It was an enjoyable and extremely educational experience, and I am grateful to the entire publishing team that relentlessly tugged me along and kept me on schedule for more than a year.

More information and of course to get your hot little hands on a copy:

http://www.packtpub.com/iphone-applications-tune-up/book

Traveling at the moment, but when I get some additional time and can sit down for more than a few minutes, I’ll put together a few details on the overall experience; even point out some efficiencies I discovered and traps I blindly walked into.

Who this book is for

To sum it up, it’s an action-thriller set in the medieval age of war-torn eastern Europe filled with empirical struggles between feudalism and aristocratic ideals. It’s not well known that Objective-C played a pivotal role in the dismantling of the populous western caste system responsible for the stagnant performance of current day mobile platform development.

I don’t want to give away too much, but there is a romantic interposition towards the end of the book that will leave readers highly suspicious and apprehensive of Android’s luring siren calls.

… but more seriously, details are below.

iPhone Applications Tune-Up
High performance tuning guide for real-world iOS projects

Details and pre-order @ Packt Publishing: http://loyal.ms/gwGfAa

Book description
The best iPhone applications are the ones that demonstrate smooth, fast, efficient and optimal performance. An application should be designed to run at 200 mph, but operate just as smoothly as it would at 5 mph. Developing an application that supports such a wide range of performance needs is no small task and requires an understanding of the basic elements of performance as well as a strong strategy.

This book covers every aspect of tuning, optimizing, and squeezing every last bit of performance out of an iOS project. From application architecture and design to development and deployment, readers will be guided through the entire process of tuning an iOS application for high performance.

Every line of code presents an opportunity to improve upon the effective performance of an application. This book begins with the fundamentals of performance, demonstrating the impact poor performance can have on the success of an application. Apple’s App Store is riddled with applications that fall just short of success and it isn’t too much of a stretch to attribute many of these failures to a lack of optimization. Readers will be lead through each chapter, learning every aspect of performance tuning from simple syntax tips and tricks to advanced process management, and network and memory optimizations.

In addition to theories, syntax, and detailed code examples, readers will learn to take advantage of Apple’s powerful performance measurement and benchmarking utilities to identify the specific components of an iOS project that might need attention.

Learn the fundamentals of performance driven development to remedy existing performance related issues or design high performance iOS applications from start to finish

Who this book is written for
This book is for iOS application developers who are interested in resolving application performance bottlenecks in both new and existing Xcode projects. Readers should be familiar with the basic concepts and principles of iOS development, Objective-C syntax, and use of Apple’s Xcode development environment.

About
This is the first (to be published) book of its kind and is very much focused on Objective-C tuning practices for all iOS platforms, including the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad and iPad 2. Performance tuning is a recipe that includes some common sense, a little bit of obvious and of course generous helpings of technical know-how and all around development experience. No matter the size or depth of an iOS project, performance can play a key role in an applications success or failure on the market. iPhone Applications Tune-Up is designed to aid developers in squeezing every last bit of performance from every aspect of an application. A lot of experience and research has gone in to producing a book that highlights the areas in which performance gains are most critical and even commonly overlooked.

—

I have an absolute passion for technology and Objective-C represents this deep focus most simply because it encompasses the highest levels of programming technology and advancements in development languages. iPhone Applications Tune-Up will be the result of more than 1000 hours of my personal time; authoring, researching and generally staring at the screen. At this point I have only a couple of chapters remaining before the re-write and finalization work begins. It’s been a long and enjoyable road up to this point and I look forward to its final release.

Now, go pre-order it! http://loyal.ms/gwGfAa

Enjoy.

~Moses

I recently printed the entire book up to this point and was very surprised at the stack of paper that sat on my desk, and almost couldn’t remember writing all of it. Will be interesting to hold the final book in my hands and realize the whole thing came from these little fingers.

With 8 chapters under my author belt, here are a few lessons I have learned along with a selection of important observations.

• I can put an entire chapter together in 48 hours.
• I can’t really put an entire chapter together in 48 hours.
• Procrastination is still one of my personal characteristics.
• I absolutely loath Microsoft Word.
• Writing is just as much learning as it is teaching.
• its, it’s, effect and affect still haunt me.
• More screenshots equal less typing.
• Writing code at this point is still more enjoyable.
• My best writing is done early in the day before my mind gets tired.
• Most of my writing is done late at night after a long day of coding.
• Printing and reading each chapter helps find mistakes.
• Microsoft Word’s spell checker doesn’t recognize iPhone.
• Micro outlining is by far the best way to prepare a chapter.
• Don’t print chapters with an ink-jet, buy a laser and save your wallet.
• Auto-editing between brain and fingers gets easier to control.

… this is my short list.

With chapter 8 submitted and chapter 9 not due for a couple of weeks, it’s time to relax a bit and let the mind prepare for a much more technical chapter 9.

Enjoy.

~moses

Chapter 1 was sent off to the publisher but of course there is a considerable amount of work to be done before a chapter is finalized and accepted.

A colleague of mine with authoring experience predicted 2 hours per page for technical writing. I have to admit I figured I could push out pages a little quicker, but in the end doing some simple math shows that I was actually at about 2.2 hours per page. That was a pretty good estimate!

This 1st chapter had an extremely steep learning curve and although I am exhausted and looking forward to a short break, chapter 2 and 3 are right around the corner and strangely enough I can’t wait to get started.

I need to focus on limiting the automatic self-editing that takes place between my brain and fingers. My fingers want final draft while my brain just wants something on paper that can be re-worded later on. I’ll work on this.

Exhausted; must sleep.

In any event, the first of several significant milestones is behind me and I’ll be redirecting focus on chapter 2 and 3.

~moses

I’m very much excited about the opportunity and look forward to the next several months of ‘book author boot camp’. Some close colleagues of mine were kind enough to expose me to a few of their authoring experiences… they weren’t convincing enough, I still signed a contract.

Performance, efficiency, tuning and literally squeezing the most out of an application (on any platform) is something I enjoy quite a bit. Not only am I looking forward to putting this on paper, the research and learning will be one of the most enjoyable aspects of the entire authoring process.

Of course, the excitement wears a bit thin when I think of the potential work load involved with writing a good sized technical book in as little as a few months. This, along with operating Remote Assessment, running Tactical FLEX and driving Aanval will make for some interesting scheduling. Add development projects for a 1/2 dozen languages, speaking engagements, travel, continuing education and of course family and personal life. “This is a lot of work.” — very much sums it up.

The positive is, I’ve always had an interest in becoming an author and educating myself on the publishing process. This is great opportunity to find out just how deep my interests go.

It isn’t too often that you are approached to author a book, well… In my case, it was nil until now. Regardless, it wasn’t an automatic yes. A lot of pondering, prayer and planning went into the decision. Of course, I am not the only one affected by signing such a time consuming contract.

Our little family already exists within a sphere that is unlike any we know. Dynamic may be the best word to describe how we operate and it appears, there won’t be a change for quite some time. It’s tough to balance a schedule like ours and remain productive as well as healthy, but I think we do alright and we’re only getting better.

Without a doubt, I’ll be posting more about the book and the authoring process over the next several months.

And until I know different, some serious thanks and appreciation to Packt and their staff for the opportunity. Here we go.

Enjoy.

~moses

It’s an Actionscript murder, mystery, thriller. SPOILER: The FLEX evangelist did it!

Okay, back to serious. Without going into detail, the focus is advanced implementations of Adobe FLEX, AIR and some very popular and useful server side technologies. – Sorry to be so vague, but even the title gives away too much.

It is a bit daunting to stare at several hundred blank pages (albeit virtual pages), but I believe the real challenge here will be finding time to get this done inside my proposed timeline.

~moses