14 Jan 2011
Pocket Translator is a Windows Phone 7 application that gives you ability to translate back and forth between more than 50 languages, playback audio of the transaltion, and bring the power of the Google Translator to your phone.
The design of the application adjusts to your theme settings, and really makes it your personal translator, suitable for both vacations and business trips.
Features:
- translates 50 languages, including Japanese and Chinese
- translations of single words with alternative meanings
- pronunciation tips
- common phrases
- send translations by sms and email
- off-line history
01 Jan 2011
Happy New Year 2011! I wish you to be at least as good as the last year :)
Let's look which of the things I have planned to accomplish in 2010 were done and which weren't.
Plans for 2010:
- write an application for Android (I am android os developer, I have understanding of system internals, and of course I have written few applications for Android, including low level system components)
- enrol in an English course (it was 4 months advanced English course in Profi-lingua)
- go for vacations to Greece (it was Croatia, not Greece, but it was fun nevertheless :)
- learn how to work in the team (I have worked as contact person for team of 8 people, managing communication between teams in London and Warsaw)
- finish my studies (still working on it)
- switch to English on my website
- release few open source projects
- go for the Game Developer's Conference in Siedlce and win
Few additional things that I have managed to accomplish or learn:
- buy Windows Phone 7 device, and start developing software for this platform
- go to London several times and live there for 3 months
- participate in world-scale mobile project, and play there important part
- learn a lot about Facebook API
- release my first application to Windows Marketplace and start earning money from my own work and ideas
- meet amazing and inspiring people during my stay in London
- learn how to use linux & console and appreciate it a lot!
- start to use git and mercurial
- do everything from command line
- finish big backup & restore & synchronization project
It was quite a lot, huh? I would have never thought that I will do so many things if you were told me this at the beginning of 2010 :)
Plans for 2011? Let's see:
- go with Gosia to London for few months, this time between June and September
- increase income from my private development to 1000$/month
- learn design patterns, and how to make good design
- learn test driven development
- learn professional project management and scrum methodology
- go on vacations to Italy(?)
- enrol for an English course
Looks like this year will be again quite busy. Looking forward for what unexpected will happen! :)
24 Oct 2010
I have bought Windows Phone 7 two days ago, and I just want to write few words about my impressions. First of all... it is very nice piece of software :)
My handset is HTC HD 7 from O2, bought as Pay & Go, and it is unlocked so I can use it with any operator.
After two days of using it, I can say that I am happy about it. It is more personal than previous phones that I have used, and with better touch interface. The things that I like the most are: email client!, calendar!, people hub!, lock screen, home screen :) You can read reviews about those things on the net already so I won't write about them.
Probably you expect me to do some comparison with iPhone and Android... well Windows Phone 7 is completely different, from UI perspective, there is no too much graphics, most of animations are text based, with some 2D animations. Email, calendar, contacts are definitely the best ones that I saw so far. Big disadvantage? Internet Explorer which shows pages like it would be feature phone, with very poor browser... but that is not fault of IE itself, more of web pages that threat it as not that powerful, but now they should, so I think that it will change in the near future :) Browser is very light, without not necessary buttons, and UI, leaves a lot of screen for actual browsing.
On Windows Marketplace is few hundreds apps, but still many missing like... Google Translator, Google Talk, Skype, 3D games, etc. but it is good news for developers, right? :)
OS is version 1.0 and you can see it... it lacks youtube, not too much settings, few things in UI that can be improved. Microsoft promises updates, so I am optimistic. I would say that in a year it can be real competitor to Android and iPhone.
15 Jul 2010
I have started working on my own project on sourceforge: https://sourceforge.net/projects/meld-modified/. It's based on well known tool for merging and comparison of files and directories Meld.
My goals:
- better directory comparison
- show/hide new/modified/deleted files on every pane
- hide not modified directories
- save/load current session
14 Jul 2010
Hello, last week I have been in London to help our client integrate our components of Android operating system. Here is bunch of photos if you would like to see how we spent time :)
http://picasaweb.google.pl/wach.piotrek/Londyn#
From this point I can say that I have became mobile os developer! :) It is new, exciting experience. I am looking forward to continue my work in this area. Stay tuned for posts about mobile systems development.
