Using Visual Studio Code as external editor for Unity

If you're having trouble getting intellisense to work, or having C# build errors in VS Code, then you might need to change some settings via the OmniSharp (C#) plugin.

OmniSharp now defaults to omnisharp.useModernNet to true. Which is an issue Unity projects. Discussion here if you're into deep diving.

If you go to Preferences | Settings | Workspace in Code then type modern in the search box

 

Deselect Omnisharp: Use Modern Net 

and you should be good to go. It might require closing and reopening Code and regenerating project files in Unity.

Yes, I have been around that long...

 

 

Life is circuitous. In a fit of nostalgia and a chat with looong time friend Nic Wise on Slack, I went back and tried to find some posts in a Delphi Listserv we both used to belong to. One thing led to another and I "discovered" my old blog that I had literally forgotten about. At least in the front of my consciousness anyway. 

More about that later, but I was reviewing some old content here and came across this post from the early days of this blog. 

Apple have come a long way since 2006, but I do find it amusing that here we are in 2022 and Apple have changed the chip landscape again.

An App Store retrospective, and how it's effected Indie developers.

[2022 update: I just stumbled back on my blog. I wrote this in 2015]

 

There's been quite a bit of talk recently about how hard it is for indie developers, most notably indie game developers, to make a living, now the "big" names have come in to the market.

I have a few views on this, but first a background:

I've been an app developer since there was app development, I had quite a bit of success early on, and made a bit of money along the way. I never made a game or tried to make a living from making game, so maybe my view on this is a bit slanted?

Anyway, when I left my well paying development job in banking, in 2009 to become a full-time indie app developer, it was a pretty tough decision. The iPhone had only just been released in my country (NZ), and no one really knew what they were. The world Smartphone wasn't in the general psyche yet, and I had two young kids and a mortgage.

What made it a little easier, was that the apps I had in the market, along with Steve Speirs (Hundred Pushups et al), and Terry Monro (Sleepmaker series) were selling well. Really well actually. This was the wild frontier of the app world, Android was still shit, and iPhones really were expensive playthings for the rich. Or at least people that had enough disposable income to justify them.

These were people who didn't mind paying $1.99 to get fit, or get to sleep, when they had been, 2 years prior paying $25 or more for crappy Palm apps on Handango and other sites (yes, I'm old enough to remember that, in fact I started my career as a Palm developer in the 90's).

I'm the first to admit, that our apps were pretty basic, but they scratched and itch, they were a fair price and we did everything we could to keep our customers happy.

I am a bit of a student of the history of computing, I've read pretty much every (good) book on the history of our industry, including the excellent Hackers, which told the story of early computer gaming, where the indies made a LOT of money in the early days, and then publisher came in and basically ruined it for everyone, except the biggest of players, and even then, most failed.

So, basically I always had it in the back of my mind, that this was a short term thing, and to try and make hay while the sun shone.

And it turned out the history repeated itself. The more popular the App Store got, and the more, "hey I make $10k a day from these apps" stories that got told in the press, the more the big boys took notice. And in they came and basically ruined it for everyone. Mostly. Having lived through it, we are our own worst enemy too. There was the race to the bottom, pricing apps first at $4.99, then $1.99, then $0.99c to try and gain traction as more people came in.

I think Apple - and Google to some degree - have to take some responsibility here too - they did nothing to help app visibility, only really used their power to help the big guys promote their branded apps, and really did nothing to stop the current trend of free to play, but costly to enjoy, games that are out there now.

So here we are then. As I look in the "Top Grossing" section of the App Store, the apps in there are pretty gross alright. What can we do, is there even a point trying to make it as an Indie?

Well, I guess if we take a look back at history again, then it will tell us that, yes there is still a point. Good app developers who find a niche, who scratch an itch, or who just do excellent work, can and do profit still today.

Personally, my advice would be to do something you love, do it because you love, pour your heart into it and make the best app you can. If you do that, then you can succeed. If you're not prepared to, or can't afford to do that, then I think it really is hard for an Indie to make it.

On the positive side, there are plenty of success stories out there, and never before have there been so many potential users of your stuff, and more ways to make money that ever before.

As for myself, I sold out a couple of years ago. I'm still doing apps, but someone else pays me to do it. It's not as fun as it used to be, but I'm still doing the things I love, and I might just be able to send my kids to University.

And there's nothing wrong with that either.

My thoughts on Swift, as articulated by someone else

Martin, pretty much sums up how I think about Swift, so I'll just link rather than rehash what he has said:
http://pilky.me/40/

How to talk to kids about tech

Wonderful video, featuring The Tech Guy, Leo Laporte talking to a 9yo kid who wants to buy a machine.

This is how you talk to kids about tech, don't talk down to them, treat them as equals.

Nice one Leo.

Always have to search Stackoverflow for these git tips, so thought I would bang them into one place.

How to merge either all local or all remote changes

Single File

git checkout --ours filename.c
git checkout --theirs filename.c
git add filename.c
git commit -m "using theirs"

Or for all files

git checkout --ours .
git checkout --theirs .
git add .
git commit -m "using theirs"

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/161813/fix-merge-conflicts-in-git

How to delete a remote branch

git push --delete origin branch

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2003505/delete-a-git-branch-both-locally-and-remotely

How to create a branch off a branch

git checkout -b featureBranch existingBranch

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4470523/git-create-a-branch-from-another-branch

You may remember me from...

Hey anyone still reading this from 2007!

It's been a while between drinks.

I've gone from living in the UK, to being a architect for an online bank (briefly), to running my own company and having relative success selling iOS apps, to selling those apps and working for the company who bought them, to being back doing not much again! (Phew).

Oh yeah, I also wrote a book (not my best work sorry) and had a monthly column in PC World!

In between I've met some really awesome people, and picked up a lot more experience, mostly in the mobile world, and even won an Emmy for some work on the America's Cup app. Obviously, I was only part of a team, but still felt great to hear that we'd won!

Anyway, will endeavour to post more here, and try and get my page views up to somewhere, near where they were 8 (gulp) years ago!

I'm baaaaaaaack

Been a while! Don't have a gig at PC World any more, so might start posting on here a again. Stay tuned. Rants to continue after the break

Woah. Is that the time?

Haven't posted on here for almost a year. There are a few major reasons for this. They are in no particular order: -- I'm no longer doing .net only coding, I went fulltime iPhone coding in June 2009. It's been going really well. Thanks for asking! -- Twitter: I loveTwitter. I like the immediate feedback and the conversation style. I also don't have a lot of time because of above, so bigger formal posts are not as appealing. ( @omg_nz ) -- PC World: I now write a monthly programming column in NZ PC World, so that takes away a lot of my creative juices, as it were. I love doing the magazine stuff. So, I hope to come back here more often, but don't be surprised if I don't

This one got through QA:

Hate to be a grammer Nazi, but check out this dialog:

Hundred Pushups iPhone App

The Hundred Pushups iPhone app has been released to the App Store.

Link here

Use the app to gain strength, lose weight and above all reach the goal of 100 push ups in 6 weeks. I can personally vouch for the program as I have done it myself and the iPhone app is the perfect companion.

Macworld Expo Keynote Predictions

Prediction one: This will be the last time I predict what will be announced at Macworld Expo by Apple!

I've been pretty busy with other things, including publishing an app for the iPhone. (Note to self: change the urls for that...) and with the impending arrival of child number two, I haven't been keeping up with the rumours. So this year all of my predictions will be completely off the cuff. So here goes (in no particular order):

1) Update to iLife and iWork - it's been almost a year and a half for iWork and at least a year for iLife so they are due
2) Mac Mini / AppleTV refresh. Both are due for either a cut or a revamp. I can't see too much happening with the ATV as it's pretty much a hobby sideline for Apple. It would be nice to see a Mini upgrade with more ram and CPU bump. It would be great to see a mini with some kind of ATV integration, although again can't see it
3) Refresh to iMac line up. This could just be a CPU and Video bump, but maybe a refinement of the design. Although, IMHO they are spot on as it is. I can guarantee this one because I bought a new iMac about 3 months ago!

I think the above will happen in some shape or form. The next list is things that could happen, but probably won't, or ones I want to happen...

1) iTablet. This would be computing nirvana for me if this happened. I can't see Apple announcing this outside of an Apple run event. The current financial climate might not be the place for this kind of device either
2) Mac App Store: Like the iPhone app store but for Mac Apps. I want this as a (sometimes) indie developer rather than an end user, but it would be awesome for all concerned. The only issue would be the bottom dweller price trend could continue for Mac apps - apps selling for less than they should because some developers put their apps at too low a price
3) Apple to announce an across the board dropping of prices by 20% due to current economic climate.

Well that's it. Will report back with my hit and miss rate.

The Commuting Year in Review

I was listening to the TWIT year in review on the way into work this morning. I listened to every episode this year while commuting. If totaled in miles it would be a long way.

I started off the year traveling to Northampton by train from Rugby:
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I did that until February. I was working for a marketing company making enhancements to a legacy Delphi based system. It was without a doubt the worst job ever. The people who worked there were idiots, the work environment sucked and it was the most miserable 3 months I have ever spent. Not a great way to start the year.

From there I worked in Hammersmith in London and was taking the train from Rugby to London Euston:

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and then the underground from Euston to Hammersmith:


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I worked there for a local authority creating a portal site for customers. It was done using ASP.NET and C#, with a Biztalk layer connecting the different systems. I was pretty much responsible for the front end which was great. It was a hell commute, but the job was interesting and the people I worked with were great. It was a great step up from the previous job.

Commuting by train and tube was always interesting, sometimes frustrating, but glad I did it. It was a great "life" experience and took me way out of my comfort zone. Having to deal with 4 million other commuters was interesting for a boy from Temuka! I do feel sorry for the people that have to do it everyday for the rest of their working lives. We don't know how lucky we are here in New Zealand when it comes down to it.

From there I worked in Corby which was about an hours drive from Rugby up the A14. The A14 is the road trucks use to get to the M1 and the M6. It was jammed with trucks and the Cathorpe junction where the M6 and M1 merge was always fun! Again it was a great experience and gave me plenty of time to listen to Twit...

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I was the lead architect for a freight management system written in C#, with a Sql Server backend. I also did some training - upskilling some AS400 developers to .NET - which I enjoyed. Again the people were great, but needed a better processes in place, which they were aware of so good luck to them for the future.

I finished there in late August and we flew back to New Zealand and moved into our house in Timaru. (Sorry google doesn't do directions from Heathrow to NZ!)

I now do a daily commute from Timaru to Ashburton which is about an hour.

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I work for a Bank doing the teller systems (MFC/C++) and the Internet Banking Site (.NET). It is all interesting work and I look forward to being involved with the migration from MFC to C# which will be started sometime in 2009.

So all in all I did a lot of commuting this year and will have more next.

Remote desktop connection cannot verify the identity of the computer

If you get the following error: "Remote desktop connection cannot verify the identity of the computer that
you want to connect to. try reconnecting to the windows-based computer or
contatct your administrator."

when trying to connect OS X to a Windows Machine via RDP then do the following:

1) Delete all files in /user/{username}/Documents/RDC Connections
2) Don't fill in the domain text box

for some reason when using the Mac client if the domain text box is filled then the Windows machine at the other end can't authenticate the connection. Seems to be worse with Vista, but I have read of this happening with 2003 also.

Linking iPhone/iPod Touch with Xcode

I just spent the last hour or so trying to get my iPod touch working with Xcode so I could debug on the device

If you are having trouble after you have followed the instructions on Apples developer site, here's what to do:

In Xcode, right click the info.plist file and select open as text file. This will open the bundle as a plain text Xml file.

Find the Key:
CFBundleIdentifier
and below it will be a string element. Change the text between the element to your AppId minus the 10 digit number and the dot.

So for example if your appId is 1234567890.com.mycompany.myApp then change it to com.mycompany.myApp

Easy thing to do, but hard thing to solve.

Hope that saves someone the hours of frustration I had.

20 Second SQL tip

If you restore from a backup with NORECOVERY from the GUI it sometimes doesn't bring the database back online, even if the restore succeeds.

So if you are stuck with a database that no matter how long you give it, the status is restoring, or loading the following command should work:

RESTORE DATABASE databaseName WITH RECOVERY

StackOverflow: the good, the bad, the ugly

The eternal dilemma for developers is finding the answer to their specific question. There are a number of sites on the web that try to help, some free, some not.

Stackoverflow is the latest attempt to create an ultimate resource for answers to programmers questions. It is the brain child of notable (or notorious depending on your view) doyens of the development community, Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky (who has Kiwi heritage).

The actual site is a work of genius. It is clean, clear and crisp and is, without a shadow of doubt, the best website engine of it's kind. Period.

I have been a member since the very early beta days. (User Tag is KiwiBastard BTW) In the early days there was a limited number of people on the site, but even so, questions where answered in quick time, and a question would stay on the front page a good amount of time, so that people had a chance to offer a reasoned answer.

Since then the private beta has gone public, the noise to signal ratio has increased. Post are only on the front page for a limited time. The questions are generally still answered but because there is more traffic, people rush an answer. It also appears that people won't bother answering a question once it has had a few answers. The reason for this is both the pro and the con of the site. The site is driven by a points and badge system.

Basically, you get points in a number of ways:

- Getting your answer upvoted
- Getting your question upvoted
- Getting your answer accepted

There are other subtle ways to get points, but it becomes addictive and like a game. So you find people don't bother answering a question that has been answered, because the chance of getting points is lower than answering a question that has no or few answers. While this is good because it means new questions get answered, it also means sometimes a question never gets a CORRECT answer. This is of course a problem.

The argument is, with more people, then there should be more eyeballs on each question so the net is the same as when it was a smaller audience. This argument seems to work in theory, I am finding in implementation it doesn't. The turnover of question is such that, a question just doesn't stay on the front page very long.

The other issue I am finding, is the tolerance for newbies is very low. People seem to get down voted if they ask a seemingly stupid question. Seemingly stupid to experienced developers, but we were all noobs once. I try to show tolerance to these people and answer their question the best I can, and maybe point them in the right direction. It's the fair thing to do, and I'm sure that Atwood and Spolsky would prefer this approach to down voting and alienating new developers.

Aside from the minor gripes, it is a great site. It will become the go to site for developers. Of that there is no doubt. I just hope that over time, newbies become better accepted, and people get use their upvoting ability a little more.