I’ll be the first to admit it, I have not made the wisest of investments over the years. From cashing out my retirement to help fund my start-up, to keeping cash reserves in low-interest bearing accounts; over the years I’ve made about every investing mistake in the book. What I did invest, I invested cautiously. Mutual funds, index funds, foreign index funds. I gambled on some of the big internet companies that came up over the years, and sometimes it paid off, sometimes it didn’t. So I’m proposing an experiment, and I’ll be following through with it starting May 1st (coincidentally my birthday).
Textures are heavy. Bloat-y. They weigh down your apps, and consume memory. Sometimes you just want to efficiently animate something procedurally. One useful technique to have in your bag of tricks is that of basic skeletal animation. In this article series, I’ll run you though the basics of 2-d skeletal animation. I’ll be implementing this as part of a variant of the popular ‘run as far as you can’ games on the Android platform using AndEngine/OpenGL as the rendering back-end. Those more interested in reading code can follow along at the 5 Seconds GitHub commit history. At the end of this series, you’ll be able to implement basic skeletal animation in the language of your choice. I’ll be using Android/Java/*OpenGL as the pedagogical example, but the code should port easily to other platforms.
The economic potential of amateur pc computer resale has changed, almost completely disappearing since I wrote “Live For Free” (LFF), and is declining for apple computers steadily. This makes a direct sequel to LFF unlikely, as it would need to be about computer and electronics repair. I’ve had my current development laptop for about 2 years now, with no reason to think I won’t be using it in another 2, or 4, or maybe even 10 years. In the 2000’s and during the course of writing LFF, I probably went through 30 laptops, ever running to beat the elusive pricing curve. Now that I’ve beat it, what’s next?
First generation Android-on-a-stick PCs can be had for as low as 30$ now, and I routinely find old webcams available for 5$ everywhere. Now that Google+ users get free unlimited storage for their photos (up to a certain resolution), the time has never been better to build a home security system. Why? Because Google has thoughtfully enabled ‘instant upload’ for Google+. Using a few simple (and free) Android apps you can turn your old stick PC (or old Android phone) into a home security system with unlimited cloud storage.
It’s not often I post up about something about my professional career. I think that most of my readers get their business/professional/industry news from other outlets, and there’s not generally much for me to say on a topic that’s been covered my the mainstream media. Knowing this, I tend to post up those things which appeal to my readers: personal projects, hacks, games, cool software tricks, hardware builds, etc. There are some times, however, where I do think it’s OK to put on my work hat for a while and post up something about how things are going for me in the professional software industry.
When looking back on 2012, it was a pretty successful year for both myself, and Google. They released a hot new tablet, and their app store has done remarkably well. One of my personal successes was the open sourcing of all of my android apps and other software back in April. Now, at the end of 2012 I feel that in the spirit of open source software I should share all the metrics about my apps on the Play store. The bottom line is, things are going pretty well. Installs are on the rise, and I love sharing software with people.
Pop Them Balloons! – The first game from the 5-Seconds mini-game and article series compilation has been released on the Google Play store. You can download it (for free) here. This may take up to a full day from this posting to reach your particular Play market, so if you don’t see it on your Play market, be sure to check back later this evening!
Pop Them Balloons! – The first game from the 5-Seconds mini-game and article series compilation has been released on the Google Play store. You can download it (for free) here.
While UI is often the last thing a programmer thinks about when starting on a new project, it’s often the very first thing a user knows about your project. Why then don’t we all use the latest and greatest UI patterns? Perhaps many coders find visual design to be out of their domain, or perhaps they feel that the execution of the algorithms contained within their program are of paramount concern to users. Regardless of the reason, disgruntled users have started to leave once trusted programs whose interfaces have not kept up with the times. How then to update your app(or game!) to the newest visual hotness?
