There are so many apps at the App Store right now. Some of them are almost perfect, some are a waste of money, others are free. Is the App Store overflooded?

As far as I can tell it is, and by the time Apple’s Big Conference takes place (which is very soon), over 50 000 apps will be available all and all! That’s a huge number, and the real problem becomes not just to write a great app, but to market it, promote it, deliver it to the right audience. Why am I that concerned?

I’m going to become an iPhone developer. By the end of this summer, I’m planning on learning the C programming language, then Objective-C, and then Cocoa implementation. Along with the self-education, I’m going to set up a company, get enrolled with the Apple Developer Program, and get my app approved.

Is it enough of a goal for the next three months? I believe so! To follow along with the quest, visit www.SimpleBeat.com, it’s the blog I’m writing on this specific topic. And by the way, you’ve guessed it right: Simple Beat is the name of my company!

Things happen in our lives with at a lightspeed pace these days, but the big problem people of all nations were struggling through is AI, Artificial Intellegence. Today’s pick looks like one of the steps towards figuring out the thing.

A week ago one of the greatest scientists of modern days, mathematician Stephen Wolfram, launched his ambitious project, Wolfram|Alpha engine. It’s not search, it’s rather analytics done with math.

WolframAlpha

As the project builds up its knowledge base, the answers will get deeper and much more diverse. This is mainly an English language based project also. But still, the results already fascinate! You can get information on stocks, weather, cities, famous people, and everything computable.

So, if you’re into trends, dynamics, economics, analytics, then it’s definitely your choice. Even if you’re not into all or any of above, just give it a try, enter your name, your birth date, your city and see how it all turns out for you. It’s fun!

I’ve promised several times to myself to open up and start a blog in Russian language similar to this one. Don’t know though how should I start, or should I do it in the first place.

There are some issues to be considered first, and the main one is the content. What do I have to say to my Russian audience? Let’s face it, this blog isn’t getting any followers, it’s rather my personal thinkspace, and I don’t mind it to be one. For it’s good to practice, and this is the best I can do to this moment.

So, the question is should I practice in blogging in Russian as well? We’ll see in a month!

I’ve downloaded the prerelease candidate of Windows 7, the version of Windows many tech-gurus claim to be the best Windows ever! I’m not a fan of Windows systems, though I’ve got used to it during all these years beginning with Windows 3.11, and tend to like it. Now it is said to be the most responsive (!), polished version; it’s Vista done right. And it’s completely free for one year! That’s a big change for Microsoft to make such a move in testing out new OS.

So, here is ISO of Win 7. Right beside it here is Virtual Box by Sun, a free and reliable virtual machine for Mac. There are also free versions for Windows and Linux too, but I’ve got the one for the Mac. That’s right I’m going to put Windows 7 on a free Sun’s virtual machine on my Mac Mini!

At this point I’ve installed Virtual Box, marked up a virtual hard drive, allocated memory, and… failed! The roots of the failure were hidden in RAM and video memory customization. I’ve given up too much RAM to the virtual machine, that my host OS (Mac OS X) just stalled!

My second try, however, was a complete success! I started from scratch, left the default options decide on how much memory the guest OS needed, and it was done in a matter of minutes! A few additional tweaks, like installing Virtual Box add-ons, sound support, etc., and I’m able to register the Windows 7 over the Internet, download updates, and have fun!

So far so good. To be continued…