Personal

There are 292 posts filed in Personal (this is page 54 of 98).

Looking Back on 2008

Well, 2008 is almost over and overall, it really hasn’t been that bad.  This year I:

  • Switched to using Apple OS X as my primary desktop environment (after I purchased my first Apple computer – a 13″ MacBook)
  • Remodeled my kitchen (well, mostly…a couple of minor things are still on the TODO list)
  • Canceled my Lowe’s credit card after having absolutely terrible service from them (during my kitchen remodel)
  • Totally paid off my student loan debt
  • Celebrated my grandfather’s 80th birthday and then attended his funeral less than a week later
  • Sold my first “real” software product – Budgee – a budgeting app for Apple’s iPhone
  • Celebrated my 1 year anniversary at my new employer – finally doing software development for a software company, which is what I had been wanting to do
  • Lost ~30 lbs by joining a gym & getting a personal trainer (although I’ve slacked off over the last couple of months…time to get going on that again)
  • Built up a 1 year emergency fund “just in case”
  • Finally got around to visiting old college friends back in Alabama and had one friend finally make it up to Tennessee to visit

While 2008 was pretty fun overall, I’m pretty sure 2009 is going to be awesome in quite a few ways…  Here’s looking forward to a whole new year and lots of exciting adventures to come…

Checking In

Just a quick post to say I’m still around…  I haven’t been updating this blog much because things got quite busy at work and after that settled down, I started working on a small iPhone app that I’ve been wanting for a long time.

On October 14th, I finally released my app (called Budgee) to the Apple App Store.  So far, it’s been a blast – I use the app daily, I’ve heard good things overall from those that have contacted me about it, and I have some interesting things I’d like to do with it in the future…plus several more apps that are in the queue.  If you’re interested in seeing what I’m up to in the iPhone world, the blog I’ll be updating for that (and I will be updating it) is: http://blog.cogitu.com (if you want to see Budgee, it’s here:
http://www.cogitu.com/Products/Budgee/).

Anyway – not much else to say other than I’m still not going to be posting too many updates to this blog in the near future.  I’m really trying to focus most of my free time getting my new iPhone venture up and running at full speed.

iPhone Apps

Well, about three months ago, I applied for the Apple iPhone Developer Program so I could build a few apps for my iPhone.  Last Friday, I was finally approved.  I’m not sure why it took so long for Apple to open things up, but I’m glad they finally released the finished SDK and let everyone in. I’m sure in the next couple of months, there will be some awesome applications out there.  I’ve been working most of the weekend on my first app, but I’ll talk more about that later.

I did notice that one of the top 10 apps (#9 currently) is “iBeer” – it uses the iPhone’s accelerometer to display “beer” on the iPhone’s screen that looks as if it were in a glass when you tip the iPhone up to your mouth.  I think it’s an interesting use of the hardware and all, but I can’t believe it’s a top 10 non-free app.  I mean, this thing costs $3 + tax…  Just amazing what people value these days (but congratz to the developer for coming up with that – paying off big time I’m sure).