Arik's posterous http://arikfr.posterous.com Most recent posts at Arik's posterous posterous.com Tue, 13 Oct 2009 23:31:02 -0700 80% of Beejive IM Users Are Using an Illegal Copy http://arikfr.posterous.com/80-of-beejive-im-users-are-using-an-illegal-c http://arikfr.posterous.com/80-of-beejive-im-users-are-using-an-illegal-c

Many iPhone developers – such as those behind the popular IM client, Beejive – are reporting that 80 percent of their users are pirates. Yep. For every 10 users on Beejive, 8 of them didn’t pay for it.

(via Apple Moves To Block Jailbreaking In New iPhones http://bit.ly/HKG6t)

When most apps cost $1-10$ and have free alternatives, using a pirated copy is just being a bastard. Specially when most apps backed by small shops and that's the way they make their living.

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]]> Sun, 11 Oct 2009 16:50:00 -0700 Launching Lite Apps – the fastest way to tweet or email from the iPhone http://arikfr.posterous.com/launching-lite-apps-the-fastest-way-to-tweet http://arikfr.posterous.com/launching-lite-apps-the-fastest-way-to-tweet
Ever since I got my iPhone, there was this thing that was really frustrating for me - the time it takes to write a single tweet or compose a single email. While the Mail.app on the iPhone is quite fast, it sometimes annoys me that if I just want to send a quick email I have to go through the inbox and it checks for new mail in the process.

I guess part of the problem is the fact that I'm still using the first generation iPhone, which is slow. But considering the fact that I'm not alone with an old iPhone, I thought that a solution should be available or made. For the tweeting part of the problem I found Twii - a simple app whose all purpose is to compose tweets. It's an OK solution, but I don't like that it doesn't use OAuth and my tweets appear as they were tweeted from "API" (usually a sign for spammers).

So I decided that if there's no reasonable solution for the problem, I should create one. As I already wanted to try the iPhone SDK, so this two small apps seemed to be good candidates for a first project. I started poking around with XCode and Objective-C, but never had the time to really build this apps. Besides the lack of time issue, the fact that I needed to wait for the whole AppStore approval process was a big turn off.

And then it hit me - why should I waste my time on ObjectiveC and the AppStore, when what I want to create is so simple? I did a few experiments and realized that it is possible to create a good user experience with web apps on the iPhone (HTML 5 FTW!). So instead of poking around with XCode and Objective-C, I started poking around with jQTouch.

Today I finally had the time to wrap everything up in a reasonable package. Now after few hours of coding and mainly designing (and without waiting for the AppStore gods to approve my apps), I invite you to try out my first LiteApps - LiteTweet and LiteMail.

This is a very preliminary release of the apps, and I really look forward for your feedback and ideas on this. There's a lot to improve - mainly I want to improve the startup time for this apps, as this is the most important feature. I'm really a newbie in this, but learn quickly.

Please be tolerant to bugs, security issues and other bizzare stuff. Also, please report them to me :) I'm available on Twitter or email.

Arik

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/174371/me_new.jpg http://posterous.com/people/15WYlNBvzTX Arik arikfr Arik Mon, 07 Sep 2009 09:02:55 -0700 The way to make perfect ground coffee cup http://arikfr.posterous.com/the-way-to-make-perfect-ground-coffee-cup http://arikfr.posterous.com/the-way-to-make-perfect-ground-coffee-cup

1. Use fresh coffee and alot of it.
2. Use small *glass* cup.
3. Add sugar after you add water.
4. Stir well.
5. Wait for all the coffee grains to sink before drinking.
 
Enjoy :)

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]]> Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:59:21 -0700 Another Example Of How Wrong The Game And Music Industries http://arikfr.posterous.com/another-example-of-how-wrong-the-game-and-mus-0 http://arikfr.posterous.com/another-example-of-how-wrong-the-game-and-mus-0

The massive Steam holiday sale was also a big win for Valve and its partners. The following holiday sales data was released, showing the sales breakdown organized by price reduction:
10% sale = 35% increase in sales (real dollars, not units shipped)
25% sale = 245% increase in sales
50% sale = 320% increase in sales
75% sale = 1470% increase in sales

(via http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001293.html)

Basically what they proved is that when a game is priced in a reasonable price they sell more. This way sells go up, privacy goes down and everyone are happy (besides the lawyers which have no one to sue for copyrights infringement).

Same thing can be learnt from the AppStore where $9.99 considered as an outrageous high price, but the app developers still make decent I come with those prices due to high volume of sales.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/174371/me_new.jpg http://posterous.com/people/15WYlNBvzTX Arik arikfr Arik Wed, 20 May 2009 00:26:42 -0700 You can't fool Git :) http://arikfr.posterous.com/you-cant-fool-git http://arikfr.posterous.com/you-cant-fool-git


Oops. Now I need to think of commit messages that make sense.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/174371/me_new.jpg http://posterous.com/people/15WYlNBvzTX Arik arikfr Arik Wed, 13 May 2009 12:08:57 -0700 Waiting impatiently... (Twitter is down for maintenance) http://arikfr.posterous.com/waiting-impatiently-twitter-is-down-for-maint http://arikfr.posterous.com/waiting-impatiently-twitter-is-down-for-maint


Just 56 minutes to wait.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/174371/me_new.jpg http://posterous.com/people/15WYlNBvzTX Arik arikfr Arik Tue, 12 May 2009 14:58:00 -0700 Just Created a Simple Twitter App to Check Who You're Blocking http://arikfr.posterous.com/just-created-a-simple-twitter-app-to-check-wh http://arikfr.posterous.com/just-created-a-simple-twitter-app-to-check-wh

Just created a simple Twitter app using OAuth that allows you to check who you're blocking on Twitter (currently there's no inherent option to see this information on Twitter website). This is very basic and very preliminary - was mainly developed as an OAuth exercise for myself.

I've used the PHP twitter-async library and the code sample by @jmathai.

I would really love if someone could help me with the design :)

Looking forward to hear your feedback,
Arik

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/174371/me_new.jpg http://posterous.com/people/15WYlNBvzTX Arik arikfr Arik Tue, 12 May 2009 05:33:25 -0700 What I want to finish today http://arikfr.posterous.com/what-i-want-to-finish-today-0 http://arikfr.posterous.com/what-i-want-to-finish-today-0
So yesterday I didn't finish all of the five tasks I had planned, but on the other hand I did finish some other stuff there weren't planned (as usual). Today's goals are:
1. Move code to Git.
2. Add better monitoring to the application.

Will see how I do today.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/174371/me_new.jpg http://posterous.com/people/15WYlNBvzTX Arik arikfr Arik Mon, 11 May 2009 11:56:00 -0700 This is why I love bit.ly http://arikfr.posterous.com/this-is-why-i-love-bitly http://arikfr.posterous.com/this-is-why-i-love-bitly

bit.ly is the url shortner we all been waiting for since the creation of tinyurl. It's simply awesome.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/174371/me_new.jpg http://posterous.com/people/15WYlNBvzTX Arik arikfr Arik Sun, 10 May 2009 21:32:00 -0700 What I want to finish today http://arikfr.posterous.com/what-i-want-to-finish-today http://arikfr.posterous.com/what-i-want-to-finish-today
1. Move code to Git.
2. Fix emails for protected accounts.
3. Send out newsletter.
4. Setup Backup MX.
5. Investigate emails serialization.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/174371/me_new.jpg http://posterous.com/people/15WYlNBvzTX Arik arikfr Arik Wed, 06 May 2009 10:44:42 -0700 Checking out Posterous http://arikfr.posterous.com/checking-out-posterous-58 http://arikfr.posterous.com/checking-out-posterous-58

I really like the fact that you don't have actively open an account.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/174371/me_new.jpg http://posterous.com/people/15WYlNBvzTX Arik arikfr Arik