Time to re-equip! Part 2.

I've done the deed at last and have re-equipped with a nice 128gb macbook air 11. It turns out to be ideal for mobile development as it's reasonably fast and once I'd installed xcode, was a dream to use.

The screen resolution is great. I didn't realise that it was so much higher than the standard macbook 13.

So now the macbook pro is relegated to the desktop, where it's plugged into a 1920 * 1080 display and acts as my general flash dev machine. The air is now my road companion and my ios and android app dev machine.

If anyone is on the fence about these little beauties I would say get one if you want an ultra portable office. I now have my reference library on my ipad. I can carry both for pretty much the same weight as carrying just the 13 inch macbook pro!

My productivity has gone through the roof!

Leaving the old behind

I always keep feeling that I really should keep this blog updated more regularly. Well now it looks like I may be getting the time to do so. Thanks to circumstances beyond my control, I am being made redundant. My old job involved working from home and they now want me to move up to manchester. Needless to say I declined the offer.

So here I am going through the motions as they make me redundant and I finally have to go look for another job.

Even though times are hard in the economic sense, I am viewing this as a possitive thing. The guy I was working with in Manchester really didn't have much of a clue about good development practices and pretty much seems to have been passing off my work as his own anyway. I'm going to spend some time getting an iPhone portfolio going and looking for a new job. It's scary but, life needs a shake up every now and again. I think I was getting complacent and starting to stagnate. This move forces me to start thinking again.

So here is to new things. To better things and to the future, whatever it holds :)

Portable Me

My christmas present to myself this year, was a new macbook. It took me a while to decide which one to get (as a grand is a lot of money to spend all in one go). I finally settled on the 2.4 aluminium one, with 2gb ram. With my nephews 14% student discount and an apple care 3 year warranty, I spent just 1014 quid. I'll pop up a quick video of the thing in the next day or so. This now completes my digital life purchases (for now at least).

The macbook allows me to be mobile, even when I am working at the day job. Of course winter means that I have no real incentive to go off to starbucks at the moment. Still, at least the option is there. I now need to go get a bag or something to keep it safe.

I had a relatively quiet chrismas so I'm not yet stressed out. No doubt the year has it's usual mountain of suprises in store for me to look forward to.

Happy new year everyone.

It's the Radiation!

I've been playing a bit of fallout 3 over the last few days and I have to say it's good so far. I keep running out of ammo and having to hide a lot but that's fallout for you.

I also got little big planet and will be looking at doing some levels for that soon. Only after I have made some progress on my XNA project though. I'm also starting to do a bit more photography so I may even put a few of the shots up.

Bonfire night so keep those poor pets inside!

London Games Week

Went off to the eurogamer expo, which is on as part of the london games week. Going to go to the Microsoft event in Trafalger Square too on Saturday.

The expo gives everyone a chance to see all the latest and greatest games before they are released. I've uploaded a quick video (taken with my new flip mino I might add) to go along with this blog entry, so that you can get a look at some of the games I saw there.

I can't say I was too impressed with any of the AAA titles though and I was particularly sad to see that Resident Evil 5 is pretty much a re-skin of resident evil 4. Same moves, same animations and same plot. The much talked about companion that you get ended up being nothing more than an armed version of the girl from resi 4. Even to the point that when you seperate from her, you are essentially playing the protect ashley mission all over again.

The most suprising games I saw at the expo, were from the indie devs like myself. These games didn't have the multi-million budgets and so focused solely on the fun aspects. Speaking to my fellow indies, I got some inspiration and ideas that I may incorporate into my project. One thing that struck me was just how polished the indie stuff is becoming. I genuinely think that the two man teams are leaving the big houses way behind when it comes to gameplay and fun. Expect the big boys to start trying to poach successful indies after Community Games launches.

I'll be downloading XNA Studio 3.0 tomorrow and starting the long trek to releasedom. I'm now planning to release a few screenies soon.

Later days people.