My first impression while still using X-Code as the main programming tool and objective C as the language. There is still a lot that I’m not familiar with: first so many new options in Interface Builder. This is all nice, but a new list of Outlet names and connections to learn. Second new frameworks & methods to learn. Third the feeling that I don’t know anything at all… guess it’s research & reading time for now.

Personal note: I already fell asleep twice while reading a Cocoa Programming book. My mind trying hard to learn the content by heart (new and interesting things and also a repetition of old things). So how would a describe: why I fell a sleep? A psychological explanation called Cognitive Restructuring or just plain old NLP.

The content wasn’t that boring and it didn’t cause my mind to wander off into NeverEverLand….. oeps NLP would make this into:

The content was that boring and it did cause my mind to wander off into NeverEverLand…

So something new then. Ehm the content contains a mixture between old and new information. The new information did catch my interest and attention. But the old one didn’t and made me think of boring old repetition.

The word to look out for is “boring”. Because “old” can and is in someway the new “new”. Vintage is in nowadays. And old can be associated with wise. With age comes wisdom.

To me repetition is a good word and it equals hard work & progress. It’s training, training and training again. Like grinding for XP.

How to reframe “boring”? Boring can’t equal sleep, because I already have my daily dose of caffeine & it’s 13:00 now. The sun is shining, certainly not night time & bed time. So what about distractions? What are the things that causes my mind to wander off? If I picture my mind as a processor, then a part of the attention/resource is focussed on something else instead of reading the Cocoa Programming book. Pinpoint it and resolve it before going further.

Give in to the distraction, enjoy it but put a time limit on it.

Do something totally different like writing a blog post. Which is what I’m doing now. Plus updating the website, something that I keep putting off.

Find another book to read. Sometimes it can just be the wording that a writer use, which does’t connect with you. So glad that I’m not in school/university anymore and that I have the freedom to choose & gather my own information resource. And the internet is a big, big resource pool.

Imagine the popular “Clear” app and “Mailbox” app hooking up…. that’s ColorDo. A colorful and easy to use To-Do app with gesture controls inspired by the Mailbox app.  Do the things that needed to be done now or postpone them to tomorrow.

Read the full description below or try out the lite version.

Go to ColorDo in AppStore

Description in AppStore:

ColorDo designed by a Procrastinator

The developer of ColorDo knows one or two things about procrastination (guess most people do too).
And like most people, this developer included, downloaded and tested lots of different To-Do apps in the hope of simply getting something done.
But somehow always ending up with lists full of entries… and not knowing where to start : (

Enter ColorDo!
What’s different with ColorDo? The first thing: colors. Lot’s of different colors. Based on modern psychology knowledge about human memory & perception, colors can play a big role in how you see and remember the things around you. A simple example “green” means good, go for it or something like it. Red means danger, something important etc.
The second thing: icons. Icons are visual representation of information. When you see a certain icon, you’ll know at once what they mean. Just look at your iPhone and you’ll know what I mean.

ColorDo is designed based on these two principles/points.
So whenever you make a new “ToDo Task” or as the developer like to call it “ColorDo”, you’ll enter the description text and also pick an icon plus color.
This way tasks can be easier located in a full list.

But as a procrastinator the developer knows: list are dangerous. So hence the postpone option, with one simple swipe task are postponed for a day and also removed from the main list. You postponed it so no need to see or access them. This frees up space and attention on the task that matters now (today).

The other option that most To-Do Apps lack is handling recurring task or certain group of task that you do on certain days. ColorDo does this in a new way using the OutBox option. Create the group of task you want and put them in the OutBox. When you’re done, you sent them in a ColorDo file to yourself. So when the time comes you just open the email with the ColorDo file attachment and import them into ColorDo. Type them once and use them forever (as long as you have the email with attachment).
That is one function of the OutBox. The other function is sending ColorDo’s to the people you know.
For example when you are working on a big project with a group of people. You make the subtasks buildup and sent them in one file to the group.
Or instead of sending long list of to-do’s to someone in a mail. Do it in a more colorful way!

This is the global description of ColorDo. For more information, suggestions or tips: feel free to sent the developer (me in this case) an email or a ColorDo ; )
support@mysteryfiles.nl

NSLog is my new best friend a real life saver when it comes to  error checking and application progress checker.

The other thing that’s weird for a non Developer, after weeks, months or more time coding something….you have to spent another additional time to think of ways that a user can break the App. Start the App and refusing to give location permission. Let the App run and put it in background, turn of internet access. Change time settings and other things. Really why… would someone do this. So any way I think Daylight is pretty robust now after all the error checking that I’ve done. It’s a good thing in the end I guess.

So what can I tell about Daylight? The name “Daylight” was taken in the AppStore… by the movie Daylight itself (which was kinda boring in my opinion. Vampires yeah!! Future & Vampires…bweehhh big no on that). So in the AppStore Daylight is submitted as –> Daylight Timer

And that name gives a lot away, doesn’t? Yep it tracks the daylight. More about it in a couple of days when it’s approved…or maybe not. Rejection still always a possibility.

All that I can say MysteryFiles.nl is run by a one man team. I can’t do everything at once can I. Anyway currently I’ve some free time so hence these blog updates etc.

So what’s on my mind? Just uploaded a new app and now… a week nothing and waiting for approval. App approval is still long as ever…or one week…is reasonable in a way considering all the updates and new apps that Apple has to review and check.

But still sometimes really annoying. For example a couple of weeks ago I updated QuickFlip with gestures and IAP (do have to make money somewhere ). After a week the App was live. Good…but when I checked the IAP. That wasn’t, this due to some weird error while the App was submitted the IAP wasn’t apparently. So had to submit another version of QuickFlip just for the IAP. A week later IAP rejected…WTF… turns out. A rule being “non consumables” needed a restore button. Oh dear…..resubmit again for just one button.

So the lesson I learned from this: rules are rules.AppStore rules are RULES to be followed otherwise a big red rejection sign.

As you can guess the data used here is mostly from Vitamin 101. I went for a new look and layout, different then Vitamin 101 (but in the meantime I already done the update for Vitamin 101)

AppStore Link

AppStore Beschrijving

Algemene info:
De schijf van vijf is een hulpmiddel dat in Nederland wordt gebruikt in de voorlichting over goede en gezonde voeding, gericht op het grote publiek (in Vlaanderen is de voedingsdriehoek gebruikelijker). Het idee is dat uit elk van de 5 groepen van voedingsmiddelen iedere dag een keuze wordt gemaakt, en die keuzen in de maaltijden van die dag te verwerken.
Verder zijn er vijf regels, of aanbevelingen die belangrijk zijn:
Eet gevarieerd
Eet niet te veel & beweeg
Gebruik minder verzadigd vet
Eet veel groente, fruit en brood
Ga veilig met voedsel om

App info:
Deze App helpt je bij je dagelijkse voedingskeuzes door de voedingsinformatie in een overzichtelijke manier te rangschikken.
In een oogopslag kan je weten hoeveel vitamines en of mineralen een appel bevat, terwijl je hem eet. Meer info over vetpercentages, voedingsvezels en eiwitten zie je door verder te scrollen.

Gebruik:
Druk op een schijf en zie vervolgens alle producten van die schijf. Selecteer een product voor meer voedingsinformatie, zo simpel is het.

The lesson I learned in this app was a lot can be done with only labels. Can’t imagine how many labels I used here. And animating the labels was also fun to do. Flip and mirror

The twitter thing was extra and with the new Twitter integration in the iOS a real breeze doing it. Plus also a different way of looking at tweets.

The other thing is gestures. Gestures all the way. And this also inspired me doing a new app with gestures as the main force of doing things. More about this later.

AppStore Link

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Description in the AppStore

A modern style clock for the iPhone with a minimalistic black & white design.

The time is displayed in simple text. At first glance it can be confusing, but when you get use to it: you’ll see a lot with just one glance.
- the time
- the month
- the week
- the year
- the date

There is also a build in twitter function that displays your most current twitter timeline tweets.

For questions or suggestions contact us at: support@mysteryfiles.nl

This can be done with a simple gesture.

Swipe left or right and the photo will be mirrored.

Swipe up or down and the photo will be flipped.

Rotating the photo is also possible with the rotate button at the bottom of the screen.

Quick and simple. Nothing more and nothing less of course

Best of all it’s a free app.

AppStore Link

_______________________________________________________

Description text in the AppStore

QuickFlip is a photo editing app which allows you to flip or mirror an image with a simple finger swipe.
Press rotate if needed and hit the save button That’s all to it.
Simple and easy.

Currently I’m in the first act of inferno and pffff the elites are hard. especially the invulnerable minions with fast movement coupled with arcane, jail or frozen orb. Still can’t beat them or out run them. Sigh grinding for better gear. Farming for gold and go to the AH to look for some cheap and affordable stuff. Still can’t and won’t pay over a million gold pieces for a single item. Prices are indeed sky high.

So far I have changed some of my playing tactics by switching some skills. My first setup was to use strafe with drifting shadow for running away from enemies while placing caltrops with jagged spikes. I say running but it isn’t really running because I’m still fighting and doing damage this way. My main form of attack was hungering arrow with scatter. Really like seeing the arrow split in three and going back to the enemy. What homing missiles? As a secondary rapid fire with high velocity. And at last evasive fire with displacement if the enemy got to close and shadow power with gloom for life and defense. This was good in nightmare and hell. In a way but in the later levels of hell and especially inferno. It’s not fast and mobile enough. After some careful thinking and experimenting with the skill setup. Thank you Blizzard for this. Back in the Diablo 2 time, you have to start all over again :S

People keeps saying with out smoke screen inferno is impossible. Ehmm to be honest I’ve never really used smoke screen before. And after hearing that it has been nerved. I thought why? Then I saw some video’s….ahh I understand. In a way constant being invulnerable that’s good but cheesy isn’t it? Plus not really my style and in a way it does feel boring. The hit and run tactics is more my way and it feels engaging. You have to be alert all the time and no slaking off. Pressing some buttons and yawning.

In my new skill setup hungering arrow with scatter and caltrops with jagged spike remains. Those two I really like. While exploring a new area shoot a hungering arrow ahead and seeing it automatically going to the nearest enemy. That’s fun and also cool. The caltrops is for defense and attack. Certain enemies and targets remain immobile place a caltrop next to it and it will do constant damage to it. Like before the skeleton king, you have to do the four pilar thing with lots of skeletons. Placed for caltrops at the pillars. stand back and fire some hungering arrows while using rapid fire and the skeletons. I completely ignore the pillars because thanks to the caltrops they got destroyed. In later levels when fighting elites use bombs running away not a good way to survive. Instead do the opposite strafe to the enemy until your face to face. Put down a lot of caltrops to slow them and also doing damage to them. Fire you attack skills for life steal. That’s my way to deal with them. And it really works. The catch is you have to withstand a blow or two. So these two skill a must for me (hungering arrow and caltrops). In the new setup I’ve picked elemental arrow with nether tentacles. In the early levels I used ball lightning and really cool to deal with packs of enemies. This is a cooler version with life regeneration. By choosing the nether tentacles, I dropped the shadow power with gloom. Don’t need the life steal effect for this. But for some tricky boss fight the life steal and added defense of gloom is a must… so my spare change of skill by choice then.

Next up  a second secondary skill impale with over penetration. Discovered I needed a hard hitting skill and with 250% weapon damage this is the skill of choice and it’s s good crowed control when the enemies line up for you in narrow passages. By choosing impale, I dropped rapid fire with high velocity. Used this for the same effect. Impale works faster and doing more damage. When it hits. Not saying it’s better then rapid fire. You fire less often and if you’ve got certain effect bonuses as slow, bleed, chill, knock back or other effect on hitting enemies. Using rapid fire is the way to go. More arrows means more changes those effect will be triggered.

Another skill that I’m keeping is evasive fire with displace. Not doing this for the weapon damage but for survival. This skill is on my primary mouse button. Click on the primary button and character will move to where you want to go and if there is an enemy evasive fire is triggered. The good part now if the enemy is to close you will backflip to a save distance. From there do your worst with elemental arrow and impale.

My last skill is vault with tumble, this is really a lifesaver. It increases your survivability and your movement speed. Plus is gives you more control over your movement then evasive fire. You know the elites with the wall ability? With vault you’re no longer trapped by them. With two times vault and you’re out of harms way. Oh vault why didn’t I discover you earlier?

As for passive steady aim and sharp shooter for focusing on more damage. Brooding for life. Which fits well in the hit and run tactic.  You run and vault to a save place while recovering your health and sharp shooter increases the critical hit chance on the next attack for damage. And in the meantime put some caltrops down to slow the enemy while dealing damage. Your running, but it doesn’t mean you stop fighting!!!! So fire some nether tentacles and hungering arrows back to your foe.

My voice and opinion: there shouldn’t be a world where a person like Kony can freely walk and do as he pleases to innocent children. This idea sickens me when I first watched the video. So this is my way of making him famous: an iPhone App for him alone.

The function of this app is keep track of the number of days till April 20th. Cover the night has passed and a new date has been set: november 3. An update has been submitted to the Appstore. When it’s approved you can keep track of the days till november 3 live on your homescreen.

http://bit.ly/Kony2012App