Time since Google Voice Messenger was submitted to Apple for approval:
9weeks2days16hours36minutes58seconds
Most apps take about a week to get approved. This is what Apple claims, and my own experiences with Bubble Burster have been even better. However, I recently submitted an app that has taken a little longer. When I started it in January, I figured there was a very likely chance that Apple would not allow it. I started the project knowing full well it may never make me any money, because I wanted to be able to use it myself. Read More »
I have never enjoyed reading physical books. The user experience is all wrong. My thumbs get soar from holding the pages open, you have to hold it to the light just right so the curl of the pages don’t cast a giant shadow, it’s difficult to search and you need your own light source. I really don’t understand people that are attached to the physical book.
This isn’t a recent feeling either; I’ve been looking forward to digital books as long as I can remember, but up until now I didn’t really have an option. The Kindle has done a lot to get books published in digital form bit up until recently it wasn’t possible to get a book legally for any device. Read More »
I created a dedicated browser for Google Voice on the Mac.
It’s nothing to fancy, just a WebKit view in a simple window. The best part is that it will update the badge icon in the dock so you don’t have to keep the window open.
Refreshing from the menu will refresh like it does when you click the refresh link rather than reload the entire page.
Paging is separating out content to multiple pages, and it is a really common task for websites. The problem is that like oh so many things on the web, it is rarely done well. Come with me on this journey (rant?) on the correct way to implement paging.
Each page should have a “Next” and “Previous” button. If you are referring to chronological content, such as blog posts, use “Newer” and “Older” to be more specific. They should be the most prominent part of the paging area, since anyone interacting with that area of the page will most likely be going back and forth through the results.
There should also be a list of the pages in between the next/previous button.
I recently had the misfortune of having to make a video to showcase Bubble Burster. The results were not pretty. I was literally laughed at by friends when they saw it. The problem is that while you can take screenshots of the iPhone screen, there is no way to capture video. I could have used a screen capture program but those cost around $100 (yes I am very cheap). The best solution I could come up with was to use the built in iSight on my MacBook to show the app.
In order to improve the quality of the video, I created a SIMBL plugin for the iPhone simulator. Basically it captures a screenshot every frame and then saves it to video. It overlays a circle for the pointer and a gloss iPhone frame.
I recently purchased the beginning embedded electronics kit from SparkFun Electronics. It is a kit that include everything to start programming AVR microcontrollers. A microcontroller lets you control the most simple, physical things, like an LED or a motor. Given my lust for control, you can see why this has quickly become my latest obsessive hobby.
The problem is that I want to be able to program the micro with my Mac, which presented a few problems. Here is how I got it working with Xcode on my Mac. Read More »
I have been using Lunarpages for over a year now and I really love it. I first started using it for work, and then for my personal sites like this one. I have really enjoyed it and will definitely be using it for a long time to come. It is what I recommend to anyone that dare ask my opinion.
It has been about a month now since Bubble Burster was released to the App Store and early sales are not promising. Before I launched Bubble Burster, I did a lot of research into marketing and sales of iPhone Apps and I found very little information. Most of what is available in terms of sales numbers is from big companies with apps in the top 100, and almost no data from your average app developer. Read More »
I finished up the Bubble Burster website today. You can find it at bubble.davidbeckblog.com. I built it with WordPress (same as this site) but I made the theme myself and wrote and edited several plugins to get it just right. Read More »
If your OCD like myself, and also suffer from the need to make websites, you may have run into this pesky problem when you lay out images and what not on a page. The problem comes when you try to mathematically determine the exact right padding so that all the objects are laid out evenly only to find that the last one falls off the end to the next line. Read More »
