iPhone App reviews Part 1
This series of blog posts aims to reveal how stupid some people really are and how developers can probably make some easy cash! If these reviews were written with just one brain cell then they would probably realise what they had just achieved was something quite special.
Two reviews for a iWarmer. A paid app worth £1.19 at the time of writing, which claims to turn your iPhone into a hand warmer using a variety of warm objects such as boiling water, a volcano, the sun and a bonfire amongst others.
Review 1: “This is a load of rubbish don’t buy it seriously it doesn’t work!!!!!”
Review 2: “This app works like $h!t. Really bad and it doesn’t work”
Were these two reviewers honestly expecting the phone to develop a magical heating element by installing this app? The only time my iPhone gets warm is when the phone is charging over night or if I’m holding it for a long time.
You have to admire the developer in this case. They put time and effort into making an app which was clearly never going to do what it claimed and had the cheek (or ambition) to sell it for £1.19. Hats off to them.
Junk Mail
“You don’t have junk here (hooray!)—Microsoft SmartScreen is working to keep it out of your inbox, too.” Thats rubbish. I only don’t have junk mail because I just deleted 204 messages. Stupid Microsoft.
On another note I want to start a series of short blog posts soon about how stupid some people really are when it comes to technology. All aided by Apple App store for iPhone and other mobile devices.
Modern technology: Is it really modern?
Recently my 13 year old Fiat Punto needed some work doing on it. The bill was going to total around the £700 mark and having paid out a lot for it in the past I decided it was time to trade it in for something a little more reliable and new. I settled on a 58 plate Vauxhall Corsa, only 11k on the clock and the same 1.2 litre engine as my Punto.
When I picked the car up I was sad to see my little workhorse of a Fiat go, it was a great little car. Cheap on petrol (~380 miles on a 45 litre tank), cheap on insurance (£250 fully comp) and was a nippy little thing around town and on the motorway. But the time had come and I drove happily off the forecourt in my new pride and joy. Driving to work the next day up the long uphill drag out of Dover I suddenly changed my mind. It was struggling up the hill. I know it’s a bit heavier and I know different cars need different driving styles but this was ridiculous.
Asking around various people in the trade there was a general view that the 1.2 engine is simply not enough for the car, it needs high revs and lots of right boot to get it going. Fair enough, I can do that. So I do. I then watch the petrol guage sink towards empty faster than the speedo climbs up.
In short I’m very disappointed. How is I that by buying new I have actually gone several steps back. So much for modern cars being more economical and efficient. My insurance is £200 extra, road tax the same and fuel bill almost doubled!
Don’t get me wrong, the car is great around town without passengers but I thought being more modern would be better.
The same can be said for other tech as well. The iPhone 4 and it’s reception issues, countless product recalls of all sorts. Modern technology always seems to be one step behind the past.
Find the passion
I read an article a while ago (I forget the source but I’ll try to find it) which was talking about how coding and programming should be more than a job, it should be a passion. I have to say that I am starting to feel like that.
Programming has become a 9 – 5 job which when the end of office hours comes round all said is and done. I remember that I used to enjoy coding more when I had some problem or other to solve at uni, or when a group of us were working on a software solution. These projects were written in Java and were desktop based and now I am predominantly web based using PHP but the idea of coding still excites me.
I think the problem is the type of project I’m working on. They are all business focused and serious. Making every site look just how the client wants it to look. Designing to the a strict visual identity to match their brand. This is ok, it brings in the money which is good. I just have this feeling that all this corporate work is spoiling the experience, not just for me but for a lot of designers. Coding becomes a job, mundane, and needs to be done to survive. A passion for coding is what drives innovation and pushes boundaries rather than being content with the same old sites.
I want to revive the passion in my coding. I’m not saying leave client work all together, that would be silly but to be able to write some software with no client to please, no designer to satisfy, just good old fashioned code hacking, innovation and excitement that you actually want to work on when you finish in the office. This is where you come in.
I work a 9 – 5 job but I want to at the same time revive the passion with some good old fashioned coding. I’m talking fancy effects, flashy graphics sites that people actually want to use and be part of. What sites would you like to see built, or what projects do you have that you need some help with? For free of course, this isn’t about money. Leave your comments here and I will be glad to jump on board.
An age old problem
I have been at my new job for a week now. It has been great. The people are friendly, the atmosphere is nice, the work is challenging. All in all I could happily do this for a few years and not feel the need to stretch myself further. The one thing that is bugging me is the custom CMS we use. It was built by the current developer and my predecessor and dont get me wrong its a fantastic system. It does everything we need it to do and it was built from the ground up based on the codeIgnitor framework. Once you get your head around it its also a nice easy system to develop with, everything is in a logical place (near enough) and its all good. The only problem is a problem which I’m sure has plagued developers since programs were written on punch cards. Comments and documentation. On my first day I was given a basic copy of the CMS, a design to follow and a quick talk through the system then told to get on with it. My gripe here isn’t the talk from my colleague because that was more useful than the comments and documentation that barely totalled a paragraph for each class.
If your going to develop a system it needs comments. Us developers aren’t always good at commenting code and I’m sure if we are all honest we can list a handful of programs that we didn’t comment or document because “It won’t matter just this once”. The trouble comes when it does matter. As a plea to all software developers out there, no matter what code you are writing, please comment your code. If you do it as you go it isn’t a huge chore, we all slip at times but it will save huge headaches in the future. I was thinking of building a CMS for Smush Ltd before I even applied for the job but this has spurred me on to get started planning, coding, testing and fixing. Oh and commenting if I think it might be needed.
Creativity: Nature, nurture or pure luck?
The other day I was trying to think of some new and original ideas for a project I was working on and the creative juices just werent flowing. The ideas were just the same old same old. Now I know we all get a mental block every now and then but is it possible to force yourself to be in a creative mood?We can have piles of inspiration around us, some have a scrap book, some have collections of images online whatever system works for us, but do we have to be in the right mood to be creative or can we sit down and make ourselves be creative. Personally I feel like I have to be in the right mood with the right project to really shine but then again Im not natually artistic. I would much rather sit down and hack out some code which I can normally do no matter what mood Im in. Which brings me to my next point.
Is being creative linked to genetics from birth or can we make decisions in our childhood and later lives to ensure we turn out to be creative? I used to play lots of Lego when I was little which allowed me to build some amazing models which simply couldnt exist in reality yet showed a great immagination. Now however I have to be in the mood for creative so did I not do enough in my early years to ensure my creativity or am I just not built for thinking differently?
The trouble with Digital Photography
I have just uploaded a few photo’s into iPhoto and I noticed the image count at the bottom.14,883. Then it struck me, the drawback with digital is what on earth do we do with all of the pictures we take. Granted my collection is rather large and has been amassed over several years and not just by me but what do people actually do with their pictures? In the old days of film rolls, photographers used to think very carefully before pressing the shutter button, taking every precaution and step to ensure the photo was perfect. With digital I now find myself taking a shot, adjusting a setting here or some lighting there and snapping again and again, getting several images of the same subject. Don’t get me wrong, it’s easy to go through and delete the not so perfect ones but there are also the ones you think “I could play with that one in Photoshop later” and never get round to it. Gone are the days where we get a film developed and stuff the pictures in a box under the bed or in a cupboard.
I think its time to cull some of my pictures.
Design success or image fail?
Is this a good design or a bad image choice? Comment to vote
Finally
Finally it’s here. I have been thinking for a while that I should get my own domain name and website and here it is. I know it’s not the most groundbreaking of designs but it’s a good starting block for improvments and expansion.
As I’m typing this I’m waiting for AVG free to install on my mums laptop, it’s become a race between the installer and the battery life which I think the battery will win sadly considering the install shield insists on telling me I have Norton installed which isn’t true, oh the joys of computing.
Anyway, check back here often and sign up to my RSS feed to see what’s going on in and around my life and feel free to comment and join me around the Internet.
And the battery wins over AVG.
My Flickr
