Ahoyo Overview Video
Here is a little video we knocked together to give you an overview of Ahoyo and what it can do for you.
Posted via email from Ahoyo
Developing on Android
If you want to build for mobile nowadays, then Android has to be a serious consideration along with iPhone and WinMo development. I’ve not touched Android at all yet so it’s great to see this informative overview of what it takes to get going over at Ze Goggles.
Cocos2d for iPhone
Just a quick post to say that if you want to get going quickly with building games on the iPhone, then the best way is to use a framework. The best one out there is easily Cocos2d as it abstracts away all of the dense Open GLS in a simple to understand object model.
Try out Cocos2d here
AmpliFeeder Hits 50000 Installs.
Just a quick note to say that AmpliFeeder, my open source lifestream platform has had over 50,000 verified installs worldwide! My target was only ever to get around 5,000 so to reach 10 times that is just incredible. Thanks to all of the people who downloaded it, and said or wrote nice things about it. It’s much appreciated. Also, even though I have not posted here over the summer, my readership continues to climb. I’m getting around 7000 unique hits and 100 emails a day. I’m glad people find what I write of use. If you need to get in touch, you can get me via the contact page or Twitter.
At the moment I’m working on a little iPhone game as well as several new web apps. The switch to working on the Mac has been an interesting one too, and I plan to make a few posts here documenting it. Stay tuned!
Javascript parseInt Hilarity
What do you think this bit of javascript code returns?
parseInt(’09′)
My guess is it returns the integer 9 as parseInt() is meant to turn strings to integers. In actual fact it returns zero. Nothing. Nada. It took me a bit of digging to find out why. The reason it returns an unexpected result is one of those situations where the javascript parser attempts to be clever, but gets it wrong. You see parseInt actually has an optional second parameter, called ‘radix’. This specifies the base of the number system to use, and if you dont specify it, the javascript parser makes a ‘best guess’. The rules are:
- If the supplied value starts with ‘0x’ then the parser guesses it to be a hex value.
- If it starts with a zero, the parser guesses it is base 8, octal.
- Anything else is guessed as decimal.
So if we pass in ‘09′ without an optional radix, the parser thinks we are working in base 8, and as 9 doesnt exist in octal, it actually returns zero. Strange!
AmpliFeeder 1.0 Released
I finally got around to releasing my open source lifestream platform AmpliFeeder and the initial response has been very good indeed. I’d like to take the time to say thanks to all the cool people who helped me get it out the door, including:
Super-devs Paul Rawlings and Paul Kinlan for the encouragement, beer and laughs
Mark Krynsky and Trae Blain for the advice and expertise they have in the lifestream arena
Jake and Mai-lan from Microsoft who are currently helping get AmpliFeeder into the awesome Windows Web App Gallery
WooThemes for letting me port one of the amazing themes they create
The users of StackOverflow who offered solutions to technical bits I was stuck on
The kind people who gave their time to debug and offer suggestions as part of the AmpliFeeder private beta
Everyone at jQuery for creating such an amazing framework
Everyone who is currently Twittering like mad about AmpliFeeder
All the people who have said nice things, downloaded or enjoyed the app.
All the nice press people who have reviewed AmpliFeeder.
Lynne and Kitty for being the coolest of all.
It’s been a fantastic project to work on, I learned so much in the process and gone a long way towards my goal of becoming a wiz at jQuery. I plan to share a lot of my findings over the next few weeks now that I have time to get back to blogging. Finally, you can see my amplifeeder here. Why not get your own?
AmpliFeeder Private Beta
AmpliFeeder is entering private beta and I have a handful of spaces left to people who are interested in trying the service out. Testers will be running on the hosted platform so there is nothing to download or install. If you want to get a sneak preview and are prepared to report any bugs you find, get in touch via the contact form on this site. Active FriendFeed users are preferred but not essential. If you don’t know what AmpliFeeder is, you can see it in action in the video here.
Update: Sorry, all invites for the private beta are gone! Thanks to everyone who applied, sorry I couldn’t let everyone on. There were simply too many requests for me to be able to handle. Subscribe here or follow me on twitter @jonpauldavies to be first to know when it goes public beta ( within the month I hope).
I Work in an Agile Shop
In case you don’t know, I work for one of the most progressive and innovative tech companies out there, building enterprise scale voice solutions that make our clients very happy indeed. Qire in Liverpool makes multi channel communications easy to engage and we really try our best to squeeze every last bit of juice out of the technology to make solutions that are truly unique.
The reason I mention it is not as some kind of extended sales pitch, it’s because two wonderful things happened this week at work.
The first is that my bosses bought me a brand spanking new MacBook Pro 2.93 to start investigating edge Ruby on Rails as a platform for a few small scale satellite projects that we have on the go. It’s never going to replace our workhorse C#/CCXML/VXML combo but as a super RAD way to knock out small pieces, it really can’t be beat. It’s fantastic to work for a company that understands that technology is a slave not a master, and that solutions are best shaped by using the right tools for the job
The second thing that happened was that we were able to migrate our entire database rig to SQL Server 2008, syncing millions and millions of rows of call data without any downtime or disruption to our clients at all. No small task I’m sure you understand.
Both of these occurrences are testament to the way we run our shop: Agile. True software agility requires elements of bravery and curiosity, experience and negotiation. The path to being agile takes more effort and dedication than other methods, but the reward is the chance to work in a place that fosters true innovation and creativity.
AmpliFeeder Preview
Mark Krynksy over at lifestreamblog.com has written a fantastic preview of my new open source lifestreaming platform: AmpliFeeder that pretty much sums the project up entirely. The plan is to get the self hosted version to release a quickly as possible with the other versions ( including the hosted version ) rolling out towards the summer.
Mark provided me with some invaluable feedback that has pushed the release back a little, but the app will be so much better for it. From a technical point of view, the initial release is 90% jQuery and only 10% ASP.NET so knocking out alternate platform versions will be a breeze. I’ll keep this site updated with developments as they break but if you want to contact me instantly I’m always on Twitter @jonpauldavies. Here are a few more exclusive screen shots of what is to come.
