I love the approval process.

There’s been a lot of hate for the App store approval process over the past… well, ever since the App Store surfaced. It seems like anybody who has ever touched the SDK has a bad word to say about the draconian Apple iron curtain. The iPad’s recent release has incited similar levels vitriol – it’s closed, Apple is taking over the world, blah blah. Apple seems to be blocking applications that duplicate native iPhone apps,... read more
31 January 2010
14 comments
Viewed 2,627 times

On Failure

I’ve recently been playing around with monetizing one of my applications: Filetweet. It’s a fairly simple application, designed to allow you to send files over Twitter. You may have seen it; some of you may have even used it. It’s the first application I’ve built that I’ve tried to charge for – as an experiment. Using the excellent Spreedly service, and the not-quite-so-excellent PayPal merchant gateway service, it’s really easy to st... read more
03 January 2010
10 comments
Viewed 3,078 times

You'll never get what you want.

People sometimes ask me “How can I get good at programming?” “How can I get really good at Javascript?” The sad thing is, I don’t bother answering these questions any more. What inevitably happens is, I give people a list of things to read and try out, then come back 6 months later to find them in exactly the same spot. So what’s going wrong here? I think they’re after the wrong thing. The problem here is that they know what they want... read more
29 November 2009
13 comments
Viewed 14,798 times

Highlights of Buildconf

I’ve been at Buildconf for the last two days. It was one of the best conferences I’ve been to. So instead of writing a whole bunch of tweets, which would be annoying, I’ve decided to write a blog post with a list. To make it interesting, count up the number of points you can identify with and leave your score in the comments. Finding out how to open bananas... read more
07 November 2009
0 comments
Viewed 419 times

Announcing Chatrbox

As you all may have noticed, I’ve been playing around with some cool live-action stuff. At FOWA London, I built a live Twitter feed. The original idea was to build an app to complement HelloApp, a .NET site built by Carsonified for the read more
31 October 2009
11 comments
Viewed 925 times

I forgot to eat lunch yesterday.

Writing code for a living can be a bit depressing at times. It has a lot to do with the fact that it’s a sedentary, and often lonely occupation – especially if you work by yourself, for yourself. Lonely hours at a computer screen does wonders for the soul. However, I think it’s important to remember something: Programming is fucking awesome. There are a lot of reasons why this is a popular belief. You’re in charge of a system, and you h... read more
09 October 2009
6 comments
Viewed 1,028 times

Release open, release awesome.

In December last year, I built my own personal site to advertise my new-found employability – www.elliottkember.com. Then, looking at my twitter background, I figured it’d be cool to have a similar image on my own site – a bit of continuity. Then, I was talking to Greg Annandale when a thought occurred to me: read more
06 September 2009
17 comments
Viewed 438 times

On Usability

I’d appreciate it if you read this entire article before commenting. So there I was, in a RyanAir Boeing 737-800 coming back from FOWA Dublin. Having just spent three days partying it up I was a little under the weather. It was late, it was raining, and I wanted to sit back bolt upright, read my Jeremy Clarkson book and drink my €5 Coke. During take-off, the crew turn off all the lights in t... read more
06 September 2009
6 comments
Viewed 452 times

Speed: The Secret Code of the Baristi

The other day I was in the local coffee shop dealing to my addiction. I couldn’t help but notice that the guys behind the counter were speaking in a foreign language. We’ve all heard this language: “Double cap out, no foam”, “Chai mocha skinny half with space”, “Moon unit alpha, tennis elbow”. It sounds like some kind of indecipherable language – the secret code of the Illumilatté, if you will. I realise, of course, that these contractions are inevitable when you’re performin... read more
06 September 2009
1 comment
Viewed 525 times