The default behaviour for Thinking-Sphinx is to index the exact values for each column it scans, but we can by-pass it. The Thinking-Sphinx index definition allows us to use raw SQL to define which values should be indexed for each attribute. In my case, I used the native PostgreSQL regular expressions functions to get rid of the punctuation characters, indexing only the “clean” version of each value. My database column is called “entity_number”:

define_index do 
  indexes "regexp_replace(entity_number, E'\[\[\:punct\:\]\]', '', 'g')", :as => :raw_entity_number
  group_by "raw_entity_number"
end

However, there are two gotchas:

• The regular expression metacharacters have to be escaped, so Sphinx can build the right SQL query. If you will or will not need to do the same, will depend on what you’re using inside your SQL snippet.
• Sphinx has to put each indexed column in a GROUP BY clause. By default, fields created like I did above are not automatically included in this clause, so your indexing will fail. You’ll need to explicitly include your new field to the GROUP BY clause using “group_by :raw_entity_number”. The new field name will be appended to the query, without messing up the values already present in it.

There’s a plugin that can help us with this: ar_mailer.

This plugin adds a new deliver method to ActionMailer::Base :activerecord. In this delivery method, emails are not actually delivered, they are stored into a database table. A ruby script ar_sendmail can then be run (in a cron job) in order to send the emails saved in the database.

Step by step intructions on how to use the plugin:

1) Install the plugin

./script/plugin install git://github.com/adzap/ar_mailer.git

Add following line to config/environment.rb:

config.gem "adzap-ar_mailer", :source => 'http://gems.github.com'

2) Create table to store emails

./script/generate ar_mailer

This will create the Email model (and emails table) in which emails will be stored before sending.

3) Create mailer class

./script/generate mailer Newsletter

Add the following line to app/models/newsletter.rb:

self.delivery_method = :activerecord

You can now add in your controller the code to send emails (Newsletter.deliver_name_of_method). To test that everything is fine so far you can open your web app and perform an action that should send an email, then fire up the console and check emails table (you should see your email in Email.all).

You can also run ar_sendmail –mailq (in the project’s root directory) to check if the are emails in the queue (waiting the be sent).

4) Setup cron job to send emails in batches

We can run ar_sendmail as a daemon or put it in a cron job. The script will take emails from emails table and deliver them (after delivery emails will be deleted from the table). I prefer the second one. Here’s the command that you have to put in your cron file to send batches of 100 emails at intervals of 5 minutes:

*/5 * * * * cd /path-to-web-app/ && ar_sendmail -o --batch-size 100 --environment production >> log/cron.log 2>&1

This command also puts the output of ar_sendmail in log/cron.log.

It’s a good practice to redirect output from all your cron jobs to some log files (I use log/cron.log). This way you have details when something goes wrong.

Thinking of designers and, of course, ourselves as designers, we made a Facebook Graphic User Interface (FBGUI) resource kit for Photoshop to make our work easier.

The purpose is to speed up Facebook interface design, sparing you from drawing all the comps and letting you customize all the texts, buttons and data as you need.

The kit brings the Facebook vector icon and logo. Also, since the focus of this resource are the UI elements, it brings a main window with the header, menu and the chat window for you to set up your realistic mock-ups. Cannot forget to mention all the modal components, comment boxes, buttons, message boxes, tabs, etc.

Needless to say, all the components are full layered, built using vectors and blending options, so that scaling and editing the objects will not be a problem for the designer.

We’re sure we’ll notice lots of missing elements and will keep updating

So, feel free to share and use at will. Also feel free to send us a feedback to help us improve it with something we haven’t thought earlier.

I’d appreciate it if you let others know about the PSD if you download it. Tweet this or blog it. Thank you!

Cheers!

1. Split view – you can use this iPad-only element to display more than one view onscreen at a time, such as to present data in a master-detail or source list–style arrangement. The split view is a common organizational element in iPad applications because it helps flatten the information hierarchy.
2. Popover – you can use this iPad-only view to temporarily display additional information, controls, or choices related to content in the main view. The main benefit of the popover is that it can contain information or choices that don’t need to be in the main interface all the time.
3. Results list button – you can use this system-provided button to reveal search results from a search bar.
4. Modal views have new presentation styles – you can use styles such as full screen, partial screen, and form to present a modal interface that’s more closely tailored to your application’s user experience and visual design.
5. Toolbars can be in additional locations – you can place a toolbar at the top or the bottom of a screen. You can also use a toolbar inside a split view or a popover.
6. The edit menu can display custom items – you can supply menu items to augment or replace the standard Cut, Copy, Paste, Select, and Select All commands.
7. The keyboard view can be customized – you can replace the system-provided keyboard view with a custom view that contains custom buttons.
8. The keyboard view can include custom input accessories – you can supply auxiliary keyboard controls that users can tap to input application-defined content.
9. Custom text views can support text in multiple styles and offer advanced editing features – You can offer word-processing capabilities and support spell checking and autocompletion for text entry.

iPhone Applications – iPhone applications are optimized to run on iPhone and iPod touch. These applications run on iPad in their original resolution or can be optionally set to be pixel- doubled to accommodate for the larger display.

iPad Applications – iPhone SDK 3.2 supports the development of iPad applications that are optimized to take advantage of iPad features, but run only on iPad.

Universal Applications – iPhone SDK 3.2 supports the development of Universal applications. A Universal app is optimized to run on all iPhone OS devices—itʼs essentially an iPhone app and an iPad app built as a single binary.

Cheers!

Developer ChilliFresh, creator of the offending application which has been removed from the App Store last week, claimed that a discussion with Apple revealed the company removed more than 5,000 “overtly sexual” applications from the App Store. However, other adult oriented content, such as the official 99 cent Playboy app, remains for sale.

The developer, ChilliFresh, claimed that an Apple representative said images of both women and men in bikinis are inappropriate, as are words that have a sexual connotation. Apple allegedly is not allowing applications that can be “sexually arousing,” or that imply sexual content.

That number was supported by tracking from AppShopper.com, which found that more that nearly 4,000 applications were removed last Friday, Feb. 18. The total number of removed applications is said to have amounted to roughly 3 percent of the entire App Store.

The first devices running MeeGo, including a new phone from Nokia, are expected to arrive later in 2010.

Both companies will keep their separate application stores: Intel’s AppUp for netbooks, and Nokia’s Ovi software store will remain.

Intel announced its Moblin operating system for low-cost notebooks based on the Atom processor. And Nokia’s Maemo 5.0, first introduced last summer, was expected to replace Symbian in the company’s high-end smartphones. The move would seem to signal the end of both platforms. The recent move to open source symbian also means Nokia still intends to sell smartphones based on its Symbian platform, likely on entry level devices.

“Symbian has a huge installed base, but a prevailing issue is that the user interface is not good,” said William Stofega, an analyst at research firm IDC. “If Nokia is going to stick with Symbian, as they have said, (the operating system) has to be revitalized.”

“The question is: can Symbian garner enough interest in the marketplace outside of Nokia?” said Jack Gold, principal of research firm J.Gold Associates. “Look at who’s endorsed Android: Motorola, Samsung, LG, HTC; it’s a long list. How many vendors are concentrating on Symbian?”

In an effort to completely open Symbian in order to better compete against Apple, RIM and Google, in June 2008 Nokia paid $410 million to Sony Ericsson, Panasonic and Samsung to buy all of the Symbian platform. Before that, Nokia owned 48%.

On Feb. 4, the Symbian Foundation released the first completely open-sourced version of its mobile phone operating system, a move it hopes will make it easier for developers to improve the software and create applications for use on Symbian-based phones. Developers will be able to download, modify and use the software at no charge.

The foundation also hopes to get more handset firms making Symbian phones.

“This is a significant milestone,” said Lee Williams, executive director of the London-based Symbian Foundation. “It makes us a stronger competitor.”

By 2012, Google’s Android will surpass Windows Phone and the iPhone to become the world’s No. 2 most popular mobile operating system behind Symbian, according to Gartner. As rival software gained market share, support for Symbian began to flag. Symbian hopes the new, open-sourced software will help reverse the slide. “We’ll see proliferation of converged devices based on Symbian happen this year,” says Larry Berkin, general manager for Symbian in the U.S.

Personally, I see Symbian as the OS for “cheap” smartphones. There are very many phones running Symbian well below the price tag of Android phones. People will go on buying Symbian powered phones because they are cheap, widespread (they likely already know how to interact with the device), and they provide the closer experience to a modern smartphone that they can afford. People will also tell you that Nokia phones are more feature packed then an iPhone: better camera, FM radio, powerful stereo speakers…

The system has undergo a great facelift. They are working toward a centralized app store, together with a workflow that will make purchasing apps easier. But only a change in Symbian’s average user behavior in regards to apps and a peak of apps sales has the hope to ignite a “Rinascimento” effect for this platform. Considering Nokia’s recent partnership with Intel, it looks like the No. 1 maker is not betting on Symbian their future.

So the point is, who is interested into building apps for a platform that is at the end of its life cycle?

Android SDK installation

* Download Android SDK from: http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html
* Decompress the archive to ~/Library for example
* Run ~/Library/android-sdk-mac_86/tools/android
* Go to Settings, check “Force https://…” sources to be fetched using http://…” and click Save & Apply

* Go to Available Packages, expand the default URL, select all and click Install Selected (it will take a while to download all SDK versions and you can find them in ~/Library/android-sdk-mac_86/platforms/)

You have now all versions of Android SDK installed on your machine.

Titanium installation

Download Titanium Developer from http://www.appcelerator.com/products/download/. This software allows you to create projects and build for simulator or device.

Creating a project

1. Click New Project in Titanium
2. Fill Mobile for Project type (after this selection iPhone SDK and Android SDK at the bottom)
3. Click Android SDK and select the folder where you have the Android SDK (~/Library/android-sdk-mac_86_2/); a green check mark should appear after a few moments.
4. Fill in the rest of the fields and click Create Project (a very basic app will be generated for you).
   
5. Now you should be able to select your project in the left panel (under Projects). In your project view, click Test & Package and then Run Android Emulator
6. It will take a few moments for Titanium to analyze what Android SDK versions you have on your machine. When it’s ready, you can select a version and click Launch
   

Android simulator takes longer to load than iPhone simulator, so be patient. If you want to see some sample projects you can download them from Titanium Mobile Dev Center: http://www.codestrong.com/timobile/samples/.

Windows Mobile currently has the worst browser in any shipping operating system and made development for mobile web sites or multiplatform mobile development (Rhomobile) very difficult. I’ve had countless customers tell me “no one uses” Windows Mobile so they didn’t want to target it. Lots of people use Windows Mobile every day, but the fact that our customers don’t act on this means MS seriously squandered a multi-year lead in the mobile software market.

Check out a preview of the version 7 OS:

http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/LauraFoy/First-Look-Windows-Phone-7-Series-Hands-on-Demo/

and if you don’t have silverlight installed, go right to the media:

http://ecn.channel9.msdn.com/o9/ch9/wp7.mp4

My thoughts as I watched the videos were that they will end up with something similar to Google Android. They’ll continue to have multiple hardware OEM partners, allow for more tweaking of the experience than iPhone, and won’t be hobbled with single-tasking like iPhone. The visual experience looks a bit thin in this preview… it might be inspired by iPhone, but it’s no iPhone.

I look forward to working with the new OS and hope that it really does come through as a serious update to what was a stagnating system. It will be tough for MS to start from zero again since older devices can’t be updated to WM7. I’m not sure when our customers will start noticing that interesting mobile devices out there are running Microsoft software.

So, this finally brings Windows Mobile in line with Web 2.0… another reason to rebrand the product and put a “2.0″ in the name :)

We were all looking at the iPad and suddenly, Microsoft comes with this new, impressive, and I would dare to say “original” take on the mobile phones with a whole new OS. Yes, you read it well, I, the guy coming from Apple’s EvangeList, am saying Microsoft has done something “new” and “original”… How’s that? Read on to find out.

The new Microsoft Windows 7 Phone Series has a terrible name, but looks amazing. Microsoft mobile market share has been free falling since the iPhone introduction, while Android made things just worse for them. The software giant had to take action and they did by reinventing their mobile experience from scratch and for once, they didn’t just copy Apple.

“In a crowded market filled with phones that look the same and do the same things, I challenged the team to deliver a different kind of mobile experience,” Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said. “Windows Phone 7 Series marks a turning point toward phones that truly reflect the speed of people’s lives and their need to connect to other people and all kinds of seamless experiences.”

Apple’s iPhone has a static home screen that shows you a list of apps. Period. It has a customizable dock on which you’ll surely want to keep the Phone and Messages apps, leaving you just 2 spaces for quick access to other features. The App Store has outgrown the OS interface so much that I have 10 pages of apps on my device, and in many cases, Spotlight won’t be enough to help me find what I need (how can I recall 160 app names?). Of corse, you can keep everything organized using iTunes and keep on the first page of your phone the most used apps, but that is kind of cumbersome.

Microsoft is not likely to have this problem right now: their marketplace isn’t even comparable, and whatever they do to attract developers, their platform hasn’t the market share, sales traction and revenue promises to get developers attention. They know it, and they didn’t bet on that: if you look at the new Windows 7 Phone Series, you will hardly see where the 3rd parties apps fit in the mix.

Instead, their bet is on the social aspect of the phone. They made their platform a hub of all the social activities: live Facebook (and Windows Live) status updates, photos, location aware internet searches. And they populated the home screen with lots of quick access “badge-able” buttons (recent calls, messages, unread e-mail, people…). The new software’s “Start” screen includes constantly updated “live tiles” that show users real-time content. Microsoft has touted these as “breaking the mold of static icons that serve as an intermediate step on the way to an application.”

For example, creating a tile for a contact would allow live updates on the person, such as newly uploaded Facebook photos or status updates. The information could be gleaned from the Start page without ever loading an application.

Windows Phone 7 Series includes “integrated services” that Microsoft has dubbed “Hubs.” These are divided into six categories that aim to make it easy for users to gather information: People, Pictures, Games, Music + Video, Marketplace, and Office.

They added to the mix a bunch of eye candy… animations, effects, items scrolling at different speeds. Everything says “look, I’m amazing and your iPhone doesn’t do any of this”.

The six hubs in Windows Phone 7 Series were selected because they represent the activities and information that are most important to people, Microsoft said. The following is a breakdown of the hubs included in the new software:

• People: Ties in live feeds from social networks and photos to contacts. Includes a central place to post updates to Facebook and Windows Live.
• Pictures: Allows users to share photos and videos with a social network. Also integrates with the Web and PC, allowing users to view their entire picture and video collection.
• Games: Connects with Xbox Live and plays games. Allows users to see a gamer’s Xbox Live avatar, achievements and gamer profile.
• Music + Video: Brings “the best of Zune,” Microsoft said, to the mobile phone. Includes online music services, syncing with content from a PC, and a built-in FM radio. Also connects with Zune Social for sharing music.
• Marketplace: Microsoft’s own app store gives access to certified applications and games.
• Office: Offers access to Microsoft Office, oneNote and SharePoint Workspace. Users can read, edit and share documents. Also offers access to Outlook Mobile.

Microsoft is building this targeting the 2010 holiday season, and is not compromising: no phone on the market today will run this. They built all this targeting the latest and greatest hardware available this year. The new OS comes with a new, specific hardware design that has 3 buttons: start, search and back. The dedicated Bing button will allow one-click access to search from anywhere within the phone. Integration with Bing search allows the system to automatically locate the user and allows them to conduct a local search.

The Start button is all about branding: it has the windows logo. You won’t need to dig into the phones specs to get what OS that model is running.

Microsoft has partnered with a number of carriers and manufacturers around the world to bring the first Windows Phone 7 Series handsets to market later this year. Mobile operators include AT&T, Deutsche Telekom AG, Orange, SFR, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telstra, T-Mobile USA, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone. Manufacturers include Dell, Garmin-Asus, HTC Corp., HP, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba and Qualcomm Inc.

All we have to look at now are screenshots and a couple of videos on YouTube. The platform looks very promising and is finally giving people something else that is worth too look at as a “different” alternative to the iPhone.

Now let’s look at the doubts for a minute.

Live updates on the home screen: that is awesome… but how will that affect battery life?
We have people turning off push notifications on the iPhone for that reason, so what drain will these live updates represent? Is this done through a similar technology (one connection to get all updates) or will this use multiple connections to multiple servers for different sources of contents?

Will the home screen be customizable? It looks like 3rd parties applications will be able to add new “live” elements to the home screen. If that is the case, what degree of customization will be possible? How much control will the user have on what is happening on the device?

How did they solve multi-tasking and application switching? Did they design everything in the OS to be as polished and refined as this front-end they are showing off or behind it we’ll find a “C prompt” thing and a scary “task manager”?

Will 3rd parties develop for this device?
Microsoft is moving toward XBox Live integration. At the time they entered the console market, the software giant acquired several smaller games development companies (including the Mac games developer Bungie, that became famous on the XBox thanks to the Halo series) — so they have the means to keep their marketplace filled with quality games and software even without opening the doors to third parties. I would expect the Windows 7 Phone Series marketplace to be populated by titles from bigger developers (namely Electronic Arts, Gameloft) rather then a place in which an Indie can make a living. Microsoft is already including Office in the mix, so I doubt they will attract many productivity apps developers.

Will Apple catch up?
We are waiting for a major release in June (iPhone OS 4). Apple now has 3 very different devices to support with their OS (a phone, a music player and an ebook reader)… Will they effort spread too thin to keep up with the competition? Is there something in Jobs hat that will blow this away?