I decided to stick with NeuroMind, and have been adding some content with Google Docs. Twitter followers have seen it before, but here is a screenshot compilation of what the current version looks like:
Click for large version
Starting to like it.. need to add more content before App Store submission (scheduled for Q1 2010).
The last days I have been experimenting with several layout styles for the app’s content, and in the end I decided to stick to Google Docs. I like the idea of being able to work from different locations on the content of the application, and an online office application makes this possible. Besides, Google Docs offers some other interesting features.
I can collaborate with other people on one document without the need to send it by E-mail all times, not knowing who exactly has the latest version of the document. And from the web interface, its very easy to download the document as an HTML document. And this fits perfectly in the iPhone’s UIWebView component that I use to display content. The advantage using web documents is that it is very easy to include different fonts and colors, which makes the layout of the app more attractive in my opinion. This is how it looks now:
Click for large version
I tested this layout on the simulator and my device, and I like it. I will convert some other parts to the new layout as well to give a more complete feeling on how I think it should be. The next step will be to invite some beta testers to give their comments. If you want to test the app as well, let me know… you’re welcome on board!
Now this seems to be going in the right direction… I think that the iPhone app I am developing had a technical breakthrough today! :-) On Twitter I have been discussing with Justin Munger about the provisioning profiles I discussed in other topics. Before finally asking help I decided to give in one last try, and hey – seems to be working now!!
Either they changed something in the iPhone Developer Program Portal (login required) or I have not been reading well the other times… I leave it up to the reader which one is most likely! ;-) Anyway, the creation of the provisioning profile did not seem to be the problem, but some steps afterwards needed for Ad Hoc distribution to some selected devices. Following these stepsbrought me really further, but in the end the app would not build. It could not find the provisioning profile, apparently it used two of them for one app… The solution came to me from the forum of iPhoneDevSDK.com:
In XCode, in the “Groups & Files” pane, expand “Targets” and double-click on your app’s target. This will bring up the Info pane for your target. In the “Build” section, check the “code signing” section for any old profiles. I found that it was building to an old profile there.
That worked! Apparently the Target was referring to another profile as the app itself. After changing it build perfectly, and together with the .mobileprovision file I could drag it to iTunes and install it on my iPhone… Just to see that in iTunes there was no icon visible, just on the iPhone itself.
No problem…. short Google search referred me to StackOverflow.com and then to the ADC Library with the solution for that. Created the iTunesArtwork file, and it all seemed to be working great!
I now need to test if this works on other devices as well. Want to try on your iPhone? I’d be glad to give you a beta version of the app (for free, of course). You need to mail me your Device ID so I can add your device to the “allowed list”. Enlarge the picture below to see how to get your Device ID:
In case you’re wondering if sharing your Device ID (or UDID) is safe, you may be interested in this article.
It’s time for a more clinically oriented topic on “neuro”. Otherwise people may have difficulties believing that I’m a real doctor for whom programming is just a hobby. Playing around, I browsed the new website of Brain Innovation. I have been working on fMRI and DTI with the BrainVoyager QX software package for some years now. I prefer it over SPM for its brilliant visualization, and over FSL for its easy of use.
The company is lead by Prof. Rainer Goebel from the Department of Neurocognition at Maastricht University. I am especially impressed by his latest work (nice video!) on brain-computer interfaces.
For those who want to learn a little more on the brain’s anatomy, he made the Brain Tutor application for Mac and Windows. And Brain Tutor 3D for the iPhone.
All of these tutor programs are free, and fun to play around with. Besides, talking about a successful merge of content expertise, scientific progress and a strong IT foundation: Rainer Goebel is the example for me…
Apple is really driving me crazy with their provisioning profiles. This means that the iPhone application I am developing will get some delay in being publicly available. So far the bad news, there is some good news as well.
After an interesting conversation I recently had on artificial intelligence (AI), I started looking at my book on Prolog again. Nice, but Prolog needs a software environment to do its work. And as far as I have seen, Java seems a nice choice. All right, C++ as well, but for some reason I prefer Java (hint: memory management….).
It turns out that the book “Objects First With Java” is an excellent work on teaching how to apply object oriented programming (OOP). I read many books on programming in different languages, but never fully grasped the OOP concept. This one may change that situation. I would not recommend the book for a beginning programmer without a coach, as the book’s pace is rather high. I must confess that I do not use BlueJ but the NetBeans IDE. I really like the book’s approach to introduce classes and objects directly in the beginning, even before real code comes in. It helps to change your mindset from procedural programming to OOP; the code comes later.
I am looking forward to improve my OOP skills, and get some hands-on feeling with AI programming.
