The Weather Beautiful app has been updated for Android and BlackBerry phones. Now at version 2.3, the Weather Beautiful is more efficient, and also includes a two percent reduction to the file size of the app.
This is a simple weather app that displays stunning photography of your surrounding area. In addition to the current temperature and weather conditions, the app also allows you to scroll for a full weekly forecast.
Last month I noted that Swift 2 had not yet dropped its Objective-C origins when it came to retrieving website text. Fortunately, Swift 3 has great advances in this area. Getting source of a webpage is now a simple and straightforwards process…
let url:NSURL = NSURL(string: "http://ebscer.com")!
do
{
let responseText:String = try String(contentsOf:url,
encoding:String.Encoding.utf8)
}
catch let error
{
print("Error: \(error)")
}
Tomorrow I will be attending the Hockey Analytics Conference that is being hosted by RIT’s College of Science. I will not be presenting, but I am willing to discuss my college hockey Elo ratings with anyone who is interested.
The upgrade cycle for newer BlackBerry 10 OS versions has stalled out. The use of 10.3.X has remained steady at approximately 90% of usage.
This data was collected by BlackBerry World for downloads of the free strategy game Pixelated and the free checklist app Stuff I Need. Data shown on the chart is from the beginning of August 2015 through the end of August 2016.
10,000 Farkle has been updated to version 2.6 in BlackBerry AppWorld. This update smooths out some of the animations and improves the responsiveness of the game. Additionally the app now uses a custom accent color throughout all of the menus.
Farkle gives you six dice to roll and awards points for a straight, three pairs or three or more of the same number. Fewer points ares also awarded for each individual 1 and 5. Any dice that do not score can be re-rolled for additional points. If all 6 dice can be scored, then all of the dice can be re-rolled on the same turn.
The skill in this game comes from knowing how far to push your luck, and which scoring combinations to take, and when to re-roll.
The default game mode gives you 10 turns to score as many points as you can. The 10,000 point mode gives you unlimited turns to reach 10,000 points. The two competitive game modes both use the traditional format of racing to 10,000 points.
Update: This process has been simplified for Swift 3
Loading the text of a webpage in Swift has not completely dropped its Objective-C origins, which makes the process a little bit less obvious than it should be. Fortunately it is only a few lines…
let url:NSURL = NSURL(string: "http://ebscer.com")!
let request:NSURLRequest = NSURLRequest(URL: url)
NSURLConnection.sendAsynchronousRequest(request,
queue: NSOperationQueue(),
completionHandler: { (response:NSURLResponse?,
data: NSData? error: NSError?) -> Void in
let responseText:String = String(data: data!,
encoding: NSUTF8StringEncoding)!
print(responseText)
})
You may also need to edit your plist file to whitelist the domain.
BlackBerry 10 distribution in July was very similar to what it looked like in previous months. Use of 10.3.x is mostly level near 90%, but the use of 10.3.2 is up slightly.
This data was collected by BlackBerry World for downloads of the free strategy game Pixelated and the free checklist app Stuff I Need. Data shown on the chart is from the beginning of July 2015 through the end of July 2016.
When asking a question in an app, it is important to make it easy for the user to find the right answer to the question. Simply because a question is phrased for a yes/no answer doesn’t mean that presenting yes or no as answers is a good idea. Instead it is a good idea to present the answers such that the right option can be selected even if the user doesn’t even bother to read the question.
The Brexit ballot from earlier this month is an example of good design. The question on the ballet asked if the UK should leave the EU, but the answers to pick from are ‘remain’ and ‘leave’ rather than ‘yes’ and ‘no’. This makes for a better user experience.
The image to the right is from the Stuff I Need app and shows the example of the same design. ‘Delete All’ and ‘Cancel’ do not explicitly answer the question, but give the user the opportunity to pick the right choice, even if they don’t read the question.
As has been the case for the past few months, the distribution of BlackBerry 10 devices has remained unchanged with the percentage of users on OS 10.3.X in the low 90’s.
One thing that was different, is that for the first time we have seen a few phones running OS 10.3.3 which is the long promised final update to BlackBerry 10, that includes zero new third party APIs.
This data was collected by BlackBerry World for downloads of the free strategy game Pixelated and the free checklist app Stuff I Need. Data shown on the chart is from the beginning of June 2015 through the end of June 2016.
By default the finder on Mac OSX does not show the full file path of the current folder. This can make it hard to remember where a folder is, and can cause confusion when working with multiple folders with the same name.
Fortunately, there is a simple fix that will show the full file path in the finder’s title bar.
In the terminal type
defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool trueAnd then to restart the finder
killall FinderAfter that the folders full path will be displayed in the title of the finder.
For the fifth straight month, the distribution of the BlackBerry 10 operating system has been essentially unchanged. The use of OS 10.3.2 has seemed to have maxed out in the low 80 percent of users.
This data was collected by BlackBerry World for downloads of the free strategy game Pixelated and the free checklist app Stuff I Need. Data shown on the chart is from the beginning of May 2015 through the end of May 2016.
The BlackBerry 10 game Head Words has been updated to version 1.3 in BlackBerry App World. This update includes the new Comic Books category, and also includes some supplemental items to the existing categories.
Head Words is a native multi-player guessing game similar to Celebrity, Hedbanz, and Heads Up. After selecting a category, one player places the phone on their forehead while the other players give clues. With one minute to guess as many words as possible, the player can tilt the phone down for each correct answer, or tilt the phone up to pass. At the end of round a word list will show what was guessed right and wrong. The swipe down menu provides an option to turn the sound on or off.
The game includes five categories for free, and the option to purchase access to ten additional categories for a dollar each.
Last week Google hosted their I/O conference for developers. For those of us who develop Android apps for phones and tablets there was very little announced. Android was mentioned often, but more for use in watches and virtual reality than for phones. And when phones were mentioned it was as a platform for Google’s own messaging apps. The biggest new item for developers is the Vulkan API, which as a low level graphics processor is not something most developers are going to use directly anyhow.
It is not just Android, but rather that the smartphone market has matured. It has become boring. Despite being an enthusiast, there is a reason that I am ok with using a two and a half year old phone running a dead operating system. Things are not changing as quick as they once were.
Furthermore new platforms such as wearables, virtual reality, and the internet of things lack the standardized platforms (and stores) that once made phones so exciting.
By default Windows will download and install updates on your computer without any required interaction. This is great, but the problem is that it will also reboot on its own, closing anything you may have been in the middle of working on. No idea why Microsoft approved of this terrible user experience, but fortunately there is a (very hidden) way of preventing it from happening.
First from the start menu, search and open “gpedit.msc”. Then in the application go to Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Update. Then select the option “No auto-restart with logged on users for scheduled automatic updates installations”, then click “Enable”, and then “Apply”.
This will ensure that your Windows 10 machine will only restart when you want it to.
Use of BlackBerry 10.3.X and 10.3.2 remain the same as they have for the last few months. Despite OS 10.3 being out for a long while now, there are still a decent number of users still running OS 10.2.1 on their devices.
This data was collected by BlackBerry World for downloads of the free strategy game Pixelated and the free checklist app Stuff I Need. Data shown on the chart is from the beginning of April 2015 through the end of April 2016.