William

For blackberry, of course! But consider the pointers I bringing across here! It will be good to try that for the rest if the platforms.

One thing to note. I realized that both iphone/ipod touch & andriod phones r using the same software & designs. While blackberries r using “shortcovers” app.

Nothing is wrong about that. I just find that “shortcovers” seems to perform slower that kobo app on my iPod Touch. Well, maybe my Storm 9550 is the problem, & I don’t doubt it.

Okay, I’m impressed by kobo book store. Able to sign in a single account & read on different smartphones, readers & even on your desktop or laps.

Kobo has more books than kindle store. At least, Kobo have the books I’m interested / looking for.

So, these are what I think will do “shortcovers” some justice:

A. Give us night reading feature. Yes, I read at night. The screen, is too bright for me.

B. Add a delete button on books we do not want on our devices. However the entire library & information still remains on the account we have.

C. And add an “Add” button anytime we want to re-download on our devices / smartphones.

D. Lastly, have more new paragraph to break the words. Also allow the alignment to justify between our blackberry screen.

Yep. That’s all & nothing else. Overall, good job in everything. U guys made e-readling an pleasure for us.

When I trade in my beloved Bold 9000 for the latest Storm 2 (9550), I made a terrible mistake. And this one mistake, is turning into a snowball effect.

I’d observed the problems I have with Storm 2, they are more like “Touch Screen” problem than hardware issues. Sure, the connection isn’t great, SurePress is quite a pain sometimes. Yet, BlackBerry and Storm made me believe that though Touch Screen will eventually be the standard for future smartphone, the future is not with them. And RIM, continue to lose this market.

a. SurePress is not THAT impressive. Strange enough, I don’t complain when I’m using Bold 9000 to type long emails, but SurePress made my thumb hurts. And not being able to put my phone down to type (have to hold it up to type every time) make me look so stupid in front of other smartphone users. Especially, iPhone users.

b. Screen Orientation lock. For the love of GOD, the screen keep turning & turning & turning. I cannot lie aside to read my Football News or eBooks which I purchased from KOBO. Android and Apple understand how users wants it to be. The only time the screen alignments don’t work well is during the time I need it to play music. WHICH, is really okay for me. So fair to say, RIM failed in doing a good user interface OS.

c. Apps are ugly, unappealing & extremely expensive. Simple, an app for syncing Google News Reader to your smartphone. BlackBerry with “Unread” VS iPhone with PULSE. IT’s Beast VS Beauty. All BB apps are so “Windows CE/Mobile 4.0″. In fact, I might feel better holding a O2 XDA Windows Mobile (2004). At least I will feel less embarrassed. Oh, Unread for BlackBerry cost you USD 9.99 but Pulse from Alphonso for iPhone or iPod Touch cost only USD 1.99. Work the math.

d. Poor Social Networking. And now, OS6 is too late to change anything.

Yes, I’m going to stop using BlackBerry. Slowly. The only thing why I’m holding on is the BlackBerry Messaging. I’m using this to message my girlfriend in Singapore. Once whatsapp is more stable & ready for Android or AJ got herself an iPhone, I’m going to kick this piece of technology-junk out of my life.

Long time sinceI posted my last blog. Was into too many things until I kinda lost myself.

Was into my iPhone app, but apparently, too much programming at one time is not healthy for me. I decided to use gamesalad to proceed. On the same time, I’m flirting with the idea of access Football Manager Live portal via iPhone or iPod Touch.

Of course, iPhone with data plan will be a better choice. Being able to access anywhere, anytime is the wow factor for FML app.

One important factor to consider. Things like what kind of information shall we include in iPhone app? Too much information is killing. I don’t want to do that much of management within 3.5″ screen. So like Football Manager for iPhone, we will shrink the app down to access information. Important information.

a. Club Home Screen. This should be the page which provide you your club information. Simple details will do the job.

b. Matches Played. So we know how the team has been doing so far.

c. Fixtures. Dates, deadlines followed by being able to assign the Match Plans we created in Football Manager Live

- I don’t recommend Tactics Creator or Match Plan Creator here. Remember. we are going to shrink it down to an app where we access our team information. Simple Match Plan and Tactics (which also, are the ones we already created in FML) will do the job. Anything serious, lets get back to computer.

d. Finance. How are we doing. I recommend the simple screen of Financial Overview, incoming and outgoing graph with little details will do.

- I believed bidding players and some activities on transfer market is needed too. Should not be too difficult for our guys in Sega.

I know, easier to say. So I did a Mockup, my own version of how FML should be in my iPhone. Hopefully you guys will find it enjoyable. I just done a few, will continue to post my mockup here.

1. Start Sreen

I did a “Slide to Sign In”. Well, may not go thru Apple App Store requirements.. However, always good to give a shot right?

2. Prompt to Login

I tried to create better “glass-feel” interface. Nonetheless my stencils are quite handicapped in designing.

3. Login Successfully.

Familiar? I wanted to add in FML logo here, but too lazy to go thru Photoshop again.

4. Club Home Screen

I avoided doing logo task-bar just to save space. With that much of information, we need to take many things into consideration. I don’t need beautiful interface. As long as it worked. Okay, will be posting my other designs later. The one I really look forward to, is the tactics page.

*Updated on 16/08/2010 Afternoon

I’ve just created the Fixtures and Match Plan mockup.

On the real thing, I wanted the information to be displayed on a larger font size.

I want to keep this lite. So I will be able to select the match plans I had created via FML. Tactic page will be very similar too. But I will add on more to position and tactic.

*Updated on 16/08/2010 Evening

Managed to do the Tactic page.

The rest of the icons are similar to what you see on FML, so I believe there isn’t a need for introduction. This is not challenging yet. The real headache comes when I needs to put all this in place without surfing out of place. What I wanted in mind is being able to click and hold the players from the tactic ground and move them to position as what the manager wants. If I click a AMR, I can bring it down to MR or even WBR. I can even play the players on a position which reflected red color. This is important, if you needs player to play out of position.

Choosing your tactic:

Again, tactics will be shown, only when you have already created and saved in your FML. Once you selected your preferences, you will be prompt another message:

It was meant to be a shortcut. In a way, we do away with adding a extra button/icon. Saving more space in the process. Now when you double-tapped on the players, there will be a prompt message:

Well, familiar? It should be. Within this 3.5 inch screen, everything is very challenging. More will be coming. Stay tuned.

The latest update could not be played. I tried to say this nicely. It’s annoying. For me to pay and to be able to play this game, I need to muscle my ways around. If I’m not geek enough, how would I be able to figure this on my own??

SI, you demand a bit too much from us. Considered we paid, we deserved a lot more than treating us as beta users.

For those of you who needs to get back to FML asap via your Mac, you can follow my steps:

a. Delete your FML. Go to your user folder/Library/Preferences/Sport Interactive/

b. Locate a folder named: “Football Manager Live”

*If you have installed and played other Football Manager version, it is located in the same folder too.

c. Delete the entire “Football Manager Live” folder. *Don’t look back.

d. You don’t have to, but it is advisable to delete your football manager live folder for your application folder too.

e. Download the client file from footballmanagerlive.com again

f. Reinstall the game and the default skin. You may include other skins too. BUT, not the 3D engine. I did not download the sounds either. It’s up to you, I’m just playing safe.

g. There you go, a working 1.6.1 ver 5480 FML for your Mac.

So, do I get pay for solving it? No, I pay to put up with the bug, solved it, plus a pat on the shoulder. I can’t believe it. One more thing to add, SI did not get the morale issue entirely right. I played my LB for most of the games I have on hand, he stills think that he may need to move club to get regular football.

Sigh~

I received an email from TweetDeck that I am accepted to their TweetDeck localization program for Traditional Chinese. Excited, with this, I am able to work with many people and also get to have a taste how localization works for website and applications. Things are very challenging, especially with iPhone app. With only 3.5″ screen to spare, its going to be little and simple.

TweetDeck used a very neat translation portal called “Pootle”. I’ve been working on it during my lunch break. I am assigned from line 0 to line 81 of the coding. I find it really fun to work on. Just to give a simple example of my working platform:

It also set me to think how well is the translation when it compared to the English instruction. After a bit of reading, I’ve revised the translation again to:

So far, everything is very interesting! Will update more!