Cory Bohon

Apple’s much awaited iAds became available today for iOS 4 applications that have them enabled. Currently, Nisan is running iAds on the device through many iOS 4 applications.

If you are looking to check out iAds for the iPhone, I have two applications that support iAds as a support model.

• Coin Flipper Lite (free, App Store Link) – Flip a coin to settle any bets you may have.
• StepTracker Lite (free, App Store Link) – A pedometer for your iOS 4 device that will track your steps in style.

If you find the time and inclination to check out Apple’s iAd mobile advertising platform, I would appreciate you checking out my applications.

Today iOS 4 was released, and I am glad because I have three iPhone applications that were approved to go on sale today for the launch. There will be more applications on the way (as well as a few games that I’ve been working on). Be sure to check out the App Development section of my website to find out about my other applications as well.

Coin Flipper (Free; iAd-Supported)
Never be without a coin to flip again! The Coin Flipper application for iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad will let you flip a coin by simply shaking your device. Don’t have enough room to shake it? Tap on the large easy to read coin instead. Our random flipping engine gives you a perfectly equal chance of either heads or tails, and the large read out will allow you to easily see the results. Now you can settle a bet with anyone.

StepTracker Lite (Free; iAd-Supported)
Do you find yourself walking endlessly without really knowing how far you walked? Do you enjoy carrying your iPhone or iPod touch with you? Then you need StepTracker. StepTracker lets you know exactly how many steps you’ve taken along with how many miles you’ve walked. Using StepTracker couldn’t be easier. Simply launch the application and place your device in your pocket, then begin walking. The application will begin to measure your steps while you walk.

StepTracker also comes as a paid, ad-free version for $0.99 (Available via the iTunes Store here).

If you download and use any of these application, I would appreciate it if you could give me an application rating. It only takes a second from my app pages on the iTunes Store.

As promised, I have posted the documentation for the Linkr link management software to my development wiki. I have also posted some documentation and known bugs in the beta version of this software.

You can download Linkr 0.10 beta here.

If you try it out and like it, be sure to let me know!

I wanted to post a quick update about the Two Weeks, Two Open Source Projects post that I wrote earlier this week.

The first of the open source projects that I set out to create is for the most part done. I actually finished earlier than I thought I would, and it didn’t take as much programming time and effort as I first thought. I will be posting more about this project a little later, when I’m able to get the code completely finalized and uploaded to my server and create a wiki for the project.

Basically, Linkr allows you to shorten a URL (or create a redirect URL) right from your own server. So, you could point to a very long URL (for example the one to this post: http://corybohon.com/2010/05/two-weeks-two-open-source-projects/) from a much shorter URL that’s easy to share (for example: corybohon.com/linkr/?id=22). Obviously, if you had the software installed in the root directory, the URL would be much, much shorter.

Since Tuesday, I’ve been able to write over 530 lines of code that will do this task. The software is very basic at it’s core, written using PHP, MySQL, and HTML. There’s a back-end admin panel that will allow an administrator to configure URL redirects and manage users. The front-end is rather basic, allowing you to briefly see the name of the website you’re being redirected to before being whisked off to that site. You can see the front-end interface here: http://corybohon.com/linkr/.

There are still some bugs that I need to work out, but I will release the code for everyone to play around with this weekend. Be sure to check back. I should have the beta up at the very latest on Sunday night.

I don’t like sitting around, not doing anything. I tend to always have a full schedule during school semesters, but during the summer, my schedule is a bit more lax. Therefore, I came up with an interesting idea: Build two open source projects in just two weeks.

I doubt I’ll be able to get them completely finished, but I’m hoping to at least get a beta version of two pieces of web software I’ve been wanting to write.

First is a URL redirecting tool that anyone can install and use on their own domain. You’d be able to login and add a new redirect, then use that URL on Twitter, Facebook, or wherever.

Second will be a bit more challenging. I want to build a simple blogging platform that just gets back to basics. A blogging platform without any of the clutter of modern platforms.

I’ll be posting back my results, so check back often. And, yes, I know these tools already exist, but I AM trying to reinvent the wheel with these projects and (hopefully) let the creativity of others flow.

If you have any questions or would like to see more content like this, feel free to contact me.