Tribes or Professional iPhone and iPod Touch Programming

Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us

Author: Seth Godin

A tribe is any group of people, large or small, who are connected to one another, a leader, and an idea. For millions of years, humans have been seeking out tribes, be they religious, ethnic, economic, political, or even musical (think of the Deadheads). It's our nature.

Now the Internet has eliminated the barriers of geography, cost, and time. All those blogs and social networking sites are helping existing tribes get bigger. But more important, they're enabling countless new tribes to be born-groups of ten or ten thousand or ten million who care about their iPhones, or a political campaign, or a new way to fight global warming.

And so the key question: Who is going to lead us?

The Web can do amazing things, but it can't provide leadership. That still has to come from individuals- people just like you who have passion about something. The explosion in tribes means that anyone who wants to make a difference now has the tools at her fingertips.

If you think leadership is for other people, think again-leaders come in surprising packages. Consider Joel Spolsky and his international tribe of scary-smart software engineers. Or Gary Vaynerhuck, a wine expert with a devoted following of enthusiasts. Chris Sharma leads a tribe of rock climbers up impossible cliff faces, while Mich Mathews, a VP at Microsoft, runs her internal tribe of marketers from her cube in Seattle. All they have in common is the desire to change things, the ability to connect a tribe, and the willingness to lead.

If you ignore this opportunity, you risk turning into a "sheepwalker"-someone who fights to protect the status quo at all costs, never asking if obedience is doingyou (or your organization) any good. Sheepwalkers don't do very well these days.

Tribes will make you think (really think) about the opportunities in leading your fellow employees, customers, investors, believers, hobbyists, or readers. . . . It's not easy, but it's easier than you think.

Publishers Weekly

Short on pages but long on repetition, this newest book by Godin (Purple Cow) argues that lasting and substantive change can be best effected by a tribe: a group of people connected to each other, to a leader and to an idea. Smart innovators find or assemble a movement of similarly minded individuals and get the tribe excited by a new product, service or message, often via the Internet (consider, for example, the popularity of the Obama campaign, Facebook or Twitter). Tribes, Godin says, can be within or outside a corporation, and almost everyone can be a leader; most are kept from realizing their potential by fear of criticism and fear of being wrong. The book's helpful nuggets are buried beneath esoteric case studies and multiple reiterations: we can be leaders if we want, "tribes" are the way of the future and change is good. On that last note, the advice found in this book should be used with caution. "Change isn't made by asking permission," Godin says. "Change is made by asking forgiveness, later." That may be true, but in this economy and in certain corporations, it may also be a good way to lose a job. (Oct.)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Professional iPhone and iPod Touch Programming: Building Applications for Mobile Safari

Author: Richard Wagner

This hands-on, in-depth book introduces developers to the initial release of the iPhone application platform and assists them in creating Web 2.0 applications that operate on the iPhone and integrate with its services. Author Richard Wagner shares his experience as he guides readers through the process of building new applications from scratch and migrating existing Web 2.0 applications to this new mobile platform.

Utilizing practical examples, the book shows how to build a wide range of solutions--from a basic XHTML/CSS client to an advanced Ajax-enabled database application. As it does so, it helps readers design a user interface that is optimized for the iPhone touch-screen display. Additionally, the book helps readers integrate their applications with iPhone services, including phone dialog, its motion sensor, and Google Maps.

With this book, readers will discover how to:

• Build an XHTML and CSS UI framework from the ground up
  
• Emulate the look and feel of built-in applications
  
• Integrate public Web 2.0 APIs into applications
  
• Capture finger touch interactions
  
• Use Ajax to load external pages
  
• Create mashups for the iPhone
  
• Store local and remote data
  
• Optimize applications for the EDGE network
  
• Test, debug, and deploy iPhone applications
  
• And more.