A couple of years back I wrote a blog post on how I’d like to make iPhone games. Everyone has ideas, right? (Link to that post)

I’m well trained for the task at hand, having worked in a games company as an art director for a few years, I was often planning games for clients. How wrong can it go?

Not that wrong as fate would have it; I had my arm unceremoniously twisted late last year to become freelance once again. The only thing I was lacking to start my own games company was time and money (like most of us, I guess).

Now I had time, plenty of it. Money, not so much.

I have ideas, I have something called Facemakr. What to do?

Several business plans and much grovelling to investors later, I was pretty much back where I started. Tokyo is a hard town to find capital in! As many people will let you know, the tried and tested way to get investment here is to move.
Tokyo is my home, I’m not about to upsticks just for the sake of starting a company.
Realising that the only way to start this is on my own, I set out to make a games company with whatever finance I had. I begged, borrowed and stole. I ate noodles for months. I made agreements for delayed payments. I crammed incredible amounts of new knowledge into my tired peanut brain.

And the rest, as they say, is history!

My first title “Facemakr” was published in March of this year, maybe a little prematurely, but now in full swing – it’s been reviewed in 9 languages across the internet, to growing acclaim! It’s the first application on the iPhone that uses my custom technological solution. (although, no one really cares about the tech – it’s the reason the application exists.)

I am just about to release a new version & start rolling a new project into development with 3 freelance staff. Ironically I can be based anywhere in the world with this setup.

To say this process has been hard, is probably the greatest understatement of my life. I have accumulated a mountain of unpaid bills, bar tabs and an angry landladies. (Which, I can now happily un-accumulate.) No one said it would be easy, but it is possible, without investors. Thank you to everyone who helped me along the way, your encouragement and kind words were investment enough.

That is how I learned to stop worrying and love iOS4

www.facemakr.com

www.dadako.com

Couldn’t find one so I made one. Please use freely. Cite me at this URL if you are feeling generous.

(click on the image above to download a vector EPS)

My internets had all run out so it was a good chance for me to retain my electronic gentlemen status by investing in new gadgets, namely; WiMax!

The process is rather simple – I went to an electronics store, filled out the form, got a 15 day free trial & the hardware. There is only one device per brand / store. Mine is i-o data (LABI), which was cheaper than the BIC CAMERA model (by 4000 yen) – they are essentially the same.

The hardware consists of a router and a usb key. The key is the arial, which can be plugged into my laptop while I’m out and about, and the router works at home. (it also makes my $300 apple router rather obsolete) Getting connected is as simple as typing in the WEP key printed on the router.

Out and about is a little trickier – there are no drivers for the mac. So it’s a windows only experience right now.

Speeds are actually realistically faster than my old old wired 100mbit connection, however it’s only 40mbit – and only works in the Tokyo Metropolitan area. I tested this by greedily getting my hands on the largest files possible at such short notice – 1080p apple trailers. My old connection would have to sit and load half way through. No such woes here.

Costiness is also rather reasonable, about the same as you would pay for your home connection. Hardware is a little over 17,000 yen (about $185 all in)

Out of the box WiMax lets you connect all the computers within your house by simply logging onto the wifi network the router creates. No fuss.

WiMax works globally too. So say for example for some reason I need to go to London or New York, tomorrow, I only need to bring my USB key and it’ll use my account, with no change in monthly fee. Roaming is essentially part of the deal.

Maybe when they get it working on the mac, I’ll be able to do that.

Good afternoon, my name is Hawken and I trust the cloud.

For years I knew there was something missing from my life. I felt this emptiness inside. All these different computers I have but none of them are connected to one another.

Then, I heard of this thing called .mac. I was hooked. All my data synchronised between machines, bookmarks all the same on my browsers – whether it be my iPhone, work machines, home machine or laptop.

Names changed but the service remained the same, in-fact it got better! Now I could sync all my files! This was just getting better and better, my experience was peaking! No more swapping and burning of CD’s. No more instances of “not having the right file”. No more did I need a USB key just to carry my data home. The iDisk solved all my problems and I lavished my hard earned cash on it willingly.

Until today.

Whilst re-naming some files, the all knowing iDisk had a technical error and decided to delete my data from all synchronised computers, and from the cloud. This was a bombshell – 3 months of work and a year of steady use, *poof* gone, in a blink of the eye.

I got in touch with my dealer and told them I need my fix. They told me there is no way back, and in two weeks time they will “have a look”.

How can I run my business with this shoddy service? I can’t wait two weeks! Does the rival drug “dropbox” do this? (no – they have user editable delete/restore histories)

Climbing into my time-machine offered no respite.

Good afternoon, my name is Hawken and I trusted the cloud.

Luckily, one of the synced computers was bound to have kept the files, because it hasn’t been online for a bit. I got in there, turned off the wi-fi and copied the iDisk. Situation averted. Re-populated. A virtual “V” for victory against the evil empire.

I got lucky. Maybe next time this won’t be the case. They are out to get you.

My addiction to the cloud, is over.?

Come and chat me up at the Tokyo 2.0 web event on Monday the 19th of October.

For a few years now Tokyo2.0 has been holding its monthly web seminar at various locations in Tokyo. Due to it's ever expanding size the event is currently held at Super Deluxe in Nishi Azabu.

Facemakr was initially invited to participate in this event, however this month instead of holding a seminar, Tokyo2.0 shall be playing host to 10 independent web startups. Informal chats can be held with these different web folks, who will be manning mini-booth style islands.

Super Deluxe will probably start filling up from around 7pm, if you are around drop in for a chat – I can tell you all about Facemakr and my freelance work. Maybe buy me a beer if you're feeling generous. 

Once a year, people in Japan can take a bit of time to relax in the park and have a drink – problem is – most people do it on the same day.

Luckily there is a gigantic park next to my house, so this is where we would make our merriment. Staking out a spot near some trees and some people I vaguely know (I dare you to walk though the park and not see someone you know this time of year) we proceeded on the task at hand – getting blasted!

Eventually there was darkness, and chilliness, and … drunkenness. But musicenness also! After loosing practically everyone in the dark, including my own Mother whom I was charged with keeping safe (actually she just went home it turns out), I decided to go for a walk to the shop.

By the time I got back – after making my way to the same patch of woods – there was no music, no people. Not even detritus or evidence of merriment. It was like turning up after the circus had left town – you know fun was had here, but now it’s gone.

Unfortunately so was the park-worthy mat I stupidly borrowed from my kitchen floor that day.

Waiting at arrivals in the airport is a strange experience. You are all these thousands of miles away, but yet at a selected time and place, you can meet anyone you like! All it takes is an email.

Christmas 2004 was the last time I saw my Mother. I was wondering what would be different. Funnily I got rather apprehensive to her arrival – we had already mapped out what we were going to do for these three weeks – but there’s always the chance that when people come to Japan they freak out. As a matter of fact I think it’s required. Also we would be sharing sleeping quarters for three weeks with her legendary snoring.

Plans included taking some time off work, going down to Kyoto, cherry blossom parties, walks next to the sea, staying in traditional inns, bathing in the hot spring and boozing in dingy standing bars with Japanese sallarymen under the railway bridges of Shibuya. I wanted to show her a slice of my life, and a slice of Japan.

As I stood there waiting for someone I knew to come out of the arrivals door, all these plans and more were being formulated – turns out we did them all too!

Mother arrives, all is good.

I was sad to see her go in the end, I can only hope I gave her a good enough impression of Japanese life. (she got lost a few times when I was at work, and proceeded to consume all the treats from England she bought me, as punishment I guess.)

Recently I found Dear Adobe. It was such a relief to find that there are literally thousands of other disgruntled creatives that work in the print and web industry that have also found this site – posing questions to adobe. Whether Adobe reads and acts upon these requests is another thing. Here are some of the funny gems:

Photoshop

- “Why does Photoshop cost as much as a pre-owned small car? Drop the price please!!”

Dreamweaver

- “Why do you build programs (Dreamweaver) based on JavaScript, which run slower than my grandmother?”

Flash

- “Yes, please support SVG in Flash player – or better yet accept the fact that open standards are the way of the future.”

Illustrator

- “I’ve been sitting here for the last 5 mins looking through all the bitching and that spinning ball of death is still going for no reason in Illustrator. ”

InDesign

- “Why can’t I Hide InDesign? I just wont go away… ”

Bridge

- “Destroy Bridge, it’s completely useless”

My only real request was tabs for all applications, which they are doing! Isometric grids for illustrator would be nice but I really don’t see it happening any time this decade.

• 11. NEW: cannot forward attachments

  Often, phone emails written in Japanese are delivered as “mime-attachment.txt”. Without any form of copy and paste I often forward mails to my computer for difficult kanji translation. When they arrive as attachments, I have no means of forwarding them.

• 10. E-Mail Names

  E-Mails are sometimes listed in the inbox under the email address and not the persons name, however clicking on the e-mail will show you their name not the e-mail address.

• 9. Heavy Data

  Replying to an e-mail always includes the senders message, this must be highly annoying for the recipient on a mobile phone, and increases data sent over the networks.

• 8. No Alert!

  Arriving e-mails don’t make the bell (or user editable) noise!! Only SMS do this, however in Japan people use e-mail in the same way other countries use SMS. So often, you don’t know if an email has arrived. Just a dull plunk noise that can’t be changed.

• 7. No Add to Contacts

  if someone sends you their e-mail address or phone number in an e-mail or SMS, when you click on it, iPhone wants to compose a new e-mail or call them, where as it should ask you if you want to save the email address to a new or existing contact, as well as calling/mailing them or canceling.

• 6. Emoji

  Japanese phones have the ability to send “emoji” which are basically a set of 100 or so smiley faces and icons. (that are also used on the Japanese equivalent to “WAP” mobile net to save bandwidth). Personally I don’t mind, save for the e-mails full of meaningless blank squares, which is annoying.

• 5. No Auto Draft (intermittent)

  When you have no reception or wifi and send an e-mail (for example on the train) sometimes the loading wheel just spins forever and the email is just lost, not saved as draft. Ideally the phone should know and not try to send and save a draft.

• 4. Contact Book is Slow

  Contacts list is insanely slow to load, I only have 151 contacts but it can take up to 10 seconds to load, before finding the email or number I need.

• 3. No Groups for contacts

  Adding a new contact does not let you file that contact away into a group (like “family” or “bitches”). In fact the only way to file a contact away into a group without adding them while in that group; sync with your computer’s address book; file contact into group; re sync with iPhone. (also you can’t make new photo groups [folders] and file photos, this all needs to be done on iPhoto)

• 2. Apple+C = no

  No copy and paste. Nuff said.

• 1. Arg the Pain!

  And number one, yep you might have guessed it; Japanese input hangs like a bastard. I can count 3 seconds between typing letters while the phone desperately searches some dark corner of the code libraries for the predictive Kanji. On a normal Japanese phone this is lightening-shit-off-a-shovel fast. This is the number one thing that needs to be updated as currently, it’s a royal pain in the arse for myself and people using the phone in Japanese, to type mails.

If you think about it they have had more than a year to make these bits better. Lets hope they do. (edit: 2.0.1 update didn’t list what was changed, no noticeable changes to the above)

This July, I’ve spent every weekend at the beach. Mostly to get stung to buggery by jellyfish. Zushi beach is a short one hour journey from my part of Tokyo.

In my vain attempt to get a sun tan X pump at the gym I’ve so far succeeded in only going red and torturing myself.

I have met a few interesting people though.