June 28, 2012
I love podcasts. I probably love them too much. I listen to several every week; while I work, while I drive, while I cool and any other moment I can get away with. Last year I discovered Instacast and promptly switched from iTunes in order to listen to podcasts on the go. This week Apple released their own a mobile app, Podcasts.
April 2, 2012
Studio Neat, the folks behind the Kickstarter Glif project and Cosmonaut stylus, have released their first app, Frameographer.
March 30, 2012
In addition to all the exciting Apple announcements a few weeks ago there was good news for iOS users. Day One and IA Writer received updates. Anytime those apps are updated I pay attention. The most significant update in IA Writer is that it is now a Universal app, meaning that it will now run [...]
March 19, 2012
Last week This American Life retracted a story for the first time. The story centered on Foxconn, a major Apple manufacturing supplier, and their working conditions in China and was broadcast back in January. The body of the original story was an excerpt from Mike Daisey’s one man play called The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. In the act Daisey weaves a story of traveling to China and visiting Foxconn factories, meeting underage workers, seeing the effects of Hexane gassed victims, and more emotional encounters. It is a gripping tale and very arresting, but unfortunately much of it is… (dramatic pause) not true.
February 6, 2012
On occasion my brother in law have great conversations centered on tech topics. I couple reoccuring themes we have discussed involve the future of interaction design, especially on the desktop. I have been excited to see that a couple of our ideas must be in the water because there is some good stuff coming down that closely mirrors them.
January 16, 2012
This weekend the MacBook Air I ordered arrived. Here is what I think of it:
December 21, 2011
In the spring I backed a project on Kickstarter and quickly forgot about it. This last month I received a notice that the project I had backed was finished and shipping. I have been locking forward to the Cosmonaut’s arrival and have now had it for a couple of days. I am not disappointed.
December 19, 2011
Dan & I did another Lunch & Learn Session a couple of weeks ago to introduce CSS to the rest of the Push team. Here are some excerpts from our outline:
December 10, 2011
Path is an iPhone/Android app that has recently received a face lift and it is wonderful. Path is a social network that seems to fulfill what I wanted Facebook and Google+ to be. It is an intimate experience where you share thoughts, photos, and more.
October 27, 2011
Last Thursday we started the first of several lunch hour Lunch & Learn Sessions at Push Design. This week my colleague Dan Root and I presented the basics of HTML. I’ve attached my outline for the presentation. We used Cameron Moll’s excellent HTML magnets to demonstrate the principles we talked about in a tactile way. Overall it was a success and we will be continuing the series.
October 17, 2011
I received an anticipated package on Friday, the iPhone 4S. I have been using it all weekend and thought I would post my thoughts in a loose review.
October 14, 2011
As a technology minded person my tools setup is always in flux, but for those who a interested in what people use to get their work done it might be informative.
October 12, 2011
I am currently using the iPhone 3GS and my contract is up so I ordered the new iPhone Friday morning. I am pretty eager to play with it and here is why.
October 11, 2011
I previously wrote thoughts on MacRabbit’s two entries in the text editor market, CSSEdit & Espresso. For a time it seemed that their development had stalled (not unlike another popular text editor), but thankfully they have resurfaced with some welcome changes.
September 14, 2011
I’ve been using Google+ for a couple months at this point. I gotta say, I really like it. It is a really nice alternative to Facebook and something that is always pleasing when I return to it.
September 7, 2011
Designers should code. HTML and CSS are the language of the web and trying to create sites without knowing it is like trying to get by in a foreign country by hanging out with other Americans instead of natives. You can do it, but never as well as someone who takes the time to immerse themselves in the local language and culture. Print designers can’t get away without knowing what 4-color process is, should those who design for the web not know what semantic markup is?
August 27, 2011
It is not too much to expect designers to learn HTML & CSS, these are the tools of our craft, why hide them? This app seems perfect for one thing, restaurant websites. It’s the new Flash.
August 27, 2011
The tech world has been exploding with news the last couple of weeks… It is the end of an era to be sure, but I do not want to eulogize Jobs. I would rather just mention two things about Apple’s behavior over the last decade that I believe are indicative of Steve Job’s leadership.
August 17, 2011
I have been using Apple’s latest operating system for almost a month and now that I feel comfortable I thought I would write a bit about it. I am not sure that I would call it a review because I am not attempting to be comprehensive or thorough on every point. This is just an outline of my thoughts as I have used it.
August 6, 2011
Technology is not an invisible force; it is not still air waiting to be blown hither or thither. No, technology is the work of people, and insofar as technology “values” anything, it reflects the values of its creators and users. Technology is born with intent. We ignore that intent at our peril. Alex Payne — [...]
July 7, 2011
Last week I opened Twitter to some very welcome news. MacRabbit’s HTML Editor Espresso was being updated. I previously wrote about my experience with the first version of Espresso. And not only that a public beta of it’s version 2 software was being released. Having downloaded it and worked regularly with it I can say how satisfying it is to see the new verison coming along.
July 4, 2011
For the last two days I have been attempting to upgrade my Windows XP Bootcamp partition to Windows 7 for browser testing purposes. I was actually kind of excited about it. I’d heard good things about Windows 7 and, as a Mac guy, was interested in seeing how the other half lives. After fighting with boot screens and burning disk images without success I have a sneaking suspicion that it might not be possible for me to to install over XP with the upgrade license that I purchased, despite what Microsoft says. I also began to wonder who this product is for? It surely isn’t for your average non-techie going to grab an upgrade at Best Buy. It isn’t for my Mom or yours. It’s not for someone who spends their whole day in front of a computer and operates it competantly and confidently. If it is not for them, who? Then it came to me, the Windows 7 upgrade disc is for Microsoft’s favorite customer, the IT department. But I guess I shouldn’t fear, the much more expensive full, non upgrade, version is always waiting for me to hand over my credit card, nuke my drive and start again. I guess Ballmer and Co. really do care.
May 26, 2011
Just thought that I should point out a practice that I thoroughly approve of.
February 23, 2010
I’ve been getting more excited about the iPad as its launch date draws near. As an Apple Fanboy I paid close attention on Keynote day and watched all the live coverage blogs to find out all the details.
October 14, 2009
Randall Packer and Ken Jordan’s volume of essays detailing the history of multimedia Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality draws a clear relationship between the development of technology and multimedia art/design. The pioneers in motion design and interactivity relied on advancing technology and were often involved in its development. This process continues today in the camera market.
March 31, 2009
The first program I used in when I started to learn web design was TextEdit, followed quickly by Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver was great for a while because if you knew what you wanted to do you could find a button for it and let Dreamweaver do the rest. It’s easy but it creates a lot of code that I don’t understand, and as I’ve recently found in Wordpress, that much Javascript doesn’t play nice with everything. So being a Mac Guy I’ve decided to try out some simpler things. I probably would’ve tried Coda first, but recently a couple of newcomers have been making noise, CSSEdit and Espresso. They are both made by MacRabbit, a Belgian Mac developer that loves focused simplicity.
