I’m sure by now everyone who has an iPhone 3G or 3GS will be on iOS4 (I hope the 2G and 3G folks don’t feel left behind). OS4 is really cool for users in many ways. Multitasking, home screen customization, camera zoom, new mail handling capabilities etc etc. So that’s for the users. What about developers? How is iOS4 going to help developers? As Steve Jobs had announced back in April, iAd is going to “revolutionize” the way that application developers will be making money from Apple. I will be first introducing my readers to what iAd is all about and then will follow up with a post on how to integrate iAd into your applications.

I was watching a show on computer games this afternoon and suddenly a thought popped in my mind – how I miss playing video games for hours on end! Yes, I was almost an addict and my grandparents had to pry me away from my Atari and PC. I thought that I would like to list five of my favorite games from the 80s and 90s that had captivated my imagination.

Thanks to @amirulruslan I’ve finally jumped on the googlewave bandwagon as well. I’m still trying to figure out my way around it. I have added a few friends on it and looking forward to add more. I guess you must be aware that googlewave is still in beta mode and its not possible to signup without an invite from google or from a googlewave user. So here’s the deal – I’ve got 8 invites left! All you have to do is to either drop me an email or just comment below. I’ll send you an invite right away. Remember, I’ve only got 8 invites left so first come first served . Would be nice if you followed me on twitter too!

By the way, here’s a video demo of what googlewave is all about.

I’ve seen numerous tweets on twitter asking help from people on how to open an iTunes account in Malaysia. Pity that Apple doesn’t trust us Malaysians to give us a legal avenue to open an iTunes account and download music legally. Probably they are worried about our notorious history (and present) for piracy and also credit card fraud. But we’re not alone. A lot of countries don’t actually have the iTunes store available and hence will not be able to buy music from the the iTunes store. If you really want to open an iTunes account, there is a way to get around this.

itunes store malaysia takes you to the app store

This is a question a lot of people have actually asked me. Apple has done a great job of marketing their app store and according to some recent reports, there are more than 80,000 apps in the app store. A lot of people have made it big by selling their apps on the app store and this has actually fuelled a lot of interest among those who don’t even own an iPhone. Not only individual developers but even big game developers have started to embrace the Apple app store. Not exactly surprising considering the fact that some have even suggested that the app store is going to be as huge as the internet. As exaggerated as it may sound, the app is HUGE and it is able to reach to millions of customers each day. The keyword here is – convenience. It’s just too easy for any customer to browse the app store, search for some keywords, look at a few apps and decide to download it for a buck! And when there is enough interest the volume of customers who are downloading apps is enough to make a developer rich.

FINALLY its here – push service for Gmail. It’s really baffling how come Gmail didn’t incorporate this feature for their millions of loyal users. Although Yahoo! was offering push email for quite some time, it seemed that you needed to purchases third party software to enable this feature in Gmail. Although it was widely speculated that it was just a matter of time before Google was going to enable push services on Gmail it wasn’t very clear when exactly! So what exactly is Push Email?

According to WiseGeek

Push email utilizes a mail delivery system with real-time capability to “push” email through to the client as soon as it arrives, rather than requiring the client to poll and collect or pull mail manually. With a push email smartphone, for example, the client’s mailbox is constantly updated with arriving email without user intervention. Smartphones announce new mail arrival with an alert.

In simpler words, what it means is that your mailbox is updated as soon as a mail arrives in the server. You do not have to login to your account to get the email by yourself.

This is a continuation of A roundup of iTunes 9.0 and iPhone OS 3.1 – part 1. In the previous post we saw some of the neat (and not so neat) stuff that comes with iTunes 9.0. So what’s new with iPhone OS 3.1 then? Well before you install iPhone OS 3.1 you will need to download iTunes 9.0. Once you’ve done that then you got to of course download iPhone OS 3.1 (which is a pretty huge file) and this would probably take you quite some time if you’re on Streamyx – how surprising (trying to keep a straight face here).

The entire blogosphere is buzzing with information right from Apple’s new range of iPods, Steve Jobs’ health and the latest and greatest iTunes 9.0 – of course with a little mention of iPhone OS 3.1. Somehow I feel that the iPods and iTunes have taken the limelight in comparison to Apple’s latest firmware release for the iPhone. I had anticipated not many drastic changes to version 3.1 and my assumption proved to be correct. Subtle changes have been made which I will be discussing in a while, but more importantly lets discuss iTunes 9.0 first.

This post is a continuation of How to start an online forum – Part One. In this part we will discuss some good hosting packages available and also how to install vBulletin. Finally we will also see what are some of the SEO techniques possible with vBulletin as well.

For hosting, I would recommend going with Hostgator. Although there are many hosting companies around I have been a fan of Hostgator simply because of the fact that they have an excellent technical support team. Most of my queries have been solved over their online chat link or via email quite fast. They have some good cheap shared hosting packages as low as $4.95 per month and I would advice you to go for the entry level package for a start. Head on to Hostgator and check out some of their packages available.

I’ve recently been busy working on an all new online forum for Malaysian iPhone developers – The iPhone Kopitiam. Although there are quite a lot of information available on the internet for iPhone programming, I started this forum for the following purposes:

- A virtual hangout joint for Malaysian iPhone developers

- Create a closely knit community

- One stop shop for resources

- Share any news related to iPhone in Malaysia

- Any hacks or mods that have been uncoveres

- And finally also share any potential job opportunities

Since this is my first experience in starting an online forum, it was quite a learning experience for me. I had to do quite a lot of research before setting up the online forum and also while setting it up. It wasn’t as straightforward as wordpress installation and I thought I could share how I did it with my readers.