Reorganisation and a New App Review Submission Form
You might notice more changes around the site as I plug away a little bit more at improving Frapstr. I’ve ended up shuffling around some of the sidebar items so that they’re a little more even. The top apps now live on the left sidebar, so the right is reserved for easy category searching and the random screenshot widget. I’ve also removed the last of the ads from the site (apart from my ad for Galactic Chill, obviously — hey, gotta stump for my own material), something I’ve been meaning to do for a while but it always slipped my mind. I removed the Technorati link too, because frankly it was just taking up space and not earning its keep, and I cleaned up the resources section a bit, too. I’m thinking of moving some of the most important links into a new nav bar at the top between the header and content, where they’ll be a little easier to spot.
One of the bigger things I’ve been working on (not that it’s particularly huge) is the new app review submission page so developers and their PR reps have a much better and clearer method for submitting apps for review than hunting for my E-Mail address which, let’s face it, is pretty ghetto. The new page features a nice clean form with all of the important fields and selection boxes for easy input, plus space to send me a nice note describing their game and passing along any other pertinent information. Yes, there’s a captcha box there too; don’t want bots using it to spam me after all. I still have to play with the CSS a bit to get it looking a bit nicer — wider, mostly, but other than that it’s an improvement over the old method.
Back at the homestead, I’m still 3G S-less. Rogers is still sold out. I’ve been hearing a rumbling or two that they just got a shipment in and are shipping them out to back-ordered customers, but as I haven’t received a shipment confirmation E-Mail yet, I’m assuming mine is either still earmarked, or still backordered. All I can say is, I want my damn 3G S! It’s been two weeks now since I placed my order, and I’d like it very much if Rogers didn’t gun for three. I don’t suppose I can blame Rogers, really; Apple is the one with the supply problem. In the mean time though the wife decided to upgrade her 3G to OS 3.0, because there were a couple of apps she really wanted that required it. “Super,” I thought, “thirty minutes and we should be golden.” Yeah, you know damn well fate wasn’t having any of that. I spent three freakin’ hours on that damn thing. Try as I might, it would not upgrade. No matter what I tried — normal restore, DFU shift-restore, uninstall and reinstall iTunes, going into DFU with and without iTunes loaded, doing it after a fresh reboot, uninstalling and reinstalling iTunes and AMDH — no amount of hocus pocus, tests of will or threads of physical violence was able to get the damn thing to restore. I finally brought the whole mess over to the Mac, and at long last the damn thing was able to restore.
“Just works” my twice-spanked ass. Not when Windows is involved.
The review stream may be a little tepid this weekend. I have company over Saturday, where we’ll be shuttling around hell’s half acre most of the day, and I have to get at least one bonus track done for the next update to Galactic Chill. I think I’d also like to redo the existing tracks for more seamless looping, and to properly EQ them this time. They sound like crap right now – I know most who’ve tried it don’t think so, but they sound flat and dull to me. Just listen to it side-by-side with Relax Trax and you’ll see what I mean. I really need to fill it out with some proper EQing to bolster the highs and round out the bass a bit.
Anyway, ’bout time I get back to things. More changes will undoubtedly be on the way — and I’m still toying with a complete makeover at some point. But for now, one thing at a time.