Announcement : Phix Software – Reality Distorting Software.

UIC Phoenxsoftware is known to rise from its ash time after time. that’s why I picked the name in 2005. (Actually it should be phoenixsoftware, but the “i” got lost somewhere along the way.)
We rose from the ash when we dropped windows development almost completely and left a number of successful freeware products behind with it resulting in a stable and self sustaining business on Mac OSX and iOS. We rose from the ash when we were hit by a copyright claim from the nice folks at KONAMI for our most successful product at that time iDuelpro, resulting in a 70% drop in revenue. And now we are ready to reimagine Phoenxsoftware for the third time, this time by rebranding UIC Phoenxsoftware to Phix Software.

This giant step comes not only with a new name, but also with a completely redesigned website and more focus on our commercial products. It also means we will release more serious products and have a bigger budget for marketing and more focused management. With the Mac OSX application we will release in a few days we take a first step in this new era.

Not all changes are positive for everyone. Our Windows users will have to settle with a lot less supported apps and some are even completely removed from our website.

Only the following products will be supported, maintained and get their own spot on the new site: MonoPhix (lite), MonoPhix HD, FlashPhix (lite), GrayPhix, iDuelpro (lite), Lingi, iDuelpro for Mac, Duelpro, 36-image express, SpeedShut, ROC and hur.lu and of course our new app.

The following products have been put on a dedicated “archive” page for deprecated software but are still available for download: 36-image converter, LockPhix, LoadDown, FileTorment, CachePhix, MPhix. These applications are no longer supported so we can’t provide mail support for these and waive all responsibility.

The following products are declared dead and aren’t available for download anymore on our site: FileTorment Suite 2006, FileTorment Suite 2007, PhBrowser, Blastgen Beta, older versions of Duelpro, InfoBlaster IN4.

I am certain these changes will benefit the user and will also give us a competitive edge. You can head over to our new site for a look around and check out the products that you didn’t even know existed.

Brand new app: Some samples

For all people who thought that we had died or abandoned development, think again. We’re very much alive and within a few weeks of unleashing a new app onto the world.

That’s about all I can say for now, but I wanted to throw in a teaser in the form of some sample shots.

Although it are black and white shots, the app isn’t a monochrome app. I just chose that certain filter because we all like MonoPhix, don’t we? Also these images never touched an iOS device.

Black Friday sale on all iOS apps. 100% off MonoPhix, MonoPhix HD, FlashPhix, Lingi, iDuelpro!

All our apps are currently free for Black Friday, so enjoy. The sale will automatically end November 26th.

Here’s a list of all apps with download links:

Photography Apps

• MonoPhix (0.99$->0$) – The most powerful black & white app out there.
• MonoPhix HD (1.99$ -> 0$) - The most powerful black & white app out there. (for iPad)
• FlashPhix (0.99$ -> 0$) – Cross processing, automatic correction and lighting control in one easy app.

(There’s one app missing here, “iPhix” but the app has to be updated pretty badly and I highly discourage anyone downloading it)

Games and gaming aids:

• Lingi (0.99$->0$) – A language game for young and old to easily learn Dutch, French or English.
• iDuelpro (0.99$->0$) – The most popular Yu-gi-oh! TCG scorekeeper in the world.

So go and get your future favorite app for free while you can!

Steve Jobs. 1955 – 2011.

I’m writing this because someone I greatly admire passed away this week. I wanted to write this earlier but ironically my MacBook’s charger broke down that day. To those few unfamiliar with him, Steve Jobs was one of the founders of Apple Inc. The company which brought you your music player and many things which start with an “i” to say it quite uncivil.

As I see it, Steve was one out of the same league as Antoni Gaudi, Salvador Dali, Leonardo da Vinci and Jimi Hendrix. Often misunderstood but visionary. Just like them he saw things no ordinary man saw. As a visionary CEO it’s hard to compare him to other tech CEO’s as he was unique. There is not a single executive in the current IT landscape which excels in the same way Steve excelled, not even Larry Ellison. The closest you can get to a man of relative capabilities is probably Howard Hughes. To cast it into his own words. You can disagree with Jobs and these other people in many ways but you can’t ignore them, because they changed the world. They pushed the human race forward.

As a person I can’t really judge Steve. And it makes me feel sad about writing this as in fact I’m writing this as a tribute to someone who I can only evaluate for his work. From what I know he was a perfectionist often persistent which is in fact not a bad feature. That’s all I know. I wished I knew more but I don’t and I think it’s to his family and friends to judge him as a person. There’s no one else in this world but them who is entitled to an opinion about him as a person and so I look in disgust about the coming screams from people who disliked him for no apparent reason but never knew him.

So I have only a few remaining words for some people who will probably never read this.

To his relatives and friends I can give but shallow comfort, he is not alone wherever he is. A lot of great people have suffered the same fate and it rests us all. So it’s hard, but you can look at all his great accomplishments and smile cause he lives on in each of his unbridled ideas.

To Tim Cook. Take good care of Apple. It’s impossible to replace Steve and it’s hardly possible to find a suitable successor in this world. But try to carry on what Steve started and don’t take wild decisions unless you support them 100%. Disney survived the passing of Walt Disney and Apple will most certainly survive the passing of Steve as it’s in the hands of an excellent team.

To Steve: I don’t believe in life after death, but in times likes these I hope it exists. So Steve, wherever you are I hope you’re in peace and maybe just maybe we can meet in a next life.

Hur.lu URL Shortener Launched, focus on design, simplicity and ease!

Today we proudly announce our first web service, hur.lu (Hurl u).  hur.lu is an URL Shortener that puts the focus on ease of use, simplicity and to some degree design. For people who don’t know what URL Shorteners are, it are small webservices that allow you to create a short URL for all your long URL’s and links to post them to eg. twitter where only 140 characters are allowed. But the short URL service can also be used as a small analytics service to check the amount of hits your link gets.

The hur.lu service was started last week on the 12th of March and in those 7 days we transformed a short URL we acquired into an almost fully functioning URL Shortener. The current set of features includes the basic URL shortener, an info bar with a most popular link and a last added links section, and a small but functional PHP API which allows most web apps and client apps to easily integrate the URL Shortening service. Within the next few says the amount of code examples for the API will be expanded and the support will be increased with eventually a “developers”-page, a bookmarklet to easily hurl links from within your browser, an info page and a simple section to retrieve data and statistics about a certain short-url like eg. amount of hits, visitor return rate, rank, date added, description and channel (web/API/app).

The service isn’t quite stable yet and hence has a beta tag, but it provides shorter URL’s than most services which on average means two extra characters you can use to tweet and it’s faster than most other services. You can find hur.lu at http://hur.lu/ of course.

hurly the ladybug, the mascot of hur.lu

Lingi language game for iPhone hits the App Store!

Our newest App, Lingi, has hit the App Store last evening after we thought that all was lost. It seems Apple had to review all languages and check all words for possible offensive ones. This made the reviewing process a bit more difficult. But anyway it’s finally here!

You can download it here : http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lingi/id345362647?mt=8

With Lingi you can easily learn multiple languages. It is built that not only you can learn multiple languages, but is built in such a way that your children will want to learn the available languages.

At the moment there are 3 languages available, English, French and Dutch. Each language has three levels, “Easy” for your children, “Normal” the normal settings and “Hard” if you want to take it to a more advanced level with words like “Discrepancy”.

Each level contains 30 words at the moment, but this will be expanded in the next update as well as the amount of available languages. We’re thinking of adding German, Spanish and Italian.

It’s available for 0,99$, 0,79€, …

Here’s the App Store description and some screenshots :

Children can’t start learning languages early enough and Lingi is a great aid in this. But Lingi isn’t only beneficial to children. It’s also a great source of amusement for all ages and the “Hard” mode can even be a real pain for the most advanced linguists!

Lingi features 3 minigames in which you can learn multiple languages and expand your vocabulary. Here’s an overview :

-The Kitchen :
In the kitchen you have to aid Lingi in forming words with the letters in his soup. You can do this by tapping letters in a large bowl of soup. You have one minute to form as many words as possible.

-The Door :
In this minigame you have to check 20 words for spelling errors. Each person in front of the door will say a word. If the word is right, make them enter. Otherwise you can tell them to leave.

-The Garden :
In Lingi’s garden is a spider. This spider will make a large web over Lingi’s entire garden if you don’t stop it. You can stop it by guessing the word represented by the dots in the bottom. If you select a letter and it isn’t part of the word you are trying to find, the spider will add another part to its web. When the web is completed or you succeed in guessing the word, the game is over. This is a typical hangman type game.

“The Garden” and “The Kitchen” are provided with hints to make them a little bit easier. But you can also decide to hide these hints to make the game harder.

Lingi contains three levels, “Easy”, “Normal” and “Hard” and contains three languages at the moment, English, French and Dutch. You can make Lingi display the words you have to find in another language instead of displaying hints in the same language.

All your scores are separately stored in a highscore list for each game.

Lingi provides a familiar and soothing interface and is expanded regularly.

=========Current Vocabulary==========
-Easy Mode : 30 Words English, 30 Words Dutch & 30 Words French (+synonyms & hints)
-Normal Mode : 30 Words English, 30 Words Dutch & 30 Words French (+synonyms & hints)
-Hard Mode : 30 Words English, 30 Words Dutch & 30 Words French (+synonyms & hints)

Note : Lingi is rated +9 because the Spider in the garden and monster behind the door can be scary to younger kids.

Home

The Garden

The Kitchen

The Door

The Settings

MonoPhix v2.0 for iPhone promises interesting changes!

Our latest addition to the iTunes App Store, MonoPhix Monochrome App for iPhone is getting an update within the next weeks. It’s the first of the -Phix apps that will be updated to version v2.0. But MonoPhix carries this tag with pride bringing a total of 15 changes and new features.

In MonoPhix 2.0, iphoneographers will be able to control the output of their Monochrome pictures completely. Where other apps only enable you to change the contrast settings, MonoPhix v2.0 will enable you to set highlights and shadow intensity. In this way you can make simple grayscale images with incredibly bright clear parts or adjust the sliders to make beautiful Monochrome images of pictures taken in all conditions. All changes can be previewed using a thumbnail.

Another major change is the absence of the Hard Mono and normal Grayscale features, these can now be accomplished by setting the slider in the right position with or without a little help from 4 preset settings. The missing buttons have been replaced by buttons to enable Sepia and Antique filters using the same depth and sliders which you use to make monochrome images.

Other changes include a significantly smaller filesize, a more logical save dialog and faster Monochrome filters provided by a major upgrade to the MonoCore engine.

But pictures say more than 1000 words (here are some pictures edited with MonoPhix v2.0 Release Candidate 1) :

 

MonoPhix v2.0 Monochrome example

Another MonoPhix Monochrome example - "Light at the end of the tunnel"

MonoPhix v2.0 Sepia example - Antique Fields

Another Sepia example which shows the right grain balance - Scratched Snow

Final example : Sepia - Monaco Train Station

Screenshots will be posted at release, MonoPhix v2.0 will be submitted to the App Store when all Beta testers approve of its quality.

 

 

GrayPhix & MonoPhix for iPhone free for acquaintance offer!

Since Apple changed its App Store policy, only front-paging “new” Applications instead of new and updated ones, we can no longer benefit from updates, so we are going to start a new tradition of acquaintance offers. In this way people can get acquainted with new or less popular apps, which are still pretty decent.

The acquaintance offers this time are MonoPhix and GrayPhix. Here a small summary :

-MonoPhix v1.1 :
Category : Photography
Normal Price : 0.99$ (Now Free!)
Description :
With MonoPhix you can create Monochrome images from your pictures with one touch. Even advanced image editing apps on your mac/pc require multiple filters and adjustments to create these high depth and high quality monochrome images.
Download Link

-GrayPhix v1.3 :
Category : Photography
Normal Price : 0.99$ (Now Free!)
Description :
GrayPhix is the most impressive grayscaling app available for iPhone and iPod Touch and is optimized to handle even the largest images directly on your iPhone.You will even be able to simulate camera flash for your grayscale images taken in a dark or twilight environment.
Download Link

Get them while they’re still hot!

iDuelpro Sales up thanks to Duelpro Monopoly and new release

We have released Duelpro 2009 yesterday, another major version of the most used yu-gi-oh! lifepoints calculator. Other than the fixes, improvements, new features and GUI overhaul, there was another change. Duelpro now features an iDuelpro introduction screen at start!

The problem with iDuelpro isn’t that it’s not useful, since most people who use it have remarked it being the best LPC around. The problem is how many people know about it. iDuelpro is the cheapest full featured lifepoints aid for iPhone and iPod Touch, but as long as people don’t know this they will keep’on buying too expensive ugly LPC’s with the same or less functionality then iDuelpro. Therefore we are introducing iDuelpro to all people who own Duelpro for Windows, 532.896 in total at the moment.

By doing this we can show people that if they own an iPhone or iPod Touch and they play the Yu-gi-oh! TCG, iDuelpro is a must have. And we are already noticing this, today our marketshare on the iPhone already increased after dropping for a while and our sales were up 75%. We will have another exposure to 5.000 people in the coming month and are even thinking about advertising on major sites by the end of this year. In this way we can provide all iPhone or iPod Touch yu-gi-oh! fans with a decent and cheap solution to improve their TCG experience.

Another great thing is that we have gotten this amazing email today of someone who liked iDuelpro Mobile so much that he wanted to thank us personally. This is just great, if there is anything that makes us more happy than the financial reports at the end of the month, it’s a happy customer. This is something we are now experiencing for the first time, since we have been developing for Windows the past years.

So if you like iDuelpro or Duelpro, send us an email and make us happy!

Phoenxsoftware.com, Blastgen.com and subdomains offline on Monday 23th of August due to backup

All our domains will be offline during a short backup on Monday the 23th of August 00:05 GMT+1. The domains will be back online within 15 minutes. These back-ups will be executed because of recent DDOS attacks on other major software distributors and newssites.

List of all domains being backed-up :
-Phoenxsoftware.com
-Blastgen.com
-36ic.phoenxsoftware.com
-lpx.phoenxsoftware.com
-iphone.phoenxsoftware.com
-duelpro.phoenxsoftware.com
-roc.phoenxsoftware.com

Help pages, update servers, blastgen registration, 36IC, DPR & LPX DashBoard channels and the ROC server will be offline as well.

We apologize for this inconvenience.