Gravatar URLs are based on the use of the hashed value of an email address. To create accurate hash you need to:

1. Trim whitespace from email address
2. Force all characters to lower-case
3. MD5 hash the final string

#import "GetGravatar.h"
#import <CommonCrypto/CommonDigest.h>

@implementation GetGravatar

+ (NSURL*)gravatarURL:(NSString*)aEmail
{
if (aEmail)
{
NSString *email = [[aEmail stringByTrimmingCharactersInSet:[NSCharacterSet whitespaceCharacterSet]] lowercaseString];

NSString *emailMD5 = [GetGravatar md5HexDigest:email];

NSString *gravatarString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/%@", emailMD5];

return [NSURL URLWithString:gravatarString];
}

return nil;
}

+ (NSString*)md5HexDigest:(NSString*)input
{
const char* str = [input UTF8String];
unsigned char result[CC_MD5_DIGEST_LENGTH];
CC_MD5(str, strlen(str), result);

NSMutableString *ret = [NSMutableString stringWithCapacity:CC_MD5_DIGEST_LENGTH*2];

for(int i = 0; i<CC_MD5_DIGEST_LENGTH; i++)
[ret appendFormat:@"%02x",result[i]];

return ret;
}

@end

Next step is to define view in which your graph will be presented and define data which will be shown. Your views class must be CPTGraphHostingView. In my case this is in MBReportViewController.nib. Now create MBBarPlot class. It’s a subclass of NSObject.

MBBarPlot.h

#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>
#import "CorePlot-CocoaTouch.h"

@interface MBBarPlot : NSObject <CPTPlotDataSource>

@property (nonatomic, retain) CPTGraphHostingView *hostingView;
@property (nonatomic, retain) CPTXYGraph *graph;
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSMutableArray *graphData;
@property (nonatomic, retain) INReport *currentReport;

-(id)initWithHostingView:(CPTGraphHostingView *)hostingView andReport:(INReport*)aReport;
-(void)plotSetups;

@end

MBBarPlot.m

#import "MBBarPlot.h"
#import "INReport.h"

@implementation MBSimplePlot

@synthesize hostingView;
@synthesize graph;
@synthesize graphData;
@synthesize currentReport;

- (id)initWithHostingView:(CPTGraphHostingView *)hostingView andReport:(INReport*)aReport
{
self = [super init];

if ( self != nil )
{
self.hostingView = hostingView;
self.graph = nil;
self.graphData = [aReport reportsXYItemEntity];
self.currentReport = aReport;
}

return self;
}

- (void)plotSetups
{
if ( (self.hostingView == nil) || (self.graphData == nil) || (self.graph == nil) )
return;

self.graph = [[CPTXYGraph alloc] initWithFrame:[self.hostingView bounds]] ;
self.hostingView.hostedGraph = self.graph;

// here yo can set graph elements:
// paddings
// line styles
// text style
// min and max values on axis
// title
// axis labels ...

CPTBarPlot *plot = [[CPTBarPlot alloc] init] ;
plot.delegate = self;
plot.dataSource = self;
[self.graph addPlot:plot];
}

-(NSUInteger)numberOfRecordsForPlot:(CPTPlot *)plot
{
return [self.graphData count];
}

-(NSNumber *)numberForPlot:(CPTPlot *)plot field:(NSUInteger)fieldEnum recordIndex:(NSUInteger)index
{
if ( fieldEnum == CPTBarPlotFieldBarLocation )
return [NSNumber numberWithFloat:index*10];
   else
return [NSNumber numberWithFloat:[[[self.graphData objectAtIndex:index] y] floatValue]];
}

@end

In MBReportViewController you need to create instance of your chart with initWithHostingView:andReport: after that call plotSetups where you can set plot frame, plot space, axis set, line style, text style, plot type, legend etc. With Core Plot you can choose various plot types and easily adjust them to fit your needs. Here are the result:

Directly changing sub-project source files would end up with very painful merging after version control update. Sub-classing default class to add one more property is also painful experience comparing to Objective-C categories pattern (you would need to change class name everywhere you made an instance of default class). It’s true that in class category you can not declare iVar’s or make @synthesize but nevertheless you CAN extend class with another property by drilling down all to runtime.h. Below you can see example.

@interface SomeClass (Private)

@property (nonatomic, assign) id newProperty;

@end

NSString * const kNewPropertyKey = @"kNewPropertyKey";

@implementation SomeClass (Private)

@dynamic newProperty;

- (void)setNewProperty:(id)aObject
{
	objc_setAssociatedObject(self, kNewPropertyKey, aObject, OBJC_ASSOCIATION_ASSIGN);
}

- (id)newProperty
{
	return objc_getAssociatedObject(self, kNewPropertyKey);
}

@end

This way you can have always keep your Xcode sub-project up-to date without painful merging. Also, it’s easier but not recommended to use categories over sub-classing pattern when you need to overwrite default class implementation (good only in cases you know what’s get overwritten).

In contrast to Objective-C class Extensions this way you don’t have to re-declare property that is publicly declared in default class. In Objective-C class Extensions it is also generally common for a class to have a publicly declared API and to then have additional methods declared privately for use solely by the class or the framework within which the class resides. Class extensions allow you to declare additional required methods for a class in locations other than within the primary class @interface block.

@interface MyClass : NSObject

@property (retain, readonly) float value;

@end

// Private extension, typically hidden in the main implementation file.

@interface MyClass ()

@property (retain, readwrite) float value;

@end

@interface MyClass : NSObject

- (float)value;

@end

@interface MyClass () {

    float value;

}

- (void)setValue:(float)newValue;

@end

@implementation MyClass

- (float)value {

    return value;

}

- (void)setValue:(float)newValue {

    value = newValue;

}

@end

The implementation of the setValue: method must appear within the main @implementation block for the class (you cannot implement it in a category). If this is not the case, the compiler emits a warning that it cannot find a method definition for setValue:. Therefore you should use objc_getAssociatedObject & objc_setAssociatedObject to make’s your development way easier.

NEW: Mageboard Lite Now Available!

For those of you who want to see Mageboard in action before you decide to spend the money on it, we created a free application called Mageboard Lite. For feature comparison chart, please see the Mageboard landing page. For the Mageboard Lite app store URL, follow this link.

Customers

Mageboard allows you to get to know your customers better – when have they logged in, how much money have they spent, how many orders have they made, what do they look like and much more. Looking for someone special? Use our quick search. Want to know who is your best customer? It’s only one touch away. Can’t remember the name of the customer? Maybe you know what group they belong to. Mageboard makes it personal – call your customers, send them mail or sms, visit them, you can get directions from our app. It’s almost like a social app! 

Orders

Every time a new order is made, you will get a push notification. Review quickly all your orders – who made it and when, order amount and status. Are you interested only in a specific orders? Use our filter by statuses or advanced filter. Want to see much more details? It’s only one touch away.

Reports

Mageboard has 12 default reports which user can modify, delete, move, print or mail. How many new customers have signed up over the weekend, what was your total order value in the last month, what are your customers searching for most on your site, what were the most viewed products on your site last week? You can prepare any type of report in a matter of seconds and quickly determine where your strengths are, and what needs to be improved. Mageboard is using Core Plot for creating reports. Core Plot is a plotting framework for iOS and OS X. It’s easy to implement and modify, we highly recommend it!

Stay tuned, more killer features are coming up…

REST (Representational state transfer) – first of all requests and responses are built around the transfer of representations of resources. A resource can be essentially any coherent and meaningful concept that may be addressed. A representation of a resource is typically a document that captures the current or intended state of a resource. Main focus – data transfer.

SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) brings it’s own protocol and focuses on exposing pieces of application logic (not data) as services. It exposes operations and focuses on accessing named operations, each implement some business logic through different interfaces. That’s why SOAP is considered as successor of XML-RPC and also uses XML to encode its HTTP-based calls. Everything is done via HTTP POST request.

SOAP is mostly used for Enterprise applications to integrate wide types and no. of applications and another trend is to integrate with legacy systems. With that said, consuming SOAP should be an easy task. This is when WSDL comes in story.

WSDL (Web Services Description Language) is an XML-based language that is used for describing the functionality offered by a Web service. A WSDL description of a web service (also referred to as a WSDL file) provides a machine-readable description of how the service can be called, what parameters it expects, and what data structures it returns. It thus serves a roughly similar purpose as a method signature in a programming language.

To conclude introduction part, it’s good to know both of them. Enough with apples and oranges. Let’s see how to consume SOAP in iOS environment.

Having web service interface definition gives us opportunity to generate client side implementation automatically. Sudzc (http://sudzc.com/) is very good example of code generator for accessing SOAP-based web services on iOS platform. It basically generates all the backend part you need for your project. Although there are few things I would change in generated implementation my opinion is that Sudzc is good choice.

You can test Sudzc simply by going to http://sudzc.com/, uploading this WSDL and clicking Generate. Unzip downloaded and you should get fresh generated Xcode project. Open Xcode project and expand Source -> Examples.

As you can see Sudzc has generated all you need to consume SOAP web service, in this case Magento Core API. Find INMagentoService class and there you will see all API methods you can call. In each method you can pass delegate and feedback selector. Below you can see how to retrieve sales orders list.

- (void)salesOrderListCall
{
    INMagentoService* service = [INMagentoService service];

    // Returns NSMutableArray*. Retrieve list of orders by filters
    [service salesOrderList:self
                     action:@selector(salesOrderListHandler:)
                  sessionId:@""
                    filters:[[INfilters alloc] init]];
}

// Handle the response from salesOrderList.
- (void)salesOrderListHandler: (id) value
{
    // Handle errors
    if([value isKindOfClass:[NSError class]]) {
        NSLog(@"%@", value);
        return;
    }

    // Handle faults
    if([value isKindOfClass:[SoapFault class]]) {
        NSLog(@"%@", value);
        return;
    }

    // Do something with the NSMutableArray* result
    NSMutableArray* result = (NSMutableArray*)value;
    NSLog(@"salesOrderList returned the value: %@", result);
}

All API call examples are located in INMagentoServiceExample class. Just copy anything you need from there and paste it to your view controller. Now you are ready to consume SOAP web service in iOS environment.

Do you want to develop your own Magento mobile application?

Great! I’ll give you some pointers on how to get a grasp on Magento’s XMLConnect, an extension that serves Magento Mobile application.

Keep in mind that XMLConnect extension comes ‘preinstalled’ in Magento CE 1.5 and later, but you can get it from Magento Connect.

The Big Picture

Awhile ago, Magento Mobile was released for iPhone, iPad and Android devices. It consists of two parts: a Magento web store with an XMLConnect extension installed and configured, and a native application itself.

XMLConnect extension’s purpose here is to serve your application with requested data (category listing, product information, etc.) and execute desired actions (buy, log in, checkout, etc.).
Basically, application sends a request (plain HTTP GET/POST) to your Magento store (XMLConnect) and it responds with an XML result.

The best way to get familiar with XMLConnect is to see it in action:

1) Set up a Magento store on your web server with some sample data
2) In Magento admin->Mobile->Manage Apps add a new mobile application
3) Install Magento Mobile on your device
4) Start Magento Mobile on your device with your Magento store url and the app code of the application you just created in Magento admin->Mobile

While exploring Magento Mobile, keep an eye on (Apache) activity log file to see exactly what the application is requesting from the server.
For instance, the first request would probably be the application configuration request.

/xmlconnect/configuration/index/app_code/defand1/screen_size/480×800

We recognize in this request an app code (in this example it is “defand1″) and your device’s screen size (here it’s “480×800″).
Let’s check out what is the result of this request. In your browser navigate to:

http://magentoivica.loc/xmlconnect/configuration/index/app_code/defand1/screen_size/480×800
(obviously, replace “magentoivica.loc” with your web server name. Recognize the rest of the url?)

Voilá, what you should get is an entire configuration of your app (as it is set in your Magento admin) in an XML format.

Using this practice, you can easily explore most of the capabilities of XMLConnect. Also, it may be necessary to get into the code of XMLConnect if you want to master some of the more advanced actions (such as the checkout process).

Ok, now you know basics of using XMLConnect, how to make a request and what to expect as a result. But, how to use this information in an Android (Java) environment?

You probably already know something about parsing XML data. I will show you a better way (probably) which will allow you to have more modularity and sustainability in an Android application development.

So, stay tuned

There are lots of people that visit inchoo.net who are not natural English speakers. This game will be awesome for you. You’ll start thinking about all sorts of different words and hopefully learn how to spell them correctly. But it is not all about learning, this game is fun! There are 3 different mods you can play with: Story Mode, Arcade Mode and Clear the Board.

Story Mode

An increasingly challenging game with 15 levels and a different target for each level. Reach the target score or compose the number of words required to complete the level before the time runs out! Conquer all 5 Letter Block Worlds by completing the 15 levels in one game. Don’t let the board fill in or you’ll loose the game!

Arcade Mode

Freestyle in a random world. The higher you score, the faster blocks will fall on the board. How long will you last? Challenge the your friends to beat your high score through the Open Feint gaming network!

Clear the Board

Look! A board full of blocks! Can you clean it up without shaking the device to get more blocks? Achieve that to enter the global high scores for this game mode!

Warning: Magento is NOT a word. xD

You can buy the app here.

The store is located here and it’s currently featuring two products:

• A completely free Review Alert component for iPhone SDK that gives you the ability to pop-up an alert after a chosen period of time, asking user to review the app.
• A 3D Tag Cloud Component for iPhone SDK, with a special launch discount of 50% available for only $ 49.00 USD!

We hope many more useful code libraries will be released on Surgeworks Mobile’s shop as the time passes by, so make sure you stay tuned to the links above.

First of these brands was Inchoo, dedicated to e-commerce design, development, and marketing. It’s been a while since we figured out that we need a separate micro-brand such as Inchoo for our mobile application development services, and today, we present you the Surgeworks Mobile website.

Surgeworks Mobile is a web presentation of our mobile applications development unit. Homepage, much like Inchoo, features new blog posts. We hope some of our loyal readers here at Inchoo that are also interested in the mobile application development will like the content over there and start following that blog as well.

Site also features the mobile applications that the team already did and there are sections describing the services and the team.

I composed a list of some really nice articles about Apple’s iPad published so far:

5 Reasons Why The iPad Fails To Impress (WebProNews)

WebProNews’ Jeremy Muncy lists five reasons of his disappointment with iPad. The reasons are (in order of appearance): the name, no multitasking, no camera, huge ridiculous adapters, same touch keyboard with a bonus one: no flash.

• Similar: 8 Things That Suck About the iPad (Gizmodo)

Video: The iPad In Action (TechCrunch)

MG Siegler of TechCrunch shows us a video (not one of these videos on Apple’s official site) of iPad in action. This 2:14 in length YouTube video called “iPad hands on” is pretty useful in seeing how iPad truly works.

Steve Wozniak Talks iPad (Video) (TechCrunch)

Another TechCrunch article, written by Robin Wauters features a video of Steve Wozniak (Apple’s co-founder) talking about iPad. Steve talks about what we can expect in future (hint: magazine subscriptions and similar features).

Building iPad Applications with Flash (Adobe’s Blog)

Although Apple stated iPad doesn’t support flash, Adobe wrote this great blog posts reminding developers of possibility of developing Flash apps for this platform. Adobe says:

While we put the finishing touches on the Packager for iPhone, we have invited a few developers and designers to join a closed pre-release program. As they are testing it and giving us feedback, they also have been able to use it to build some applications that they have submitted to the iTunes App Store.

Apple iPad: A Comprehensive Guide (Mashable)

Ben Parr created a comprehensive guide about iPad at Mashable that includes the overview, the specifications, interface, web, emails and maps, connectivity, e-books and publishing features, TV movies and video, gaming, productivity and iWork, pricing, availability, competitors, what the iPad lacks and list of recommended additional reading. The closing statement is really interesting:

The point is this: It’s a first generation device, and it’s not going to include a lot of the things we want. With that said, make sure you know the drawbacks before buying.

9 Upcoming Tablet Alternatives to the Apple iPad (Mashable)

The title of the post says it all, it’s a list and explanation of 9 alternatives (I hate when this word is used in plural -.-) to the new Apple iPad. Including: HP Slate, Dell Streak, Asus Eee Tablet, Compal Tablet, Notion Ink Adam, MSI, Quanta, ICD Vega and Google and HTC but not including the JooJoo (ex. CrunchPad).

Editorial: Engadget on the Apple iPad (Engadget)

Nilay Patel wrote a really extensive article about iPad at Engadget. The articles includes the opinion of a lot of Engadget’s staff members including the people who have been actually using the device. Important quotes:

I know that I’ll find a reason to drop $500 (at least) on this thing — but for the vast majority of consumers, I think the case for the iPad has yet to be made.

As a portable gaming platform, the iPhone represented a sea change in quality; at first blush, the iPad carries no such distinction.

This is simply Cupertino’s answer to the smartbook executed with typical Apple spit and polish, and whether anyone really needs the world’s slickest smartbook remains to be seen.

My initial impulse is always, I have to have that. But then reality sets in: do I really need a third device?

I’m not going to form an opinion until I actually read with the iPad, but it looks like the best alternative to an actual book I’ve ever seen.

Touché, Mr. Jobs, but it’s also easy to argue that a $399 netbook can do a number of things better than the $499 Apple iPad — like multitask, play Flash video and make a video call.

Why the iPad Will Crush Netbooks and Ebook Readers (Gizmodo)

A nice analysis of current state of the industry and prediction of how and why will Apple’s iPad crush netbooks and ebook readers. It talks about iPads targeted audience in a really smart and logical way.

Two ways to win Apple’s iPad using your Twitter account:

• CONTEST: Tweet to Win a Free Apple iPad!
• ReTweet This to Win One of 3 Apple iPad Tablets from @HubSpot

The ShoutEm iPhone app is actually two apps in one: it’s a fully functional Twitter client, but in addition to Twitter, you can also use it to read and write posts to twitter_timelineany of the networks on ShoutEm, as well as StatusNet, the open source microblogging service.

For example, let’s say that you’ve created a network on ShoutEm for your coworkers, but you also have two accounts on Twitter. With the ShoutEm iPhone application, you can easily read the posts and write new ones for all three networks, all from one place.

Here are the most important features of the ShoutEm iPhone application:

* handle multiple accounts on your favorite microblogging networks: ShoutEm, Twitter or StatusNet (Laconi.ca)
* browse through your friend’s statuses, public statuses or mentions
* update your status (with photo or location attached)
* explore user profiles, their followers or statuses/tweets
* follow or stop following users
* explore received or sent private messages; write direct messages to users
* track conversations in our threaded view (ShoutEm specific)
* status search

Click here to download ShoutEm iPhone app for FREE

So we submitted the applications and soon we’ve received a negative response message from Apple. Unfortunately, lite application didn’t pass revision because it contained a word “Demo”, which in Apple terms is not acceptable from the marketing point of view. Well, it would be funny if it wasn’t sad. What to say on fact that one insignificant word like “Demo” is key point to reject app? Who knows what else is prohibited… Maybe this kind of strictness is crucial to make corporation like Apple. I just hope that this small stain passes as time passes these days (very fast) because there are also many good platforms on the market that don’t have stain like this small one. No anarchy at Apple!

Now lets get back on memory leak issue created by CFNetwork class. If you create NSURLConnection object you will get this memory leak. First time I meet with this issue I was thinking it was my fault as developer, but when I tracked leak I realized that memory leak is created by framework internally. Instruments tool says clearly – “Responsible caller – CFNetwork”.

Well, this is my own conclusion and I might not be right but considering all given facts the leak is created by CFNetwork class. Also, I am not only one developer that has same issue. Many of iPhone developers has complain on same memory leak created by CFNetwork class. To solve this issue I try to put autoreleas pool like code below but no luck.

NSAutoreleasePool *pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];
…
[pool release];

Also I tried to create NSURLCache object like code below but no luck.

NSURLCache *sharedCache = [[NSURLCache alloc] initWithMemoryCapacity:0 diskCapacity:0 diskPath:nil];
[NSURLCache setSharedURLCache:sharedCache];
[sharedCache release];

If any of you has meet similar issue or maybe has solution for this memory leak please leave comment bellow. Thanks!

View more images on Surgeworks website.

http://code.google.com/p/satisfactionremotecomponent/ 

Flurry Analytics iPhone API is second one. This is really great API that every better developer would integrate. This API is analytics tool for iphone application which provides complete insight analysis of the every app utilization and not just for iPhone platform. Here is little info about it: “Flurry Analytics provides accurate, real time data to developers about how consumers use their mobile applications, as well as how applications are performing across different handsets. Application developers receive aggregated usage and performance data, as well as robust reporting and analysis tools. With this data, developers can identify issues and opportunities, create a more informed product roadmap, increase retention and grow their user base.” You can find more info on this link. 

http://www.flurry.com/product/index.html

From past experience I can confirm that our app users are very satisfied with services that these two tools give them, together with us.

I know you will now say there is “Reachability” named sample app at developer connect library to download, but it ain’t what I am looking for. What I am looking for is feature that will tell me do I have internet connection while I have network connection, to be more accurate, do I have internet connection while I am connected to some wireless local area network? I know, some of you will now say: “Well you can make NSURLConnection and wait for didFailWithError or connectionDidFinishLoading delegate methods”. Yeah, but this again ain’t what I am looking for.

What I was really looking for is something like pinging some host. Again, you will now say: “Well, you might don’t know but Reachability sample app has way to test reachability of given host.” Yeah, but this again ain’t what I am looking for.

I just hope that Apple’s developers will soon add some really easy way to do something like this. Please don’t hesitate to leave comments, and please tell me I am wrong on this one and easy way really exist. Please that I am blind as mole and I can’t see! Thanks!

UIImage *myImage = [UIImage imageNamed:@"me.png"];

UIImageWriteToSavedPhotosAlbum(myImage, self, @selector(image:didFinishSavingWithError:contextInfo:), nil);

// And if you wish add this selector method in code;

- (void) image:(UIImage*)image didFinishSavingWithError:(NSError *)error contextInfo:(NSDictionary*)info;

That’s all you have to add! Quite simple, is it?

- (BOOL)webView:(UIWebView*)webView shouldStartLoadWithRequest:(NSURLRequest*)request navigationType:(UIWebViewNavigationType)navigationType {

if(navigationType == UIWebViewNavigationTypeLinkClicked) {

if (overrideLinksSwitch.on == TRUE) {

[self myMethodAction];

[myWebView stopLoading];

return YES;
}

else {
return YES;
}
}

return YES;
}

You can download example app here.

Here are some of the questions:

One of the most interesting software sales environments on the planet is iPhone. Why programs on the phone ? Do these small programs/apps on the phone make our World better place ? Is this a secret for success ? Why now and not before few years ?

Answer is fairly simple. It’s simple and it is Apple’s. You can make very good money programming software for iPhone and have fun at the same time. Just like I do now. Apple makes world better place. Just kidding but there is still some small amount of true in that sentence.

Why iPhone mobile platform is your choice and since when you are developing apps for iPhone ?

Inchoo company gave me a chance to work along with Surgeworks company on iPhone development in October last year. I accepted the offer and I’m satisfied now I made that decision then. In beginning it was maybe little hard but now I can say I am happy I have then decided to work along with these great people.

Read the rest of interview at this URL:
http://zecina.blogspot.com/2009/04/one-of-most-interesting-software-sales.html