Rebecca - A Perfect Weekend

After a week long work trip, I awoke tired on Friday, but I still had a baby shower to host.  I spent Friday preparing the food and activities for the baby shower, and a friend and I hosted a fun event on Friday evening.  It really was nice to connect with some old friends, and I loved celebrating the new life still growing inside one of my dear friends.

Saturday was a sunny day in the Pacific Northwest.  The rain has started in Seattle, and I appreciated the reprieve from the rain.  Instead of watching Little League Football and my daughter cheering in a downpour, I enjoyed the warmth of a sun that will make few appearances during our grey Northwest winters.  What really made Saturday perfect - A NAP.

I was a little more productive today.  After church, the family went on a bike ride and run.  Ben and I ran while the kids rode bikes.  It was wonderful.  I got some of the laundry done, the children finished their homework, and we had a family meal of tacos - everyone's favorite.

There is always work to do.  I know Ben wanted to get more done on his app, and I know he wanted more input from me...but this was a rare sunny weekend.  Sometimes, you have to let go of the schedule.  It will still be there on Monday.  The Pacific Northwest sun becomes a rare sight in Fall and Winter.  You have to take advantage!

iPhone Version Beta

- Initial Side Note - Today was a sunny Saturday so I worked in the yard a bit.  This is so as to not anger the Seattle Rain gods.  They are not forgiving and will drop a shower on a whim.

I did find time to work on the design of the iPhone version of the front end.  Since I cannot always be on the computer, I use a combination of tools on my iPad for design work or research.  Today I used App Cooker to work on the screen navigation design.  This is a nice product and has the ability to 'play' the scenes out, which is great for demoing an App idea to people.    I also use the popular Grafio product for some of the object design.  Grafio is like Visio but more in tune with a touch screen.

Anyway, I decided to host a Collection View for the main screen.  I will show sample images of the possible types of scoring systems the App supports.  This will allow some more options in the future and gives the screen a friendly access.   I started adding this concept to the project and hope to have a prototype working by Monday for an early demo.  We will see.

Schedules

Well Rebecca and I managed to find some time to agree on a schedule.  This really is more for my benefit than hers, but she indulges me.  Like most coding or design, I try to break up the schedule into chunks and then fill in the details.  This gives me some specific deadlines and allows me the initial illusion of control.  I say illusion because sometimes the goals are too complex for the amount of time you have, other times, you finish early and can tinker with some new ideas.  Experience has given me a pretty good measure of what I can do in a certain amount of time, but I have also been burned too.  The deadline help keep the burns minor.

 So the rough schedule is:
Next Wednesday, 9 Oct, I will have a working 'prototype' of the App working on a device.  Most likely it will be the iPhone version.  This allows me to test it out on the family and get initial feedback.

The following Wednesday, 16 Oct, would be the iPad version prototype.  More family Guinea Pig time.

That leaves the last 2 weeks of the month for product refinement and submitting it.  Also finding a name.  Ugh.


- Side Note - My family is great about discussing and testing the Apps we build.  Shame about the low pay...

- Geek Side Note - I took another look at the UIKit Dynamics functionality added recently.  Very neat stuff, but I think I will continue to prototype with the Sprite Kit front end.    Also am still working on the Core Data backend started up and hopefully running in a unit test.  I really want this simple backend of data to well tested.

Icons

  I found a useful icon generating program today.  In order to release an App, you need at least 4 good icons at different resolutions.  If you have a app that you want to work with all iPad and iPhone devices, you need about 10 icons.  This program allows you to take one good image and create all the appropriate sizes.  Useful and certainly worth the $1 price in terms of time.

Silly Side Note 

 I also got 3 dental fillings replaced today, so that took a bit out of the day.

I hope to finish the schedule for the month tomorrow, but I am pretty sure I need a working prototype by the end of this week ~ Wednesday.  Working on both devices would be a plus.  This would allow me to adjust to any feedback from my family and friends who review it.  

Testing the Code

Worked more on the project code today than the design.  Just tried to work out some unit tests and some underlying components in model or data layer.   I always pledge to start off with testing, then code, but it can be challenging sometimes.  I wanted to get the test harness working and some initial code tested before going any further with the code.  Its a good start.

I also played with the effects of using the Sprite Kit to draw the scores.  I like the effect of drawing the numbers on the screen with delayed fade in effect.  It seems to do the trick nicely and opens up the possibility of adding sound effects easily.  This will strictly be the visible layer of the application.  It will also be pretty modular thanks to the Node system using in Sprite Kit.  I can change around effects as I learn more.

Good stuff, but must admit I also pushed out the latest version of Family Bank.   It was a small fix related to the icon, but was bothering me.  

-- Geek Side Note -- This entire post was a Geek Side Note.

Kids and I has Little Caesars pizza.  "Don't tell Mom!"

Rebecca: Away in CA

While Ben is busy starting the GSA app and taking care of the kids in rainy Seattle, I am in sunny San Diego. It is beautiful.

When Ben asked me about this project, I said sure no problem.  My daughter's cheer coach asked if I could be the Cheer Team Mom.  I said I would love to help. Of course, my company scheduled a week long meeting for the 1st week of October. My dear friend is having a baby, and I wanted to host a baby shower.  It was originally scheduled for September. My work interfered, and it is now scheduled for Friday...when I get home from my CA business trip.  My cup overflows.

When starting something new or different or out of the comfort zone, there is always a million reasons to delay. Like most people, I have a lengthy to do list, and I am always adding to it.  Sometimes, you just have to jump in and know that everything will work out.  Everything that needs to be done will get finished.  Blog for Zenerdgy, check.  Finish Cheer basket for auction fundraiser, check.  Complete reports for meeting, check.  Order baby decorations and gift, check.  Now...what about that Zenerdgy marketing plan????

Designing the App

Well today I started designing the the Game Score App.  Until I can finalize on an App name, I will just refer to the project as GSA for short.  My method for creating the initial app usually involves my white board and writing down all the functions that the App should perform.  I also try to answer a few questions that can affect the design.    I usually go through a few versions of the white board scribblings.  I take a picture of the previous thoughts before erasing it and starting on another thread of thought.  This allows me to keep the picture as 'notes' that I can transcribe to my electronic notebook or to directly to code.  For example:

What is basic functionality and what is optional?  Should the product us the latest iOS features and goodies?  (Yes, Please!)  Should the product support earlier versions of iOS?   How often does the normal world upgrade the operating system on their devices?  These are some of the decisions I have to nail down this week along with a formal schedule of deliveries.  The schedule will allow Rebecca and I to see how well I am progressing on the project.

- Geek Side Note - For the previous week, I have been tinkering with the latest iOS Game building API, called Sprite Kit.  It allows you to build a game using scenes using a gathering of Nodes or building blocks strung together to perform animation, sound, and other neat effects.  Our next version of Letter Rain will be using this framework and I am considering it also for this project.  This would allow me to build screens to represent the data (players, scores, games) in different interesting ways.  TBD.

I have started a project in Xcode, the development environment used in building iOS Apps.  I also started a note/design section in my electronic notebook.  FYI, I have been using Circus Ponies excellent  Notebook software for a few years now and still find it very useful for organizing my thoughts or just capturing relevant data.

- Geek Side Note 2 - I noticed that "Words with Friends" is still having slight problems with my iPad when rotated in iOS 7.  It is nice to know that a popular App with a full development team and budget can also run into problems in their product.  For selfish reasons, it is nice to know it can happen to every developer/team.