iPhone Hacks

CREDITS

About the Authors

David Jurick (www.davidjurick.com) is the IT manager at a digital entertainment/new media company based in Santa Monica, California. He has extensive experience in networking, computer hardware, software, scripting, and Unix/Linux-based operating systems. He holds a bachelor of science degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Adam Stolarz (www.adamstolarz.com) is an avid PC gamer and computer expert with an electronics background. As a teenager he was a contributing author to Car PC Hacks (O’Reilly). He is currently studying political science and Japanese at California State University, Northridge.

Damien Stolarz is a partner at Perceptive Development (www.perceptdev.com), a Los Angeles–based software consultancy that develops iPhone applications. He is an inventor, author, and entrepreneur who loves making machines talk to each other. He has authored several books including Mastering Internet Video (Addison-Wesley), Car PC Hacks (O’Reilly), and Hands-On Guide to Videoblogging and Podcasting (Focal Press). He holds a B.S. in computer science and engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles. His personal blog is www.damienstolarz.com.

Contributors

The following people contributed to this book in the form of hacks:

George Dean IV is a software developer at Perceptive Development in Los Angeles (www.perceptdev.com). Dean has a broad range of experience with nearly a dozen programming languages on a variety of platforms. He remains interested in a wide range of disciplines including mathematics and all manner of sciences. His artistic pursuits include film scoring and screenwriting. He holds a B.S. in computer science from the University of California, Los Angeles. His personal site is www.georgedeaniv.com.

Matthew Drengler is currently a senior at the University of Toledo studying electrical engineering. After graduating he plans to go to Ohio State University to pursue a master’s in business administration. When Drengler isn’t studying for classes he enjoys playing golf, guitar, pool, Xbox 360, and cooking. You can find his blog at http://matthewdrengler.com/blog.

Zack Gainsforth is a physicist with the University of California, Space Sciences Laboratory, studying comet samples returned from the Stardust NASA mission as well as other astromaterials. He was a successful computer programmer working for Diskeeper Corporation, and software he worked on is on tens of millions of computers worldwide. His real love is physical science, a career he started out with a home-built lab supported by his very tolerant parents. He eventually went on to attend the University of California at Berkeley to study physics from whence he went on into his current research. He has contributed to several scientific publications and co-authored an article for Science. He is happily married to what he believes to be the smartest gem in the Eastern Hemisphere, Cindy. His website is www.thetalab.com.

iFixit is the Mac+iPod do-it-yourself company. It has the goal of empowering people to do repairs themselves by giving them the knowledge, tools, and parts to do so. So far, they’ve helped over 30,000 people repair their computers and iPods. iFixit was started in 2003 by students at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. They’re now the largest Mac laptop parts store in the world, and introduced iPod parts in 2006 and iPhone and iPod touch parts in 2007. iFixit is a for-profit, Christ-centered company. They can be contacted at www.iFixit.com or 1-866-61-FIXIT.

Mathias Kettner has been working with Linux since the 0.99 kernel, when a complete installation fit on six floppy disks. In the many years since then his passion for Linux has remained. Today he is a Linux consultant, trainer, and author of the bestselling book Fehlerdiagnose und Problembehebung unter Linux (SUSE Press). He holds a diploma in computer science from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. His website is http://mathias-kettner.com.

Christopher “karp” Kurpinski fell short of his boyhood aspirations to become a mad scientist and settled for a career as a cynical engineer. Despite his best efforts to sleep through every class, he somehow received a masters in electrical engineering from UCLA. Kurpinski currently resides in suburban Detroit where he attends law school at the University of Michigan and works as a technical patent analyst on the side. Taking an almost perverse joy in using things in ways they were never intended, he once climbed a church just for the hell of it. One day, he hopes to have all of his vintage scooters running at the same time. His website is www.kurpinski.net.

Patrick Ng is a photographer who works in Hong Kong as a stationery and gift buyer for a retail chain store called city’super. Patrick thinks like a man of action, but acts like a man of thoughts. He keeps a journal of hacks and interesting things on his personal blog Scription (http://moleskine.vox.com).

Josef Pruůša is a young, unconventional DJ from Czech Republic. He started DJing when he was only 15 years old. He likes new technologies and loves hacking new functionality into them, whether the results are interesting, useful, or merely funny. His interests are programming, electronics, music, cars, and economics. In addition to R/C car control, he’s recently been using an iPhone to control music for his DJ performances. You can check out his new projects on his website http://josef-prusa.eu.

Erica Sadun holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the Georgia Institute of Technology. She has written, co-written, and contributed to over two dozen books about technology, particularly in the areas of programming, digital video, and digital photography. An unrepentant geek, Sadun has never met a gadget she didn’t need. Her checkered past includes run-ins with NeXT, Newton, and a vast myriad of both successful and unsuccessful technologies. When not writing, she and her geek husband parent three adorable geeks-in-training, who regard their parents with restrained bemusement. Her site is http://ericasadun.com.

Devananda Van der Veen is a MySQL DBA and the author of the open source database and server management tools MyCAT. He currently works for Hydra Network, telecommuting from his home on the Olympic Peninsula where he enjoys playing the Shakuhachi and living in the great outdoors. He maintains a blog at http://blog.dbadeva.com.

Joe Vennix is a teenager from Houston, Texas, who has been hacking away at the iPhone since its launch. He sells apps on the iTunes store and maintains an iPhone news and apps listings site at www.iphonexe.com. His musical tastes vary from Pink Floyd to Buckethead to Funkadelic, and he’s pretty psyched about being published in a book. Shoot him an email via [e-mail].

ZodTTD is very scarce on details of his origin. He began his journey through software development at a very young age. He learned to program homebrew games on the Gameboy Advance using makeshift flashcarts. He worked on Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe for the Tapwave Zodiac—hence the moniker “ZodTTD.” He’s worked on porting all the major game emulators—PSX, Sega, SNES, GBA, MAME, and more—to the iPhone. He works full-time maintaining game ports and developing iPhone applications. His website is www.zodttd.com.