I recently started developing some iPhone applications and registered in the iPhone SDK program at Apple. As Apple typically does, they have sworn me to secrecy about their new iPhone APIs.

It has been fun planing around with Apple's development tools. If you use a Mac, the development tools are are free. On the Mac there are already a lot of options for developing application. I have used the Mac for years for doing my ColdFusion, Flex/Air and Java server development.

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I am a big fan of public APIs that are provided by web sites such as Google, Microsoft and Facebook. I think one of the reasons that twitter has been successful is that their service can be accessed through their API's.

One of the jokes I heard at the Miami Flex Camp was that Adobe Air was a framework for building twitter applications. The truth is that Air is simply taking advantage of the public API's.

Here is a Shell script that I wrote to send twitter updates from the BASH shell in Mac OS X 10.5;

You will need to replace the username and password with your own username and password. I named my script "twitter". Once you create the script, you will need to change the permissions on the file to execute using a command like the following;

Once you have set the permissions on the file, you can use it in the following way;

I use subversion at work, but I have been wanting to run a subversion server at home. On Windows I use Visual SVN server, but at home I am running Mac OS X on all of my home computers. I use one of my Macs as a server.

Here is the good news. Mac OS X 10.5 comes with Apache 2.2 and SVN pre-installed.

Here is the bad news. An older version of SVN exists on Mac OS X. I believe it is version 1.4.4 of subversion.

I found some good resources on how to set up Subversion with Apache 2.2. This Sonzea article does a good job of the nuts and bolts of setting up a SVN repository. I did have to change the chmod to "www" instead of "_www". I was not able to get trac working. I think it was because I am using an older Mac with a PowerPC processor.

I also was able to install a newer version of subversion software from the Collab.net site. After the newer version of subversion is installed, I had to change my subversion.conf file so that it pointed to the newer shared objects.

By default you point your subversion.conf file to the following location;

After I installed the newer version of SVN, I changed this file to point to the new location of the mod_dav_svn.so and mod_authz_svn.so files.

I also installed project tracker after I ran into problems trying to install Trac. I am really liking this web application for doing my bug tracking. It also integrates with subversion and will send SMS messages.

I just upgraded my iPhone to the 2.2 update. Updating the software on my iPhone broke my bluetooth connection to my MyGig audio system in my Dodge.

The Jacksonville Code Camp final schedule has been posted. I am giving all of my presentations in the morning in room 203.

So I went to buy a new iPhone 3G on friday. After standing in line for two hours I was not able to buy an iPhone 3G. After getting to the front of the line I was told there was an error in my AT&T account that would prevent me from upgrading. Apparently some AT&T accounts were preventing users from upgrading to the new phone because of family account or business reference. In my case it was a business reference. Apple would not let me walk out of the store with one of the new phones.

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I am involved with the Jacksonville Developers User Group, and I am helping plan the upcoming jaxcodecamp. I have herd from some of the members planning the Code Camp that there is some interest in a COCOA Special Interest Group. COCOA makes up the set of APIs that are used to program the Mac OS X and the iPhone.

Let me know if you are interested in the a COCOA SIG if you live in the Jacksonville area.

Like many other web developers on the Mac, I use Parallels desktop 3.0 on the Mac. I go back and forth between Boot Camp and Parallels depending on what I am testing.

I ran the most recent Windows update on my version of Vista while I was in Boot Camp. Now when I try to start Vista in Boot Camp, I get a Genuine Advantage error, and Vista will not continue to start. I have to restart in Boot Camp, and re-enter the serial number. I am running Vista Enterprise which allows virtualization.

Adobe has released the ColdFusion 8 updater 1. This contains some hot-fixes, but the real news is that Adobe has released 64 bit version for Windows, Linux and Mac OS 10.5.

Previously the only 64 bit version of ColdFusion ran on Solaris only. If you have been running any server software on 64 bit hardware, you have probably seen improvements in permormance and memory usage.

For Mac OS X users, the installer will now work with 10.5. All of my Macs are now using 64 bit hardware with Mac OS X 10.5. 10.5 also comes pre-installed with Apache 2.2

I am taking a class on Microsoft SharePoint architecture this week. I learned today in the class that the next version of SharePoint will be 64 bit only. If you are going to be buying new server hardware, get 64 bit hardware.

Not only does SharePoint run better on 64 bit hardware, so does MS SQL Server and ColdFusion. You can also take advantage of much more RAM. I believe that 32 bit hardware is limited to a maximum of 2-4 GBs. 64 bit hardware can go up to 256 Terabytes in theory.

Just read this on Slashdot. I guess Flash will not be coming to the iPhone.