http://www.joeearl.co.uk/rss/journal/Journal/Blog RSS feed for joeearl.co.uk. Keep up to date on my thoughts and experiences.en-ukWed, 10 Mar 2010 04:13:51 -0600Sun, 27 Sep 2009 06:32:25 -0500joe@joeearl.co.uk (Joseph Earl)30http://www.joeearl.co.uk/assets/logo.png18080Apologies for the lack of recent updates, I've been rather busy! First off we have the new uCONVERT website (designed and created in Wordpress in around 4 days!) as well as the recent release of uCONVERT 2.2.0. Then we have the fact that I'm moving this site from my current custom built CMS…http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/33/Fri, 12 Feb 2010 10:51:56 -0600http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/33/uConvert 2.0.1 has just been released to existing VGA and WVGA customers and is available to buy now from uconvert.us. New features New look User Interface: New style button controls Less use of processor intensive gradients Larger (vertically) popup menu ite…http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/32/Sun, 24 Jan 2010 17:12:34 -0600http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/32/A few days ago I was notified Windows had installed new updates (this is on Windows 7 Professional). Generally I ignore the message but I took a look and saw one new update, 'Games for Windows - Live', had been installed. Now I generally expect security updates to go unnoticed, I even prefer it t…http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/30/Tue, 29 Dec 2009 17:54:28 -0600http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/30/Just thought I'd share a gripe of mine. I usually use Firefox for web-browsing (I know someone is going to suggest Google Chrome, but for now it has one too many rendering issues) but on the occasion I do fire IE8, especially if using a Microsoft site as they still don't quite seem to have got th…http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/31/Tue, 29 Dec 2009 18:19:31 -0600http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/31/Another update to uConvert is in the works which will increase the number of currencies and improve the user interface. User Interface Dialogs The dialogs such as the About Dialog and Sync Dialog will receive a re-vamp with larger, more finger-friendly buttons, bigger text and a simpler backgr…http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/29/Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:08:23 -0600http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/29/An updated version of uConvert, the unit and currency converter for Windows Mobile, has been released. The update brings many requested features - a larger converter interface, support for more currencies and better graphics on small screens - read the full list of updates. Customers who purc…http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/28/Sun, 22 Nov 2009 15:41:09 -0600http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/28/One of the most useful features of Flash is the ability to attach MovieClips to the stage. This allows you to create relatively complex on-screen animations without dragging and dropping lots of objects onto the stage, and instead using a little ActionScript. In the following tutorial we'll cre…http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/27/Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:48:12 -0500http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/27/Studying physics, I get to use LaTeX quite a bit producing reports and articles. In case you don't what LaTeX is, it's essentially a markup language (somewhat akin to HTML, except for the TeX typesetting system) where you place your content into semantic structures. This is then formatted by esse…http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/26/Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:01:28 -0500http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/26/The uConvert competition is now over. The 5 lucky winners were @Psitech, @dscammell, @BossDC, @txalec and @El_Chingonzon (thanks to all the people that have purchased uConvert I decided to increase it from 3). If you were lucky enough to win a copy get in touch on Twitter via DM with your screen…http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/25/Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:01:26 -0500http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/25/Pocket LiTE is small torch/light application for Windows Mobile phones. Currently it supports VGA and WVGA versions, but QVGA and WQVGA versions will come soon. It also features an SOS function, which flashes SOS in Morse code. You can change the sentence that is flashed in the in…http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/24/Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:44:19 -0500http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/24/Here's your chance to get your hands on one totally FREE copy of uConvert; the fast, simple and fun units and currency converter for Windows Mobile. How do I enter? Simple follow @josephearl on Twitter and tweet the following message to be in with a chance of winning: Win a free copy of #uCo…http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/23/Sun, 27 Sep 2009 13:58:52 -0500http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/23/Just to let you all know, my unit and currency converter uConvert has been released and is available now from the official uConvert site. There's an online demo, a free version to download for your phone and also the full version for a mere $0.99 Let me know what you think of it!http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/22/Sun, 27 Sep 2009 13:34:08 -0500http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/22/After encountering recurring problems with my previous host Streamline.net where PHP would stop function entirely on the server, I finally decided to move to a new host yesterday. After some deliberation, in the end I want with JustHost. Initially it seemed to go well, uploading all the site fil…http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/21/Sun, 27 Sep 2009 12:56:17 -0500http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/21/uConvert is a fast, fun and beautifully simple (or simply beautiful) converter for touch-screen Windows Mobile phones, inspired by Convert for the iPhone by taptaptap. But enough talking, the best way to show you what it's like is to let you have a play: …http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/20/Sun, 20 Sep 2009 20:23:17 -0500http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/20/Just to let you know, you can try out a demo of the Bubbles game for Windows Mobile 6.1 and Symbian S60. View the downloads page to download a demo for your mobile phone. Alternatively you can play the demo on the web.http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/19/Wed, 16 Sep 2009 04:27:01 -0500http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/19/Here's a quick update on the Bubbles game coming to Symbian S60 and Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional. First off a video of the title screen and a few seconds of game-play. [youtube]FQuKr8s4N9I[/youtube] The game will include online high-score rankings so you can compete with your friends, as …http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/18/Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:32:14 -0500http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/18/In more game related news, I've started on a revamp of my original Bubbles game (which you can find in the Flash Apps package) for Windows Mobile and Symbian S60. If you don't know what Bubbles is, it's an addictively simple game where the whole aim is to pop as many bubbles as possible, befo…http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/17/Fri, 11 Sep 2009 12:30:18 -0500http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/17/Here's a quick look at a new Air Hockey game I'm working on for Flash Lite cell/mobile phones. Essentially it's a simple attempt to recreate the Air Hockey experience on Touch-screen phones. There's a selection of teams, different tables to play on and secret items to unlock. It's also t…http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/16/Fri, 11 Sep 2009 12:22:48 -0500http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/16/As I mentioned a few posts ago, I have been going over another re-design of the site, in order to make it easier to navigate (and hopefully more popular). I also completely overhauled the design, going for the ever-popular pastel blues, black, white and light grey. A few of the main objective…http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/15/Mon, 17 Aug 2009 23:55:08 -0500http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/15/In an effort to make good on some of the techniques and tricks I learned building this website, I thought I'd start with a simple tutorial on how to create a user registration and log in page in PHP and MySQL 5. The tutorial will be split across a few parts, and roughly the topics covered will be:…http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/7/Sun, 12 Jul 2009 17:58:08 -0500http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/7/Continuing on from the first part of the tutorial, where we dealt with the actual registration form and the MySQL and PHP code needed to keep a database of registered users, we will now be dealing with a very important topic when it comes to getting information from your users. I am of course speak…http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/11/Tue, 21 Jul 2009 01:47:40 -0500http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/11/In the final part of this series (part 1, part 2) we'll make the a log-in form for returning members, and a members only area. Let's start off with the members only area because it's pretty simple. This is where members will get directed after logging in, and you should also place a link on t…http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/14/Mon, 17 Aug 2009 22:56:44 -0500http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/14/Thought I'd bring you a quick update. I am supposed to be on holiday relaxing, but the presence of broadband is somewhat hindering that attempt, not that I'm not enjoying myself. First here's a quick look at the house (or should I say mansion) where I'm staying with my family. It's about 30…http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/13/Sun, 02 Aug 2009 22:44:52 -0500http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/13/After a long wait, and far too many delays, the vTocco 1.40 beta will start at midnight tonight (all going well). Sadly it won't have all the features earmarked for the final 1.40 release initially - setting up the events system and things took up precious time that could have spent coding the …http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/12/Tue, 28 Jul 2009 11:12:49 -0500http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/12/Thought I'd bring you a quick update on a couple of the new widgets coming in vTocco 1.40 theme for the LG KU990 Viewty, KU990R, KU990i, KU990GO and more. Weather widget Lots of you who used the HTC style Touch Diamond theme got in touch and said what a great feature it was, so vTocco 1.40 bri…http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/10/Mon, 20 Jul 2009 23:00:53 -0500http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/10/Pre-release testing In the next 3-4 days (hopefully no longer) those of you with an account should see a link on the 'My account' page to test pre-release software, the first of which will be the next release of vTocco. Initial features will be new icons, options to disable animations, a weathe…http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/9/Mon, 20 Jul 2009 00:33:11 -0500http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/9/If you tried to access this site from Tuesday the 14th, you will have either been presented with a blank page that never loaded, or a message saying the site had technical difficulties. I was made aware of the problem on the afternoon of Tuesday of the 14th by Google Analytics, which presented m…http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/8/Sun, 19 Jul 2009 11:32:52 -0500http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/8/If you use Apache, you have probably heard of the mod_rewrite module. It comes with most installations of Apache, and allows you to rewrite URLs at the server level (as opposed to redirects which are transparent to the browser). The mod_rewrite module can be used for many purposes, a few of whic…http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/3/Thu, 09 Jul 2009 02:57:52 -0500http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/3/As every developer knows, you need to test your website in as many browsers as possible. Most browser manufacturers make this relatively simple, offering downloads of older versions, and it is usually possible to run a newer and an older version side-by-side. However with Internet Explorer, in p…http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/6/Sat, 11 Jul 2009 21:33:15 -0500http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/6/In response to your comments and site statistics, I have made a few changes which will hopefully improve the site. There is now a 'remember me' option on the log in page, which will save you logging in every time you visit if you use the site often. You no longer have to register for a …http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/5/Sat, 11 Jul 2009 15:47:00 -0500http://www.joeearl.co.uk/journal/5/