPod touch, with support for Google Reader.

You can find more info on Newsprint at: http://www.NewsprintApp.com
You can find Newsprint in the App Store by using this link: http://www.NewsprintApp.com/download

On January 24th, 1984, Steve Jobs pulled a 128K Mac out of its case in front of a crowd of reporters, turned it on, and let the computer introduce itself to the world. The rest, as they say, is history.

On January 25th, 1982, I was born.

It’s kind of sad that I am only 2 years older then the Mac.

Recently I was doing some performance stress testing on my upcoming iPhone app, Newsprint, and ran into a little Core Data gotcha that I thought I would document for both myself and for Google to index for others.

Special thanks to Jeff LaMarche for guiding me in the right direction to figure this out. You can find his blog at: http://iphonedevelopment.blogspot.com/

This issue came to play when I needed to do a fetch request from Core Data and then run a couple of Predicate “searches”/”filtering” on the data.

My original thought was that doing a single fetch request and then running my different predicates on the returned set of objects would have better performance then doing multiple fetch requests since I would only have to pull from the Core Data SQLite DB once and then I would have everything in memory and I could just simply manipulate it.

Turns out that this is HIGHLY incorrect.

If instead you just do multiple fetch requests and implement your predicate into your fetch request, that Core Data and SQLite are smart enough to scan the records more efficiently and without causing Core Data Faults to fire.

This gives a MASSIVE speed increase!

So if you are ever doing something similar, make sure to check this method and see if it to can speed your app up.

In the today’s world of software I think it is safe to say that the majority of applications offer some type of demo or trial.

For example, I offer a fully functional trial of iDeskCal for 14 days.

There are many different ways a developer/company can do/offer demos/trials.
I am not going to go into all the different ways and their pros and cons (perhaps I will in another post later).
What I want to talk about today is one thing you should NOT do no matter how you choose to implement your demo/trial.

The inspiration for this post comes from a real world experience that I had recently when trying out a trial from a company, who will remain nameless as this post isn’t about blasting them but instead educating developers no matter what platform they write for.

Recently I needed to try and recover some accidentally deleted photos.
I found an app that seemed to be exactly what I was looking for, and was excited because they offered a trial version with the statement that you can find out if their app can restore your files before you pay for the app.
I say I was excited because from my experience backup and recovery applications are ones the tend to break my rule above about most offering trials.
As I was searching a 1TB drive it took 13 hours to complete the search.

It is at this point that the app gives you a list of pictures to view and select to restore, so I started selecting items from the 70Gig worth of images it found (which took a while).
I hit restore forgetting that I was still in trial mode, at which point the application reminded me that to restore I needed to purchase a license.

Up to this point everything with the trial was fine.
There are some things they could have done to make it even better, but in general it was fine.
But this is the point where it took a face dive as well.

I am redirected to their website, as expected, and I purchased a license.
After purchasing I was expecting to get a serial number or registration file, but alas no….

It was at this point (and ONLY this point) that I was informed that the trial application executable was ONLY a trial executable.
I now had to download their app a second time, this time without limitations.
Which meant that after running for 13+ hours I had to lose everything I had done.

This is the main point of this post.
Let me say this clearly and to the point….

DO NOT DO THIS!

Now that were clear, let me explain the reasons why you should not do this.

Lets start with the general aspects that apply to any program.
Firstly, there is no reason to make your customer download your program again.
By them purchasing you should be making their life easier not harder.

Secondly, depending on your programs focus there is a good chance that a large amount of your customers are not going to be geeks.
In fact the opposite is more likely to be true.
Chances are that most of your customers will the type that know just enough to get around, or less!
This means any extra steps in your process adds to the chance for confusion.
This is bad is very which way, as it frustrates the user who is likely to make that frustration known to others, as well as increases the chance that you will receive a support request, which if you are a small development shop means you have to stop coding to respond to the support request.

Last yet most importantly, If your program lets users do any kind of data manipulation give the user a way to save that data, so by purchasing they do not lose anything they did in the trial.
If your trial doesn’t let them save without purchasing, then you REALLY should not be having separate executables.
At VERY least give them the ability to save into a proprietary file format, that you can go as far as encrypting if you need/want.

Along with this, make sure that the user can Open that saved data after installing the full version.
I was stung with this as well.
I was able to save my 13 hour search results, but when I tried to open them in the full version, the app would just crash no matter how many times I tried to open it.

Whatever you do just make sure they do not lose their work/changes!

So in conclusion, when coming up with how to do the trial for your program try and make the process as smooth as possible.
Try and make it so the user has to do a little work as possible.

Remember: Don’t screw over your paying customers just to try and keep your app from being pirated.

The book that I was the Technical Editor for, Cocoa Touch for iPhone OS 3, is now shipping from Amazon.com and should also be in (hopefully) most Barnes and Nobles.
View it at Amazon.com by clicking here.

This book is great for new iPhone developers as well as experienced ones.
You will need some Objective-C knowledge, but if you have some OOP (Object Oriented Programming) experience you should be ok with picking up an Objective-C book as well for as you work through the book.

If you are in a B&N stroll into the Geek, err, I mean Computer Programming section and look for the book.
Feel free to buy a copy to support my good friend and author of the book, Jiva DeVoe.
If you can’t get yourself to that level of geek, at least pick it up and look at the ‘Credits’ page, right before the Table of Contents and then you can go around to all the geeks in that area and say, “I KNOW THIS GUY!”

This makes 2 iPhone development books that I have been involved in, each one with more of a role than the last, however I can safely say it will be my last as after being involved with the book writing processes and having the author be a close friend of mine, I don’t really have a desire to write one myself (unless it’s an offer I just can’t refuse).

After pending review for more than 8 months, we are happy to announce that KidFlix was officially approved for sale today!

KidFlix is for parents with small children. KidFlix stops kids from accidentally activating the on-screen controls while listening to audio or watching videos on your iPhone or iPod Touch. Therefore eliminating accidental exits, fast-forwards, etc and therefore eliminating the need for you to constantly fix the problem.

KidFlix is not meant to be a substitute for proper child care, but instead to be a helping hand in keeping your child entertained.

As a parent of a young child I know how valuable of a tool this program can be when you are at say a restaurant and your child starts getting bored.

You can purchase KidFlix for $1.99, directly from the App Store by following the URL:
itms://itunes.apple.com/us/app/kidflix/id307595676?mt=8

MacHeist is giving away six free apps this week!

If all that software makes you hungry for even more, take advantage of the “OneFingerDiscount” coupon code, and get 20% off (that’s 1/5 free!).

SOME of the participants include:

• HashBang Industries
• Red Sweater Software
• Centrix.ca
• Calf Trail Software
• Watchmac

AND MANY MORE!

Check out One Finger Discount for a list of all of the participants and quick note about the type(s) of software each company specializes in.

Try them all, buy what you like! It’s almost a steal!

Today marks the end of an era…

Today we mark the end of GeoCities!

GeoCities was the premiere place to get your own personal “web space” back circa-1995.
GeoCities provide the initial playground for many of today’s web professionals (including myself).

I remember many-a-night hacking away on my GeoCities page.
Having informal feuds with others on who could do the best site with the latest and greatest web technologies of the times, like frame and guest books!

GeoCities has therefore always been, and continued to today’s closure, the ultimate place to find the worst looking webpages with the most crap and the worst code.

In honor of the closing I took it on myself to throw everything I know from doing professional web development for 12 years, out the window and come put together the following for your enjoyment.