To quote the reviewer:

…this app is definitely the best flickr app for Android – no doubt about it.

With how much work and effort we’ve put in over the last year part time while working full time, having babies, having fiancées leaving us; I think we’ve gotten a lot done and want to continue working to bring up our ratings and make ourselves be the Flickr application for Android.

I know my partners and I are super grateful for all the support and positive feedback we’ve gotten so far. We’re moving along and working to get version 1.2 and beyond done as quickly as possible.

Then about a couple weeks later he calls us and says that the potential buyers had flaked out on him and that we were next in line. Nate and I went out and looked at it and for the price it really seems like a great deal. Well, since looking at it we’ve decided to go for it. We’ve packed up most of our home into boxes. We’re lined up for October 1st as the move in day. More space (~3,300 square feet), four car garage, a view of the Sound, and a suitable yard. We’re very happy. I just need to make sure Comcast gets put in ASAP! So yeah, we’re moving. No more smokers, pot smoke, screaming matches, loud cars, busy roads, parking spot wars, and whatever.

We’ve finally launched Flicka. For those willing to spend the cost of a mocha to help support our efforts, go buy it! Rate it five stars! We need every bit of help to get people interested and excited about our product. Right now we’re focused on version 1.1 which will add some features and fix a couple bugs. It has been awesome to learn and release code. We’ve been using a lot of interesting tools to get things to a state where they are not crashing. For example, in addition to testing on different devices, programmed tests (Robotium like Selenium), and unit tests; we discovered Monkey which is literally like a monkey mashing buttons and doing all sorts of things to your application. Anyway, with MokaSocial now being legit and official we need to release new products and get ourselves to a place where we can work on mobile full time. There are several things “in the pipe” so stay tuned.

I got my haircut and chose a Mohawk. A little crazy for me. I feel like I am reaching out and trying new things. Another thing is that we’ve started up our “lifestyle” change again. I guess we took a few months off while we waited for Harrison to be born. It’s been tough. My cravings for simple, refined carbs is at times intense with times when nothing seems to curb my craving.

Henry, Helen, and Harrison are all well. Harrison has been a mellow baby with minutes of protesting before he begins to cry. It doesn’t happen often. Still he’s been a smiley, happy, and curious one doing most of everything before his siblings did when they were his age. Henry also got a Mohawk. He’s very talkative and has a particular affinity to following and creating rules. Oh, and shooting everything real or imaginary with real or imaginary guns. Not sure where he gets that. As far as Helen goes, she’s headstrong and determined. A little climber who will loudly whine, climb onto counters, and steal momma’s makeup and put it on.

Crystal and I have had a rocky few weeks. As we settle in to having three kids and starting over with an infant it has been hard to adjust. We’re making progress and talking things out. Still, there have been a few moments.

Everything else is coasting. I really want to work on my music. I feel so beat by the time I get home I don’t feel like doing much more than spending time with the family, watching a movie, or playing of Age of Conan (awesome game by the way). Recently I subscribed to Mother Earth News which isn’t as hippy as it sounds. It’s actually very friendly to folks that would like take more ownership over their food, housing, and sufficiency. It’s had us talking a lot lately about finding a way to living in a fashion where we control our dependency on “the systems” around us and the ability for us to carry on regardless if one, some, or all of them collapse. Also, being able to eat freshly and learn skills. Anyway, the reasons are my own. I don’t want to preach about it. Everyone has their own things they want but I wanted to share my perspective. But anyway, we’re not sure how that looks. As you know, I work technology and those sorts of jobs are in the city. Maybe we can’t live like that now but maybe one day?

Flicka has been progressing amazingly. We’re working on slide shows, making things crash resistant, and other updates to give us an application that finally works. I’ve finally gotten back in the swing of things. Work has been interesting at times. I love the job, the company, and the things I do especially since I get to lead a group of awesome developers. I think managing up is the biggest challenge or rather learning how to do it. The management structure isn’t as top down as some places yet there seem to be political spheres and things to work with. As a developer I like to be direct and to the point and I like to get that back from others. Our current project is something dubbed Project Relaunch which is a pretty big update to the main product site and the underlying mechanics of how we interact with various sub systems. I think we’re getting a good job done and when that September deadline rolls by we can let loose a little and take on more incrementally deploy-able tasks.

Our lease is up this September and although we’ve been fairly okay with living here, we are trying to decide between grinning and bearing apartment living for another lease term or finding a home to rent. My biggest complain is how people generally don’t think about what they do affects others. Driving through a parking lot fast, letting their dogs shit all over the lawns, smoking on their decks or outside my windows, talking loudly outside my window at two in the morning, playing bassy music loudly at two in the morning, letting your door slam, playing your surround sound system loudly at all hours, trying to find parking especially when guests come over; it goes on and on. We’re saving money I suppose. Renting a house tends to be more expensive. We managed to spend quite a bit on Harrison’s birth so now we’re in recovery mode. On one hand home ownership seems tempting but with the markets and how crazy things are locking into a house that may or may not sell is now scary to me. This time around we can definitely do our home work about the neighborhood and the house but still.

Renting shields us from some of that but it’s moving costs and dumping money into something that isn’t ours for another term. Back and forth we go.

For today we’re working on a couple things. I want to make Flicka be able to upload pictures and take pictures with the camera. Maybe even fix some problems with the search and the menu button. Koa is going to be fixing some layout stuff and hopefully sexify the search.

The second video is Koa’s version which is much better put together.

It’s been useful to identify several key issues we still need to address before we can launch. Caching is ok but needs tweaking, Performing tasks needs some sort of visual queue. Error handling needs a soft fail and missing Internet connections needs to fail gracefully.

More as it comes. We’re already working on our next project after Flicka: IHeartCelebs! Yeah it’s only a shell but we’re already cooking things up.

And tomorrow at noon I’m headed down to AboutUs for a sort of developer exchange. It’s more like they have a great understanding of Agile and we at Domaintools would love to learn a little more about their immensely productive sprints.

I remain cautiously optimistic. Our products are vastly different and so is our code base so I fear that also their process may be great, it’s great for them.

So with me being gone tomorrow and most of Friday I am afraid we won’t get to release the video. It’s a little demoralizing. We started talking about Flicka a while ago and although I know we won’t hurt people by delaying the video by a couple days it’s super nice to stay on target. Here’s to late nights and willpower.

The expansion (Dragon Age: Awakening) came out yesterday and it looks like it’ll continue where I left off. Inside was a curious card with 2.11.2011 printed on it. I am a little worried about a sequel being rushed out. I haven’t played any of the Mass Effect series. With how good this has been I might have to broaden my horizons.

Now for some interesting viewing. It’s long but chalk full of so-called conspiracies and stuff. I dig it. I know Alex Jones and some of the Prison Planet/Infowars stuff can go off the deep end but I appreciate some of the things these guys point out.

We’ve (Koa + me = MokaSocial, LLC) finally pushed out Flicka.mobi the official portal to Flicka, our Flickr application for the Android platform! It will bring all the free functionality of the Flickr website and add tons of integration into the mobile platform. We’re hoping to be able to launch the actual application by the beginning of Q2 this year. We’ll see.

The page kind of tells you about the release and stuff but here are all the links:

• Blog – http://flickamobi.tumblr.com/
• Flickr App Garden – http://www.flickr.com/services/apps/72157623025084241/
• Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/pages/Flicka/189775049761
• Twitter (of our Pivotal Tracker feed) – http://twitter.com/flickamobi
• Get Satisfaction – http://getsatisfaction.com/flicka

It’s been one frantic push to get the code base stabilized and things to a place where we can finally start talking about it. There isn’t much about the Google Android SDK on the web so that’s probably the biggest challenge. Also, the Java library we’re using for our interactions doesn’t seem to have everything.

Anyway, it’s been a wonderful dive into Java and I’ve been thoroughly enjoying it. We’re hoping it’s a successful mobile platform application; one in a series of many increasingly complex and sexy!

Special thanks to those that have been helping. The organization, insight, and comradeship has been awesome!