Development

Rails with OmniAuth & Mini-FB for rapid Facebook app development

I’ve recently been getting back into Ruby on Rails since my love-affair for CodeIgniter & PHP has wained a bit recently. I kept on building apps that required Facebook/Twitter authentication and relied heavily on the well built but rarely updated libraries like TankAuth.

If you don’t know, Rails has things called Gems, which are essentially packaged up libraries of code, usable throughout your applications within the MVC framework. Two of these, OmniAuth and Mini FB, offer a fantastically easy roll-out of a basic Facebook Connect powered app.

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5 jQuery optimization tips from jsPerf

jQuery is a wonderful library that offers a massive amount of functionality in a nicely wrapped up package. But jQuery is quite bloated, with the minified version weighing in at 94kb. If you’re micro-optimizing, any of these little tips should help to squeeze out the hidden milliseconds on load/run time.

Lucikly there is a website called jsperf.com which allows you to test & compare different blocks of code against each other, and see the results of each – recording how fast each block ran in which browser. Here are some simple but handy tips.

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Watch/Learn #1 – Add CocosDenshion to an ARC project (iOS)

This new series, called Watch/Learn, is made for developers just like myself – developers who don’t want to watch 20+ minute tutorials with heavy annotation and poor quality vocals just to get the answer to what they Google’d for. These are quick, straight to the point, vocal-less videos that show the steps required to solve the issue.

In the first episode, I show how to add the non-ARC supported CocosDenshion library to an ARC project.

Social Break – the innovative & fun way to check Twitter.

Social Break is the unique & innovative new game for iPhone which melds addictive, retro-arcade gameplay with the social network giant, Twitter – allowing you to be socially unsocial in your downtime.


Created by London-based independent game developers, Wicked Little Games, Social Break is already making headlines with the tech savvy, TheNextWeb reporting that the game “doesn’t stop being fun” and commenting that “this is the perfect app to play during any of your idle time”.

The magic of Social Break is the star-decorated Twitter blocks which, when hit, cause a recent tweet from your timeline to appear. The gameplay is reminiscent of the arcade classic, Breakout, and will keep you on your toes with a wide variety of positive and negative powerups – including double points, bigger paddle and reverse controls. There are also options to tweak the number of tweets shown and for how long, to suit your social reading habits.

iOS5-powered Game Center & Twitter integration means it is easy to compete with your friends or followers around the world.

Social Break is a brand new way of interacting with your Twitter timeline and is undoubtably the most fun. Now you will no longer have to make the tough coffee-break choice: play a game or be social?

Social Break is now available on the App Store. Social Break Lite is FREE on the App Store right now.

Wicked Little Games are on Twitter and Facebook. Follow us for all the latest news and updates.

 

 

6 great tools for crazy easy iOS development

The collection of tools available to Apple-product developers has gone from strength to strength. With the relatively recent release of iOS5, Apple went even further towards making its platforms easy to build for. It is now PowerPoint-levels of easy to make a simple app and this can be expanded on with the use of fantastic community created tools. Here are some that I’ve found useful.

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