Advice

  • Lessons from Consulting

    As a consultant you get the chance to work on lots of unique projects from the ground up and also to come in and fix up existing projects.  With an eye towards managing a budget, estimating your time, and  keeping active communication there are a lot of valuable lessons to learn. On the other hand…

  • Lessons From Flappy Bird’s Success

    Much has been said in recent weeks about the conundrum that is Flappy Bird and how it could have possibly become the #1 Free app on the App Store. First off I think it’s great to see a small independent developer is still able to have some success on the App Store.  It has become…

  • Candy Crush Game Analysis

    Candy Crush Saga from King has been dominating the top grossing charts for a very long time now.  The game mechanic itself is not new or particularly innovative and is of similar type as Bejewelled that was originally released in 2001 – long before the iPhone was invented.  What is it that differentiates CCS from…

  • How to find time

    One of the hardest things in getting productive work done has always been finding time to get focused work done.  There are so many demands on our time that what we want to accomplish gets pushed out in favour of other more immediate or more pleasurable things. Back in the day when Ben Franklin, Albert…

  • Trick for crispy homemade sweet potato fries

    After much trial and error to create yam/sweet potato fries as good as a restaurant we finally discovered the secret. Coat them in corn starch and oil before baking. Simple and delicious.

  • Produce as Much as You Can

    It took a long time to really  fully appreciate the feeling you get from producing something new in this world and letting it go for sale or for free. There’s a lot of apprehension that comes with those first few products you release.  You worry about the bugs that are still there, the features you…

  • 6 Tips For a Successful Project Plan

    The difference between a successful project and one that is a dismal failure can often come down to the project plan.  There are different approaches to planning from ad hoc planning to full on gantt charts in MS Project.  I think there are some universals for developing a plan that results in a project that…

  • How to SOA an existing project

    SOA or service oriented architecture is a way of building a complex project so that each individual unit can stand alone with a documented API.  There are many benefits to taking an SOA approach to designing a complex software system. To those familiar with programming, SOA provides the same sorts of benefits as OOP but…

  • Another Game in the Queue

    On Monday this week we submitted another game to Apple for review.  This one is called Andromeda’s Savior and it should be available sometime next week in iTunes. The plan is still to push out a bunch of games very quickly. After an intense strategy meeting on Tuesday we decided to focus on a few…

  • Finding a good A/V receiver

    My 12 year old A/V receiver bit the dust last week.  It seems to have overheated and burned out some components judging by the smell. So now I’m looking for a replacement.  The first thing I learned is that the Canadian stores all price the products at about 2x what they go for on eBay…