Author Archives: lantean

Twitter iOS SDK

I recently had to integrate one of my apps with Twitter. Let me say you something. I HATE TWITTER guys. Why?. Because everything is soooo complicated. Although there is a direct integration between Twitter and iOS 5, they have made it really hard for developers.

Why?. If you need to post tweets, backend side, you need to ask for ‘Reverse Auth‘ permissions.. and it’s not something that can be done automatically. They have to personally approve this.

So… if you’re like me, stressed dealing with those guys, check this out: https://github.com/bengottlieb/Twitter-OAuth-iPhone.

What is that?. A nice iOS library, which implements OAuth authentication against twitter servers. I’m tuning it, just a little bit. There is a ‘PIN’ mechanism implemented right there, which i’m not particular fond of. But besides that, it’ll help you open a WebView as a modalViewController, and authenticate the user into twitter.

Not the best i’ve imagined.. but the problem is solved. My idea is to implement a hybrid. If the user has no credentials stored in iOS 5, then i’ll fall back to this framework. Makes sense.. right?.

OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion System Requirements

Since the Preview 4 has just been released, and we’re getting close to the final release, i thought it would be a good idea to check out what are the system requirements for Mountain Lion.

Well, let me say you something. They’re tight. Yeah. Most of you are probably gonna need to buy new hardware, if you still wanna run this big cat. Mountain Lion needs..:

  • 64-Bit Intel Core 2 Duo processor or better required
  • Ability to boot into OS X 64-bit kernel
  • Advanced GPU chipset required
  • Internet connection required to download and install OS X 10.8
Long short story, the following hardware will be able to run 10.8:
  • MacBook Pro – 13″ from mid 2009 or later, 15″ from late 2007 and newer, 17″ from late 2007 and newer
  • MacBook Air – late 2008 and newer
  • iMac – models from mid 2007 and newer
  • MacBook – 13″ aluminum from 2008, 13″ from 2009 and newer
  • Mac Mini – early 2009 and newer
  • Mac Pro – early 2008 models and newer
  • XServe – early 2009 models and newer

Anything else is ‘deprecated’. So… where are you standing? do you need to spend money… or not?. (Excuses, excuses… i wanna buy a new Mac Retina!).

Make OSX Speak anything!

This is a nice trick, which can be used in any console script. There is a command named ‘say’, which is the one that does all of the magic. You can use it this way:

echo lantean | say

What’s interesting about this is that you have different voice tone variations. To get a full list, you can do this:

lantean$ say -v ?
Agnes               en_US    # Isn't it nice to have a computer that will talk to you?
Albert              en_US    #  I have a frog in my throat. No, I mean a real frog!
Alex                en_US    # Most people recognize me by my voice.
Bad News            en_US    # The light you see at the end of the tunnel is the headlamp of a fast approaching train.
Bahh                en_US    # Do not pull the wool over my eyes.
Bells               en_US    # Time flies when you are having fun.
Boing               en_US    # Spring has sprung, fall has fell, winter's here and it's colder than usual.
Bruce               en_US    # I sure like being inside this fancy computer
Bubbles             en_US    # Pull the plug! I'm drowning!
Cellos              en_US    # Doo da doo da dum dee dee doodly doo dum dum dum doo da doo da doo da doo da doo da doo da doo
Deranged            en_US    # I need to go on a really long vacation.
Fred                en_US    # I sure like being inside this fancy computer
Good News           en_US    # Congratulations you just won the sweepstakes and you don't have to pay income tax again.
Hysterical          en_US    # Please stop tickling me!
Junior              en_US    # My favorite food is pizza.
Kathy               en_US    # Isn't it nice to have a computer that will talk to you?
Pipe Organ          en_US    # We must rejoice in this morbid voice.
Princess            en_US    # When I grow up I'm going to be a scientist.
Ralph               en_US    # The sum of the squares of the legs of a right triangle is equal to the square of the hypotenuse.
Trinoids            en_US    # We cannot communicate with these carbon units.
Vicki               en_US    # Isn't it nice to have a computer that will talk to you?
Victoria            en_US    # Isn't it nice to have a computer that will talk to you?
Whisper             en_US    # Pssssst, hey you, Yeah you, Who do ya think I'm talking to, the mouse?
Zarvox              en_US    # That looks like a peaceful planet.

So far, so good. Now, if you actually wanna use one of those voices, you need to specify the -v parameter, just like this:

lantean$ echo "Alala la la long long le long long long" | say -v "Hysterical"

OSX 10.7.4 released

Indeed, we got another OSX update. This time, 10.7.4…. which should fix several vulnerabilities out there. It’s over 700 MB, so it’ll take some time to get downloaded.

If you didn’t already update your mac, it’s time you hit the Software Update button in the Apple menu. I really recommend you do it right away… those Flashback viruses have been giving lots of headache’s.

The cool side about this is that we’re getting closer to getting access to Mountain Lion. And no, i don’t mean to say… ‘access to a developer build’. That’s already there. We’re getting close to the commercial release of ML.. which is pretty cool. I bet you they release ML along with the new MBP & MBA lineup (maybe… the ‘Macbook Air Pro’ lineup…?).

The full release log is right here.

iPhone 5 with an in-house Maps App?

I’ve been reading all over the net an interesting roumor. The next iPhone, AKA ‘iPhone 5’, may be released with a new iteration of our beloved OS… iOS 6. But… what goodie could it introduce?.

Well… the biggest idea around, and i’m posting it because i think there is a big chance it’s actually accurate, would be an in-house Maps app. Why i think this?. Because the current Maps App relies heavily on Google. In fact, it wouldn’t do anything useful if it wasn’t for Google.

And as everybody knows, Google and Apple are on trial for Android. So… if i were them, i’d try to take some distance. To begin with, i’d cut the Google Maps app… it’s the obvious move. Let’s see what happens in October!