Monday 19 March 2012

Crashing into 'Another brick in the wall' by Pink Floyd

Hello wall.

SMACK. That's me, crashing to a massive halt. This is a big old big brick wall in my way this time, a huge insurmountable wall that makes all my previous technical difficulties look like a sunny summer day in the Surrey countryside. Let this be a salutary lesson to you all, do your research before flinging yourself head-first into things. I had been going through this Mac refurbishment process on a step by step basis. I would follow the next logical stage of the process without giving much thought to what could possibly be coming next.

Turns out I have upgraded the Macbook as far as it will go. To run Xcode (The software developers kit that Apple provide you with to develop Apps) you need to have OS Lion installed. To run Lion, you need an Intel core 2 duo processor. I only have an Intel core duo. Turns out that little 2 is very important! This basically means I cannot develop Apple Apps on the piece of crap Macbook as a processor isn't something that's easily upgradable without a handy soldering iron. DOOOOOOOOOM. The end of days. Very sad times.

I was very sulky and despondent about this on Saturday, just where do I go from here? After sleeping on it I reaslised the answer was staring me in the face, or at least keeping my lap very warm. My Acer netbook, my gloriously named 'Aspire one Happy' (and it does keep me happy, it's orange) as well as running Windows, also can operate on an Android platform. Why don't I attempt to build an Android App initially instead? After doing some tentative research I've found Android Apps are built with Java, a programming language I have a basic acquaintance with, AND I will still be able to utilise the piece of crap Mac for the job in meantime as it will run an Android software developers kit quite happily. Hurrah. And why don't I treat myself to a better spec Mac when I eventually have more capital and then build the iPhone App?

So in summary: All is not lost, the Appymum project is still go, go, go. It will initially just be on a different platform that was originally envisaged. Secondly, if I want a better spec Mac (and that all essential thing to function in a capitalist society. I think its called money)  got to gets me back to work ASAP. Whether this will be for my current employers or not remains to be determined...

 


  
    

3 comments:

  1. Never give up lady :-)

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  2. Ok so I don't know what your app is. But is it something you could build a website for and then 'mobilise' the site so it could be used on all devices? Just a thought xx

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  3. That is a cracking idea Liz, especially as I'm already fairly okay at HTML, CSS and Javascript. As long as I get to brush up my Java and learn Objective C along the way, it's all good as I think those languages as a set will look good on my CV. Now I really need to decide what App I want to create...

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