Joseph Tinsley

IPhone App Development Plans

Only a few of you know about the contract gig I’ve been working the last couple of months.
Well it looks like it’ll be coming to an end shortly. I’ve had some good times and worked with some really great people but it’s time to turn the page and look towards the next chapter.

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from my past experiences is that it’s hard to focus on a new job and be involved in side projects at the same time, at least it is for me. So I’ve decided to take a few months to myself to re-vamp some old projects I’ve been neglecting and to learn some new technologies.

One of the goals that I’ve been putting off for some time now is IPhone development. This is something that I’ve been really interested in but didn’t have the proper equipment or the time.  So this time around I plan to focus most of my efforts on developing a IPhone application. That doesn’t mean that I’m not open to listening to new opportunities, that would be crazy. What it means is that I plan to buckle down and dedicate myself to learning and understanding the process needed to get an application developed and submitted to Apple’s Application store.
I’m giving myself 6 months to do this, maybe it’s possible and maybe it’s not, we’ll see.

P.S. I’m sure I could use some help along the way so, I’m open to any advice regarding the topic.

HP 2511x and I’m loving it

This weekend my new monitor was delivered, the HP 2511X and it totally awesome. This is one of the best purchases I’ve made in a longtime. I’m like the kid in the candy shop. Today sitting at work I couldn’t stop thinking about my monitor and the code that I was going to write when I got home, yeah it’s like that.

For the longest I’ve rocked a DELL 2001FP 20in and it’s a great monitor don’t get me wrong. I mean me and the 2001FP has been through a lot of good times together and we’ve made a gang of money. But it was time to upgrade.

I originally bought the HP 2511x with the intentions of setting up dual monitors, but after hooking it up I realized there was no need for dual monitors. The HP 2511x provides all of the real estate I need.

It took me a while to make my mind up. I had a hard time deciding between the HP 2509b and the HP2511x but went with the HP2511x because it was slightly cheaper at the time.

I’ve read plenty of reviews and comments and majority of the bad comments I’ve come across was regarding the monitor not having built in speakers, or not being able to adjust vertically. To me having speakers attached is kind of silly. The way I play music attached speakers wouldn’t last past  the first couple of weeks, and then what, ship the whole monitor back. No that’s not for me, I prefer to have my speakers detached. Right now I have some incredible Logitech speakers that are able to handle anything I throw at them.

As for the vertical adjustment, I was a bit concerned about that. I had this option on the 2001FP, but what I found out was the vertical adjustment was no longer needed because the HP 2511x is so freaking huge.
Basically to sum it all up HP2511x is awesome and I’m loving it.

Wait one thing that did suck. I bought some 3ft Monster HDMI cables but they were a bit too short.. Going to Monoprice.com for some longer one.

But besides that get this monitor you’ll love it.

My First Mongo PHP APP

Today I created my first MongoDB application. Please no applause, this app is incredibly boring.  At the time I was fresh out of cool ideas, especially ideas that required a nice amount of data.
So I went with a simple US Population search script. I actually had a copy of the 2009 census data in a mysql table from some time ago. I have no idea why, I guess I’m a hoarder like that.
But basically I built this just for the experience. I’ve been hearing a lot of hub bub about MongoDB and thought I should give it a try.  I have to say from what I’ve fiddled with so far it is pretty interesting. If you’re coming from a RDBMS like I was, it’s going to take some time to change your thought process.

MongoDB store its data in what they call documents which are somewhat like table rows. I’m not going to go down that road because I’m still a newbie myself and I don’t want to put anyone on the wrong path. But what helped me get along was that I envisioned accessing data from a XML feed. Of course MongoDB documents are not XML feeds but they are structured a bit like a feed.

For example goto Buy.com and view the source of one of their product feeds (Example Product Feed) look specifically at each product node. When accessing data from MongoDB document I put myself in the mindset as if I’m grabbing data from a XML product feed.  Crazy, but it works for me.

Bottom line I think MongoDB is pretty interesting, I’m still new to it so I’m not quite ready to ditch MySql.
During my quest for knowledge I found myself looking for examples to help me get started. In my opinion there wasn’t that much out there but that’s probably because it’s fairly still new. But here are few sites that help me get started.

• http://learnmongo.com/ – He/She had some good PHP examples.
• http://www.php2all.de/manual/mongo.tutorial.html – Also has some good PHP & MongoDB example
• http://www.mongodb.org/ – The MongoDB Official site
  • http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/SQL+to+Mongo+Mapping+Chart – The Sql to MongoDB mapping chart is pretty cool.
• http://blog.mongovue.com/ – I think it’s a great tool for view your collections and documents.
• http://www.slideshare.net/kriswallsmith/mongod-pdxphp
  • Also check around for other presentations on slideshare.com there a bunch of good one out there.

Brand New Year

It’s a Brand New Year and I have a few things that I would like to focus on and learn more about in 2011.

• Geo Location – I think this year we are going to see a lot of Geo based application. I have a few goto API’s that I use to pull this data. But this technology has a lot of room to grow. I would love to get in front of this and ride the wave of projects that are about to come in.
• Git – I bought a book a few months ago, but I’ve been pretty business and have not found the time to crack it open. This Version Control seems to be a must have nowadays.
• IPhone App – I’m sure I’m catching the tail end of the IPhone application gold rush, but I would love to learn how to build a app, regarding how simple it may be.
• Domaining – I want to sale a domain for over $500.00 this year.
• Funding – I follow Techcruch pretty closely and there appears to be a lot of  funding going on. I would love to find out how this process works.
• California -  This is a long shot but I would not mind moving to the west coast. It seems like a lot of what I’m into is happening over there.

Well that’s the list. It will be interesting to see if I’m able to cross any of these off next year.

Programmableweb’s API directory

Really, Really quick update. Last night the Frinly API was added to Programmableweb.com’s API directory. To me this is huge deal because I’m such a big fan of the site. The approval process took a about week or maybe it was two, and I have to admit there where times that I was seriously doubting if it would ever happen. Then last night at dinner, during one of my random email checks, BAM, the acceptance email! Yea that basically made my day, it was pretty Awesome.

Frinly API Screenshot

A good Linux PHP Editor?

So I finally got my laptop to a point where I love working on it. It’s now what I would call
“The Ultimate Work Machine”.

Like most computers purchased from large retail chains Vista was pre-installed, along with a whole bunch of other crap ware. I’m not a big fan of Vista, I did like XP. But because of Vista I didn’t really enjoy working on this laptop at all. It quickly became a machine I kept around the TV so I could do quick searches between commercials. Or under the bed so I could get to it quickly if I remembered something before I went to sleep.  I had totally written this computer off.

Then one day while having lunch with a old colleague It dawned on me that most of the SEO tools that I use for analyzing web sites where all browser based (Firefox). Meaning I could basically run all of my favorite plugins while being in a Linux environment (I bet most of you all are like duh, I was too) . And for the applications that where not available in Linux, I was able to find great replacements. Digsby for example is a great IM client but does not have a Linux version yet, so there’s Kopete and Empathy which are great replacements.
FileZilla on the other hand did have a Linux version and I’m happy about that because this is one of my must have application, I use FileZilla a lot.
For opening documents and spreadsheets Open Office can be used to replace Microsoft Office. Open Office is incredible and I can’t believe it’s FREE and comes pre-installed with Linux.

The only thing that I’m missing right now is a good Linux based PHP editor/IDE. I started using PHP designer 7 before I made the switch and really like what it offered. But they don’t have a Linux version right now and I’m not sure if they ever plan to. So I’m currently bouncing between three different editors right now,  Komodo Edit, Geany, and gPHPedit. I’m leaning towards Komodo Edit but there’s this one little thing that I can’t get it to do. I’m sure it’s a lack of knowledge on my part versus the software’s functionality. So for now I figured I will continue testing these three until the end of next month. Hopefully by then I will be at a position to make a decision.

But for now, for the first time I’m enjoying my laptop. It’s the perfect work machine.

The applications and Firefox plugins I have running included:

• OS – Linux Ubuntu 10.0.04
• Apache, PHP, MySql, PHPMyAdmin
• Editors – Komodo Edit, Geany, and gPHPedit
• FTP Client – FileZilla
• SSH Client – Putty
• IM Client – Kopete
• Browser – Firefox
  • ColorZilla
  • DT Whois
  • Echofon
  • Gmail Button
  • Live PageRank
  • Measureit
  • S3 Firefox Orginizer
  • Screengrab
  • Ubuntu Firefox Modification
  • HttpFox

New SMS Project in Scope

I have a new project in mind, it’s SMS based. I’m going to take this weekend to scratch it out on paper before I actually start coding the thing. This is still a new approach for me. On my last project I flow charted everything out before hitting the code and things actually went a tad bit faster. Plus I found that if you don’t have a well documented process before you start then it’s actually harder to determine the projects end date because you will be constantly added bits and pieces or modifying things.
Overall I’m really, really excited because this project will be solving one of my longtime dilemmas. And that’s remembering things. So if I can bust this one out in less then a month that would be incredible. But honestly the coding has never been an issue, it’s the designing, that’s my Achilles heel. I’ve always thought if I could some how team up with a web designer I would kick some major ass. (Please take that as a hint)

WordPress Transfer Complete

Ok, I think I’m now fully transferred over. I won’t BS you it took longer then what I expected. It’s probably because I was being a fast ass and kept making minor mistakes. But basically all I did was pull the posts/data from the database and created a XML file that kind of matched the exported WordPress version. I left out a lot of containers like the categories and tags containers, actually that was another animal in itself. I figured I would create new tags and categories once I had everything imported, hopefully forcing me to create a more organized blog. I did realize another issue after I was done, and that was making sure I didn’t lose much search engine traffic. I expected a drop off in traffic, but I didn’t want it to be a large drop off. So basically I added a few 301 redirects in my .htaccess file and added some code in the header.php file to make sure that the pages where able to flow from the old site to the new site without issue.
So for the most part it, I think I’m done. I have a few minor things to add but the heavy lifting is over.

Note to Robbers, The Atlanta Chapter

Dear Robbers (Atlanta Chapter),
Christmas is right around the corner, that’s right a time sharing and giving. Well I was just sitting here thinking that maybe you all would perhaps skip me this year since I gave so much last year. The whole experience last year is still kind of shocking. I mean first off who knew you guys worked during the day, I always thought robbing was a third shift job, go figure. And thanks for pointing out how weak my front door was, I hope no one was hurt during the invasion. Kicking in a door can be a dangerous job. But if so please by all means send me the hospital bill , I would hate to have another reason not to get sleep at night. Oh and by the way I hope your family enjoyed the PS3, Nintendo Wii, Laptop, and 42 inch LCD TV. And did you know that the PS3 also dubs as a great Blu-ray player? Wait, what am I talking about of course you knew, that’s probably why you guys took the few Blu-ray DVD’s I owned, sorry my mistake, I forgot. But speaking of last year, the economy is much better this year so do you guys really need to go door to door this year. I think not. Have a heart. Well thanks for your consideration robbers have Merry Christmas and a Happy New year.

Signed Victim

P.S. I so Love Atlanta

JosephTinsley.com, The Big Move

Please bear with me; I’m currently moving this site from an
older template. All of the PHP Tools and Scripts that I’ve created and was offering for use will eventually make its way over to the new layout sooner or later.

I decided to make this move to that new layout for better control. I actually built this system. It’s a project that I have been working
on for the past 2 weeks and continue working on because I seem to always find new bell and whistles to add on. I know from the outside the layout and design appears to be very simply but what’s under the hood is the main reason for the move. A lot of thought went into the programming; it has a lot of dynamic solutions that make my life a lot easy in the long run.

So again please check back with us later if your here for
some code.
Thanks,
Joseph