Some exciting news to share today! October 1st will be my first day at Microsoft Windows Azure. This is going to be my first full-time job. I am joining the same team which I had an internship last year. My position is software development engineer in test and my team produces end-to-end automated testing systems for Azure cloud services. I’ll be moving to Redmond, WA (where Microsoft headquarters is located) in Seattle area. Read More →

iPhone 5 is announced today with a bigger 4-inch screen resolution today. It corresponds to 1136 x 640 px. Compared to old 960 x 640 px resolution, the new screen is 176 px wider. Apple announced that old applications in the App Store will still run at their original (old) size and will be centered on the screen. That means there will be 88 px empty (black) spaces at the end and at the bottom. Read More →

Many people in startups these days trying to be “the next” Instagram, Pinterest, Path, Foursquare or whatever. The main point many people (including me) miss is that making products for masses is not for three-kids-with-zero-money job. You literally need strong connections with online press and a team to gain a traction and growth –and of course several millions of dollars. Think about Foursquare, before it came out, people did not need to publish their locations. Read More →

Here’s how I keep my inbox 0 unread everyday. Unsubscribe from all newsletters. They are probably just information load for you. If you are not a serious Groupon user, just opt-out. You’ll check that out when you seriously need information. Unsubscribe from email notifications. You use Facebook, Twitter or Github, Quora every day. You are already going to see who followed you on Twitter or mentioned you on Facebook when you log in. Read More →

As Jason Fried (CEO, 37signals) puts it down: It seems like in a lot of companies we are reaching “peak people”. There’s a shortage of talent out there, and if there’s a shortage of resources, you want to conserve those resources. Although there are quite a number of programmers, designers, product guys are around (and many others are at the other end of the world, working from their homes, like 37signals does) there is a shortage of talented people. Read More →

I’ve been reading Tapworthy: Designing Great iPhone Apps book by Josh Clark for a while. Not because I am trying to be a designer, I just want to see principles behind user interface design and user experience. First book is written in 2010, since then iPhone is not changed but the UI examples given in the book are a little bit poor compared to today’s quite fancy apps. That’s when I realized how humankind made a huge progress in app UI designs. Read More →

They are banned from App Store and Android Play Store several times. Now they rolled out their HTML5 player. It works on all mobile devices and it almost feels like a native app. It supports playing on background even though you switch to some other app. (At least worked on my iPad.) The only glitch I’ve seen is you have to get back to browser to switch to the next song in the play queue. Read More →

iPhone and iPad have an accessibility option that inverts colors. This is especially good for your eyes when you are browsing webpages in your bed in the dark. Follow these options: Settings → General → Accessibility → Triple-click Home → Toggle White on Black. After that if you triple-hit your home button, you will toggle the inverted color mode. No more hurting your eyes. Read More →