June 6, 2008

What I’ve Been Up To: Wii Friend Number Facebook App 2

It’s been over a month since my last post but for good reason; I’ve been busy.

I blame my obsession with this for the lack of blogging

Beyond all the freelance work I’ve done over the weekends and after work on weekdays. I’ve been also keeping myself busy with the much needed updates to my Wii Friend Number Facebook App. It’s surprising how much effort and code is needed for something so simple as storing and retrieving numbers. I should also note that I was also rewriting the entire application to use a PHP framework (CodeIgniter) to power it rather than continue with the initial spaghetti code I had. The result was some of the best code I made with a clear separation of the 3 modules: Model, View and Controller thanks to the way CodeIgniter is structured. I was satisfied with the end result and thanks to a suggestion from a reply to a mass email at work, I tipped off Joystiq about my newly revamped application and it was featured on their site

Besides my newfound obsession with Facebook application coding with CodeIgniter, I’ve also been busy at work learning a tonne of things as usual. I have a couple of drafts for new posts sitting in the queue so I’ll be back soon!

Possibly Related

15 Comments so far... perhaps you would like to leave one?

Hey Sam,

Can’t thank you enough for making it and again adding those new features.

Dang we need to play Mario Kart one day.

Cheers

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Comment by Adam Simeonidis — June 6, 2008 @ 11:38 pm

This is awesome. I would love to see this on MySpace now that it supports apps like Facebook. I just happen to have more peep on my MySpace than Facebook. Keep up the good work.

Comment by Truckondo — June 8, 2008 @ 12:02 pm

It’s requiring a friend code for Metriod Prime 3: Corruption, but I can’t find anywhere in-game where it lists what mine is.

Any help on this one? I swore this game didn’t have a friend code, that it just pulled from your Wii’s contact list, but your application clearly is demanding a 12 digit friend code.

Comment by Christopher David Kowalski — June 9, 2008 @ 7:17 pm

Sorry about the confusion there Christopher, I’ve only owned games which required a 12 digit code but based on feedback, this can vary. In this case, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption does not require anything as it relies on your console number. I’ve just updated the Add Games form in the app so that you can just add it without entering anything.

Comment by Sam Lu — June 10, 2008 @ 11:27 am

Hey, Mario Kart Wii gives you 4 Frind codes, so you should let each member of your application add 4 mario kart wii codes to their “game library”

Comment by Joshua Shear — June 11, 2008 @ 3:16 am

Just a suggestion, but could you also think about adding DS friend codes to the system? That would be AWESOME

Comment by Geoff — June 12, 2008 @ 6:57 am

@Joshua: I’ve done a little research and according to the comments I’ve seen around the net, everyone has a 12 digit friend code for Mario Kart Wii.

@Geoff: I’m currently doing some research on it. It seems like the next logical step for this application

Comment by Sam Lu — June 12, 2008 @ 11:29 am

Thanks for the info… I really appreciate this app… and wish Nintendo was a little less fearful of pedophiles… LoL

Comment by Geoff — June 12, 2008 @ 4:11 pm

Now that Ive added the application and sent out my invites to friends that I know own wii’s.
Im being pestered by them on how to find the Wii console number and also how to find the various friend keys for certain games they have. (There not always the most obvious things to find)

Can this app not have a notice board that details how to go about finding the keys.. Or maybe a help popup detailing how within the appliaction..

Comment by Fred Doherty — June 16, 2008 @ 11:54 am

Fred, there is a Help section in the app (linked in the top right corner) which links to a video that shows how to find your Wii console code within the app.

If you’re logged into Facebook, you should also be able to get to it from this link:
http://apps.facebook.com/wiifriendnumber/help

Comment by Sam Lu — June 16, 2008 @ 3:50 pm

Love this app. I only wish there was somehow to automatically send all the info to the Wii instantly. You should get in touch with Nintendo.

Comment by Kyle Starr — June 19, 2008 @ 11:54 am

I was looking into that Kyle, but the most communication that could be done with the wii from an external source would be messaging (speaking of which..that gives me an idea).

Anyways, messaging all that info to the wii would seem sort of useless as it would be annoying flipping back and forth between screens to enter numbers.

Comment by Sam Lu — June 21, 2008 @ 10:13 am