Microsoft released their New Xbox Experience (NXE) this morning. It has a ton of new features.  One of these features is the ability to create Mii-like avatars.

I grabbed the NXE this morning and created the avatar above before heading to work.  Yeah, it doesn’t look anything like me, so? I didn’t want it to look anything like me.  I have a feeling that I’ll mess with the look over the next few weeks until I get something that I am really happy with. I threw this one together in a few minutes.

I can’t wait to play with some of the other features in the NXE tonight.

Update: Looks like Microsoft’s servers (which host the avatar image) are moving slow.  I wonder if they are still working out the kinks. Come back later, maybe it’ll show up.

The first one occurred at my Parent’s house.  We were going out to dinner (for Lori’s Birthday) and a 17-year old ran a red light and clipped the front of our car. She later told the police that she was going “about 45 mph.” The kids were in the car at the time and were pretty shaken up. Lori’s neck and back hurt.

We had to miss a day of work and then rent a car (which was mostly covered).  We also had to get new car seats. Either way, we thought that we were on the road to recovery…

On Saturday, we just dropped the kids off with Lori’s parents.  They had wanted to spend a day with them, so we let him. And we wanted to get some house work done. We were driving back home (to start on a list of items to do) when we were rear ended while trying to yield onto a road. As soon as the guy hit us, Lori’s back went into spasms.  So, we called an ambulance.

I am so glad that the kids weren’t in the car the second time.  It’s bad enough for Lori and I to go through it twice (in a week).  I would hate to have the kids have to go through it.

The police from both accidents say that they weren’t our fault. It sucks that this is happening. It also sucks that now we have to pay the $500 (deductible) twice.  So far, the Christmas season has a fairly bleak outlook for the kids.  The $1000 was going to be for their gifts (among other people). It also sucks that Lori is in a lot of pain.  I’ve been hit before (in the same type of manner, only traveling faster) and I remember how much it hurt along with the long road to recovery.

Blah… What a crappy week.

This new version includes a few cool features. I changed the plain black background to a background that seems to improve viability of the numbers in the countdown. I also made the numbers larger. They were a little difficult to read in the previous version. The last change that I made (and the most requested) was the ability to reorder the events in the preferences screen.

Sales of MyCntdwn have been better than I thought they would be (I didn’t think that anyone would buy it). Now that I see it selling with a decent rate, I want to see how I can sell more. Right now, I am going to assume that quick (and hopefully useful) updates to the app will keep interest in the app high. I hope that doing that will promote more sales. Of course, I am not a sales person and would appreciate any tips.

I have a list of updates that I can make to MyCntdwn for the next version.  I am just not sure which ones that I should make.  I believe that I have one in mind that will make one user very happy. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

I am also up to my ears in development of a new application.  If I just wanted a simple version of the app, I think that I would have been done by now.  I still think that I have a few weeks of development and testing left before it will be ready to ship. I’ve also been trying to play Gears of War 2 which is slowing my progress.

I voted for Barack Obama.

I was going to list a number of reasons why I chose him over McCain, but decided no to. My basic thoughts are that I voted for him for my children and my country. I believe that having a Bush clone for 4/8 more years would be dangerous.

Now the real work (of cleaning up Bush’s mess) begins.

I am leaving work a little early today so that Lori and I can take the kids with us to vote.  I hope that the lines aren’t too long.  Waiting in long lines with the kids won’t be much fun.

I charge the battery all night long while I sleep.  So, every morning I start out with a fully charged battery.

The other morning, I woke up and went to work. The battery had reached the 20% left mark just after 9:30 AM. The battery was dead by 10:00 AM.  I hadn’t really used it that heavily during the morning.  I checked email a few times on the way into work and listened to music during the morning. I wasn’t using GPS or doing anything crazy.  Just normal usage.

On the other hand, a few days before that, I had wanted to drain the battery to get through a battery cycle (as recommended by Apple - roughly once a month).  I didn’t charge the phone at all during the day.  I listened to music on it, watched a number of videos, took some calls.  It got to the point where I had to just let a few hour-long videos play through at the end of the night just to get the battery all of the way down. The phone finally shut itself off around 10:30 PM.

I am not quite sure why the battery acts like that.  On normal days, I just charge it a few times while sitting at my desk. I did come across a few tips that can help (Apple - Batteries - iPhone, iPhone 3G battery draining too fast? Try this).

I wonder if my super short battery days are a result of an app crashing and then continuing in the background.  I will have to keep an eye on it. I have already put a few of the other tips to use.

We watched the World Series this time around.  If the Phillies hadn’t been in it, we wouldn’t have watched it. I haven’t really followed baseball in a long time, but it was exciting to watch the hometown win one. We even let Ryan stay up for the final few innings last night.  He was pretty excited to see them win.

Lori and I watched the news for a while after they won.  We’ve decided that (inebriated) people in large crowds do really stupid things.  Setting fire to anything (fireworks, clothes, etc) is really dumb in that situation, and we saw plenty of it.

It’s exciting to know that I went to see a game the year that they won the championship.

I wonder if Matthew will have to wait until he’s 30 (like me) to see the Phillies win again.  I hope not.

MyCntdwn

I just had my first native iPhone (and iPod Touch) application (MyCntdwn) published to the Apple iTunes App Store.

This little adventure started a few months ago.  I had written a web-app for the iPhone (and iPod Touch) called iPhone360Voice.  But I wanted to do more.  Apple released the iPhone SDK and I thought that it would be a great opportunity to write another app and learn Objective-C.  I immediately downloaded the SDK and did nothing with it.

After a month or two of completely ignoring the SDK, I decided to pick it up.  I looked at the samples provided by Apple and what little information that I could find online and started writing an application.  I had a few ideas and started with what I thought would be the easiest to do.  I got into writing an application (which isn’t released yet), got stuck and put that one on hold.  At that point, I started working on a new one (which became MyCntdwn).

The development process was very slow at first.  It would take me a while to do the smallest things.  I would show Lori my progress and she would give me that look like “That’s it?” I stuck with it though.

When I felt comfortable that I had a working product, I joined the Apple iPhone Developer Program and got my iPhone certificates (developer, Ad-Hoc distribution and App Store distribution). At that point, I was finally able to load the application onto my iPhone.

When i got the app onto my phone, I was basically done with the app.  Then it was a matter of testing it.  I spent about two weeks testing it on my Phone.  I also gave it to Brad and he helped out a bit.  We both found a bunch of bugs that I was able to knock out. I don’t think that I got them all, but I hope that I got enough. Lori even did some testing for me.

In the middle of testing, we started dreaming up new features.  I almost started putting them in, but figured that I would keep them out until the next revision of the application. These new ideas are nice and I hope that I can get them in there.

The app was ready.  I was ready to put it on the store.  I found out that the original name for the app (Countdown) was already used on the store. My second choice “My Countdown” was a little too long to show up correctly under the icon.  I finally decided on MyCntdwn.  It fit and wasn’t completely annoying. Once I decided on the final name, I had to rework a few things in the app, test it again and then submit it.

I submitted the app to Apple on Thursday evening (10/16/2008) and it was approved and listed on the store on Sunday afternoon (10/19/2008). I was surprised that they approved it that quickly.  I was expecting the app to be rejected once or twice (from the various accounts that I’ve read). But it was approved and listed on the store.

The app development wasn’t all roses and sunshine.  For most of the development time frame the NDA was still in place, so it was hard to find some really good tips and information outside of Apple. I had to do some  of the development with trial and error. I also spent a few hours looking for some hidden nuggets of information that should have been obvious.

I’ve also noticed that when I finally got the Ad-Hoc distribution working (which took longer than I wanted), I had trouble deploying the app directly to my phone in debug mode. I still haven’t gotten it back on there yet.  I’ve had to distribute an Ad-Hoc version of it and pop it on the phone. I hope that I figure that out soon.

I already have two more apps planned and am working on the next one (the one that I stopped working on earlier). I made it past the issue that was hanging me up.  I hope to have this second one finished in a few weeks.

Now, I just need to find a way to promote my iPhone app(s).  Anyone have any ideas?

I decided to plead not guilty to the ticket and asked for a court date.  Today was that day. I did a lot of preparation for this day (including trying a favor from a neighbor). My court time was set for 11:15 AM. I arrived early, as suggested, and looked for the police officer who cited me.  I couldn’t find him, so I checked in.  I was directed to the courtroom.

Once inside the courtroom, I saw that it was packed with fellow offenders.  I found out that they were offering the same deal to everyone who didn’t go twice over the speed limit (50 in a 25 - in my case).  The deal was to: plead guilty to doing 30 in a 25, receive 0 points, and receive a reduced fine. I was ticketed at 41 in a 25.  I waited until they called my name and took the deal.  The court is going to send me some money back.

I am so happy that they gave everyone a deal.  I am also glad that I decided to go to court rather than just pay the fine.  I was away from the office for less than an hour and had a nice outcome. The courtroom was swift and efficient. I am very happy with the outcome.