Toluu

Thought blog

I think, therefore I use a Mac! - The random Thoughts of Niels Hansen

Check out an article I wrote about the iPhone for Website Magazine!November 7 2008

I wrote an article for WebSite Magazine which is published monthly.  The article was on the Traps to avoid when developing iPhone Apps.

Check it out and if your not already a subscriber, subscribe because it has a ton a great articles each month.

One of my iPhone games I developed is a HUGE hitNovember 6 2008

Photo Hunter is a game that I did the development for under our company for Bric Entertainment.  It’s a huge hit on the iPhone and iPod Touch.  The last two weeks its was a top 100 Paid App in the US and has consistently been a Top 50 paid game on the iTunes App Store.

What’s even more surprising and super cool is that its the #1 Paid App in Singapore and #3 Paid App in Hong Kong (#1 Paid Game App)

So if you have not checked out the game yet, please do and you’ll see how highly addicting it can be.  We are planning on a new update very soon to add even more features to the game!

Below are some of the images of the game:

Fix the problems instead of getting mad!November 6 2008

Wow!  Seems like a certain company can’t take any critical food for thought!  Instead of looking at what people are saying of a product and seeing what they can do to fix it or make it better, they’d rather get upset about it.  I guess sometimes the truth hurts.  I live and die by these products and when something is not working as good as it should, you should be able to say so!  I would hope someone would be listening and go back and see what they can do to make it better.  

 

I don’t believe in eating the food because someone told me that it’s good or that very soon it will taste better, while you know your getting sick from it.

I bet the bank on on a product and had our company invested a huge amount of capital we did not have because I told that this it was going to change the world.  I believed it, even later when I felt that maybe this was the wrong choice, I was convinced to continue to believe it.  

It was 100% the wrong choice for me and my company (Not saying it could be for others but I feel it was for me). It’s probably the biggest mistake I’ve ever made in my career and I wish I could get back those years of my life and spent that time building a different part of the company.  God knows the rest of the team reminds me of that every week.  They were right and that is why I decided it was not worth the time, money or effort to go down a path that could put several people out of work.  I would never take an en

*** 2008 is here and for the first time I could care less!October 16 2008

I never thought those words would ever come out of my mouth! I used to look forward to what was up the sleeve of *icro**** and got giddy like a girl when new things were introduced!  This year………………………YAWN!!!!

So what changed?

*icro**** technology has become extremely, extremely boring.  Nothing really that radical has come out for several years now.  When .*** first came out it put *icro**** back in the drivers seat! They were now ahead of the curve and were no longer playing catchup with Java and the rest.  However the last few years while *icro**** was developing sub par additions to .net, the rest of the world moved on with Web 2.0.  Now it looks like *icro**** is playing catchup again. And just like last time right when they finally catch up the economy goes south. (Remember 2000 and 2001  when .net was launched and the .net bubble bursted and now were about to hit another bubble.)

So what’s new recently that really not caught on:

S********** is trying to be Flash.  Not widely accepted and I doubt it will ever. I would not bet the bank on this one.

 *** is trying to be Ruby on Rails.  If your going to use ***, use Rails! Why bring all that additional luggage with you that comes with .net.

A***.n** is trying to be jQuery (Thank God they realized that jQuery rocks and runs circles around a***.n**)  Again just use a lightweight javascript engine. Several very good ones out there!

******

I’ve not used Windows for 2 months!September 5 2008

For the first time I can think of I’ve been able to develop and do everything for work on my Mac. This is actually quiet amazing and I hope I don’t have to go back anytime soon.

Having the privilege of doing all my development in xCode and not in Visual Studio has been a joy. The ability to do all instant messaging, browsing, word processing, spreadsheets and graphic design all on my mac without once having to jump to Windows XP shows that I may never have to go back!

As long as work for the iPhone continues, (and it’s going strong, so strong that we had to turn down some work) I may never have to! I’m recruiting more people at the office to work on the iPhone projects. I’d never would have thought people would be begging to do iPhone/Mac development. Later I find out they have macs at home. They’re even willing to bring their macs to the office until I get new macbooks ordered.

I still need to use my Microsoft apps that run on the Mac. They’re great and I love having Office on the Mac. The one thing I want dearly is the integration with Sharepoint.

What’s even better is that the game that’s coming out next week that I want to play will also run natively on my Mac! That game of course is Spore!

Live is good!