Twitter has finally turned off all basic authentication and gone over to using oauth. I knew this was coming, I had no excuse to wait to upgrade various Twitter scripts used by MMISoftware, and also the plugins on the range of blogs we host, but I did. So, what did I learn?

First, don’t wait until the last minute!

Upgrading Applescripts: This was interesting. In basic authentication you could just use curl, but with oath this was not the case. It turns out the solution was (for me) to use twurl – source. The twurl site does a good job of explaining the process. Basically, install twurl (in terminal) with:

sudo gem install twurl

and then authorise twurl with:

$ twurl authorize --consumer-key the-key --consumer-secret the-secret

Where the-key and the-secret are obtained from the Twitter Developer site, and are specific for your Twitter account.

Once the-key and the-secret are added to twurl you are prompted for a pin that is obtained via the Twitter Developer site. All fairly straight forward.

To use twurl from the command-line you just type:

twurl -d "status=This is a twurl test" /1/statuses/update.xml

which will post ‘This is a twurl test’ to the Twitter account you used to set up twurl on the Twitter Developer site.

You can then use twurl in your AppleScript by using a ‘do shell script’. For example:

set results to do shell script "twurl -d " & twitter_status & " /1/statuses/update.xml"

where twitter_status could be ‘status=Testing twurl with a location&lat=37.7821120598956&long=-122.400612831116′, which would ‘geolocate’ (geocode) the Twitter post ‘Testing twurl with a location’ with the latitude and longitude coordinates 37.7821120598956 and -122.400612831116, respectively.

Upgrading the blogs: I use the excellent Twitter Tools By Crowd Favorite, these work great. Twitter Tools post tweets of new blog posts, and log tweets back to your blog. This all worked great with basic authentication and version 2.4 seems to work very well with oauth. Crowd Favorite have done a very good job with their instructions to walk you through the process of getting your site registered at Twitter Developer, and getting all the various keys and tokens needed to get oauth working. Thanks….

Last weekend I saw a great group in concert (to save embarrassment I won’t name the group), and after the concert I went to their website to leave a comment in their guest book to say how much I had enjoyed their show. But I couldn’t….

The website was good. It had all the right information, i.e. you could find out about the group, when and where they were playing etc., but the site was full of technical errors and problems such as:

• Dark text on a dark background (even when some text was light coloured) which was impossible to read
• Lack of search engine optimisation (SEO)
• Lack of updates
• Guest book didn’t work

Now, the group is comprised of clearly very intelligent and talented people, and they even handed out postcards at the end of the show promoting the group and listing their website. But the website lets them down.

This isn’t the first website for a small company or group I have seen with problems.

So, the question is: why? Why do small companies/groups allow this to happen? Why don’t companies/groups look after their ‘primary’ means of communicating with the world? First impressions and all that…

My guess it is cost. The small company/group pays a small fortune (for them) to get the website up, and then feels they can leave it. They have done their job, and the site will do its job. Unfortunately it won’t…. It needs updating, and refreshing every once in awhile.

What MMISoftware can offer: Very reasonably priced ‘site overhaul’ and ‘update’ service. We will go in to your site and blow away the cobwebs that are preventing your good site from looking great. We will provide search engine optimisation (SEO) and advice, and carry out any changes needed to improve the look and feel of your site. (We will also make sure your site is register with the search engines, Google, Ask, Yahoo, Bing etc.) You will end up with a site that may not look radically different, but it will be up to date, easier to maintain, load better in to web browsers, and have a consistent look and feel across the site. We will also give you advice, and help, on promoting your site and helping you get the ‘word out’ and develop a relationship with your customers or audience.

What MMISoftware can’t offer: We are not a ‘design studio’. We cannot design your site. If you do a design, we can code (write) it so it appears on the web, and we can provide guidance on best layout etc., but we don’t do basic site design.

So, if you are a small company or group with a website that is feeling a bit old and tired please get in touch. Our contact details can be found on our contact page.

bodyCal2 – a body mass index (BMI) and basal metabolic rate (BMR) calculator and tracker for the iPad officially went on sale on iTunes App Store 2 days ago, and version 1.0.1 was released fairly quickly so as to deal with a couple of bugs….

So, what next? What should be put in to version 2.0 of bodyCal2?

Version 1.0 was developed quickly as part of a ‘seven days, one app’ challenge, and as of writing is still only one of 5 Apps on the iPad store that can calculate BMI, and the only App that can calculate BMR (see earlier post). However, version 1.0 was never viewed as the final version of the App. It was a version to get in to the iPad App store for launch. Work has now started (actually it started a couple of days ago) on version 2.0.

I will keep a journal of the development of 2.0, but I won’t release the posts until version 2.0 has been submitted to the App store and improved. The reason for this is I don’t want to promise features that I don’t/can’t finally deliver…. However, I will be twitting about programming ‘events’ as they occur, so keep an eye on Twitter.

How much should an iPad App cost? Having looked around the US iTunes store, and looked at the pricing it is hard to tell. Is $2.99 to much for bodyCal2 – home page – download.

As is pointed out in Apps: What prices will iPad users accept? Apps range (list from the article):

1. Pages (Apple) $9.99
2. Numbers (Apple) $9.99
3. Keynote (Apple) $9.99
4. OmniGraffle (The Omni Group) $49.99
5. Scrabble for iPad (Electronic Arts) $9.99
6. At Bat 2010 for iPad (MLB.com) $14.99
7. Things for iPad (Cultured Code) $19.99
8. The Elements: A Visual Exploration (Element Collection) $13.99
9. Plants vs Zombies (PopCap Games) $9.99
10. SketchBook Pro (AutoDesk) $7.99

I will be buying iWorks at those prices, I am an OmniGraffle Profession ($199) user, and love it, but can’t justify $49.99 as I don’t think I would use it that much. The other Apps on the list are not ‘my thing’, so I can’t comment.

Searching the iTunes App Store (US) with BMI (body mass index) I get 5 Apps (one of which is bodyCal2), and prices range from free, to $3.99. And, at the risk of ‘blowing my own trumpet’ I would say that bodyCal2 is the most ‘iPad looking’ of the 5, and the others seem to be oversized iPhone Apps.

Searching the iTunes App Store (US) with BMR and ‘basal metabolic rate’, a key number to know in weight control, only returns bodyCal2….

So, my guess I is I have priced bodyCal2 about right, possibly a bit low as it is the only BMR calculator and recorder out there…

Just looking at an article over at appadvice showing a video of Apps on the iPad App store when I spotted the icon for bodyCal2 go whizzing by…

If you look carefully at 1 minute and 7 secs the big friendly ‘B’ icon of for bodyCal2 can be seen….

Supposedly there will be over 700 Apps on opening day. I wonder what the final figure will be….

Just heard that Apple have approved bodyCal2 for the iPad and it will be available on the iTunes App Store on ‘opening day’… great news.

bodyCal2 is a Body Mass Index (BMI), and Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) calculator for the iPad.

With bodyCal2 you can calculate your BMI and your BMR using a range of different units – imperial or metric. Height can be entered as feet (ft) and inches (in), or in meters. Weight can be in kilograms (kilos; kg), pounds (lb) or stone (st) and pounds (lb).

In addition, bodyCal2 can also be used to track changes in your BMI and BMR, with the results displayed on a graph. This is ideal for weight watchers, people monitoring their diet, and people in training.

bodyCal2 – a BMI/BMR calculator and tracker for the iPad – available on the App store from Saturday 3 April, 2010…

The iPad isn’t even out in the US, and looks like it won’t be in Europe for another 3 weeks or more (MMISoftware is UK, therefore Europe), but already I am thinking of version 1.1 of bodyCal2… but what to do….?

Also, there may be a 1.0.1 release if users discover any bugs or problems with the current 1.0 version of bodyCal2…..

Sitting here, waiting for news from Apple on whether or not bodyCal2 will be in the App store for the release of the iPad and surfing the web (I am supposed to working on another couple of iPad Apps, but can’t seem to get down to it)….

Lot of iPad related stuff out there on the Internet… this one caught my eye – iPad and Screen Real Estate for Music Making: bleepBox Developer on Process – interesting piece. Looks like the developer has encountered some of the problems I had when working on bodyCal2. That is, there is a lot of screen space on an iPad, and it takes a slightly different mindset for writing an App on the iPad, i.e. it is not a giant iPhone.

Good to know I am not alone…

This morning I heard that bodyCal2 had ‘cleared the first hurdle’ on the way to being accepted in to the iPad App store in time for iPad launch day…. however, bodyCal2 is not ‘out of the woods’ yet….

bodyCal2 was produced as part of a ’7 days, 1 app’ challenge, and you can find a summary, and links to the full-story in an earlier post. The App was submitted on Thursday 25 March, 2010, and a rejection was received on Saturday 27 March, 2010 – the rejection was my own fault, I had left some test code in place. The App was resubmitted on Saturday 27 March, 2010, and I heard this morning (Tuesday March 30, 2010) that it had been accepted. HOWEVER, to make it on to the iPad App Store the App needs to be recompiled..

bodyCal2 – a body mass index (BMI) and basal metabolic rate (BMR) calculator and tracker for the iPad

Full Screen Shot

Why a recompile? Well, the App was produced using a beta version of the software development kit (SDK) for the iPad. In fact, all the Apps for the iPad that have been produced to date, by all the different developers, were compiled using the beta SDK. Apple has said all along that Apps would only make it on to the iPad App store IF they were compiled with the final ‘gold master’ (GM), and the GM SDK was only released yesterday, Monday 29 March, 2010. So, any developer that said they had an approved iPad App before yesterday were not, in fact, telling the truth. No Apps had been fully accepted.

This means that all developers that hope to get Apps in for ‘launch day’ now need to recompile and test their Apps. I have no idea if there were major changes between the beta and the GM of the SDK, but it is possible that some developers may run in to problems. The deadline for getting recompiled Apps back to Apple is Wednesday 31 March, 2010 at 5PDT. What I do know is Apple is going to have a few busy days testing Apps….

bodyCal2 and the recompile: All went fine. The App compiled and passed internal testing…. bodyCal2 was sent back to Apple on Tuesday March 30, 2010 at 10:03:46 BST.

Last week I took a ’7 days, 1 app’ challenge for the iPad. The aim was to develop and submit an App for the iPad in 7 days. You can read all about the ‘adventure’ on the blog, and there is a summary page here – bottom line, I completed the challenge and bodyCal2 was submitted.

The earlier post finished with a conclusion in which I said that the biggest difference between writing Apps for the iPhone and writing Apps for the iPad was the change in ‘mind-set’ required. The more I have thought about this, the more true I think it is.

Writing for the Mac: Big screen, multiple windows open at a time, drop-down menus.

Writing for the iPhone: Small screen, single window, no drop-down menus.

Writing for the iPad: Big screen (well, bigger than an iPhone), single window, no drop-down menus.

So, iPhone v. iPad comes down to screen size… and what you do with it.

iPhone Apps tend to be ‘stacked’, that is, if multiple windows (or views) are required for the App then they are ‘stacked’ one on top of another and you navigate between them. On the iPad there is much more space, so you don’t need to stack the views, you can have multiple views open at a time (although you shouldn’t think of them as windows as you would on a Mac) displayed in a split view.

This change of approach/interaction with the device effectively needs a change of mind-set for the developer as they plan and solve the user-interface for App. Porting an App from the iPhone to the iPad may not necessarily just be a straight port. This can be quite tricky… The iPad is not a giant iPhone!