amychr

We’ve moved!

amychr — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 01:19:42 +0000

After a long and productive relationship, wordpress and I are parting ways. I am no longer posting long blog entries – there’s not enough time right now to get that involved. But the tips and tricks will keep coming from my new location on tumblr. Continue reading at

amychr.tumblr.com

Xcode color themes

amychr — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 10:03:35 +0000

Sorry Apple, but your color themes are just awful. There’s no way to candy coat this. They suck.

So, readers, I have converted several easy-on-the-eyes TextMate and Vim themes for xcode and provided them for You! Go get them from Github and save yourself some eyestrain.

Download

Contains themes:

2morrow Night
2morrow Night (Eighties)
Coal Graal
Glitterbomb
Kellys
Monokai
Night
Resesif
Sidewalk Chalk

Installation

Place the

~/Library/Developer/Xcode/UserData/FontAndColorThemes

folder of your home directory.

iTunes Genres Icons for Music and Books

amychr — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 06:34:29 +0000

If you’ve ever tried to organize your iTunes library into neat categories and genres you’ll know that there are some genres Apple has designed cool icons for and some that have been sadly forgotten (*sob*). After much trial and error, I’ve figured out a list of what genres will be represented by nice, Cupertino-approved artwork. There are several names that will score you the same artwork in most cases, like SciFi and Science Fiction. iTunes is smart enough to be able to tell. I’ve listed them separated by slashes. Also, some of the genre icons overlap between media kind, like SciFi. In the list below each genre is repeated with each media kind it will work with. Experiment! Use these in the genre field of your music, books, whatever, to help sort them out.

note: capital or lowercase doesn’t seem to matter

also note: it seems that tv shows, book, and movies can all use the same genres. In light of this, I’ve listed only the relevant ones where shared.

Books:

Math / mathematics
Art / fine art
Nonfiction
Children’s Fiction
Science Fiction / scifi
Fantasy
History
Science
Language
Literature
teaching / education
classic
business
engineering
health / medicine
humanities
social science

Music:

classical
dance
country
electronic
folk
hip-hop
j-pop
jazz
pop
rock
soundtrack
world
blues
soul / r&b
language
teaching / education
latin
spoken word
alternative
gospel
holiday
new age
reggae
vocal
disco
metal
kayokyoku

Movies:

Action / adventure
Drama
Thriller
comedy
SciFi / Science Fiction
Fantasy
Documentary
Kids / Family
Classic
horror
western
romance
independent
music
holiday
short film

TV:

Animation
Drama
SciFi / Science Fiction
Fantasy
Comedy
Kids
Children’s
language
teaching / education
science
math / mathematics
literature
history
nonfiction
world
Classic
reality tv
sports
teens

Please comment if you have found any that are missing! Have fun!

(p.s. if this list is still unsatisfying, check out iGenres… you can use your own custom artwork!)

Gamer’s Abacus 3.0 update, Universal and overhauled

amychr — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 16:34:41 +0000

Whew! What a way to start 2011! Gamer’s Abacus has a new update in the pipes, uploaded to Apple today.

Inside are universal and retina display support. I’ve also upgraded the UI quite a bit. The iphone half of the app features fully redesigned graphics but I have also update the ipad side to match it’s new counterpart. I’ve tried to streamline the interface by removing the menus and toolbars (for ipad) which were a bit cumbersome before. You no longer need to choose what game you are playing or set any settings. All the dice are now available all the time. If this bewilders any of you, just don’t use buttons that don’t seem like they’re for your game. Simple enough, right? Anyway, while quite a big change to the design philosophy of Gamer’s Abacus, I think you will like the new look and feel!

Expect an update in iTunes in a week when it is approved.

Tile Zen 2 and game center upgrades

amychr — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 06:22:48 +0000

Good news everyone! Your and my own favorite dice game has been updated to full game center compatibility! This means leaderboards and achievements to showcase you dicing skills. Look for Nice Dice 2.6 on the app store next week!

Also in news, Tile Zen is now at 2.0 and fully universal. This upgrade came to what was Tile Zen HD and now includes a new redesigned iPhone version.

Changes to GA – it’s a savage world

amychr — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 04:41:08 +0000

Some of you have been asking that wild rolls show up in the game log with more detail than just the outcome. Well, ask no more because update 2.3 has some big changes, including the change to wild rolls.

Space is always an issue when adding information to the history, so I’ve tried to keep it compact. The roll summary (top right corner) shows a +w to indicate that a wild roll was thrown. The list of dice rolled (bottom, comma-serparated list) shows if one was replaced by the wild die by putting the replaced die in parentheses () pointing to wild roll after it. So in the first line, 3 d6s were thrown, plus a wild die. They came up as 4, 4, and 2. The 2 was replaced by a wild roll of 10 (the 10 is including any aces on that roll). In the second line, 3 d4s were thrown plus a wild die. These were 2, 3, and 9. The 2 was replaced by a wild roll of 3. Etc.. You see how this is showing? My goal is to give you guys as much information in the log as possible without making it hard to read.

As always, let me know how this works for you (good or bad!) so I can keep working on it.

Gamers Abacus, updates, and what I’m up to now

amychr — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 17:31:41 +0000

I haven’t posted in quite a while. But its ok, I’m still here! Lol.
Soo, big news of the moment is the major update to Gamers Abacus, bringing it up to 2.0 with lots of cool new features:

Choose which game you’re playing!
Added support for Savage Worlds rpg – new ways to roll
Added support for Warhammer – new dice
Added support for Magic the Gathering – new dice
Added more tokens for D&D players
New Central menu for game options and settings
New, clearer UI for game history and actions
Ability to reset player data

2.0 also includes some overdue changes to the app’s core which will eventually make for a better user experience. I’m working on the next version now, which I think everyone will really enjoy. Release time is scheduled for … soon. Oh and please email, tweet, comment, or whatever with any ideas or suggestions you’d like to see in gamers Abacus. I love getting user feedback!

Aside from working on some side projects like AppKeys, that’s what I’ve been up to. I plan to post some more helpful hints later in the week. Ttfn!

TV Show Names: To Show or Not To Show on iPad

amychr — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 14:48:56 +0000

I’ve been having trouble for a few days with videos I add to itunes seemingly-randomly showing their tv show name when added to my iPad. This has been annoying since it mars the beauty of my cover view (*sob*). Anyway, get this: if any two shows have an episode of the same name, then the cover view will put a name in text under the tv show cover. I don’t know if this is a feature or flaw of itunes on the ipad, but it is simple enough to keep the names different if this problem crops up. Looking on Apple’s forums, it doesn’t seem like anyone has found the cause yet, but this work-around works for me.

Snippets contest

amychr — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 04:24:09 +0000

Hurry! Lol. There’s a Snippets license contest over at macappstorm http://mac.appstorm.net/general/competitions/3-snippets-licenses-up-for-grabs/ right now!

Snippets is a great tool for storing and organizing code snippets to reuse, excellent for programmers, web developers, etc.

Why iPad (for the sceptical and linux-ly inclined)

amychr — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 13:53:13 +0000

The short answer is because it replaces what’s left of the analog sphere and does it without giving cause to look back. Any time you’ve said, “I wish I didn’t have all these textbooks to carry” or “Why did I write my notes in five different notebooks?” or “Which organizer has this semester in it?”, you’ve been experiencing the incovenience of the paper life.

It may seem odd to say iPad answers it (you’re reading this because you’re sceptical, right?). I’ve used just about every Palm iteration, iPAQ, Zaurus, Cassiopeia, NEC handhelds, notebooks, macbooks, ibooks, eMate, eeePC… you name it and I’ve probably tried to get organized with it. So for me, saying the iPad will change everything has more significance than most.

is this you?

Case Study (how a tech-head would enjoy the iPad too, or, it’s not just for noobs)

Let’s keep it simple. Here are the areas in which the iPad has lived up to more my needs rather than merely my expectations. These uses keep me from having to carry (and later scan) a multitude of different notebooks.

Notes

Any researcher, student, or IT professional (and more besides) has voluminous quantities of hard-won notes in their area. You keep using paper because it’s always there when the breakthroughs happen and it doesn’t have trouble syncing. This is one of the best areas for iPad. Any kind of note you need to keep (diary, course notes, documentation, research, presentation, etc) is possible. It’s still a little early for there to be tons of apps in this category, but Apple’s own notes app coupled with iWork and Mail can be a great place to start. With no external keyboard (the software one is quite comfortable) and a small-ish footprint, using the iPad for notes fits right into the slot paper was filling for me.

Apps: Chronicles, Notebooks for iPad, Notably, Course Notes

Apple's notes app

Ideas

I mostly use notebooks for diagrams and brainstorming designs. It’s impossible to do this with a netbook unless you want carpal tunnel. This is the hardest kind of thing to replace with digital tools. It’s also the place where you have to adapt the most if you want to leave paper behind. But again, iPad makes it worth it and there are some really helpful apps that make the transition worth while. I’ve started with Mind Node for brainstorming and Layers for design. Both will export my work to commonly used formats and email them so I can archive for safekeeping.

Apps: Mind Node, Adobe Ideas, Layers, Brushes, Sketchbook Pro, Penultimate, OmniGraffle

Mind Node

Information

Safari is a great web surfing experience. Seriously. Hyperbole is unnecessary here. Combine it with tools like Mail, a news reader, something for twitter, facebook, maps, IMDB, wikipedia, … the list goes on! If there’s information about it, there’s a way to access it on the iPad. Plus Safari will sync your bookmarks through iTunes so that you can always have you massive directory of websites close at hand.

But the best part is reading large documents which last week would have made me stuck at my desk. PDFs and long online articles are read easily once you get the hang of it, and it’s not that difficult to setup. Goodreader is a cheap solution ($.99) for a complex problem. If you’ve tried to read pdfs on the Kindle, you know what I mean. PDFs may be ubiquitous but properly displaying them is too much of a challenge for even a netbook (I tried that too). With Goodreader, you can view complex, graphic heavy pdfs with, well, ease. I’ve tried a bunch of different kinds and Goodreader opens them all with a minimum of load time, certainly not more than my mac would have in preview.

Instapaper is also brilliant for reading long websites offline (like Apple Developer documentation). You can use the website, but the app is a nice experience worth the money. It saves up to 200 articles offline – a lot of reading!

Reading the news in News Rack

Connecting the dots

I glue all this stuff together with the GTD app, Things. If you don’t know GTD, just google it – it’s formalized common-sense about how to be effective getting work done and it fits the iPad beautifully. I was a little sorry there was no OmniFocus, my go-to app at the time. But Things is more than adequete. It’s the last piece of my organizational puzzle.

Fun

I don’t have to tell you ipods are fun. Music, movies, games, it’s all there. The interface won’t get in the way of having fun the way you already do. It’s just easier. The iPod application is like a full iTunes but mobile. It has many of the same features as the desktop application, which makes browsing music much more interesting for audiophiles. It’s the same with movies. The screen size is just at the border between portable and desktop so that there’s just enough for one person to really enjoy a video without being over-large.

As far as games, a Nintendo user like myself is still sceptical. But great titles are available these days by reputable game publishers and the speed of the iPad makes the interface for most games feel almost as natural as a controller or keyboard. It’s getting better all the time.

And I haven’t even mentioned ebooks…

The Full Spectrum

This is a review, which means sharing the whole picture, not just one side. Is an iPad going to do everything? No. It’s not a computer. It’s not your desktop – no monitor, input device, choice of keyboard, high-end software, low-level development, or deep customization. It will never be a hot-rod you can overclock and juice max performance from.

Are the problems? Of course, it’s technology not alchemy. There are some (rare) wifi issues. You’ll have to stretch the Apple case yourself if you ever want your iPad back after putting it on. Many of the iPhone apps you’ve been using are too stretched to read clearly when using at double size (although you can use the 1x just fine). But these are minor issues for a device of this complexity.

Oh, and it -is- a big iPod Touch. But the iPad is a fulfillment of all the promise of iPhone OS that never gets realized in the small editions. It is a big iPod Touch and it is far more an iPod Touch can ever hope to be. The difference in size is a difference of magnitude.

Does it take getting used to? Sure. But I’ve never adopted a piece of technology that fit so quickly into my existing organization scheme. You’ll have to adapt but iPad will meet you more than halfway.

iPad is the real deal.