matt’s

Google has announced the second Android Developer Challenge and I’m seriously considering taking part. They have ten different categories with three attractive prizes each and one overall category with three even more attractive prizes. Given the facts that there were only 1788 submissions last year, that I have already gathered some experience in mobile device [...]

Während sich mehr als 80000 Menschen an der Petition gegen Internetzensur beteiligt haben, veröffentlicht die deutsche Kinderhilfe eine Umfrage, nach der 92% aller Deutschen sich für eine Internetzensur aussprechen sollen. Das haben Hacker offenbar zum Anlass genommen, die Seite der Kinderhilfe zu manipulieren. Aktuell ist die Seite nicht erreichbar, Google hat aber die gehackte Seite [...]

(via fscklog)

…one sophisticated opinion on the whole “killer game” discussion which is evolving again due to the recent killing spree tragedy in Germany.
Glücklicherweise haben Politiker bis jetzt darauf verzichtet, ‘Killerspiele’ zu verbieten. Nicht Spiele machen Jugendliche zu Tätern. Es sind Defizite in der Familie und in ihrem Umfeld, die sie in die Welt der Spiele und [...]

While I’m at it, I could also post a great wallpaper I use on my Mac.

Comes with multiple color themes.

People seem to like posting their favorite plugins and software these days, so I thought I could add my little list of useful stuff here, too. I’m open to suggestions for other good extensions, of course.
Here’s my list of Firefox AddOns I am using actively:

Adblock Plus
Firebug
A powerful debugging aid for web developers. Comes with e.g. [...]

It’s amazing to see that there are still so many fans active, even after 25 years after the original show was aired.

(Found in the German Tripods fan forum.)
I’m still looking for a keyframe- or bone-animated lowpoly version of a Tripod. If you ever come across one, let me know.

Now that ELFrun is finished and I’m on holidays, I’ve finally some more time to surf all the (indie) gamedev pages in my bookmarks again. One particular posting catched my attention and I nearly had to shed a tear when I heard Alec Holowka, one of the two people behind the highly respected Aquaria, playing [...]

mattin posted at mac-tv.de and one particular comment gives a quite comprehensive feedback. Also, there’s a pictured review on a Swiss site, apfelkraft.ch.
Oh, and btw., version 1.5 is in the store and we’re working on version 1.6.
Did I mention the ELFrun review on iphonegamenetwork.com?

mattin found ELFrun featured on “Englishtwist’s” Christmas Countdown for December 3rd. If you want to see the whole ELFrun intro video (because you don’t have an iPod/iPhone, of course, otherwise you would indeed buy the game to watch it), have a look at his footage starting at about minute 4 :-)
There’s another video from “ipodtouchlab” [...]

mattin created a new video which shows ELFrun from starting it up on the iPhone to finishing a level (and most of a bonus level). It’s one of the easier levels at the beginning (level 5), so there are not many obstacles and the speed is still pretty low. I guess playing a higher level [...]

ELFrun is available in the AppStore. Just follow this link.

And now, dear colleagues, please spread the word! Feel free to use one of the shots mattin posted and do some advertising. Greatly appreciated!

I didn’t write much lately because I am busy with other things that I will probably write more about later. But until then, I’ll give you a short insight in what I’m going to try over the Christmas holidays (and, as a consequence, what an ungodly man I am):
Left 4 Dead (already pre-ordered at amazon.co.uk)

Call [...]

Plus MacBook Pro owner since Saturday. Plus soon to become an iPhone owner. Plus a bit confused by Objective-C syntax already.

Click here for more…

I upgraded to WordPress 2.5.1 today due to some major security issues (German link) and was reminded that one of my widgets was not working correctly. Nathan Oliphant wrote this widget to display bookmarks in the sort order of the users choosing. Unfortunately, it had two minor bugs which 1. caused changes not to be [...]

Today, I wrote a simple MyBB plugin, Registration eMail Check (RMC). The plugin first verifies whether the email has a valid format, then compares the email host with a number of hosts which were explicitly disabled by the administrator (the plugin comes with a decent list of well-known one-time address providers), and finally tries to [...]

I’ve been doing a bit XP at home lately.

I saw the following advertisement on AutoScout24 today.

5300 EUR for a 2007 Audi A3 ragtop. This looked too good to be true, indeed, but still I couldn’t hesitate to contact the seller. The telephone number shown in the ad turned out to be a fax number, so I tried to get in touch by email. [...]

I came across a funny side note in The Pragmatic Programmer:
In 1897, Indiana State Legislature House Bill No. 246 attempted to decree that henceforth PI should have the value of “3″. The Bill was tabled indefinitely at its second reading when a mathematics professor pointed out that their powers did not quite extend to passing [...]