Hocus Pocus Locus

IVM-AwesomeSauce

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 14:47:34 -0700

I recently created a new GitHub named “IVM-AwesomeSauce” in which I intend to put snippets of useful code. Right now there’s one thing in there: a set of classes for doing custom animations between two UIViewControllers regardless of whether they’re being pushed in a UINavigationController or presented modally. You can find the source here. At some point I’ll dive deep and post a tutorial here, but for now here’s a snippet to show how it’s used:

The stages of software engineering

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 12:10:00 -0700

Beginner

Y = 10 ;

Intermediate

float add( float x, float y ) { return x + y; }

Y = add(5,5) ;

Expert

Y = 10 ; // this should really be a function

Hollow Pad on Flickr.I needed a background image for my 3rd...

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 12:50:58 -0700

Hollow Pad on Flickr.

I needed a background image for my 3rd generation iPad and thought it’d be cool to make it look like it was empty behind the glass, so I whipped this up. Hope you like it!

Graphical iOS4 Included Typeface List

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 12:49:07 -0700

Graphical iOS4 Included Typeface List

NameChk for iOS Launches!

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 13:27:00 -0800

NameChk for iOS Launches!:

Hey folks, I’ve been working on an iOS version of namechk.com for a while and it’s just gone live on the app store! Check it out and if you like it please leave a review! If you don’t like it, send me a message and I’ll get to fixing it ;)

Anyway, enjoy!

Available for your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.

Direct link to App Store

The Lions Mane Jellyfish is the largest jellyfish in the world....

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 17:58:00 -0800

The Lions Mane Jellyfish is the largest jellyfish in the world. They have been swimming in arctic waters since before the dinosaurs (over 650 million years ago) and are among some of the oldest surviving species in the world.

The largest can come in at about 6 meters and has tentacles over 50 meters long. Pretty amazing when you think these things have been swimming around for so long.

They have hundreds of poisonous tentacles that it used to catch passing by fish. it then slowly drags in it’s prey and eats it.

That is terrifying.

nickdouglas: peterfeld: I hope they let him into the...

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 12:06:58 -0800

nickdouglas:

peterfeld:

I hope they let him into the debates.

Problem, Cole?

The wrong part of the brain

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 20:12:45 -0700

The wrong part of the brain:

There’s some interesting conversation going on about the value of skeuomorphic UI textures used in Apple-designed user interfaces. John Gruber thinks that some people are “over thinking this” and that the textures are “not designed to help users understand how these apps work. They’re just decoration.”

I agree with John in that I don’t think these designs directly help the user learn how to use the app. However, I think that they have more value than “just decoration”.

Here’s a great quote from Steve Jobs from his biography:

I began to realize that an intuitive understanding and consciousness was more significant than abstract thinking and intellectual logical analysis.

Skeuomorphic UI designs make users feel comfortable. They put the user into a creative, curious mood by easing apprehension that a user might have in learning a new interface. Skeuomorphic UI designs are aimed at the primitive brain, not the analytical, which is why trying to analyze their pedagogical efficacy misses the point.

Things I wish Siri could do

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 20:03:00 -0700

Apple’s new Siri intelligent agent for the iPhone 4S understands a bunch of useful stuff, but I wish it could do more. Here’s a list of tasks that I wish Siri could help me with:

“Remind me to give Mark his present when I see him next” — use Find My Friends to discover that Mark is close, then remind me to give him a present.
“What flights are leaving tomorrow for Seattle?” — this use to work in Siri the app, but no longer does in Siri for iPhone 4S.
“Tweet ‘hi there #vegastech’” — full integration with Twitter and Facebook, and a full understanding of hashtags and Twitter handles.
“Launch TweetBot” — app launcher would be great!
“Reserve a table at a good Italian restaurant.” — Siri use to have this ability by using OpenTable in the app version. Not so in iPhone 4S.
“When’s a good time to book a two-hour meeting this Thursday?” — returns some choices for when the meeting might occur. Although this doesn’t work, you can ask Siri “what’s going on at 3 this Thursday?”
“What songs do I have by Dave Matthews?” — returns a list of songs. Interestingly, she does understand this query, but says “Sorry Mike, I can’t search that content.”
“Show me a preview for ‘Green Latern’” — Siri the app use to return actual movie previews that you could watch. Not so on the iPhone 4S.
“What movies are playing tonight?” — Siri the app use to return movies that were currently playing in theaters. Again, not on the iPhone 4S.
“How much time do I have before my next meeting?” — she answers with the time and date of your next meeting. However, she doesn’t go as far as actually giving you a time span. She has this data, she should be able to answer the question.
“Tell Mel he owes my $20” — There is no “Mel” in my address book because he’s under his full name “Melvin”. Siri should learn nicknames.
“Show me reviews for Joseph’s Restaurant” — she would return Yelp results.

To be fair, Siri does a few smart things that I didn’t expect. For example, ”remind me to call Kaywood in a minute” not only notifies you of your call, but she also pops up a dialog box offering to call Kaywood (which, I think, is more a function of the Reminders app).

Photo

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 19:35:27 -0700

Exactly right.

Sat, 15 Oct 2011 23:20:28 -0700

Exactly right.

I don’t really have much to say other than have a great...

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 17:16:01 -0700

I don’t really have much to say other than have a great time wherever you went. You’ll continue to have a space the size of a deck of cards reserved in my pants pocket. Rest in peace dude.

Ally Bank is an Internet bank without a brick-and-mortar...

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 18:29:00 -0700

Ally Bank is an Internet bank without a brick-and-mortar presence. I find it ironic that to date they still don’t have a mobile-optimized experience. And when I say mobile-optimized experience, I mean iPhone app.

Recently, I had a need for a bank with a mobile app that could deposit checks using the iPhone’s camera. I had considered Chase bank, but I just don’t like them. I think banks with a “you’re just a number” attitude like Chase will be given a run for their money by more forward thinking banking experiences like BankSimple, due to open this year.

I opened an account with PNC because they had an iPhone app with remote deposit. Unfortunately, the app is utter crap. It times out on login eight out of ten times. You can’t even access remote deposit until you’ve banked with them for 30 days, but they don’t mention that anywhere in the app’s description. Instead you’re left to hunt all over the app for a button that doesn’t exist. I wasted a good thirty minutes looking for it and Googling for some kind of manual. I’m likely going to close the account.

I like Ally Bank, the absence of hidden and ATM fees, and their decent web experience, but I’m left wishing that they had a top-notch mobile experience to match. I’m not alone. Point your browser at their blog and do a search for “iPhone” to see what I’m talking about. To see if I could take this discussion from their blog into a more public arena, I created the Ally Bank needs an iPhone app Facebook page. I also created an app mockup to use as an avatar and to exercise my Photoshop skills a bit. If only all banking applications looked as good and worked as well as Tweetbot.

Anyway, I guess I’ll wait until someone gets online banking right. I’m banking (pun intended) on BankSimple, but I also have high hopes for Ally. If you happen to be an Ally customer, I hope you’ll like my Facebook page.

"Has that been Photoshopped a lot?"

Sat, 06 Aug 2011 13:05:02 -0700

"Has that been Photoshopped a lot?":

chartier:

Ben Long, CreativePro.com:

“Image editing” starts as soon as you lift your eye to the viewfinder. What you choose to include in the frame is a massive edit of the scene before you, and it’s important to understand just how powerful this “cropping” of the real world can be.

Yup.

A phone number formatting category on NSString

Thu, 28 Jul 2011 09:23:00 -0700

Actually, all the credit goes to Ahmed Abdelkader for this code. All I did was stick it in an easy-to-use category.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License which basically means you can use it free for any purpose as long as you give proper attribution.

NSString+PhoneNumberFormatting.m

//
//  NSString+PhoneNumberFormatting.m
//
//  Created by Mike Manzano on 7/28/11.
//
//	This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
//
//	Adapted from work by Ahmed Abdelkader on 1/22/10, whose work is
//  licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
//	http://the-lost-beauty.blogspot.com/2010/01/locale-sensitive-phone-number.html

#import 

// Supported locales
extern NSString *xPhoneNumberLocale_US ;
extern NSString *xPhoneNumberLocale_UK ;
extern NSString *xPhoneNumberLocale_JP;

@interface NSString (PhoneNumberFormatting)
- (NSString *)formattedPhoneNumberForLocale:(NSString *)xPhoneNumberLocale ;
@end

NSString+PhoneNumberFormatting.m

//
//  NSString+PhoneNumberFormatting.m
//
//  Created by Mike Manzano on 7/28/11.
//
//	This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
//
//	Adapted from work by Ahmed Abdelkader on 1/22/10, whose work is
//  licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
//	http://the-lost-beauty.blogspot.com/2010/01/locale-sensitive-phone-number.html


#import "NSString+PhoneNumberFormatting.h"

NSString *xPhoneNumberLocale_US = @"us" ;
NSString *xPhoneNumberLocale_UK = @"uk" ;
NSString *xPhoneNumberLocale_JP = @"jp" ;


@implementation NSString (PhoneNumberFormatting)

+ (NSDictionary *) sharedPhoneFormats
	{
	static NSDictionary *formats = nil ;
	
	static dispatch_once_t onceToken;
	dispatch_once(&onceToken, ^{
		NSArray *usPhoneFormats = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:
								   @"+1 (###) ###-####",
								   @"1 (###) ###-####",
								   @"011 $",
								   @"###-####",
								   @"(###) ###-####", nil];
		
		NSArray *ukPhoneFormats = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:
								   @"+44 ##########",
								   @"00 $",
								   @"0### - ### ####",
								   @"0## - #### ####",
								   @"0#### - ######", nil];
		
		NSArray *jpPhoneFormats = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:
								   @"+81 ############",
								   @"001 $",
								   @"(0#) #######",
								   @"(0#) #### ####", nil];
		
		formats = [[NSDictionary alloc] initWithObjectsAndKeys:
							 usPhoneFormats, xPhoneNumberLocale_US,
							 ukPhoneFormats, xPhoneNumberLocale_UK,
							 jpPhoneFormats, xPhoneNumberLocale_JP,
							 nil];
		});
	
	return formats ;
	}


- (BOOL)canBeInputByPhonePad:(char)c 
	{
	if(c == '+' || c == '*' || c == '#') return YES;
	if(c >= '0' && c <= '9') return YES;
	return NO;
	}

// Strips out invalid characters
- (NSString *)strip:(NSString *)phoneNumber 
	{
	NSMutableString *res = [[[NSMutableString alloc] init] autorelease];
	for(int i = 0; i < [phoneNumber length]; i++) 
		{
		char next = [phoneNumber characterAtIndex:i];
		if([self canBeInputByPhonePad:next])
			[res appendFormat:@"%c", next];
		}
	return res;
	}


- (NSString *)formattedPhoneNumberForLocale:(NSString *)xPhoneNumberLocale 
	{
	NSString *phoneNumber = self ;
	NSArray *localeFormats = [[NSString sharedPhoneFormats] objectForKey:xPhoneNumberLocale];
	if(localeFormats == nil) return phoneNumber;
	NSString *input = [self strip:phoneNumber];
	for(NSString *phoneFormat in localeFormats) 
		{
		int i = 0;
		NSMutableString *temp = [[[NSMutableString alloc] init] autorelease];
		for(int p = 0; temp != nil && i < [input length] && p < [phoneFormat length]; p++) 
			{
			char c = [phoneFormat characterAtIndex:p];
			BOOL required = [self canBeInputByPhonePad:c];
			char next = [input characterAtIndex:i];
			switch(c) 
				{
				case '$':
					p--;
					[temp appendFormat:@"%c", next]; i++;
					break;
				case '#':
					if(next < '0' || next > '9') 
						{
						temp = nil;
						break;
						}
					[temp appendFormat:@"%c", next]; i++;
					break;
				default:
					if(required) 
						{
						if(next != c) 
							{
							temp = nil;
							break;
							}
						[temp appendFormat:@"%c", next]; i++;
						} 
					else 
						{
						[temp appendFormat:@"%c", c];
						if(next == c) i++;
						}
				break;
				}
			} // build temp loop
		if(i == [input length]) 
			{
			return temp;
			}
		} // for each format
	return input;
	}
@end

Comehangwith.me (Taken with instagram)

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 19:55:16 -0700

Comehangwith.me (Taken with instagram)

Desktop vs. Web apps at #FOWA. (Taken with instagram)

Tue, 28 Jun 2011 12:28:25 -0700

Desktop vs. Web apps at #FOWA. (Taken with instagram)

Startup Weekend Las Vegas Presentations #SWLV (Taken with...

Sun, 26 Jun 2011 18:40:51 -0700

Startup Weekend Las Vegas Presentations #SWLV (Taken with Instagram at El Cortez Hotel & Casino)

Mini (Taken with Instagram at Ceasar’s Palace - Forum...

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 10:28:17 -0700

Mini (Taken with Instagram at Ceasar’s Palace - Forum Shops)

Evil dog checkers (Taken with instagram)

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 22:44:33 -0700

Evil dog checkers (Taken with instagram)