A Tasty Pixel » Posts

Understanding error codes

Just in case there’s someone else that didn’t know this, when one gets an error code from one of the iPhone/OS X SDKs with no other information available, it can usually be looked up in the MacErrors.h header. Just open a terminal, type:

open -h MacErrors.h

Then do a search for your error code and you’ll hopefully find a corresponding macro name that gives some indication of what went wrong.

Failing that, if you have an inkling of where the error occurred (eg. the AudioToolbox framework), then you can often find the error defined within the framework’s headers:

$ grep -r '10863' /Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/SDKs/iPhoneOS2.1.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/AudioToolbox.framework/ /Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/SDKs/iPhoneOS2.1.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/AudioToolbox.framework/Headers/AUGraph.h: kAUGraphErr_CannotDoInCurrentContext = -10863,

That was, type in Terminal grep -r 'the error code', then drag the framework straight from XCode into the Terminal, where the path will be inserted.

Links for February 10th through February 27th

Links for February 10th through February 27th:

TinEye Reverse Image Search TinEye is a reverse image search engine. You can submit an image to TinEye to find out where it came from, how it is being used, if modified versions of the image exist, or to find higher resolution versions.
Traffic Shaping in Mac OS X | Mac Geekery "…Create several pipes that have a set bandwidth and other properties for all packets that get filed into them; you then add queues to those pipes that determine what priority certain requests will get in that pipe; then you add actual firewall rules to identify packets and file them into queues."
Brandon Walkin » Introducing BWToolkit BWToolkit is a BSD licensed plugin for Interface Builder 3 that contains commonly used UI elements and other useful objects. Using these objects is as simple as dragging them from the library to your canvas or document window. In particular, "No Code" preferences window and tabbed sheets.
Aussie iPhone app developers and the IRS? Discussion about tax details for Australian iPhone developers. It appears the advice from Apple on the tax form is incorrect for sales on the App Store.
google-toolbox-for-mac – How to do iPhone unit testing This is a quick tutorial on doing iPhone unit testing using the facilities in the Google Toolbox For Mac

Facebook News Feed RSS

Tired of either logging into Facebook frequently, or being entirely oblivious to friends’ activities, I was searching for a way to view the Facebook front page news feed as RSS, so I could load it into my news reader and forget about it.

‘Nemik’ has created such a thing and kindly made it available. It was a bit elderly, and didn’t work with the new Facebook, so I jazzed it up a bit.

Put it on a webserver, configure it, and access the URL to view the RSS feed. Probably a very good idea to provide password protection, as well.

Use at your own risk, and Facebook, please don’t sue me.

Download the script here

Happy Birthday, Loopy (Thanks, Apple)

Loopy is 2 months old!

More interestingly, it’s just passed the $4000 AUD ($2640 USD, or $2050 EUR – stupid Australian dollar!) earnings point, which works out at about $500 a week. For essentially a niche app, I’m pretty damn happy.

I can’t think of any other marketplace in history where almost anyone can jump in with an idea and a little ability, and come out with something resembling a salary almost immediately. I can’t imagine the indie lifestyle has ever been more attainable.

Apple have done something amazing here, in creating a marketplace fully equipped with their mature infrastructure, their brand, and most importantly, their enormous user base. They’re basically giving developers the fruits of all the work they’ve done over the past decades in building Apple’s brand and customer base (in return for 30% of sales, of course!).

Now that’s some profitable symbiosis. Apple – thank you.

Developing Loopy, Part 2: Implementation

This is part 2 of a series following the development of Loopy, my iPhone app.

In part 1, I wrote about Loopy’s interface. Part 2 will be more technical, and will cover some challenges encountered during the evolution of Loopy from concept and mockup to working software. Or, more specifically, the stupid things I did along the way.

Links for January 31st through February 9th

Links for January 31st through February 9th:

Lost and Taken Free stock textures for your graphic design and photography projects
NSCollection Extensions Weird and wonderful extensions to key/value coding ([myRecordCollection valueForKeyPath:
@"[collect].{artist like 'Tom Waits'}.<NSUnarchiveFromDataTransformerName>.albumCoverImageData"])
Free Fonts Generator Make Your Own Handwriting Font
Grayson’s pluginmanager A series of classes that provides support for a vast number of scripting languages as well as standard Cocoa bundles
Deezer Listen to full songs online: Good for getting a preview of albums, much better than iTunes' silly 30 second snippets

Developing Loopy, Part 1: Interface

Loopy is my first iPhone app, a loop-based performance/musical scratchpad app based on looping audio equipment and inspired by, equally, the fantastic and free “Freewheeling” application, and an a capella performance by Imogen Heap.

It’s development was a whirlwind of obsessive coding, near-vertical learning curves, impatience, excitement and occasional burnout and writers block.

I thought I’d share some facts and lessons learned from the process, in a several-part article. For part 1, read on.

Monday to Friday (And Most Of Saturday) Zombies

The 9-5-plus-preparation-and-commute, five-day-a-week, living-for-the-weekend lifestyle is one I’ve become increasingly unimpressed by, particularly after meeting my partner Katherine three years ago and realising that life has so much more to offer (mostly, West Wing and Indian food delivered). Not so long ago I came to the decision that it just wasn’t for me; that living a balanced life was too important. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my pretty-easy-going PhD (and there may only be one thing, aside from the less comprehensible your writing is, the smarter you must be), it’s that I don’t want the big career I planned for. I just want to enjoy my life with Katherine, see the world, create awesome stuff, and do what I can to help some other folks along the way. I think I’m fortunate enough to have the ability to give it a shot.

Writing About It

Emailing with a new visitor to the blog, Charley, gave me the idea of focusing a little more on this journey towards true freedom and independence – the merging of career into lifestyle (not the other way around). This is a bit of a career ‘holy grail’ to many of us – at least, it is to me – and while it’s mostly for my own benefit, writing about my efforts might make for a moderately interesting story arc, and give this blog a little direction.

This will be a story about indie software development, the amazing, wonderful and supportive community that is the Mac world, the awesome marketplace that is the iPhone App Store, travel, play, hard work and hopefully quite a bit of luck.