stevenp

Joined 16 years ago

Karma
675
Submissions
210
Member since
Feb 16
Creator of Routesy, a public transit application for iOS (http://routesy.com).

twitter: squeakytoy

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Recent submissions

Comment · 12 years ago
My experience has been that finding mobile developers in general is extremely difficult, primarily because there are so many opportunities for mobile developers to make a ton of money freelancing that they don't necessarily feel the desire to commit to working for a company. Recruiting is hard in general, but looking for a skill set that's so in demand makes it much harder.
Comment · 12 years ago
PaintCode 2 supports direct import of PSDs and adds a ton of additional features as well, like the ability to use variables and expressions to drive attributes of shapes.
Comment · 12 years ago
If anything, this story calls out the sensationalism of a tech press that just sucks up anything it can find and runs with it as a story. We've seen unsubstantiated "reporting" of Apple rumors like this for years, and these stories never add anything valuable to the discussion. I'm glad this fake rumor got so much traction. Maybe enough people have egg on their faces that we will do better in the future. But probably not.
Comment · 12 years ago
It's the same concept as having footnotes in printed books. Adding lots of commentary in the middle of a document breaks the flow of the text. On RG, you can read the text intact in its original form if the annotations don't interest you, and drill into the things that catch your attention. It sounds like you're questioning the concept of footnotes and annotations in general, rather than just on Rap Genius.
Comment · 12 years ago
Ah, this is one of the problems with isolated ecosystems, I guess. Until Apple opens up AirPlay (never), I'm stuck with whatever they give me. :/
Comment · 12 years ago
For me, AirPlay is the killer Apple TV feature. Any time a new app comes out for iOS that supports streaming video, I know I'm going to be able to play it on my television. The local content provider apps on the device don't really matter that much to me. I can even stream Amazon Prime video to my Apple TV, so I'm having a hard time seeing why I would want this instead of waiting for the next generation Apple TV.
Comment · 12 years ago
Now I'm paranoid that I might be a weirdo for holding my phone primarily in my left hand even though I'm right-handed. Am I alone in that? I think the reason I do it is because text and navigation are generally left-to-right, so having my thumb on the left side of the screen feels more natural. The animation in this post seems to confirm that.
Comment · 13 years ago
This is true, and Foursquare does use Background Refresh, but I don't believe that encompasses background location updates, so changing the setting to disable them in Foursquare is still necessary.
Comment · 13 years ago
Where?
Comment · 13 years ago
Seriously? It's not trying too hard at all.

If there's a job you really want and you're really passionate about getting it no matter what, you should do anything in your power to try to get it. If you fail, you can at least say that you tried as hard as you could and it just didn't work out.

Comment · 13 years ago
Aww, thank you. That always makes me feel good to hear.
Comment · 13 years ago
I've been employed as a software engineer since age 19, and I'm almost 33 now. I've worked for companies like MetLife, Tommy Hilfiger, Yahoo!, and IMVU, and my lack of a degree has never been an issue.

It helps that I was always a hobbyist (I started playing with my dad's Commodore 64 when I was 6). For the most part, everything I learned I learned by building stuff. I dropped out of college when I was 19 because my financial aid fell through, and instead of continuing with my bachelor's degree, I decided to enroll in a 9 month program at a technical school. That allowed me to fill in some of the gaps that my own tinkering didn't really cover -- things like object-oriented programming.

After that, I got my first job programming online surveys in Perl, and I've been employed ever since. Getting your foot in the door is the most important thing. You only need to find one person who believes you can do the job, and if you're intellectually curious enough, you can easily learn by doing. My first job was with a small business that didn't have anyone doing any programming, so there was nobody to tell me I wasn't good enough during the hiring process, so I was able to fake my way into having a job that gave me the employment history to work my way into bigger companies and higher salaries.

Comment · 13 years ago
My mobile app, Routesy (http://routesy.com), falls into this category through a combination of sales of the paid version and advertising in the free version. It was one of the first 500 apps in the App Store when it launched in 2008 and has been pretty consistent in its earnings ever since then.

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