Wednesday, May 7, 2014

iOS Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide, 3rd Ed.



Winner of a 2012 Jolt Productivity Award!

Updated and expanded to cover iOS 5 and Xcode 4.3, iOS Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide leads you through the essential concepts, tools, and techniques for developing iOS applications. After completing this book, you will have the understanding, the know-how, and the confidence you need to tackle iOS projects of your own.
Based on Big Nerd Ranch’s popular iOS Bootcamp course and its well-tested materials and methodology, this best-selling guide teaches iOS concepts and coding in tandem. The result is instruction that is relevant and useful.
Throughout the book, the authors clearly explain what’s important to know and share their insights into the larger context of the iOS platform. This gives you a real understanding of how iOS development works, the many features that are available, and when and where to apply what you’ve learned.
Here are some of the topics covered:
  • Xcode 4.3, Instruments, and Storyboards
  • ARC, strong and weak references, and retain cycles
  • Interfacing with iCloud
  • Handling touch events and gestures
  • Tool bars, navigation controllers, and split view controllers
  • Localization and Internationalization
  • Block syntax and use
  • Background execution and multi-tasking
  • Saving/loading data: Archiving and Core Data
  • Core Location and Map Kit
  • Communicating with web services
  • Working with XML, JSON, and NSRegularExpression
  • Using the Model-View-Controller-Store design pattern
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About the Author

Joe Conway is the senior iOS instructor at Big Nerd Ranch and has been consulting on the iOS platform since its creation. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin, he has been writing Objective-C and Cocoa code since the dawn of OS X. Joe wrote the materials for the exceptionally popular Big Nerd Ranch iOS Bootcamp course, on which this book is based.

Aaron Hillegass, a former employee of NeXT and Apple, has nearly two decades experience programming and teaching Objective-C, Cocoa, and more recently, iOS. In 2001, Aaron founded Big Nerd Ranch and began developing intensive courses that teach programming in a focused, distraction-free environment. Aaron is also the author of Objective-C Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide andCocoa Programming for Mac OS X.

Monday, April 28, 2014

Steve Jobs



Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.

At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies around the world are trying to build digital-age economies, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering.

Although Jobs cooperated with this book, he asked for no control over what was written nor even the right to read it before it was published. He put nothing off-limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against. His friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and the innovative products that resulted.


Driven by demons, Jobs could drive those around him to fury and despair. But his personality and products were interrelated, just as Apple’s hardware and software tended to be, as if part of an integrated system. His tale is instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values.