The unreasonable man
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. George Bernard Shaw, Maxims for Revolutionists Stay hungry, stay unreasonable.
Slicy Photoshop Artwork
I have been using the same process to export application artwork using Adobe Photoshop forever. Most Mac, iOS and Web applications have large numbers of small image files that are used everywhere. They need to be sliced up, scaled and exported into the files and formats needed by the application. Exporting multiple art items in multiple resolutions has been a tedious and time consuming task, a task that had to be repeated manually every time the artwork changed.
Target the Forward Fringe
Daniel Jalkut, writing on his Red-Sweater blog in Target The Forward Fringe nails who our target market truly is, in discussing whether to retina-ize (HiDPI) our websites and applications. Because HiDPI customers may be a fringe group, but they are a forward-facing fringe. They represent the users of the future, and the more we cater to them now, the more deeply embedded our products and designs will be in their culture.
Carriers are the biggest threat to innovation
Nilay Patel, writing for The Verge gets it in Five years after the iPhone, carriers are the biggest threat to innovation. Extremely clear and well written, too many awesome quotes. Getting a device on a major carrier can take up to 15 months and cost millions of dollars; carriers are notorious for demanding custom devices in order to create customer lock-in. “Exclusivity is the bane of my existence,” says one source at a major phone manufacturer.
Project Folder Layout
We all work on multiple projects. And we’re creating new ones all the time, whether for new engagements, new personal projects or spikes. I personally like to have all my project files properly organized, every component of the project has its place, so I have been using my own standard project folder layout for years. Until now. The old one was no longer working. So I rearranged my standard project folder layout.
iPhone is 5 today
Five years ago, the first iPhone went on sale. My, have mobile phones changed since then. My Mobiles before the iPhone launch When I first came to the USA, the only phones I could get were pay-as-you-go bricks. After some time, I finally became eligible for a contract phone. My first was the Verizon V710 flip phone (first left). It was sold as the first phone to allow bluetooth sync between the phone and your computer, so I got that one.
Syncing the Desktop and the Laptop
For the past few years, I have been working about 5½ days a week on the desktop and 1½ days a week on the laptop. The desktop is a monster 8-core Mac Pro with loads of RAM and my good old 23" Cinema HD Display, which makes it perfect for compiling, graphics work and the usual day-to-day work stuff. The laptop is a mid-2009 MacBook Pro 15", perfect for on-site work and demos.
Data presentation at its best
One thing we all try to do is to simplify the presentation of data and tell a story. That’s why charts, graphs, infographics and dashboards are so popular these days. At the UEFA site, they created a brilliant way to present the story of the tournament. Instead of the usual brackets with the final in the middle and the upper and lower quadrants blank wasted space, they created a railway network, wherein you can follow the story of each team as the tournament progressed (the lines highlight as you hover over them).
On the Nexus 7
Yesterday, Google announced the Nexus 7, their first hardware and software combination tablet. In short, and in my opinion, they have created the reference platform for Android tablet development. Pair that with the Galaxy Nexus phone and you have the best Android pair since the iPhone/iPad duo, for development. But until I need to develop for Android, I’m not going to buy one. I already have an iPad and an iPhone.
Someone is coming to eat you
Michael Lopp, for Rands in Repose, wrote Someone is Coming to Eat You, a brilliant article on success and competition, well worth reading. Apple’s current biggest competitor is itself, and I think Steve Jobs learned this the hard way - from the sidelines. When he returned, one of his first hires was a gentlemen named Tim Cook, and while Tim Cook holds a degree in industrial engineering, he is not an engineer, a designer, or a poet.