legoboy

Shape Services new iPhone/iPad/iPod t...

Sun, 4 Apr 2010 00:40:17 UTC

Shape Services new iPhone/iPad/iPod touch app, iDisplay is quite a nifty idea. I have really been wanting Apple to let me use my iPod as an extra display, and this lets me do that. iDisplay uses WiFi instead of USB so it's a bit laggy, but it gets the job done. For five dollars it makes a great extra display for viewing documentation or previewing some icons or sprites. Especially when compared to the price of a USB display if you already have an iPad. However, this is not saying it's without frustration.

iDisplay requires installing software on both the iPad and the host computer. Installing the desktop server requires a reboot. This is acceptable, although annoying. I have a 13 inch MacBook and a 1080p external display, so I always have display mirroring disabled. However, after installing the iDisplay server and rebooting, mirrored display mode was turned back on, which was quite vexing. When I turned display mirroring off, my default display disappeared. It turns out a new display for iDisplay was enabled, and was the default display (even though I hadn't started anything yet). I couldn't get the client or server to start in this situation. Eventually, through guessing where the system preferences window was, I moved it back on screen and changed the default display. Now I could finally get started testing.

I ran iDisplay through a fairly normal routine with my iPod Touch. It's great for previewing images while developing iPhone apps. iDisplay is nice, but doesn't feel like it was ready to be released. Both the server and client crashed several times during testing. The server has a menu bar icon, that's enough. It shouldn't also put an icon on my dock and the ⌘+tab list. It really should only add the display when a iPad is connected, but it doesn't. This can make finding misplaced windows a pain. At least the server has a "show in window" option that shows the iPad display in a window.

This app isn't bad. It provides a very useful feature if you already have an iPhone OS device. Although I probably won't use it much until the next version. And I bet the next version will be great on an iPad. As it is, iDisplay isn't good either. It's very buggy and lacks a lot of necessary features. I think they released it early so it would be out for the iPad launch. Get iDisplay if you need it, but know it will probably be a pain to setup.

Sim City has always been one of my favo...

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 22:43:28 UTC

Sim City has always been one of my favorite games. I spent endless hours playing Sim City 2000 (SC2000) in DOS on the family 486. Years later, I got Sim City 3000 (SC3000). It was fun, but didn't have the same feel. Always worrying about garbage disposal quickly became a big nuisance. Christmas 2008, I bought Sim City for my iPod. It's a great balance between SC2000 and SC3000, but it quickly lost its sheen with some annoyances, like having to worry about garbage disposal with the small map size. Cutting down on traffic was a bit of a pain. In SC2000, I always had very successful subway systems to keep my road traffic down, but Sim City for the iPhone has no such ability. With the small screen it's a bit hard to properly build things where you want. Overall, it's fun, until the nostalgia wears off. Sim City is much better suited for the iPad.

A couple days ago I released version 2....

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 09:05:03 UTC

A couple days ago I released version 2.0 of my dashboard widget, Monsters. It turns out a lot of people like it. The first day it was out it was Apple's #1 staff pick. Now it's quickly climbing up the top fifty. If you enjoy this widget there is also an iPhone/iPod touch version.

Alrighty folks. I've decided to start r...

Sat, 6 Feb 2010 19:35:07 UTC

Alrighty folks. I've decided to start reviewing some iPhone Games I've played.

First on my list, Galcon. I've always been a fan of RTS games. Most of the time I disliked the simpler RTS games, but this one is really quite something. You only have one unit type, but it works just right. You don't have to worry about individual units fighting. Instead you are battling over ownership of different planets. You send units from one of your planets to a hostile or vacant planet, and you take it over if you have more units. The AI can be quite challenging and the maps are all randomly generated.

Galcon provides awesome fast game that you can't just play one. Proven by the fact of how many times my brother has run down my iPod's battery. I'd definitely recommend it any day.

I added a RSS feed page to my WOG engin...

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 03:17:26 UTC

I added a RSS feed page to my WOG engine. Enjoy!

Palm recently announced their Palm Pre....

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 01:16:42 UTC

Palm recently announced their Palm Pre. It does look shiny and there will now finally be competition with the iPhone (since so many other companies have failed thus far). However here is the problem, Palm is mudslinging at the iPhone saying it is too slow because it is running Mac OS X. Yes Apple says it's running OS X, but it really isn't. The iPhone OS is only running the Kernel of OS X. For those who don't know what this is, it's the very central program that runs on your computer that allows for everything else to run together nicely. Anyhow, running the OS X kernel on the iPhone should be no problem at all as it is (or apple claims that it is) a microkernel. This means that they are only using the part of the OS that handles memory and scheduling. So, this kernel should be very fast and memory efficient. To conclude, Palm's claim that the Pre is faster than the iPhone may be true, but it is not for the reasons that they have said.

Please stop using the euphemism "DRM." ...

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 19:55:12 UTC

Please stop using the euphemism "DRM." I propose we use a more accurate term; controlled reading and playing, or CRAP for short. For more info visit schutt.org/blog/2008/11/crap/.

My Padlock Widget is currently on Apple...

Fri, 4 Jul 2008 01:31:42 UTC

My Padlock Widget is currently on Apple's Top fifty Widgets. Yay, I'm number 28!

Don't tell him, but my widget is also beating the Chuck Norris Facts widget.

An update adding content!? That's right...

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 20:45:20 UTC

An update adding content!? That's right folks, I now have a new widget available.

Alrighty, it has been a while since I h...

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 19:41:29 UTC

Alrighty, it has been a while since I have posted anything so here are some updates. At the end of last semester my computer decided to die right after my last final. It ended up that all I needed to do was re-solder one little pin of one little chip. That wasn't too bad. If you have a similar problem and are handy with a surface mount soldering iron all you need to do is open your lower case locate the bad chip and re-solder that one pesky pin. Today I also came up with a solution for another problem. My trackpad, being nearly four years old, doesn't work too well. To fix this I took a screen protector for my PDA and sanded it down with a really fine grit. That way it feels smoother. Then cut it to the size of my trackpad and stuck it on. It actually works really well feeling almost as good as new.