• Use a virtual machine platform like VMWare to run OSX under Windows – However it is not legal to run OSX under non Apple hardware.
• Another option is to use OSx86 which allows you to install Mac OS on top of your Intel or AMD computer.

But if you just want to learn Objective C language or Cocoa framework programming, you don’t need any of the above. You just need the GNUStep and ProjectCenter tools. This article explains how GNUStep can be configured as a Objective C development environment on Windows.

Objective C Programming in Windows using GNUStep

GNUStep is a free, object oriented development environment with built in tools such as a compiler. The C/C++ compiler included (gcc) also supports compiling Objective C programs. It also has a graphical development kit with API similar to Cocoa framework (since both of them were derived from the old OpenStep framework). So installing GNUStep on Windows gives an instant development environment for Objective C programs. An extension to GNUStep is the ProjectCenter (Xcode equivalent) using which graphical programs can be built.

Installing GNUStep on Windows

GNUStep is available as a Windows installer from the official page.  I recommend downloading and installing GNUStep System, GNUStep Core and GNUStep Devel. Note that the latest version available as of October 2009 is 0.23.0 and this version is not compatible with ProjectCenter 0.50.  If you are planning to use ProjectCenter I recommend that you download 0.22.0 version of GNUStep from the download page. Here is a summary of what is required,

• Objective C programming only – GNUStep 0.23 (System | Core | Devel)
• Objective C Programming and ProjectCenter 0.50 -  GNUStep 0.22 (System | Core | Devel)

You can download pre-compiled version of ProjectCenter 0.50 for Windows from here.

Once you install all the binaries above, you will have GNUStep shell under Programs->GNUStep (See figure). Click on the Shell to invoke the command line interface. This shell is based on MinGW (collection of gcc compiler and command line tools) and using it you can compile and run Objective C programs. The command line is similar to Unix/Linux command line and you can navigate to any folder in your windows machine. Using the built in gcc program you can compile and run Objective C programs.

Compiling and running Objective C programs in GNUStep on Windows

Create the following program and save it with the name helloworld.m using notepad,

#import <Foundation/Foundation.h> 
 
int main (int argc, const char * argv[])
{
  NSAutoreleasePool * pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];
  NSLog (@"Hello World!");
  [pool drain];
  return 0;
}

Now using GNStep shell navigate to the folder where helloworld.m is stored (in my case it is cd w:/prg). Type in the following command to compile helloworld.m.

Please note that the various switch options such as -lobjc should appear at the end of the command. the -o switch specifies the name of the executable created (helloworld.exe) in this case. Following is the result of compilation,

You can see that helloworld.exe is generated in the same folder (Ignore compiler output and warnings or use -enable-auto-import switch to fix them). To run the program type in ./helloworld.exe at the command prompt,

Common Errors during Objective C compilation

• error: cannot find interface declaration for `NXConstantString’ – This means that you haven’t added the switch -fconstant-string-class=NSConstantString to the gcc command line.
• Foundation/Foundation.h: No such file or directory – This means that gcc is unable to find Foundation header classes. Use the switches -I /GNUstep/System/Library/Headers -L /GNUstep/System/Library/Libraries
• stray ‘@’ in program – This means that you have the wrong double quote in your source code. Use " instead of ”.

Now you are all set for Objective C programming and a bit of Cocoa programming on Windows. Good luck! and buy a Mac machine when you are ready to write iPhone programs.

Further Reference

• GNUStep FAQ
• Objective C 2.0 reference
• What is MingW?

To add twitter updates I ended up writing my own plugin named WP Tweets. This is a very lightweight plugin which directly pulls twitter updates from the client side. It is also easy to customize the appearance of this widget by changing few lines in the plugin css file. And best of all I can help if you are stuck with style customization.

You can WP tweets from project homepage or from the official WordPress plugin repository.

I had gone to Thrissur one day before the Barcamp and on the day of the Barcamp I realized that it is a minimum 3 hour drive from my home.  So I started as early as I could (7:30) and was on the NH47 by 8AM. Obviously since I wanted to reach the venue before any sessions started, I was in a bit of hurry. So somewhere near Edappally signal, I hit another car. I had braked real hard and it barely touched the car boot and caused a small scratch. The other guy seemed like a gentleman, but was adamant about compensation. I said sorry and paid whatever he was ready to accept for the damage. I am driving long distances for 4 years now and this was the first accident due to my mistake. So Barcamp experience started on a really low note, but it was all uphill from there

I reached Barcamp at 9:30 and immediately spotted some of the familiar faces (from Web that is) – Praseed was at the corridor and I met Manjit, Kenney, Anand, Binny, Eldhose, Arun, Anish, Sudhish, Fahad and a couple of other guys. I also realized that I am not as young as I thought myself to be!   Barcamp could be an overnight event with plenty of time for socializing as well. Since I wanted to attend all sessions and had engagements in the evening, I got little time for interaction and that is my only disappointment.

Barcamp Kerala 6 – Sessions

Praseed had a really interesting session on human biases(Biases and Fallacies of Human Race). The session was like driving through a tornado and I guess many would have found their brains overloaded(at least I felt it – but in a good sense). I found it extremely interesting and I want his presentation(well prepared and I am sure he would have spent a lot of time on it) very badly. There were couple of good books mentioned (I had read only one of them). However personally I felt that we need to be careful when we talk about the advantages of an “objective” approach. After all human beings are emotional animals and I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong about it. I am always an advocate of the “middle path”.  Also I guess only Praseed can get away with so many highly provocative slides!

Kenney made a proposal on the voice based blood search(Voice Based Blood Search – A Proposal). The idea is simple – when you need blood you just dial a number and after a few selections, you get connected to the real donor. The ability for the donor and the recipient to connect directly is very powerful. This to me is a brilliant idea and if Kenney and the team can get government backing at least in principle, they have something really useful. Government backing is essential in getting around any potential legal minefields and also in getting a large number of donors and hospitals to support it. 

During Kenney’s session, another topic came up -  About the formal degrees and on the tendency to over value them. This topic seems to generate a lot of heat almost everywhere and Barcamp was no exception. Getting a degree has become a default qualification for almost anything in our society. There is no point in saying that degrees are useless (I consider it as a period when you can devote yourself for a lot of self study – During my engineering I spent more time on hacking activities than now). But at the same time I want to see that people who for some reason or other couldn’t complete a degree gets opportunity for growth in areas where it is not essential (Which I think was closer to Kenney’s point). Similarly a guy with difficulties in his English communication can’t get  a job where there is little use for English language – and obviously it should change.

Fahad came to the stage and talked about an idea of networking petrol pumps so that thieves cannot get away when they steal a vehicle. Theoretically it may look good, but practically it is useless. First of all, the petrol pump staff are underpaid and a forget co-operation from them. In fact some of them are nastier than thieves who steal vehicles! When I was driving from Trivandrum to Thrissur to attend Barcamp, one of them tried to cheat me by not resetting the meter. Secondly, when something like this is setup thieves just reorganize themselves pretty quickly – hire some pump operators, change the number of the vehicle, have a backup of petrol cans somewhere on the route etc.  And your entire investment went down the drain!

Reading the above paragraph reminded me Rajesh’s session where he mentioned that we(older generation) tend to discourage and de-motivate enthusiastic youngsters. Sorry Fahad!

Rajesh’s session on startups and the challenges faced by a startup(Starting up – what no one told me) was my most favorite session. Since I had taken his path to a certain extend (setting up a company for example), I could completely connect with what he was saying, especially the rattle snake part. The problem with his session is that Rajesh’s session alone wouldn’t give the full picture to the youngsters present there (you need to burn your finger to learn it). In that respect Rajesh’s idea of mentoring startups is a good idea. Even after working 12 years in software industry, I am not confident enough to start my own venture (and it would have been quite the opposite if I was in US). It is probably partly due to the fact that I am not a big risk taker, but is partly due to my experience as well.

Arun Basil came up with a session called Do they serve Beer at the BarCamp? which was loosely a mind map based presentation on Barcamp history. It was followed by some miscellaneous items such as usefulness of mind maps, a plug on a to do program called tudumo and some other general items such as ways to impress girls…

Manu Zacharia had a session on IT security issues and career opportunities(Ethical Hacking – Hacking in its real sense). This is a session which generated a good amount of interest and probably motivated a lot in the audience to explore further on TCP/IP protocols, buffer overflow and SQL injection etc. Manu knows how to present his stuff and was extremely patient when faced with a barrage of questions.  However, I was disappointed that he couldn’t sufficiently cover the essence of the word hacking, because his focus was on IT security.  To his credit, he did point out that “hacking” is not about IT security alone (Binny would be the best example for a software hacker). His session should have been named something like “IT security and career opportunities”. The session was very good and I am sure there would be a lot of people who are even ready to pay money to attend a lecture similar to this.

Muneef took a session on Drupal basics (Drupal 101) and gave an overview of the CMS. However, lack of complete slides and a lack of demonstration of the tool was all too noticeable.  In one slide the feature “pathauto” appeared thrice .

I left immediately after Drupal session since it was already 4PM and I had 2 hours of driving back to Thrissur (it went all downhill after Barcamp since I got stuck at Koratty(NH 47) due to a church festival for over an hour). Kerala Barcamp 6 was a good learning experience and it recharged my learning batteries as well.  I think if this is something that can be planned as some sort of overnight camping, it would be much more effective for networking and knowledge sharing.

Trivia

• Rajagiri college has international level infrastructure and facilities and we should be thankful that they offered the place for Barcamp. However food sucked big time. It was stale and I guess I need to visit colleges sometimes to appreciate my wife’s cooking skills.
• While getting out of the Rajagiri, I walked past a group who just came out from Barcamp. One guy said – “Man, we wasted our time. If we had played cricket or something we would have enjoyed something” – It was both funny and insightful. Barcamp is not for everyone!
• It was a really ironic moment when I saw Manu Zacharia and a couple of guys trying to break into their own car. He probably locked himself out and even though he is an expert on breaking into computers, he was not able to break into his own car   Rarely you find such ironic moments in life and you have more probability(this word is now reminding me of Praseed’s session) of finding something like this in a Barcamp!

References

• Official Web page of Barcamp Kerala
• Sessions in Kerala Barcamp 6
• Twitter buzz on Barcamp 6
• Praseed on Barcamp 6
• Karmadude’s video on Barcamp 6
• Kerala Barcamp 6 photos (Jinson)
• Official Barcamp 6 Photo Gallery
• Ranjith on Kerala Barcamp 6
• Mahesh on Kerala Barcamp 6
• Presentation slides from Barcamp 6

Netconnect Meter is a Windows desktop application to find your monthly bandwidth use on Reliance Netconnect 1x CDMA or Broadband+ connection. It internally connects to Reliance servers to find bandwidth data and hence is the most reliable way to find your bandwidth use. This tool also provides a breakup of peak and off peak usage. The following screen shot shows the Netconnect Meter 1.0 in action!,

Netconnect Meter enables you to avoid excessive charges by planning your downloads well within your Netconnect tariff plan. You can check the balance bandwidth or balance time left in your prepaid or post paid account.

Netconnect meter considers any session which starts in off peak time (10PM – 6AM) as off peak use and calculates bandwidth accordingly. This is as per what Reliance considers as off peak use.

In future I plan to add latest bill details, bill estimate calculations, tariff plan details and the ability to run the tool full time on the system tray bar. Please subscribe to my site feed to get latest updates on the Netconnect Meter.

You can download the Netconnect Meter 1.0 from the Netconnect Meter project page. I welcome your feedback on Netconnect Meter.