martes, 27 de marzo de 2012

Advertising... Why?!



Hi all!

  Today I'm gonna talk about advertising... yes, that annoying stuff that appears suddenly while you are visiting websites or while you are playing with your favourite smartphone game. Before I became a developer, I thought that advertising is one of the worst things that people created for the Internet. By becoming a developer, I changed my mind. Well... not much.

  We all agree that advertising is annoying, but we need to understand both, users and developers points of view, and then decide if advertising is as useless as we all think.

Users point of view:
  Yes, I know that I'm not 'all of the users', but I do know what most of people think about it. A lot of users think that adverts = virus. I've heard a lot of times: -"Be careful to not to click that advert! It can be harmful for your computer!". I understand that point of view because lots of adverts are links to virus... but not all!

  Moreover, adverts are disturbing: they force you to wait to get access to another website, they appear suddenly and sometimes it's difficult to close them because the close button is hidden, they open themselves in another window of the browser... Summarizing: f*** them!

  These are the most important and good reasons why people hate adverts. But, what do developers think about it? Do they want to disturb people with those annoying types of adverts? Why do they want adverts on their websites or apps? Let's take a look at their point of view...

Developers point of view:
  When you become a developer and you create a product that people is used to use, you are very happy but... what if you want (or need) to earn some little amount of money? (believe me, so little amount of money) If you work in a company, you get money monthly, but if you are a developer that works only for fun, or works to bring new services or games to people, you won't earn nothing... In this situation is where adverts come into play.

  The most used adverts are called 'banners' (see the image at the top). They can be small, big, only text, text with images, dynamic etc... There are lots of other types of adverts, but I'll write about banners because they are the most used. And how do they work?

  Most of the adverts only give a little amount of money to the developer when people click on them. This type of adverts are used in a very very high percentage of free smartphone applications and games (Blackberry, iOs, Android, Windows Phone, Bada etc...). The other type of adverts are the most annoying of them. They give money to the developer only when the advert is shown. They are used a lot on the Internet (the typical advert that appears suddenly in full screen mode and forces you to wait X seconds to get access to the page)

  Developers usually use adverts to earn some money to the maintenance of the website or server, to contract other employers etc... But why adverts?

  On the Internet there are only two ways to earn money: forcing the user to pay for a product or giving for free that product but adding adverts. If you create a new app or website from zero, you want to get as users as possible to promote the product. That's why there are lots and lots of free apps. The problem is that giving the product for free, you don't earn anything, so the most used option in this cases in to add adverts.

So, what's the problem between the two points of view?
  Developers want/need money and use adverts to reach their goal but users don't click them because they think adverts will be harmful for their computers or smartphones. And what do we 'win' with this bad combination? Developers use more aggressive adverts and people get angry because of those annoying, aggressive and tiring adverts.

  To finish, I'll let you know my personal point of view: If you enjoy a website or a game or app for smartphone, help the developer by clicking the adverts. This way, the developer can pay his expenses and give support to the application, and the user will only waste 10 seconds of his time and he will be able to continue enjoying the application or website.

  I've written this post because a lot of people think that adverts are something created only to disturb, and that's not the truth.

  Thank you all for reading what I think about this topic. If you have any question, you can leave a comment just below.

P.S: Sorry for my bad English but I'm a Spanish student and I don't still have a good written English (neither spoken).

jueves, 22 de marzo de 2012

Omegan for Android working again!

Hi all! I'm really happy to announce you that the android version of Omegan is already working! We apologize for the inconveniences and hope there won't be any other problems related to this. The fleet for android phones is almost done. We just have to add some maths formulas and we will upload it to the market. Thank you all!

New server working!

Hi all!

We finally have working our new server! Thank you to all the people who donated some money!

Now the browsing is faster (thing that is appreciated). We have contracted this server:

- Intel Core i5-2400 with Turbo Boost Technology
- 4x3.1+ GHz
- 6MB L2 - QPI 5GT/sec
- 64 bits system (linux)
- RAM 16GB DDR3
- 120GB SSD
- Net: 100Mbps
- etc...

It's awesome! I hope you'll enjoy this server as much as I.

But there's bad news too... The new server has changed all the files needed to connect the mobile version, so it's not working... Moreover, has changed something of the data base and the Trade isn't working either. But we are working hard to solve all of this problems.

I'm also working on the fleet of the mobile version... I'm having sweat and tears to have it working!

That's all, thank you all for visiting my blog!

www.omegan.es

domingo, 18 de marzo de 2012

New server but no money...

Hi all!

Today I'm gonna write about our economic situation and what we (the Omegan team) want to do.

Yesterday, the server where Omegan is located went down. We had some minor problems with the website and we disabled the access to the game. The server went down because of the amount of people that were playing online. Omegan's server is free, so its capacity is so reduced.

We have found a dedicated server that theoretically works like a charm, good specifications etc...

This server will guarantee:
     - Faster access connection
     - More disk space
     - More processing power
     - Better stability
     - Daily backups to save the data
     - Unlimited traffic
     - etc...

So it worth to make the change and buy this server. The bad news is that this server costs 80€/month (amount that is impossible to pay for us), so we need your help to buy this server (this is the best quality/price server we found).

That's the reason why we added some adverts to the Android application and to this blog, because each click helps us with a little amount of money. But this isn't enough, so we've added the possibility to contribute by sending us a little amount of money through PayPal.

You can send some money by clicking the following link (it is a direct link to PayPal): http://goo.gl/IxQ0L

Thank you very much for your help. We just want to offer the best user experience.

viernes, 16 de marzo de 2012

Fleet under construction

Hi all!

I think that you'll be happy to know that the design of the fleet screen is finished. I've attempted to make it as practical as possible, with the information shown clearly.


The new update of the application will include the fleet with all of the functions that it has on the web site , but due to the work that it will take doing this part, I cannot give you a specific date for the new version launch.


I'll keep you up to date.


If you have any suggestion, you can post a comment right here on this blog.


Thank you!

miércoles, 14 de marzo de 2012

Off Topic: My new inline video

Hi all!

Today I'm gonna talk about something different: my sport. Yes I know, it's rare that a developer has other hobbies, but I love sport (not football x_x)

I'm inline skater since I'm 4 years old. I go to skate every week I can and always improving my style and adding new tricks to my repertoire.

Yesterday I was editing a new video to look for sponsor, and here's the result of two days of work:



I hope you all enjoy my video :)

Thank you for watching it!

martes, 13 de marzo de 2012

Version 1.5 of Omegan android app!

Hi everyone!

I've launched a new version of the Omegan android application! This version includes some new features that some users were asking for and some others to improve the user experience using this application. Here you have a list of all of them:

1- Added progress dialogs while the user interface is loading.
      Why? Because I realized that if you attempt to change the planet before was all loaded, you couldn't
                  access them.

2- Added the time required to be able to build whatever. I mean, if you do not have enough resources, you aren't able to build anything, so this time shows you when you'll be able to build that thing.
       Why? Because this time is available at the webpage and the android app isn't less :P

3- I've improved the method of selection of the units in shipyard and defenses. Now you can introduce numbers manually.
       Why? Because this way, users that are able to build A LOT of units, can build them all at once.

4- You can now see some extra information of some buildings: the extra energy required, the current storage etc...
       Why? Because a user asked me for it, and here he has the function :)

5- The app will be automatically installed at the SD Card.
       Why? Some smartphones have not enough storage to install a lot of apps.


I hope you'll enjoy all of this new features. If you have questions, you can contact me.

You can download it by following this link: http://goo.gl/GHQtE



Thank you all!

miércoles, 7 de marzo de 2012

Omegan for Android now available!

Hi all!

I'm really happy to tell you that my new Android application called Omegan is out!

What is this?

My friend Rafael Arquero Gimeno has developed from zero a new game for web browsers called Omegan. His goal was to pick an existing game (Ogame) and improve it.

Omegan has a lot of improvements like graphics, more options, profiles for users etc... and it's free!

Now I've developed the Android version so that you can be connected to the game and make changes to your empire even if you're not in front of your computer.

This is the first version, so if you have any problem with the application, you can contact be sending me an email at this direction: carl.fri.fer.dev@gmail.com

Screenshots and download

                                         Main Screen                                              Log In

                                        Research Screen                                        Ion Tech

Here you have the download link for Android Devices: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=carl.fri.fer.omegan

You can also go to the web version: www.omegan.es

If you like the web version, follow it, like it and +1! And if you like the Android version, please, rate it and comment it with your opinion! But please, if you have problems, before rating contact me!

Thank you very much!

domingo, 4 de marzo de 2012

This week Omegan will be available at the Android Market!

Hi everyone!

I would like you to know that the launch of the Android version of Omegan is imminent! One day this week, Omegan for Android will be available at the Android Market!

I remind you that it is a beta version, so there's some functions to improve and others to add.

Thank you very much for your patience!