On github, this was a snap. Simply go into the administration section for the private repository, scroll down to the Danger Zone and click the transfer button under transfer ownership. Then type in the name of the repository and the new owners user name and hit transfer. Simple, easy.

In iTunes connect, it is a completely different story. There is no obvious way to transfer the application in the UI. Searching around in the FAQ surfaced this gem.

I sold my app to another developer and can no longer distribute it on the App Store. Can I transfer the app to the new developer’s iTunes Connect account?
No, you can’t transfer the app to another developer account on iTunes Connect. To add the app to another account, remove the app from the current account and upload it to the new iTunes Connect account.

Note that uploading the app to a new iTunes Connect account will disable current customers from receiving automatic and free updates of your application. All customer reviews, rating, and ranking information will be reset. You will not be able to reuse the app name and SKU in the old account. If you have uploaded a binary or used the app with the iAd Network, your Bundle ID will not be reusable either.

So apparently the way to transfer ownership of this app to the non technical owner is to:

1. ask him to create a apple developer account
2. wait to get accepted
3. generate new application keys
4. rebuild the application with the new keys
5. delete the old application build from my account
6. resubmit the new application via his account

Oh and all the folks that have downloaded the app in the mean time from my account are pretty much never going to get an update. All the ratings you might have received will disappear.

Seriously this is a horrible way to handle what seems to me would be a common occurrence. Did Zinga have to follow this process when they bought DrawSomething?

Anyone have advice?

After a little beating my head against a wall, I took a walk and grew a neuron and this is what I came up with to resolve the issue. Note the call to InvokeOnMainThread.

private IEnumerable<Product> GetProducts(Position position)
{
	return productsService.GetProductsNear(position);
}

private void BeginGetProducts()
{
	Activity.PushNetworkActive();
	var scheduler = TaskScheduler.FromCurrentSynchronizationContext();
	
	Task.Factory.StartNew(() => GetProducts(currentPosition))
			.ContinueWith(OnProducts, scheduler);
}

private void OnProducts(Task<IEnumerable<Product>> task)
{
	if(task.IsFaulted)
		HandleException(productsTask.Exception);
	else 
	{
		InvokeOnMainThread(() => {
			this.products = task.Result;
			ShowProducts();
		});
	}
	Activity.PopNetworkActive();
}

public struct Name
{
  private readonly string _string;
  public Name(string name){ _string = name; }
  public override string ToString() { return _string } 
}

This makes things nice for testing purposes as these value structs are comparable for free and are clearly named what the value represents. The downside is if you need to set up a bunch of test data for a unit test you can run into code that looks like this:

 Name name = new Name("Name");
 IEnumerable<Name> names = new[] { new Name("Tom"), new Name("Dick"), new Name("Harry"), }

This will quickly give you carpal tunnel with all the ceremony required to create all the instances. It would be nice if we could reduce some of the noise and we can via use of the implicit operator. All we need to do is add the following operator logic to our struct.

public struct Name
{
  private readonly string _string;
  public Name(string name){ _string = name; }
  public override string ToString() { return _string } 
  public static implicit operator Name(string name) { return new Name(name); }
}

What does this buy us? How does the following syntax strike you?

 Name name = "Name";
 IEnumerable<Name> names = new[] { "Tom", "Dick", "Harry", }

We are used to using implicit typing from on the left hand side of a statement, were you aware that it can be used on the right hand side? I wasn’t. But basically this is how collection initializers work. Nice eh?

Thanks to Robert Ream for showing me this. It was fun working with someone with such a deep understanding of the language and functional development, even if it was a brief time.

I recently updated my work Virtual Machine to the latest release of msysgit 1.7.9 to resolve some issues I was having with global settings not being obeyed. After the installation I noticed that I was no longer able to update repositories from PowerShell. The output I was getting looked something like this:

GIT [dirkdiggler] on [master] (clean) | C:\projects\foo
-> git pull
Permission denied (publickey).
fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly

This was unexpected and the first thing I thought of was the recent security issue with GitHub, and maybe my work key needed to be validated. I checked GitHub and everything seemed to be set up correctly. I even went so far as to generate new keys with no success.

Next up, it occurred to me to try connecting via git bash.

dirkdiggler@DIRKDIGGLER-VM /c/projects/foo (master)
$ ssh git@github.com
Hi dirkdiggler! You've successfully authenticated, but GitHub does not provide shell access.
Connection to github.com closed.

Bash seems to be working fine. I then started troubleshooting my connection from PowerShell. I tried testing ssh first with the following command.

GIT [dirkdiggler] on [master] (clean) | C:\projects\foo
-> ssh git@github.com
Permission denied (publickey).

So it looks like the problem was not with git but with establishing an ssh connection to GitHub. I wanted to see exactly what was happening when trying to connect via ssh, so I ran the following command with enables verbose logging of the connection.

GIT [dirkdiggler] on [master] (clean) | C:\projects\foo
-> <b>ssh -v git@github.com</b>
OpenSSH_4.6p1, OpenSSL 0.9.8e 23 Feb 2007
debug1: Connecting to github.com [207.97.227.239] port 22.
debug1: Connection established.
debug1: identity file /.ssh/identity type -1
debug1: identity file /.ssh/id_rsa type -1
debug1: identity file /.ssh/id_dsa type -1
debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version OpenSSH_5.1p1 Debian-5github2
debug1: match: OpenSSH_5.1p1 Debian-5github2 pat OpenSSH*
debug1: Enabling compatibility mode for protocol 2.0
debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_4.6
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT received
debug1: kex: server->client aes128-cbc hmac-md5 none
debug1: kex: client->server aes128-cbc hmac-md5 none
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REQUEST(1024<1024<8192) sent
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_GROUP
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_INIT sent
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REPLY
debug1: Host 'github.com' is known and matches the RSA host key.
debug1: Found key in /.ssh/known_hosts:1
debug1: ssh_rsa_verify: signature correct
debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS sent
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS
debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS received
debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_REQUEST sent
debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_ACCEPT received
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey
debug1: Next authentication method: publickey
debug1: Trying private key: /.ssh/identity
debug1: Trying private key: /.ssh/id_rsa
debug1: Trying private key: /.ssh/id_dsa
debug1: No more authentication methods to try.
Permission denied (publickey).

This output did not give me any immediate ideas on the problem but I thought I might try the same command from git bash. I won’t include the full output here, but I did notice something different right away. Check out the following lines from the output. Compare them to lines 6-8 above.

debug1: identity file /c/Users/MGALFAPAIR/.ssh/identity type -1
debug1: identity file /c/Users/MGALFAPAIR/.ssh/id_rsa type 1
debug1: identity file /c/Users/MGALFAPAIR/.ssh/id_dsa type -1

So it looks like ssh running under PowerShell is looking for my public/private key pair in a different directory than under bash. Doing a quick google search I found that an environment variable named home is used when determining the path to look for keys. I went back to PowerShell and checked for the environment variable like so.

GIT [dirkdiggler] on [master] (clean) | C:\projects\foo
-> Write-Host $env:home

No home variable set. So I set it like so.

GIT [dirkdiggler] on [master] (clean) | C:\projects\foo
-> $env:home = Resolve-Path ~

GIT [dirkdiggler] on [master] (clean) | C:\projects\foo
-> Write-Host $env:home
C:\Users\MGALFAPAIR

Running the ssh test again, I am now able to connect. Adding the command to my PowerShell profile sets it automatically every time I start PowerShell resolving the problem completely.

If I told you that you can build node.js applications in Windows Azure would you believe me? Come to this session and I’ll show you how. You’ll see how take those existing node apps and easily deploy them to Windows Azure from any platform. You’ll see how you can make yours node apps more robust by leveraging Azure services like storage and service bus, all of which are available in our new “azure” npm module. You’ll also see how to take advantage of cool tools like socket.io for WebSockets, node-inspector for debugging and Cloud9 for an awesome online development experience.

About Glenn

Glenn is a PM at Microsoft working on support for node.js in Windows and Azure. Glenn has a breadth of experience both both inside and outside Microsoft developing software solutions for ISVs and the enterprise. Glenn has been a passionate supporter of open source and has been active in involving folks from the community in the development of software at Microsoft. This has included shipping products under open source licenses, as well as assisting other teams looking to do so. Glenn is also a lover of community and a frequent speaker at local and international events and user groups.

Glenn’s blog can be found on CodeBetter or you can follow him on twitter at you own risk.

Video

Slides

Source

The source for this presentation can be found on Adron’s github account.

If I told you that you can build node.js applications in Windows Azure would you believe me? Come to this session and I’ll show you how. You’ll see how take those existing node apps and easily deploy them to Windows Azure from any platform. You’ll see how you can make yours node apps more robust by leveraging Azure services like storage and service bus, all of which are available in our new “azure” npm module. You’ll also see how to take advantage of cool tools like socket.io for WebSockets, node-inspector for debugging and Cloud9 for an awesome online development experience.

Glenn is a PM at Microsoft working on support for node.js in Windows and Azure. Glenn has a breadth of experience both both inside and outside Microsoft developing software solutions for ISVs and the enterprise. Glenn has been a passionate supporter of open source and has been active in involving folks from the community in the development of software at Microsoft. This has included shipping products under open source licenses, as well as assisting other teams looking to do so. Glenn is also a lover of community and a frequent speaker at local and international events and user groups.

Glenn’s blog can be found on msdn or you can follow him on twitter at you own risk.

    [Flags]
    public enum ItemCoreChangeType
    {
        ViewStyleChanged = 1,
        VaryByStructureChanged = 2,
        LayersChanged = 4,
        LayerContentsChanged = 8,
        PropertiesChanged = 16,
        ErrorsChanged = 32,
        ChangeHistoryCleared = 64,
        EditableCommentChanged = 128,
        NeedsValidation = 256,
        AffectsPropertyChangeHistory = 512,
        AffectsLayerChangeHistory = 1024,
        PushFormatters = 2048,
        ResetValueGroups = 4096,
        SkipChangeTrackingUpdate = 8092,
        StatusChanged = 16384,
        Flexible2DIndicesChanged = 32768,
    }

In case you can’t spot it with the naked eye (I couldn’t, coworker Alex caught it.), watch this video. Pay attention to the binary display as I enter in the values of my enumeration above. Notice how the bit is steadily walking down the display? What happens when I hit SkipChangeTrackingUpdate?

So it seems that when I use the SkipChangeTrackingUpdate value I am actually sending many of the other values in this flags enumeration. Nasty bug to track down eh?

What makes this bug so sinister is just how long it took to find. Using the blame command in git, I see the following result. The names have been changed to protect the guilty.

72fe38b4 (dirk.diggler 2010-02-10 23:49:28 -0800 33) SkipChangeTrackingUpdate = 8092,

So this particular flaw has been in the code base unnoticed for close to two years. Two years worth of code has been written with the assumption that SkipChangeTrackingUpdate actually sends the value of 9 different flag values. Fixing the flag value could potentially effect any part of that code.

What do?

Lucky for me, a search for that flag in the entire code base returned 3 usages, one of which was the definition of the flag, one was the usage of the flag and one consuming the flag.

Crisis averted but it could have been much worse.

There is a lot of talk in an abstract sense about how agile software practices work. James is going to talk about how Cheezburger does agile with a remote team spread across the US and Europe. This isn’t theory, this is how Cheezburger ships code every day. Expect to hear what has worked and what failed.

Cheezburger is heavily invested in TDD, Continuous Deployment, Automated Testing, Split Testing, agile/lean methodologies, and continuous improvement. They have doubled the size of their team in the past year and lived to tell the tale. Cheezburger usually ships code more than ten times a day without interrupting the 1.8 million daily active users visiting their sites and they have a lot of fun doing it.

James Thigpen is the Director of Engineering at Cheezburger Network, one of the largest online humor companies in the world. James has a deep passion for agile and lean software development practices. He has a wide variety of experience developing software and leading teams in industries such as municipal inventory, biomedical imaging, IT management, and online media.

If you missed the January meeting with Adron Hall, you can still catch it online.

To get the devices current location you need an instance of CLLocationManager found in the MonoTouch.CoreLocation namespace. The location manager accesses the actual hardware on the device and can be a real power drain, so you want to use it as little as possible.

using System;
using MonoTouch.CoreLocation;

namespace App.UI
{
	public class LocationService
	{
		private CLLocationManager locationManager;

		public LocationService()
		{
			locationManager = new CLLocationManager();
		}

		public CLLocationCoordinate2D GetCurrentLocation()
		{
			//dirty for now just to get some info.
			locationManager.StartUpdatingLocation();
			while(locationManager.Location == null);
			locationManager.StopUpdatingLocation();

			return locationManager.Location.Coordinate;
		}
	}
}

This simple service shows the absolute minimum needed to retrieve the devices current location. First, we tell the manager to StartUpdatingLocation which will trigger a dialog to the user requesting access to the devices location services. The current location is then available from the Location property. It takes a few seconds to populate though, which is why most of the demo code you will find uses a LocationDelegate to consume the data. I wanted something a little simpler because I don’t actually need updates to the location, so I spin until the Location property is not null. I then grab the Coordinate from the Location property and tell the manager to StopUpdatingLocation.

On a side note the user can disable location globally on the device. You can check to see if the user has done so via the static member LocationServicesEnabled. You could use this to display a dialog to ask the user to put in a zip code maybe as an alternative.

To display the location on a map for the user you will need to use the MKMapView from the MonoTouch.MapKit namespace. I have chosen to create a MapViewController class that extends UIViewController to wrap all this code in.

using System;
using System.Drawing;

using MonoTouch.Foundation;
using MonoTouch.UIKit;
using MonoTouch.MapKit;
using MonoTouch.CoreLocation;

namespace App.UI
{
	public class MapViewController : UIViewController
	{
		private LocationService locationService;
		private MKMapView mapView;

		public ProductsViewController(LocationService locationService)
		{
			this.locationService = locationService;
		}

		public override void ViewDidLoad()
		{
			base.ViewDidLoad();

			var currentLocation = locationService.GetCurrentLocation();
			var visibleRegion = BuildVisibleRegion(currentLocation);

			mapView = BuildMapView(true);
			mapView.SetRegion(visibleRegion, true);

			this.View.AddSubview(mapView);
		}

		private MKMapView BuildMapView(bool showUserLocation)
		{
			var view = new MKMapView()
			{
				ShowsUserLocation = showUserLocation
			};

			view.SizeToFit();
			view.Frame = new RectangleF(0, 0, this.View.Frame.Width, this.View.Frame.Height);
			return view;
		}

		private MKCoordinateRegion BuildVisibleRegion(CLLocationCoordinate2D currentLocation)
		{
			var span = new MKCoordinateSpan(0.2,0.2);
			var region = new MKCoordinateRegion(currentLocation,span);

			return region;
		}
	}
}

This simple ViewController overrides the ViewDidLoad method, consumes the LocationService to get the current location and then displays that location on with a MKMapView. We build up the map view in two steps, the first creates the instance of the map view and sizes it to fit the viewable area of the given display. The MKMapView has a property that will automatically show an indicator of where the curent location is, setting this property is all you need to do to display the map and location. There is a catch though, if you were to display this map now you would see a map of the entire United States and not a reasonable local view of the area. The second step is what zooms the map into a reasonable region to display.

If we display this controller now in the iPhone Simulator, this is what we see.