Considered the holy grail of mobile app development, developing an app for the iOS platform is not as impossible as some may thing. Granted, it is harder than developing for Android or Windows Phone, but it is still doable.

The first step to developing for iOS is to decide what you will be developing and how you are going to go about developing the app. If you’re not an experienced programmer, now may be a good time to put your ideas back into the reality glass. If you don’t have thousands of dollars, developing an Angry Birds or Words with Friends style game may be dreaming a bit too big. Pick an idea that will not cost too much time and resources. If you are completely naïve, get some expert opinions from a forum online.

Once you have decided what your app will do, it’s time to get the programming … Read the rest

I’ve been living with Windows 7 for a good few months now and in that time have discovered a couple of little ‘hidden gems’ which I wanted to share with you:

Aero Shake
In Windows 7, when you click on the title bar of any window and shake it every other open window gets minimised straight back in to your taskbar, reducing clutter on your screen.  This allows you to focus on the one window and then when ready shake it again and the other windows will reappear.

There are additional Aero user interface related features which make a welcome debut.  These include Aero Peek which allows you to immediately see what’s going on in an application just by hovering over the icon in the task bar and Aero Snap which quickly allows you to rearrange your desktop by slamming any open window against the left, right or top side … Read the rest

“It’s the big week when Windows 7 is launched on Thursday, but one statistic that grabbed my eye was in a Wikipedia article stating that there are estimated to be three times as many XP computers in use today than Vista ones (68.49% XP versus 22.39% Vista). This suggests that XP is far from being the dinosaur system that the marketing people would have us believe. I’ve still got two XP desktops and no complaints, even though they are getting on a bit.

It also leads to questions about how popular Vista was with the general public and business world, and in this a recent BBC article a Microsoft executive admits that Vista never fully recovered from the early criticism, and they hope for better things with Windows 7.

Two quotes in particular that stick out is that of Annette Jump, a research director at a technology research firm who … Read the rest

The big news this morning was that Google is to release its own Operating System during the second half of 2010.

Initially targeted at Netbooks (incredibly small laptops with relatively low specifications), Google Chrome OS will be a lightweight, open source alternative to Windows.  It will be designed primarily for online use, with the entire OS essentially consisting of the Google Chrome browser running on a Linux backend.

The vision is that in the future rather than a developer producing a software package that requires a download and installation they would instead create a web based application that could be run from any Internet browser.  In many ways the idea makes a great deal of sense; you wouldn’t have to worry about updating your software, transporting files from one machine to another or indeed creating backups of your files.  Everything would be stored online and as such none of these … Read the rest

I’ve been living with the release candidate of Windows 7 now for a couple of weeks now at home. To be honest, I’m so impressed that it’s got to the stage that going to work and having to use Windows Vista again has become a chore. If you missed my article last week on obtaining and downloading this free pre-release (test) version of the new version of Windows from Microsoft then check out www.thisissouthdevon.co.uk or www.computerarticles.co.uk for a copy.

Unlike the change from Windows 3.11 to Windows 95 or from Windows ME to Windows XP there are no revolutionary changes. Windows XP users will notice the most difference in terms of the look and feel of the software as visually it looks very similar to Vista, perhaps just a little more intuitive.

Using this software you get the impression that finally Windows may have ‘come of age’ with this release. … Read the rest

Last month Microsoft made the Windows 7 Release Candidate available free of charge with the intention that it will give Microsoft a chance to identity and iron out any bugs present before the final release.As you are all no doubt aware, Windows 7 is the successor to the somewhat criticised Windows Vista and is due for release in October of this year.

The release candidate not only provides users with the ideal opportunity not only to get their hands on the software before it hits the shops but also provides what is essentially a completely free Operating System on a ‘try before you buy basis.’Of course, the product isn’t free for ever and in the second quarter of next year you will have to either purchase the finished version of Windows 7 or revert back to your previous OS.

I did preview Windows 7 back at the tail end of … Read the rest

We have two things to discuss today; Vista Service Pack 2 and cheap broadband.

Starting off with Vista; those of you with this Operating System would be advised to download the Service Pack from www.microsoft.com or via Windows Update as along with fixing hundreds of little bugs and glitches it also adds a number of new features.Most notable changes include support for Via Technologies new Nano 64-Bit CPU, support for Bluetooth 2.1, BluRay writing directly from the Operating System and improved performance for WiFi connections.

This update is 348mb in size meaning that you would really need to be on a broadband connection to consider the download; this leads me neatly on to my next point.

I was contacted this week by a reader who was still using a dial up connection.I had assumed that this hardcore group of users had disbanded and joined the 21^st century but it … Read the rest

I think the mark of a true geek is someone who can actually partake in a meaningful conversation relating to a technology which was pioneered half a decade before they were even born.This realisation comes after yours truly found himself today discussing the old CP/M Operating System with our web guy and the PC techie.

The trip down memory lane got me thinking that perhaps it would be nice to remind ourselves of the path we have walked to have become unfortunate enough to end up with Windows as the most popular choice of Operating System.

CP/M – Created back in 1976, this command line based Operating System was developed to provide 8-bit computer users with an easier way of managing the most basic of computer functions, as well as installing and programming applications.It would be fair to say that the younger MS-DOS was very closely based on CP/M and … Read the rest

If I didn’t know better, I’d say that Microsoft were trying to confuse us.

The approach for naming Windows appears to change with every release.Back when I first started using Windows we were running 3.11 which we then upgraded to Windows 95 (although NT 4.0 was also available).Next we switched to Windows Millennium Edition (although a rather similarly sounding Windows 2000 was available) then we moved on to versions named after aspirational monikers such as XP and Vista.

It seems confusing as to whether they wish to name the Operating System after the version number, year of release or an alternative name but thankfully they have decided to make it ‘simple’ by settling on Windows 7 for their next release.This however is the point where the confusion arises once again; Windows 3.11 was obviously a later release of version 3, Windows 95 was commonly considered version 4, Windows 2000 was … Read the rest

This week Microsoft made the eagerly awaiting Windows Vista Service Pack 1 available for general download.Service Packs are important milestones in the development of an Operating System as they bring together a collection of bug fixes, performance improvements, security updates and new product features.For many the release of the first service pack is the only time they will consider updating their Operating System, the idea being that all the potential teething problems are now ironed out.

At present the only way for existing Vista users to get the service pack is by downloading the 450mb file from the Microsoft website (www.microsoft.com) however it will be pushed on to users via the Windows Update utility sometime next month.New PC’s shipped with Vista should now come with the Service Pack already installed.

In terms of new features, there’s not all that much to get excited about; as you’d imagine most … Read the rest