There are some requirements before you can successfully publish your book on the iBookStore:

• Get an ISBN numbers for the books you want to publish
• Convert the book into EPUB format
• Make sure the book pass EpubCheck 1.0.5
• a US Tax ID (sorry guys, this is only open to the US at this point)
• an iTunes account backed up by a credit card
• a fairly good idea of where you’ll sell and how much you’ll sell
• an Intel-based Mac running OS 10.5 or betterand meet some reasonable technical requirements

If you don’t know how to get an ISBN number or potentially want to get paid faster, Apple suggests that you use an Apple-approved aggregator. These are firms that have a financial arrangement with Apple and can provide a number of services at what seems to be a reasonable cost. Each aggregator delivers a different set of services, but let’s take Bookbaby as an example. They charge $49 per book the first year and then $19 per book each year the book is in the store. For an additional $19 they can snag you an ISBN number, and if your book isn’t in the proper format, another $19 will get that done. Other services, such as Smashwords takes no upfront money but does take a cut of the profits. Many supply marketing assistance, collect payments and handle other details.

Who would have thought, just three years ago, that opening the App Store to submissions from just about anyone would wind up to be such a home-run? I have a feeling of déjà vu on this as well, and think that opening iBooks to the writing community will have wide-reaching effects over the next year. I’m also interested to see what sort of content Apple decides to let in. Books for sure, but what about novellas, scholarly articles, or even a collection of blog posts? I might see a market for a book of everything TUAW has written about the iPhone to date. Originality, function and expertise has fueled the App Store, bringing to it apps that no one would have ever thought of, and here we have another wide open market for almost anyone to jump in on. Who knows what the publishing world will be like a year from now?

So writers, get writing!

The decision reverses an earlier pledge in which it said it would help get Flash working on the gadgets.

Closed tools

In mid-April, Adobe released software  Creative Suite 5 that contained option to export Flash applications into native iPhone applications. Shortly before the release, Apple updated the terms and conditions of the license software developers must sign to create iPhone and iPad applications. The revised terms placed strict restrictions on what developers can use to create these applications and effectively banned them from using 3rd party tools such as Creative Suite 5.

At the time Adobe wrote that it still intended to deliver the feature. Now it has said it will halt development of future export tools for Creative Suite.

“We will still be shipping the ability to target the iPhone and iPad in Flash CS5,” wrote Mike Chambers, Adobe’s principal product manager for developer relations, on his blog. “However, we are not currently planning any additional investments in that feature.” Mr Chambers also commented on Apple’s revision of its terms and conditions. He wrote: “…as developers for the iPhone have learned, if you want to develop for the iPhone you have to be prepared for Apple to reject or restrict your development at any time.”

Apple responded in a statement to technology news site CNet in which it described Flash as “closed and proprietary”. Apple preferred to support more open standards which replicate everything Flash can do, added the statement.

Mr Chambers wrote that now Adobe will concentrate on Google’s Android smartphone software and ensure that its Flash technology works well with that. “Fortunately,” he wrote, “the iPhone isn’t the only game in town.”

[UIApplication sharedApplication].applicationIconBadgeNumber = 5;

The Info.plist file belongs directly inside of the bundles Contents folder — that is to say, one level up from the Resources subdirectory. Thus copying Info.plist to that would serve little purpose, and might even be evidence of programmer oversight on something (as Xcode might think), hence the warning.  The Info.plist should not actually be a member of any target. The check boxes in the Get Info window of the info.plist should be unchecked and this warning can be avoided.

Hope this helps..!

Apple iPad

Steve Jobs claims it will offer the best browsing experience you can have, like “holding the Internet in your hands.” The iPad appears to be answer to netbooks, but combines the best of all iPhone and earlier Apple products.The aluminium-clad rectangular unit is .5 inches thick, 9.7 inches diagonally, 1.5 pounds in weight, and uses the 1GHz Apple A4 chip and 16 to 64 GB in flash storage. It is WiFi-capable (802.11) and can also be accessed through Bluetooth technology.The device will include e-mail, photos, maps, built-in iTunes store and YouTube functionality.

objc[<pid>]:FREED(id): message release sent to freed object="<memory_address>"

Double Release Of Cocoa Objects

After searching through my code, I couldn’t figure out where I was doubly releasing the object. Googling up, I found an article which helped introduce me to a few really good environment variables I could set that would allow me to identify where I was creating this problem. Here are the environment variables:

• NSZombieEnabled
• MallocStackLogging

With these two environment variables are set to “YES” in your executable’s Arguments tab, you then have the ability to figure out where you’re doubly releasing an object’s memory using in gdb:

shell malloc_history <pid> <memory_address>

(Note: To set these environment variables, double-click the executable in Xcode’s Executable’s group, click the Arguments tab and then add the variables.) And there you have it.)

defaults write com.apple.Xcode PBXCustomTemplateMacroDefinitions '{ "ORGANIZATIONNAME" = "YourCompanyNameHere" ; }'

Flash CS5: Native iPhone Application Development

The new support for iPhone applications in the Flash Platform tooling will not allow iPhone users to browse web content built with Flash technology on iPhone, but it may allow developers to repackage existing web content as applications for iPhone if they choose to do so.Flash Player uses a just-in-time compiler and virtual machine within a browser plug-in to play back content on websites. Those technologies are not allowed on the iPhone at this time, so a Flash Player for iPhone is not being made available today. Flash Professional CS5 will enable developers to build applications for iPhone that are installed as native applications. Users will be able to access the apps after downloading them from Apple’s App Store and installing them on iPhone or iPod touch. Developers can deliver applications built with Flash Platform tooling just like any other iPhone application. This will require the developer to be a member of the iPhone Developer Program and follow the program guidelines. iPhone applications built with Flash Platform tools are compiled into standard, native iPhone executables, just like any other iPhone applicatio. Applications can be built targeting iPhone OS 3.0 and later.

Update: Apple has bowled out Adobe’s effort to get iPhone application development on Flash platform with introduction of new clause in its iPhone SDK 4.0 license agreement which makes developing iPhone application using tools other than from Apple as illegal. Check more details about whats new in iPhone SDK 4.0 and its implications at http://www.macoscoders.com/2010/04/09/new-features-in-iphone-os-4-0/

After shipping AIR 1.0, many of developers challenged Adobe to open the runtime up even more by, for example, allowing communication with native processes and providing enhanced networking support. With AIR 2, Adobe’s goal from the outset was to remove limitations in the runtime that prevented developers from building their applications.

Some of the capabilities that are coming in AIR 2 include:

• Native process API
  Beginning with AIR 2, developers will have access to a native process API that will enable applications to invoke and communicate with native applications on the local machine. In order to preserve the cross platform nature of the .air file format, applications that take advantage of the native process API must be deployed as native installers such as .exe and .dmg. The AIR runtime SDK will include support for generating basic native installers.
• Support for detecting mass storage devices
  Now your AIR application can detect when a mass storage device is connected or disconnected. An AIR 2 application can listen for when a user plugs in a Flip video camera or USB Flash drive so that it can, for example, automatically synchronize files to the local system or prompt the user to upload photos to Facebook or videos to YouTube.
• Improved support for accessibility
  Runtime dialogs such as the installer dialogs will be readable by supported screen readers such as JAWS. In addition, it will be possible to build accessible Flash-based applications in AIR leveraging the existing accessibility API’s and features available in the Flash Player and Flex SDK.
• Open document API
  Support for opening a document will be possible from an AIR application. With this API, AIR asks the operating system what the default application is associated with the file. For example, specifying a file path to a PDF file will launch Adobe Reader or a .doc file will open Microsoft Word.
• Improved performance
  Applications that run using AIR 2 will consume less memory and use less CPU than AIR 1.5 without recompiling the application. We will share more information about this when we launch the beta.
• Local microphone access API
  Currently, audio must first pass through a server before it can be saved locally. Using the upcoming AIR 2 local microphone API, it will be possible to record audio locally, which can be important if your application is running in a disconnected mode.
• Multi-touch & gesture support
  AIR 2 will include support for multi-touch (Windows 7) and gestures (Windows 7 and Mac OS X 10.6).
• Faster, more powerful WebKit
  An updated version of WebKit that includes a faster JavaScript engine and new HTML5/CSS3 capabilities will be included inside of AIR 2.
• Improved socket support
  It will now be possible to create local servers and lightweight P2P applications with enhancements to AIR’s socket support.

In the coming weeks leading up to the beta, we will begin sharing more information including videos, articles and blog posts about some of these new capabilities. We are extremely eager to get the public beta into your hands so that we can begin incorporating your feedback.

Adobe expects to ship a beta version of Adobe AIR 2 on Adobe Labs by the end of the year. In the first half of 2010, Adobe expects to ship the final version of AIR 2.

Jazz Concert By Saxony

Jazz in the City!  Saxony Youth Orchestra performed at Chowdiah hall yesterday. The Bangalore School of Music, organized the jazz talent from Germany.The Saxony Youth Jazz Orchestra conducted by Rolf von Nordenskjld showcased their unique sound, combining jazzy notes with big band influences. They played a wide range of German and international tunes arranged especially for this concert.

The organisers say in almost 16 years, more then 300 young talented people playing more than 170 concerts have contributed to the ensemble. They have worked together with internationally recognized musicians, such as Jrgen Friedrich, Marko Lackner, Ansgar Striepens, Milan Svoboda, Al Porcino, Carla Bley, Steve Swallow, Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky, Eberhard Weise and the singer Uschi Brning.

The conductor for the 2009 India tour is the well-known jazz saxophonist Rolf von Nordenskjld from Berlin.  For the orchestras trip to India he conjured up a unique program that combines traditional big band sounds with contemporary ideas.

Great big band standards including pieces by Bill Holman will be played as well as compositions of the bandleader or pieces out of the repertoire of the famous RIAS Big Band Berlin. As a very special greeting from Germany, the ensemble performed a medley of well-known German folk songs, arranged for big band by Rolf von Nordenskjld.

The most liked performance by the 23-member Saxony Youth Jazz Orchestra was their Jazz version of the ‘Jai Ho’ tune from the ‘Slum DOg Millionaire” movie. I loved it the most.

Overall Jazz was not so exciting but it was a good moment to spend with your loved one It was my first Jazz convert and just few days back I had seen the movie “Wake Up Sid” and in the movie there is one particular scene where Konkana Sen says “Jazz is not cool and she doesn’t like it and its boring”. Probably that had an effect on us and our mind was in a blocked state that Jazz wont be cool. The Saxony team did a good job. All the best to them. (Btw sorry for the poor quality of the snap as it was taken from my mobile while i was sitting so far from the team)

Xcode: Loading Stack Frames

Recently I encountered an new error for the first time in XCode. When my iPhone application under development crashed, instead of showing me the stack trace of where the application crashed, it threw an error “Loading Stack Frames” and was struck there indefinitely.  After researching about this for a while, I came to know my application crashed because of a stack overflow due to a non-terminating recursion in your code, and gdb is now trying to load all the stack frames on the stack . Usually, the stack of a application doesn’t get deeper than 50 frames or so (and that’s already a quite deeply nested stack). My application stack had run into 104708 frames which was quite too high.I finally figured out that the crash was due to an race condition.

The new SDK 3.1.2, which now includes Xcode 3.2.1, is available in versions that are compatible with Leopard and Snow Leopard for iPhone and iPod Touch developers.

The update contains general bug fixes for the SDK and Xcode. Dashcode is reported to now support the creation of Web applications that are optimized for Safari on the iPhone, PC, and Mac.

If you’ve used this new update, please tell us about your experiences with it in the comments.