We made a few movies of Nano running around in the snow. She seems to enjoy sticking her nose in it a lot. You can see how it sticks to her paws, turning them in cotton-ball-paws. We can only get it out by putting her in the shower, which she doesn’t particularly like.

Mirrored from tanniespace.

Tags: nano, snow, stuff

It started snowing a few days ago, a fairly rare event judging from how the trains stopped going. On the other hand, that says more about the trains than the actual weather.

Nano enjoys the snow very much and randomly barks at it when she sees it falling. She loves rolling around in it, for some reason, sticking her nose in it and getting covered with snow. It sticks to her fur a lot, she needed a shower to get it all out. She looked like one of those cotton-ball-sheep :)

Mirrored from tanniespace.

Tags: nano, snow, stuff

I crawled out to the T-shop to pick up my phone and got a replacement one. As far as I can tell, I got a brand new one, yay! I didn’t put the backup back; instead, I went for a clean install, selecting the apps I wanted and setting it up from scratch. So happy to have it back!

Mirrored from tanniespace.

Tags: geekery, iphone, repair, t-mobile

The T-mobile site update my repair status with:

Result of repair:
You can pick up your phone at the T-shop.
Warning: if you get the confirmation that you can pick up your phone, it could take up to 3 workingdays before you can.

They should give me a ring from the T-shop when they have it, hopefully Thursday or Friday. I suspect they’ll send it out today, so maybe even tomorrow, yay!

So far, everything went pretty smoothly and if it works when I get it back, I’ll feel very happy ☺

I miss my touchscreen…

Mirrored from tanniespace.

Tags: geekery, iphone, repair, t-mobile

Because my favourite shopper app has now gone mental, I decided I should write my own. I have no idea how to, and have so far not tried writing anything for the iPhone, it should turn into a neat little adventure.

So far, I have read a little on Apple’s iPhone Developer site about Human Interface Guidelines and Planning your app. I’ve also did some looking around and thinking about a database structure, and what kind of things I do and what I don’t want in my app. Currently I have:

• multiple lists
• checkboxes to check of items
• a cart
• separate totals for ‘in cart’ and ‘on list’
• item info including: name, category (sort-per-store) and / or aisle, note, store, per-store-price, photo

I haven’t made my mind up about coupons / discounts, because I rarely use them. However, when I do, I like them showing up in the price.

I’d also like to make it so that the lowest price has a visual feedback if you have selected a store — something Handyshopper always did very well. I want the interface as clutterfree as possible, and from what I can tell, I have some pretty good options with the default iPhone thingies.

Mirrored from tanniespace.

Tags: app, geekery, iphone, programming, shopping

I still want to tweak the layout, the pages list only shows up at the home-page, where it maybe should show up everywhere — navigation matters. Also the search box shows up at the bottom, but maybe I should move it to the top.

I’ve added the little snowman to the home-page at least, to sync it with the main site’s design.

I have also tried to keep it small. It currently loads at a 135kb for the main-page. Looking into making it less KB (the full version consists of 1MB of files, also trying to make it smaller). Just because a lot of us have fancy speedy connections doesn’t mean I should aim for that. I aim for the average speed and hope it doesn’t take too long to load either page.

Mirrored from tanniespace.

Tags: mobile, phone, random, site

Over the years I’ve collected software (for my Mac) that I use on a daily basis and wouldn’t want to live without. Sure I could find alternatives, but these programs suit me the most. I often pay for software, something some of my friends find ridiculous :)
I’ll happily pay a hardworking person for their work, especially if their work makes my live easier. Before I buy software I check it out thoroughly, which includes not only the software itself but also its help-function/support, the update policy (when to pay for the next update) and how much I’ll get ‘locked in’. I don’t like getting locked in and choose applications that allow me to export to a sensible format.
I also look for something that supports Applescript, because with Applescript I can do thinks more smoothly. I love it when I can script repetitive tasks, and I very much like using shortcut keys instead of a mouse.

Mirrored from tanniespace.

Tags: geekery, geeky, mac, software

I’ve not used my iPhone for a little over a week now, and I miss it somewhat. Every now and then I think oh, I want to play ‘Spider’ or something like that, and then realise I no longer have my iPhone. I’ve noticed I don’t really want to use my current replacement phone. Pressing those buttons hurt my fingers too much. I love the touch-interface. I didn’t know — though I suspected as much — how much easier that touch-interface works on my hands.

Currently, the repair status (which I can check online) says “Your phone is in repair.”. The next step will tell me what they found, if anything, and what will happen next. I hope it’ll update before the weekend, but suspect it might take a few more working days.

I like the online status check. Thank you, T-mobile.

Mirrored from tanniespace.

Tags: geekery, iphone, repair, t-mobile

I loved Shopper for quite some time. It was one of the first (paid) apps I bought for my iPhone, and I have stuck with it for over a year. Recently though, the business model the developers have chosen started to irk me. I started getting ‘suggestions’ and ‘FDA alerts’ (whatever that means).

With the latest update, they introduced ads. Ads in a paid app. I have not yet received my iPhone back, but I looked at the screenshots and read what other users wrote. Their screenshots don’t show the real result, and in fact, the screencast on the website shows no sign of these annoying ‘features’.

They state on their website (in the forums):

As you might have noticed, we have introduced a messaging capability to Shopper with this release. We are using it to deliver a number of different types of alerts, hints (based on your feedback) and brand messages. We think there are a lot of innovative and useful things we can do with this capability.
Over the past week, over 14,000 people have checked out an alert from the FDA or USDA and 30,000 people have checked out a Shopper usage hint. So while they don’t please everyone, a great number of users find these features helpful.

So, not only do they introduce an annoying ‘feature’ they also track your clicking behaviour. First of all, you can’t really avoid clicking on one of those stupid ‘messages’ because they clutter your screen and get in the way. Second, eh.. hello… wtf do you check what I click on? They may or may not have mentioned that in the t&c, accessible from inside the app, so no way to read before you buy.

They also write:

(...) just so you know, the costs associated with all of the recent upgrades are now much greater than the $0.99 download fee. So in order to keep the platform up and running, while continuing to build your suggestions into the most capable shopping app available (including this months addition), brand sponsorship is needed. We hope you understand and stick with us, but if not – we will be offering an opt-out subscription in the next release (...)

I can only imagine that this opt-out subscription will consist of a paid subscription. When I bought Shopper, it cost me around €3, a price I happily paid. Why on earth they didn’t keep it there, or even now increase the price, still baffles me.

Instead, they have chosen a business model that forces ads onto loyal users, defending it with numbers and the current low price. When you as a company choose to take the more expensive route — not necessarily a bad thing — you of course have to get that money from somewhere. But with ads in an already-paid-for-app? Seriously?

Goodbye, Shopper, too bad our relationship had to end so horribly.

Mirrored from tanniespace.

Tags: geekery, iphone, shop