What Dave can accomplish in a month...

Hi, Dave here. I wanted to take a moment to recap all the stuff I accomplished in March. My goals at the beginning of the month were to create as many new iPhone apps as I could, to improve my internet presence and networking, and to make progress on my music. Here's what actually happened:



iPhone / iPad Apps (view all my apps)
1. iBridalGown: app update, added the ability to search for salons from the app, and built in functionality to compare and share dresses on facebook and through email.
2. iPromDress: app update, added the ability to search for salons from the app, and built in functionality to compare and share dresses on facebook and through email.
3. Guess Your Songs: Fun Music Quiz ... app update, changed name from "Name Your Tunes".

4. Released an additional 5 books from the Which Way series: Mind Bandits, Nightmare Planet, Monster Express, Space Raiders and the Planet of Doom, and Starship Warrior. Also updated a couple of these over the month. These apps are done in collaboration with Bruce Crock.

5. Created and released 3 awesome games. For each of these games, I did all the design, planning, artwork, programming, music, marketing materials, marketing... I have to wear quite a few hats to produce these, and it takes a few weeks. The games are:

- StarPod

- Ms. Chicken's Revenge (also released an update)

- Kickin' Ms. Chicken (also released an update)

iPhone / iPad summary: I believe the final tally for the month is 8 new apps, 7 app updates for the month.

Music (View all Dave Schuman albums in iTunes) (View Liquid Playground in iTunes)
I completed and released 4 albums on iTunes, Amazon, Zune etc etc etc! Two of them were previously recorded but never made available this way, and two are brand new compilations of my music I've recorded more recently. The albums are (in descending chronological order):

1. Dave Schuman: Sane Insanity
Sane Insanity contains upbeat and rockin' tunes with a full rock band. I perform vocals (at least one track per song, sometimes multiple tracks with harmonies), drums (using my Roland V-Drum set), guitar (a whonky old Ibanez), keyboards (a few different keyboards with various software-based sounds), trumpet and flute.

2. Dave Schuman: Ephemeral Universe
Ephemeral Universe hosts a combination of new age style instrumentals and slower pop / contemporary tunes.  I perform vocals (at least one track per song, sometimes multiple tracks with harmonies), drums (using my Roland V-Drum set), guitar (a whonky old Ibanez), keyboards (a few different keyboards with various software-based sounds) and trumpet.

3. Dave Schuman: Drive Away To Manhattan
Drive Away To Manhattan is the creation I made after Liquid Playground stopped performing together, and I moved back to New Jersey and got a job on Wall Street at Goldman Sachs. I was a little depressed ;)

4. Liquid Playground: A Shimmer Of Glope
The ultimate feel-good album from the archetypal feel-good band. From 1994-1998, Liquid Playground played a variety of awesome venues, including Mama Kin's in Boston (owned by Aerosmith's Steven Tyler) and the famous Red Rocks in Morrison, CO. Liquid Playground opened for and performed with artists including Merle Saunders, David Grisman, Disco Biscuits and Ominous Seapods.

Other
In addition to all the apps and music with their associated artwork and marketing tasks, I also completely renovated my website from scratch, created several Facebook pages for my apps (with Dana's help), and I hooked up this blog and started blogging.

That's a decent list of accomplishments for the month, I suppose.

But what will I do next month? I doubt if I'll do as much raw development as this month, I'd like to continue concentrating on getting the word out about stuff I've already built (which takes just as much work as building it). I'll also miss a week of April for Passover. I want to port some of my iPhone apps to Android, but I'm at a disadvantage because I am currently Android-less. I want to build something using the free Google App Engine, to see what that experience is like... I've got a site in mind to build there, so maybe I'll do that. I want to make an iPhone app with a free social component. I want to take some time off to enjoy myself before returning to my System Architect job in May. I fear there's so much that I want to do that it'll all just confuse me and I won't get anything done, sigh. We'll see ;)

Another thing I want to do is post a few tutorials about how I made different aspects of the game StarPod. I think I'll probably get to that.

And there's that.