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Diablo 3 & paying for digital content

Like a lot of people I saw that wonderful 3003 error when trying to access the Diablo 3 Beta on friday (20th april). I tried for hours… a real stress test indeed.

Any how on saturday I did got access and how wonderful it was. First played the Witch Hunter. Which was cool, a real improvement from the rogue and amazon. Which of course I also had played from previous Diablo and Diablo 2. The bummer is a level cap at 13. Really wanted to see the more advance skills. I got the taste and wanted more…but not able until may 15th. Sigh. It’s like fishing you put out some bait and get them hooked before you wheel them in. So needless to say I preordered it. I wanted to wait first but I guess I gave in to the temptation. I foresee a future nights playing Diablo 3.

So the question that wondered into my mind is can you make a living out of playing the game? The in game auction house does seem intriguing. Auctioning your loot for real money. So my first aim and goal is to earn back the 60 euro I paid for the pre-order. Price wise it’s ok for a game like it, but for a digital version….it does seem and feel high. Doesn’t it?

Downloading the game now…

112 Meldingen

112 Meldingen is a Dutch app, focussed on 911 calls in the Netherlands. Which is why I’ll switch to dutch in this entry.

112 Meldingen is mijn eerste App dat ik specifiek heb ontworpen voor de Nederlandse markt. Hoe ik op het idee kwam? Ik liep op straat en een brandweer wagen reed voorbij met sirene aan. Dus als ieder ander persoon komt de vraag binnen: waar gaat ie naartoe? Zo simpel is het. Als voor het antwoord zelf… dat is iets moeilijker. Want wat kan je eigenlijk doen om daar achter te komen? A/ er achter na gaan. Logisch toch of niet? Maar als je te voet bent of eigenlijk de tijd ervoor niet hebt. B/ zoek het op met je iPhone. Met bepaalde google zoektermen, online p2000 meldingen sites of twitter kom je daar dan uiteindelijk achter.

Met de 112 meldingen app gaat dit dus veel sneller. Haal je iPhone te voorschijn en start de 112 Meldingen App, ga naar meldingen en zie het resultaat. Wat ik er nog wel erbij wil zeggen is dat dit helaas niet “instant access” is. Je moet helaas wel wachten totdat de melding is verwerkt en beschikbaar is voor de 112 meldingen app. Hoelang dit duurt is afhankelijk van de drukte op het systeem en het aantal 112 meldingen dat binnen komt.

Functie 2 of meer functie 1 van de 112 meldingen app is om 112 te bellen. Start het app en druk op de grote ronde knop “bel nu”. Dat is dan alles. Voor minder dringende gevallen zijn er andere alarm nummers beschikbaar. Kies de gewenste optie en druk op een knop, dat is dan letterlijk alles wat je hoef te doen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

info beschrijving App Store:

Met de “112 Meldingen” App kunt u direct 112 bellen met een druk van een knop.
En voor de niet levensgevaarlijke situaties kunt met de “112 Meldingen” App ook specifiek die instellingen bellen die u nodig hebt. Denk hierbij aan de regio brandweer als uw kat vast zit in de boom of de dieren ambulance als er iets anders aan de hand is.

Een ander optie van de “112 Meldingen” App is dat het 112 meldingen laat zien in uw omgeving. Nieuwsgierig waar de brandweer vanochtend naartoe ging? Of waar die sirene’s van gisteravond voor waren? Geen probleem. Afhankelijk van de regio/provincie is dit snel op te zoeken.

De meldingen in de “112 Meldingen” App zijn afkomstig van het P2000 systeem die de eerste hulp gebruikt (brandweer, ambulance en politie). U zult hierbij vaak afkortingen en termen tegen komen die een leek niet snel zal begrijpen. Ook hier biedt de “112 Meldingen” App een antwoord door u te voorzien van een handig digitaal woordenboek op uw iPhone.

mocht u vragen of suggesties hebben, stuur ze gerust naar:
support @ mysteryfiles.nl

Days Till My Birthday

With this App I learned more about the local notification system workings in iOS, which is pretty cool. And just as Steve would say: it just works.

With this in mind the whole App is designed for easy use and just one general purpose: showing the days till your birthday. Without the notification and pre iOS 4, way before backgrounding. This App would just only work when you open it. But now it works even when it’s not active. The counter just goes on. Day after day, until your birthday of course. Then it resets. Pretty amazing right. Open the App, enter your birthday and you don’t have to think about it again. Every you see the App icon with the badge number you’ll know the current days count until your birthday.

The design of the App itself is straight forward: a counter which counts the day, hour, minutes and seconds until your birthday. I used clipboard images. The only problem is that I couldn’t get the flip animation working the way I want. So no real flipping effects when the time counter runs. Just changing numbers. Next update then.

Then the biggest part of design is the icon. This is in my opinion the hardest. It should be simple and also clear in its meaning. With no distractions. I first put the whole title in the icon itself. Which made reading it hard, deepening on the font and letter size I picked. And then there is the App Title below the icon itself. Which I couldn’t ignore. I couldn’t delete it….so make use of it. The result I could use bigger letters with fewer words. On the iPhone screen it’s fine and readable. About the birthday cakes that’s hardly visible on an iPhone 3GS or 3G but on an iPhone 4 or 4S with retina display, it’s ok. On the AppStore itself, the cakes are clear and visible. And this way it’s better than just two words in the icon and some empty space above it. This is of course for the number badge icon. On the App icon I also put a small round red template with # in it. So visually let people know something with numbers is going to be here. The “#” sign is the general sign for number right?

So this is it then. Or not have to say something in the line of: oh there is one more thing! When your birthday comes the “Days Till My Birthday” will sing “Happy Birthday” to you. And that’s amazing right?

Description in AppStore:

Days Till My Birthday App keeps track of the number of days till your birthday.

When you open the app you’ll see a counter that keeps track of the number of days, hours, minutes and seconds until your birthday.

On your home screen you’ll see the number of days in the App Badge Icon.

for more information & suggestion:
support @ mysteryfiles.nl

ps. when the days comes this app will even sing “Happy Birthday” to you.

5 October 2011

It was a sad day for me and for everyone who has a feeling towards Apple and the person who represent Apple to the core, Steve Jobs.

Where was I when I heard the news? Where were you? I was in bed, sleeping. And then I woke up due to a certain buzzing sound. Yes I hate mosquito’s. At 2AM or something in the morning. Certainly not pleasant. So turned on the light to do some hunting, but couldn’t find it. So after sometimes I just sat there on my bed. I was tired, but couldn’t sleep. Or somehow, something bothered me. It was like a small voice in the back of my mind telling me that something has happened.

What I did then was sigh deeply. I thought okay I’ll reed something before I try to go to sleep again. Opened the Reeder App on my iPad for some RSS feeds and there was something about Steve Jobs. A link to an old video about him. Then another feed with some other video’s of him. Then another one… hmm… this…  don’t know how to put my finger on it. Then the dreaded feed with the announcement. NO…… I couldn’t believe it. I can’t be true. It has to be some media buzz thing. But unfortunately… I was wrong. Apple putting an statement on there site. Tim Cook’s email statement. President Obama’s statement. And a lot more evidence pointing to the same conclusion. The coin dropped in my head. I was wide awake. I can’t sleep now. It was around 3 or 4 AM in the morning 6 October. Time difference between Europe on the States. So it really just happened. I’ll remember this as 6 October in the morning. A sad day…

note about: Been There, Done That

So I just got a mail from Apple saying my app: Been There, Done That has been approved and is ready for sale. I’m happy and excited to see how it will do in the AppStore. It’s one of my biggest app with a lot of time investment. So naturally I’m hoping for a good reception.

And what is this Been There, Done That App about? It’s a travel App that lets you keep score of where you have traveled to (with free choice of the user, developed this way before the location gate). What country you have visited. It displays this in formation in a map, so you can see it with a quick glance.
Beside this it also offers you easy access to information about your travel destination.
And then there is there it the Game Center support to keep track of your travel achievements. Compare with your friends or learn what they have done in travel achievements.
Then there was of course the flag game (which is fun and also informative). My real first game. Although a simple one, but still a game. This kinda took a while to complete. Not as much time as the other features of the app but still it took some time. With a lot of crashes and rewrites of the general frame work. So I’m proud that it’s up and running.
So for the person reading this. What are you waiting for go and download it. Try it out. It’s free!

* update 1 *

So developing is never finished. Just after the app went life I tried to install the app on my iPhone 4, but it kept crashing. And I didn’t know why. Stupid thing was that app runs perfect on my iPhone 3GS (running the latest iOS). Then after some debugging and digging it turns out that iAds was causing some issues on iOS 4.1 (which my iPhone 4 was running on). Update for the fix was made and submitted the next day. So my fastest update ever for an app. But that’s not all currently working on new options, which hopefully will be ready in a week or so. That’s after Apple approves the update fix.