Archive for November, 2010

First boot

Thursday, November 25th, 2010

Here’s my new iPad during its first boot, as promised on Tuesday.  What a thing of beauty.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam and part of my famous Machinery series.

Happy Thanksgiving!  We had a nice day – just the three of us.  Dinner was great, dessert was great, breakfast was great, lunch was great, and it was great hanging around the house.  Pretty much a perfect day.

Spoke with my mom and brother Chris this evening.  Nice conversations.  Chris is in Michigan for the weekend.  They apparently had a nice Thanksgiving also, although there were a few more people there – 15, to be exact.

Nothing else to report today.  Oh, there’s bad news in the church iPhone app department.  The server we use is down yet again, probably for the entire holiday weekend.  It’s been mostly inoperable for over a week now.  Gives us a huge black eye, since users can’t tell the different between server problems and app problems.  Sigh.

No news from the App Store on my own app yet.  I’m excited for my app to actually become available.  Then I’ll need to promote it.  I have no idea how.  I do have a coworker who’s a Morse Code afficionado, though – maybe he’ll evangelize it a bit, assuming he likes it.  Anyway, I have the supporting website up (barely).  Check it out here: spinfo dot info.

We’ve been watching a terrible Christmas movie.  Can’t remember the name, but I certainly don’t recommend it.  If you see a Christmas movie and it’s horrible, that’s probably the one.  Oh, and it involves counterfeiters.  And unhappy kids who had to move away from their beloved home just before Christmas and who have to save the day all by themselves.  Totally unexpected.

Update: It was Christmas in Wonderland.  If you get a chance to miss it, take it.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking Thanksgiving-themed food violence news: turkey down the pants!  Disgusting detail: “… it went right back on the shelf.”  Ewww.

See you tomorrow.

Turtle

Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010

Here’s a turtle at Ebay headquarters. Also a bunch of koi.  They had an absolutely beautiful, huge pond.  It was a really nice place.  Great Art taken during the iOS developer’s conference there this summer.

No post yesterday. It was home evening.

Greetings from my shiny new iPad! That’s right, it got here yesterday. I was so excited to get it, I went all the way over to LRN5’s office to pick it up. She kindly declined to open it (in spite of the bit of mocking she got over it), so I got to do the unboxing. Picture tomorrow. I love it! And I can even post to my blog on it.

Web surfing is really quick and easy, and I really like the touch-based interface for that. I still haven’t set up most other apps yet, but I’ll get there.

Anyway. Back to more mundane things. Tomorrow is the last workday before the Thanksgiving holiday. A four day weekend! Complete with turkey and stuffing, turkey omelets, turkey sandwiches, and various other forms of culinary joy. Not to mention putting up our Christmas decorations. Also, we’re insanely considering doing a bit of Black Friday shopping. LRN4 was just showing me some of the ads

And then there are just three more weeks of work before my two-week-plus-a-little holiday break. Woo hoo!

And it’s time to quit.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: thrown corn dog!

See you tomorrow.

ebay sign

Saturday, November 20th, 2010

Here’s the ebay sign from the inside.  Great Art taken during my iOS development conference earlier in the year.  Hopefully, it hasn’t been posted already.  But I’m not going to bother looking.  I’m sure some industrious Loyal Reader will let me know if there’s a repeat.

Pictures of LRN2’s organ/piano recital tomorrow.  I’m too lazy to go get my camera tonight.

Also, extreme short shrift.  It’s too late for anything else.

Tonight’s recital went very well.  We probably had about 80 people there, including several friends.  There were also a bunch of Music Appreciation students from LRN2’s organ teacher’s college class, which was nice.  I hope they appreciated it.  I certainly did.  Beautiful job, LRN2!  And congratulations on getting it over with.

Spent most of tonight’s train ride working on my iPhone app.  I had set it aside about a week ago to work on the church app.  I’m pretty much stymied on that one right now, so I thought I would make some progress on my own stuff.  Which I did.  I’m trying once more to speed up the sending function.

Showed the app to a coworker yesterday, who seemed impressed and wants a copy.  I’ll set him up to beta test if he’s really serious.  I was flattered to have somebody think it was good.

The weekend is shaping up to be busy.  I need to vacuum the back seat of my car, on which a box of cookies was spilled by a young passenger on the way home from the recital tonight, repair the jacuzzi’s blower, and work on my apps and website.  Also write to LRN1.  Maybe work on LRN4’s website a bit too.  So I guess it’s not too busy after all.

Speaking of Loyal Readers, LRN5 and LRN12 came for the recital!  We didn’t expect to see them, so it was a very pleasant surprise.  They have to go home tomorrow, sadly.

And speaking of LRN5, no iPad yet.  She hasn’t received it yet.  We’re both very anxious to get the deal done.  I want my gizmo and she wants her money.  Soon.  Very soon.  Hopefully!

Happy World Toilet Day!  How did my Loyal Readers celebrate?  I’m not sure I really want to know, come to think of it.  At least one country is taking it seriously.  They’re simply not content to be Number Two.  Har.

And I’ll quit here and get ready for bed.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting toilet news: lost and found!

See you Monday.

Sleeper

Tuesday, November 16th, 2010

Here’s LRN12 enjoying church this past Sunday.  I thought the meeting was a little better than that.

Just a quick note today.  Missed a bunch of posts and I don’t want my Loyal Readers thinking I’ve disappeared.

Stayed home sick today.  Still feel sick this evening.  I’m hoping to be better tomorrow – I have an important luncheon to attend.  Not to mention a few meetings.

All is otherwise fine.  We’re getting ready for LRN2’s huge Senior piano/organ recital on Friday.  LRN4 baked a bunch of cookies all day.  She’s frosting her sugar cookies right now.  Lots of work to do.  LRN2’s ready for the recital, I believe.  I’m looking forward to it.

And that’s about it for tonight.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: wanton tamale attack!

See you tomorrow.

Bright astute centipede

Wednesday, November 10th, 2010

Here’s the registration area from the iOS developers’ conference I attended during the summer.  Bright astute centipedes only.

No posts for a few days.  I’ve been programming like a wild man.  Although I doubt wild men are really very good programmers.  So maybe we need a better metaphor.  Let’s see . . . I’ve been programming like a . . . compulsive programmer.  Not quite as satisfying, though.

Anyway.  I’ve been programming a lot.  I think the app is essentially ready to submit to Apple.  Then we’ll see if it makes it through the approval process.  I’m a bit nervous about that, since the app is a bit finicky.  It relies on being able to hear things on its microphone, which really requires a quiet room and pretty close proximity to the device making the sound.  So I’m worried about their testers’ ability to figure out how to use it.  Of course, then there’s the problem of end users figuring out how to use it.  I’m planning to add a couple of modal dialogs to make a few things clearer.  I changed the graphics on the main screen last night, and I think I’ll probably change the icon too.  Also think I’ll change the title graphics slightly – it’s a jpeg file with the app’s name, and I’m going to pretty it up a bit.  I also still have to make the website to support the app.  Much more detail when it gets released.

I’m also working on the church app.  I’m supposed to make a very important change this week, and I’m not quite sure how to do it yet.  Made a plea for help and haven’t heard anything back as of this evening, so I’m packing it in and trying again tomorrow.  Sigh.

Otherwise, all’s well in Zion.  Yea, Zion prospereth.

Off Friday this week.  I’m looking forward to it.  My goal is to get the app submitted and at least a rudimentary website up.  Also to go to the driving range, weather permitting.  And it looks like it will probably permit.

We forgot to throw our Halloween pumpkins away!  LRN4 did it today.  I think it might have been a bit easier to have done it on November First.  Let’s just say a shovel was involved today and leave it at that.

That’s about it for today.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife employment agency job opportunity: berserk chimp!

See you tomorrow.