That… that was fast. Really fast. I can’t believe how fast 2014 blew by. That was way too fast.
What an absolutely crazy ride 2014 has been. I cannot believe how ridiculously busy, and at the same time how rewarding it’s became at the end.
Posts for 'Events'
iComics v1.1 released!
December 1, 2014 • ∞
Blimey. Sorry it took so long to write this! For the last two weeks, it’s been a flurry of updating the site, sending out press releases, and responding to a mountain of user feedback, so I finally got the time to write the release announcement. XD
So! Done! After 521 days since the last update, iComics v1.1 was approved by Apple and made live on the App Store. 521 days is an absolutely ridiculous amount of time between updates to be sure, and I plan to a post-mortem of what happened at some point, but hopefully with the new look and feel, coupled with the new features, most people can agree it was worth the wait. I’ve already started getting some reviews in, and so far, they’ve all been resoundingly positive. Thanks a lot everyone!
Here’s some of the new stuff that’s included in iComics v1.1:
This blog won an award tonight!
October 8, 2014 • ∞
Blimey. Never in the 6 years that I’ve been running this blog did I think what happened tonight was going to happen!
Every year, the Australian Web Industry Association holds a set of awards to recognise the skills of web developers across Australia, with the goal of helping to foster innovation on the Web, and to generally set the bar of quality in producing content and services for clients. There are multiple categories in the Web Awards, spanning from Education sites, to commercial projects to government services, to general social media.
This year, I decided to enter my blog, TimOliver.com.au under the ‘Personal’ category of the Web Awards. I thought that this would be a good opportunity to see how this blog would compare against other potential entries, and at the very least, it would let me know what areas of the site might still need improving. I also thought it’d be great motivation for me to fix a few outstanding bugs in the theme code too. XD
comiXology’s goals vs iComics’ goals
May 12, 2014 • ∞
This is a post I’d been planning to write for a couple weeks now, and given recent events, there’s probably not going to be a better time than now.
Last month, Amazon bought comiXology, arguably the biggest commercial comics service provider on the iPhone and the iPad. When this happened, more than a few people came and said to me ‘Woaaaah, look at that, Tim! Amazon bought one of your competitors! How does that make you feel?? :D’. I’m still not sure if they were trolling or not. They probably were. But in any case, I’ve given it a bit of thought, and here’s what I have to say.
Happy new year chaps! 2014 is upon us!
December 31, 2013 • ∞
Holy sweet freaking crap. Where did the year go!?
I can’t believe 2013 is over already. It feels like it’s too soon! Hopefully every year isn’t like this. What a roller-coaster ride it’s been!
At the end of every year, I like to do a quick reflection on the crazy crap I did in the year. It’s my goal in life to improve upon each year over the last. I find this a great way to set the bar for the next year. 🙂
This year, I was fortunate enough to:
The PebblePad Portfolio Competition
November 8, 2013 • ∞
Uh. So, I won an iPad Air today. Totally wasn’t expecting that. ^_^
Since I’ve been dropping cryptic tweets all day, I figured I better come clean and explain what happened.
A little while back, ECU (The university for which I am currently working.) started to implement a service called PebblePad for use by all of the course schools. PebblePad is a web system that allows users to quickly build professional grade online portfolio websites, that can then be used to present to potential emplyers once they have graduated.
As part of an initiative to promote PebblePad around the university, the PebblePad co-ordinators decided to hold a competition where people could submit their own portfolios in PebblePad, showing off their own skillset and learning evidence, with the prize being an iPad Air. There were 5 categories, ranging from first-year students through to academic staff, each with an iPad up for grabs.
The competition featured two components: produce a portfolio of sufficient quality to get short-listed, and then those short-listed would present their portfolio to a panel of judges at this year’s ECULTURE conference.
Sounding very intrigued (Especially at the premise of a new iPad!), I asked the lead co-ordinator if it was feasible for myself to enter, and thankfully, she said I would be perfect for the ECU graduates category.
So with that all squared away, I built a portfolio in PebblePad and submitted it to the competition. It took a few days of reading PebblePad documents and watching YouTube tutorial videos, and a few extra days to actually design and implement the portfolio, but in the end, I was able to produce this: