National Breast Cancer Foundation - Small Business, Big Difference

James and I recognize that we get a great deal of benefit out of writing mobile applications with Mobile Magic Developers. We enjoy the time together, the camaraderie, the learning experiences, and the opportunity to bring a little joy to a much larger audience. Along the way we've had a lot of support from friends, family, and the numerous customers who've downloaded our apps.

We wanted to find a way to give something back as an enthusiastic "Thank You" from the Mobile Magic Developers team to you. We've decided we're going to try something we call Small Business, Big Difference. Periodically, we're going to choose one of our applications and for a period of time, all proceeds from that application will be donated to a charitable organization. That includes sales and ad revenue.

For our inaugural Small Business, Big Difference attempt, we've decided that we'll donate all revenue generated by our Jane Austen Quote of the Day Widget available on the Android market to the National Breast Cancer Foundation. We've even added a new background for your widget just for this occasion!

Why the National Breast Cancer Foundation

We reviewed dozens of charitable organizations dedicated to promoting breast cancer research, helping breast cancer survivors, and comforting those fighting with breast cancer today. We considered each organization's rating on Charity Navigator and the NBCF scores on Charity Navigator were remarkable including a maximum score for accountability and transparency, 83.1% of revenue dedicated to program expenses, and a solid plan for growth.

We also felt strongly for the foundation's mission to save lives through early detection by providing education and mammography, particularly to women in need. The NBCF works with almost 100 clinics in all 50 states to provide free mammograms and diagnostic services to underserved women. Each sponsored facility is required to have the capacity to provide continued treatment to women after an abnormality is found or breast cancer is diagnosed.

How You Can Help

Your role is easy. Download the Jane Austen Widget from the Android market, use the "Share" buttons to share your quotes on Twitter and Facebook, encourage your friends to get the app. If you really like it, purchase the Jane Austen Widget Upgrade, the ads will go away and we'll donate the proceeds from your upgrade too.

The program will run for 1 week starting Sunday, February 12th, 2012 and ending Saturday, February 18th, 2012. Download the free application today and help us spread the word about the application and the promotion. The more people who have the free app, the more ad revenue we'll be able to donate. Don't buy the upgrade though until the week of Valentines Day so we can donate your upgrade too.

We hope to make this program a huge success because we're already looking into our next charity (hopefully promoting children's literacy with proceeds from our educational apps for kids). We're excited about this opportunity and with your help we can prove what a big difference a small business can make.

Mobile Magic Developers Co-founded by Autopilot Founder

Autopilot Consulting, LLC founder Patrick Caldwell has joined forces with long time friend and coworker James Brechtel to found Mobile Magic Developers, LLC.

James and I worked together for a few years several years ago and have been close friends ever since. It was an easy decision to get together and start developing mobile applications.

Mobile Magic Developers focuses on developing fun and exciting mobile products like educational mobile applications for kids, amusing home screen widgets, and mobile utilities. Autopilot Consulting focuses on … well consulting.

When your company is ready for your own custom mobile application, come talk to Autopilot about how we can help you wow your customers and outshine your competitors with a mobile application of your own. We'll apply our mobile experience as well as the talents of Mobile Magic to make sure you get the biggest mobile bang for your buck.

Mobile applications come in several varieties. Whether you're interested in native mobile applications or mobile skins for your web applications, we have the experience to get you there, save you money, and help you make the best decisions for your business, your customer, and your future.

Cow Says Moo for Android - Teach Your Kids Farm Animal Sounds

James, my partner in Mobile Magic Developers, and I have a handful of Android applications under our belts now. We loved working on Chinese Whispers, an idea my wife gave me for a new twist on The Telephone Game. James wrote an immensely handy application for getting your WiFi Passwords from your phone.

I wrote the Chuck Norris Fact of the Day Widget and the Jane Austen Fact of the Day Widget, and James wrote a really nice widget that shows you your last few installed applications called Latest Apps.

But… Then we Wrote Cow Says Moo

Cow Says Moo is definitely my favorite so far. Many of my friends and family are having babies now and my wife and I have one on the way. I noticed that kids are growing more and more interested in technology and are remarkably capable with it. My niece loved playing with my Motorola Xoom and I loved the way her face lights up when she touches the screen and something happens. That's where we got the idea for Cow Says Moo.

Cow Says Moo is an educational game to teach young kids and toddlers about farm animals and the sounds they make. Each picture is hand illustrated by Emily Upchurch Robinson and when pressed plays farm animal sounds. You can use the front facing camera on your device (or the rear camera if you prefer) to record video and sound while your child interacts with your mobile device or while you simply delight him or her with the sounds. You can use the built in media gallery to share your videos with friends and family. You'll be surprised how much fun you'll have playing Cow Says Moo with your kids and you'll get a lot of cute video footage like I did "User Acceptance Testing", i.e., playing Cow Says Moo with my godson AJ.

Check out Cow Says Moo, and as always, feel free to contact us with any comments or bugs.

Telephone Game for Android

You may know it as Grapevine, Gossip, or the Telephone Game; we call it Chinese Whispers. No matter what you call it, this is a new take on the classic game and we hope you enjoy playing it as much as we enjoyed making it for you.

You start the game with a short story and pass it to a friend. The next player illustrates the story with our built in finger painting canvas and passes it to the next player who will provide a new caption. Several rounds later, hilarity ensues!

We hope you'll check the Android Market for the free Telephone Game for Android by Mobile Magic Developers.

WTF is WTF Ware?

James and I worked together for about 3 years at Emerald Software Group. James went off to ThoughtWorks and I stuck with Emerald. We've both spent most of our careers writing business applications.

While we love leaving a big project knowing we've made a difference, we got to wondering how we could write software that enriches the lives of more people. We decided we'd get together and start writing mobile apps that are entertaining, useful, funny, amusing, and enriching.

We started writing apps on our own and have had a lot of fun doing it. We decided that we ought to join our efforts and see what we came up with. Thus, WTF Ware was born.

I wish I could say we had a good story for how the name came to be or at least something clever WTF Ware could stand for. Unfortunately, no such story exists.

We were just about to start writing our first app and we realized we needed some sort of organization name. James asked, "WTF is our company name?"

"Beats me dude. Just make something up for now and we'll come up with something later."

Well, WTF Ware is what James made up and it stuck. So, without further ado, I'd like to introduce ourselves. We're wtfware.com and thanks for checking out our applications.

Upgrade Chuck Norris Facts Free

Initially, when I released Chuck Norris Facts, I published two versions. I had a free version which was limited in facts and functionality. Then I published a paid version that included all the facts and customization.

This proved difficult to maintain, so I decided to make the free version ad supported and (at the time of writing) fully functional. Unfortunately, it was still a little difficult to maintain. I still wanted to have only one code base so that I could release one app all the time. Another issue was that if you have the free version for a while and switch to the paid version, you lose your fact history and start over.

Thus, I switched upgrade paths. Now, I encourage everyone to try the Free Chuck Norris Fact Widget for a while until you decide that you like it. Then, you can purchase the Chuck Norris Fact Widget Upgrade for less than a buck. This will remove the ads immediately and you won't lose your current fact history.

If you are a user who has already installed the full Chuck Norris Fact Widget, you can download and install the free version and there will be no ads (as long as you don't delete the paid version). You'll have to start over with your facts (but they're random anyhow so it shouldn't be too bad). This way you'll continue getting updates with new facts and seasonal backgrounds.

If you really want to delete the previous paid version, send an email to me and I'm mail you a buck or something so you can download the paid key.

I'd also like to thank all of the users of both the free and paid versions for sticking with me through this learning experience. I hope it's been as enjoyable to use as it has been to write.

Sincerely,
Patrick Caldwell

Chuck Norris Facts Widget for Android

A few weeks ago, I decided I'd like to try my hand at writing an Android application. One of my favorite features of Android over iOS (other than the fact that I think Apple lacks any form of ethics or sense of social responsibility) is that Android allows you to add widgets to your home screens. Sure, you can still have the half dozen views full of rows of boring icons, but the widgets give you a great deal of functionality without ever having to launch an app.

I decided a good first shot at Android development would be to write a Chuck Norris Fact of the Day widget my family and friends could stick on their home screens and enjoy a little daily pick-me-up. I knew that adding customizability would let me work with preferences and the nature of a daily fact would give me some Android data management experience.

I released the Chuck Norris Fact Widget on the Android Market and several of my family and friends downloaded it the first day. Over the next few weeks, about 1,500 of their family and friends downloaded it, so I've been working to improve it ever since.

If you're on your Android device now, you can download the free version called, Chuck Norris Facts Free or for just a buck, you can get the paid version called, Chuck Norris Facts with Widget. The icon should look familiar from above and the publisher name is, of course, D. Patrick Caldwell.

I hope you check it out and I hope you enjoy a little bit of my sense of humor.

Sincerely,
Patrick Caldwell

For the programmers who read my blog, I'll be posting some technical information I learned while developing this application. Specifically, how I managed to change the background image of my widget with remote views.