Iterative Excellence

Something that I didn't find obvious when trying to connect my iPhone to an old router using WEP security (which isn't really that secure, but sometimes recycling old pieces of kit is the right thing to do) - is how you specify a password.

I kept trying to connect, using the password I had configured the router to use, however the iPhone simply wouldn't connect. Eventually after a bit of searching I discovered the trick:

• Use the 13 hex digits of WEP key1 (generated from your passphrase) but PREFIX it with a $ for the iPhone. e.g. $3a01e1071e5054c9c30d01e3e1

Apparently this is some Apple convention, which is totaly obscure...

Labels: iPhone, tips

I've always been interested in PDA's right from my first Casio programmable calculator (which had notes and calendar functionality). Following on from that early experience were a series of Palm devices (one even having a bulky clip-on phone module), a Sony Ericsson P910i, an HTC Windows Mobile device (very unreliable), back to the P910i, and then finally an iPhone 3G.

Of them all, I really like the iPhone, although I do miss many of the features that I had on those previous devices (some of which will appear in the 3.0 OS). Of course the nice thing about PDA's is the ability to buy or write your own applications to fill in the gaps.

While I briefly toyed with writing Palm applications, I never invested the time to write something "shrink wrapped" for it. The tools seemed quite cumbersome, and it felt like a very primitive exercise to write anything of note. However I have always maintained a list of ideas for things that I want on a phone/pda to help me in day to day activities.

Late in 2008 - when I decided to upgrade our office to using iPhones, part of my selection decision was based around revisiting writing applications for mobile devices. I felt that Objective-C was a good match for my previous Smalltalk experience and XCode is a respected development environment.

Today, I am pleased to say that I have successfully released my first iPhone application, ReDo. It's a practical "does what it says on the tin" application, that ticks off one of those items in that "helping me getting things done" checklist I've been mentally carrying around.

You can get a copy of ReDo on the App Store or on the Iterex iPhone" page. Needless to say - I've been using it a while to maintain lists of items I need to remember to redo when I give a presentation, or pack for a vacation. Hopefully others will find it as useful as I do.

Update: I have received several unsolicited emails with very encouraging feedback, so it seems that others are ReDoing items as well.

Labels: iPhone