Never Use This Font » Apple http://neverusethisfont.com/blog Aaron Parecki is the co-founder of Geoloqi.com, and specializes in backend systems development. Mon, 11 Jul 2011 22:50:38 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.3 How to Distribute your iOS Apps Over the Air http://neverusethisfont.com/blog/2011/01/how-to-distribute-your-ios-apps-over-the-air/ http://neverusethisfont.com/blog/2011/01/how-to-distribute-your-ios-apps-over-the-air/#comments Fri, 21 Jan 2011 18:33:20 +0000 aaron http://neverusethisfont.com/blog/?p=351 We’ve been using Apple’s Wireless distribution method for sending out beta invites of Geoloqi. It’s a much easier process for our beta testers than syncing with iTunes to install the app! They just click on a link from their phones, and they can download the app immediately!

How, you ask? Apple has made this possible since iOS 4.0, but not many developers have noticed it’s available. TestFlight has make a great wrapper on top of this functionality, but it’s possible to do it without using TestFlight too!

How to set up Ad Hoc distribution

First, build and archive your application from XCode. Make sure you’ve selected the Developer provisioning profile when building your app. This must pass code-signing verification or people will get an error when trying to install.

Open Organizer if it’s not already open. Select your archived application, then click “Share.” The next step is slightly misleading. Choose “Distribute for Enterprise” here, even if you don’t have an enterprise account! Make sure you select the same provisioning profile you signed the app with!

This is the critical step. At this point, XCode is bundling the provisioning profile into the IPA archive so that your users only have to download one file! No need to have them install the provisioning profile separately, since it will be included in the app archive!

Next you’ll need to fill out the form that appears. XCode uses this info to create a .plist file. If you’re comfortable editing the .plist file directly, you can do that instead. Here’s a sample .plist file that XCode creates from this dialog.

At this point, XCode prompts you to save the files to a folder. You’ll end up with two files, a .plist and an .ipa file. Now comes the easy part!

You just need to create a web page with a link to the .plist file using the special itms-services:// protocol. This might look something like the code below.

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<a href="itms-services://?action=download-manifest&url=http://loqi.me/app/Geoloqi.plist">
Download Geoloqi
</a>

When someone clicks the link from their iPhone, they’ll get a prompt that says “loqi.me would like to install Geoloqi.” Clicking “Install” will then immediately download and install the provisioning profile and the app!

Note: This is not going to get you around the 100-device limit that Apple imposes. You’ll still need to get your beta testers’ UDIDs from them and upload them to the Provisioning Portal.

You can pretty up the download page like we have done to make it look like more than just a plaintext link. Here’s some HTML and CSS to get you started making your own mobile installation page.

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<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
        <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
        <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, maximum-scale=1.0, user-scalable=no" /> 
        <title>Install Geoloqi</title>
        <style type="text/css">
                body {
                        background: url(bkg.png) repeat #c5ccd4;
                        font-family: Helvetica, arial, sans-serif;
                }
                .congrats {
                        font-size: 16pt;
                        padding: 6px;
                        text-align: center;
                }
                .step {
                        background: white;
                        border: 1px #ccc solid;
                        border-radius: 14px;
                        padding: 4px 10px;
                        margin: 10px 0;
                }
                .instructions {
                        font-size: 10pt;
                }
                .arrow {
                        font-size: 15pt;
                }
                table {
                        width: 100%;
                }
        </style>
</head>
<body>
 
<div class="congrats">Congrats! You've been invited to the beta of Geoloqi.</div>
 
<div class="step">
        <table><tr>
                <td class="instructions">Install the<br />Geoloqi app</td>
                <td width="24" class="arrow">&rarr;</td>
                <td width="57" class="imagelink">
                        <a href="itms-services://?action=download-manifest&url=http://loqi.me/app/Geoloqi.plist">
                                <img src="geoloqi-icon.png" height="57" width="57" />
                         </a>
                </td>
        </tr></table>
</div>
 
</body>
</html>

Here is the background graphic I used on the installation web page. Feel free to use it on your own pages.

]]> http://neverusethisfont.com/blog/2011/01/how-to-distribute-your-ios-apps-over-the-air/feed/ 4 Choosing a laptop for a graphic designer http://neverusethisfont.com/blog/2008/07/choosing-a-laptop-for-a-graphic-designer/ http://neverusethisfont.com/blog/2008/07/choosing-a-laptop-for-a-graphic-designer/#comments Mon, 07 Jul 2008 01:59:51 +0000 aaron http://blog.neverusethisfont.com/2008/07/choosing-a-laptop-for-a-graphic-designer/ This is primarily targeted towards graphic designers, although anyone can benefit from the information here as well. This post focuses on the hardware of a laptop rather than the software. I figure I’ll save a talk about software for a different day.

To begin, I would stay away from anything that isn’t Dell or Apple. IBM and Toshiba are good too, but they typically market more to corporations than home users. Both Dell and Apple are pretty much the top of the line as far as home and small business go. You’ll always hear about people who have had problems with both, but they are pretty good about fixing things if you get the extra warranty. Again, the information here is applicable to any brand of laptop, but I will mention specifics of some Dell and Apple laptops.

Let me tell you about some of the things that will make the most difference when using your laptop:

1) Screen resolution. Not screen size! My Dell that I got in 2003 is 15.4″, but has a resolution of 1680×1050. This is probably the biggest reason I haven’t stopped using it yet, even though I have an iMac as well. The screen is wide enough to fit two internet windows side by side comfortably. Also, when working in Photoshop or InDesign, the toolbars sit nicely off to the side, still leaving plenty of room in the middle for your image. The toolbars are physically small because the resolution is so high.

2) Dedicated graphics card. The lower-end computers use a graphics card that is built in and shares the main system memory. This means you lose 100-200 megabytes of RAM since your graphics card is using it.
GeForce logo
Also, the graphics card runs much slower since it has to pull data through the same bus as the system to access the RAM. Getting a dedicated graphics card means it has its own RAM and doesn’t share with the main system. If you are planning on doing any kind of video editing, this is a must. It will also make Photoshop run much faster. My Dell has a 64mb graphics card, although they are usually 128-256mb now. But even the 64mb card is better than none. Dell’s Inspiron series has the share graphics card, they call it the “Intel Graphics Media Accelerator”. The XPS and Studio series have the dedicated graphics card, either a 128mb or 256mb NVIDIA GeForce. The biggest drawback to an Apple laptop is that you don’t get a dedicated graphics card until you spend some serious money on a Macbook Pro. Their regular Macbooks have just a shared graphics card.

Laptop RAM

3) RAM. You can get away with having 1gb of RAM, but really you should shoot for 2gb minimum. 3gb is good, 4gb is more than enough for anything you’ll do, short of having all of CS3 and a video editing program open at the same time. I have slowly added RAM to my Dell over the years, which is another reason it has been able to last this long. I am up to 1.25gb at the moment. I only have CS2 installed on it, not CS3, so I can’t tell you how CS3 works with 1.25gb. A trick you can do with the Apples is buy the computer with the minimum RAM installed, then go buy separate RAM from Newegg and install it yourself. Apple charges way too much for their RAM upgrades, and it is pretty easy to install. I looked at doing that with the Dell, but they only charge $50 for an extra gig, so at that point it isn’t worth your trouble to buy it elsewhere.

4) Processor. Any of the Intel Duos will be totally fine. You really won’t notice much of a difference between the 2.1ghz and the 2.6 ghz. You will, however, notice a difference between an Intel Duo and an Intel Celeron. A lot of other brands, and also the lower-end Dells use the Celeron processors. You definitely do not want one of these. You will notice that it is much slower.

Apple Macbook

5) Built-in camera. You may not think you need it, but if you don’t get it you’ll find yourself constantly annoyed that you don’t have one and everyone else does. Video and voice chatting is becoming much more common these days. It’s all free, so it’s better than using a cell phone if you’re at your computer. Also it acts like a speaker phone because you don’t need to hold a phone to your ear to talk. I use voice and video chatting for work meetings all the time. You can’t get an Apple without a camera at this point, so that isn’t really an issue. And it looks like Dell includes a camera on all their XPS series, and has the option to add it to an Inspiron.

In Conclusion

With Dell’s Inspiron and Studio lines you can get a screen at 1920×1200. That is the same resolution as my 24″ iMac, and it’s absolutely incredible, especially for photo editing. Packing it into a 15.4″ laptop screen makes the individual pixels really tiny, but that will only make things super sharp looking.

One alternative to getting a super high resolution screen is to get one that is slightly smaller, like 1440×900, and then also get an external monitor for your desk. This will let you take advantage of an even bigger total screen size when you’re sitting at your desk, and will still be fine when you are mobile. I use an external 17″ screen along with my main screen on my iMac. I have the extra screen turned on its side so that it is more like looking at a printed page. I can leave things over there for reference while I’m typing on my main screen, like code documentation or file browsers. When working in Creative Suite, it is really nice to be able to open up all the tool palettes and shove them on to the external monitor, and use the full size of the main screen for the document you’re editing!

Hopefully this information helps someone in their search for the perfect laptop. I’m sure I’ll have a write-up comparing software some other time. Feel free to comment on your experiences in choosing a laptop. I’d be curious to hear what others think.

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