Lessons Learned 2: Stay away from “green buttons”
“Green buttons?” you say? Eh? I was working on my own product, Distant Suns for Windows, and thought it would be cool to have some green, retro-type of buttons instead of the usual ugly Windows controls. So I spent about a day crafting some little green buttons only to realize that in the time spent making one window slightly cooler, I could have spent adding a real new feature or squash some real bugs. In other words: I wasted time doing cool things ahead of necessary things, which told that to my girlfriend. On Valentine’s Day a few...
read moreLessons Learned
I think about George at least once a week. George was a teacher. My advanced FORTRAN instructor from about <redacted> years ago to be precise. The reason why I think about this bearded, bespectacled aerospace engineer moonlighting as a community college instructor is that he taught me one of the most important lessons I ever learned in the process of becoming a full fledged software engineer. I had realized that my hopeful career in cartooning was not exactly a first-class ticket to fortune, but maybe computers were! Eventually I found...
read moreDistant Suns licenses the real sky from God
First Light Designs announced today that they’ve licensed the real sky from the Almighty for use in the award winning astronomy program Distant Suns. Mike Smithwick, the author of the popular iPad app, says that the Lord will help integrate his unique ReST technology, Real Star Technology technology, into his own software over the next era. “While Apple’s devices have terrific capabilities on their own, it became necessary to reach out and find the best tech to stay on top of the market. And who has the best? The creator of the Heavens...
read moreMy dad
One of most fond memories of my dad were on my inauguration into teen-hood, my 13th birthday, in February 1969. I don’t recall any of my gifts save for one. I opened up a card from dad, and it was a “ticket” to go out to Florida and see an Apollo launch. I had to choose one of two. The first was the May Apollo 10 mission, when dad was going back to Florida on business. He was planning on stopping by at the Cape and seeing the Apollo 10 launch while there. However, he also offered me a chance instead to go out by myself and see the next...
read moreDistant Suns Astronomy App Makes Tracking Comet Pan-STARRS Easy
In the next couple of weeks you will likely hear much about a comet with the decidedly unglamorous name of “Pan-STARRS” (or technically: “Comet C/2011 L4 Pan-STARRS”). The first significant naked eye comet since Comet McNaught in2007, Pan-STARRS is already visible to the southern hemisphere and brightening steadily each day. Dozens of comets are discovered each year, most quietly anonymous, meekly shining at magnitudes that require very good telescopes to see. Only the big and dramatic ones reach naked eye visibility. On the average,...
read moreNorthern Lights from North of the Arctic Circle
I’ve been back from Norway for a couple of weeks, but for the first week was too wacked out from jet lag to do much of anything. I was thinking that were I to do a coding marathon of 30+ hours, skip one night’s sleep then get to bed at a “normal” time, I could do a hard reset of my internal clock. Nope. Didn’t work. Screwed me up (well, more than normal). The trip was terrific, but too short. While I don’t like fish, it made meals difficult at time, Norwegians have a way with desserts that more than made up...
read moreAboard the MS Finnmarken north of the Arctic Circle
Aboard the MS Finnmarken north of the Arctic Circle. A couple of things I have always wanted to do were: go on a cruise (not one of those gaudy drink-yourself-to-the-emergency-room kinda cruises, but something a little more mellow), and to see the Northern Lights. What fun when I discovered that there was a cruise to see the Northern Lights (not to be confused with Friday Night Lights, that was a different network). I signed up almost immediately with the marvelous company MWT Tours. Melita , the MWT of MWT Tours has been in the business...
read moreRenaissance 2013: The iOS App Maker’s Conference
Last week I had the pleasure of attending version 1.0 of a new kind of iOS developer’s conference, Renaissance: The Art and Science of Apps. Billed as “the iOS app maker’s conference,” it spanned three days from Monday to Wednesday at the University of California, San Francisco. What made Renaissance so special is that it combined engineering (of course) with artistry and the business of being an app maker. We knew this was going to be different when at the very start several application authors one by one went up on, stage giving a...
read moreDistant Suns and Astronomy Magazine form partnership
Now it can be told: I am very proud to announce today that Distant Suns has joined forces with Astronomy Magazine, the world’s largest magazine on amateur astronomy and now in its 40th year (I was a charter subscriber. Yes, I am that old). You can see the first fruits of this arrangement in the most recent release of the iOS version as it powers the news ticker. Over the next few months, I hope to be able to link Distant Suns with ever more content from the magazine to enhance your time out under the heavens. I want to thank Dave...
read moreMiddle Earth, for real
Otherwise called “New Zealand.” This is above Fox Glacier in a helicopter. Tough job! When watching The Hobbit, it was easy to see why they chose this area for filming. There’s a B&B in the North Island with an observatory that is just calling for an “inspection.”
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