The summer is officially here: days are as long as they're going to get, we're in the grip of an unprecedented heatwave (unprecedented as in "first one this year"), and people who normally couldn't care less about tennis are watching it avidly just because it happens to be going on in South West London.

It seems as if everything that happens over this fortnight is somehow related to Wimbledon. This morning's headlines were all of the form "Centre court roasts at 41 degrees!", as if the weather were somehow localised to a patch of grass 78 feet by 27 feet. I guess it is something we can relate to, the headline: "Dave's flat roasts at 41 degrees" probably wouldn't sell quite so many papers, except possibly to Dave's family and friends.

Of course, it wouldn't be such a big deal to everyone if there wasn't someone to support avidly in a fury of national pride we would otherwise be denied in a year when there's no international football tournament. And this year, we have a contender who fulfils both the criteria of having a chance of maybe actually winning, and who can be called British so the pubs have something to play on their expensive plasma TVs - although if he loses, he'll be back to being Scottish, so its win-win for us Sassenach.

As with any sport, I've been somewhat excluded from office banter (I was convinced that "Murray Mound" was some kind of innuendo) and after the recent Grand Prix debacle, I was determined to at least have something to say about the tennis. So in between cooking and dealing with household paperwork, I tuned into Murray's fourth-round match...and suddenly realised I had no idea what the score was, nor who was winning. Rather than hop over to wikipedia to quickly learn the rules of the game so I could figure out what the heck was going on, I tried to judge what was going on based solely on the cheering of the crowd. I think Murray won, but I'm not sure.

So, my valiant attempt to get "into" a sporting event thwarted, I resigned myself to another week without much to talk about in the office. I eagerly await next week, when banter can return to the latest political scandal, and how fantastic the new Mitchell and Webb series is (it is fabulous, by the way).

Well, hot on the heels of the recent price drop of Togolon, Apple finally got around to approving the latest update: version 1.0.1!

The new version includes:

• Add Lite levels to the full version
• Add a retry button to the pause menu
• Bug fix - stop the screen going dark after a period of pay
• Web link on main menu

This version is available for download right now in the app store [iTunes Link]!

Forums

Most of the changes in update 1.0.1 are based on suggestions made by current players, so please keep the feedback coming!

To make sure this is as easy as possible, I've added some forums to this site, so you can meet other players and blog readers, swap hints, high scores, thoughts, jokes or just have a bit of a natter.

[Forums - NEW]

I've got some exciting new updates coming for Togolon, with 1.0.1 fixing some general bugs and tidying things up a little, and 1.1 adding some awesome new features (more on that later). But as the review process is taking a while, I thought I'd make up for it by dropping the price for the full game to a mere fifty nine of the Queen's pence!

So if you haven't picked up your copy yet, what are you waiting for? Boogie on down to the iTunes app store, for 60 levels, its an absolute bargain!

[Togolon Download]

 Yesterday saw the release of iPhone OS 3.0, with a raft of improvements and new features. Excitement was such that a misreported delay in the release resulted in a flurry of angry tweets, followed by a series of slightly miffed corrections. Despite this, the release went ahead as planned, for most people.

iPhone developers had been given beta versions of the OS, so they could test their apps and make use of new features from day one. As a developer, I had been working with the betas, and was keen to install the release version for any bug fixes that went in, and to be sure apps on my device would work the same as for everyone else.

However, upon trying to update through iTunes, I was presented with a dialog telling me that "3.0 was the latest version", as far as it was concerned, 3.0 beta 5 was the same as the final release. Not only that, but Apple had removed the GM seed download from the developer site.

Luckily, there was help available in the developer forums. I've condensed these tips below:

Instructions

1. IMPORTANT! Sync your iPhone in iTunes, to make sure you have all your settings backed up. You will be wiping your phone later, so make sure you have all your media and applications in your iTunes library, too (I forgot to do this and lost a day's notes and text messages!)
2. Unplug the USB connector from your iPhone and power it off (with the red slider).
3. Make sure iTunes is open on your Mac. Hold down the Home button on your iPhone and reconnect the USB connector.
4. Keep the Home button held down until you see the "Connect to iTunes" screen on your iPhone
5. iTunes will bring up a dialog: "iTunes has detected an iPhone in recovery mode". Click OK to start the recovery process. iTunes will download and install the latest version of iPhone OS.
6. Once your iPhone has been recovered, select your backup to restore your settings
7. Sync your iPhone to restore all your applications and media

And you're ready to go! For more detailed instructions for steps 2-5, see this support article.

This seemed to work great for everyone in the forums, but I should add a disclaimer that you do this at your own risk, and I'm not responsible for any lost data, etc.

Now I can get back to work on version 1.1 of Togolon!

Today is a special day, a day full of mystery and wonderment, specifically the mystery of how the hell you're supposed to get to work. Today, is tube strike day.

All over the capital this morning, commuters queued for buses, arranged group cycle routes, or just walked in the rain, grimly determined to make it into the office at whatever cost. As the old saying goes "when the going gets tough, the tough get going". Well, I am neither tough nor particularly determined, so I'm working from home.

That's one of the joys of working in IT these days; remote desktop and VPN software give us the freedom to work from anywhere, at anytime, and wearing anything. Instant messaging puts us in immediate contact with our colleagues - even when we're all in the same office. And conference calling and screen sharing services (WebEx or GoToMeeting, for example) allow us to keep up with meetings from miles away.

So I'm sitting with a cup of hot tea in my bedroom, in my dressing gown - or rather, I would be if the letting agent wasn't coming by to take some pictures (they aren't after that sort of pictures). I'm feeling refreshed for that extra blissful hour in bed, and rattling through the day's work tasks without fear of interruption, all whilst getting some washing done.

This is the true power of telecommuting, running errands that your working hours ordinarily would make difficult. As a further example, I managed to finally get to the charity shop while it was open to drop in some clothes. That was what I would call a level 2 telecommuting activity. Level 1 is a small errand requiring minimal supervision (like washing), level 2 is a quick trip out (no more than half an hour) and level 3 involves thinking "screw it, the boss isn't here".

I'm not writing about this in order to brag, but to suggest how things might be. What if we could all work from home now and then? Get away from the stress of commuting? If we didn't have to worry about those household tasks we just can't fit in? If we could catch up on all the things Sky+ has recorded that we're never particularly in the mood to watch?

There are so many jobs that could be done from home from time to time, so why don't we give the workers that opportunity? We could save the country untold time, money, and shut Bob Crow the hell up.

I've been overwhelmed by the response to Togolon Lite, with a huge number of downloads in just a few days, and some great reviews. So I figured to celebrate, I'd give away some copies of the full game!

The lovely people at www.AppGiveaway.com will give out 10 promo codes to 10 lucky peeps (US iTunes store only, unfortunately), first come, first served, so get there quick! And if you are one of the fortunate 10, I'd really appreciate if you left a review, good or bad, I'm working hard on the next version, so need as much feedback as I can get.

[Giveaway Link]

Best of luck! But if you don't manage to get there in time, Togolon is only £1.19 ($1.99) in the iTunes App Store, with all 60 levels, and more to come very soon!

Despite being a huge Mac fanboy (see the keyboard & mouse combo in the header pic), I use a PC running Windows XP at work. As such, I'm pretty used to bash-esque shells, and am continually frustrated by the Windows command-line being just that little bit different.

My build tree has been broken for a couple of days, and in the hope of saving it, I wanted to get rid of all the files that weren't part of version control. We use Perforce for version control, which handily makes all the files it manages read-only (requiring you to explicitly check them out to work on them). So all I needed to to was delete all the writable files in my source tree.

If I were on my Mac or a Linux machine, I might do some complex series of piped commands in a crazily complex script...before discovering a specific command that could do what I wanted. Being on Windows, I had to read up on the syntax for the del command.

Hooray! All I needed to do was:

del /Q /S /A-r *

Bingo!

This is probably quite obvious to any Windows peeps who use the command-line a lot. But heck, if I write about it here, I might remember the command next time.

Well, after much fiddling and twiddling with level designs, the Lite version of my iPhone game, Togolon is now available for download in the iTunes App Store. Click here to download.

The Lite version features 6 sample levels, and all the gameplay elements of the full game, and all for the low, low price of FREE.

Togolon is a bit like a cross between Labyrinth and Light Out: roll your ball around the maze to turn all the red tiles green - but be quick, you don't have long! Try to beat your top scores and level times, and if you get a call, or need a break, just pick up where you left off last time.

So, fire up those iPhones and iPods and give it a try!
Still not convinced? Check out my little promo video on Youtube.

I'm hard at work on version 1.1 of Togolon, and I'm really keen for some feedback to make it even better, so please feel free to pop a review on iTunes, even if you didn't like the game.

Enjoy!

Well, tick off another resolution, sort of. Number 8 on my list of tasks for the New Year was to give blood. This was the one that I was most expecting to fail at, for a variety of reasons: namely that I have a big problem with needles, and get rather squeamish at the sight of blood - which, incidentally are the exact same reasons for my not having achieved my childhood ambition of becoming a surgeon.

Luckily, my friend Charlie is an avid donor and wasn't going to let me bottle this one (bottling referring to 'wussing out' rather than the storage of blood, which they put in bags). As she was due for a donation this week, she suggested we pop along to the clinic near Oxford Circus, and was extremely helpful in reassuring me both that it was painless, and that my trip to Egypt last year wouldn't bar me from donating (thus leading everyone to suspect I had engaged in the sort of sordid activities we all know might make your blood icky). Although when we arrived yesterday evening, I was still a little nervous:

As it turned out the process was indeed painless, in every sense of the word. After a little form filling, a short wait and an iron test, I soon found myself stood beside a bed while it was being swapped around because I was an awkward lefty and asked to donate from my right arm.

I would have liked to get some pictures during the process for posterity, but everything was so efficient I didn't have time to ask, and I wouldn't want to take photos without asking, because there may be security concerns...god forbid the fundamentalist vampires got an idea of the layout of the place!

I must admit I was slightly concerned when the bloodletting operative (their exact title escaping me) had trouble finding my vein, and had to check my other arm for reference, but before long I was attached to a slowly filling bag o' blood. I say slowly, because there was apparently a kink in the aptly-named "bleed line", which made the whole process take far longer than anticipated. One poor member of staff was press-ganged into holding the tube straight in the hopes of speeding it up, but to no avail.

After about 15 minutes, which I was informed is the cut-off time, there was only about 2/3 of a pint in the bag, so unfortunately, my donation could not be used. End result? I went through all the motions, and had to leave slightly light-headed but without the smug sense of self-satisfaction that I was expecting. On the plus side, I still got a free biscuit.

So I'm not sure if I can really tick this resolution off. Granted, I did give some blood, but not entirely enough blood. And while the problems were (I'm assured) not my fault, I can't in good faith call this a successfully completed task, even if I did get the same plaster as everyone else:

But I'm not going to let this discourage me. I'll be allowed to try again in 12 weeks, and given we're less than halfway through the year, I can have a good two more attempts at this. Plus I now know I can do it, having sat there with a perforated vein for at least twice as long as most everyone else that day.

I shall help my fellow man! Oh, yes.

The weekend before last, I went along to the Rubber Chicken Club and managed to get an open mic spot. Had a great time, the other acts were great and the audience was fantastic, plus they were taking video: