dasPoda

This is some welcome news.

Microsoft kicked off a website called ie6countdown.com

in the words of microsoft...

"10 years ago a browser was born. Its name was Internet Explorer 6. Now that we’re in 2011, in an era of modern web standards, it’s time to say goodbye."

"There are many benefits of upgrading to a newer version of Internet Explorer – improved speed, tabbed browsing, and better privacy settings to name a few."

Let's hope these people, if they do upgrade, don't go for IE7. Maybe they'll consider Firefox or Chrome, though not very likely.

Now that Microsoft officially and publicly is asking people to stop using IE6, web developers can stop having to support it. Maybe that will reduce the road rage...

I am happy to announce that RIM emailed me this morning with an email that goes something like this

We’re pleased to inform you that your app submission qualifies for the free BlackBerry PlayBook tablet offer.

now I just need to wait ...

We appreciate your patience, as tablets will ship as soon as they are ready and commercially available in your region.

I didn't expect it. I was in a hurry to get it in, as I was expecting at least one round of revisions and it was getting pretty close to the deadline which I thought was February 1st or 2nd. I just found out that the offer was extended to March 15th, which I read as validation of the pushed back release date rumors.

I just submitted my first (and hopefully not last) playbook app.

I found out recently that they are giving away playbooks to developers who get an app approved. I feel like I rushed it a bit, but with the deadline being on Feb 1st, I wanted to make sure it has enough time to go through at least one round of reviews.

The process was a bit of a stumbling path, but mostly because I'm so used to FlashDevelop,, that I didn't want to use FlashBuilder as I could find myself focusing on the wrong things. I've installed the AIR 2.5 libraries in the Flash folder instead of the Flex/FlashBuilder folder and didn't realize it. I was compiling against an old AIR library and didn't know why I was having issues.

I thought I would give up on FlashDEvelop, but then I came across this post. It includes a link somewhere for an AIR2.5 Playbook Template.

The other problem I had was with creating the bar files, I tried the fruitbat app but it wasn't working. So I was using the batch files which got it to compile. Eventually I figured out what went wrong (and forgot it too) and could get FruitBat to package and install properly.

Later I got the persistent data to work, I was quite shocked how easy it was. I was going to use the sqlite db to store data, but because I'm only storing 3 highscores, a SharedObject was a better choice. (though I did get the sqlite db to work)

Finally it came to submitting. I needed to get a notary to sign their form to verify my identity, because I am submitting as a person and not a business. Once I emailed the form back, ang got approved (today) I set out to submit the file.

I found this to be quite tricky, because they ask for a COD file. I don't have that. After looking around for a while, I've found that other people were submitting the .bar files, so I recompiled and sent that off. Now I'm just waiting.

Playbook please!

http://acquine.alipr.com/

ACQUINE (Aesthetic Quality Inference Engine) is a machine-learning based online system of computer-based prediction of aesthetic quality for color natural photographic pictures. Because of the very limited computational resources and the real-time processing requirement, much complexity reduction in this implementation is necessary. The system demonstrated here is therefore mainly for assessing the potential of such research by the research community and the general public. In our opinion, even though Acquine has much room for improvements, this is an important step in the intersection of computer science research and the arts because it shows that computers can learn about and exhibit some "emotional responses" to visual stimulus like humans do.

After two years (almost to the day) I've decided to end it with cute news. Instead I am now trying out PivotX.

I've moved and kept most of the posts that I thought either I or passers by might find useful.

I'm using a standard template, maybe once I have some time I can do something more custom.