RyanJM

20 Dec 2010

Week 18 & 19 - Summary

This two weeks ago I was Chicago working on OrangeQC, and last week I spent in Urbana visiting with friends.

There really isn't much to say about these past two weeks, but I did want to put out there how helpful and encouraging it is to get feedback from customers. Especially unsolicited feedback. It is awesome to have people seek out your email and give you their thoughts about your application. It is good to know I've created something people like.

Take away lesson: I should make it easier for others to contact me through my applications.

14 Dec 2010

iOS Fonts

Check out this website I found at iosfonts.com

via adamhuda.com

8 Dec 2010

Converting to a Universal App (Part II) - Blog - Use Your Loaf

Preparing the ground

Before attempting any major changes to an existing app it is worth taking some time to refactor and clean up what you already have. This is less satisfying in the short term if you are in a hurry to see something up and running on the iPad but it should pay off in the long run. Some suggestions to take a look at:

Review the Model-View-Controller Design Pattern

Reduce dependencies between classes.

Screen resolution dependencies

Supported orientations

NIB file organisation

via useyourloaf.com

5 Dec 2010

Week 17 - Summary - Nearing the End

Most of the week has been spent either working on cleaning up / improving OrangeQC code or looking at jobs. It is the beginning of December and I'm less than a month away from January 1st, the date this experiment was to finish. My income has not changed enough in the past 5 months for me to sustain myself, so I am taking my lessons with me into my next position. In the coming weeks I'll be writing a post of all the lessons I've learned / what I will change the next time I attempt to do this.

I don't think I'm being too idealistic, but there are three things I would like to find in my next position:

1. An Interesting and Challenging Problem. As I looked through applications this week, there are some positions which just aren't for me. I will do my best work and be providing the most value for a company if it is somewhere where I will be challenged and I am excited to be helping the company innovate. I'm a detail oriented person, therefore I want to see what the big picture is so I can be excited about building every step between here and there.

2. Mentorship. I'm wondering if I'm being too optimistic in this one. I want to find a place to work where the environment encourages learning and teaching others. I want to improve my skills, both technical and business.

3. Freedom to build. I love programming. I will always want to build things. When I work for a company, I want to write great code in order to accomplish objectives. And when I come up with ideas for the business, whether serious or something to play around with, it would be nice to have the freedom to build it (obviously the required work comes first). And in off hours / weekends, I think it is important to have the freedom to do whatever I want with that time, whether it is to work on side projects for the business or myself.

I should clarify that these side projects aren't meant to take my focus off of my job. It's not me trying to work on someone else's dime in order to get my own startup up and running enough to survive on its own. If they bring in a side income, great. But my focus would be on my full time job.

There is a second aspect to this that I find very important. When working on one application I tend to get a very narrow view of what is possible. It is when I challenge myself with a new problem in a different area that I find new ways to solve things. Those ideas are then able to cross-pollinate, thus making my code cleaner all around. And I think I should be trying to improve my ability to code in whatever way I can.

30 Nov 2010

Week 15 & 16 - Summary - Lessons from Feedback

The Quick Summary

The past two weeks have gone by quickly. I finished up the new design for the Blue Shirt Labs site and got it launched when FavBites came out. I also spent a lot of time working on marketing for OrangeQC and took a trip up to Urbana the weekend of November 19th. And of course this week was Thanksgiving, and I had many relatives in town.

FavBites Update

Here is a quick update on FavBites. It has only been out a little over a week, and I have sold 11 copies. Obviously my weak point is still marketing, but this time I sent out 20+ emails to friends and family who I knew had an iPhone device and asked for help to promote it (via Twitter and Facebook) and to give me feedback. I'm really glad I did this because as the feedback has been rolling in, I've seen what kind of things I should be improving on the app and have been able to prioritize the features I have planned.

One of issues that came up was the confusion surrounding the "In Progress" button and the location of the buttons on this review page. The idea behind the "In Progress" button was that you could do half of the review before the meal and half after. Before the meal you would choose the profile and put in what you are eating and hit "In Progress." This would then save the current review and highlight it when among the other reviews. Then you could come back into it and add your score and comment after the meal.

Since it wasn't immediately clear what it meant and people were looking for the buttons at the top (a standard location in iOS apps). I removed the button and moved the "Cancel" and "Save" buttons to the top. It is still highlighted when no score has been added, indicating it still needs to be finished. These changes will be coming out in the next release.

This has just been a good reminder that it is important to get feedback from other people.