But with that, a new problem: hand cramp. If you have big hands, playing the 3DS for anything longer than 30 minutes at a stretch can really begin to hurt. What it needs is a big grip like, say, a Gamecube pad.

Oh.

So, here's how to make one in about ten minutes. You'll need an old Gamecube pad (please, not a Wavebird), a hacksaw and either a Nintendo tri-point screwdriver (for those who like to do things properly) or a power drill and glue (for me). The TLDR version: hacksaw it in half.

Step one: gut the pad. If you have the screwdriver, unscrew it carefully and remove the insides. If not, drill out all the screws and pull it apart. And voila, one empty pad.

Step two: saw the top in half. I found that cutting straight across exactly through the middle of the D pad suits my hands. Before doing anything else, look at the top (cable exit) side of the bottom half: there are some raised sections. I sanded these down a bit to flatten them off and provide a better rest for the console.

Step 3: screw, or glue, the bottom halves of the handles back into place. And that's it. I was going to add a way to mount the console in place, but actually once you pick the thing up, the two sit quite happily together in your hands.

Perhaps unsurprisingly: lots of cat photos. And so, here's 18 months in (mostly) cat-snaps.

First up, Ralph, clearly puzzled by the shiny new gadget being shoved in his face:

Shortly after getting the phone, I was off to Kyoto and Hiroshima – Ralph helped to pack:

.. but I left the new phone at home. On my return, Hunter was just puffing around being cute.

Next up, lots of photos of Helen and I packing. The cats helped out by snoozing on the boxes:

.. then came the terrifying day of moving house:

.. and further terror in our new place.

They didn't come out for a day. Suddenly, though, a Ralph appeared:

.. and a furball:

.. it took a while before they could deal with the concept of two floors, though.

Soon, Christmas. Out came a bemused reindeer:

Lots of boxes:

And a real fire. Ralph wasn't an immediate fan:

But Hunter seems chilled out about it.

As it turns out, Ralph was well aware that the shower was incorrectly installed, and likely to fail under pressure. If only we'd understood his staring at it before the explosion of water that burst through the wall and down through a light fitting (sigh):

The furball didn't even notice.

Winter, and a cold snap. We built a Snowtoro:

The cats just nested together.

Actually, it looks like Hunter loved that blanket too much to share it:

Then spring, thank god:

Dim Sum:

Dimmer tabloid journalism:

and we grow cat grass. Hunter mostly ignored it:

Cherry blossom sprang up outside:

Ralph popped up inside.

Summer rolled around. I become marginally obsessed with grass (never owned any before..)

Hunter develops a taste for the books on our overflow bookcase:

.. and Ralph just hung out with Helen.

I think this was Jeremy Hunt:

.. a man whose intelligence appears to be less than that of Hunter, who is wearing a sock. On his head.

Anyhow, summer. I find myself eating pizza in Brooklyn:

Meanwhile, back at home, oh dear..

This is Hunter's unimpressed face:

(Ralph, meanwhile, was getting increasingly annoyed by the film crew from Grand Designs constantly staking out his new modernist house with geometric windows)

Anyhow.

Annual vet visit time. Ralph was unimpressed. Hunter cried like a siren. Both were fine.

Although apparently the vet missed his HUGE ENORMOUS PAWS.

Summer. Too hot. Flump.

Then MangaCamera for iPhone is released, and for a few weeks everything looks like this:

And then autumn. I find myself in Tohoku, Japan, looking at this:

.. and drinking this:

.. then suddenly, a cat bus.

Back at home it's great weather for cycling:

Or, you know, not.

Off on a plane again..

And back to Christmas with this guy, who's pleased we lost the antlers:

To Germany, and a press thing whose strangeness has been well documented. Ate some nice cake, though:

Ralph was unimpressed by my gifts from duty free:

Anyhow. Blanket time.

New job. New office to set up. Long hours. Slight drop-off in cat photos..

.. but I did find out what's going wrong with our PVR box:

And that's about it. I think these guys had a pretty good time, really. If the iPhone survives surgery, I'll probably take a thousand more next year.

But let's not pretend that the whole affair is flawless. Over the past year or two of working with apps I've been mentally compiling a wishlist of 'Stuff the App Store really, really should do better' – I don't expect Apple to care, but since I'm waiting for a 6GB file to download over domestic broadband, here it is. If nothing else, it could be interesting to look back in another two years and see which, if any, have changed.

Free with In-App-Purchases

The whole reason this list popped back into my head today is the news that, finally, Apple seems to be making small inroads to fixing this long time issue. Many developers – my company, and my personal business, included – make use of a model where a free app can be used to offer paid-for content. My work is making magazine apps where the reader, and some articles, are free but others are paid for. My personal apps offer a limited amount of function for free, with a payment unlocking more.

Neither are entirely free, and I'd never claim otherwise, but the App Store marks them with a big 'Free' button, and that annoys some customers who feel they are being misled. It's bad for them, bad for us (ONE STAR), and not exactly beneficial for Apple. It seems that the company is now marking these apps with a note on the web store view – I really hope it can find a way ('Free App'?) to do so in the main store.

Sort out International Subscriptions

The Subscription concept used in Apple's Newsstand is, well, odd. For one there's the fact that subscriptions are mandatory for Newsstand, and the 'Mandatory Free Subscription' concept that allows free-issue publishers to work around that. But more importantly, the in-app subscriptions do not support geography.

By way of example: say I sell a magazine called Unicorns Monthly. People in, say, Narnia buy auto-renewing subscriptions. I then have to remove the app from sale in Narnia (legal letter from an angry lion) – a process Apple makes very simple. What I can't do is stop the in-app subscriptions of my customers there, so they will continue to be billed. They'll keep getting issues for a while, but if a mandatory update is needed it'll be unavialable to them, and they are left with recurring payments for a product they can't use.

It's bonkers. If an app binary is no longer for sale in a given territory, why not make the IAP subscriptions off-sale in that area, too – that would allow app publishers to wind down support properly.

Buy, buy, sell, sell

Here's a big one: you can't move any app from one account to another if the publisher is bought or sold. This isn't just a magazine thing, but it becomes an even bigger pain in the backside when the apps have subscriptions attached. My team produced four magazine apps with significant readerships – when we set up as an independent company, there was no way to take those apps with us.

The best you can do is set up a new app and close the old one, but then there are hundreds or thousands of customers – many of whom you may not even be able to contact, because Apple subscribers have to opt-in to share even an email address – who have paid for a product that disappears. There are strategies for mitigating this problem (essentially, batch importing known users into a separate authentication service for the new app, and notifying old app users of the process), but it's a horror.

Moving apps between accounts must be a pain for Apple. But I'd pay for the service. Big companies would pay a lot.

No API for data

A minor thing, but there's still no official API for getting app sales data – instead you can use the web interface, third party tools (I like AppViz), or set up CRON jobs to run shell scripts that use a Java autoingestion class provided by Apple (I like that too, because I'm a geek). A proper API, though, would allow for more and better analysis tools.

ONE STAR

And here's the big one. The current app review mechanism allows angry people to quickly lash out at a developer – sometimes with good reason, sometimes not – and, because happy customers are seldom as vocal as mad ones, pushes developers towards 'Why not rate this app' nag screens in order to get positive feedback on the board. In many cases, angry reviewers could be made happy with just one sentence explaining that, yes, they *can* do what they want, by tapping button X, or whatever – but the developer has no way to contact them.

It's a tough one to fix, of course, but here's my two cents: developers should be able to 'answer' any review, positive or negative, in up to 150 characters. This response would be sent, by email, to the reviewer. After this response, the reviewer would be offered the opportunity to change their review rating. Meanwhile, when an App Store user chooses to download another app, they could be offered the chance – while waiting – to quickly star-rate their last purchases.

Sound fair?

For reasons unclear, I've coveted a flip clock for some time – and last week I found, via ebay, this unused spare mechanism. Originally made for a Braun Phase II 4924 alarm clock (designed by Dietrich Lubs, circa 1972), it had sat in a spare parts container since then.

The mechanism is rather lovely, with slowly rotating gears, a clever cam mechanism for the alarm and a small light. Sadly it runs from 240V AC, so leaving it open wasn't an option – hence the inexpertly constructed perspex box. Now it sits flipping away under the anglepoise on my desk.

Last year I visited Tohoku – the north of the main island of Japan – with my big old camera, and took a lot of pictures. This week, Helen's off on a trip, so I went to empty the biggest memory card I own for her – and found the 975 photos I took still sitting there in sequence.

Flicking through, I noticed that they form a sort of flippad-like video – I tend to take photos in bursts of three or four – so here's a little experiment. All 975 unprocessed images were stitched together in Premiere to make this composite. showing, roughly: Tokyo, Sendai, Yama-dera, Matsushima, Morioka, Tazawa, Hirosaki, Aomori, Aizu-Wakamatsu and back to Tokyo.

I thought the result was quite nice, so I'm sharing it here. If you fancy visiting Tohoku – and please do, it's lovely, and in need of tourism after the earthquake – I've written a guide, here.

We've recently set up a new business, and moved into a new office. This involves buying lots of stuff – servers, computers, software, cables. And also phones. We have fifteen people who need phone numbers, and many of them need to make a load of calls around the world.

So, we thought, why set up a clunky old PABX when we could use Skype? The technology is great – they have business subscriptions*, cheap calling plans, multi-way calling, smartphone apps so we can call from anywhere – all we have to do is pay them a chunk of money.

Right?

No. Instead, I have now spent six days attempting to persuade Skype to take about £500 per month from my pocket. They have refused. Just in case anyone reading this is thinking of trying something similar, here's how it all works, and why you might want to really, really consider an alternative service.

In preparation for launch we added a bunch of accounts, set up a business control panel, and made initial payments of  a few hundred quid from a credit card. After moving into the office, we attempted to add another £300, but the options are all blocked – the only payment Skype will accept  was £30. And then with that paid, for £5. Which won't even cover a single user.

There are a few other ways to get credit into an account. We signed up with Moneybookers, which should allow higher payments, and registered and verified a credit card there. Once the card was verified (three days), we attempted another payment of £300 – Moneybookers claim this was rejected by Amex, while Amex tell us they were never aware of the attempt. Two more attempts made later managed only to persuade Moneybookers to block the card. Excellent.

Next up – cold hard cash. Skype accepts UKash for up to £600, and by strange coincidence I had £200 in cash – £201.25 will buy £175 of Skype credit, which isn't really enough but better than nothing. On getting to a UKash shop, though, we found out that the service has a maximum of £200 – so the most you could pay Skype via this method is £100. So in order to use this method we'd have to ferry three to five cash payments of £100 around Soho every month. Fun.

Of course, we asked Skype what to do. Several times. On every occasion we were told that there was nothing we could do other than 'make smaller payments' – presumably of £5 a time, in the hope that a computer will choose to lift our limits. This for a £6,000/yr account.

So, there you go. Thinking of a business Skype account? Maybe consider setting fire to your hair instead. It'll be quicker, less painful, and will result in exactly the same level of telecommunications service.

* Few other things to watch out for: many plans are available to personal customers only, and 'Europe' calling packages don't really correspond to any sane definition of Europe.

One of the best things found during our move to the new Apptitude Media offices – some old copies of the British Journal of Photography. This one's from December '33 – excuse the iPhone photo.

Today I'm sad to announce that I'm leaving Computeractive - a great magazine that's brilliantly focused on the needs of its readers, produced by a fantastic team with whom I've enjoyed working immensely. However, I'm also excited to announce my new role as CTO* at the brand-new Apptitude Media.

Apptitude is a new company that we've created following a management buyout of the British Journal of Photography, Popular Science UK, and the team that I've been working on for almost two years, producing digital magazines for the iPad and iPhone. We will continue to publish both magazines, while expanding to build on our work helping other publishers – such as 125 Magazine – make the leap from print onto touchscreen devices.

More details are in our press release, here.

If you're a reader of one of our titles, rest assured that publication will continue without interruption. If you write for me, and I've been unable to warn you in advance – apologies – it's business as usual and I'll be in touch to talk commissions soon. And if you know me, and I've been slightly distant or evasive when discussing work in the last few months, then apologies: I've been unable to talk about any of this stuff until today – lawyers, etc. Sorry.

So, that's my exciting news for the day: new company, new start. Watch this space.

You can reach me at: tom -at- apptitudemedia.co.uk

* Cats, Tea and, er, other stuff. No?

I'm putting this online to preempt the inevitable Evening Standard headlines claiming that Jeremy Hunt has today spared Lewisham Hospital's A&E department.

From his statement today:

On the emergency care proposals, Sir Bruce was concerned that the recommendation for a non-admitting Urgent Care Centre at Lewisham may not lead, in all cases, to improved patient care. While those with serious injury or illness would be better served by a concentration of specialist A&E services, this would not be the case for those patients requiring short, relatively uncomplicated treatments or a temporary period of supervision. To better serve these patients, who would often be frail and elderly and arrive by non-blue light ambulances, Sir Bruce recommends that Lewisham hospital should retain a smaller A&E service with 24/7 senior emergency medical cover. With these additional clinical safeguards, and the impact that this is likely to have on patient and clinician behaviour, Sir Bruce estimates that the new service could continue to see up to three quarters of those currently attending the Lewisham A&E.

So, the new 'smaller A&E' would serve up to 75% of existing A&E visitors.

From the TSA's report:

54) Urgent care services are well established at Guy’s Hospital and Queen mary’s Hospital Sidcup. The TSA recommends university Hospital Lewisham provide these services also, with a view to treating at least 50% of the people currently attending the A&E and urgent care services at the site. This would mean that urgent care services will continue to be available locally and it will also help to minimise the impact on the four remaining A&E departments in south east London.

55) Analysis included in the TSA’s draft report suggested around 77% of university Hospital Lewisham’s current A&E activity would remain at the hospital under this scenario. However, a number of responses to the consultation suggested that this estimate was too high. Therefore, further analysis was undertaken and, based on practice elsewhere in London, a revised figure of 50% has been used for the modelling that underpins the TSA’s recommendation.

So, the TSA's proposal – to keep Lewisham's Urgent Care Centre – was estimated to serve somewhere between 50 and 77% of existing A&E visitors, depending on who you ask. The UCC is, according to the hospital website, designed to "see and treat patients with non-threatening illnesses and injuries".

In addition:

It is proposed that a paediatric ambulatory service is developed as part of the urgent care service at university Hospital Lewisham.

And also:

Older people are also relatively frequent users of A&E services and are more than twice as likely as others to be admitted to hospital following an A&E attendance. Therefore, the proposed changes have significant implications for the continuity of care for these patients. However, older people who would currently present with problems at university Hospital Lewisham could benefit from being admitted to a step-up facility

So: the TSA's recommendation was for the UCC to be retained at Lewisham, with provisions for the elderly and the development of a service for admitting some patients.

What Jeremy Hunt is proposing, however he chooses to dress it up, appears to be just that.

The other night, screengrabs started circulating of a pretty disgusting tweet from the EDL about the Newtown attack. The EDL claims that it was faked, and a video was posted online in support of its veracity. Here's a grab:

The video shows a tweet ID of 241922092158143412 in the address bar. If you try to call up that tweet, either via the web or the API, you'll get a not found error.

But here's the thing: tweet IDs are not random or sequential – they're generated by a tool called Snowflake, based on a timestamp. So, in theory, you could decode an ID back to a timestamp. And there's code, here (created by @NGalbreath),that allows you to do just that.

So I decoded the ID. You can see the results here.

The first decode is a test, using my own tweet here. You'll note that the decoded time is two hours out, but with the correct date – I'm assuming this is a time zone issue, as my server is not in the UK.

The second decode is tweet ID 241922092158143412. You'll note that it's from September sometime.

So, this suggests to me one of three possibilities:

A) I've read the tweet ID incorrectly – as I did, in fact, the first time I tried. If so, please let me know (though I see that the Bartholemew's Notes blog has read the same ID), or

B) Either the Snowflake to UTC converter, or my implementation of it, is incorrect*, or

C) The tweet was faked

I'd be very pleased if somebody could reassure me that the correct answer is either 1 or 2, because we really shouldn't have to resort to option 3 when it comes to idiots like the EDL.

* Geeks – I used: echo(gmdate('Y-m-d H:i:s', (snowflake2utc(241922092158143412))));