Me with Authentic Battle Damage Blog

Strategic Time Management Techniques

2011-11-10T04:00:00.000-08:00

It has been four weeks since I left my job to do iOS development full time. I am very happy with my decision. The thing I enjoy the most is I don't feel like my attention is split between different technologies anymore. I have been working in iOS since 2009 when I created my first game. I was also going to school fulltime and working fulltime while creating my game. It was tough.

Working from home on iOS applications has been awesome. I do meet up with my partner in crime regularly every week but the ability to work in my comfys is a huge benefit. But there are some things that I need to fix to make things better.

Working this way requires more discipline and the ability to stay on track. I have been searching for tools, tricks and some new ideas on how to keep myself productive and on track. I want to share two things that have made a huge difference.

Organizing work

One great tip I learned from my friend was to organize work based on complexity. Do that work that requires more of your mental capacity when you are fresh and ready for it and save easy stuff for later when you feel more tired. When I start to feel myself getting tired I will start slicing up images or do some repetitive that doesn't require a lot of concentrated thinking. The feeling I have after doing this is phenomenal. I always feel productive this way. Because even if I get tired I have important things I can do that will make my work easier for the next day. I am constantly looking for these types of opportunities.

Another great improvement over my ability to organize has been my source control. Moving to git has changed the way I think about my code. I am more mindful about how I work and what slices of work I choose to do. I am always asking myself before I start what will my commits look like. With git I have more control over my commits and can change what my commits look like whenever I want (EXCEPT if I have already pushed my changes for other people to grab. Don't do that)

What tips do you have that increase your productivity? Please share them with me in the comments.

Custom Merge Drivers and others solutions

2011-09-15T16:34:00.000-07:00

For this iDevBlogADay I wanted to continue with my problem from last time. Git is the best version control system I have ever used. It changed the way I look at version control. In fact I would go as far as to say that it's the first time I really understood what version control could be. It changed the way I work on my iPhone games. But last time I explained that it's not all rosy.

Trying to merge the xcodeproj file can be a pain. It's hard to read and understand what is going on and requires you stop what you are doing and figure out how to correct it. Otherwise you may not be able to even open your project. And recreating your project file is just not an acceptable solution. I have a couple of ideas that I am going to try in addition to the one I gave last time.

ReReRe

rerere is an option that you can turn on in git that allows you to do a merge once and it will remember what you did and do it again for you. Like I said these are things I am going to try and see how they go.

Custom Merge Driver

Custom merge drivers allow you to specify a script that you can use to figure out how to merge a file with a specific file extension. Though this method would probably require that I figure out how the project file works and then write a script to parse it I still think this is an interesting option. And perhaps one I could share with other Xcode devs.

I apologize for my posts being terse but I am in the middle of an awesome iPhone project and enjoying myself too much. Breaking away to blog has been tough the last two weeks. Until next time please check out the other great dev's that post for iDevBlogADay!

Xcode Project Files And Git

2011-09-01T02:00:00.000-07:00

This is my first iDevBlogADay post. I am excited to be sharing with you some of the things I find interesting about iPhone game development.

I love git.

There haven't been too many tools that got me excited about programming like git. I use to think that version control was a necessary evil and something I 'should' do. I always knew that it was important to version your code. Especially when that something really bad would happen and you could go back to a previous version. But version control systems just never seemed that approachable to me.

But when I learned that git was awesome at branching it opened up my mind to better ways to organize my code. I immediately started using feature branches and got a huge boost in productivity. It made coding fun again. Even exciting.

But when I started working with someone else on an Xcode project I began to feel some pain with the xcodeproj file. I know that this is not necessarily an issue with git because other people using subversion have the same pain. But none-the-less it is a pain.

The problem is that the format of the xcodeproj file is not a friendly file format to have to merge conflicts. It requires you stop and think about how the xcodeproj file works and can put a halt on your development. I merged these file a couple of times but then a big change made the effort not worth it.

So I googled the answer.

And it seemed the best answer was to put this in your .gitattributes in your project directory

*.pbxproj -crlf -diff -merge

That will treat your pbxproj file in your xcodeproj as a binary file. This is great until two people add a file to the project. Which on wins? Well you have to re-add the file back to your project.

But there is another solution that I am going to toy with. I have not tried it yet but perhaps I will have before my next iDevBlogADay post. I will have to keep you hanging until then.

Stay tuned...

Resting and relaxing

2011-07-06T13:23:00.000-07:00

I have been pretty much drawing all day. It has been therapeutic. I am close to finishing Star Catch with new graphics and some new game play. I am close to having it tested and can't wait to hear what people think.

Why social interactions inhibit learning

2011-05-07T17:06:00.000-07:00

There is an interesting correlation I have noticed between people who have trouble with socialization and their perceived intelligence. The more they lack the ability to empathize and interact socially the higher chance they either have a larger IQ or are recognized to have some gift or talent.

I believe the difference is that learning requires the ability to change often. This includes the ability to rapidly alter your belief systems. And the most important belief is our identity. Who we think we are has a dramatic affect on what we believe we can achieve. In social circles though having a quickly moving and different identity creates issues. Humans, especially social humans, require consistency. People who are viewed as inconsistent are harder to trust, understand and identify with. People like to know what you believe in and stand for.

I have always believed that learning requires great courage. Courage to let that knowledge alter who you are and how you think about life. But this was always in the context of existing in a social system. The courage comes from the risk of disappointing those people who might be uncomfortable with your constant shifting and changing. People who do not subscribe to these social systems don’t have this problem. They don’t care.

How does this affect how I learn?

Inspiration and Hacker News

2011-04-30T08:33:00.000-07:00

I have been doing something fun the last month and thought I would share. I will typically have a topic or theme in my head each day and sometimes for several days. I am usually pondering how to learn something faster or how to make what I have learned available to me for finding patterns or new relationships. Find good material is sometimes difficult to help me explore the edges of the topic and leverage what other people have learned. Googling for key terms just doesn’t cut it anymore.

When it comes to news aggregate sites I frequent only two. Hacker News and Reddit Programming. I will occasionally pop over to the other sub reddits that I am interested in. I have been favoring Hacker News mostly because I have found the topics to be of higher quality. I also never click to the next page which helps me not spend too much time on reading blogs.

What I have been doing is starting my Hacker News readings with going to their google search and putting in the term I am currently noodling about. I have been surprised at the great blogs I have found and the articles on the topic of interest. This morning I had an interesting dream that led me to think about the connection between doing what I love and learning. I made a bunch of interesting connections between my current situation and where I want to be. When I searched Hacker News I found three really great sites that further gave me more to think about.

Give it a try.

Game Development Tutorials

2011-03-04T08:33:00.001-08:00

I have been thinking about sharing some of the neat things I have learned as I have been going through the process of updating my game. Besides sharing some of the best articles I have found and the new processes and tools I have adopted I thought I could also create some of my own tutorials. I have debated wether I should repeat some of the tutorials I have found or just share those to fill in space. I think I still need to think about that one.

Right now I am going to go out with my wife and have some fun.

How to setup your own personal Minecraft Server (kinda)

2011-01-21T06:17:00.000-08:00

Unless you have been living under a rock you already know what Minecraft is. If you don’t go ahead and check it out.

My kids and I have been enjoying the game for the last many months. I took one of my computers and dedicated it to a minecraft server. I thought I would share what I did in case anyone else wanted to create their own. The process is really simple.

I want to explain that this is not an exhaustive explanation on the process. I am really writing about this so I can reference this when I may have to reinstall the server again. My hard drive recently crashed and I had to look up all of the commands to get it back to where I needed it. So in short this is my way of documenting the process and sharing it at the same time. Perhaps I will elaborate on this when I get more time.

I downloaded Ubuntu 10.10 server for my operating system. Ubuntu server does not have a graphical interface, it is only command line. This may be new to some people. If you want you could also download and install Ubuntu desktop which does have a graphical interface. What I am going to explain has to do with server, the command line version.

My server is 32-bit so I downloaded the 32-bit version.

1. Download the ISO and burn to disc
2. Make sure your computer will boot from the CD-Rom
3. Insert the Ubuntu Server disc in the computer and start it up
4. Go through install process

Here is the part I really want to document.

Minecraft require Java.

Installing Java

Here are the commands to install Java on ubuntu 10.10 server.

sudo apt-get install openjdk-6-jdk

Give server a static ip address

back up interfaces first

sudo cp /etc/network/interfaces ~
sudo vi /etc/network/interfaces

basic vi commands

add the following: (replace with your network info and ip address)

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.0.150
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.0.1

reset:

sudo ifdown eth0
sudo ifup eth0

Get and configure FTP

sudo apt-get install vsftpd
sudo vi /etc/vsftpd.conf

uncomment the following

#write_enable YES

write_enable YES

reset:

sudo /etc/init.d/vsftpd restart

Get and configure ssh (so you can connect from your main machine)

sudo apt-get install openssh-server
sudo cp /etc/ssh/sshd_config ~
sudo vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config

change the following:

PermitRootLogin no

add the following:

AllowUsers

reset:

sudo /etc/init.d/ssh restart

That’s it. FTP your minecraft files to your server and start them up. I will leave that process for you to figure out. Like I said if I get more time I can add much more detail but this really is just reference for myself at this point. If you can benefit from it then all the better.

Context and Learning

2010-11-23T06:31:00.000-08:00

Everything I have ever read on learning has highlighted the point that learning in context is always better than learning in abstract. Memory improvement techniques leverage context and association as a way of learning lists of objects. Books that teach you do something will always use an example that people can relate to. A post on Hacker News gives credibility to this.

The ability to abstract an idea and generalize it to another context is where the real power is though. Decomposing an idea and distilling it is a skill worth improving.

Fulfillment

2010-11-17T17:58:00.000-08:00

Today I was thinking about some conversations I have had over the last couple of weeks. There are a couple of people on my project that really impressed me with their attitude and excitement for programming. I asked them to go out to lunch with me because I thought we could discuss something we are all interested in. What I learned was that they very much do love their craft and want to see it become better. They really do embody the attitude and spirit of real programmers. But I don’t know if we really hit it off.

A friend of mine once told me that I should not look to my 9-to-5 job for enjoyment and fulfillment. That it’s a game where no one wins. That makes me sad. I would rather work for myself but I am not there yet and I can’t stand the thought of going to a place I hate. That is enough for me to do something drastic and just quit out of torture.

At my work I have searched for how I can make working for the man a pleasant and fulfilling endeavor. I have spoke with my manager about this very topic looking for ideas and possibly a different point of view. The fact is I feel like working for an insurance company doing Java is just not that exciting. But those two people I mentioned really do make it exciting.

So is it me?

Yeah, I think it is part me. Everyone decides how they will handle and respond to the world around them. Each of us must take ownership over our lives and how we feel. I do believe that. So why haven’t I?

In addition to wanting more personal engagement and ownership at work I have also been fighting this feeling as to why I have not been working on my iPhone apps. I was so excited when I started but then school, work and other responsibilities really burnt me out. Burn out is a real thing that you can’t ignore.

But today I think I realized what I need and how to get myself back on track. I need to fight for what I love. I need to claim what I want and be passionate about it. And when I say passionate I even mean getting a little angry and upset at what doesn’t seem right. I think it is important to open up and share how you feel about things that are important to you. Fight for how you want things to be. The fact of the matter is you cannot please everyone and there will be people who disagree with you.

So, if I hate you… then…. this is me…. caring.

Halloween Illustration

2010-10-31T09:41:00.000-07:00

After Graduation

2010-10-06T04:00:00.000-07:00

So after I graduated I felt like doing nothing. In fact it seems hard to think straight these days because I am not sure what to do with myself. At work I am doing a lot of Java and Flash/Flex and found a neat project to start at home. What I really need to figure out now is how to make use of my degree that I am paying so dearly for.

Lion

2010-10-06T03:55:00.000-07:00

This is a Lion concept I did for a local church. They didn't use it.

Soon... so soon

2010-08-09T03:15:00.000-07:00

The next couple weeks are going to be hectic so I will not be posting as much nonsense. In fact when I get done with school I plan on doing some tutorials. Things I have seen come up in the cocos2d-iphone forum. I have been posting something Monday through Friday for the last three weeks and I am proud that I could keep up with it.

School is just getting the best of me. Finals are coming up and I have to make sure I end well so I can graduate with the highest GPA I can. This is a personal goal for me.

Improvements

2010-08-06T03:15:00.000-07:00

My art has been improving much since I have been practicing more. Some of the things I have learned about drawing in general is to use confident strokes when drawing. What exactly does that mean? Don’t draw slow. You need to understand the line and the movement of the line and just draw it. You don’t have to press down hard when you draw just make a nice smooth draw line.

The other thing I am doing now that I was not doing before is putting in shading. This involves picking a light source and shading the object appropriately. Drawing things from real life really helps with shading so you can get as many examples as possible to draw. Shading will then improve.

Another thing I did was get some different weight pencils that help with making light and dark lines. New pens and pencils always open up my drawings. The way I draw with a pen is very different form a pencil. Sometimes just using different types of pencils can really open up and inspire new drawings.

The Perfect Monster

2010-08-05T03:15:00.000-07:00

The Aliens from the movie Aliens have to be by far the best movie aliens ever. They are flawless. They have a biology that is so cold and impersonal that itself makes them very scary. There have been some Aliens and Predator movies that ruined it a bit for me. Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem killed it a little bit. When they gave the Predator alien the ability to impregnate people I thought that was kind of lame. There is a new game out now but my PC is not powerful enough to run it so I am going to have to wait.

I found some very good anatomy books online that I have been using to practice my figure drawing. Figure drawing is one of the best ways to improve yourself overall because there are so many things you can learn from drawing the figure. Understanding how the bones fit together and then how the muscles attach to the bones and then how they flex or relax depending on what position they are in creates a lot of variable things to draw.

George Bridgman and Andrew Loomis are two authors I really like. You can search for their books on pdf online. I highly recommend them. The other figure drawing book that I really like is Burne Hogarth.

Nineteen Days Left

2010-08-04T03:15:00.000-07:00

And I am done with school. I can’t wait. It’s been a long five years.

On to other things, I started a sketchbook over at ConceptArt.org. I hope to continue adding my sketches and getting feedback on what I can do to improve. So far some of the art I have seen has been fantastic and you can actually see the improvement people are making. It’s fantastic.

Yesterday I had a serious talk with my kids. I asked them what they thought about clearing the town in Animal Crossing for the Wii. They were ok and so we have a new town with new people. Unfortunately we didn’t get a new fruit.

From Idea to Launch

2010-08-03T03:15:00.001-07:00

A year ago I was working on Star Catch for the iPhone. I got started by going out and buying my laptop. When I got it and got home the first thing I did was set my laptop up and begin getting everything I needed to start working on games.

To learn the SDK I read the book Beginning iPhone Development by Jeff LaMarche and Dave Mark. I took a week to go through that book and learn the basics of making apps.

I had already had ideas lined up that I wanted to work on. I ran them by my family. There were three that really stood out. One was a game my wife really liked and the other was Star Catch. I decided to try Star Catch because I thought I could get it out quicker than the other idea.

Star Catch did not require any fancy animations.

My first challenge was to figure out how I was going to write the game. I didn’t know if I had to use OpenGL or if I could use Quartz 2D. My initial tests showed that Quartz might be too slow. So I started reading OpenGL ES tutorials and I was on my way.

I struggled for a week trying to get the lasso part working in OpenGL ES. I tried different things but could not get a good prototype working.

Then I found cocos2d-iphone library. Cocos2d encapsulated a lot of OpenGL that I wouldn’t have to worry about. I believe using libraries like this is a huge time saver and you get the support from the community. Which means you can focus on making games and not creating the billionth game engine. I know there are some people too stupid to realize this and waste a lot of time telling everyone that they should write code using OpenGL and not use cocos2d or unity when they themselves can write code. Instead they get other people smarter than them to write it for them. (I have never used unity for any projects and probably won’t because of the cost).

Once I got acquainted with cocos2d I was up and running at the end of two and a half weeks. From there I coded non-stop any chance I had for another month and a half.

I will continue with this more later

Perspective

2010-08-02T03:15:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of different people in this world working on different things. What people spend their time on improving will be different from what you spend time on. If anything the important thing, at least for me, is that you spend some sort of time improving something. You might be thinking, “What the heck are you talking about?”

I spent some time last night at ConceptArt.org and saw some absolutely awesome art work in sketchbook section. These were kids 16 to 18 years old doing awesome stuff. Looking at all of this I think about where I am and where I want to be and feel the pull. I think this is a mistake though.

I spend my time learning new things the way I do it. A principle I stand by but don’t practice well enough is accepting things for what they are now. You cannot change anything until you realize where you currently are and the current state of things. The fact is I love learning and these young artists should instill a sense of wonder and awe at the cool things I will learn.

Am I reacting to the age difference though? I should not. I remember when I was that old I didn’t have a quarter of the discipline these guys did to study the way they are. But that doesn’t matter. Now is now. One thing I have noticed about becoming older is the perception of time is warped. Even more warped than when I was young.

Awesome books

2010-07-30T03:15:00.000-07:00

I found some great books tonight on drawing and digital painting. I have already learned some important things.

One thing is I am way to impatient when it comes to drawing. I want to draw things fast and get them done. I need to slow down and really think more about what I want to draw rather than doodle all of the time. If I actually spent some good time on a drawing and tried to make it better I would be coming out with some cool stuff.

Spending time working on my drawings and making them look better will make me a better artist and when I do draw things faster I will be able to draw them better. So obvious right?

Here are the books I bought (Affiliate link)

Right now I am planning on relaxing with a focus on drawing when I finish my classes. I have to keep drawing right now so I can keep improving.

Magic Carpal Tunnel

2010-07-29T03:15:00.000-07:00

I love my magic mouse. I don't consider myself an apple fan boy but I do love the stuff the produce. The magic mouse it beautiful. It is sleek and nice to use. I love how you can use your finger to move a picture around. When I am doing my graphic design work I can flow much better than with a standard mouse. And now with the announcement of the track pad I am interested to see how one of those work. That could make interacting with my Mac even nicer.

There is a problem in all of this though. My magic mouse hurts my hand. I only had to use it two times for no more than a half an hour each and my hand and arm hurt like crazy. I think I hurt the tendons because I never used my hand like that before. That really disappointed me. There are some solutions out there (if you are willing to pay for them). I am just using a reset on my wrist while I use the mouse from now on.

The issue though is the damage is done. My hand is really bothering me and if I don’t rest it could get worse. And with school rest is not an option. I just hope I can find a solution that doesn’t end up costing me more money. Like I said, I really love the mouse but it might turn into a love/hate relationship.

How-To Suckage

2010-07-28T03:15:00.000-07:00

I came across this article on “How To: Brainstorm Effectively.” With all articles I first skim the whole thing and get an idea of what they are laying out.

I am immediately put off by the first heading.

Create an Environment That Fosters Creativity

Ok, that is pretty vague. The next sentence says, “There are lots of ways to do this.”

Really! And as I guessed they didn’t happen to explain what those were. In fact their example was “create a safe environment where people know it is okay to make mistakes and ask questions.” Well how do you “create a safe environment where people know it is okay to make mistakes and ask questions?”

Another great tip on how to brainstorm: Stay Focused. What the hell. How do you stay focused?

I think I am going to write my own article.

How to make a million dollars

Step 1. Think of a great product that everyone will love and will have to buy.

Step 2. Sell said product to people

Step 3. Stay Focused

Step 4. Profit!

The problem with this article is they are answering the wrong questions.

In My Back Yard

2010-07-26T03:15:00.000-07:00

imby (In My Back Yard) is a place professionals can go and network their skills and services. I created this icon for the mobile web app that is still being developed. Check out imby!

Let me know what you think.

For the Love of the Game

2010-07-23T03:15:00.001-07:00

I just read an article on stackoverflow about how one can get addicted to programming. The OP asks how can he become addicted to programming like he is to video games. One poster says that happiness is when what you do in inline with your self-image. I am not sure about that.

I know for a fact that my love for developing is tied to making other people’s lives a little better. I want that feedback that my code has been useful to someone else. Usefulness has to be my most sought after feeling. If I am not useful then I should attempt to improve or move on.

I have become burnt out before but it was not programming that burnt me out. It was NOT programming. I would be on projects where people didn’t know what they were doing and wanted me to wait while they figured out what to do. I got bored. It wasn’t the programming that killed me it was the crappy project management.

Preference for learning

2010-07-22T03:15:00.000-07:00

I am foremost concerned with learning. How to improve my ability to learn new ideas and concepts in a way that is useful and productive is my primary goal. I love learning. Even the idea that I really don’t know much about a topic makes me excited about it. I look forward to learning things I don't know. I definitely have a incremental model of acquiring skills versus an entity model.

I know enough OpenGL to be productive but I have not come close to being comfortable enough to do whatever I want. There is a lot to know and this makes me excited.

I still have a lot to learn about graphic design, drawing and painting. This makes me very excited.

It’s like I look out and see a whole land to explore and anticipate how wonderful it will be.

This wonder hasn’t always been with me though. One can be broken of it and I feel like I have in the last four years. People need to reclaim it. There is nothing that saddens me more than someone who has given up.

Including myself.

I like my outlook because it has hope for the future. Ok enough about that.

What I really wanted to discuss I the way I prefer learning. I did horrible in school. I have come to realize that instructor lead classes are great if they are free. I really don’t get a lot of out of them. In fact anything I do get out of them is what I myself have put into it.

That sounds obvious doesn’t it. Yeah, it is to me too. I have had some conversations with people who feel like they learn better in instructor lead classes. I don’t understand really because most classes are chopped up and glossed over. You might spend a lot of money only to have skimmed the topic.

What’s the point? I can get far more from a book and I haven’t spent as much. I believe that learning can only happen if the person being taught takes responsibility for that learning. Being close to finishing school I can say that most of the topics I have covered have only scratched the surface. Sure I have learned some things here and there.

What I have really learned is that there is a lot of stuff I really don’t know a lot about. To really learn it I would have to go out and seek more knowledge on the topic.

The other reason I don’t like instructor lead classes is I am just too impatient. Yeah, I like learning but I don’t learn things for the sake of learning them. I do have an end-game. I do have a reason why I am putting effort and time into a topic. Instructor lead classes go too slow and don’t answer my immediate questions.

I want to understand the fundamental principles of the subject so I can devise my own ways of utilizing the information.