Category Archives: management
Hi,
2 reflexive post in a row 
. sorry about this, are the result of what happened to me on the last days 
i bring a complicated subject today. there are people who lead and people who follow, has been like this from the beginning of the time, when our ancestors lived in the jungle or whatever, there has been always someone that have marked the path to follow and those who followed that path.
how this is related to development? well, it can help you to figure out how to reach a position on a company or even help you to decide what to do with your career, or just help you to be a better person, ergo, a better dev. also could help to managers to determine the potential and role of the employees, to optimize their work.
first of all, let define the roles:
Leader
the leader is the one who have defined a direction, a path to follow, that can or not know how to transit that path, but is determined to figure out how to do it. have the enough self determination and self confident that what he thinks is right, but at the same time, should be able to listen their surrounding and take decide accordingly.also a leader is able to recognize their errors and take the decision to fix them.the leader can be nice with their subordinates and transmit to them security and trust but at the same time, have respected with them and draw line that separated both classes whiteout needing of fear and in a polite way. the most important skill of the leader is that they can keep a cold head and take objective decisions and do not regret them even if they are incorrect.
Follower
The good follower will follow, but also will high his voice in case see something wrong or can say something useful. the follower need to realize that is part of a engine, that is the fuel of that engine and should be responsible of his acts and attitudes, why is what the leader expect from him. the follower should have initiative, trying to be a perfect his skills and always be useful, be the fuel for the engine that the leader will use to transit the path. this should not sound like the follower need to be something like a slave, need to be the opposite, need to be a constructive asset to the organization.
all of this could sound too philosophic but i’m getting to a point here that is the following:
Nor the leader or the follower are more important between them, one could not exist whiteout the other, and complemented to build something bigger, a organization.
my personal opinion is that you need to born as a leader, you cannot convert into one, and vice-versa. and you need to know that you are not more or less important if you are a leader or a follower (is what i tried to say earlier), but is important that you know what you are, to focus on that and don’t waste yours and other resource in something that you will never be.is possible that you are a leader or a follower and do not know it, it’s a matter of look in yourself, be sincere, review your past, present and future, try to review your way of thinking the stuff and evaluate your decision on stress situations that you could have on the past, when you needed to take decisions (and if you didn’t have one, create it). to determine who you are, is just a journey of self honesty.
no matter what you are, if you know who you are and what is your place in the world, you will find the answer at your questions.
so, you are a follower or a leader?
Regards,
Shadow.
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Hi,
yesterday i received a email from the android market (i’m subscriber as developer, i hope to launch a app soon ) saying that are introducing content level rating to the app’s listed at the android market.
the level contents available are:
- All
- Pre-teen
- Teen
- Mature
there is needed that all the app’s have set a content level before November 30, you can do it on your developer console at http://market.android.com/publish. if you don’t do it, the app will be marked as mature to ensure the user experience.
you can get more info about this change here: http://market.android.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=188189
Regards,
Shadow.
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Hi,
some thing i like when i work is to make checklists with the things that needed to be done. some time ago my boss give me some check lists in paper, and was fun to take notes there and check the items that was done, it seems to be faster for me for some reason. the thing is that the paper have run out and i didn’t find something similar. so my PM discovered The Big Picture . is a web app that let your create list of things with check boxes in something like a desktop, where you can move whatever you want the lists to use them. also you can group the lists in projects, so is more easy to handle. the app also have the feature to send invites, so the users can also work on the lists of the projects, and all is in real time (you can see when the user is writing or checking a list item). the system allows you also to convert that items list/elements into events, scheduled in a specific date.
is a useful (at least for me) software that let me keep record of the things i made and share it with my workgroup. the usability is very good and friendly, minimalistic. the only thing against is that is made in flash, and in linux you know, it stucks some times, but is manageable.
if you want, can see a video of his features here.
i encourage you to try it and let me know 
(the signup is free BTW)
Regards,
Shadow.
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Hi,
some months ago, working over a project and designing the architecture and technical spects, we got a moment where we needed to get or build a streaming platform. the problem was, that the streaming platform will needed to have a Q&A module, a way to share the desktop or ppt and other features. then searching in the web, i found Big Blue Button.
this open source project aims to build a free E-learning and Conference platform, from their web can be read as:
Our vision is that starting a web conference should be as easy as clicking a single metaphorical big blue button. As an open source project, we believe it should be easy for others to embrace and extend. And while web conferencing means many things to many people — our focus is to make the best web conferencing system for distance education.
the software is a conjunction of different technologies as java, flash, red5 etc.. to provide the streaming of the content to the users, is a big project, stable for now that really make the work. the only problem is that is not as-easy to install and configure than use it. for use it you just need a flash-compatible browser, but at the installation part, you need a dedicated server, linux-based, and follow a lot of configurations and installation process. i think is not for all the people but is a perfect project to customize /integrate in your own web application. also, the license of BBB is LGPL so can be integrated in any closed source project.
if you want, can try a live demo here
i hope it help you in some way
Regards,
Shadow.
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Hi,
2 days ago my boss was talking with a developer, and he recommended to change our phpmyadmin and use a one file DB manager called DBKiss
so, i installed it (what only take to extract from the compressed file) and tried it. the interface of course is not “nice” as the phpmyadmin but is functional, you have almost all the same functions except the one of privileges as phpmyadmin, but you can execute sql queries, so if you know what you are doing, can be done manually.
the advantages of use DBKiss from phpmyadmin is the speed, is a lot more faster, even can make dumps of big SQL databases, something that phpmyadmin sometimes fails. also i think is more secure against attacks, like is less used and depends only from 1 file (anyway, if you have a DB manager that can be accessed from the web, always need to be in a protected directory)
the only thing i feel a little annoying is that force you to write the DB that you want to access to login. i usually login as root in the DB as i need to manage several of them, so i going to need to have the name of some at hand for the first login
i’d recommend you give it a try you can download it from here: http://www.gosu.pl/dbkiss/
Regards,
Shadow.
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Hi,
the developers/designers/IT people, even that most of us made the work that we love, stay for so much hours in front a computer thinking or some times making a repetitive task, it usually drawn the motivation and start to stressing the people.
in the past years i learned ways to avoid this, that will help you to complete your job and live a more comfortable life
Eat well, is the fuel of your body !
here i’m not saying you should eat less/more or make vegetarian. the key is just in the variety and the control in the foods. in a practical example, i usually eated too much meat and coke. and that make me have less energy, as the energy come from the carbohydrates and the time that the body takes to process the food is more. so i started mixing with salads, soups, rice etc.. i didn’t leave the meat 100% but now the meat is at 40-30% of my dish. should be less, but at this quantity is improving my life quality and i don’t feel that i’m eating ugly stuff .
also what you drink is important, i drinked too much coke, now i don’t leave it but i mix it with tea and milk.
Disconnect for some time
you can work for more than 8 hours per day if is needed (is not recommended) but you need to take breaks off from the computer, doing anything offline. the sports are a good idea, but if you don’t like any, can also play a instrument or spend some times with beloved ones. you can have 2 types of breaks, small ones of 15 minutes of each hour or big breaks of 1-3 hours after 5-6 of work.
Activity anti-distress
another measure is to make anything that really you want to do as, play a video game or learn a new language of programming, no matter what, whiteout worrying about the time or anything. look for a day or more at the week to make that activity.
this are some simple tips, really it need to be tested by you and see what fits better for your life and personality.
i hope this help you some way
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Hi,
recently in the net has been a lot of wars, adobe vs apple, html vs flash, etc.. i have seen many of them in the years, like C vs java but now i’m seeing (or maybe is just an illusion why now i’m using twitter and i can see more opinions than before) more fanatism in technology/trends/languages etc.. and i’m seeing in a extreme that going to be harmful, not only for the people but also for the technology in general.
why i’m saying this? c’mon, devs, IT manager, producer, whatever is your role in the IT industry, you should know and have like a maximum rule that the technology itself is not important, is just a tool that give you the power to create/change/make things. the fanatism don’t going to make you more smarter, more rich or anything, just going to aislate your possibilities to develop a good product, why you are focused in the tech and not in the product itself.
one if the first things i learned when i started in programming, is that there is no exist a ultimate language, tool or whatever for a project, the developments methods and tools need to be chosen and used it based in the requirements of the project. like that was how i learned in base of the necessity how to program in JS, php, and flash, and i’m willing to learn any other stuff if is necessary to complete any project.
in resume, i just wanted to say it loud: THE FANATICISM IS NOT GOOD, just be a cold minded guy/girl and choose the best tool/technology for your project
Regards,
Shadow.
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Hi,
today we going to continue with this series of articles about diferents types of revenue for game developers depending of the type of game or platform you are developing, if you don’t see the first one analyzing the revenue streams for flash games, click here
What are the casual games?
the casual games basically are downloable games with a simple and proved gameplay (as match 3, hidden objects etc..), there are some that tries to improve the gameplay to get a better user experience and get more attention than the rest, but need to be very careful for the type of target of people that play this games.
the target of this market is usually mens and womens from 25 to 45 years old, people that like to play but don’t have the time to waste hours in fps or in a RPG, so usually this games provide a fast and rich fun in 5-15 minutes of game and for a low cost (for the user it cost less than 10 USD).
what are the things you have to considerate at the time to develop a casual game?
there are a few things that you need to get in consideration at the time to develop a casual game, if you fail in some of them, can determine the success of failure of your project.
- Polished game art: 99% of the games developer for this market are made in 2D, but that doesn’t mean that need to have poor art. not only the art need to be nice to view and polished, you need to add several types of effects to keep the user interested in the game and make the experience more rich in that 5-15 minutes of game
- Old hardware compatibility: is known that the computers that the casual users have are old, 70% have a 950GMA intel integrated graphics card. this mean that the game that you make need to be very optimized and need to have a long QA in several old machines.
- Light executable: this games can not surpass the 200MB of total weight, and usually is ideal to have a weight of 40-60 MB.
- Improve but be careful: in this market is a must to improve in anything to have success, if you release a exactly copy of another game, going to lost in the thousands of games in the portals, the key here is to add some minor changes that can make the difference but don’t get excited, if you change too much things from the common gameplay of this games, the user can get lost and you going to lost a sale. everything depends in balance.
ok i understood what are the keys of a casual game, how can i make money from it?
sorry to say this, but you need to relay on publishers and portals. they going to cut a percentage of the sales revenue and is not easy to get published if you don’t have a background history making games.
the most known are big fish games, reflexive, iwin, but are many other, all of them have a developers emails where you can submit your game.
Conclusion:
this market is a risky one, the developments cost is high compared to the flash games industry, and you need to have a team of people maybe for a year or 2 working in a game to get something of quality done. even if you make it, still need to have luck with the portals/publishers and finally with the users. this is not the type of project for a newbie or a small team with no funding.
i hope this article has been helpful
Regards,
Shadow.
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Hi,
i wanted to write some posts explaining the ways to get money from the web development, and for this first article i going to start talking about flash games.
just a little warnings, all of the exposed here is what i learned from other blogs, forums and people that are in the industry, i tried some methods and other i do not, so, take it as an opinion and not as a fact, i learned with the pass of the time that anything in business is a fact, everything that you think going to go okay could go wrong and vice versa, the only thing you can do is read, learn and try it yourself.
Flash the low entry platform
in my opinion flash is one of the best tool to start with the game development, and here i going to list the most important reason:
- learn curve is not too big as other languages
- have a lot of tools and functions for graphics operation
- exist a market for the flash games today
- you do not need to put a penny to develop in flash, you have great IDE and compiler to create your games
- there are lots of libraries ready for your animation, physics, network etc.. management
Flash games, how to make money from it?
there exist several ways to make money from it, you just need to see what fit better for your capacity of development and the games that you are aiming to make.
game sposnor: the game sponsor consist in that the game portals, pay you a fixed amount 1 time to put her logo and link into your game. there are several types of licensing, exclusive, non-exclusive etc.. each of them have different amount of revenue and obligations from the developer, usually is a common agree between the portal owner and the developer. the only and best portal for this, is flashgamelicense.com, there you can upload your game and the portal are able to test it and send you a offer to sponsor it. also recently has been launched the Mochi Fund, a sponsor program controlled my mochimedia. this is usually the most secure way to get a good money from your games, maybe it take a while to find a good sponsor (up to 1 month) but it can worth the effort
micro transactions: this type of revenue come directly from the user, you offer the game for free but the users need to pay to access extra content (as levels, custom character etc..). it usually have success in multi player or premium games, and you have several already made solutions for this as, gamersafe and mochicoins. the problem with this system is that the charge you 30% to 50% of your revenue and at the same time is not easy make a balanced game with the enough free content and attractive pay content, is usually used for mid-big projects
outsourcing-clone game: maybe this is the most hated of all the way to make money. if you are just starting and need fast funding to continue or want fast money, this is the short path. is like working as a freelancer, usually the portal owners request you to make a game “like this” with new art and maybe some change, you usually have a low rate but is secured money why you are just doing what the portal want and he decide all the game design stuff.
in-game ads: if you want to make your own creations whiteout taking in consideration standards or already proved gameplay, this going to be maybe your only option to make profit from your game. there are 2 main ads network, CPMstar and Mochiads, i used mochiads and is very good but the problem with this type of revenue is that you need to have a lots of gameplay (we are talking about millions) to make some hundred bucks and if you released a game with ads, is difficult to find a sponsor that want to pay a license for it.
donations: maybe this is the most “indie” way to make money from your games. of course that from here you can’t even expect get any money, as it depends from the willing of the people and that depends in the target of people that is reaching your games. usually is very good used for non-conventional games (and not only made it in flash).
Conclusion:
basically here i detail the different revenue sources that you can get making flash games, but at the end just depend of what is your capacity of making games and what you are aiming (make original games or just make money from it). is proved that the art and the original ideas can make a lot of money, but is just proved by a few smart people that was able to find the balance between art and diversion.
i hope this post has been useful for you in some way
Regards,
Shadow.
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Hi,
i going to talk about something that even after several years in this web/programming stuff just now i’m really doing in a effective way, the management/completion of projects.
i know that are a lots of articles on the web talking about freelance techniques, how to not be a lazy developer, how to work with clients etc.. this not pretend to be something like that, is just some personal opinion/tips that i realized based on my experience. also, don’t mean that articles like that are bad, indeed all are helpful in most of the cases but you just know to identify what going to work for yourself and try it.
Dont Waste time, just do it !
Is simply like that, all the people have ideas, maybe are great, maybe other are horrible, but till you try it, you don’t going to know it. the worst thing you can do is to drop an idea before you even started. it happened to my several times, and i learned from that when i see the same idea implemented by other guy and having a great success . if you idea is a web/software project, usually only take time and if you need to invest, you maybe need to put some bucks for a designer or for technical resources (as servers, domain etc..) so the risk is minimum if the idea don’t get successful (always talking from the side that you are a developer and you can program the project/idea of course). other times that happened to me a lot, is to never finish/continue the project i started, of course that the project for clients i always complete it, i’m not lazy at work, but i’m talking about personal projects.
Manage the flow of your time
at the beginning, i always see that i losted almost all the day and i didn’t completed anything, that usually happened why i get ditracted doing other things. a great aplication that helped me with this was WorkRave. basically let you set period of time to work and force you to rest after each round of time. personally i have configured it with rounds of 40 minutes and rest of 5 in each, why rounds of 25 minutes and rest of 15 don’t wasn’t enough
The social media need to be a tool, not a distraction
when i started using the social media (like facebook, twitter, forums etc..), more than anything to know it how it work and use it in my benefit, they consume a lot of time, was a distraction why every notification i followed to know what happened, commented etc.. if you use facebook/twitter as a enjoyment and a media tool, try to use it in your free time and try to put a limit of time per day/week so you don’t waste too much time and can use it in your projects.
You can be a nice person and say NO anyway
when i started to join in forums, more than anything to meet people who know more than me and learn from them and get more knowledge about programing and the web, was a nice decision, but also i meet people that know less than me, and that finally converted in a problem. i always been pro-active to help the people. i always tried to cheer them up when something get wrong, trying to solve code problems etc.. but i realized that help other people (and i even made work for free for them, yes i know, i’m a asshole ) take a lot of your time and you don’t get anything in return. for that i decided to focus that time in this blogs and do not help “personally” anymore, writing useful posts so i can reach more people, be more helpful and waste less of my time. maybe this sound some egoist, but is the truth
i hope this tips will help in some way, they are made from the pain of my ass after years working at this
Regards,
Shadow.
