Natasha The Robot

Currently learning... iPhone development!                                     You can follow me on Twitter here

iOS: How To Download Images Asynchronously (And Make Your UITableView Scroll Fast)

I've recently been working on an app called FoodSquare, it's basically Yelp sorted by Foursquare checkins instead of user reviews. Just like in the Yelp app, I wanted to populate an image for each restaurant on my UITableView, but things didn't go as I expected...

XCode: How To Actually Drag And Copy Files Into Your Project Directory

So there is something that's been driving me super crazy ever since I started using XCode. Whenever I drag in an outside file into my project (like an image I just downloaded from the internet), the file gets copied by Reference, and not actually saved in my project directory.

iOS: How To Set A Custom Background Image For Your UINavigationBar

I love using the Navigation Controller for most of my projects, but unfortunately, it just doesn't look that great! Here is how to change it...

Objective-C: The Easiest Way To Parse Nested Dictionaries

For the past two weeks, I've been working a lot with APIs, which of course are in the JSON format and usually have dictionaries inside of dictionaries inside of dictionaries. Here is the easiest way to parse the nested dictionaries...

How To Set Global Variables In Your iOS App

I am currently working with the Foursquare API to build a simple app which will display local restaurants based on the number of checkins in has (so think Yelp sorted by Foursquare checkins vs user reviews). The Foursquare API uses authorization with a Client ID and a Client Secret token, which I wanted to store as a global variable...

Explaining iOS Delegates: A Story About Your Morning Coffee

One of the hardest programming concepts for me to understand in the past few weeks as I'm learning iOS development was, you guessed it, Delegates! So I'd like to share how I've come to think of them... using a CoffeeShop analogy. So here is the story:

Why Great Software Is About Love

I've been thinking a lot about what separates great software from mediocre or bad software. Here is the clear differentiator I keep noticing time...

iOS: How To Submit Text From A Text Field Using Just The Return Key

I was working on a simple challenge today at Mobile Makers. We were basically adding some text to a text field, clicking an "Add Button" and showing the text in a text view, and there was something that kept bothering me...

Objective-C Reflections: Calling Methods By Their String Name

I'm learning to refactor in Objective-C with a little bit of metaprogramming!

5 Reasons I LOVE iPhone Development

I can't believe I'm feeling this way. It's like I'm in love. As someone who's come from working with Ruby on Rails, it's hard to imagine falling in love with another programming language. But it's happened.