Post-mortem report of my free online dating service; Part 1 of 2
Posted by sosuke in ASP.Net, Website Analysis, Websites on February 7, 2011
I registered the domain for my free online dating service, DiveIntoThePool.com, in October of 2007. I decided that along with making my first real startup that I would invest money in that it would be a good idea to do in a language I didn’t already know (ASP.NET), with a database I wasn’t familiar with (MSSQL) and on a platform I had not deployed anything on before (IIS6). My thinking was that along with creating this sure fire website that I could make money though advertising off of I would try and learn as many things along the way as possible. I worked on this project in my evening times while also supporting a medium-core World of Warcraft habit. When I say something took days of research it’s real time passed after work, WoW and a little life.
I had modest goals to measure the success of the site. My first goal after launching was to make more money than I spent in hosting and advertising. After that I wanted to invest all actual profits back into the site so it would continue to grow. I pictured a power point graphic of exponential growth and with a little patience I would be rich!
I broke the site down into smaller and smaller chunks and for every small milestone or functionality I completed I patted myself on the back. Milestones such as getting Visual Studio Web Express to pre-compile DLLs so I didn’t have to place source files on my webserver, which I had none setup at the time, or migrating my new found zip code database from MySQL to MSSQL. Every step I took involved several days of thinking and research.
I swear it wasn’t intentional but I felt like I put as many technical obstacles in between myself and launching the site as possible. I vividly remember spending several evenings, days I felt like, trying to decide on which source control solution I should use. I kept hearing Git this and Git that at the time but it took me a while still to figure out there was no easy way to run a Git server on my home Windows machine. I finally settled into VisualSVN and celebrated when I checked a file in from my laptop and got latest from my desktop! I was on my way.
I stressed over membership and security for a long time as well. Don’t store passwords in plain text, watch out for all user input and SQL injection worries. I had created a pretty full registration and login web of pages before I even thought about creating a admin interface for my users. That’s no problem I thought at first, Visual Studio Web Express came with this very helpful ASP.NET Web Site Administration Tool that I found out, after several more nights, couldn’t be installed remotely on my newly acquired shared hosting environment. Screw it! At that point I had a text file of SQL scripts I was running to do development work that ended up being my “admin” interface to the site.
I had been using my free time since registering the domain working on the site and learning C# but by December 2008 I still seemed far away from launching anything I was proud of. I was doubting my plans and if I didn’t do something drastic soon I would never launch the site. In January 2009 I quit playing World of Warcraft, I disbanded the guild I had put together, transferred onto another server and kept no ties to anyone I knew. Even my real life friends didn’t know where my characters went. Shortly there after I actually canceled my accounts. Suddenly I had all the time in the world during my evenings to work.
Within 5 months of cutting out video games I was able to launch the site in May of 2009. I actually did a soft launch first, running through all of my test cases a few times just to check for any obvious bugs. All of my testing, research, learning and code was live. It took me far to long to get here I told myself and I knew that the hardest hurdles were still to come. No one knows me, I have no track record of success, how on Earth am I going to get people to sign up or even visit my freshly unwrapped free online dating service.
Continued in Post-mortem report of my free online dating service; Part 2 of 2 to read about the end of DiveIntoThePool
Three or More: Monster Match – My first iOS App Store game was approved
Posted by sosuke in Mobile Development on October 15, 2010
My first game, Three or More: Monster Match, was approved for sale on the App Store last night! It’s been a fun time since I started learning Objective-C in August to sending off my game for approval on October 5th. At one point I even considered stopping development and shifting gears into a more familiar language when Apple removed language restrictions on compiled native Flash apps not too long ago.
All development was done in Objective-C in the XCode IDE using the Cocos2d for iPhone framework which was very easy to understand and use. Coming from other languages I was in for a big shock when I had to worry about memory management and actually optimize for my iPod Touch development device I picked up. Getting used to finding my way around Mac OS X was fun as well.
All in all it felt very rewarding to stick with Objective-C as my development language and getting approved last night was an amazing feeling. From sitting down with Learning iPhone Programming: From Xcode to App Store
I was very nervous that I submitted a Halloween themed game for October on October 5th but thankfully it was approved by the 14th! Only 9 stress filled days of waiting, pretty low will all the horror stories I hear about getting approved.
Go get the game and let me know what you think!
Apple removes Flash CS5 export restrictions, should I stop learning Objective-C?
Posted by sosuke in Flash, Mobile Development on September 9, 2010
UPDATE: It’s been over a year since I considered stopping my study of Objective-C and I can gladly say that I made the right choice in continuing to learn Objective-C and native app development. With Adobe’s recent moves discontinuing Mobile and TV Flash development and moving the Flex SDK to ‘an established open source foundation’ it is clear they are no longer interested in investing in the technology and I’m glad I started expanding now instead of waiting for tomorrow. This is one of those rare times in life I’ll get to look back and pat say that I actually made a great choice for my future.
I’ve been a Flash developer for many years now. I was excited about the opportunity to create native apps for the iOS environment when it was first announced but life was too hecktic at the time to start learning Objective-C. A little while later Adobe sources announced that the next version of the Flash IDE, CS5, would be able to export compiled iOS apps! I was thrilled to hear that I could put all my existing ActionScript knowledge into instant use on the iOS devices and I decided again to work on my other projects and learning C# and wait for Adobe to release CS5. Then the 3.3.1 change happened at the same time that Flash CS5 was release, Apple doesn’t want Adobe’s knock off Objective-C apps ported from Flash. I’m at a complete loss, I waited for the dust to settle and it seemed Apple was completely resolved to keep Adobe out of it’s devices.
It was time to learn Objective-C if I was ever going to get into iOS development. I hit the books and started learning all the fun stuff about C and all the strange things I was going to have to work around that I had gotten used to having in ActionScript 3.
Today Apple makes a new statement back tracking on the 3.3.1 sections of the developer license (http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/09/09statement.html) and now Flash CS5 compiled apps are allowed again!
Wait what? I thought Apple was this stone pillar of decision, Steve Jobs even had a post Thoughts on Flash ripping it apart and now it’s OK to put Flash apps on their devices essentially? I’m more than a little frustrated by this. On one hand I’ve started to develop a new skill set in developing mobile applications for the iOS devices and on the other I have a long history of ActionScript knowledge I could use to make iOS apps even faster.
I’m already 70% done with my first iOS app since starting out and now I wonder if I even need to continue to nurture my Objective-C learning because I can just recompile my Flash games and push them right to the store.
I was so mad when Apple first made the decision to reject Flash apps, then I accepted it and started learning Objective-C, now I think I’m kind of upset that they backtracked such a short time but still long enough for me to get neck deep in Objective-C books.
I think I have to finish this first game in Objective-C but after that is it worth the work to continue learning that language now that any language can be compiled down to Objective-C and then approved?