Following on from the post about iPhone development using MonoTouch and C#, I thought I would point out the fact that at the moment MonoTouch doesn’t support Visual Basic for iPhone development. Mono and MonoDevelop themselves do support VB, but just not for iPhone dev just yet. The MonoTouch team say it is on the roadmap, just no date as of yet.

So where does that leave the Visual Basic developer? Well, if they want to write iPhone apps using the .NET framework, then needing to learn some C#.

For many VB developers, who came to .NET from VB6 (and below), stepping up to a fully object orientated language and the .NET framework was tough enough to grasp, let alone taking on dealing with curly braces as well. Whilst VB.NET is not the same language as VB6, Microsoft did a pretty good job at smoothing the upgrade path for developers (certainly with VS2005 and .NET 2.0 upwards anyway).

Many developers will probably have some exposure to other languages, such as PHP, JavaScript, or even Java (remember that?), all of which would make learning C# a bit easier, but if you haven’t then don’t worry too much. If you know the .NET framework, then you’re already halfway there.

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Well, it’s been a year to the day when I decided to crack on with some iPhone development, and what a year it’s been. Busy is certainly one word that would sum it up. Having plenty of work, especially at a time when many are suffering the effects of a tough financial climate, is something always to be grateful of, but sometimes it can hamper other goals.

So how far did I get with Objective-C and iPhone development? Well, I did get some done, and I am certainly a mile up on where I was a year ago, but I haven’t got anything quite completed. It’s been a learning curve for sure, but a good one.

I’ve got my Apple Developer account setup, under my new business name of side lane studios, and have plenty of app ideas lined up and ready to take shape, the first of which I was planning on completing in January. It’s about 50% complete at the moment, so I was going to give myself a window to knuckle down with it and submit it to Apple for inclusion in the App Store. Then I came across MonoTouch and everything changed.

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These days there seem to be a never-ending number of cloud-based services for stashing your data. Depending on what you need from a service, whether it’s purely backup, file syncing, or even collaborative working, chances are there’s a service to suit you.

Working as I do from more than one location, using more than one computer, it’s important for me to be able to easily access my files where ever I am that particular day, whether I’m in the office or on the road.

Over the last couple of years I’ve tried a whole range of different options. Usually they’ve been based around using SFTP or Amazon S3 space mounted as a local drive, for which I’ve tried ExpanDrive, MacFusion, JungleDisk, and ZumoDrive.

Overall they all worked pretty well, but generally suffered the same problem, and that is one of speed. This is the one big problem with cloud storage – that accessing it (in a useful way) requires a pretty fast network connection. Upload speeds are meagre in comparison to download speeds, so copying stuff onto the “drive” often meant a long standing Finder window. Clever caching helps, but you just can’t get away from the problem.

Then there’s the problem of when your connection goes down, or you just plain don’t have one. Put simply – no network, no files.

That’s where Dropbox plays its trump card. Because whilst on the face of it Dropbox is just another cloud storage service, actually it’s not. It’s a file synchronisation service that uses the cloud to keep your files in sync, provides a remote backup of them, as well as offering web and iPhone access to them at the same time.

Sure, the backup and web access are commonplace, but it’s the syncing that is the magic. What happens to your files if you’re not online? Well, nothing. They’re still on your computer and you can still work with them. When you get back online they sync up without bothering you with the details.

But there is the rub. The files are actually always on your computer. With a hosted virtual disk, once you shut down those files aren’t there as the disk is unmounted (aside maybe from being in the cache), and from a security perspective that’s a good thing, but with Dropbox that’s not an option, as all you’re doing is using the cloud to keep your files up to date.

So is there anything we can do about that? As it happens, yes there is. Enter Espionage.

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MooTools is a fantastic JavaScript framework that as well than the usual whizzy slides, fades, and DOM tricks that most people use a JS framework for, also delivers a robust object orientated framework for solid JS development.

However compared to jQuery, which has a plugin repository where developers and designers can browse and pick up the best plugin for their needs, MooTools has always lacked such a central point for the community to deposit their classes for the masses. That is until now. All hail the MooTools Forge.

The idea behind the Forge is to have a one official point for the community to show off their wares and for developers to pick and choose from. Couple that with the ability to standardise documentation and guidelines, and you’ve got a win win situation for MooTools developers.

It is still very early days for the Forge and the content is still growing, but over time more and more developers will start to add in their shiny bits of code making it well worth a bookmark. Do it now.

MooTools Forge

So you’re a long serving Windows user who has been seduced by the sexy lines and simplicity of the iPhone and now all of a sudden you find yourself standing in the Apple store with your credit card in your hand and a MacBook under your arm. All good so far.

You’re in unfamiliar territory already and feeling slightly uneasy, but with a copy of Microsoft Office in the bag you’re feeling comfortable. You know Office. You know how to use 10% of Word, and at least 5% of Excel, and Outlook keeps you in contact via the Exchange server with the office. Hmm, wait a minute, there seems to be some mistake where’s Outlook? Ent what? What the hell is this Entourage rubbish?

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