Darn if the ISP serving up our PHP and WordPress content wasn’t attacked with an exploit. So I did a lot of learning as I cleaned up my web server, this past weekend. The goal of this exploit was to infect visitors of the web site with viruses by coercing visitors’ browsers to download malware from predefined third-party sites, seeded with the malware. That means modifying web site code to send visitors to those malicious sites.
After noticing some strange behavior that tripped my anti-virus software on my Windows machine, Read the rest of this entry »
Objective-C is the programming language of choice for iOS an Mac OSX programming, so becoming proficient in native programming for those platforms is essential to building great applications. Apple emphasizes that programmers must understand the “retain-release” model of how to manage objects. True, but this is not enough. Unfortunately, Objective-C makes it exceedingly easy to inadvertently write code that breaks the retain-release model, leading bugs that cause programs to crash. You can adopt some practices to avoid such problems. Read the rest of this entry »
With thanks to “moomin lens” via Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/jumpn_around/185876077/
There are 100s of PHP frameworks out there, but I have been so frustrated with so many of them; they are either too complex, not well designed, not well documented, buggy, or all of the above. Also, there is a lot of great technology for PHP that are notfull frameworks. It’d be nice to have a framework that does not try to do everything but, instead, allow easy integration of “best of breed” technologies. And a much more subjectively, only a subset of frameworks out there (though growing) embrace object design as typical of traditional, non-web programming using C++, Java, C#, etc. PHP 5 allows that kind of programming, but not all framework developers have embraced that approached it yet. I’ve spend a non-trivial amount of time with the following (well, I haven’t spend enough time with Kohana, yet): Read the rest of this entry »
We are excited to watch the Facebook developers conference live stream. Last night we started experiencing programmers pain since they’ve rolled out some changes prior to updating the documentation. The Hand Things Down app which is launching this weekend has broken so we are anxiously awaiting updates to the documentation. We are hoping to stay on our release schedule and will likely have to work night and day to hit our deadlines. Hurry up Zuck!
I recorded this video after coming home from Extreme Pitch. I wanted to give advice on what to do to calm yourself before a pitch. I think I managed to say don’t drink too much coffee and go to yoga, that advice probably won’t work for most people. Sorry guys! Read the rest of this entry »
Way back in in “I Just Want to Create a Frickin’ iPhone App! (Part 1),” I walked you through the logistics of joining the developer program (no, you didn’t miss “Part 2,” I have not written it yet). Fast-forward a couple of months and it’s time to submit to the app store! For a company that has built a reputation on simplicity, Apple has concocted an arcane process and made it worse by not providing any complete nor accurate information to help with the application submission process. Apple’s minimalistic approach is of no help… you often feel like your flying blind as you try to make your way through the process. I’ll try to give some heads-up and clarity if you, too, are going through this for the first time.
So, let’s hope I can remember all that I went through.
Enter a name for this application. This is just for reference; it will not appear to a user.
Select the “Bundle Seed ID”. Normally you will want to select the one that was assigned to you, in the drop down.
Define the App ID Suffix. This has to match the ID that is bound into the application, so you will probably want to copy the one assigned to the application you’ve been building, lest it be recognized as an entirely new application. This is not critical, but if you have beta testers and you change the App ID, the next update will not overwrite the older version of the app, they will have to delete the old one, explicitly.To find (or change) the current Bundle identifier in Xcode 4.x, select the Target of the project. The Summary tab shows the Bundle identifier in the “Identifier” field; or, in the “Info” tab, it shown as “Bundle identifier”. Of course, these settings come from the project’s .plist file, so you can access its “CFBundleIdentifier” (aka “Bundle identifier”) explicitly. The value in the app should be the reverse domain name, for example, “com.handthingsdown.htdmobile”; do not prefix the “Bundle Seed ID” to the bundle identifier in the app.
This value should match the Bundle Identifier field when creating a new App ID. As noted in the “How To” tab, you can use wildcards for this value; however, a fully qualified ID is necessary to utilize the various services (e.g., Push Notification, Game Center, iCloud).
Be sure the “Distribution Method” is set to “App Store”.
Select the App ID from the previous step to associate with your application.
You wont have to — or be able to — select devices to include, as you would for ad hoc provisioning.
Once the profile has been created, download and add it to your Xcode profiles.
Create an archive build of your application, build for release and utilizing the App Store provisioning profile.
If you haven’t already, you may want to duplicate the Release build-configuration to “Distribution App Store” (making sure that the target is not selected go to Xcode’s menu: Editor →Add Configuration →Duplicate “Release” Configuration.
In the project’s target’s go to Build Settings →Code Signing →Code Signing Identity. Below the build configuration you will use to build the Archive, set the “Any iOS SDK” setting to the provisioning profile you created for distribution to the App Store. (For the build configuration itself, I selected “Don’t Code Sign”; but I do not know if that matters).
Modify build scheme’s Archive to use the build configuration you configured and build the Archive.
From the Organizer’s Archive view, select and “Validate…” the binary. This performs (only) some tests of the module before uploading.
We will jump away from Xcode for a moment….
So you thought you were done signing up with programs with Apple? First an Apple ID, then the Developer Center, then an iOS Developer, and now iTunes Connect, itunesconnect.apple.com. Go to a web page and set up an account. This is where you will manage the applications that you submit to the App Store.
Once your account is created, go to “Manage Your Apps” and select “Add New App”.
Fill in the app name, SKU, and select a Bundle ID. Note that none of these settings can be changed once the app has been accepted by Apple.
Click the “Ready to Upload Binary” button to start the process. The upload does not occur via the web page.
Go back to Xcode. Since the Archive was just built, the Organizer window should be open with the Archive view shown. Be sure the correct Archive is selected (at the top of the list).
Upload your application to Apple. There is the new, complicated way (which I used) and an old simpler way, that should still work—so I hear. So, back to Xcode…
First, the old, simple way. Ignore the messages on the iTunes Connect web page about the Application Loader. From Xcode’s Organizer window’s Archive’s view, click the “Submit…” button. That’s it!
Now the difficult way:
Click the “Share…” button. to build “iOS App Store Package”
Select App Store certificate
Open Application Loader and follow its steps to upload the .ipa file that was created in Xcode.
Once the module has been submitted, there are additional automated checks that take place. So, wait an hour or so and check back at the iTunes Connect page. The status should change, if the module was accepted. If not, check your email to see what kind of errors may have occurred.
If it passed the automated checks, you can now wait nervously for actual humans to vette the application. Expect this to take a full week.
I am addicted to Twitter. There, I said it, admitting it is the first step, right? Over the last year, posting to Facebook has diminished, especially as I became more and more fascinated by Twitter. The biggest attraction is real-time news whether it’s what’s trending locally, articles about technology or startups, or conversations about my favorite topics. I love reading and consuming what’s going on, even if I do most of my reading late at night and into the wee hours of the morning.
I love sharing information and the conversations around various hashtags opens my mind to different ideas. During the work day, I limit information consumption so I can power through my to do list and have productive meetings. Yet the minute I get a free moment I’m compelled to check the feed to see what’s going on. Does anyone else feel this way? Hidden obsessive-compulsive tendencies?
It’s ok, if you don’t follow me. I tweet up to a hundred times a day which can be overwhelming to a casual user or anyone new to Twitter.
This is what I post:
Content from startup or social media events.
Content I’m reading, using Twitter to “bookmark” since it’s automagically backed up on Backupify.
Conversations on the following hashtags: #startup, #leanstartup, #smcphx, #socialmedia, #UFC, #phxlatenite
Random thoughts throughout the day.
Checkins on Gowalla/Foursquare/Facebook/Google+
Here are the mobile Twitter apps I use for iPhone:
Echofon – my favorite for browsing the feed and having twitter conversations.
Smartr – to read articles tweeted by people I follow without the noise of the conversations.
Hootsuite – to schedule articles and shorten links.
Tweetdeck – to post tweets longer than 140 chars, it’s laggy on my device so I use it very rarely.
Twitter – I use this the least and can’t figure out why I haven’t deleted it.
What are your favorite Twitter apps? Who else is addicted to Twitter?
When you’re involved in social media, engagement is everything. Do you ever wonder what would happen if you suddenly stopped posting? This is the question I wanted to answer with the experiment on “How to Trash Your Klout Score“. Business owners believe social media needs near constant engagement, one of the questions I wanted to answer was what is the bare minimum you need to do so you can run your business or even go on vacation while still providing your customers a great online experience. I will post those guidelines after the experiment ends on July 17.
Seven days into the experiment, my Klout score is holding steady at 52 points. I had to tweet for an hour on July 8th for the Social Media Club Twitter Chat on the topic of Finding Balance for your Professional and Personal Life Online. If you look at each data point in the graph my score was going up incrementally for a couple days after this event. Since I stopped tweeting on my account it had a negative impact on Merlin U Ward’s (@MerlinUWard) brand, resulting in a 6% drop in reach for him. You can read the details and additional metrics on Merlin’s blog.
When I started the experiment on my Klout score, I never thought it would impact anyone else. Merlin bet my Klout score would drop 5 points, my goal was to drop 7 points. For people or businesses who only push out content or talk AT people, disconnecting may not have noticeable impact on anyone else’s reach. I believe Merlin’s reach dropped since we use Twitter as if it was instant messaging and texting to discuss my favorite topics, technology and business or fun things like #futzing and #wordswithfriends. I post a lot of articles on startups and entrepreneurship which ties into the conversations we are having publicly, you can think of it as tweet radio.
The interesting side effect of this experiment is how the Klout score for my business account has gone UP. I’ve been tweeting out of the Hand Things Down Twitter account (@handthingsdown) and using it to have conversations I would normally have on my personal account. The other night, there was an informal Twitter chat about when the next #Twilight movie “Breaking Dawn” would be premiering. The Twilight series is near and dear to most moms which is the group I normally socialize with on this account. Since using @handthingsdown to have more conversations, the Klout score went up nearly 4 points in a week!
The lesson from the last few days; your Klout score will go up dramatically just by talking to people and BEING SOCIAL, it is after all social media. It’s not an exotic animal to be gawked at from the outside, it’s more like happy hour where you get to know people and discuss topics you are passionate about.
I’ve been following a social experiment with great interest over the last couple of weeks. Merlin U Ward challenged himself to become influential over #futzing in Klout in 10 days. He chose a word that wouldn’t be used in normal conversation for his “scientific” experiment. At first, I ignored using the #futzing hashtag on Twitter, hoping it would go away because I didn’t know what it meant. I also had no desire to accidentally have #futzing attached to my name. When I realized I can hide word in Klout I decided to join in on the fun, as a by product my own Klout score raised 4 points over 30 days, even going up 1 point in the last 5 days.
I thought this was interesting since social media junkies are all slightly obsessed with raising Klout. I’ve never been one to follow the pack so why not do the exact opposite for 10 days?
In an effort to see the results of influence within Twitter, I disconnected my Facebook account which resulted in an immediate 2 point drop in Klout. Then I disconnected Linkedin to receive a 4 point drop in Klout to 52 points.
10 Day Plan
Last tweets before going silent is to moderate the Social Media Club Phoenix Chat on how to separate your professional and personal life online on July 8 from 2:00 – 3:00 pm using the hashtag #smcphxchat
Respond to @mentions on DM to reduce the number of tweets from my account to nearly zero over the next 10 days. This will be hard since I’ve recently switched to using Twitter to replace instant messaging and text messaging. Most of my conversations are public, I have no secrets.
Don’t post any content I’m reading to Twitter, post directly to Linkedin.
Report back in 5 days with a screenshot showing the Klout score at that time.
If you want to follow this experiment, don’t forget to sign up to get it delivered to your mailbox or RSS reader. You can also follow on Twitter @CherylMarquez.
Klout score after disconnecting Facebook and before disconnecting Linkedin.
Klout score after disconnecting LinkedIn.
Note: This entire post was written on my iPod Touch in Evernote, then pasted into the WordPress app. This is why the screenshots of Klout are from an iOS device instead of the web.
Normal people look forward to the weekend to relax and hangout with their friends. Entrepreneurs, go to Startup Weekend and decide to get involved in another exciting project. Friday morning, I woke up, got ready, and packed my purse with everything I would need to work for the day. My gear included; netbook, power charger, phone, iPod, extended battery, headphones, mouse, notebook, pens, makeup, extra t-shirt with geek logo, webcam, mouse, and USB hub. Yes, I did pack all of that in my very stylish black patent leather purse that I had to use because they matched my shoes.
I stopped by Gangplank to drop off the stuff for the Women 2.0 Founder Friday happy hour. Hand Things Down was hosting this networking event for the ladies attending Startup Weekend. Then drove to the Chandler Public Library to attend Startup 101. Startup 101 was a chance to get a primer before the weekend for anyone new to the world of being an entrepreneur. They had panels talking about creating a team, product development, and execution.
I thought the best talk was about building teams and resolving conflict given by Derek Neighbors and Jade Meskill. Here are some of their key points.
Create a team with a common vision.
Look at the vision and use that to help guide decisions and conflict resolution.
Read “Core Protocols” to learn about conflict resolution.
Ask people at the beginning about their level of commitment.
You should NOT compromise, negotiate for the best of each idea.
Teams of developers and business people should sit together to discuss direction as the weekend progresses.
As the evening kicked off, the ladies of Startup Weekend got together for Founder Friday happy hour to get to know each other before we joined the guys. There was some good discussion and an exchange of Twitter handles so we could follow each other during and after the weekend.
When Startup Weekend kicked off, we heard about 28 pitches and then the mayhem of self-forming teams commenced. Two teams stood out for me. One of them was Chow Locally who is creating a locavore website to connect local farmers with consumers and delivering the farm fresh veggies and fruit to the Phoenix Public Market. The second team I was interested in was called Surpriz.es and this is the team I joined for the weekend. Surprizes collects birthday freebies and presents them to you on your special day with Facebook and Twitter greetings. Now you can feel the birthday love all day as you go out and collect your freebies.
So that wraps it up for Day 1. Tomorrow I will be writing up birthday related blog posts for Surprizes and greeting people for their birthdays on Twitter. Sign up for your birthday Surpriz.es.
Darn if the ISP serving up our PHP and WordPress content wasn’t attacked with an exploit. So I did a lot of learning as I cleaned up my web server, this past weekend. The goal of this exploit was to infect visitors of the web site with viruses by coercing visitors’ browsers to download malware from predefined third-party sites, seeded with the malware. That means modifying web site code to send visitors to those malicious sites.
Objective-C is the programming language of choice for iOS an Mac OSX programming, so becoming proficient in native programming for those platforms is essential to building great applications. Apple emphasizes that programmers must understand the “retain-release” model of how to manage objects. True, but this is not enough. Unfortunately, Objective-C makes it exceedingly easy to inadvertently write code that breaks the retain-release model, leading bugs that cause programs to crash. You can adopt some practices to avoid such problems. 
I Just Want to Submit a Frickin’ iPhone App to the App Store! (Part 3)
Way back in in “I Just Want to Create a Frickin’ iPhone App! (Part 1),” I walked you through the logistics of joining the developer program (no, you didn’t miss “Part 2,” I have not written it yet). Fast-forward a couple of months and it’s time to submit to the app store! For a company that has built a reputation on simplicity, Apple has concocted an arcane process and made it worse by not providing any complete nor accurate information to help with the application submission process. Apple’s minimalistic approach is of no help… you often feel like your flying blind as you try to make your way through the process. I’ll try to give some heads-up and clarity if you, too, are going through this for the first time.
So, let’s hope I can remember all that I went through.
.plistfile, so you can access its “CFBundleIdentifier” (aka “Bundle identifier”) explicitly. The value in the app should be the reverse domain name, for example, “com.handthingsdown.htdmobile”; do not prefix the “Bundle Seed ID” to the bundle identifier in the app.Resources
Posted in Commentary, Technical