Dear Mach,

Was Senator Harry Reid being racist when he said that the US would be “ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama – a ‘light-skinned’ African American ‘with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.’”?

Concerned about Controversy

Dear Concerned,

What the hell?! I write a blog about iPhone apps. Why would you possibly want to ask me about something like that?! Well, since you asked…. First off, no one person can speak on everyone’s behalf, even if they are a member of an ethnic minority. But no, I don’t think the comments were racist.

There’s a tendency in America to shy away from any discussion of race but apart from Reid’s choice of words of “Negro dialect”, he’s just saying what a lot of minorities already know and live with. Being Asian, a lot of people make certain stereotypical assumptions about me: that I’m good at math, know martial arts, and am a fantastic lover. Well, okay, yes, I just so happen to fit all those stereotypes but that’s not the point. The point is that it is a fact of life that mainstream America will not accept you if you are too far outside what is considered the norm. That’s an unfortunate and sometimes uncomfortable fact, but that doesn’t make commenting about it racist.

My wife and I always wanted kids but due to medical issues, it looked like we weren’t going to be able to have any. (And I’ll tell you, that made working on Up and then watching it with Tracy that much more emotional.) But then we heard about a surrogacy program in India. So we looked into it, traveled to India last year and now it looks like it’s actually happening. We’ll be going back to India and when we come back, we’ll be parents!

Dear Mach,

I’ve developed a couple iPhone apps. The first one I developed was a beginner app and I didn’t get very many sales from it. But then in October, it suddenly started to get a couple dozen sales a day and it continues to do so. Any idea why that would be?

Pleasantly Surprised by Sales

Dear Pleasantly,

First of all, congratulations! I haven’t noticed any October spike in sales for my own apps, so I don’t think it was a global thing. The only thing I can think of is that perhaps Apple changed the way they related apps in their recommendation section, which may have increased the exposure of your app in particular.

Mach

Have an iPhone question? Feel free to email me and I might answer in a column like this! Heck, I’ll probably answer non-iPhone related questions, too.

Woohoo! My iPhone app, Mach Dice, was nominated for the 2009 Best App Ever Award in the Best Dice Game category! It’s an award given out by 148Apps.com, a website about picking the best 148 apps for your iPhone or iPod Touch (148 = 9 pages of 16 apps each + 4 apps on the static bar). It’s a great honor to be nominated, especially as it’s the only general purpose dice roller app in any category to get a nomination.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Hey, Mach Dice isn’t a dice game, it’s a dice utility.” Perhaps. But what is a dice game except a set of dice and a bunch of rules? And while Mach Dice provides the set of dice, you’re free to choose whatever rules you’d like: Craps, Dice 10,000 (or Zilch), Cee-lo, D&D, Rolemaster, etc. The only limit is your mind. Oooh… So go cast your vote for Mach Dice now!

(Or, hey, if you’re looking for a more conventional dice game with scores and rules and such, check out my other app, Boom Dice, which I’m actually working on right now.)

Ah, that was neat seeing Monday’s post. I really did write that back in January of 2009.

So, it’s a bit early to tell, but I think 2010 is going to be better than 2009. The economy has stopped getting worse and is slowly showing some signs of recovery.

On a more local note, I did indeed write a couple more apps: Boom Dice and Holograms. Boom Dice still needs a bit more work, but I’m happy to say that Holograms has quite a few fans (including Steve Wozniak!). I’m still blogging on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule and I think more people read my blog now than last year but it’s still a pretty small readership. (Hi, Mom!)

Let’s see, what else did I do in the past year? I got into a motorcycle accident, we traveled to India, visited friends in Switzerland, I worked on a short film about a talking pepper, and wrote a novel. Oh, I also baked some yummy mini cheesecakes. MMmmmm…

Looking back on it, I can see that I didn’t anticipate hardly any of the big things that happened. But in the end, they turned out well. (Okay, maybe the motorcycle accident wasn’t great but I did end up getting a great deal on an even better bike from my co-worker.) It was a surprisingly eventful year and I’m really looking forward to seeing what 2010 will bring. Actually, I do know of one thing, but more about that in a future blog post…

Greetings 2010!

I recently discovered a neat WordPress feature: delayed publishing. This means I can write a post, hit a button, but have it actually publish much later. I’m sure a lot of bloggers use this to keep to a regular schedule more easily by, say, writing a bunch of posts at once and then having them automatically publish throughout the week. Or to write the post the night before and set it up so you don’t have to publish it in the morning. I’m sure I’ll use it for stuff like that.

Buuuuut (and this is gonna … blow … your … mind) I’m writing this from January 6, 2009! I’m using it to publish into the fuuuuture! Okay, sure, technically any instance of delayed publishing is publishing into the future. But this is like a year into the future!

I feel sort of like a time traveller. What’s it like in the year 2010? Do I still have a job? That was a bit of a concern in 2009 with the economy in a recession and all. Today, Obama has been elected but hasn’t taken office yet. Hope that turned out well.

On a more local note, have I managed to write any more iPhone apps? I hope I did and that they’re doing decently. I mean, I’ll always have a soft spot for Mach Dice, but I hope I’m more than a one-trick pony. Do people still buy that thing? Am I still blogging? Did I run out of things to talk about? Have I started drawing comics again? Am I still more or less adhering to the Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule? Do people even read this blog? Something like a couple dozen people a day read it now.

Ooh, I just thought of something. What if I’m dead? What if I died, like, months ago and no one knew about this blog post from the past but friends still occasionally checked out the site. It’d be like I was blogging from beyond the grave. Spoooky…

In any case, if I’m not dead, it’d be neat to write about how much has changed in the last year or so. So, hey, future me! Make the next blog post about what all has happened in the past year. Oh wait, maybe I already did that in a yearly “here’s what happened this past year” kind of post. In which case, ignore what I just said.

We managed to raise $56.90 in last week’s charity drive for Heifer International. I rounded that up to $60, which is enough for a gift of trees! These seedlings not only provide food and usable resources, but they can also help keep land erosion in check. Thanks to everyone who participated and here’s a little note from Heifer:

Thank you! Your generosity just sparked a cycle of giving…

…a cycle that will transform lives for generations to come.

Welcome to the future:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG47kX4x7CA

Thanks to everyone who bought one of my apps this past week! As I mentioned on Friday, 10% of all my sales between Christmas and the end of this year will be going to Heifer International. As of Tuesday, that translated to $37.70 towards helping a family work towards a better future. Woo hoo!

I’ve recently re-arranged a few things in my computer setup at home. Nothing major, just started working downstairs in my basement and plugged in an external keyboard, mouse, and monitor. I finally got everything more or less functional and got back to work on my app, Boom Dice.

But when I tried installing the new version of the app, I got a message saying, “An unknown error occurred.” and a fresh restore of my iPhone led to a message saying, “The iPhone could not be restored. An unknown error occurred (2005)”. I found a post on support.apple.com and it turns out that problem was with the USB cable or more specifically, that I had attached a USB hub for the external keyboard and mouse.

So I found that I can install my latest builds if I’ve unplugged the USB hub. It also seems to work if my iPhone is already turned on and unlocked. It’s a little inconvenient but at least I figured out what the problem was.