Archive for category Apple

ePub Submission Got You Down?

Posted by Chris Danielson in Apple, ePub, iPhone Development on September 13th, 2011

Today I released my new interactive digital children’s book, Riley and the Magical Laundry Basket iPhone/iPad application.  I wanted to take the story to the next level by releasing an ePub version into Apple’s iBookstore.  The story is about Riley as she is transported away to an imaginary world via her magical laundry basket.  In this world she is trying to get to the cupcake palace. iTunes Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/riley-magical-laundry-basket/id456764124?mt=8

The cover/title of Riley and the Magical Laundry Basket

Riley and the Magical Laundry Basket

I wanted to release Riley and the Magical Laundry Basket as an ePub book.  I was absolutely ecstatic as my final “.epub” file worked flawlessly and looked beautifully in my initial tests on iPad and iPhone.  Today, I decided I was going to move ahead and upload the file using iTunes Producer.  I became frantic as I discovered a host of errors produced by iTunes Producer and when I searched online, I didn’t find much help!  I’m going to take the esoteric “errors” you see and translate them for any/all people.  If you need help just add in a comment, but these were my basic errors and how I solved them today.

My first error encountered.  This error made me go cross eyed trying to figure out what exactly the trouble was.

“length of first filename in archive must be 8, but was 9″

Chris’ Translation & Solution:  make sure that the “mimetype” file is the first one compressed into your epub archive file.  Don’t worry I’ll show you how to fix it near the end of this post.

My second error:

“extra field length for first filename must be 0, but was 28″ at Book (MZItmspBookPackage)

Chris’ Translation & Solution: the zip command or tool you are using is adding additional file attributes into the archive or compressed file.

Using the command line (terminal) on my Macbook I was able to fix both these issues.  I changed directory to the root of my epub book and ran the following command.

zip -X -r rmlb.epub mimetype *

The -X listed removes the extra file attributes (from issue #2) shown.  Explicitly defining that the mimetype file is the first file to compress fixes issue #1.  A little further explanation of the command shown…  The -r means “recursively”, basically add everything within the current directory including other sub-directories.  The rmlb.epub is the final name of the .epub file.  The * is a wildcard character telling the zip command to put everything into the archive.

My directory structure looked as follows.

Screenshot of ePub directory structure.

I saw many references to using the OEBPS folder, but in this case it is not necessary.  You just have to make sure that you add the “mimetype” file first into the archive.

After I did the following command, iTunes Producer accepted my ePub book and now I’m waiting for Apple’s approval.

Happy coding and I hope this helps you if you had an issue!

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iPhone users able to build a shinier world, one turd at a time

Posted by Chris Danielson in Apple on May 25th, 2010

This blog usually focuses on software development, but I can’t resist sharing this with all of you out there.  Have a good laugh!

MaxPowerSoft Puts a New Polish on an Old Adage: You Actually Can Polish a Turd

This video was embedded using the YouTuber plugin by Roy Tanck. Adobe Flash Player is required to view the video.

‘Polish It‘ now available at the iPhone App Store

SAN DIEGO, CA (May 24, 2010) – MaxPowerSoft (www.maxpowersoft.com) today announced the release of Polish It, an iPhone application designed to facilitate “a shinier world, one turd at a time”. Available for $0.99 at Apple’s iPhone App Store, ‘Polish It’ is both a literal and cute/comedic take on the old and well-known phrase “You can’t polish a turd”. Your goal is simple: Choose a turd you like, and polish it! Utilize the touchscreen and your finger for polishing, tilt the phone to maneuver, and snap a photo at anytime to share.

“We wanted to reach out and give frustrated workers, students, and really all curious people in general, the powerful ability to truly polish a turd,” says Nic Danielson, Director of Marketing. “MaxPowerSoft has created an innovative new technology that allows one to therapeutically accomplish the task of polishing turds in the palm of your hand, no matter where you are, and on a whim to boot – most importantly, it can be done without the need for any sanitization processes.  There really is nothing else like it in the market, or the world for that matter.”

Features of Polish It include:

  • Objects rendered in full 3D.
  • Choose from over 10 objects to polish.
  • Simple controls: Touch to polish, Tilt phone to maneuver.
  • Snap a photo and send to your friends.
  • More features to come.

Pricing and Availability:

Polish It is available for $0.99 at the iPhone App Store:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/polish-it/id345199287?mt=8

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Release iPhone/iPod Touch FreeSWITCH Console

Posted by Chris Danielson in Apple on August 14th, 2009

fs_logo_57_57 Well, it has been a long battle.  Fought since June 5th, 2009, but at long last Apple has come through and allowed the FreeSWITCH Console application into the app store.

FreeSWITCH is an open source telephony platform designed to facilitate the creation of voice and chat driven products scaling from a soft-phone up to a soft-switch.  It can be used as a simple switching engine, a PBX, a media gateway or a media server to host IVR applications using simple scripts or XML to control the callflow.

So without much further ado, here is the iTunes link: App Store, FreeSWITCH Console.

FreeSWITCH Console Screenshot

The application requires that you have the event socket layer (ESL) module installed in your FreeSWITCH instance.

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Mounting MobileMe iDisk Using WebDav and Linux

Posted by Chris Danielson in Apple on August 13th, 2009

Anyone have a MobileMe account and wondered if you can access the iDisk from a mount command in your Linux environment? It’s handy for backing up your data and general file sharing.

This simple step by step process will allow you to gain read and write access to your MobileMe user account’s iDisk drive space. The first pre-cursor you need to fulfill is that you need the davfs (on debian/ubuntu flavors just run: apt-get install davfs2) package installed.

Next we’re going to create a mount point that will be used as a point of reference for the iDisk drive.

View Code BASH
sudo mkdir /mnt/idisk

Using the root user account, modify your /etc/fstab file by adding the following at the bottom. Just change the {account_name} section below:

https://idisk.mac.com/{account_name}    /mnt/idisk      davfs   rw,noauto,user  0       0

Now that you’ve completed the modification of the mount.  Let’s run a test.

View Code BASH
mydev:/mnt# mount /mnt/idisk
 
Please enter the username to authenticate with server
  https://idisk.mac.com/{acccount_name}
or hit enter for none.
Username: {acccount_name}
 
Please enter the password to authenticate {acccount_name} with server
  https://idisk.me.com/{acccount_name}
or hit enter for none.
Password:
mydev:/mnt# ls -al /mnt/idisk
total 11
drwxr-xr-x 15 root root  256 2009-08-13 08:11 .
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root 4096 2009-08-13 07:59 ..
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root   68 2009-06-16 14:33 Backup
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root   36 2009-06-16 14:33 Documents
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root   68 2009-06-17 07:14 Groups
drwxr-xr-x  5 root root  132 2009-07-02 09:11 iPhone Development
drwxr-xr-x  5 root root  100 2009-06-17 07:48 Library
drwx------  2 root root   36 2009-08-13 08:11 lost+found
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root   36 2009-06-16 14:33 Movies
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root   36 2009-06-16 14:33 Music
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root   36 2009-06-16 14:33 Pictures
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root   36 2009-06-17 07:49 Public
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root   36 2009-06-16 14:33 Sites
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root   88 2008-07-10 01:11 Software
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root   52 2009-06-17 07:53 Web

That’s great isn’t it? Now the only trouble is it keeps on prompting you for your username and password. In my situation I want this automated. Luckily for us, davfs has a mechanism built into it for managing this. It’s located in the /etc/davfs2/secrets file. So as the root user run the following commands.

View Code BASH
mydev:/# umount /mnt/idisk
mydev:/# echo "https://idisk.mac.com/{account_name}   {account_name}   {account_password}" >> /etc/davfs2/secrets
mydev:/# mount /mnt/idisk
mydev:/# ls -al /mnt/idisk
total 11
drwxr-xr-x 15 root root  256 2009-08-13 08:11 .
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root 4096 2009-08-13 07:59 ..
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root   68 2009-06-16 14:33 Backup
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root   36 2009-06-16 14:33 Documents
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root   68 2009-06-17 07:14 Groups
drwxr-xr-x  5 root root  132 2009-07-02 09:11 iPhone Development
drwxr-xr-x  5 root root  100 2009-06-17 07:48 Library
drwx------  2 root root   36 2009-08-13 08:11 lost+found
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root   36 2009-06-16 14:33 Movies
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root   36 2009-06-16 14:33 Music
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root   36 2009-06-16 14:33 Pictures
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root   36 2009-06-17 07:49 Public
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root   36 2009-06-16 14:33 Sites
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root   88 2008-07-10 01:11 Software
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root   52 2009-06-17 07:53 Web
mydev:/# umount /mnt/idisk

And that is it! No more prompting for the username and password. Pretty simple implementation and we’re off to the races.

EDIT NOTES: Thanks DaveDaveDave for the comment, I changed the https://idisk.me.com to the new and functional https://idisk.mac.com

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