It seems to be an annual thing for me to come back and write a new post here! The big news this time is that I'm moving back to the US in just two weeks. I'll be working back at EA in Redwood City, CA, still as an Origin Developer Relations Account Manager but now working on US games rather than EU ones. We've announced some but not others, so I'll keep all it under wraps for now. Trust me though, there are some pretty exciting projects in there!

Stuff I've been working on for the past year include the launches of Origin, (as you can probably tell from the name change of our team,) and Battlefield 3. On the side I ported Rack 'Em to the PlayBook using WebWorks and HTML5. It's free, so if you have a PlayBook you can grab it from BlackBerry App World.

My brother was living in the UK last year but has now moved back to Brisbane and launched his T-Shirt site, Cotton Robot. I've been meaning to help with the website, but only done about half of the work unfortunately. Still, go there and buy a shirt!

Other things that happened last year include a visit to the carnival in Brazil, (can't believe that was less than a year ago!) watching Arsenal lose the Carling Cup Final, an away weekend in Manchester to watch Bolton vs. West Ham, a trip through the Florida Keys, the Everglades & NYC, seeing Take That at Wembley and Foo Fighters at the MK Bowl, an Orlando trip, a Coopers 10 year reunion, a tour around Buckingham Palace, some DICE visits, a holiday in Vegas for my Dad's 60th, a supercar racing day, being asked to be Best Man for a friend's wedding this coming Summer and hosting a cracking Leaving/New Years Eve party.

Hopefully this year will be as exciting!

Please help me out! I'm moving back to the US and this stuff won't be making the trip. Wanna buy something? I'll be updating this page as new items are added or things get sold. Thanks Ash

For Sale:

• Crock Pot slow cooker: http://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/crock-pot-rival-37401-slow-cooker/94626863
• Shredder: http://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/texet-cc11l-cross-cut-shredder/94627400
• TV Unit: http://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/tv-media-unit/94628114
• CD Rack: http://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/cd-rack-for-80-cds/94630077

Sold:

• iPod Dock: http://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/intempo-ids-01br-ipod-dock-stereo-speakers/94264478
• Kenwood Smoothie Maker: http://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/kenwood-new-york-smoothie-sb200-series-silver/94626359
• Office Furniture: http://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/oak-office-furniture-desk-book-cases-filing-cabinet/94218605
• Samsung 50" Plasma HDTV: http://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/samsung-50-plasma-hdtv/94217277
• Samsung DVD-R & Freeview+ PVR: http://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/samsung-dvd-sh871m-freeview-160gb-hard-drive-recorder-and-dvd-recorder/94226487
• 5.1 Surround Sound Speakers: http://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/acoustic-solutions-ds533-51-surround-sound/94223954
• DAB Radio & iPod Dock: http://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/intempo-rdi-ipod-speaker-dock-dab-fm-radio/94229425
• DAB Clock Radio & iPod Dock: http://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/technika-cr-109idab-dab-ipod-dock-clock-radio/94268999
• iPod Dock: http://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/intempo-ids-01br-ipod-dock-stereo-speakers/94264478
• Dyson Vacuum Cleaner: http://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/dyson-dc07-origin-silver-yellow-upright-vacuum-cleaner/94266446
• Morphy Richards Microwave: http://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/morphy-richards-microwave-oven-with-grill-ag820akf-800wcat-e/94224624

I said I would post some tips, so here we go with "Getting started with Blackberry Playbook WebWorks SDK for Mac OSX." These are just a few things that caught me out when I was getting started, so hopefully this will help you.

As a bit of background, I'm more familiar with C++ coding on Windows with Visual Studio and more recently using XCode on OSX for iOS apps, so Blackberry and WebWorks was all new to me. I've done web development on both Windows and Mac before, so WebWorks seemed like a good way to get started.

You should follow the getting started guide on the Blackberry website. It makes it pretty simple, but there are a few things that took me a few tries to get right.

First, I needed to install the Adobe Air SDK 2.5. That just means unzipping a download from the Adobe website, but it needs to be unzipped to a path without a space in it. You then choose that folder in the WebWorks installer, which asks where the Air SDK is installed. I kept getting an error along the lines of "incorrect Adobe Air SDK installed" because I had a space in the path at first.

There isn't much to the WebWorks SDK itself, (although there are a few calls you might need, such as detecting a wireless data connection.) You can just make any HTML5 web page in the tool of your choice and it should hopefully work. The main thing you need the SDK for is the compiler, "bbwp."

When compiling apps you need to run bbwp. I was using Terminal to do that and it is much easier to do after adding the path to the bbwp folder to the $PATH environment variable. To do that on OSX you run

sudo vi /etc/paths

in Terminal and add your path, (e.g. "/Users/Ash/bbwp".)
You can then open a folder in Terminal which contains a zip file of the app's source and run "bbwp my.zip" which will create "/bin/my.bar".

Then you need to deploy the .bar file to the Playbook simulator. Here is an example command to deploy a compiled bar:

./blackberry-deploy -installApp -password ***** -device ***.***.***.*** -package /Users/Ash/Downloads/Blackberry/bin/sketchPadStandard.bar

In that example I haven't added the blackberry-deploy executable's path to $PATH, so I had to add ./ to the beginning and run it from:

/Users/Ash/bbwp/blackberry-tablet-sdk/bin

You get the device's IP address and set a password for the tablet by enabling developer mode in the device's settings, then clicking the hammer on the home screen.

After getting my environment setup one evening after work, I managed to build a functional app in one day that weekend, (with a bit of help from w3schools.com to help me brush up on my HTML5 and JavaScript skills.) I've just been adding a bit of polish while I wait for my Blackberry developer account to be approved, then I should be submitting asap!

I hope that helps! Let me know your tips in the comments section below.

Again, a year since the last update, apart from that little blip moving servers.

• Lotsa Dots is now available from the iTunes App Store! iTunes Worldwide. More news on that via Twitter, @Lotsa_Dots
• Work is OK, with lots of changes happening at the moment. I've worked on several big launches over the last year, not least of which Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit with the brilliant Autolog features. Bulletstorm and Shift 2 Unleashed up next.
• I've been working on Blackberry PlayBook apps this week in my spare time. I'll probably post up some tips on that soon.

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Knocking on for another year since the last update.

• The wedding was great: LouiseAndAshGetMarried.com.
• Travel Companion is now available from the iTunes App Store! iTunes USA, iTunes UK, iTunes Worldwide
• Work is OK. The next big launch is Battlefield Bad Company 2. Battlefield 1943 went down a storm, so here's hoping BFBC2 does too.
• Once again, I'm off to San Francisco soon for a business trip. It's the first one since my last post I think.
• I've been playing a lot more games recently, (I got a PS3 for Christmas in the Black Friday sales,) which is a good thing, except it eats away hours from other stuff.

It is getting on for a year since the last update.

• The wedding is coming up very soon. I think we are there or there-abouts with the planning.


• Rack 'Em is now available from the iTunes Store! Expect more soon.


• I was named in the Develop 30 Under 30 list


• Work is going well. I'm very busy and have launched several titles recently, notably Battleforge, Burnout Paradise Ultimate Edition, Family Game Night and others I can't think of right now.


• I'm off to San Francisco soon for a business trip, so I'm looking forward to that. I haven't seen Joe and the others since Thanksgiving last year when I went out to SF for a couple of days since I was half way there in Orlando. I fell asleep at Oakland Airport while waiting for my return flight that time, which was a bad thing since I missed it...


• I feel like I haven't played a game in ages...

My Xbox 360 came back ages ago, but it has been almost two months since I updated this blog. Seems to be working fine. I've been playing lots of GTA4 and finished the story mode last week. I have dabbled with a little Battlefield: Bad Company too, which has my name in the credits! DICE sent over a care package with a few free copies to say thanks for helping, which was nice of them.
Since the last update I have been to the Wii Summit 08 and Sony DevStation 08 conferences. I have a ticket booked for the XNA Gamefest 08 in two weeks time as well. It will be interesting to compare swag, especially since the attendance fees differ so wildly. Nintendo's was free and main gift was a laptop bag. Sony's was €50 and I got a PlayStation Eye and Spiderman Trilogy Blu-Ray gift set. Microsoft's is around £200, so that may get me a free Xbox 360?
I have been away to Tennessee for Louise's mum's 50th. It was actually a lot of fun and something I would probably never have done otherwise. We went to see Graceland, Jack Daniel's Distillery and the Grand Ole Opry, amongst other things, (like shopping.)
I started up a new project of playing a new game demo each workday, (that I can,) and recording my impressions on a website cleverly titled Demo per Day. It is a quick way for me to expose myself to new gaming experiences, catch up with old games that passed me by, (even if it is just a taste,) and perhaps gain a useful knowledge into a gaming industry niche.
It is my 25th birthday this weekend. I need to deal with my early mid-life crisis.