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WEEK 13 2016

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Fourteen
Years
Ago,
This
Week
2002

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2011

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2012

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Ago
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2014

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Year
Ago
This
Week,
2015

Saturday 26 March 2016

Saturday - Another nice day. I spent the morning working on the app, then broke for lunch with friends.

Then over to the Quartz Hill library to drop off a few books, and even found a couple of things to check out

For dinner I went over to R&S's place where we watch "Back To The Future" on Blue ray. Nice. Actually we had a lot of fun watching the various interesting "Making Of..." featuretttes for the 30th anniversary edition first.

I did get a chance to go over the latest version of the app with S, so I have some small changes and some idea of where we need to go next. Also I gave her a check for my half of the corporate tax bill.

Friday 25 March 2016

Friday - Good Friday.

Another nice day, with a bit of wind in the late afternoon.

Working on the app. We had decided on a different subject for one target card, so I had to redo all the images, symbols, audio and text strings for it, and for a few others that the testers had identified as problematic. Fairly straightforward stuff, but it's been a few months since any serious work so it was a good chance to get back into things.

This took most of the day, actually.

I did have a scare when the laptop suddenly stopped responding to keyboard input - not seeing the USB, the Bluetooth or the laptop's built in keyboard. I rebooted and that fixed things, but I realized as it shut down: I had disconnected the Time Machine backup drive a week or so ago in the throes of system install and never plugged it back in!

I could have had to do a bunch of stuff over. So I plugged it back in and chugged away for a couple of hours and we should be good now. Though, given the "ransom ware" attacks going on lately it is probably a good idea to burn a nice DVD backup too.

Thursday 24 March 2016 Thursday - Another nice day, into the low 80's by afternoon.

Tim called in the morning and asked me to look at some of the contractor's change order submittals, so I spent a couple hours coming up with a comparison for him. Then back to the app.

App work was mostly on re-compiling Nope Ver.6 to run on the new system, then getting it to a point where it could be uploaded to Testflight, and then downloaded successfully.

And I got it to work.

It's a big *.ipa bundle, 134MB. I extracted most of the artwork and media files to a folder, and those alone are 101MB, so there's not a lot I can do about that. I haven't really tried compressing anything, it's just *.png and *.mp4 files, so maybe I can get a somewhat smaller bundle. Not urgent right now.

I believe there is a 40MB or 80MB limit in iTunes for cellular downloads, otherwise you have to use Wifi or wired connections. Not that big a deal for a therapist's tool.

I need to look into the SKProduct (Store Kit) stuff for adding pay levels, and keeping track of purchase receipts, etc.

Right now I'm looking at adding five more levels, four that are the advanced "pay" levels, and one "recognition" level for students unfamiliar with basic yes/no nomenclature and symbology. As well as the logic for that in the Game page I have to redo the Settings page as well.

In fact I guess I have to do the Settings page first. S sent me some sample images for the game play, and for the Settings new background, so I'll have to start with those. Sadly some of my clever stuff: auto-shuffling among bins in Game and the fancy touch-bar controls in Settings is going away. On the other had the logic and code size will benefit.

After lunch I spent a half hour doing some more work in the side yard and garage areas. Slow and steady...

Wednesday 23 March 2016

Wednesday - Another nice, but windy, day.

Working away on the app prerequisites again. I needed to upgrade my Xcode to write for iOS 9.3, which the iPad Air runs at. This also meant upgrading to the latest version of El Capitan, and so on. I've lost count of how many times I've upgraded in the last few weeks. Anyway, got that done, and I can now do Ad Hoc and Testflight beta installs.

Time to actually work on the app? Crazy talk I know, but most of the cruft required to continue is done.

I did a bit of yard work at lunch, starting to clear out the side yard. Filled the trash in less than an hour...

Tuesday 22 March 2016

Tuesday - A nice day, cool and very windy. I actually had to turn the heater on at one point.

I was working on the beta testing and finally got it to work. It took a lot longer than it should, and eventually I had to go buy a new iPad because iOS 7 doesn't support Testflight, but I couldn't upgrade my iPad 2 to iOS 9 because we plan to support 7 for a while yet.

For $299 I got an iPad Air, first generation. It would have been nice to get the Ipad Air 2 or the just released Ipad Pro 9.7", but the screen resolution is the same among all three and I couldn't justify spending any more. Out apps are unlikely to tax the processors...

Monday 21 March 2016

Monday - Warm, but cooling.

Ground away at Apple's horrific Provisioning mess until it worked. Then started on setting up Beta testing via iTunes Connect. That took all day.

Sunday 20 March 2016

Sunday - Warm.

Grocery shopping in the morning. The larder was getting a bit bare after a couple of weeks. But I was determined not to shop midweek, as a means of forcing myself to keep tabs on spending, and to handle the natural urges to avoid sitting at home.

Spent the rest of the day not actually doing much physical labor, still resting the hands.

This might need to be the rule. That and keep the gauntlets on when programming and always keep some aspirin or ibuprofen in the bloodstream.

The apricot tree is already losing it's blossoms. It was a huge cloud of white last week.

I finished the Codex Alera series last week and this weekend. Not bad. A bit derivative, but well done.

Book #18 was First Lord's Fury (Codex Alera #6), by Jim Butcher. The Vord are winning. The Emperor is dead fighting them, Octavian is heir but there's a pretender for the throne, and a traitor and the Vord queen to deal with.

Book #17 was Princep's Fury (Codex Alera #5), by Jim Butcher. Octavian makes peace with the Canim, or at least engineers a cessation of hostilities, and accompanies them back to their original continent, only to find it completely overrun by the Vord. Back in his own country (Alera) the Vord attack in overwhelming force...

Book #16 was Captain's Fury (Codex Alera #4), by Jim Butcher. Octavian, still incognito, is fighting the ferocious wolf-like Canim and various incompetent and/or malicious parties in his own county. A war of succession is raging at the same time, and the First Lord (Emperor) is trying to deal with that. But the real enemy is the Borg-like Vord, lurking in the shadows.

Picture of the Week

Heading down the South Kaibab trail at the Grand Canyon.

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