My Blog

Maven Release Plugin. This is just a note for me, I usually use this and I always forget it.

Execute a dummy run, no commits or tags created:

mvn release:prepare -DdryRun=true

Execute the prepare goal. It updates the pom, creates a tag and increases the version number:

mvn release:clean release:prepare

Checout the release that was tagged, build, test and deploy:

mvn release:perform

In order to skip tests, not recommended but sometimes needed, the arguments tag must be added to the plugin configuration:

<arguments>-Dmaven.test.skip</arguments>

I have been recently working in the development/redesign of a website that was previously using static HTML files but now I am moving it to WordPress as a CMS. After doing my homework I decided that the best way to go was to take one of the existing WP Frameworks as a base to develop the website and the chosen one was Thematic.

Thematic according to the site is:

a free, open-source, highly extensible, search-engine optimized WordPress Theme Framework featuring 13 widget-ready areas, grid-based layout samples, styling for popular plugins, and a whole community behind it. It’s perfect for beginner bloggers and WordPress development professionals.

I tried a lot of frameworks, even used a commercial theme as a base for my tests but in the end I decided that Thematic was the best of all because it has the best documentation, is usually updated, is free and open source.

So if you need to build a site around WordPress, you don’t want to start from scratch, you feel comfortable with PHP and coding then Thematic is for you.

I have been working as an independent software developer for some months and recently got some free time after finishing a project I was working on so I decided to install the iPhone SDK back again in my Mac.

After installing the SDK I started to read books and documentation about developing for the iPhone but one thing was really bugging me and it was Objective-C. It is not a bad language and it is not that difficult after you keep using it for a while but in my case I wanted to focus on learning all the concepts instead of learning a new language so after reading some tweets and blog posts by @migueldeicaza about developing with Mono and C# I  decided to give it a try.

I decided to give MonoTouch a chance so I went to http://monotouch.net/ and read all the documentation. I also got Mono, MonoDevelop and MonoTouch SDK installed  as all of them are requirements.

After I installed everything I created a new iPhone project in MonoDevelop and tried to compile but I couldn’t. The problem was that I only installed the iPhone SDK 3.1.3 but MonoTouch requires 3.1 so I had to ran the installation again and select the missing versions. Once I installed the missing versions of the SDK I was ready to go and everything compiled as expected.

Working with C# and .NET APIs is awesome as you can do the same as you can with Objective-C but with less lines of code and faster.

The experience is great and don’t get me wrong Objective-C is a great language but as I said before I am more interested in understanding all the concepts than anything else.

The only drawback with MonoTouch is that it isn’t free, there is a free version but you can’t deploy your app to the simulator or generate an App Store ready binary. The “cheapest” version is US$399 for 1 year of updates and 1 developer. If you are serious about developing for the platform and have a .NET background or even code that you want to reuse then it is a no brainer as you can easily get them back if your app is good.

I will definitely keep playing with it for a while but I will also get back to Objective-C.

I have been looking for an application to sketch the UI of an application I am working on and I finally have the perfect solution for me:

• Application – OmniGraffle for OS X.
• Stencil – Konigi.com OmniGraffle Sketch Stencils.

I am currently using the OmniGraffle trial version but I will definitely buy the commercial version as soon as the trial expires although I still don’t know if it will be the standard or pro version. This app is like Visio for OS X but better.

The Konigi.com stencils that I am using are not free either but the price is really cheap, only US$10 bucks. They have a free version but is not as complete as the paid one and it only contains one sketch stencil and a few others that are not really sketches. The customer service is also great as  yesterday I sent a suggestion to request a couple of controls that are missing and I received an answer today with the answer I was expecting – the controls are going to be included in the next version. I recommend these stencils for anyone that design/develop UIs and needs an easy and fast way to do draft prototypes.

I know I can use paper but I don’t like wasting it when I can do it in my PC and only print the draft when needed.

BTW in my previous work they should have used something like this instead of NetBeans which is what A&D used to create the sketches that we, the developers, received to start our development tasks.