Well, it sure has been quite busy these past two months! I have finished up two iPhone apps, Ellipsis and Azure Nose. (As of this writing Azure Nose is still waiting for review, the link doesn't work yet) Ellipsis is a bit different than what I usually do. Instead of troubling myself with the annoyances and infexibilty of directly writing OpenGL, I used Cocos2d. Cocos2d is easy to learn (I figured it out in 30 minutes) and allows me to separate game logic from the underlying graphics rendering code.
The screenshot that you saw in the previous post was an early version of Ellipsis. My original goal for the app was around the end of 2011 like right now. Since the app was going so quickly with Cocos2d, I thought I might push the release date forward. That didn't work out since the music for the game was unfinished and various levels in the game needed rework.
Here's another look at Ellipsis (the actual music for the game is not piano):
The best part about Ellipsis is that it's free! If you have an iDevice you can download it today!
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Friday, November 11, 2011
The first screenshot
Well, here it is.. (I know it's not much but I don't want to reveal too much of the app right off the bat)
This is going to be part of the new game I'm developing. Although it will probably look far different (as of this posting, I've already changed it), the idea is still going to be the same. I'll post more updates in the coming days as I begin to finish up design and layout work for the game.
It's all going more or less on schedule. I'm not trying to force stuff to be on time but I don't want it to be horrendously late. There are a few things that are going to be left out from the first release of the game but I hope that they will be added on in future updates. Over all, it should be a pretty interesting app.
You know what the best part is? It's FREE!!
Bye for now
Ben
It's all going more or less on schedule. I'm not trying to force stuff to be on time but I don't want it to be horrendously late. There are a few things that are going to be left out from the first release of the game but I hope that they will be added on in future updates. Over all, it should be a pretty interesting app.
You know what the best part is? It's FREE!!
Bye for now
Ben
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
I've been making a game
Hopefully it will be done by the 15th. I know that I have not been posting on here for a while buy I am posting now
I'll probably post some screen shots of the game in the next week or so. I've spent many sleepless nights working on it.
And the great thing is: it's going to be free!
I'll probably post some screen shots of the game in the next week or so. I've spent many sleepless nights working on it.
And the great thing is: it's going to be free!
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Friday, September 9, 2011
People in Russia Seem to really Enjoy My Blog
As a thank you, I'm going to put up the soviet national anthem...
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Internet is fixed
Miss me? No? Well, you've been forgiven.
On Sunday, my modem decided to go on strike and after many failed negotiations and a mediator person who came out but didn't know what to do about the strike. I almost decided to go buy another one and let it work until this one cooperated but I thought that it possibly might have been the working conditions changed and the modem had no idea about it so I decided to go find someone who knew how to fix it.
Anyway, everything is good. I got internet back and life will resume as normal. (Although the last few days were pretty tough.
Anyway, I think everything is back to normal.
On Sunday, my modem decided to go on strike and after many failed negotiations and a mediator person who came out but didn't know what to do about the strike. I almost decided to go buy another one and let it work until this one cooperated but I thought that it possibly might have been the working conditions changed and the modem had no idea about it so I decided to go find someone who knew how to fix it.
Anyway, everything is good. I got internet back and life will resume as normal. (Although the last few days were pretty tough.
Anyway, I think everything is back to normal.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
A couple of days ago I placed my twitter feed on my blog. I find that twitter is somewhat better than blogger when just writing short messages. It's quite hard to post on this blog with my cell phone especially since googles new blogger layout is ridiculously slow when typing. The characters that I type dont appear for a few seconds after I type it in.
I've been quite interested in twitter actually. It's quite a unique service. I find twitter to be more suited for short updates rather than a long article on my few interests.
Well happy Saturday! (I doubt I will make anymore of those animated smiles)
Ben
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Blogger changed
Ever wondered why 'changed' -c = 'hanged'? Well, the old blogger layout was killed and now comes this new somewhat not-so-wonderful njew layout.
It truly does feel like a layout that the Google team made not something that the Blogger team made. With the addition of a top bar, pretty soon are essentially looking at the standing "google look" integrated for blogger. It's clean simple and neat; nothing to it.
I'm currently not to fond of the new layout. It's confusing and moves all of the buttons I frequently use to other places so I cannot figure out what goes where. Other than that, it will probably be accepted more or less like one of those Facebook layout changes.
Even then, I prefer to have the old layout. It's familiar and it gets the job done. Although I don't like how they have been changing blogger so much as of late, the overall zeitgeist was quite nice.
I'm thinking of keeping the layout though. I get the feeling that I will be forced to make the switch in the future anyway. I would rather make the switch by choice now than be forced later.
Actually, it works quite nicely on my galaxy tab since it's all google stuff now.
It truly does feel like a layout that the Google team made not something that the Blogger team made. With the addition of a top bar, pretty soon are essentially looking at the standing "google look" integrated for blogger. It's clean simple and neat; nothing to it.
I'm currently not to fond of the new layout. It's confusing and moves all of the buttons I frequently use to other places so I cannot figure out what goes where. Other than that, it will probably be accepted more or less like one of those Facebook layout changes.
Even then, I prefer to have the old layout. It's familiar and it gets the job done. Although I don't like how they have been changing blogger so much as of late, the overall zeitgeist was quite nice.
I'm thinking of keeping the layout though. I get the feeling that I will be forced to make the switch in the future anyway. I would rather make the switch by choice now than be forced later.
Actually, it works quite nicely on my galaxy tab since it's all google stuff now.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
I should give more insight on my personal life
It's not all boring. We'll see. We'll all see.
Now, back to listening to this really cool song. (ignore the face. gaga is just weird like that)
Now, back to listening to this really cool song. (ignore the face. gaga is just weird like that)
Privitizing profits. Socializing losses.
Why did I decide to be a computer programmer? I should be working in the banking industry!! (kidding)
Monday, August 29, 2011
Google Dissident
Today I will be slandering Google. Maybe not a good thing to do on a blog hosted on google servers but Oh Well.
Google, the maker of android and search engine. They pretty much dominate the cloud world. Need to find the weather? a good computer? Objective C documentation? yeah, you can find it all on google, well everything except for stuff that the US governmentcensors cautiously removed to keep us all stupid err... safe.
The problem with google is that they just might know too much about you. Everything that you search on google will be recorded and these records can be accessed by the US government. Sometimes, I worry that the FBI is going to kick open my front door and carry me away never to be seen again just because I may have searched the words "How to build an atom bomb" and "plutonium for cheap" too many times on the internet. (Full disclaimer: I've never actually searched these keywords, but I've wanted to)
Everything about google is kind of like a roomate who goes through all of your stuff when you are not home. While there may not be anything to hide, it's the principle of respecting a person's privacy that truly matters. How can human society even survive without trust. At that rate, we should all be hiding in bomb shelters for the rest of our lives separate from one another. At least the divorce rate would go down.
Take a look at this video that microsoft made talking about the 'GMailman'. It's actually pretty funny and most of it is true.
Imagine if the US postal service decided to open up ever letter they send and skim for keywords, then they start sending ads to you about certain products. (Actually, that might be a way for the US postal service to start making money again, either that or everyone will go to gmail, where they do the exact same thing) It also deters terrorism, sort of. On the other hand, I bet that by 2020 all of our mail will come 'pre-opened' for free. What the people don't know is that they're scanning every letter to check for any details on when the next terrorism attack.
Anyway, back to the topic. Gmail really should not be like this. Pretty soon people will be moving back to Hotmail and that won't exactly good for google. This company truly does enjoy data mining. Remember if you don't have something good to say to a FBI agent's face, then you shouldn't type it into your gmail messages. (little known fact, the government records every email ever written. They even have a backdoor for gmail to get to it. Although google complains when other countries hack through that same back door)
I'm not going to slander anymore google services in this post. Instead I'm going to talk about google in politics. (This should be fun) Google is a strange fellow in politics. The US Justice department is not a big fan of them. They are under quite a bit of danger with their relatively low stock of patents and high number of phones running their OS.
They hire many lobbist firms so that they can sway their way on the web. Once, google and verison teamed up to create a bill for congress to vote on. What happened to the first three words of the consitution "We the PEOPLE". These are not the people. How come they get to make decisions for the rest of us. At this rate, I think that I should be able to write up a law that congress should approve. How about: Every american taxpayer has to pay a required $4 dollar "Ben's charity fund". Why not? Isn't that what google is doing? I don't care if you say life is not fair. This is not fair and it should be fixed. I hate how google can get its way just because its google. We live in a different world now. The strongest are not going to be able to stomp on the weak anymore.
I don't see how Google can stay like this without reform. Being aggressive with business is one thing. Controlling the mindset of the entire US and beyond is more of a stepping stone to taking over the world. Besides, times have changed. There will be a new era of computers. Nothing lasts forever, even the sun is one day going to blow up and end life on earth for us all.
I'm not saying that everyone should flock to Bing right now. I will still be using google search (and blogger) for quite some time into the future.
Note to US government: complain about my article (you're violating my first amendment right) and I will start talking about the fallacies of democracy and this 'capitalism' thing we have.
Google, the maker of android and search engine. They pretty much dominate the cloud world. Need to find the weather? a good computer? Objective C documentation? yeah, you can find it all on google, well everything except for stuff that the US government
The problem with google is that they just might know too much about you. Everything that you search on google will be recorded and these records can be accessed by the US government. Sometimes, I worry that the FBI is going to kick open my front door and carry me away never to be seen again just because I may have searched the words "How to build an atom bomb" and "plutonium for cheap" too many times on the internet. (Full disclaimer: I've never actually searched these keywords, but I've wanted to)
Everything about google is kind of like a roomate who goes through all of your stuff when you are not home. While there may not be anything to hide, it's the principle of respecting a person's privacy that truly matters. How can human society even survive without trust. At that rate, we should all be hiding in bomb shelters for the rest of our lives separate from one another. At least the divorce rate would go down.
Take a look at this video that microsoft made talking about the 'GMailman'. It's actually pretty funny and most of it is true.
Imagine if the US postal service decided to open up ever letter they send and skim for keywords, then they start sending ads to you about certain products. (Actually, that might be a way for the US postal service to start making money again, either that or everyone will go to gmail, where they do the exact same thing) It also deters terrorism, sort of. On the other hand, I bet that by 2020 all of our mail will come 'pre-opened' for free. What the people don't know is that they're scanning every letter to check for any details on when the next terrorism attack.
Anyway, back to the topic. Gmail really should not be like this. Pretty soon people will be moving back to Hotmail and that won't exactly good for google. This company truly does enjoy data mining. Remember if you don't have something good to say to a FBI agent's face, then you shouldn't type it into your gmail messages. (little known fact, the government records every email ever written. They even have a backdoor for gmail to get to it. Although google complains when other countries hack through that same back door)
I'm not going to slander anymore google services in this post. Instead I'm going to talk about google in politics. (This should be fun) Google is a strange fellow in politics. The US Justice department is not a big fan of them. They are under quite a bit of danger with their relatively low stock of patents and high number of phones running their OS.
They hire many lobbist firms so that they can sway their way on the web. Once, google and verison teamed up to create a bill for congress to vote on. What happened to the first three words of the consitution "We the PEOPLE". These are not the people. How come they get to make decisions for the rest of us. At this rate, I think that I should be able to write up a law that congress should approve. How about: Every american taxpayer has to pay a required $4 dollar "Ben's charity fund". Why not? Isn't that what google is doing? I don't care if you say life is not fair. This is not fair and it should be fixed. I hate how google can get its way just because its google. We live in a different world now. The strongest are not going to be able to stomp on the weak anymore.
I don't see how Google can stay like this without reform. Being aggressive with business is one thing. Controlling the mindset of the entire US and beyond is more of a stepping stone to taking over the world. Besides, times have changed. There will be a new era of computers. Nothing lasts forever, even the sun is one day going to blow up and end life on earth for us all.
I'm not saying that everyone should flock to Bing right now. I will still be using google search (and blogger) for quite some time into the future.
Note to US government: complain about my article (you're violating my first amendment right) and I will start talking about the fallacies of democracy and this 'capitalism' thing we have.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
What the [removed] is R??
So, I said that I am going to make more posts and I told myself that these posts would have less complaining. Thus, I made this little tutorial...
What is R?
To start, R is an automatically generated class which allows you to access your resources (that's why it's called R, not L). Every file you put into your resources folder will have an int variable assigned to it which you can access when you want to use this resource.
For example:
Let's say that we have an image named "Ben.png" Now, in order to use this image we are going to have to write something like this:
R.drawable.Ben
Like I've said before, this returns an int. The drawable part of the syntax is because I put my image into one of the drawable folders (there are multiple folders due to how android handles varying pixel densities on different phones) Now, many of the functions in android will take this int and use it accordingly. I may or may not write more on this topic later on in a different blog post. We'll see.
Unfortunately, this isn't a very good way to get a large number of resources through something like a loop. We could record down the ints that are generated by going through the gen folder and looking at what the compiler has generated them to be. Instead of trying to get the ints through calling the variable, we get the ints through a string. This way you can number your images a1 a2 a3 a4 a5 a6 etc. (since the image names are made into variable names, there is no way you can add images to the res folder with names that start with numbers) To save and time and frustration in the future, let's write a function to do the work for us (again, I'm focusing on images in the drawable folders, adapt and adjust this as needed):
public static int GetIntFromString(Context context, String name) {
return (context.getResources().getIdentifier(name, "drawable", context.getPackageName()));
}
There isn't much to explain with this function but if you don't understand it, don't worry. Place this function in one of your classes and then you are able to access your drawables through a string.
While you may say that this is too simple to be worth making into a function, it's worth it. This is a little known way of getting your android resource through a string. If you are developing for iOS and figuring out how to get images or other files, through strings, now you know.
That's it for this time. Now you know the basics of R and what it does.
What is R?
To start, R is an automatically generated class which allows you to access your resources (that's why it's called R, not L). Every file you put into your resources folder will have an int variable assigned to it which you can access when you want to use this resource.
For example:
Let's say that we have an image named "Ben.png" Now, in order to use this image we are going to have to write something like this:
R.drawable.Ben
Like I've said before, this returns an int. The drawable part of the syntax is because I put my image into one of the drawable folders (there are multiple folders due to how android handles varying pixel densities on different phones) Now, many of the functions in android will take this int and use it accordingly. I may or may not write more on this topic later on in a different blog post. We'll see.
Unfortunately, this isn't a very good way to get a large number of resources through something like a loop. We could record down the ints that are generated by going through the gen folder and looking at what the compiler has generated them to be. Instead of trying to get the ints through calling the variable, we get the ints through a string. This way you can number your images a1 a2 a3 a4 a5 a6 etc. (since the image names are made into variable names, there is no way you can add images to the res folder with names that start with numbers) To save and time and frustration in the future, let's write a function to do the work for us (again, I'm focusing on images in the drawable folders, adapt and adjust this as needed):
public static int GetIntFromString(Context context, String name) {
return (context.getResources().getIdentifier(name, "drawable", context.getPackageName()));
}
There isn't much to explain with this function but if you don't understand it, don't worry. Place this function in one of your classes and then you are able to access your drawables through a string.
While you may say that this is too simple to be worth making into a function, it's worth it. This is a little known way of getting your android resource through a string. If you are developing for iOS and figuring out how to get images or other files, through strings, now you know.
That's it for this time. Now you know the basics of R and what it does.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
I'm coming back to post on this blog, seriously
I know that I have said that I was going to post on this blog quite a few times, but this time is real. Over the past few weeks I have been moving away from web development to app development. While for many this is a big leap I find this not be be since I've done a lot of programming before I decided on settling down with web development. I personally consider myself a black belt PHP programmer but I want a change. I mean sure: I can answer any PHP question you have at the top of your head but I'd rather be doing something a bit more sophisticated for a change.
Imagine you ate ramen 3 meals a day, everyday (Disclaimer: I have not thought of doing this..) After a while of boring noodles, chemical flavoring, MSG, and a greater cancer risk it gets kind of boring. Ramen is pretty simple but it just gets so boring so quickly.
So what am I doing now? Well I'm focusing on some Android and iOS development (Yes, there is a reason I put them in that order) I like Java; I find it to be a better language than Object-C. Garbage collection is a very big deal to me. While Object-C is going to have automatic reference counting, there are still things to think about when messing with memory management. Personally, I'd rather have some fun programming a language like Fortran where you don't get any dynamic memory at all. While it would be hard to think about when and where and how much memory you are going to need for the entire runtime, it also promises zero memory leaks and far better performance than something like c, where I've typed the function malloc more times than I can count.
Alright, that's enough for now
Imagine you ate ramen 3 meals a day, everyday (Disclaimer: I have not thought of doing this..) After a while of boring noodles, chemical flavoring, MSG, and a greater cancer risk it gets kind of boring. Ramen is pretty simple but it just gets so boring so quickly.
So what am I doing now? Well I'm focusing on some Android and iOS development (Yes, there is a reason I put them in that order) I like Java; I find it to be a better language than Object-C. Garbage collection is a very big deal to me. While Object-C is going to have automatic reference counting, there are still things to think about when messing with memory management. Personally, I'd rather have some fun programming a language like Fortran where you don't get any dynamic memory at all. While it would be hard to think about when and where and how much memory you are going to need for the entire runtime, it also promises zero memory leaks and far better performance than something like c, where I've typed the function malloc more times than I can count.
Alright, that's enough for now
Saturday, July 16, 2011
I've been busy
I know that probably isn't the best excuse for not posting on this blog for almost two months but it is, more or less the truth. Remember how I said I did some PHP web development back when this blog started a few years ago? Well, I've moved on from those days and decided that I needed to get into something new. At the time, I dreamed about creating the next big .com IPO. Unfortunately, that's not how everything worked out.
I still remember the days when I would wonder what kind of website I should make and design. Now it's all gone. The dream has gone into the shredder and now I'm plagued with so much work that's it's kind of hard to keep up the blogosphere.
I wish things were different but I just kind of have to accept them for what they really are.
Maybe in a different blog post I'll talk about what I am currently up to. It's not as exciting as creating the next big .com IPO but it's the next next next next next next next best thing.
And to end this with a famous yawn4life quote:
sigh
I still remember the days when I would wonder what kind of website I should make and design. Now it's all gone. The dream has gone into the shredder and now I'm plagued with so much work that's it's kind of hard to keep up the blogosphere.
I wish things were different but I just kind of have to accept them for what they really are.
Maybe in a different blog post I'll talk about what I am currently up to. It's not as exciting as creating the next big .com IPO but it's the next next next next next next next best thing.
And to end this with a famous yawn4life quote:
sigh
Thursday, May 19, 2011
I have not made a blog post here in a while...
Hello. I am Ben. There really hasn't been much going on in the past month for me really. Just an endless string of work and looking forward to tomorrow's stack of work. Life really does suck right now. I wish that everything would just go right and Everything would be ok
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
The mobile template
Yawn4life now has a mobile template. So now you can access your oh so most favorite blog on your cell phone! (isnt it awesome?)
Other than that. Not much has happened here.
Over and out
Other than that. Not much has happened here.
Over and out
Oops
I just realized how I have not posted here in quite a long while. It's good to be back blogging though. I feel that it is the vest of all of the online social media. Unlike facebook twitter or myspace. I love blogger! Recently my windows live space where I had a bunch of photos posted was closed down and all of my stuff was deleted. It's such a shame
I wish that someday everyone has a blog. It would make a cooler world than 'tweeting'
Y4L!
I wish that someday everyone has a blog. It would make a cooler world than 'tweeting'
Y4L!
Friday, February 25, 2011
I have a puzzle for you
A rooster is sitting on the pointed part of a roof. (the top of an upside-down V) It lays an egg. Which way does the egg fall?
The answer?
The answer?
Cool song
Lucy Schwartz did a really nice job on the lyrics and the music for this song. It's quite nice really. The piano and her soft voice truly do complement one another...
Heck, I even bought the song on Amazon MP3. (Way better than iTunes. I'm not all that fond of Steve Jobs. But that's another story)
Heck, I even bought the song on Amazon MP3. (Way better than iTunes. I'm not all that fond of Steve Jobs. But that's another story)
Life and it's stupid ideals
I don't know why I'm making a post, but here goes...
Life has been pretty tough on me the past two months. I've had to deal with a lot of hectic work and far too manystupid people. It makes me want to build a set of nuclear weapons and threat to kill them because they are just that annoying!
then again, they're not worth killing with expensive weapons. they're not that important
Life has been pretty tough on me the past two months. I've had to deal with a lot of hectic work and far too many
then again, they're not worth killing with expensive weapons. they're not that important
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
It's cold
I guess this shouldn't come as a surprise to me. It is winter on the northern hemisphere and the world seems to be going through more of a global cooling rather than warming. Either way, I'm out and about in the cold every weekday at six thirty in the morning. When I look up at the sky, I see stars. Little specks of light twinkling in the dark sky.
I guess everything will be okay soon. It's going to rain and the temperatures are going to go back up
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Blogging? Here I am.
It is nice to be back blogging. Actually, I got kind of lonely and thought about the wonderful interesting times I had spreading my ideas and complaints to the rest of the world. Did you know that second to the United States, a lot of people from Russia and Ukraine visit my blog? Odd. Strange thing is, this blog isn't in russian
Maybe they like how I complain about America so much. Then again, that doesn't make sense, the Soviet Union has been gone for like 20 years... (Russia is now a umm err.... democracy... and with all of the Soviet Unions old nuclear weapons as well as a permanent seat on the UN security council that it inherited from the USSR)
Oh well, on the other hand, maybe they like animated smiles they are quite popular you know...
Maybe they like how I complain about America so much. Then again, that doesn't make sense, the Soviet Union has been gone for like 20 years... (Russia is now a umm err.... democracy... and with all of the Soviet Unions old nuclear weapons as well as a permanent seat on the UN security council that it inherited from the USSR)
Oh well, on the other hand, maybe they like animated smiles they are quite popular you know...
Sunday, January 2, 2011
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