Christos Sotiriou | Software Architect (Page 2)

REST Client in Swift with Promises

REST Client in Swift with Promises

Diving deeper into Swift, I am examining different ways of improving my architecture, and making the best decisions when creating new applications. For me, architecture and expressiveness in the code is much more important that a complicated algorithm that boosts performance over 100%. One thing I am called to do

R.I.P. iGreekNews part 2

In an unexpected turn of events, I was forced to take down iGreekNews. In short, Apple didn’t like that iGreekNews consults RSS feeds from various sources. I find it strange, considering that the purpose of RSS is to be free, and it is a means of communicating with news

* Release * iGreekNews 2.0 for iOS

One year after I took down iGreekNews [https://oramind.com/igreeknews-ime-dead/] (along with iMe), I decided to re-implement iGreekNews using a new approach. It was time to put my NodeJS skills to good use, and construct an API around news feeds, and RSS, and also re-write the iOS application from

NodeJS, Varnish + NginX

I am building a web service, and I chose NodeJS as a backend, due to its efficiency and simplicity. However, since nodejs is single thread – single process, other means of making the process more responsive under server high server load must be implemented. There are many ways of achieving high

Vuforia SDK + remote video streaming on iOS

Vuforia SDK + remote video streaming on iOS

I recently have undertaken a project on iOS that requires integration with the Vuforia SDK [https://www.qualcomm.com/products/vuforia]. It’s an augmented reality proprietary framework, built for iOS and Android and has been very popular due to its innovative recognition library. One of the coolest demos that

A few thoughts on Parallelism

A few thoughts on Parallelism

It’s been a while. I am very sure many people experienced connectivity issues to my server. I believe these issues have been resolved. While searching in my old archives, I stumbled across an essay that I had written as a small part of a bigger exam in the university

AFNetworking + PromiseKit

mobile-development

AFNetworking + PromiseKit

AFNetworking is the de-facto standard for implementing a robust and scalable network infrastructure in your iOS or OS X application. I personally have used it for the implementation of many professional projects that I have been involved in. And lately I have stumbled across an delightful Framework, PromiseKit, a Promises

R.I.P iGreekNews & iMe

I hate good-byes but this one is long overdue. Yes, I have decided to let iGreekNews and iMe die, and withdraw it from the App Store. It has been a long and exciting journey, however, one must know when to say good-bye and take down one of the most successful

Country border highlighting with Leaflet.js

Country border highlighting with Leaflet.js

Not too long ago, I finished a project on Big Data for the University. One part of this vast project was implementing a dynamics map responsive to mouse hover and mouse click. When the mouse would hover over a country, the whole country borders would be highlighted in the map,

Working on Big Data...

Doing a project on Big Data. It’s the first time that I realize that data visualization is not a gimmick but actually helps one to process data with naked eye just with a glimpse. This screenshot is taken using MATLAB. X axis shows the index of a venue that

Monsters in our dreams

Monsters in our dreams

Every dream has a monster, visible or not. I’m talking about “daydreaming”, imagining one’s self in another situation, in a happy place, position, circumstance… Every such dream starts with having lots of imagination, and sometimes, false and stupid hopes. But it’s a dream, right? Everyone has the

Code updates

I have taken some time to update my GitHub repository, who has been lonely as of date. While developing code for my projects at the university, I came to realise that much of this code could prove useful to others. CSPopViewService First thing I did was to update the pop

Ogre + Bullet - Beginner's Tutorial

Ogre + Bullet - Beginner's Tutorial

Lately, I have been testing my skills with Ogre3D, a 3D rendering engine written in C++, and Bullet physics, which is used in many commercial games to give realistic movement and feel to movable objects in the world. I was amazed to see that there is no comprehensive tutorial on

Studies...

I always wanted to study abroad. When I started my Bachelor’s degree, I said that my MSc would be abroad. Never knew why I said that, I didn’t even know if I would attend a Master’s course. I never thought about it again, until I graduated obtaining

iGreekNews updates for iPhone and iPad

iGreekNews updates for iPhone and iPad

After a long time, iGreekNews and iGreekNews HD for iOS have finally been updated. And it was about time. Some of the changes are welcome, and have been requested many times by users. — Renewal of the source websites. Removed many sites that do not work, and added new ones. — Bug

Idea Crisis (Reposting)

Idea Crisis (Reposting)

A while ago in my old blog I had posted in Greek an article, that had many views. Lately, I have been requested to re-post the article. The article is about the upcoming economic crisis, and it dates back in 2010-11-07. It’s in greek, and the original title is

JSONkit and Exception handling

Having troubles with JSONKit and nil and null exceptions in occasions you can’t understand? This thing happened to me when trying to use something like “self.textview.text = [dictionary valueForKey:@”someKey”];” and I couldn’t understand why I kept receiving extensions about mismatch of the classes and NULL. Well,

** RELEASE ** Michanikoi

RELEASE Michanikoi

I am proud to announce that a project for which I have developed the iOS application (Michanikoi) is now released. With this application you can: — Calculate the cost of the energy audit for houses situated in Greece. — Answer all your questions regarding energy audits and general questions regarding it. — Find

Thoughts on Programing Paradigms

It’s been a while since I have posted here. That doesn’t mean I am inactive. iGreekNews needed an update, and my full day job is also taking me too much time. I have no regrets, however. This amount of work comes with a great amount of knowledge. The

Xcode and iOS 5: Bringing back backtrace symbols

software engineering

Xcode and iOS 5: Bringing back backtrace symbols

If you have downloaded iOS 5, you will have aundoubtedly noticed that there is something important missing about the new SDK: the stack trace printed from each exception. You now see hexadecimal representations of symbols where you previewsly saw full human-readable symbols. Apple is undergoing changes in the low-level foundation

Small Update

Well, it’s a sad day today. Remember about project Unicorn? It was a project I started a few months ago before I joined the army. I stumbled upon a problem no one could help me, so I abandoned the project, and I recreated it a few months ago, finishing

taxiplon a Global Mobile Awards Finalist

taxiplon a Global Mobile Awards Finalist

I am happy to announce that a project I am taking part to, taxiplon is now a Global Mobile Awards 2012 nominee in the category of Best Mobile Innovation for Automotive, Transport or Utilities.You can read all about the competition here [http://www.globalmobileawards.com/awards2012/nominees.php]: In

GCD, NSOperation and Core Data/ Files on disk

Core data is fast, even on iOS, where handheld devices lack in speed when compared to desktop computers. However, there will be times where you will be required to do some heavy reading, wether that will be plain files from disk or information stored in Core Data. In my case,

Fedora 16 on Macbook Impressions

Fedora 16 on Macbook Impressions

Fedora 15 was a mixed bag of impressions for me, but overrall, it was a nice update… or should I say, a nice revamp? Fedora 15 took a giant leap backwards by depriving the entire OS of many features that its predecessors had, in favor of a more user friendly

Dark Days

Well, the title says it all. A year ago, I had written an article, called “Η κρίση των ιδεών”, written in Greek. It translates to english as “The Crisis of idea(l)s”. Ι had epxressed my concerns about what the oncoming economic crisis in Greece, stating that the crisis