TOTOCASTER.COM

It’s brilliant, brilliant, brilliant…

I won’t review this device because you all know what it is from gazillions of other reviews and videos. But I have to say, it’s much more impressive in real life than in ads or reviews. Go for it, you’ll never need notebook again. iMac + iPad is a brilliant combination for work and life.

Wordpress app is seriously crappy tho; at least it works.

Update: iPad really does show it’s power in real life as I was predicting, or rather hoping it would; see “Computing Platform for the Rest of Us” (Feb 28)

“A group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content.” — Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein

Progress is good; but is it? Just about 2000 years ago, around 59 BC , as ordered by Julius Caesar, government announcements were hand-written on paper and posted in public places. That was first steps. In 17th century newspaper was born as we know it today, printed and edited. Therefore editorial media was born.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m proud to announce Bubbles app for iPad. Which is still in “super-secret” mode, some of you could guess what it’s going to be, but I’m confident that non of you could imagine how different and cool this app will be.

Currently Bubbles App is in middle of it’s very fast development process. I’m planing to roll it out late or mid this summer. More updates to come, stay tuned.

Don’t forget to visit official web to drop your e-mail and follow @bubblesapp.

Seriously, I was in a cage with two lions… adorable lion kittens.

This photo is by far my favorite from whole photo-set. Read on for more. Read the rest of this entry »

Once you’ve managed to collect team members and decide on what platform to develop games you have to start actual development, which includes not only coding but scripting plot and storyline, and sketching. There are only two aspect which defines good game: idea and implementation, an both of them work in anything regardless of product. Especially important is implementation part. In this article I’ll skip sketching and scripting because they are fairly simple processes which need colossal amount of brainstorming sessions. I’ll focus on game-engines.

Read the rest of this entry »

There was a bit of an argument today between @otomeskhy, @iosebi and me (@totocaster) about open letter by Steve Jobs about Adobe Flash. This inspired me to write this post.

Before you start reading please bare in mind, I’m reviewing only consumer software with user interface and human interaction involved.

The idea of cross-platform software is brilliant; ability to run same piece of software/code on any platform without changing it cool and funky… but only in theory and some very-rare exceptions which I assume exist, personally tho… I’ve never seen one.

Read the rest of this entry »

This blog is Twitter Anywhere enabled now. Any Twitter username starting with @ will have something Twitter calls “hovercards”. Currently I’m working on second part of game development article and afterward I’ll write something in detail about @anywhere API.

By the way, don’t forget to follow @totocaster.

Buying a new car has been always been hardest thing in my life to do; well, not buying actually, but picking up the one I want. It is impossible. There are several reasons for that: my current  car, dilemma called “new vs. used” and selection of new cars in Georgia, which is poor.

My current cars is ‘97 Mitsubishi Gallant ES with unbelievably reliable and rev-y 2.4L petrol engine; in fact, whole car is built like a tank and literally indestructible, which is odd for simple city saloon car, which it is. This is the problem form me. Thing is that in my mind there are only two types of cars, ones that make you feel happy and deliver ultimate driving pleasure and other ones that doesn’t. Usually cars ordinary people can afford are in the second group, they are just tools to move you around city or country. And somehow after two years of extremely heavy usage and punishment my car still does it fine. I simply can not get rid of it, it never breaks down, and even if it does — it still works and goes like a stabbed rat; and in my mind if car does what it has to do, there is no point selling or replacing it.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve resumed learning Japanese… yet again. My very dear friend kindly agreed to help me with that because learning Japanese independently is a bit nightmare for me. It is not difficult but it’s very strange and doesn’t look like any other language I know. Reason I’ve decided to learn Japanese is unknown because I wanted to speak, read and write it form early childhood without any reason, but true reason I’ve resumed studying is that I’m really interested in this country and because it’s that closed and independent form while planet earth. For example, Japanese internet is a whole new world, it has tons of very interesting information not available for us only because no Japanese cares about own knowledge, so there are no translations.

When I say “us” I mean ordinary people and not geeks and IT-pros.

Tablet PCs were always underpowered laptops, with stylus and touch-screen which you could proudly show-off to your friends — and that’s all it was. I always wanted one but couldn’t choose from selection, because they all had unbelievably silly price-tag and even more silly performance. But that was least of it’s problem, main one was an operating system it was running — Windows. But don’t get me wrong, Windows is fine and it was only proper operating system back in early 2000’s. Thing is that Windows and even my favorite Mac OS X weren’t designed for fancy touch-screens and fingers on your hand, what for they were designed had keyboards and accurate pointers built-in, like mouses and trackpads: Desktops and classic notebooks.

Read the rest of this entry »