One of my work projects this summer was developing a website for an office complex in downtown Anchorage that just got a huge solar retrofit. The building now has 96 solar panels on its south wall that are rated at 180W each. The system has a potential output of 17.28 kW!

Along with building the website, I installed the monitoring hardware and software for the solar system. This keeps track of how much energy is being produced in real-time. A lot of the monitoring data is on the website, and it updates as often as every 10 minutes.

The website is nearly complete. The last thing being developed is a custom graphing system for the solar power data. The current graphs on the Solar Power Output page are provided by the software that comes with the monitoring hardware. Unfortunately these are not very appealing visually, and they aren’t as flexible as I’d like. The new graphs will be gorgeous.

Take a look at www.AnchorageSolarBuilding.com!

     

Now, the full PhotoRotate version is free on the app store. The app lets you rotate pictures, adjust their brightness, and adjust their contrast. The interface is dead simple.

Enjoy!

The solar panel is flexible and encased in fabric, so it’s very durable. The output is 13.5Watts. The battery is also very durable and has 50 Watt-hours of capacity. As a reference point, the iPad 2 battery is 25Watt-Hour, and the iPad will run for 10 hours on that. So this battery pack could hypothetically power the iPad for 20 hours from a full charge; that 20 hours doesn’t factor in more charge coming from the solar panel.

The Goal0 team has been extremely helpful in getting me a great setup for the road trip. This panel and battery will also be practical for charging my MacBook Pro on the go or at home.

Like this! (from earlier today)

Since the feature, Fast has jumped hugely in ranking. On Tuesday, Fast ended the day in 96th place for Paid Apps in the Navigation category. By Wednesday night, Fast had climbed to 44th place – a 52 rank jump! Now, on Thursday night – entering Friday, Fast is in 37th place. Woohoo!

If you’re looking through the App Store on your iPhone, Apps are shown in pages of 25. Currently Fast is right in the center of the second page. I believe that being on the first page of apps in the iPhone view would continue to push Fast up, and sustain it in the high ranks. Hopefully it gets there!

Here it is! Fast is in the New and Noteworthy section in the Navigation category on the App Store. Hopefully this will keep us high in the ranks!

With the initial success from Fast, I signed up for a paid account with AppFigures (well worth it!) and I’ve started following my apps’ rankings in the App Store.

Fast got off to a marvelous start, rising to 36th place in the Navigation category for paid iPhone apps in just the first few days. The ranking has dropped a bit from its place in the 30s, but Fast has maintained its place in the top 100, and at most times it is in the top 75.

Ranking is updated on an hourly basis, so I now find myself glued to AppFigures. Checking these analytics is both tremendously fun, and quite tormenting. But I love it.

Fast, my speedometer app for iPhone, has been approved and is now in the App Store!

Fast has a beautiful interface. There is both a digital readout and a classic speedometer gauge. Along with being a great speedometer, Fast will also keep track of your top speed. You can put your iPhone in your pocket while skiing, snowboarding, biking or anything – and check how fast you’ve gone once you are done.

I was skiing with my father and some friends today. We used the Top Speed feature to track ourselves. I was able to clock 44MPH. My dad’s friend hit 56MPH. (I’m just getting back on skis after snowboarding for 11 years).

Want a free download of Fast? Just let me know and I’ll get you a promotional code. All you have to do is leave a review once you’ve tried the app!

We have a new app in the mix. This one is a game, and it’s called The Helicopter.

The Helicopter has a great story behind it and a bunch of neat features that I think will make it one of the best games in the App Store. I can’t say TOO much about gameplay yet, but we just got the official app website set up at TheHelicopterApp.com. You can also check our updates on Twitter at @helicopterapp.

As we progress in development the website will be host to game screenshots, explaining our progress, discussions about features, recruiting beta testers, and more. If you’re interested, make sure to follow the twitter feed or the RSS from the website.

I’m working very hard on The Helicopter, as are my teammates Ben and Connor. We’re dedicated to making a kickass game for the iPhone and iPod touch.

At the iPad’s launch I wasn’t extremely impressed. The device seemed interesting, but it didn’t appear to have a tangible spot between my smartphone and my laptop in day-to-day use.

That changed fast.

After playing with the iPad for a few hours, it has certainly secured a new place in my tech arsenal. The hardware is able to handle all of the applications that I’ve used with smooth graphics processing and very quick responses to touch input (especially multitouch).

Typing on it is much better than you might imagine. After using the iPad through a full IM conversation, my typing speed was comparable to my speed on a standard keyboard. It’s a bit less comfortable, but it gets the job done well.

Multitasking? Yeah, it can’t run MSN, Facebook, Photoshop, and play a movie simultaneously. But do you really want it to? Remember how the old Windows phones handled multiple tasks? It was unbearably slow. Hopefully Apple has an elegant solution to our multitasking needs in OS 4.0, but mine are very rare. Push IM can get me all of my messages effectively, and I can play music on my iPod in the background. I’m not settling for less. I’m working with a completely different type of device.

I’m very excited to do work, watch movies, play games, and explore the iPad in a traveling situation. The battery has held up great today.

It’s time to do some research on equipping this thing with a solar panel!

I think this came out amazingly well. It’s surprising what you can do with a cellphone camera and Photoshop these days…