Alexander Rehm on October 30th, 2009

Go skimming iphone app is live - whatwasithinkingGoSkimming, the new iPhone app by Cumbria Tourism has been released on the iTunes App Store last week. This the first iPhone app I have worked on with New Vision Group and Buzz Interactive. And best of all – its free!

About the app:

Stone skimming is a worldwide pastime, although depending on where you come from it could be called skipping rocks, baking pancakes, letting the frogs out, letting the ducks out or making white-caps. Whatever you might call it, the rules and fun factor are the same wherever you’re playing… and now that could be anywhere with the Golakes Go Skimming app.

The aim of the game is to choose the right stone and throw it across the water. Your iPhone / iPod Touch becomes your stone – the trick is in the action you use to swing your device to get the most hops.

Features:

  • Four lakes for you to choose from: Windermere, Ullswater, Derwentwater and Wastwater (voted Britain’s best view) with high resolution water effects
  • Unique skimming mechanic for both left- and right-handed players
  • Music by the Cumbrian musician Jamie Sims

Read on for the storyboard design and the download link! Read the rest of this entry »

Alexander Rehm on October 22nd, 2009

The brilliant minds behind Wordpress have released version 2.8.5 last night, dealing mostly with security issues.

The main fixes of Wordpress 2.8.5 are:

  • Trackback Denial-of-Service attack fix
  • Removal of areas within the code where php code in variables was evaluated
  • Switched the file upload functionality to be whitelisted for all users including Admins
  • Retiring of the two importers of Tag data from old plugins

It is strongly recommended to upgrade as soon as you can, either via your WP admin panel or download Wordpress 2.8.5 directly from here.

Alexander Rehm on September 24th, 2009

ColdFusion 9 beta released - WhatwasithinkingA couple of weeks ago, the brilliant minds behing Adobe released beta versions of ColdFusion and ColdFusion Builder to its Adobe Labs members. This latest version of ColdFusion features a greater integration with the popular Flash platform, including AIR, Flex (and Flex Builder) and Flash Media Server, making it easier for developers to create rich user interfaces for (web) applications. Not only that, ColdFusion 9 accelerates the development cycle by reducing complex code and the ability to access data from existing infrastructures based on enterprise solutions such as MS Office, Sharepoint and other standards.

Since the integration of the Flash and PDF ( since ColdFusion 8 ) platforms, more and more developers are flocking towards ColdFusion again, and it is seen as a great alternative to meet business needs quickly and effectively, and more and more businesses are hiring ColdFusion developers because of that.

Read more about ColdFusion 9’s key features and download links… Read the rest of this entry »

Alexander Rehm on August 12th, 2009

firefox 3.6 alpha released - whatwasithinking.co.ukMozilla Labs has just released the first alpha of Firefox 3.6, code-named Namoroka, built on top of Mozilla’s Gecko 1.9.2 layout engine. With it, Mozilla promises JavaScript improvements, startup time speed-ups, visual tab previews and behavior tweaks, capability for additional CSS3 properties, among the most notable changes.

The startup time and JS speed improvements are noticeable and welcome, and the visual tab previews are finally here and worth the wait.

By default, the new visual tabs are currently hidden in the FF3.6 alpha build, you can easily access them via an about:config tweak. Read on to learn how to add these… Read the rest of this entry »

Alexander Rehm on August 12th, 2009

The great minds behind Wordpress discovered another vulnerability yesterday: a specially crafted URL could be requested that would allow an attacker to bypass a security check to verify a user requested a password reset. That would mean that the first account without a key in the database (usually the admin account) would have its password reset and a new password would be emailed to the account owner. While this doesn’t mean the attacker could access your account it is still an annoying thing to happen.

As such, please update your Wordpress installation as soon as you can and download Wordpress 2.8.4 from here.

Alexander Rehm on August 4th, 2009

Wordpress has just released an update to their popular blogging-software: Wordpress 2.8.3.

This is a security update and it is therefore highly recommended to update the Wordpress installation immediately (you should be seeing the “Please update now” ribbon on top of the screen when you log into your wordpress blog.

Download Wordpress 2.8.3 from here.

Alexander Rehm on August 4th, 2009

The team of 1 billion downloads of firefox - whatwasithinking.co.ukMozilla Labs have done it – the download counter shows more than 1 billion downloads of Firefox! What started as a rewrite of the old Netscape browser has now become the second most used browser world-wide, with an almost 23% market share (according to stat counter’s figures).

The recent release of FireFox 3.5 boosted those numbers (with about 5 million downloads in the first week!) to over 1 billion. Why not celebrate with Mozilla Labs by reading about the history of FireFox or treating yourself to some cool extensions? ;)

Alexander Rehm on July 31st, 2009

how to recruit the best staff for a design studio - whatwasithinking.co.ukHaving your own design studio – now that is a nice thought, isn’t it? You’re the boss, and your creative knowledge and skills are steering your career and popularity within the industry.

There comes a time though when the work-load is too much, or where you and your partners want to get more hands on deck to help with the creative process or managing the projects or even manage your bank account. It is difficult to decide when and how to grow your own business. There are many factors to consider, client relationships, economic climate, location or size of the office, costs for staff and hardware,…. the list can go on! Getting the balance between “running at or over capacity” and “part-time idle staff” right can be daunting, so let’s have a look at what you could do. Read the rest of this entry »