Company Blog, News and Ramblings

Atlanta, Georgia - Widget Press, Inc. is proud to offer a Twitter Follower contest for http://twitter.com/widgetpress followers. For the Mac and iPhone community and in the spirit of Indie Developers, Widget Press will give a free pass to NSConference 2010 if by end of day January 22, 2010 there are at least 500 followers to @widgetpress. NSConference is a two day (10 session) conference with presentations from some of the worlds top Mac developers aimed at intermediate to advanced Mac developers.

Twitter Contest Rules:

• Follow @widgetpress on Twitter by end of day January 22, 2010 to become eligible.
• If 500 followers are reached, winner will be announced on Twitter @widgetpress Saturday, January 23, 2010.

Prize:

• Free pass "Golden Ticket" to NSConference 2010.
• Winner picks either Europe or USA.
• Winner picks either iPhone Conference or Mac Conference.

Atlanta, Georgia - Widget Press, Inc. is proud to introduce FormEntry 1.0, their new form application development tool for Mac OS X. FormEntry features point and click development for iPhone and iPod touch applications. With zero programming required, creating form based applications for iPhone or iPod touch devices is now simple and straight forward.

With a focus on ease-of-use, FormEntry was specifically developed for novices, students, and iPhone gurus alike. It offers a clear, simple, unified interface and makes creating form based applications as easy as pressing a button. Drag and drop controls, add custom icons, update parameters and custom edit each post setting.

FormEntry for iPhone is a free iPhone and iPod touch application from the App Store. FormEntry for iPhone is the form reader software for FormEntry for Mac. The two software applications work exclusively together. When designing forms on FormEntry for Mac, form authors will need FormEntry for iPhone installed to transfer their documents.

By default, the form capacity for FormEntry for iPhone is limited to three forms. Users can add additional form capacity by simply making an In App purchase from within FormEntry for iPhone. Additionally, FormEntry for iPhone works on both iPhone and iPod touches. Most of the form features work exactly the same, except for where there are hardware and network differences.

Wi-Fi Deployment:
Transferring a FormEntry document to the iPhone or iPod touch is easy. No wires are needed; simply enable 'Accept Incoming' from FormEntry for iPhone under the Settings screen. From FormEntry for Mac, simply click on Sync and form authors can move their FormEntry document over to any available iPhone or iPod touch. Both FormEntry for iPhone and FormEntry for Mac have to be on the same Wi-Fi network.

It is just as easy to create an ad-hoc Wi-FI network to move forms over to any iPhone or iPod touch. Simply choose 'Create Network...' from the Wi-Fi settings on the Mac and enter a 'Name' for the local network. FormEntry for iPhone users should join the same new network. Form authors can also set their FormEntry document to expire once a user leaves the original paired Wi-Fi network.

Send Email Post:
With FormEntry for Mac, it is easy to set forms to be sent via email, from the user's iPhone Mail App. Photos will even be sent as email attachments. FormEntry authors can even create a default email address that will save time for their users, and serves to prevent them from having to search and tapping the contact's email address to add one.

Send HTML Post:
FormEntry authors can have their users post form data back to their web site over HTTP as standard HTML form POST. All data is sent from FormEntry for iPhone posts using standard web based technologies. Each posting using the HTML form post uses the POST method and is multipart, so even photos can be uploaded correctly.

Send JSON Post:
The developer's form application can easily send all their user data as JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) over HTTP. Each form sent back to their web site is a standard HTML form post using a single parameter of 'json'. If sending photos with the form, each photo is transformed to BASE64. Developers can easily specify each JSON key under the Web Services section of each control type.

Timer Expiration:
Easily expire forms from user input with a timer. Perfect for the classroom during exams, quizzes or lab work. Users will not be able to access the form for input or view any sent, drafts or trash boxes. Developers can also set their FormEntry document to expire once a user leaves the original paired Wi-Fi network.

Wi-Fi Location Expiration:
Developers can easily Set a FormEntry for any Mac document to expire if users leave the original paired Wi-Fi network. This is great for the classroom, lab work or office workspace where sensitive information is entered, reviewed and sent from a specific location. This only works over a shared Wi-Fi network (i.e. Hot Spot) and not over ad-hoc Wi-Fi computer to computer network.

System Requirements:
* A Mac computer with at least 1.25GHz or faster
* Intel Core Duo, Intel Core 2 Duo, or Intel Xeon processor
* 1GB of RAM or more
* 500MB of available Disk Space
* A display with 1024-by-768 resolution or higher
* Mac OS X v10.6 or later
* Internet connection
* Wi-Fi network

"FormEntry was created mostly from the requests of our ModelBaker customers and with the limitations of a fluid web app experience on the iPhone," said Jonathan Freeman, founder of Atlanta based Widget Press, Inc. "They wanted a smoother experience and only a true native iPhone App can do that. We added rich native controls, such as the Photo Picker, Date and Time Picker, Tab Bars, Checkmarks, Drill Downs and Text Fields. Customers also requested to work offline from the Internet, so we added the ability to save each form on the iPhone. Once back online, they can to send their form data via email or post it back to their web service or cloud."

Pricing and Availability:
FormEntry 1.0 for Mac can be purchased for $39.00 (USD) per single computer license. A full-featured, 30-day trial version can be downloaded. Super special discounts will be offered to Apple employees, Apple Consultants Network members, educational customers and members of the press.

FormEntry 1.0
http://www.widgetpress.com/formentry

FormEntry for iPhone
http://www.widgetpress.com/formentry/iphone

Download FormEntry
http://www.widgetpress.com/formentry/download

Purchase FormEntry
http://www.widgetpress.com/store

Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Widget Press, Inc. is a small, privately funded company founded in 2001 by Jonathan Freeman. Widget Press focuses on writing Mac OS X and iPhone OS software. Jonathan attended the Savannah College of Art & Design, majoring in Graphic Design and Illustration. He also obtained a BS in Graphics Management from Georgia Southern University. Copyright 2001-2009 Widget Press, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone and iPod are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Atlanta, Georgia - Widget Press, Inc. is proud to offer all attendees of NSConference 2010 (Europe and USA) an additional 50% discount on all Widget Press software. NSConference is a two day (10 session) conference with presentations from some of the worlds top Mac developers aimed at intermediate to advanced Mac developers.

Attendees of either the 2 Day Mac Developer Conference or the 1 Day iPhone Developer Conference are eligible for the discount. Attendees will receive a Widget Press Coupon Code at the conferences. However, attendees who have already booked NSConference, are eligible of receiving their Widget Press Coupon Code today by emailing inquiry@widgetpress.com with the subject line of NSConference 2010 Coupon Code.

Also win a chance to receive a free pass to NSConference 2010 by entering the Twitter Followers NSConference 2010 Contest.

Widget Press is pleased to announce the organizing of two free mobile BarCamp-style events in Atlanta, Georgia, iPhone Camp Atlanta 2009 and Mobile Camp Atlanta 2009. The event will take place at the historic King Plow Arts Center in Atlanta on Saturday, July 18, 2009. The one day event will be organized in a BarCamp-style conference where the attendees will create the conference sessions themselves. Event start time is 8 am and ends at 1 pm with a catered continental breakfast served throughout the event.

Trying to keep pace with the fast popularity of the iPhone and iPod touch, the event will be separated into two tracks, helping to best fill the needs of folks interested only in iPhone and iPod touch sessions. iPhone Camp Atlanta will likely have sessions on the iPhone and iPod touch development, iTunes App Store, App demos, iPhone 3.0, business strategies, game development and about everything else under Apple's mobile solution. Mobile Camp Atlanta will focus on sessions related to everything around the Google Androids, Windows Mobiles, Palm Pres and Blackberry mobiles.

The venue was selected to help foster creative and open discussions about mobile technologies. King Plow has been transformed from an antiquated plow factory into an arts community and center for commercial, performing and visual arts. In 1990, the owners designed a plan to build affordable Live/work studios, commercial artist spaces, art galleries, areas designed for the performing arts, and a restaurant within the buildings while preserving their historic and architectural significance. The project started with eleven different buildings. Several of the buildings were built at different periods of time throughout the Plow Company's existence. The oldest, as well as the only two-story building, was built circa 1890. Most of other buildings were built between 1936-38. Because of the different types of architecture involved the renovation of the building created spaces that are truly unique.

iPhone Camp Atlanta 2009 web site:
http://www.iphonecampatlanta.org

iPhone Camp Atlanta Sponsorship:
http://www.iphonecampatlanta.org/sponsor

iPhone Camp Atlanta Registration:
http://www.iphonecampatlanta.org/register

Mobile Camp Atlanta 2009 web site:
http://www.mobilecampatlanta.org

Mobile Camp Atlanta Sponsorship:
http://www.mobilecampatlanta.org/sponsor

Mobile Camp Atlanta Registration:
http://www.mobilecampatlanta.org/register

iCal event details:
http://iphonecampatlanta.org/venue/ical

This last Thursday, I had a chance to speak about ModelBaker in front of my local Atlanta PHP group, organized by Ben Ramsey. I understand they had their second largest gathering, which is kinda cool.

In the first half hour, I rambled about me, some of my past projects, MVC and some of my past clients. I then talked about the challenges I had with my existing 19 PHP products and the reasons why I created ModelBaker. The last half hour of the talk, I gave a live ModelBaker demo created in part with the attendees, which was really cool. We created both a web and iPhone app, added some validation, themes and such.

I think I surprised everyone by giving all attendees a free ModelBaker license.

Here's the slides in PDF format: Slides of the talk 5.8 MB.

Atlanta, Georgia - Widget Press, Inc. is proud to introduce ModelBaker 1.0, their new rapid application development tool for Mac OS X. ModelBaker features point and click development for web, iPhone, iPod touch and Google Android applications. With built in MySQL database support and zero programming experience required, anyone can rapidly build corporate intranets, create custom web applications from scratch, offer mobile access from an iPhone, iPod touch, Google Android mobile, and more.

With a focus on ease-of-use, ModelBaker was specifically developed for novices, students, business analysts, graphic designers and web gurus alike. It offers a clear, simple, unified interface and makes generating production ready, database driven web sites as easy as pressing a button. It is just as easy to create mobile web apps too. Users simply enable the iPhone or iPod Touch checkbox and rebuild their app to offer visitors access with a mobile device.

ModelBaker promises time and cost savings by generating high quality code for fast prototyping and production use. At any time, quickly prototype, experiment and visualize ideas, and output to a full featured web or iPhone app. With a single click, create a new look and feel by adding style sheets, images, or even themes. All generated files can be edited for further customization with a text editor. And ModelBaker can easily add the Ext JS framework into a project, bringing the entire web app to a whole new level.

At its core, ModelBaker leverages CakePHP and best practices such as the Model-View-Controller paradigm. As the foundation for the MVC design pattern, adding entity models, backed by either a SQL table or not, is as easy as a button click. Whether creating a mailing address or an order invoice, adding model attributes and their types can all be generated to web forms for user input. ModelBaker also features model relationships through the addition of simple or complex associations rules. When users add or update a web app, it is very easy to apply very detailed validation rules needed for each attribute.

ModelBaker has many additional features including:
* Behaviors
* Associations
* Components
* Helpers

One of ModelBaker's most prolific features is its model diagram editor. The diagram editor facilitates experimentation and makes it very easy to visualize models when creating entities, adding attributes, or joining their relationships with other entity models, at-a-glance.

ModelBaker utilizes the CakePHP 1.2 framework and faithfully generates PHP 4.3.2 and 5 non encrypted compliant code (100% open code and editable in any text editor). Web applications are W3C XTHML/HTML/CSS validated markup and compatible with all modern browsers. Generated Code Specifications for Apache, PHP, MySQL, Javascript, AJAX, iPhone, and iPod are available online.

ModelBaker is incredibly extensible, supporting custom themes, internationalization, templates as well as third party vendor integration. Plugins are like mini web applications, and can have their own Models, Controllers and Views as well as their own base controller and base model. Plugins share the database connection as well as all the main application configurations. ModelBaker plugins are easy to create and even easier to use. ModelBaker plugins are simple wrappers around CakePHP plugins.

Minimum Requirements:
* Mac OS X Version 10.5 Leopard or later
* 1.25GHz or faster Intel Core Duo, Intel Core 2 Duo, or Intel Xeon Processor
* 500 MB Hard Drive space
* 1GB of RAM or higher
* 1024-by-768 Resolution Display or higher
* Internet connection

iPhone and iPod Touch:
* Generates modified iUI version
* Generates W3C HTML/CSS validated markup
* UTF-8 file output

Pricing and Availability:
Licenses start for a single user license for $399 (USD) to 100 seat licenses through the Widget Press Store. Widget Press will be exhibiting from booth #1438, at the 2009 Macworld Conference and Expo during the week of January 5-9 in San Francisco. Stop by and see a demo of ModelBaker in action.

Widget Press will be offering attendees a ModelBaker CD-ROM and coupon code for 25% off the retail price. Super special discounts will be offered to Apple employees, Apple Consultants Network members, educational customers and members of the press.

ModelBaker 1.0
http://www.widgetpress.com/modelbaker

ModelBaker Features
http://www.widgetpress.com/modelbaker/features

Download ModelBaker
http://www.widgetpress.com/downloads

Purchase ModelBaker
http://www.widgetpress.com/store

TechSpecs
http://www.widgetpress.com/modelbaker/techspecs

Screencasts
http://www.widgetpress.com/modelbaker/screencasts

Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Widget Press, Inc. is a small, privately funded company founded in 2001 by Jonathan Freeman. Widget Press originally focused on developing its pre-packaged web frameworks. With the emergence of new techniques, mobile content delivery and web technologies, Widget Press consolidated all its web products into a unified foundation framework. Jonathan attended the Savannah College of Art & Design, majoring in Graphic Design and Illustration. He also obtained a BS in Graphics Management from Georgia Southern University. Copyright 2001-2009 Widget Press, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ModelBaker and Widget Press, Inc. are not affiliated with the Cake Software Foundation. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone and iPod are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries. Google, Android, and the Google logo, are registered trademarks of Google Inc.

Widget Press will be exhibiting from booth #1438, at the 2009 Macworld Conference and Expo during the week of January 5-9 in San Francisco. Please feel free to stop by and see a demo of ModelBaker in action. We will be offering attendees a ModelBaker CD-ROM and coupon code for 25% off the retail price. Super special discounts will be offered to Apple employees, Apple Consultants Network members, educational customers and members of the press. So come stop by.