Comme j’y ai contribué à cette nouvelle version , j’en parle pour la première fois d’une application d’un client.
La nouvelle application EuroMillions permet maintenant de faire des prises de jeux directement depuis un smartphone, une fois qu’un compte a créé avec FDJScan .
Néanmoins pour des raisons juridiques , la FDJ a choisi de ne pas publier cette évolution majeure sur Google Play. http://play.google.com/about/developer-content-policy.html
Jeux d’argent et de hasard : nous n’autorisons pas les contenus ou services qui visent à faciliter l’accès à des sites de jeux d’argent, notamment, et sans s’y limiter, les casinos en ligne, les sites de paris sportifs et les loteries.
Mon aventure auprès de Mappy SA se termine aujourd’hui après plus de 14 mois passés.
Depuis l’arrivée des app stores , j’avais toujours rêver de travailler dans la mobilité dans le but de créer mes propres “apps” et pas pourquoi sortir le prochain hit. Les témoignages d’ un développeur solo devenu riche faisaient la Une. Jusqu’au jour où l’appli d’un collègue de Siemens lui rapporte plus que toute notre prime annuelle : plus de 8000€ pour coder en un weekend . Donc pourquoi pas se lancer ? J’avais pleins d’idées mais j’étais incapable de les développer, ces idées restaient sur le papier. J’ai commencé à apprendre le soir.
Chose faite pendant cette période, j’ai appris beaucoup au quotidien et j’ai contribué à différentes versions de l’application Mappy . Disons que cette expérience était une marche qui m’a ouvert d’autres horizons.
En fait, je me suis toujours considéré comme un entrepreneur dans l’âme sans jamais créer d’entreprise 🙂 (ah le mytho ). Et voilà que je commence une activité de freelance bientôt avec une structure en cours de création. Je compte commencer avec une EIRL en essai . Si cette activité se prolonge , je vais la transformer en EURL . Si je décide de redevenir salarié, la fermeture d’une entreprise individuelle est plus simple qu’une société.
Merci pour vos mots. Et je remercie les personnes présentes et leur bonne humeur en particulier les Jérôme(s) C. et D. , Sylvain , Xavier, Claire, Mathieu , Marie , Axelle, Lionel …
Edit 3/08/12
je crois que je vais finalement opter pour le statut d’EURL (Entreprise Unipersonelle à Responsabilité Limitée ) rien que pour le personnel du CFE ( centre de formalité des Entreprise ) de Paris. Ils sont sous-staffé, accueillants.
Pour le statut d’EIRL ( Entreprise Individuelle à Responsabilité Limitée ) , en profession libéral, ca se passe à l’URSSAF. C’est souvent rempli de monde débordé. Le top, on ne peut pas créer une EIRL avant d’avoir commencé à travailler.
Mais les frais de fonctionnement d’une EURL sont plus lourds . Et surtout la fermeture d’une EURL est plus coûteuse. Donc pas rentable pour 6 mois d’essai.
La vrai différence de statut entre les deux : dans l’EURL , la société (personne morale) et son gérant sont bien séparés. Les créanciers ne peuvent saisir que son capital social.
Dans une Entreprise Individuelle , son créateur est responsable des dettes. Donc ses créanciers peuvent saisir son patrimoine. C’est le cas des professions libérales.
La nuance dans une EIRL , l’entrepreneur a deux patrimoines : le personnel et celui de son entreprise.
EURL == société et EIRL == personne physique
Zhujiajiao – Shanghai takes one hour by car . I took the bus from Shanghai Indoor Stadium.
The water towns are typical around Shanghai area. Amsterdam is famous for its canals, but the Dutch capital is not surrounded by as much water. The canals are larger in Zhujiajiao, the village is still authentic despite the construction of many shops. The town has a lot of traditional Chinese sightseeing : Kezhi Garden , Buddhist Temple and many bridges.
The local cuisine is famous for 扎肉 ( zha rou ) : meat wrapped in leaves .
The only return bus arrived at 17 . That will be the main drawback of the bus tour from Shanghai stadium.
The final sequences of Mission Impossible 3 in Shanghai made me want to see water town. Too bad that night , I learnt the scenes featured were in Xitang
For this release , we got the analytic , a new message popping up, no arc velocity. I didn’t see any use of angular velocity so I suppressed it, it was using space the bottom left corner.
Faster animation
I was unsatisfied with the previous animation, it feels sluggish . Now it’s more responsive but not too fast so the animation looks smooth. For developers, I simply changed SensorManager.SENSOR_DELAY_NORMAL to SensorManager.SENSOR_DELAY_GAME .
Analytics
Need INTERNET permission . Let’s see if this permission scares away users or not. Just to know more about the demographics of active users .
New Message
Compatible with Android 4.0 ICS like you see on this pic. Yeah I got my Samsung Galaxy Nexus this week which I chose over the Galaxy 3. I introduced a Toast at each new launch to drive more traffic to indolor.com . At least it drives awareness to this site. I’m hoping users will download my other apps too.
Version name
It has been a tradition to name each version after a explorer. For this time, I chose after Xu Fu
Euro 2012
No relation to CompassRay. For the finale, I will support Spain over Italy.
EDIT : Glad Spain defeated Italy, 4-0
This release has a major update. It contains analytics. Informations I want :
what devices have a problem with this app
is widget more used than the app ?
I chose Flurry because it requires one less permission ( android.permission.READ_PHONE_STATE ) than Google Analytics . Let’s see what the stats will tell after a week use.
New Flags
Fix flags for Taiwan , Brazil
New country flags are Austria, Australia, Switzerland , Ireland, New Zealand, US, South Africa. Some languages have regional flavor : take standard German, German ( Austria) and German (Switzerland). Picking German (Switzerland) or France (Switzerland) will display Swiss national flag.
It’s a principle to fix bugs before writing new code
China and Japan flags were not visible.
For China, the code country is cn and the Chinese language is zh . Taiwan flag tw was added to make the difference between simplified and avoid a diplomatic incident 🙂 For Japan, the code country is ja and language is jp
For Norway, norsk Bokmål nb was added . Only Norsk no was recognized before
New flags
New country flags made an entrance :
– Portuguese (Portugal, Brazil)
– Hindi (India)
– Hebrew (Israel)
– Czech Republic
– Hungary
– Poland
New distribution Strategy : localization
I’m still experimenting how to increase download numbers. I remember reading about angry birds marketing strategy . In order to enter the big market, Rovio conquered small markets first.
“We realised very early on it would be tough to break those markets. So we tried to get a following in the smaller nations,” says Matt Wilson, head of marketing. It took only a few hundred purchases to get the game to number one in the Finnish App Store. The same went for Sweden and Denmark, then Greece and the Czech Republic. “Before having any traction in the UK and US, which are now 90 per cent of our market, we had 30,000-40,000 downloads in smaller nations — not a huge amount, but probably four times what the average app sells,” says Wilson.
Raygional is after all targeted at multilinguists. After first , it makes sense to translate in popular languages like English, Japanese, French, Spanish, German, Korean… but to penetrate these markets is tough. So I asked some people to translate in Scandinavian and Eastern European languages.
The first translation I got is Hungarian ( magyar ).
Raygional latest update has country flags in the widget. Everytime you change the language, the country flag will be displayed in the widget. Of course the list of flags is not complete, so by default Raygional icon will be displayed.
This update contains the following flag :
-China cn
-Denmark da Dansk
-Germany de Deustch
-Greece el ελληνικά
-Great Britain en English
-Spain es Español
-Finland fi Suomi
-France fr Français
-South Korea ko 한국어
-Italy it Italiano
-Japan jp 日本語
-Netherlands nl Nederlands
-Norway no Norsk
-Romania ro Română
-Russia ru русский
-Sweden sv Svenska
Some users may wonder WTFI chose American English so why do I see the British flag? . Languages don’t have a national flag on their own, it’s the country where it’s associated. The same language can be spoken in different countries. If that’s an user request I’ll add the regional flags . ie For English : Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States.
It’s been over 2 years without any updates. Simply because it worked for me and HTC sense has a nice feature to change the keyboard configuration when typing. But recently I played with other smartphones and DAMN I was wrong. Worse I did not read users comment. That was my old self = no customer support. Some emailed me. Hey I can’t reproduce your problem since I don’t have your device. But things have changed since I have plenty of devices at work.
First the one click change didn’t work on most devices. Not great for an app supposed to change the language setting in one click. On my device it was working but that’s no excuse. Now it’s compatible with android 2.x and 4 (ICS) , no test on 3 (honeycomb ) if someone can report.
Second now it has a widget which is showing the current language setting used. Click on the widget to change the language.
Raygional widget
For those don’t how to insert a widget , here is a how to:
android 2.x : press Menu button > Add to Home > Widget > Select the widget
android 4 : click on the app list > go to widgets tab
Ideas for next updates
The locale setting does not change the keyboard. You can still have all the apps in German and keep the French keyboard. It’s troublesome because word completion is in the keyboard setting. will be the That’s two different settings on OEM smartphones ( at least on Samsung Touchwiz and HTC Sense). One setting on Nexus S. I’ll try to add on the widget both : language used in the OS and the keyboard.
One minor, the language displayed on the widget is just the language without any regional preference. There is English (United Kingdom) , English( United States).
Graphic designer needed
The icon ( tongue with flags) I’m using is not mine . Just found on google . I’m looking for a graphic designer for Raygional. It’s just one single 512*512 icon. I’d be really grateful for the help. Email me at raychenon At indolor.com . You’ll get your name or alias ( for privacy ) in the special thanks.
For the first day in Macau , we didn’t bother to visit typical tourists attractions but the casinos.
This adventure happened on Sunday April 22 2012.
Quick facts
Even tough macao has its own currency Macau Patacas ( MOP ). They accept Hong Kong dollars ( HKD ).
Macau is one of the two special administrative region (SAR), the other being Hong Kong.Official language is portuguese. But English is spoken as much as in Hong Kong = not very well but good enough to have directions.
If you’re coming from Hong Kong, bring your passport. My main complaint is the inefficiency at the customs, add one hour in the waiting line.
From HK to Macau/Macao
The boat travel takes one hour on TurboJet ( others may be as fast) . Since Macau used to be Portuguese and Hong Kong British. Even tough they belong to China now.They have separate immigration systems. So you’ll need to fill a form and your passport will be stamped. Yep if you came to Hong Kong for a visa SORRY. I’m surprised at HK departure, no one checks if you have your passport. The customs entrance takes another hour. That’s the big complain. If Macau wants to attract more tourists, why not just skip this step ?
After the port exit, we didn’t bother to take a paid taxi or paid tour guide. There are plenty of free bus to the hotels. The hotels have casinos. If you want to see the typical Macau monument : St Paul’s Church Facade … If you want to feel casino, have a great buffet, then take the free bus. We took the latter path.
The bus took us at the grand Lisboa hotel. As you’d expect all casinos / hotels are lavishly designed.
grand lisboa hall interior
Casino/hotel ambiance
I had been in Las Vegas long ago, I was underage. But I did remember the ambiance, the sound coins dropping , free cocktails … The casinos were filled with people. Macao casinos are nearly empty on a Sunday. In some cases , there were as many clients as staff. But most are BIG players and spenders : few slot machines, plenty of poker tables. Unfortunately photography is forbidden inside gambling area.
The casinos from outside and inside look splendid. This one is taken at the fountain of the Wynn ( 永利 shui li).
Buffet
Like all casinos , you ‘d expect a great buffet. We spent zero on gambling, we went to Macao for one reason: luxury buffet. BTW HK Dollars are accepted.
Look at the freshness of the sushis. FYI The red drink is watermelon juice ( I don’t know how why it’s so red )
Fresh sushi at MGM Grand Buffet
fresh seafood
From outside
From outside
This buffet is under the transparent arch. At this time , a construction was ongoing for Buttefly Pavilion.
butterfly expo
Macau outside
Few more photos of the day.
One day certainly is not enough to discover Macau . Is it worth to spend a day ? Depends if you’re more than a week in Hong Kong , yes.
Hong Kong ( 香港 Xiānggǎng ) means “fragrant harbour” . Been there in 2010 for a week and now 2012 for a week, walked past a dozen times avenue of stars. Some interesting facts I spotted from local friends who showed me around. For westerners, some local customs strike first and that’s part of the travel experience.
Locations
Lodging alone is the biggest spending. Most tourists stay in Tsim Sha Shui area ( southern tip of Kowloon ). Personally I don’t recommend to stay at Chungking Mansions.
Hong Kong people tend to judge social status from the place you live :
– New Territories = countryside
– Kowloon ( except Tsim Sha Shui ) = normal people
– the Peak on Hong Kong Island = riches
What Hong Kong streets look like on causeway bay
Causeway Bay street on Hong Kong island
Things to see
You don’t need spend a lot to enjoy Hong Kong tourist spots. A ride on the Star Ferry from Tsim Sha Shui to Central costs only 3 HKD. It takes only 8 minutes : the instant you set the foot onboard until you land a foot on the other side of the sea. There you can see Hong Kong skyline ( better at night for the light show )
Tian tan Buddha ( visited on foggy day on April , not the best timing ) on Lantau island ( airport )
Victoria Peak or simply “the Peak” on Hong Kong island .
Eating manners
In dim sum restaurants, an empty large bowl and hot water may be served before eating. Nope this bowl is NOT to put food by-products ( bones ) . Its purpose is to wash utensils in hot water or tea. As a safety precaution, some locals may think dishes are not clean. How to do it properly ? Pour the tea in in the large bowl. Wash the tip of chopsticks in the bowl. For tea cups, pour the tea inside first then bath in the large bowl.
There is no strict rules like the tea ceremony. But rest assured, cases of food poisoning are rare in Hong Kong. This practice arises in areas of Southern China : Hong Kong, Macau, Shenzhen, Taiwan.
In higher end restaurants , a set of two chopsticks black and white are given. Black chopsticks are used to take food from mutual dishes to one’s plate. White ones are meant to carry food to your mouth.
Cuisine style
In Hong Kong it’s Cantonese style, the popular chinese cuisine in overseas restaurant. But it tastes different ( cannot describe by words ) on place. Here is a glimpse of “oddities”
Below is the “creamy yellow bun” and its alternate names are “steamed creamy custard bun” , 奶黃包 (Nai huáng bāo) . It’s yellow egg inside, creamy and sweet. This one is a bit oily.
There is also the HK eggball, a version of “gaufre”
Shopping
Hong Kong is heaven for shopping. It’s tax free and you can almost anything. For electronics , it’s the best place to buy. For example Apple products are the cheapest in the world. I bought a mac book pro for 9088 HKD (890 eur ) at the IFC Apple Store. In my country it would be 1150 eur. That’s more than 20% discount. How come ? Shenzhen , the world factory ( remember Foxconn) , is nearby. And Hong Kong is tax free. Ironically it’s even more expensive in Mainland China for products “made in China”, because the Chinese government put purchase taxes.
There is also an electronics market for computer hardware located at Sham Shui Po.
Airport
On Landing. When you land in the airport, take the Airport Express to go either Kowloon ( 90HKD ) or Hong Kong Central (100HKD). Then take the taxi or bus to join the place you’re staying. Taxi line can be very long at station on raining days. I waited for nearly one hour for a 10 minutes ride. Probably it’s better to check if the bus is stopping at your hotel.
When leaving. HK’s airport is a model of efficiency. Luggages checkin are available at Airport Express stations (Kowloon, Hong Kong Central ) . No waiting lines. The stations themselves are shopping centers. The ride from Kowloon to airport takes 20 minutes. So after checking your luggages , there is still time to visit Hong Kong and arrive at the airport one hour before boarding. So great I’m used to arrive 3h before the flight thanks to Paris CDG airport.
check-in luggages at Kowloon Airport Express station
In the airport itself , there are plenty of shops and food in the airport. The terminals are LONG, the longest I’ve seen. For this reason alone, I advise to arrive earlier.
