New Project - Bloomin' Bouquets

Hi Everyone - long time, no post. I decided that the next few posts were going to be about the process of creating the next iOS app that I am working on. This one is for someone else. A friend of a friend (of a friend maybe?). One of the ways that she produces income is to do floral work for weddings. She decided that an app that let her work out the design of the bride's wedding bouquet would be useful, not only to her but to others. Hence, the app.

We talked about it for an hour at Tim Horton's a month ago. At that time, I was working on the opera, stage managing for a group doing a production of The Barber of Seville. She had jotted some ideas down on a piece of paper. Always a good place to start! I told her I wouldn't be able to begin to really work on the project until late in the month of August, which brings us to this point.

I recalled once finding, somehow, a prototyping application for the iPhone and iPad. I would like to think that I saved the link or the name or something, but I did not. Yay! My thought had been that I would use the prototyper and save myself some coding work, as this particular one output xCode files. So I searched a bit and came up with Prototyper from justinmind (I wonder if that is someone's name...justin - mind). It is doing the trick for me for this project. I did, eventually, find the other app that I had seen - but it runs only on iPad (or iPhone) and I couldn't see doing all of my work on the iPad. Not at this point at least. Though the exporting code is a pretty cool thing...

My "client" has not been breathing down my neck, which is nice of her. She has, in fact, come up with ideas for other projects. And she is working on creating some of the images for the app. My goal was to have some sort of something for her by the end of the month. Which is tomorrow. Eeek! I have a good start on it, I think. And it is helping me to clarify my thinking about how to implement the application. First of all, we need three separate databases. One for the flowers, one for the dresses and one for the bouquets being built. That was a surprise to me. Also, I eliminated one screen that I thought was needed because it just didn't make any sense any more. Yippee! We shall see what the 'morrow brings!

Getting started Again (still)

After a month's vacation from writing, besides the travelogue and starting a new blog, I really haven't been doing any writing or work on Flippety. And I really need to get cracking. The travelogue/blog was good. And I do think I will turn it into a book - at least for mom - if not an actual e-book, that is yet to be determined. And the new blog should be a book eventually as well. I did monetize that one, but so far, no one is clicking on the links so far as I can tell. Apparently, I am not allowed to suggest to people that they click the links. Nor am I allowed to click the links myself. Yet the links and the ads are so underwhelming, I will be surprised if anyone at any time clicks on them. So much for monetizing a blog.

I am getting closer to being willing to publish one of my political blogs. Which one is still a question for me. I am thinking that I might start with the one about a world without money. When researching, I found a few websites out there with posts on the same idea - but they wanted to somehow replace money, not do away with the idea of things having value. But more on that in my "world without money" post at some point.

Meanwhile, I did get another post on the brewpubs blog out. And two more are almost ready. Those were easy ones since they were visited long ago and need a revisit before I can actually evaluate them. (Ok, got these up - I hope to do at least one more this weekend).

Back to Flippety - I really need to make a list of the things I want to do, so that I can do them. I hate it sitting around at 80% complete and not getting that last 20% accomplished. It isn't doing me any good just sitting on my phone. And I am not getting any younger...

It seems like I write a lot everyday - and say nothing. Yay.

NSLog is my friend

NSLog is turning out to be a bosom buddy. It has helped me to figure out what is going on where and how to fix problems. Or rather, cludge around problems at least. What is funny, is that all of what I am doing could end up being even poopier than I think it is. I haven't broken down yet and spent the $99 to become an apple developer so I can't put the application on my iPhone yet. A lot of people say that the simulator and the actual device end up having different issues. Sigh. Anyway, this was supposed to be a happy post about the wonders of NSLog. The main thing trick for me, especially when I have lots of NSLogs flying around or lying in wait, is to be as precise as possible in the message presented - so that I know which log is saying what to me when. And, tadah! After a few hours of work, I have gotten the preferences to work the way I expect them to work. Without nearly as much cludging as I thought I would have to do. Actually, this has given me an insight into how I can better streamline the app. One day....

Now, back to High Score persistence...

And when in doubt, do an exercise. The one I am doing now is an exercise on storyboarding from Big Nerd Ranch's iOS Programming. Yippee! Ok, that was silly. Fun, but silly. On to a webview application. Yippee!

And back to persistence. I am getting very close to being able to retain scores. Any month now...

Fear of Experimentation

For some reason I have a fear of experimentation where my computer program is concerned. That is slightly irrational since I know that I can just undo the stuff I add fairly easily. Weird. This is one place that the fear of failure ought to be negligible.

What is giving me pause is the whole persistence thing. Saving things and then reloading them. So, I decided to take the plunge. I am using Big Nerd Ranch's IOS Programming Book (3rd Edition) and Beginning iOS 5 Development and morphing their examples into my application. It seemed like a pretty daunting task, to tell the truth. I have taken a few steps forward and a step or two back. It seems like it will eventually work. Maybe. Yay! Fear is the mindkiller!

A friend sent me an article yesterday about a guy who went from his deathbed to rich by selling apps. I think he has 40 of them. I don't know what they are or what they do, all I know is that the article depressed me, though I am sure that wasn't her intent. I think it was meant to be inspirational. Unfortunately, it didn't show me that all things are possible, it showed me that again, quantity and marketing are both more important than quality. And that luck is also important. As another friend pointed out, it was mainly an anecdote, and not a roadmap to success.

Ok, so I backed out of all the work I did and am going to work on something else for the time being. It is just going to take time and experimentation for me to get my head around it and get it all working. I think 10 years will be long enough...Wish me luck!

Catching Up

Hello my two faithful followers! It is about time that I wrote something in the writing blog. About writing. Duh.

I have been keeping up with the blog, for the most part. I have taken a few days off this year - not many. But when I really had nothing to write, or when I got up too late, or when I got too absorbed in all of my other daily activities, the thing that got skipped was my blog. Part of me writes the blog just because I can. Because it is good writing practice. And as I have mentioned before, writing the blog is like a laxative, it keeps my writing from being less blocked. And that is a good thing.

Writing for the computer application is not the same thing at all. Similar, yet, but not the same. It certainly does require a bit of creativity, but not in the wording - that has to be, by definition, exact.  But it still feels like writing. A game has to have a plot. And a through line. And characters, of course. The cool thing about a multimedia game is the addition of graphics and sound!

As I mentioned in my regular post today, I had a few thoughts about one of my writing projects - my self-help book. I am currently planning on this to be an e-book only. Unless I sell lots of them. Which is always possible (but in my life (says he sort of dejectedly) but not very likely. I will keep on plugging along, though...

Just going to slog through it

One step at a time. And it isn't going to be pretty. What I am talking about is creating my first actual application. So far, none of the books has been overly helpful. Sure, they have good information in them, but for the most part, they just aren't helpful to me. So I have decided to try and grab what I need from examples and tutorials and cobble something together. If I can do that, perhaps I can then fine tune it into a project that is actually interesting. Sadly, for some reason, I am having a problem accessing Apple's Developer information. I don't understand what the issue is. They want me to a) sign up with a different ID than the one I am already using and b) to pay $99. A year. So, since they aren't playing nice, I am going to the non-Apple internet to find my answers. And so far, the answers are starting to show up. As I slog, I will make little updates on my progress. I am not guaranteeing anything, as this is a hit and miss sort of process. It took me 20 minutes to add icons to my file. And to make some basic changes in a file that demonstrates how to flip a graphic. Next up, trying to figure out how to flip a graphic. Wish me luck!

Found it on the internet! Exactly the code I was looking for: a piece of code that told me how to place an image where I wanted an image placed. Yippee! Next, trying to figure out how to make the graphic flip when I click on it, not when I click a button...Yay!

Wow, what a bad book

Mr Jordan, if you read this, I am not saying you are a bad person - just that your book - iOS 5 Games Development is not written in a manner that appeals to me personally. That being said, eeeek!

I will work through the book just because I bought it. And then I will try to sell it as quickly as I can before it becomes obsolete.

First off - the very first chapter starts off well enough - baby steps in how to set up a project in xCode. Fine. Assume we know nothing. And then, instead of taking us through the code of how to write the game, the author says "copy these files into your project." Woo hoo! I copied! Now I can feed myself? Not really. I can copy. Heck, I have been a good copier ever since I learned how to copy off of other students back in 1st grade. And though many find mindless typing of text from a book into a file useless, I find it helps me a lot. If I type it all in, it gets into my brain a little. And I can also experiment if I see how things are put together. For instance, he creates buttons in his code - rather than having us use buttons from the library. Well, he lets us build two - the main, meaty buttons, nope - just drag the file in and "lookee what I done!" Sigh. I hope it gets better...Onward to chapter Two.

Not to mention typos galore!

In the current chapter (2), there is a screen shot show two .xib files with a caption saying - your project should look something like this - create groups (he just says that he likes to do it) and then move files around. Sigh. This is a book like Juliet was mentioning - a book where the guy is all inside his own head and does what he does without thinking about it - not realizing that others haven't done this a thousand times...

Wow. I just finished the second chapter. And it is even worse than the first chapter. The man points out things that are obvious and leaves other stuff completely out. For instance, we were supposed to change some files from the first project and incorporate them in the second project. Nowhere was this explicitly pointed out. And it is unclear, often, what code he wants us to write. Finally, he says, run the application and it all should work. Well, it doesn't, because we didn't hook it all up - unless I missed a sentence that said - then do this for all of the other views...

The one good thing about the lack of effort that the author has demonstrated, is that it makes me work hard to try to figure out why things aren't working the way that they ought. At least there are sample files with the finished products in them for me to compare against! Yay! Ok, I just can't be bothered to try and fix the stupid application. I can't find a sentence that sugguests we are supposed to hook up everything. Glarg. On to the next chapter!

Now I am reading chapter five. That is all there is to do with this book - read and look at the examples. The author has not created a hands-on book. Why not give us a sample and have us add something to make it function the way that we want it to? I guess what I am going to have to do is take the example files and play with them to see what changes I can make and where I can break it. And when I break it fix it again. Sigh.

Long and short - this is not a book for doers. If you like reading about code, this book is for you! Want to buy it? Cheap (ish)?

Something Satisfying

There is something satisfying about doing computer programming. At least for me. Clicking Run on an application that I have typed into the computer and have the application do what was expected is awesome. True, I am not doing much from scratch yet, but still. And I like adding little differences when I can - when I understand how to do so. And after a book and a half, I am beginning to understand how to do things on my own - and what the heck I am typing. Now, when the book says something like, let's implement a method that does such and so, I am already beginning to think of what I might type to make that happen. For instance, in the language I am using - I start a method with a hyphen! Go me!

Tracking down why things aren't working is also a lot of fun for me. Yes, it can also be very frustrating. But the debugger tools in the xCode SDK are very helpful (for the most part). Often the reason something isn't working is because I didn't read the text closely enough. One of my major lifetime issues - skimming and assuming (yo, Ming, where are you?).

So far, so good. I don't know that I will be ready to craft my first public application any time soon - I just ordered two books on game programming - but I can sense that I might just one day actually be able to do it. Of course, I am also programming myself for failure - gee, where is Mr. Positive Mental Attitude when I need him - thinking that I am going to a) not get the app up on the app store at all and b) if I do I am going to be sued by the beer people. Who knows. Life is short and I am doing the best I can...ok, maybe not the best, but doing ok...

Am I crazy?

Am I crazy to want to try to teach myself how to program for the iPhone and iPad? Probably.

I first became interested in computers when I was a tot. My brother put me behind a big cardboard box (a refrigerator box or two) that he had decorated with various doohickeys and lights and such. He then took old used computer cards (used for programming computers at one point) and would ask a question of the "computer" by writing on the card. He shoved the card in a slot - I wrote the answer on the card while making a lot of noises and shoved the card back out. Yay us!

There was a "computer" lab at the colleges here near where I lived. My best friend at the time, Chris Crenner, who I still love and miss, no he's not dead, he just lives in Kansas and we don't communicate much, used to go in and play with them a bit. It was awesome! Punch cards, punch tape. Lots of fun. I learned a teeny bit of fortran back then. I don't think I even managed to achieve "hello world" but it was cool.

Played with the computer at my high school a bit - but not too much because the truly nerdy/geeky kids really spent all of their time there. I worked on a BASIC game that was an aerial dogfight between two biplanes for a while. Never got very far.

Next up, I fell in love with the Macintosh computer. Ended up doing some system administration, some light scripting in various applications, played with Hypercard (what an awesome app that was), played with databases etc, at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory for 5 years or so. After that, I worked at Macromedia during its heyday. First as a tech support person and lastly as a Sales Engineer (still one of my favorite jobs of all time). In the middle there, I played with scripting with Director and created a nifty little app that stripped all of the text out of a Director file - put it in a spreadsheet - after it was translated, the app put the now translated text back into the director file. Worked decently. I think that was probably my most ambitious programming effort to date. Sigh. Oh, forgot to mention playing with HTML since it was first created.

So, the long and the short of it - I understand programming concepts and am not afraid of coding. I am not looking at an impossible task, just an unlikely one. We shall see. The first project is going to be a beer related game. I was even thinking of asking Jessica Frech (though she is getting too well known already) to take part by singing for the project. It could happen.

Defriended!

Yippee! One of the people I really wanted to defriend, defriended me! And I didn't even have to write to them. Ok, so only two people I have written to have defriended me rather than write me back. At least three have preemptively defriended me (the one above being one of them). Woo hoo! I am so excited.

Anyway, I am 1/4th of the way through the project. And there are still a few days - ok a week, left in January. That bodes well for finishing by April. Especially if more people defriend me before I have to write to them.

The project is proving rewarding in several ways. One, my letter writing skills are being honed. They have always been decent, but they are getting better and better. Yippee! Two, I am reaching out to people and they are responding - it is about a 67 percent response rate. Without that much prodding. (I will do some prodding eventually.) Three, the defriending mentioned above. That makes me so happy! Four, I get a sense of accomplishment for every letter I write. One of my FB/DC friends wrote and said that she hoped my writing wasn't all about getting responses. Of course it isn't. I do want people to know how I am and what is up in my life and that is the primary reason for writing these letters. Then again, why have friends if they aren't interested in my life, or interested enough in our relationship to respond and let me know what is going on in their lives? Hmm?

20% with a 50% return rate

Not too shoddy! Here it is, January 14, 2011 and I have written 20% of my Facebook friends individually crafted notes. It is taking a long time, but it is fun and interesting for me. I get to figure out how I know the person, what they may or may not know about me, when we last communicated, how much I can share, what sorts of things to share, etc. I am not doing as much cutting and pasting as I thought I would. Sure, lots of stuff is repeated, because there is only one of me and I don't change much between compositions. And I get to write a lot! Practice, practice, practice! :)

And a 50% return rate isn't too bad. Not great, but not bad. Some people I thought would never respond, responded quickly and pithily (I still owe one respondent a return response). Others who I thought would at least respond have yet to do so. I will bug them eventually. Right now, I can't be bothered. And still others have defriended me. So far, two people have opted to not have me be their FB friends. I am crushed. Ok, not really. One was a bartender who put on a good front of valuing me as a human being, but I guess she was good at faking it. So, good riddance. Another is the daughter of a friend - she had asked me to be her friend, so I don't know what her defriending me is about. Again, not heartbroken. She is a college kid and she and her life are not really all that interesting to me. Not that I don't like to hear about and from her, but not a huge loss.

My friend Adam suggested a useful utility called Social Fixer - it is a browser add-on that makes some interesting and helpful tweaks to Facebook. One of the main reasons I got it was because of a "friend tracker" option. It shows changes in friendship statuses. It was from that I learned about the defriending. And also that a couple of people have disappeared. Apparently that happens now and again. One of them has reappeared - maybe the other will as well, one day.

So, if I were to post some of the projects I have lying around and their percentage of completion, would I get any feedback on which one I ought to pursue to closure?

Spreadsheets and Databases

You may ask, what the heck do spreadsheets and databases have to do with writing? Well, for me, they can be an integral and fun part of a writing project.

I love technology. Always have. When I was a tot, my mom taught (ooh, those are very close to homophones) a science fiction/literature class at Eisenhower College. I don't think that was a frequent occurrence on college campus up until that time. Anyway, she had a whole shelf of those books - and by shelf, I mean shelves - probably 160 books or so - which I proceeded to work my way through. Classic stuff it is called now - Asimov, Heinlein, Dune (Herbert) CS Lewis, Bradbury, etc. Loved it! I am still a Science Fiction and Fantasy Fan - though I don't read except in spurts just now. Moving on, I just loved the possibilities that science and science fiction provided and provides. If I weren't in the humanities, I would be in the sciences. So, I love computers - being one manifestation of technology.

And on computers you have spreadsheets and databases! I just think the power of these two applications are awesome! I believe that it was Lotus 1-2-3 that really helped make the computer a useful item and not just a geeks plaything. That first Spreadsheet paved the way or Excel and all other spreadsheets - and despite all the fancy bells and whistles that have been added since, most spreadsheets still owe their basic functionality to Lotus. As for databases, they are just way too cool for school. But more on those when I am actually using one for  a project.

Right now, for the FB friend letter project, I am using two applications - Pages (a word processing program) into which I paste each of the letters that I write. And Numbers - a spreadsheet application wherein I track who I wrote, when. I actually have 11 columns: Number, Name, Where written (because I plan to do my Daily Challenge Peeps too - and maybe others who I just have email addresses for - like Diane and Peter and Daniel...) Date Written, Date Responded (lots of blank spaces here, sadly), Where do they live, how known, met in person (this is either blank or "not met"), Percentage Done, Total Number of Friends, and Response Percentage. Percentage Done and Response Percentage are calculated fields - I like seeing calculated fields. Yippee!

Ok, back to the letter writing campaign!

10%

One tenth of the way done. Yippee! I wrote a lot of letters yesterday. That is a good thing. I didn't get a lot of responses, that is a less good thing. Less than half the people I have written to have taken the time to write back - so far - more could sneak in. One never knows, does one?

It doesn't really matter - I am not doing this project for them - I am doing this for me. I get satisfaction from composing so many similar yet different notes - I mean, each of my "friends" is different, so they deserve different notes. And I am doing it so I can see who these 408 people on my friend list are.

Yup, I have added two friends so far during the process. Sigh. I was supposed to lower the number of friends through this project, not gain friends. Oh well. the actual culling/cutting/defriending process won't begin, I have decided, until I finish mailing everyone. I will give everyone I am tempted to cut a month before letting them go. That seems reasonable doesn't it? And if they post updates at all during that time and don't bother to respond to my wonderful, thoughtful, pithy message, well, then, they might just could maybe be gone from my Facebook life - and they will be out of sight and hopefully out of mind...

Letter writing Campaign so far

And so far, so good. I have written at least 30 notes. They average around 200 words per missive. Mostly written fresh without much in the way of copying and pasting at this point.

My brain gets tired from writing so much. I don't know how professionals (er, other professionals) write thousands of words a day.

And on top of that, some people are actually responding. With pithy, well thought out notes. How awesome is that? There are some who are definitely going to be defriended though. The ones who can't even bother to reply with a note saying - really busy, thank you for writing - more later (knowing full well that later will never ever come) - they are going to be going away. When? I don't know. I am leaning towards doing the chopping all in one fell swoop. Or perhaps in a few swoops. I don't know. I have never been good at letting go. Much better at not grasping in the first place...

Now, I get to (have to) answer the responses! Sigh. Having friendships, no matter the depth, is hard (yet gratifying) work!

5 down, 399 to go

So I did a lot of writing yesterday, with a little cutting and pasting. Way more than 200 words. I wrote six letters yesterday. Five on Facebook and one snail mail letter. One of my friends in NC, Emily, (yes, sleight inappropriate crush) asked me to write her an actual letter. So I did. It was a bit challenging as it was "performing on command" and not written from inspiration. And I typed it, of course. I say "of course" because anyone who knows me well, knows that my handwritten communications are more than a bit challenging to decipher on the best of days. That is one reason. The second is because I like to keep a record of things I have written - even notes and letters. I think that is a pretty impressive first day.

None of the letters was scintillating. All were ok. I did put a soft sell in the ones that hadn't bought a copy of either book - fact is, most of my "friends" haven't bought copies of my books. Still don't understand that - but ya'll know that already. Anywho, each was certainly personalized. I am actually looking forward to getting to some of the more difficult letters, the ones where I basically tell them that I don't understand why we are friends on Facebook. I figure, if they want to be friends, they need to make an effort - if not, they can defriend me or I will defriend them - but after they get their letter.

I plan to get a few more done today - but many more done over the weekend and next week.

Oh, I was surprised to find that two copies of Bar Dreams had been sold in the past week at the Beautiful Beef and Brew! Yay!

Letter Writing

Letter writing is a lost art. Back in times gone past, people could only communciate through hand written letters that took a long time to be delivered. So they would write pithy, well thought out missives, full of life observations and interesting tidbits. Now we tweet. Or send texts. Being a hoarder at heart, most electronic messaging doesn't thrill me too much. Nothing tangible and tactile there.

Sure, with electronic messaging, it is easy to include a picture or a video. And writing is easier since you don't have to look for a stamp and an envelope. But how will my posthumous epistles be published if they are only electrons scattered on the solar wind? Hmm?

So, my plan is to write to each and every one of my Facebook friends in the next couple of weeks. I do understand that some of my FB friends aren't active on Facebook. And that some aren't friends. So I don't expect 100% reply. I would like 100% reply. But I don't expect it. I expect about 25% reply. And, being me, I plan on making a spreadsheet to track the whole process. I want to be sure that I touch everyone and I would like to see what the tangible results are.

Also, I plan to do some culling - get rid of people who I don't really need as Facebook friends. I do so hate giving up on people, but sometimes that is the best course of action.

After that, I might go through my email address book and write to people there - though that is a more daunting prospect - mainly because I don't know how many people there are on that list.

I do plan on doing a little bit of copying an pasting. Part of the reason for this reaching out is to soft sell Diary of a Plate Addict (and Bar Dreams). That part, I will probably cut and paste. And I might cut and paste a bit about what has happened in the past year. Mostly, though, I want to write personal notes. We shall see how this all works out. It is already 11:22 am here in Geneva and I haven't written one note yet. But I have written this blog post about writing the notes, so that's a start!

200 Words

That is my plan - write two hundred words a day for the next year. Too bad that taking one picture doesn't count worth five days...

Long ago, I found or was introduced to, I can't recall which, a book called The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. She has gone on to write lots of other books about the same subject, but the first was the most helpful, in my humble opinion. In it are two core concepts that I have tried to continue doing since I read about them - morning pages and artist's dates.

Morning pages are basically a way to get the juices flowing everyday. Writing down at least three pages - which I think is more like 600 words - of stuff - doesn't matter if it makes any sense, if it is just random words - if it is pithy, correct, exciting, fresh - none of that matters. Just write three pages. For me, writing my blog is that - even though I think that most of my posts are in the 200-400 range. Darn blogger for not having word count! :) What this does for me is it gives me a sense of accomplishment - that I have at least achieved something creative on any given day. And that is the least it does for me. Sometimes my posts are cathartic - for me or for others or both - or they are to help me laugh at life - or just plain silly.

True, I do need to work on my other writing projects, and I will. Knowing that I have already written something makes it a little easier, and less fear provoking, when it comes to the notion of working on something else...

Oh, I almost forgot to talk about Artist's Dates. Julia's notion is to take yourself on at least one soul refilling outing a week - at the least. More on Artist's Dates in another post.