Well, last month Eric Bariaux gave a presentation on Automated Testing in an iOS World during our Cocoaheads Belgium Meeting. I did video tape the session, but didn’t really find the time to process it yet … until then end of last week.

So I finally Imported the HDV Tapes, did some color correction, added a few titles, exported the whole thing … and ended up with a 90 GB file. I had to compress this into a smaller format for uploading and ended up with an 700 something Mb file which I uploaded to Vimeo.

Automated testing in an iOS World – Cocoaheads Belgium from Stefaan Lesage on Vimeo.

Audio Quality

I know the audio quality isn’t superb … We did have a lot of noise from the activity in the room next to ours, and I couldn’t really filter that out without messing up the rest of the audio. Next time I’ll try to bring an Audio Interface and a Microphone so we can record the audio separately.

High Quality Version

The file I uploaded had a resolution of about 640 x 360 pixels, which is perfect for displaying on an older iPhone / iPod Touch, but somehow low quality for viewing on the iPad. If people are interested in a higher quality version, I could generate an iPad specific version for you, but I won’t be able to upload that to Vimeo due to the file size.

Next Meeting

Well, since we should have had this months meeting yesterday … we will be skipping it and try to organize the next one on the 20 th December (if that’s find with everyone). We are still looking for a location or a topic, but we could also make it a ‘coding’ session if we can’t find someone to give a presentation.

Final Note

If anyone thinks he can help us out with one of the ideas mentioned in this topic, please do contact us. If you still have more ideas … well contact us as well., or even better … start organizing

Regards,

Stefaan

The very first book I read on Cocoa Programming was Cocoa(R) Programming for Mac(R) OS X (3rd Edition), and I wrote a review about that a while ago. Meanwhile I’ve been reading quite a few books on iPhone Programmings, and I even had the chance to met up with Aaron Hillegass at the NSConference. Meanwhile the folks at the Big Nerd Ranch released the iPhone Programming this new book which focuses on iPhone development. Since I learned a lot from the very first book, I decided to buy the iPhone Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide (Big Nerd Ranch Guides)
and read through it.

The book itself

Since reading my first Cocoa related book, I did learn a few things and started to learn some iPhone development. Most of the things I know is from stuff I read in books, on websites and by experimenting myself. The iPhone Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide (Big Nerd Ranch Guides) book itself is organized in a format which helps you learn the concepts and how things fit together. The book really helps you gather new knowledge and provides you with some techniques and sample source code which you can reuse in your own projects.

What I particularly loved in the book is that it follows some type of classroom format. For example, early in the book you will learn things about Delegation, Core Location, Views and start with a small project. Later on in the book, you will learn about the UINavigationController and use the same project to add the new things to it. This approach worked a lot better for me. Most other books teach you something with a small example, but this book uses a few sample applications throughout the whole book. The further you get in the book, the bigger the application gets and the more things you will use in it. I really LOVED that approach !

Conclusion

I have to say, I’ve been reading quite a few iPhone development related books. Most of them teach you a specific topic in a Chapter and then another topic in the next Chapter. The power of the iPhone Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide (Big Nerd Ranch Guides) is that it actually takes what you’ve learned in the first chapters of the book onto the next ones, allowing you to build on what you’ve learned so far.

The examples in the book are really worth it. Once you worked yourself through the book, you won’t have a set of 25 applications each showing one thing covered in the book. Instead you’ll have a set of 10 applications which combine everything you’ve learned and have enough sample code to get you going.

Additionally, the book contains quite a few challenges. Most of the time, there is more than one way to solve the challenges, so you won’t find any solutions in the book. This made me really think about the problem at hand, and not look to the solutions to see if I understand them. In case you have a problem with one of the challenges, or anything else in the book, the folks at the Big Nerd Ranch have set up a forum in which you can ask questions.

One thing to note though, is that the book was published before iOS 4 was released, so it doesn’t contain anything specific to iOS 4. Similarly the book does contain a chapter on Preparing for the iPad, but that chapter is limited. I really hope they will make a new book which focuses more on iOS 4 and iPad development as well. The forum has a few solutions to problems with iOS4 breaking some of the examples in the book, so go ahead and check those out as well.

All in all, a fantastic book for beginners and those of you who already did some iPhone programming as well.

Amazon Links

Just so you guys know … The links to the Amazon books in this article are Affiliate Links, meaning if you would buy the book by clicking on this link, a small percentage of the purchase prices will flow back to the Belgian Cocoaheads community.

This month the meeting will take place in Gent on the 23rd of August.  Steven Vandeweghe (Blue Crowbar Software) will be showing us how he uses Git as a Version Control System during his daily life as a developer.  We might also get some additional info on SVN by Eric Bariaux (TinSys) and Mercurial by Raphael Sebbe (Creaceed). As you can see, this promises to bring out some interesting discussions on Version Control Systems.

The location for this month’s meeting is in the offices of SHPArtners – Roving Bird, Kortrijksesteenweg 1099a, 9051 Gent.

The meeting will start at 20:00, and there will be plenty of time to meet up with other Cocoa Heads BE enthousiasts. So if you’re interested, feel free to go to the EventBrite website and sign up, since spaces are limited.

You can find more information on CocoaHeads Belgium a the CocoaHeads Belgium website, in the CocoaHeads Google Groups and I even created a Linked In group for CocoaHeads Belgium.

Registration for this Meeting can be done on the Eventbrite page. If you have suggestions for future sessions or are willing to give a session, that would be the perfect time to let us know.

Those who follow me on Twitter (@spencerpieters) know that very recently I have taken up Core Data on the Mac and iPhone.

They’re all different subjects but they all have something in common: data.

I’m a data guy. I love data. I love visualizing data in different ways, on different devices and in different contexts. Data is great.

On the other hand, data can be quite boring. If you tell people about some data processing algorithm that you produced, you can see in their faces how they visualize you sitting in a dark corner being all, well, nerdy.

But that’s ok, because you can also be a software developer that people look up to. An awesome guy, a rockstar even. You could be … a games developer !!

Now, if you’re my age and I tell you I’ve had a C64, an Amiga, and then pc’s going from XT, AT, Pentiums and what not, it will probably sound very familiar to you. I’ve played games on all of these platforms but I’ve never been a hardcore gamer. If I look back at the games I’ve tried they’ve always been games that were truly ahead of their time, like Thunderhawk on the Amiga. Remember how smooth that chopper flew through a 3D environment ? Yeah, so do I. What I’m saying is I’ve always tried games that were truly awesome pieces of software.

I’ve bought the odd book on 68000 assembler and a few others but I never really got into games development. I’ve always felt it was a bit over my head and maybe a sidestep to far away from my beloved data.

After my last Apress book review, I got in touch with the wonderful people of Apress. They were very happy with my review and said I could pick a book for free for review purposes. And guess what, maybe I was dreaming of becoming a rockstar after all, I choose “Beginning iPhone Games Development” (BIGD).

At just over 700 pages, BIGD takes you various aspects of games development, such as animation, sprites, sounds, streaming data and connected gaming. The first few chapters give you a very short introduction to Cocoa Touch, Objective-C and memory management. If you’re new to all this, you *will* need separate books on these subjects.

In chapter 3 you will be playing with NSTimer and CADisplayLink to animate objects, learning the differences between the two.

Chapter 4 introduces you to the wonderful world of Quartz, where you will be creating sprites for an Asteroids-like game.

Chapter 5 introduces Core Animation. You’ll learn how to animate UIViews with simple movements, animation curves, reverse/repeat, transforms, transitions and animating layers. The good thing about this chapter is you’ll be able to reuse some of this stuff in non-game apps, on UIViews that represent data. Nothing wrong with giving your data apps a touch of Core Animation sexyness.

Chapter 6 introduces the basics of OpenGL. You’ll learn about subjects such as objects, camera, lens and camera position and the link with model matrices, viewport and the projection matrix. OpenGL is continued in chapters 7 and 8 where you will continue work on your Asteroids game: drawing your ship, the rocks and how to implement collision detection. It sounds complicated (and it is: entire books have been written on the subject of OpenGL) but you get good source code to learn from.

You step away from the graphical stuff and enter the wonderful world of audio in chapters 9, 10, 11 and 12.

Chapter 13 introduces network play and explains the different ways of connecting: tcp/ip, Bonjour, Sockets, BSD Sockets API, CFNetwork, NSNetServices and GameKit. Most of this chapter is available in other Apress iPhone books as well. In the following chapters all these networking concepts are explained in detail showing you how to build simple head-to-head games, multiplayer games, and internet connected games while also explaining dangers such as lag.

Chapters overview:

• 1: A revolutionary gaming platform: games for everyone, anytime, anywhere
• 2: Developing iPhone games: peeking inside the iPhone toolbox
• 3: Moving images on a small screen – UIKit controls
• 4: She shoots, she hits, she scores!
• 5: Flipping out and sweeping away with Core Animation
• 6: OpenGL basics: wrapping your head around the OpenGL API
• 7: Putting it together: making a game in OpenGL
• 8: The next steps: atlases, sprites and particles – oh my!
• 9: Introduction to Core Audio
• 10: Making noise with OpenAL
• 11: 3D Audio – turning noise into game sounds
• 12: Streaming, thumping, pulse-quickening game excitement
• 13: Networking for iPhone games: introduction
• 14: Going head to head
• 15: Party time
• 16: Connecting with the outside world
• 17: Putting it all together: now comes the fun part

If you are new to Cocoa Touch and if you are hoping that this book will let you write your first game, then this book is not for you.

If you have experience with Cocoa and have at least heard of some topics like OpenGL and Core Animation then you will enjoy this book a lot. It is not *the* bible on game development but no book is. You could build a nice library with dedicated Quartz and OpenGL books alone. What it *does* do is give you a very-well explained introduction on all these topics, kindle your intrest to hopefully make you learn more.

No book on games development has held my interest for so long.

It also teaches the data developers a few cool tricks to improve their apps. We can be rockstars after all. Little ones.

Well, I would like to thank Tom Maes and the kind folks at Sun Microsystems Belgium once more for allowing us to use the room for our Cocoaheads Belgium meeting.

It took us a while again to get everyone subscribed for this event, and to find an appropriate location, and sadly this time we had to limit the number of seats available. I hope everyone got in though, and if you didn’t make sure you register for the next meeting ASAP (or at least when we have more info about it). This time we had a room filled with about 30 people, at least a dozen of iPads, and even two iPhone 4 devices !

This month Tom Maes prepared a session on all things WWDC. Tom gave us his opinion about WWDC and why he finds it so interesting. As with many conferences, the sessions are quite interesting, but at WWDC you also have the opportunity to have some Lab Time with Apple Technicians which proves to be very valuable. He also mentioned that the conference isn’t always held in the session rooms, but quite a few times you meet up with interesting people in the lobby or hallways and you probably learn a few things there too.

Status Update

Personally I am very pleased with the way the Cocoaheads Belgium community is growing and evolving. I remember the first meeting where we all seemed strangers … but meanwhile we’ve grown acquainted to each-other and the sharing of knowledge and information is starting to be a fact !

I’ve had quite a few suggestions and ideas from the community last month and we have discussed a few of those during the meeting as well. For those of you who didn’t make it to the meeting, I’ll give you a little summary on the 2 most important suggestions.

NSCoder Nights

The goal here is to get together with a small group of developers and actually Code together. The idea exists in other countries and there is even a website dedicated to NSCoder Nights.

The actual goal is to have a weekly / bi-weekly event where a small group of Cocoa developers get together and … well code of course ! The big difference between the NSCoder Night and regular meetings is that the idea is to work in smaller groups, and be less formal. There would be no need to subscribe at all, if you feel you’re ready for an NSCoder Night you just turn up with your Mac and a project you want to work on.

It would be a great opportunity to share our knowledge ! One person could have an issue with some Core Location stuff and another developer could help him with the task at hand. I have already seen that we have quite a few smart people in our community, some know everything about Core Location, others about Core Animation and even some OpenGL experts. We are probably all experts in a specific area, but imagine what we could do if we could bring all that knowledge together … wel that’s exactly the idea of the NSCoder Night!

We have no concrete plans yet, but I noticed that the people present at the meeting would be interested in it, so here is a little list of things we would probably need :

• Spot with enough electricity / chairs to host a small group of developers
• Preferably a calm, not too noisy location
• If possible some Wifi access to the interent
• Some drinks / food in the neighboorhood would be great as well

In many cases it is done in a Pub with Wifi, which makes it absolutely perfect if it isn’t all too noisy (we still need to hear the each-other think & talk).

So, if anyone has a suggestion of a place where we could host the NSCoder Nights, please let us know. Remember this is supposed to be a smaller group, and there is no problem at all with having it take place in 2 or more places in Belgium at the same time. For example, I could imagine one in Antwerp, one in Gent, one in Brussels, …

NSBBQ

The other idea is a suggestion for a more social happening. From time to time we get together for our meetings, and we even take some time to grab a beer together and that’s how the idea started to grow. And if there is one thing we Belgians love on hot sunny days, … its a BBQ with good food and a few drinks! (if you answered : creating iPhone apps in 1 day, you should check the NSCoder Night topic again)

The idea is to plan a day where the whole community could meet up and socialize. Since there is no technical content attached to this event, you could even bring your girl/boyfriend, husband/wife and maybe even the kids.

We have absolutely no idea yet on how we should organize this. For now it’s a wild idea, but a quite interesting one. With the help of the community we could get it organized (find a location, catering, …) or we might even be able to do it ourselves (bring our own food, do the BBQ ourselves).

If you are interested in this idea, and have some suggestions / can offer a helping hand, please get in touch with us.

Feedback & Suggestions

If you have any feedback on the topics mentioned or have any other suggestions at all, feel free to get in touch with us. You can reach us through our Google Group for CocoaHeadsBE and CocoaHeadsBE group on LinkedIn, and of course our CocoaHeads Belgium webiste / Blog. Furthermore you can also follow the CocoaheadsBE twitter account to learn more about us.

Next Meeting

As of yet, the date is undecided. If we keep our schedule, the next meeting would be on the 26th of July, but that will probably be during most people’s summer holidays. Personally I’m out of the country during the last 2 weeks of July, but that doesn’t mean you guys can’t have a meeting without me.

Some people suggested we should skip July and jump straight forward to August. Who knows, we might be able to organize our NSBBQ during the summer holidays for those of you eager to see me before the end of august

Final Note

If anyone thinks he can help us out with one of the ideas mentioned in this topic, please do contact us. If you still have more ideas … well contact us as well. There is a real need for a CocoaHeads Belgium, and I’m sure that we can make it happen if we all work on it together.

Regards,

Stefaan

This month the meeting will take place in Brussels on the 28th of June. Tom Maes and the folks at Sun Microsystems Belgium have been kind enough to provide us with a location in which we can hold this month’s meeting.

The address for this month’s meeting is Sun Microsystems Belgium, Lozenberg 15, 1932 Zaventem.

Tom will be presenting a session on “WWDC 2010 – The non-NDA parts”.

The meeting will start at 20:00, and there will be plenty of time to meet up with other Cocoa Heads BE enthousiasts. So if you’re interested, feel free to go to the EventBrite website and sign up, since spaces are limited.

You can find more information on CocoaHeads Belgium a the CocoaHeads Belgium website, in the CocoaHeads Google Groups and I even created a Linked In group for CocoaHeads Belgium.

Registration for this Meeting can be done on the Eventbrite page. If you have suggestions for future sessions or are willing to give a session, that would be the perfect time to let us know.

Webinar invitation: Create talkative apps and bring a smiling voice to your interface!

More than 20 talkative apps using Acapela text-to-speech are already available on the Apple Appstore for different purposes. Thanks to the Acapela TTS for iPhone and iPad Software Development Kit (SDK) you will be able to include this feature in your next app, with only a few lines of code.

Interested?

Register to join one of our 30 minutes webinars:

• In French/en francais on June 30th at 10 am CET – Click here to register
• In English on July 1st at 3 pm CET – Click here to register

More information on: http://www.acapela-group.com/page.php?id=180

Invitation webinar: Créez vos applications parlantes et donnez un sourire à votre interface!

Plus de 20 applications parlantes utilisant la synthèse vocale Acapela sont déjà disponibles sur l’Apple Appstore. Avec les kits de développement(SDK) Acapela TTS for iPhone and iPad, vous pouvez donner la parole à votre application, en seulement quelques lignes de code.

Inscrivez-vous à un de nos webinars et rejoignez-nous pour une cession de 30 minutes:

• En français, le 30 juin à 10h00 – Cliquez ici pour vous inscrire
• En anglais, le 1er juillet à 15h00 – Cliquez ici pour vous inscrire

Plus d’informations sur : http://www.acapela-group.fr/page.php?id=180

Well, I would like to thank Raphael Sebbe and Sandrine Louiseau from Creaceed once more for allowing us to use the room for our Cocoaheads Belgium meeting.

The room was filled once again, and I think we had approximately 20 people joining us this time (and about 8 iPads I believe). Of course all the familiar faces were there again, and we also had some newcomers there too.

This month Raphael Sebbe prepared a session about XCode for us. Raphael is a developer from Creaceed who are the creators of some Mac and iPhone products like Prizmo, Hydra and Vocalia. And Raphael showed us how he is using XCode for a few things, learned us some new keyboard shortcuts and showed us a few Tips and Tricks. All in all, it was a great session both for beginners like me and more advanced XCode users.

Cocoaheads Belgium – Raphael Sebbe – XCode : Basics & Beyond – April 2010 from Stefaan Lesage on Vimeo.

You can find a PDF version of the actual presentation on the Creaceed website.

Status Update

Before the session started I gave a little Status Update on things we have already done since the last meeting. As we all know by now, we have our Google Group for CocoaHeadsBE and CocoaHeadsBE group on LinkedIn, and of course our CocoaHeads Belgium webiste / Blog. Furthermore you can also follow the CocoaheadsBE twitter account to learn more about us.

I would like to encourage everyone to help us fill it with content you guys are looking for. A great example here is the Book Reviews like the ones posted by Spencer Pieters. The more content we have, the more visitors the website will generate, and the easier it will be for Cocoaheads Belgium to achieve some things.

If you have a Cocoa Problem, feel free to post it in our Google Group … if you have an interesting tutorial to share you can always post it on the CocoaHeads Belgium website. Even if you post it on your own website, we would appreciate a little post on the CocoaHeads Belgium website which links through to your website for the full content.

Next Meeting

We decided that the next meeting will be on monday, the 31st of May. Currently we are still looking for a room we could use to hold the meeting, and also for someone to hold an actual session on something.

So, if you do know of a location we could use, or are willing to present something related to Mac / iPhone or iPad development, please get in touch with us.

Final Note

If anyone thinks he can help us out with one of the ideas mentioned in this topic, please do contact us. If you still have more ideas … well contact us as well. There is a real need for a CocoaHeads Belgium, and I’m sure that we can make it happen if we all work on it together.

Regards,

Stefaan

This month the meeting will take place in Mons on the 26th of April. Raphael and Sandrine from Creaceed have been kind enough to provide us with a location in which we can hold this month’s meeting. The location for this month’s meeting is La Maison de l’Entreprise (LME), Parc Scientifique Initialis, 2 Rue Descartes, 7000 Mons. Raphael will be presenting a session on “XCode, Basics and Beyond”, which should be quite interesting for even the novice and more advanced developers in the community.

The meeting will start at 20:00, and there will be plenty of time to meet up with other Cocoa Heads BE enthousiasts. So if you’re interested, feel free to go to the EventBrite website and sign up, since spaces are limited.

You can find more information on CocoaHeads Belgium a the CocoaHeads Belgium website, in the CocoaHeads Google Groups and I even created a Linked In group for CocoaHeads Belgium.

Registration for this Meeting can be done on the Eventbrite page. If you have suggestions for future sessions or are willing to give a session, that would be the perfect time to let us know.