TypePad “stole” my precious 80 USD

Posted in Uncategorized on October 7, 2008 by tzkuei

I tried out TypePad as a blogging platform, and being a very impatient person, I soon got annoyed with it’s online help.  Whatever I searched, I ended up with the same set of results, none of which answered my query.

Out of rage, I cancelled by account, which was paid in full, because I forgot to cancel it before the “trial” period was up, and lost my precious 80 USD, in these hard times!

I shall be sticking to WordPress, it really is a far superior blogging platform.

iTunes 8.0.1 is available on Software Update…

Posted in iPhone Development on October 2, 2008 by tzkuei

iTunes 8.0.1 improves stability and performance and provides a number of important bug fixes, including:

• Seamlessly plays the current song when creating a new Genius playlist.

• Improves syncing spoken menus to iPod nano.

• Addresses an issue of deleting HD TV episodes when downloading.

• Improves checking for updates from the App Store

• Improves accessibility with VoiceOver.

• Addresses problems syncing Genius results to iPod.

Apple have decided to drop the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for released iPhone software!

Posted in iPhone Development on October 1, 2008 by tzkuei

“To Our Developers

We have decided to drop the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for released iPhone software.

We put the NDA in place because the iPhone OS includes many Apple inventions and innovations that we would like to protect, so that others don’t steal our work. It has happened before. While we have filed for hundreds of patents on iPhone technology, the NDA added yet another level of protection. We put it in place as one more way to help protect the iPhone from being ripped off by others.

However, the NDA has created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success, so we are dropping it for released software. Developers will receive a new agreement without an NDA covering released software within a week or so. Please note that unreleased software and features will remain under NDA until they are released.

Thanks to everyone who provided us constructive feedback on this matter.”

Petz for the iPhone?

Posted in Uncategorized with tags on July 31, 2008 by tzkuei

Remember Petz for the Nintendo DS? How about a version of for the iPhone? The multi-touch interface should make petting even more realistic!

Useful TfL Links for your iPhone

Posted in iPhone Development on July 30, 2008 by tzkuei

If you use the tube daily, open Safari, browse to these links and add them to your home screen!

Service Updates
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/syndication/feeds/serviceboard-fullscreen.htm

Tube Map
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/syndication/widgets/tubemap/images/tube-medium.gif

Oh hell, servere delays on the Northern Line again!!!

Adding a Paid Applications Contract on iTunes Connect

Posted in Uncategorized on July 28, 2008 by tzkuei

I have just been trying to add a Paid Applications contract to my iTunes Connect account, the process seemed straightforward enough, I entered my Contact Info, then my Bank Info… Simple, so I thought, and then I came to the Tax Info part and @#!? what is this Form W-8BEN? More like WTF?

Anyway, I downloaded the tip sheet and the instructions, some bedtime reading!

If you are an iPhone developer in the UK and have successfully filled in this Form W-8BEN, please give me some pointers, pretty please!

More iPhone App Ideas

Posted in Uncategorized on July 28, 2008 by tzkuei

In order to drum up the interest in their Android mobile platform, Google ran a competition for the best Android applications.  I think these Top 50 Google Android Applications are just good ideas waiting to be implemented on the iPhone!

Welcome to iPhone Developer Program Portal

Posted in iPhone Development with tags on July 25, 2008 by tzkuei

I have just successfully joined the iPhone Developer Program!

I tried to enroll myself onto the program, but heard nothing until yesterday, when an email arrived…

Dear Registered iPhone Developer,

We noticed that you have not yet completed your enrollment in the iPhone Developer Program. Please log in using your Registered iPhone Developer Apple ID to continue with the enrollment process. If you have any questions, or need assistance in completing your enrollment, please contact us.

Best regards,

iPhone Developer Program

I promptly logged in and paid the registration fee, and this morning, an email arrived with my activation code…

Dear Ting Zwei Kuei,

Thank you for applying to the iPhone Developer Program. To activate, simply click on the Activation code link below

  Activation Code Part Number
iPhone Developer Program ZZZZ-ZZZZ-ZZZZ-ZZZZ D4521G/A

If you need further assistance, please contact us.

iPhone Developer Program

So now I have successfully joined the iPhone Developer Program, I know what I will be doing this weekend. :(

OCR Engine for iPhone

Posted in iPhone Development on June 17, 2008 by tzkuei

A colleague at work gave me the idea today, of developing an application where you can take a photo of the only hard copy of an important document or an interesting page in a book and have it scanned and turned into a plain text document which I can then email or add to a blog post.

IMHO it shouldn’t be too hard to write such an application since source code for OCR engines are readily available on the net, a quick search on Google Code found Tesseract OCR, a commercial quality OCR engine originally developed at HP between 1985 and 1995, and was open-sourced by HP and UNLV in 2005.

Anyone up for the challenge? I might get around to it, but only heaven knows when!

Syncing iPhone Contents Without iTunes

Posted in iPhone Development on June 17, 2008 by tzkuei

iTunes does a very good job at syncing your iPod or iPhone, but I, and probably many others wish it could be even simpler, like just drag and drop folders of MP3s, videos and photos to your iPhone. After all, we are all used to creating folders in Windows Explorer or Finder.

Manzana is a .NET library for accessing files on the iPhone, so with a “little” more work, a full drag & drop interface could be created. iPhoneBrowser is a good starting point, we just need to manage the iTunes DB.

wiSync – Automatic Folder Synchronization for iPhone/iPod Touch. Looks interesting.