Global Nerdy

I’m helping out a friend who’s put together a SharePoint site for a customer. He’s an IT guy, not a developer, but he’s taken the site quite far using just the non-developer features in SharePoint, such as lists and workflows. He’s called on me to help him with a part that needs coding.

I can handle the C# programming part, but I have no idea how you go about sticking code into an existing SharePoint 2010 project and just the vaguest of memories of how to programatically access the contents of a SharePoint list. If someone can just give me some basic pointers on how to do that, I can handle the rest of the programming tasks.

Would any of youSharePoint developers — especially if you’re in the Toronto area, but hey, if you think you can help remotely, go for it — be able to help me out for an afternoon next week? (Yes, we can pay.) Get in touch with me either through the comments or via email at joey@joeydevilla.com.

The very first thing I do as soon as I boot into Windows 8 is click on the Desktop tile to put it into desktop, a.k.a. “useful” mode. While having to do that every time Windows starts is a First World Problem, I’m a First Worlder, and I can do without what David Pogue calls “TileWorld” getting in my way.

Luckily, Windows 8.1, which was just released (it’s free for Windows 8 users), has a number of features to help you get around some of the annoyances that got half-baked into Windows 8. One of them is a setting that lets you bypass TileWorld and boot straight into Desktop mode. You’ll only enter TileWorld when you tap the Windows key or click on the Start button.

The “boot straight into Desktop mode” setting is tucked away in a control panel, but I’ll show you how to get to it. First, whether you’re in Desktop or TileWorld mode, push your cursor into the upper right-had corner of the screen. The Charms Menu will appear:

Click on the Search (magnifying glass) icon. A search text field will appear. Type taskbar into the text field:

A number of search results for the term taskbar will appear. Click on the one marked Taskbar and Navigation. You’ll be taken to a control panel in desktop mode, which will look like this:

The setting you want is under the Navigation tab, so click on it. In the lower part of the window, there’ll be a section marked Start screen. The topmost checkbox in that section is marked When I sign in or close all apps on a screen, go to the desktop instead of Start. Check that checkbox, then click the OK button.

That’s it! The next time you log in, you’ll go straight to the Desktop instead of TileWorld.

I still think that big smartphones and “phablets” are all part of a plot to bring back cargo pants…

Editable UITableViewController

Here’s a UI pattern that appears all the time:

In this pattern, you see a list of items in a table view — a master view. If you tap on an item’s cell or some control inside that cell, you get taken to a detail view where you can edit that item’s details. It’s tried and true, but there are times when it would useful — and faster — to be able to edit these items right inside the table view, like the way it’s done in the table view below:

The article Editable UITableViewController in iOS-Blog shows you how to build such a table view and even provides the source files for a project in exchange for a tweet.

An Asynchronous NSURLConnection That Can be Cancelled

You can’t cancel an NSURLConnection out of the box, but Damien Deville came up with a way to make a cancellable one by harnessing NSOperation, which lets you package code and data into a single task, and sports a cancel method. Clever idea.

“Beginning Auto Layout in iOS 7” Tutorials

Over at RayWenderlich.com, there’s a two-part tutorial on using Auto Layout, for which author Matthijs Hollemans says:

Thankfully, Xcode 5 makes Auto Layout a lot easier. If you tried Auto Layout in Xcode 4 and gave up, then we invite you to give it another try with Xcode 5.

Part 1 covers the basics of Auto Layout using Interface Builder, and part 2 focuses on constraints.

 “To Err is Human, to NSError is Cocoa.”

“NSError is the unsung hero of the Foundation framework,” writes NSHipster’s Mattt Thompson in his latest article. “Passed gallantly in and out of perilous method calls, it is the messenger by which we are able to contextualize our failures.” In the article, he writes about NSError and where you’ll run into it: as a consumer and as a producer.

Microsoft’s original mantra was also their best, clearest mission statement, and one they pretty much accomplished: “A computer on every desk, and in every home”. As you can see from the shadows cast by the people in the bathroom stalls in the photo above, the age of mobile devices is all about “a computer in every hand, and in every can”.

It’s a great time to be in mobile technology, whether you’re building apps, providing services or selling mobile device antibacterial screen wipes.

If you’re in Toronto and you’ve got some time to spare tonight — that’s Tuesday, October 15, 2013 — you might want to check out the Lighthack! BBQ-and-beer event taking place tonight at their office in the King/Portland area. As event organizer Nathon Gunn puts it:

Attention developers and entrepreneurs. Lighthack! is a new hackathon event series that pairs entrepreneurs with developers…. and accelerates their ability to build products rapidly with Lightning Platform. Think LEAN start-up meets hackathon meets founder matchmaking. Tonight is a BBQ and beer for curious devs to learn about the upcoming hackathon and what our software actually can do!

Nathon showed me the Lightning Platform earlier this year. I found it pretty intriguing’; it’s got a lot of the functionality in Parse, plus even more goodies that make it simpler to get better usage analytics and demographics from your user base. If you’re building community, social, game-based, or some other type of multiuser sites or applications and need a good back end and analytics, Lightning might be right for you. And I know that a BBQ and beer is definitely good for you. So c’mon down to their event tonight and find out what Nathon and company are up to!

Want to join tonight’s event? Sign up on the EventBrite page!

Specs don’t tell the whole story about a device, but it’s important to note that the gap between the things we think of when we say “computer” and “smartphone” is getting smaller and smaller. It’s a bit of an “apples and oranges” comparison, but the specs of one of the pricier 2013 smartphones aren’t all that different from those of one of the pricer 2009 laptops:

	2009 Laptop (HP Envy 13)	2013 Smartphone (Samsung Galaxy S4)
Processors	1.6 GHz dual-core CPU (Intel Core 2 Duo SU9600) and DirectX 10-capable 16-core GPU (ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330)	1.6 GHz quad-core CPU (ARM Cortex-A15) and DirectX 9_3-capable 3-core GPU (PowerVR SGX544)
Active Memory	2GB DDR2 RAM	2GB LPDDR3 RAM
Storage	250GB 4500 RPM hard drive	16, 32 or 64GB solid state storage
Display	1600 * 900	1080 * 1920
Networking	Bluetooth Ethernet Wifi	Bluetooth Cellular Wifi
Powerful enough to run a proper and complete port of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City?	Yes	Yes

 

2009-era computers are the machines of choice for producing TPS reports.

We all know that a lot of today’s work is still done on computers with specs similar to the 2009-era laptop shown above. They’re used in offices, banks, airports, retail stores, factories, schools, and any place that has to produce TPS reports every day. Now imagine that computing power, but with these qualities:

• One-tenth of the weight
• One-third of the price, unsubsidized; one-sixth of the price when subsidized
• Always connected to a network unless you’re out of the country or somewhere really remote
• Functions as a decent still and video camera
• Has built-in GPS
• Fits in your pocket
• Also functions as a phone

Whether you write apps for mobile devices or administer them for an organization, don’t think of them as just phones that happen to be able to run applications. That was the mistake made by Motorola, Nokia, RIM, and Palm — the top mobile vendors in 2006 and now the subject of “Where are they now?” conversations.

The top 4 smartphone brands of 2006: 1. Nokia: died today. 2. RIM: dead soon. 3. Motorola: dead sooner than you think. 4. Palm: long dead.

— Michael DeGusta (@degusta) September 3, 2013

 

Think of them as computers that fit in your pocket and just happen to make phone calls.