Thanks Kurt!

Here is a review that arrived on the US App Store today - thanks for this review Kurt, hearing how my Apps are making peoples lives just that bit easier makes it all worthwhile!

It's a workhorse! - "I'll just conclude with this: do you listen to more than a half hour podcast per week? Then, absolutely, positively, you deserve to buy RSSRadio.Five stars: well deserved!"...Okay. I am an IT nerd and very stingy with my five stars. It is not that this app is perfect, though it does do everything that I can think of that I might want it to do.It's not even that this developer just continues to work and work at new features every time I download the latest version.
No, it is really, simply put, that I use RSSRadio every single day. It's a workhorse! Add to the fact that I discovered dar.FM through this app; I now do maybe a couple dozen hours of listening a week with RSSRadio.Further, earlier this week, I discovered a new feature that allows me to squeeze out just the core content of a show without all of the hemming and hawing of long-winded, inarticulate, dead-air-time pod casters, saving me almost 25% time, for one show—without having to speed up dialogue… which, BTW, does that too.
But today, was the coup de grace. I stopped everything I was doing and decided to talk to Siri to write this review, which is something I almost never do—write reviews, that is. "Siri, "I said, "take a memo."I was listening to an MP3 that I had legally downloaded, and needed to be able to skip back and repeat what was just said by 10 seconds or so. The British speaker was difficult to understand and I knew I would be doing this a lot. I was bemoaning the idea that I couldn't just listen to it in my iTunes (no way to get it there without a computer) or in RSSRadio where I can easily skip forward and back.
Then it hit me: I realized I could simply open the file in RSSRadio and build an entire playlist and listen to it there.Although the process was a bit tedious, it was worth it. When I was done, I had a beautiful, hand-crafted playlist, ready to go in RSSRadio with all the forward and backward skipping I could ever want!Add to that a little preset equalization and Bam! Beautiful, relaxed, listening.
Honestly, I could say even more about features such as customizing number of downloads, episode retention, playback gestures … so much more.
I'll just conclude with this: do you listen to more than a half hour podcast per week? Then, absolutely, positively, you deserve to buy RSSRadio.Five stars: well deserved!-Kurt

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iSitter - Origin Story

All of my applications come about because I need them, so if i can't find an App then i often end up writing it myself.​

​iSitter wasn't quite that, but it was pretty close.

May 2011, our family of 5 takes a trip to Legoland in Windsor. The trip is at a weekend and we arrange to stay in a hotel on the Saturday night. As is fairly typical for us (2 adults, 3 kids) we can't fit in one room, so we have booked 2 adjoining rooms in the Hotel.

​After an exhausting day we arrive at the hotel to find that although we do have 2 rooms next to each other, there isn't actually a door in between them, this is going to be fine for sleeping - we will have a boys room and a girls room - but for the evening this is going to be quite a problem.

Faced with loosing a night with my wife in front of the TV (we have a bottle of wine ready), i start thinking about a technical solution - what if there was a way of monitoring whats going on in the kids room from our room.?

​Now as my wife will tell you i go pretty much everywhere loaded with technology, I certainly had multiple iOS devices on me (never know when a app bug is going to need to be fixed). A search through the App Store finds a couple of apps which promise to act as a baby monitor, I organise tethering on my iPhone to get 2 devices onto the same wifi network and download a promising looking app.

​I think we got through the evening, but it was a frustrating time with crashes, disconnections and i think eventually the iPhone on the baby end had a flat battery.

So, i mail the author of the app, explaining that it nearly works, if he's not interested in fixing it does he want to give or sell it to me so i can fix it?​

​Well, there was no reply all weekend, so the next week i investigate what would be required to write my own baby monitor. By the end of the week i've got something kind of working, A colleague at work has a wife who can do some design / graphics for me. And at the end of the 2nd week, i submit my baby monitor to the store.

What do you know, 2 days later the guy with the original app replies, he will sell the app but only for a lot of money. Well by now i've figured out his original app is basically just Apple sample code strung together and I let him know i've just submitted my own app so i'm fine, thank you very much.​

iSitter has evolved a lot since then, but its still using the same underlying technology. I wouldn't recommend the baby monitor app space, too many devices in need of a reboot, crazy wifi networks and other things to go wrong - its definitely not a wall to wall 5* review situation.

​I will rewrite iSItter totally in the next year, building on what i've learned so watch out for that.

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