Keychains, this seems to be the way to go on the iPhone for storing users usernames and passwords securely, thankfully there is a class already to use without too much work from me, so I’ve implemented this in my code and so far so good!

http://log.scifihifi.com/post/55837387/simple-iphone-keychain-code

This site also helped point me in the right direction http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1536386

So now I have my loginViewController with a login form ready for my user to enter their details and also have the means for the values they enter to be stored securely and accessed by the app later on, so the next bit is validating their input with the website via some service. The iPhone SDK seems to have some nice easy methods for calling webservices and making use of them in the app. So I need to start making some webservices from my web app. So now I’m turning my attention away from the iphone app (kinda) and looking at making RESTful services.

First stop is http://blog.garethj.com/2009/02/building-a-restful-web-application-with-php/ – not sure this is any good but its going to be my starting point.

Also looking forward to the Apple announcement, saw a linked pic of the iSlate today…. very nice! Also Google phone could be an interesting idea, but I’m still sticking to the iPhone!

So how far have i got? Well I’ve been working on it for three days on and off and I’ve set up a root controller that houses the icon interface, blank views ready for my various app views and a network detection that detect if the phone has any networking issues, if it does a network unavailable view is displayed as opposed to an alert view (might change this).

Some resources that I found useful so far are:

http://adylitica.com/2009/12/15/test-if-your-iphone-app-is-connected-to-internet/

http://www.raddonline.com/blogs/geek-journal/iphone-sdk-testing-network-reachability/

http://fuelyourcoding.com/iphone-view-switching-tutorial/

Next I need to tackle user login, sqlite3 and connection to my website using RESTful services. I’ll post as I go!

Over the last few months I’ve been busy designing the new Pride London website, we opted for a Joomla install as a CMS and all was well in the development stages but now i need to migrate the site to its new server I’m having problems after problems.

I used JoomlaPack, a module that helps back up and migrate Joomla installations, I knew something was probably going to go wrong as i had to hack some of the scripts to work on my server, but i chose to ignore these and continue with the installation.

Once I finally got the back up to work I download the rather bloaty 104MB back up folder and uploaded it to the new server. Then it took me a few attempts to get the kickstart.php script to work due to various permissions and locations of the back up files.

Finally it kicked off, but it installed all the folders and files as a root user with no write or execute permissions, so the problems get worse. All the files we there and i could see the site once i browsed to its location but none of the plugins worked, including the menu!

Now i had a bunch of files that don’t work an i can’t get rid of without the hosts intervention. So now i’m waiting the weekend for the host to get to work Monday and hopefully sort out my problem. I can over install due to the rights of the existing files .

Though this was going to be easy but sadly not. So my next attempt is going to be a manual transfer so I hope this goes easier!

I hope to revisit this after I’ve finished my never ending iPhone app. I aim to integrate message alerts, maybe a side bar for news feeds and so ajax linking to get current info. All on the list of things to do.

References that I found helpful were:

http://www.borngeek.com/firefox/automatic-firefox-extension-updates/

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/McCoy

http://www.shell-tools.net/index.php?op=hash_sha256

Also stumbled on references on how to provide a default search service using open search, so people can set your site to their default browser searches, might be something i look into:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/creating_opensearch_plugins_for_firefox

So I grabbed my windows laptop as it has the required DVD drive and installed the DVD share package so my macbook could use the drive for installing SL. I began running the installation but it came up saying i need to run disk utility to sort out my HDD.  This is where the problems began.

The SL advised that I reboot my macbook holding down the ALT option button, then choose my wireless network and select the disk, effectively booking from the dvd. The problem was I could locate my wireless drive from the drop down of wireless networks.

I tried to get one to my wireless box but i’d forgotten my username and password, so i reset the wireless box, this threw my internet connection out as the static ip information was lost. What a fool! So I phoned up O2 to sort the connection out and the outcome was i have a strange wireless box that isnt their standard one, so they swtiched me to a dynamic IP that works for now and are sending me out a new wireless box… probably a result.

So once i get the box working again and disable WEP so my wireless is an open connection (I read this might be a problem for SL installs with macbook air) but it still doesnt appear in the list, so i have a brainwave and rename the network to a shorter name than the O2 default, horrah this work it now appears in the list. It took 2hrs to install SL and now its done i’ve recovered about 10 gig of HDD. So all in all a worthwhile hassle but a bit of a waste of a Saturday evening!

Also hope to learn more about OpenSocial, the penny is finally falling on setting up my container, i’m just battling to have the time to set up the API and system required to approve developers and apps etc.

Anyone interested in attending should check out http://london-gtug-opensocial.eventbrite.com/ only about 5 tickets left and its free!

I have the idea as it links into my social site but Object C is proving to be harder to master than I liked. I’ve decided on a gently gently approach, so I’m hoping to develop a small part of the application and release it bit by bit, not sure if this is a wise strategy for the company but nonetheless its the one i’m going for.

I’ve now got 3 books of reference and probably read nearly 3/4 of each book, so i’m slowly building my knowledge and will begin the application soon.

Just for the record the books purchased are:

Beginning iPhone Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK (Paperback) -
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beginning-iPhone-Development-Exploring-SDK/dp/1430216263/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250635153&sr=1-2 – First purchase, good lead in but a little too much for me straight away, the examples were ok but didnt really fit into all i want to do.

The iPhone Developer’s Cookbook: Building Applications with the iPhone SDK: Building Mobile Applications with the IPhone SDK (Developer’s Library) -
http://www.amazon.co.uk/iPhone-Developers-Cookbook-Building-Applications/dp/0321555457/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250635153&sr=1-5 – a few tips in here, probably not a good step by step but i’ll defintely be referencing it when i get to certain feature of my app.

Phone SDK 3 Programming: Advanced Mobile Development for Apple iPhone and iPod Touch (Wiley)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/IPhone-SDK-Programming-Advanced-Development/dp/0470683988/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250635153&sr=1-6 – good book, probably be a better second version as they’ve not followed typeface convention for sample code. Very informative and i’m about  to use some of these techniques to start my app.

Always on the hunt for a better book and an OS3 one so i may add to my library shortly!

I downloaded Partuza as a guide to set up my own API and ended up getting lost, so lost in fact i had to stop. Therefore I’ve now focused my attention back on to my iPhone project (see next blog post).

http://code.google.com/p/partuza/

I’m going to revisit this again later in the year, hopefully there will be some helpful resources , websites, books or conventions to go to that will enable me to get this going. Until then this is on the back burner.

Social Networking platform

I’ve started to look at OpenSocial as a solution for my Social Networking site, as usual I’m finding documentation on these things hard to come by. I hate being an early adopter f things, too many dead ends. Having said that it has been around for a couple of years. The idea of OpenSocial is to provide a common platform/API for developers to develop mini applications that your network users can plug into their profiles.

This is a big rival of Facebooks Platform, so far I’ve installed shindig http://incubator.apache.org/shindig/ successfully and set up my developers sub domain. The next stage is proving to be a little tricky, integrating my existing MySQL database into shindig and develop an API for developers to plug into. There isn’t a huge amount of info on this but there is an example network that I’ve downloaded and begun to play with, so hopefully not too many sleepless nights ahead, I will keep you posted!

I’m now looking at the next steps via this post http://groups.google.com/group/opensocial-container/browse_thread/thread/231b48dbc4eaa1a8# to customise partuza (the text platform) http://www.partuza.nl/

I need to get this turned around fairly quick and hopefully can use some of the API in my iPhone App which I hope to launch before Christmas.