As mentioned earlier, I will touch base on some of my active projects,
explain what they are, what they do, why I created them, and what not.
Today, I bring you one of my most distinguishable project -- Repo
Source.
Why did I start the project? Several moons ago, during the launch of the product known as Apple iPod Touch, I pre-ordered an iPod Touch thinking it was "the thing" to have ... turns out, I was wrong, but that's a whole different story. Shortly after jailbreak and what not, I became relatively involved with the iPod Touch / iPhone scene, and I noticed a serious issue. Installer, an application that is used to allow end-line users install third party applications on their iPod Touch / iPhone, is awfully slow when it needs to keep track of multiple repositories, and especially so if certain repository(ies) are down, unreachable due to network issues, or out of bandwidth. This, at first, was not an issue; however, with every 14 year old insisting on starting their "own repository" and steal applications from other repositories, as well as software developers insisting on housing their one and only application on their own repository, it became a serious issue. When end-line users with up-wards to hundreds of repositories in their Installer database, the likely-hood of someone encountering a down/slow/dead repository grew, and load times are often upwards to 10 or 15 minutes. When I saw this problem, I started designing a meta-data repository system which allows users to select and filter their contents to custom tailor their needs, as well as drastically reduce their Installer's loading time. And in time, Repo Source was born.
Why did I start the project? Several moons ago, during the launch of the product known as Apple iPod Touch, I pre-ordered an iPod Touch thinking it was "the thing" to have ... turns out, I was wrong, but that's a whole different story. Shortly after jailbreak and what not, I became relatively involved with the iPod Touch / iPhone scene, and I noticed a serious issue. Installer, an application that is used to allow end-line users install third party applications on their iPod Touch / iPhone, is awfully slow when it needs to keep track of multiple repositories, and especially so if certain repository(ies) are down, unreachable due to network issues, or out of bandwidth. This, at first, was not an issue; however, with every 14 year old insisting on starting their "own repository" and steal applications from other repositories, as well as software developers insisting on housing their one and only application on their own repository, it became a serious issue. When end-line users with up-wards to hundreds of repositories in their Installer database, the likely-hood of someone encountering a down/slow/dead repository grew, and load times are often upwards to 10 or 15 minutes. When I saw this problem, I started designing a meta-data repository system which allows users to select and filter their contents to custom tailor their needs, as well as drastically reduce their Installer's loading time. And in time, Repo Source was born.
Repo Source is in many ways like Google Reader; the site have a spider which goes out to repositories to collect data, and combine them into one single repository for the end-line user. This saves time, bandwidth, and improves performance for everyone. Furthermore, Repo Source goes one step further and allow the end-line user to select only the package(s) that they're interested in, and filter out the things they don't need. This selection process allows users to build a small, yet effective repository with only contents that they're interested, which speeds up the overall process yet again. This process have effectively brought the reload time from 10 minutes plus down to as little as 10 seconds.
So far, two months into the project being live (about three months of development time in total, I had to stop for a month and half or so because of finals at school), I am pleased with where the project is today.
Today, Repo Source is helping 3,989 users tracking a total of 346,805 packages, and the number is still growing daily. I am planning to add an Amazon-like recommendation system, as well as community based screen shots, description, and reviews for individual packages soon, which will no doubt help the overall usefullness (if that's even a word) of the project. If you use a jailbroken iPhone or iPod Touch, I highly recommend you to give it a spin, too. Visit Repo Source.
So far, two months into the project being live (about three months of development time in total, I had to stop for a month and half or so because of finals at school), I am pleased with where the project is today.
Today, Repo Source is helping 3,989 users tracking a total of 346,805 packages, and the number is still growing daily. I am planning to add an Amazon-like recommendation system, as well as community based screen shots, description, and reviews for individual packages soon, which will no doubt help the overall usefullness (if that's even a word) of the project. If you use a jailbroken iPhone or iPod Touch, I highly recommend you to give it a spin, too. Visit Repo Source.
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