JoeDag32

Picked up a copy of Developing Hybrid Applications for the IPhone by Lee S. Barney earlier this week. Had a 33% off coupon at Borders and was itching for something new to read.

Been messing with iPhone development for a bit and since I’m a web developer figured I’d take a hard look at writing web applications for the iPhone vs going the SDK Objective-C route.

I’m really glad I picked this book up. They do an excellent job of reminding me how cool Dashcode is for developing web applications for the iPhone. My only knock on Dashcode in the past was the lack of documentation, but this book does a decent job of covering it. Still wish there was more documentation on Dashcode if anyone is reading this.

The book covers both using the QuickConnect and PhoneGap frameworks for developing hybrid iPhone apps. It’s a fairly easy read and they do cover most of the iPhone functionality that would be used in the majority of projects. While the SDK and Objective-C are still the best way to go, sometimes web applications or hybrid applications do make sense, and that’s where this book was very handy. Just for me to rediscover Dashcode alone justified the purchase.

If you’re looking to create extensions for Joomla! 1.5 then you should really check out Learning Joomla! 1.5 Extension Development. I had a project that required a custom component to be created, and the online documentation wasn’t really as good as I’d of liked it to of been.

So I went looking to see if any books had been published recently on extension development. Learning Joomla! 1.5 Extension Development got some decent review online, and I was really stumped with creating my component. So a copy was ordered.

The book does an excellent job of building an extension that makes use of most of the features that would be found in a typical extension. Covering, components, modules, as well as plugins.

With it’s focus on MVC practices, this at first seemed like overkill to me, but once all the features were piling up, it really paid off.

The chapters on creating the admin end of a component were extremely valuable to me. My client now has an easy to use custom component that makes use of the Joomla! admin interface for a seemless CMS experience.

I’m a big fan of the Head First series of books by O’Reilly, and noticed that they had released one of SQL. My SQL skills are pretty solid to begin with, but you can never know too much SQL so I figured I’d have to pick up Head First SQL and give it a read.

Tech books for me almost always written for a complete beginner or an expert in the field. It’s rare that you find one written for someone who already has a basic understanding, but wants to learn a bit more. Head First SQL did a really good job of explaining the basics of SQL as well as the more complex aspects of SQL.

The chapters on subqueries and joins was great for me. Those are areas that I can always get better with. Also some of the early chapters reminded me of IN and BETWEEN both of which I’d pretty much forgotten about over the years.

Another cool thing about this book is that not only is it a guide, but it also serves pretty well as a reference as well. Explaining SQL isn’t always the easiest thing to do, but Head First SQL has done the best job that I’ve read to date.

Just finished up reading Handcrafted CSS by Dan Cederholm and Ethan Marcotte. I’ve read two of Dan’s previous books, and thought that they were great. So I was looking forward to reading this very much.

More so than in his previous books, this one really pushes the envelop of CSS and urges the act of rewarding browsers that support the latest CSS features. This is a stance that I’ve always agreed with, but can be hard to get a client to follow. Not all parts of a site have to look the same across all browsers.

My  favorite sections were regarding rounded corners with border-radius and flexible color with RGBA. His examples really sold me that it is now a good time to begin implementing these features for browsers that take advantage of them.

An extremely well written book, that’s also designed very well too. Highly recommended for anyone looking to push CSS boundaries, and pick up a few tricks along the way.

Just got done reading Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. It had zombies in the title and was in the best seller rack at Borders so I figured I’d give it a shot. It was ok, it started off super slow for me, but towards the end it picked up a bit.

I’m guessing I would’ve hated the original Pride & Prejudice, as the only parts I really enjoyed involved the fighting of zombies. It was kinda funny how it’s taking a well regarded literary piece, and throwing in zombies to the mix.

It did work however. But the whole sisters stuff was rather boring to me. If I didn’t have a rule that I really should finish whatever I start reading I’m not sure I’d of made it through the first few chapters.

Upstairs at work we’ve started a little unofficial book club. Apparently the first book that are super cool club (though I may’ve been kicked out already) is reading is Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris. This book is the basis of the True Blood series on HBO.

I’ve seen a couple of the episodes so most of the characters were familiar to me already. The book was very well written but I think it was a bit too girly for me. I don’t exactly fantasize about being swept off my feet by some vampire dude, so wasn’t really relating to many parts. But I did manage to read through it in just 2 or 3 days.

I’m pretty sure that the rest of the book club plans to read the additional books in this series, but I’m not sure if I will be. Hence why I think I may’ve been thrown out after our inaugural meeting.