I started picking up more consulting work.  I quit my day job, and feel like the opportunity to perform work for additional companies is a good alternative to bringing in revenue.  Additionally, I’ve published two titles under a publisher, to see how things work out.  And I’ve been working on a number of interesting projects.  Overall it’s been a very progressive 2 months.  Very.  My eyes are open.

I hope to get back to my engineering programs though.  I feel like there is a huge potential for people using their phones corporately, and there are a couple of things I have in mind that could enter into an untapped market.  The gold rush is over, but there are still niche sectors which remain untapped.  I’m hoping to find time to finish those projects next.

I think Project Proclus might be the most extensive project that I never bring to market.  It was a huge learning experience for me in Cocos2D, and enabled me to develop skills necessary to move on in developing other things (Study Words & Radium).  Both of those projects used all of the frameworks that were setup for Project Proclus, and came together in about 2-3 weeks.  I think they allow me to continue progressing and taking steps to improve the products that I am developing.

Stepping Stones.  I hope everyone enjoys them!

I’ve been somewhat distracted by my life situations, and haven’t worked as diligently as I had intended. Between my employment, housing arrangements, Holidays, and my kids and wife being sick, I haven’t had much time. In addition to all of that, I took up a couple of other projects, but now have them mostly completed. One of which is Screen Cleaner for the Mac, and it was submitted to Apple yesterday for review. I have some big plans for it, but I got the basics working, and will work on adding features a bit later.

So I’m finally getting back to this project, and hopefully will be able to get something together within a week to put up here as a example of what this project even is. I know that hardly anybody even reads this, but I hope that after the end of the week, I get a little more web traffic. So to all those reading this in the future, hopefully you’ll appreciate the back story. This will be the week that I get most of the framework completed. The effects, and all of the functions will be setup and called correctly. Then it’s just a matter of fine tuning the development, and making it look stellar. As I already stated, I should be able to get some stuff up this week to demonstrate how awesome this is starting to be.

I finally picked a ‘code name’ for my project. Project Proclus (Wikipedia Link). It seems like a fun word to say, and doesn’t come near describing what my project actually is. I’m still so far out on my project that I’m not sharing many details about it. Yet.

This week, I did all of the math necessary to come up with cool theme music, and that was just Monday during my lunch break. Then on Tuesday I took my iPad to work, and on my lunch break I drew up the first character. Then On Wednesday I drew the second character. Thursday I turned the first two into Illustrator formatted files, changed my icon, and put my character into the Cocos2D scene. Then it started getting fun. I decided I want to have 2 characters be able to be in the scene at once (for multiplayer), so I added in the 2nd Character, and got a turn based gameplay functional. So now I just need to implement GameKit, and make it simultaneous. Really shaping up to be a nice app, and that’s what it’s about right? Creating Quality.

Still have a very long way to go though, but it’s nice to have Two pieces sketched, Vectorized, Integrated, Implemented, and Play Tested.

I’ve had several conversations with people who I consider experts in the field of Art, Music, Games, and Code. Each have provided inspiration and direction to my project. I still don’t have a title, but I’ve got a very unique and extensive idea on what needs to be accomplished.

So I’ve put together 10,000 lines of code in implementing the various frameworks which I’ll need. Cocos2D, CocosDenshion, and Chipmunk. The code is amazingly clean, and very rewarding to work in. Outside of the separately compiled frameworks, I’ve gotten my Loading Screen, Main Menu, Settings Page, and GameLayer put together. I’ve got the Audio working correctly, and some slick transitions between each of the stages of the game. And I’ve got the logic put together for an alpha first level, including the detection to determine if a level has been completed. All in all, I have a workable prototype, and merely need to move forward in establishing the playability, graphics, sounds, and… well… yeah, the actual game.

Last weekend I watched my 6 and 4 year old play my game, and noticed that they wanted to interact in a specific way. I had thought it would be intuitive to play it a certain way, but my lowest common denominator user group taught me I needed to incorporate a different game play method. I plan on using this form of Child Labor in ensuring that my game appeals to as large a demographic as possible. After watching them play my game, I realized how important it will be to establish a good Beta Users Group.

I’m excited tonight, and finally getting to the purpose of this post: I just got a level loading subroutine written up. I had statically coded Level 1, but now have implemented an XML level loader. This will greatly facilitate things moving forward! I’ll probably end up writing a Level Editor into the game code, just so that I can use the device to build more and more levels. In addition to writing the level loader, I also have it so that when the level is complete, it maintains persistent game states. So Manipulating a level outside of playing the level would result in the creation of a new level.

I thought this process would take me years. I’ve started other extensive projects before, but I’ve quit them within a week when I hit an obstacle that I didn’t like. I think the difference with those projects, are that I wasn’t 100% committed, or convinced that they were GREAT ideas. So at the slightest indication that something else would be more effective use of my time, I switched projects. I’ve started just about every single possible type of App. I’ve done Bus Transit maps, Traffic Cameras, RSS Feed Readers, Camera, E-Mail, UIKit Games, Cocos2D Games, Entertainment, Utilities, and Productivity Apps. I’ve tried Free, Paid, Freemium, In-App purchase models… But I think I’ve finally got a project that I’m really excited about. And it’s much higher functioning than any of my other half finished products. This by far could be the best idea that I’ve had when it comes to making an App.

It’s not driven by the intent to make money, but the intent to make an excellent product. I’ve even debated registering a separate name with Apple, just because the quality of this App is so much higher than any others that I’ve done. I’m about 100 hours into development, and probably would have released the product by now, but I feel like I’m just getting started.

And I’m done rambling now. I realize that this process will require a lot of documentation, and I’ve got everything but a narative of the process documented. So this is the start of a new narrative. I’ll eventually need a name, Videos, Press Releases, Graphics, etc. And I think that my early ramblings will be fun to look back on where I thought I was heading after I’ve spent 2,000 hours on this project. Again, I’m done rambling.

Back to Coding.

My new project is probably the most ambitious yet.

In 2008 I realized I needed a little bit more income. I started a project, and was soon earning 20 dollars a week from my weekend of tinkering. I saw potential, so I reached a little bit deeper, and published Screen Cleaner. I saw great success, and was making 20 dollars a day, after another weekend of tinkering. So I took some time to make Screen Cleaner more diverse, and add some more dogs, etc. and increased my revenue a bit more. I then realized that crap apps were the easiest way to money, but not the most effective, nor the most sustainable. I then returned to my first project, and made it nice enough that I’d use it on a daily basis. The return on these efforts were amazing. I soon was led to the conclusion that quality was much more effective and rewarding than the pursuit of a quick buck. And it seems that customers appreciate, and reciprocate this notion.

After doing several other projects (usually seeking another buck) I realized that I ‘wanted’ to return to making games. I had done one, using UIKit. Yuck. I decided to learn Cocos2D, and published Jeremiah. It’s a very simple game, but it taught me a lot about Cocos2D, as well as In-App Purchases, and iAd, and various revenue models. This project was probably the catalyst which caused me to re-focus my efforts on quality. Jeremiah hasn’t been amazingly successful, and it only took 50 hours to produce. A weeks worth of work, and it’s earning well over what I feel a weeks pay should be.

But I don’t want to spend a week publishing something which will return mediocre revenue. I’m in the pursuit of success.

Over the last 2 months I’ve been working on a project that is titled “Jeremiah”. It’s a Jumping game based on Cocos2D, which implements Game Center, iAd, and In-App Purchases. At launch it will feature 3 frogs for free, and currently 6 additional frogs as an in-app purchase, as well as 23 achievements, and 3 different leaderboards on Game Center. I submitted it to apple the first weekend that Game Center was live, and I was excited to find out that Apple was quickly approving Game Center games.

But that is where my excitement ended. I submitted on Saturday at Noon on September 11th, 2010. I was extremely excited when it went straight to ‘In Review’ status almost immediately after I submitted the binary. However, by Sunday night, my hope was low that it would get approved before the following weekend. My previous experience has always been 1-2 weeks for approval despite Steve jobs claiming that 95% of apps were approved in 7 days. My experience is quite the opposite. Of 17 apps, I’ve had 1 approved in under 7 days.

So I went to work through the week, and when I finished my efforts on Thursday night, I submitted an Apple “Application Status Inquiry”. Friday morning I received an e-mail in response. It said:

Hello,

Thank you for your email inquiring about your app status.

At this time your app is pending completion of review. We process apps in the order in which they are submitted and are working hard to process all submissions in a timely manner. Once the review process has been completed for your app, you will receive an email notification of its updated status.

We thank you in advance for your continued patience.

Regards,

From this I took away that I’m in the system. And I can’t request information about what that means. So I started an Android Project in the morning, attempting to write an app before the approval process was completed. I choose an easy project, of porting over a City of North Las Vegas “Report a Problem” style app that I had written for the iPhone. (The Original iPhone App was written in 6 hours.) So I had many of the graphics, and only needed to write the code in Java, and make sure the graphics, and process matched the Android criteria.

It’s now been 8 hours since I received my informative e-mail from apple, and my new App is now available in the Android Store. I have no expectation that Apple will approve my app before the end of the weekend, if they even decide to approve it at all. They could choose to show me some hate in regards to their new Game Center face, which is very public right now. But this type of discrimination isn’t very ethical or fair to the indie movement. My app isn’t as good as Flight Control, Real Racing, or even FarmVille, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t adhered to every policy that they set forth within their guidelines.

So on to the motivation. I started the Jeremiah Project because my first ‘game’ on the iPhone did fairly well, and was done purely in UIKit. This approach was very n00b, and so I wanted to do a better game, and use a lot of the new options that Apple had introduced. I became familiar with the process of in-App purchases, and got everything working to be able to sell additional features within my app. I also made efforts to implement MobClix because I love what they do for free apps. I used their systems to implement iAd, as well as each of the ad networks that they support, and even did some Custom Ads to promote my In-App Purchases from within the app. I also put in Game Center support.

I wanted to use all of these technologies, because I felt that a lot of people would be looking for iOS games which support the new Game Center. At time of submittal, I was only aware of 3 free Game Center games (all time sinks). I thought that a lot of users would be very interested in seeing the system for free. In addition, I think a lot of people install free apps and give them a try, and have seen numbers of a 1% conversion rate to get people to make an in-app purchase. In addition MobClix has some excellent eCPM values that are only beaten by iAd. So overall I wanted to use all of these portions to be able to make a very fun game, somewhat profitable.

Timing was everything, and I made sure that everything was in order during the Beta phases of Game Center. Tested everything, and made sure it was functioning, and then went live after I tested, on a number of devices after the official launch. Submitting 4 days after the launch of Game Center was huge in trying to maximize the number of eyeballs that could be attracted by the system. But this is where I think Apple began it’s filibuster. Being a huge Apple fanboy, I still respect them in their decision of protecting their image of Game Center. And if they would tell me that (reject the app) I would respect their decision. They’ve certainly rejected my apps before, and honestly the only one app which I take pride in is my Engineering Calculations App.

Android on the other hand has instant visibility within the market. Writing an app was a little more intimidating when I got started because I tried to do it on a PC. I had a nightmare trying to set the system variables, and getting everything installed. But once I realized they had eclipse on Mac OS X it was over. I’ve enjoyed it less than using xCode, but being able to get things instantly out is a huge bonus to using Android. So while my game took much longer to develop (2 months) my simple Android App is already out to market. Has already been downloaded (during time of writing), and has actually generated a few cents in ad-revenue. On the Apple side, my game has returned nothing on my investment, because it is still “in review” with Apple.

So I’m really excited to see how well my game will do on the iOS devices running Game Center, but in hindsight, I wish I had waited for OpenFeint, and saved myself the trouble of managing things myself. I doubt that the Android App that I threw together will make more money than my game in the long run, but as far as instant returns go, Android has a lot quicker returns on my time investments.

I’ve been toying around with the idea of publishing an app which would allow the user some interaction with the City of North Las Vegas. So today, I finally wrote it up. It’s pretty neat concept, and nothing original. City of Pittsburgh was the first that I know of to get their own App. New York, Boston, etc. now have their own, and so I thought that the City of North Town should get their own. I talked with the IT department, and discussed what they would think should be in the app. I spoke with people in the City Manager’s Office about using Artwork, and sending data, etc.

Hopefully it’s found to be a useful tool by the citizens / commuters /travelers while in the City of North Las Vegas. I know that I intend on using it a few times to send in the nasty potholes that never get fixed, or a downed traffic sign, etc.

My old computer finally tanked.  I had used iWeb to setup my old site, and the files were all on the dead computer.  I was able to restore some of my files (Mission Critical), but my website was lost.  So, I gave up on hosting it through mobile me, and paid for some real hosting.  So here it is.  Hopefully I’ll update it a lot more frequently, and treat it better.

I realize that most of my products shortcomings are the support for them.  I really want to do better tutorials, and instructions.  In addition, I think the marketing material required for them would definitely improve sales.  I read through some of my descriptions on my apps, and looked over the support material, and realized I wouldn’t buy it.  Yet I have 4.5 stars on some of my apps, so once they are purchased, people like them… I need to put more effort forth towards getting people onboard.

I’ve got some really long term projects in the works.  I’m a bit tired of doing the conventional crap apps.  They sale well, and the offer a quick return, but I can do better.  My best app took over a year to write, and offers the best return rate on my effort.  Took me quite  while to realize it, but quality is held in higher regard than any other feature of all of the apps that are out there.

I still might do one or two, for the quick enjoyment… but my goals have changed.

I’ve had an amazing response to the development of Civil Engineering Calculations.  It started as a simple Vertical Curve Calculation tool, that has grown into multiple functions.  The responses I’ve gotten have helped my to be exposed to more specialties than my own, and has greatly aided my studies as I prepare for the P.E. exam this April.  Additionally, the feedback has been international, and has provided me an interesting perspective on the various Engineering practices around the globe.

When the iPad was announced, I decided that I was going to support it with Civil Calcs 2.0 without charging my existing customers anything.  So my next update will contain functionality for the iPad.  I hope to have it submitted to Apple prior to March 27th, as they have implied that it could become available for the iPad launch on April 3rd if I meet that deadline.  Some of the features will be rushed to meet that deadline, but I’ve got a lot of new features already polished for submission.

For Version 2.0 I’ve added:

1. •Ability to Size a Pipe based on all other inputs
2. •H:V Ratios implemented in all Slope field inputs
3. •Slide Ruler implemented in all Distance field inputs
4. •Toolbox. allows quick access to the Slide Ruler, H:V, and Level
5. •Additional Bug Fixes, and function enhancements

Moving forward I’ve had a number of requests, and I really want to implement all of them.  Some of them will take much longer to add than others, and that really is the only reason that I won’t include all of the recommendations immediately.  Some of them are listed here:

Graphic Representation of the Pipe’s wetted perimeter:  I’ve wanted to do this for some time, but anything graphical takes time to program correctly, and I’ve been more focused on other tasks.  Although this is near the top of my list of things to add next.

Traverse Input Modification:  I want to add the ability for curves, and for inputting bearings, not azimuths.  The current input is confusing, and takes some getting used to.  I’ve come up with a way that will make this much easier, and hope to have it finished soon.  The ability to input Horizontal Curves will build off of this, and is probably further out than the modified input.

Metric Ruler Addition:  The Slide Ruler currently only has 4 USCS scales.  I hope to add Metric rulers, and many other USCS scales.  The trick becomes the screen size and density for the iPad vs the iPhone/iPod Touch.  I’ve basically got to do everything 2 times, and so I’ve only finished 4 rulers.  I hope to have many more added soon.

Better Metric Support:  A lot of my customers are in Australia and Europe.  This isn’t something that I had anticipated, but I really intend on familiarizing myself with the calculation differences, and making those accommodations.  I think some of the functions work, but there is a lot of room for improvement here.

Pressurized Flow:  This is far from my specialty, but I have received some requests to add in some pressure pipe calculations, as well as headloss calcs.  I need to study this a lot more, but hope to add some of these calculations eventually as well.

Again, if you have any additional comments or thoughts on what could be added to help the Civil Engineering Community please let me know.

There has been much said about the iPad, and it’s capabilities or lack thereof.  My intent though is to try and identify the course which I plan to take with the products that I’ve developed, and continue to maintain.

I like many others downloaded the new SDK to play with the iPad emulator before the availability of the device is possible.  I launched my app, and was quite pained to see how my apps looked on the iPad.  So I started to retool Civil Calcs to Utilize more of the screen.  I started re-thinking about the types of people that might use it, and how effective of an engineering tool it could be.  I strongly doubt that there will be many people who jump to the iPad, especially engineers, but I thought I would start here, and see how things go.

So I’ve Moved my text fields over, and taken more of the screen to draw in the depiction of vertical curves, channels, and area shapes.  The added space made me realize that I could show much more information, including X,Y coordinates of the Points on the Area depiction, more detail for the side slope of channels, and more information for Vertical curves, and other elements as well.  K Value, for instance, didn’t really fit on the iPhone version, but I plan on adding it now.  So in addition to all of the features I was working on for version 1.6 I’ve now decided to try and prepare a universal binary for the iPad/iPhone hybrid app.

This will mean that my current customers will receive a free update, which will enable some really sweet things if they have an iPad.  If they don’t then they only get the other features that I’ve been working on.  But should they ever get an iPad, they’ll receive these things for free.  The trouble in this is that It will take me an obscene amount of time compared to the revenue that it will generate.  I really don’t see many of my customers switching immediately (if ever) to the iPad.  And yet for them I will be doing them a pointless favor….

For my other apps I plan on waiting.  I have no intentions of performing this favor for other apps, but I’m sure I will reconsider once more people demand it, based on the consumption of the iPad.  I would much rather re-write the app as a separate one for the iPad, so that customers who have an iPad, will have to pay an additional $0.99 for their iPad version.  This is largely because of the amount of features that I would add on the iPad version, and if I was to do this for free, then I’d just be wasting my efforts for the good of the world.  I’ve got to pay the mortgage, so for these customers I’m of the opinion that they can use the 2x mode on the iPad, or pay an additional $0.99 for the native version.

Hopefully though I don’t get too caught up in these updates, and trying to get things done before March, because I am taking the PE exam in April, and need to focus some of my efforts towards studying.  I justify the Civil Calcs re-write to be reviewing vertical curve calculations, drainage calculations, traverse refresher course, etc.  Hopefully my justification won’t bleed too much into my studies.