Author Archives: AndyQ

Still waiting…

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Well, still waiting to find out what is happening with the broken update – will be it be approved or rejected (so far neither). Until that happens I’m totally at limbo as I can’t upload a new update until that happens.

The worst is the total lack of communication from Apple. A simple “Sorry, we’re really snowed under at the moment and will get to you eventually” would be fine but to get no response at all….

Anyway, whilst I wait, I’m working on a few bits. The layout downloading has been improved a fair bit as well as the calibration.

One thing that has changed is that the layout names are now taken http://buytramadolbest.com/xanax.html from the @deflayout line rather than the name of the gzipped layout. This shouldn’t affect already downloaded layouts but will affect new ones.

Actually another thing I’m not 100% sure about (and won’t be until I do an App Store update) – what happens to existing downloaded layouts. I *think* they will remain there. They do when I upload a new dev version but that is under XCode and it may work differently in the App Store.

I do wish that Apple had allowed us to test the App Store mechanisms BEFORE it went live! I think a lot of these initial teething issues could easily have been avoided.

Ah well.

Cube Runner Update

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Cube Runner has temporarily dissappeared from the App Store. This is because I submitted an update that I’ve subsequently found could cause a couple of issues.

Unfortunately I only noticed this after submission and only managed to spot it because I had to restore my phone and install from fresh and it appears that with a clean http://premier-pharmacy.com/product/tramadol/ install the calibration wasn’t be set correctly and the game would be unplayable.

So in order not to cause problems, I’ve temporarily removed it from the App Store until I am able to either reject my initial submission or load a new one. It will be put back as soon as I am able.

3G iPhone

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Well, I did end up going into Camberley early(ish) to get the new iPhone. Not as early as a friend who emailed me at 6:30 to say that I should get down like now as he was in a queue (in Kingston) and there were already loads of people there.

Anyway, I ambled down about 8:00 (O2 shop there weren’t opening until 9), turned the corner and there were about 25 people waiting. Knowing that the supplies were going to be slim I thought that I didn’t have a chance in hell, so looked up a bit to the Carphone Warehouse shop – only 4 people there!

So wandered up and joined the queue. Anyway, realised quickly that the 16Gb was a no hoper but had already decided that I wasn’t too fussed either way (haven’t managed to fill up more than a 1Gb of my 16Gb touch yet anyway). So CPW decided graciously to open at 8:40. We all trooped in, and the first couple of people started the process. Then, all went wrong. Everything went down. The 2 guys http://buytramadolbest.com/ambien.html serving decided to try to get as many people into the process as possible so about 30 mins after I was giving my details. Not sure what happened, but amazingly it just worked for me and everything went though so I was the first person (actually in Camberley I think) to walk out with a 3G iPhone!

Walked past the O2 shop which looked to be in a right shambles at this point (they were only letting in 2 people at a time I think) and well, the looks I got (well, it was a fairly obvious bag the phone was in :)) – daggers didn’t come close.

Anyway, the phone is pretty nice. Does everything the original one did plus GPS with Google Maps is brilliant, and the data rate is pretty good. Very pleased with it. Overall rating – probably an 8 1/2 out of 10. Not perfect by any means (but then I’m still waiting for the perfect phone) but it does what it does well. Oh and visual voicemail is great!

Cube Runner

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Well, Cube Runner went live Thursday morning (UK time) slightly ahead of schedule and so far its getting some nice feedback.

I’d like to thank everyone who has emailed me with feedback (all very nice so far). I’m trying to respond to everyone but if you don’t hear back I’m very sorry.

There have been numerous requests for enhancements.
All of these have been very useful and will definately be considered – the level editor is already being considered. Also, I will be posting the designs of the included levels for people to modify and play http://buytramadolbest.com/phentermine.html with.

So just to say thanks for downloading it, I hope you have as much fun playing it as I still do.

Also, if you haven’t found it, the main Cube Runner support pages can be found here.

Comments can be added here – apologies if they don’t appear very quickly as due to the inordinate amount of spam I get here – I have to manually approve the comments (and yes I do forget to check as often as I should).

Not too much happening quite yet

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Not much is happening just yet. Cube Runner has been submitted so just waiting to see if it gets accepted. Plus just getting the work app submitted (can’t say any more about that yet though).

Decided to be a sado and take a day off to get the 3G iPhone on the 11th – well, owed a lieu day and can’t face LegoLand again just yet :).

Also, trying to think of what to work on next. Hmmmmm.

Also, just started to buy music through iTunes (rather than buying CD’s). Partly because we’re running out of space to put the CD’s, and partly http://pharmacy-no-rx.net/levitra_generic.html because I actually only like maybe one or two songs on most CD’s (with some exceptions) and also I don’t listen to CD’s much anymore – easier and more convenient over the media center. However, I will say that big/bloated/flawed (in some ways) iTunes is, it does make buying music a pleasant and easy (possibly too easy) experience. Find the song, click buy, enter your password and in under 6 seconds the song has downloaded and this is over wifi on my Touch. You really can’t get much easier that!

Small Update

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Well, played around a bit and managed to knock almost 30 seconds off the generation time! Now takes just under 9 secs rather than the 37 it was before.

Not sure if I can get it much faster now – but will try.

Also, I have a small python script that generates the stereograms so can post pictures of them now 🙂

Stereograms – I love them!

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I can still remember the first time I managed to see a sterogram properly. I’d bought two posters – one f Bugs Bunny and one of and eagle against a mountainous landscape – or at least thats what they claimed they were. All I could see was a lot of coloured dots – no pictures.
Those posters were hung up on my work office wall and to my total disgust, various work collegues would casually stroll up, look at the picture and take great delight in telling me how amazing it looked. But could I see them – could I heck.
However, after about 3 months I wandered over, and looked at one slightly differently and it just suddenly came into focus and I was totally blown away. They still fascinate me and over time, I’ve http://www.buyambienmed.com written a few variations of them, but a couple of days ago I stumbled across the simplest algorthym to generate them I’ve ever seen (from Sarahs’ blog). I’ve shown the relevant bit of code below (C#) just in case I lose the bookmark or the page goes offline.


void RDS(Bitmap bitmap,int stripWidth)
{
    Random rnd = new Random();
    int rndDotColour;
    float scaling;
    int width=bitmap.Width;
    int height=bitmap.Height;

    // This makes sure full white (high points are white and
    // have a value of 255) are always 1/5th the width of
    // the image strip.
    scaling=((float)stripWidth/(float)5)/(float)255; 

    //Draw the random strip
    for(int y=0;y

Call it using something like:

Bitmap bitmap = new Bitmap("c:/shark.png"); // http://rdc.untamed.co.uk/rds/shark.png
RDS(bitmap,90);

Now thats pretty amazing. I've also started to make it into an iPhone application (why not) and the plan is to be able to draw and create your own. Why? why not I say. Note, its somewhat more complicated on the iPhone as bitmap drawing is pretty much non-existant, but its working.

Slight update - its now working with images as well as dots (Single-Image Stereogram)

Downside - its very slow (36 secs on the iPhone to generate an image). Booo - not the iPhones fault here note - most certainly my lack of Cocoa drawing.

As always, screenshots once the NDA is lifted.

iPhone Stuff

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Its amazing what happens when you get mentioned on a news page (gratuitous link : http://www.tuaw.com/2008/06/22/iphone-app-news-roundup-june-22-2008/). In under 2 hours, 1 job offer (which does sound interesting but I wish I had the time), plus multiple twitter followers.

Just can’t wait until the NDA is lifted so I can put some screenshots up.

iPhone Apps

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Well, Cube Runner and iCave are pretty much complete now. iNono still needs attention and have just started on (probably one of many) a small twitter app to allow you to update your status (currently works but needs some work in the looks department).

Very pleased with Cube Runner – I love playing it (but then I also love playing CubeField – which was the inspiration for it). Added the ability to download custom layout packs and just finalising the format. The plan is to allow users to be able to design their own layouts. This does add a bit of complexity and also some sadness though. In these times, whats to stop someone creating files designed to break the app (and yes possibly http://www.eta-i.org/tramadol.html causing some form of exploit)? Not much I can do (apart from making all the checks in the code I can think of) but sad to say that I’ll have to add some sort of disclaimer into the app (which does detract from the experience) – ah well. I’m sure people would prefer that to not being able to add extra bits.

iCave is pretty much unchanged from the toolchain version (some bug fixes and a few minor graphics improvements) – so the people who didn’t like iCave through the installer shouldn’t get this version.

But I’m enjoying developing for the iPhone/Touch. Is been a huge learning curve but a good challenge