You are here: Home / Archives for Development & Design

Everything old is new again.

February 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Well, after spending my first night jumping in feet first, I have to admit. It’s fun again to be a programmer.

I learned C over ten years ago. The last time I used it? Yeah, ten years ago.

See, I’m one of those rare breed of cats in the world of interactive crap. I’m one of those asshats who actually went to school for Computer Science. Oh yeah, you heard me right. Discrete Math, Calculus, Linear Algebra, C, Operating Systems (remember Minix?), x86 assembly language… the whole nine yards. But see, here’s the deal. I’ve never used any of those since… well, since college. Jumping straight into Advertising in the mid 90s, I quickly learned that none of that mattered. Remember, at the time nobody was doing “object oriented” web development and frameworks were a twinkle in your mom’s eye. I was going down the ColdFusion and SQL road, which hadn’t yet embraced OOP, Flex went by another name, a little animation tool called, “Flash” and all of this was owned by a company that doesn’t even exist anymore because it was bought by another company that doesn’t even exist anymore.

But lately, I’ve been looking to fill a void in my life. No, not peanut butter. Another void. The one that forms when you feel like you’re no longer challenged.

So I got a couple books, got myself an iPad, an iPhone, a Macbook and decided to join the Apple Developer Program. Once the sacred initiation rite was complete, and the goat had been slaughtered, I was “officially” an iOS zombie. Hurray for me!

I took the last week’s vacation (look, I refuse to play into that whole “recuperating from a heart attack” meme. That’s just what the liberal media want you to think) as an opportunity to crack open some books, and my first reaction was to get a little nervous. I mean, after all, I hadn’t ridden this bike in ten years. Then I realized, it is a bike, metaphorically speaking. I haven’t forgotten how to be a programmer. I haven’t forgotten what a string constant is.  I haven’t forgotten what a class file is. I just hadn’t used them in a while. Sure, I may be a little rusty, but that’s okay, I’ll get better.

But here’s the best part. I was excited. I didn’t know something, and I was on very unfamiliar ground. That felt good. That felt a lot like what I remember best about Computer Science, tinkering with code, messing up, trying to figure out where you made the mistake, then fixing it, and finally seeing something work that you created. I haven’t felt that way in a long time.

So tonight when I get home – for the first time in a long time – I’m excited to dig into something that I don’t have a clue about. But I guarantee you when I go to bed, I will have figured something cool out and learned something that I didn’t know when I walked in the door.

Now if only there was a market for an iPad app that was a single button that made a fart noise when you pressed it…

Filed Under: Development & Design, Personal Tagged With: , , , ,

Swiper, no swiping!

January 24, 2011 By 1 Comment

I recently ran across a post over on Boing Boing about legendary illustrator/designer Coop’s swipe file on Flickr. I loved it, but even better, I loved the idea… so I swiped it. It gave me an opportunity to try a couple of things I’ve been meaning to try. I’ve had a Flickr account for a long time, but have never really used it for anything beyond photo storage. I’ve always wanted to do something more and “play” with it more, but I haven’t really seen an opportunity that grabbed me. Once I saw what Coop was doing and I took a look at the photos that I’m typically taking with my iPhone, I realized I had sort of been doing the same thing without really knowing what I was doing. I just hadn’t really “formalized” the process.

So I’ve got a blog/website. I’ve got a Flickr account. I’ve got an iPhone with the cool little Flickr app installed. Why not put together a little process that allowed me to spontaneously snap inspirational bits of life, upload ‘em to my Flickr account, and have them automatically populate a page on my site?

Seems easy enough, right? Of course it is… about three minutes, a WordPress plugin, a line of shortcode, and viola! Instant Swipe File.

New menu item, new page… click, enjoy. No rules. If it inspires, for whatever reason, it goes in the swipe file.

Filed Under: Development & Design, Meta, Photos And Video Tagged With: , , , , ,

The Great “2010-slash-Myrtle Beach-slash-Developer-slash-Geek” Frameworks Poll

December 21, 2010 By 15 Comments

Okay folks, time to step up. I’m looking for participation solely for the purpose of gaining an idea about who’s using what in town. For this reason I don’t wanna do a “poll” per se. I want everyone to be able to see names, locations, etc and I’d like people to be able to check this out to get a sense of who can help them out from time to time, who’s *also* using a technology or framework that might be able to lend a hand, pitch in for a project, and also, quite honestly, take the temperature of skillz in the area. We’re all (the #mbgeekout) bringing skills to the table, but a lot of times we don’t know anyone else in town who’s also doing it or whatever.

So this is my attempt to map the technology landscape, if you will.

Here’s what you can do. In the comments field, add your comment with the following poll answers. I’m going to break this into two areas right now. Mobile and Web. If you’re a mobile developer, what language and framework are you currently using. Let’s use about 75% as the threshold. If you’re dabbling in iOS or thinking about getting into RIM development, you’re certainly welcomed to say, but if you had a gun at your head, and someone screamed WHAT FUCKING LANGUAGE AND FRAMEWORK DO YOU USE? SAY IT! SAY IT MOTHERFUCKER OR I’LL BLOW YOUR FUCKING HEAD OFF! What would your answer be? Likewise for web development. Bonus points if you’re using a CSS Framework and you’d like to add it, but mostly I’m looking to keep it simple and lean. Language, framework of choice (if any). Please feel free to voice your “I don’t use a framework” preferences if that be the case.

You can even use this handy little outline of a form to copy and paste if it’ll make it easier. If you don’t wanna put your name, that’s cool too, but you stand a better chance of getting your comment posted if you at least give your name and email address.

Mobile Development
Language:
Framework:
IDE of choice:

Web Development
Language:
Framework:
IDE of choice:

… and please, check back and feel free to view the results, if any! Like I said, it would be really great if even one person discovered another geek in town who was doing what they were doing, and connected.

Filed Under: Development & Design Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Taking a “Vocation”.

December 16, 2010 By 4 Comments

I wasn’t going to take any vacation time over Christmas. I really didn’t have plans, and with my awesome family vacation coming up next year I thought, “well, I’ll just work through the holidays and reward myself with a tremendous vacation in the Spring”.

Then, I dunno. I just started to think, “it’d be nice to have some time off and spend some quality time at home with the family”. Work is closed on the 23rd and 24th and again on the following Friday the 31st, so if I took just four days off between that Monday and Thursday, I get a whopping eleven days off to just relax and fuck off at the end of the year. So I jumped all over it. I think I need it. The last couple of weeks have been pretty lame. I was talking to my good friend Eileen last night and I told her that I felt like I needed to rediscover my passion. Almost serendipitously I was watching an episode of “King of the Hill” and in it, Peggy talked Dale into taking a “Vocation” where you take some time off and learn a new skill (he learned basket weaving. I’m far more ambitious). I thought, “what an excellent idea”.

So it was settled. I’ve got a great idea that I’ve been dying to work on. I’ve downloaded the latest version of the iOS SDK, armed myself with some iPad and iPhone programming books and decided that I’m going to jump in feet first and come hell or high water, ship. I’ve got a deadline in my head that coincides with a couple of nifty events that can help promote my little iPad idea, and I’ve got a lot of database and website work to do in the meantime to build a nice little infrastructure for it. I’m going to immerse myself in programming and remind myself why I love to do what I do. You know, recapture a little of that passion.

So I’m “turning this off” for a couple of weeks. I’ll be back after the new year, refreshed, recharged, and ready to go. I’m excited about my hokey little iPad idea after diligently searching high and low and seeing not a hint of it anyplace, and it’s something that I really love to do, so there’s that whole “bonus” built right in.

If you see me in person, ask me about it. I’ll be more than happy to chew your ear off about it.

In the meantime, please, have a safe and happy holidays. No matter what you believe, this is an important time to reconnect with family and friends. Enjoy their company and take the time to be in the moment. Relish the experience of the now.

Filed Under: Comics, Development & Design, Personal Tagged With: , , , ,

“I hate that place”

December 7, 2010 By 2 Comments

I hear that so often these days. From friends, from co-workers, from Twitter followers. Seems like everyone hates Facebook.

So why are so many people still using it?

I don’t post pictures there. I don’t upload video there. My only participation is to use it as a broadcast medium to point to the place where I control the universe. Here. I might share a link or two, but they’re also shared here as well. I don’t want Facebook to actually have any of my content. It’s mine. Not theirs. They don’t have any right to my family photos, my videos, my thoughts, my ideas. They make money off my stuff. If all of a sudden everyone stopped giving Facebook all their shit, Facebook would be completely value-less. Facebook’s whole value is wrapped up in your eyeballs. Increasingly, they’re becoming a walled garden. I saw a post the other day comparing them to AOL, and I thought, “that’s perfect”. AOL used to be a lot of people’s “internet experience”. You’d sign on to their world, play around in their playground, interact with their users, then log off. Once you started sniffing around outside their walls, they were essentially done. People went, “waitaminute, you mean there’s all THIS out there? Why didn’t you tell me?”. Then it was all over for AOL.

Seems like the same thing’s happening with Facebook.

It’s the end of the year. Time for people to start writing those “retrospective” posts looking back on “the year that was” and a lot of them seem to be themed around the idea of “moving on from Facebook”. People seem to be coming around to the idea that there’s life beyond 500 million users. That juggernauts can be stopped cold in their tracks. That there will be a “next big thing” and they’re already starting. That can’t bode well for Facebook, but it could be good for users.

See, I think, as an idea, Facebook’s great. Share shit with your friends and family. As a platform, it’s been great as what I would call, “the first iteration” of that idea. Sort of a “here’s how you do it and make it easy for people”. What I think it’s failed at miserably though, is the obvious obsession with monetizing the idea. In an effort to somehow get money out of an idea that’s inherently NOT a money making idea, they’ve had to open the “social graph” to people who weren’t part of your conversation in the first place.

I was talking with my friends and family. Who invited Coca-Cola and Toyota?

Then there’s the whole notion of Facebook making money off of my life. Seriously? You take my photos, my videos, my thoughts, my ideas… and you monetize them so YOU make money? And you don’t offer me a cut? How does that work?

Turns out it doesn’t. At least not very well. In order for Facebook to make that money, they’ve got to run completely counter to their idea. They have to open what was originally a very closed idea. I liked it when the idea was closed. I liked it when I had friends, I could share, they could share, and that was our world. Now, this whole, open platform environment runs counter to my comfort level and the comfort level of most users. You think I want all my friends to see my activity on Huffington Post? Do I want everyone I’m friends with on Facebook, business Friends, personal friends, family, to see what I like on Buzzfeed? You think that’s appropriate? I don’t. It’s also not the deal we signed up for.

So what happens now? Well, it’s anybody’s guess, but judging from some of the conversations out there, we won’t have to wait long to find out. There are a lot of really smart people out there who see this coming and are already working on solutions to “the Facebook problem”. I’m confident they’re smarter than Zuckerberg, too. Here’s the best part, you don’t have to “train” a new audience what the idea of Facebook is now. All you have to do is be the one who comes up with the next, “It’s Facebook, but better”.

Filed Under: Development & Design, Fun and Frivolous Tagged With: , , ,

Hey, here’s a question…

December 6, 2010 By 3 Comments

…and I genuinely don’t know the answer.

I recently attended the Adobe Max conference and was one of about two thousand lucky recipients of a new Google TV. The unit, a Logitech Revue, arrived last Thursday, and I blogged about my initial reaction on Friday. Since then, I spent the weekend playing around with it more, customizing the UI a little, adding my own bookmarks, deleting some that I won’t use, moving some stuff around, and generally playing around on it, and I have to admit, it’s not bad. Combined with a nice little, entry-level HDTV (40″ LCD, 60Hz, HDMI) it’s a pleasant experience, and I stand by my initial reaction. It’s not bad, in fact, once I realized that I could watch Lynda.com videos on my TV over the weekend, my appreciation of it skyrocketed. I don’t have an HD converter box in my back room, so it’s just straight cable, and as a result, I’m not using the box to its fullest (no DVR functionality, no “Live TV”). I also still stand behind my sort of “consumer confusion empathy” point of view as well. I see the potential, but I don’t know if the mainstream consumer walking into a Best Buy is going to think, “oh, I need that” and move to spend $299 on a device that, at least in my mind, competes for Xbox, Playstation, Macbook AIR, and iPad eyeballs. Each makes a compelling argument. If I’m going to spend $299, why not just spend another $200 to get a dedicated little portable tablet that can browse the web, view video, and has the added benefit of being portable?, etc.

So it got me thinking. Google just reportedly offered $6 billion for Groupon. That’s a lot of money. Why couldn’t Google spend a portion of that subsidizing the shit out of Google TV? Why is it $299? Why not $49? Why not offer every television, DVD, Blu-Ray, game-box, manufacturer subsidized versions of Google TV as well? Why not offer every set manufacturer a $500 incentive to pass along to the customer? Imagine you walked into a Best Buy or Target to buy an HDTV and there were two models, both 42″ or 50″, whatever. One was $1500 and the other was $1000? Or more realistically, one was $1000 and another was $500, then on sale it was, say, $399? The only difference being the cheaper one had Google TV built in? Or even better, what if, for every HDTV you bought, Wal-Mart offered you a free GoogleTV? Imagine the ancillary sales for Logitech for cameras, Harmony remotes, etc?

Part of my frustration was the lack of content and apps when I powered mine up. Now early adopters are used to that. I had an Android phone for months before there was even one compelling app to download from the marketplace. I played Rainbow Six online with the same dozen or so complete strangers for months before anyone else I knew was on Xbox Live, so I’m used to being in virtual deserts, but how compelling would it be, from a developer standpoint to know that after this holiday season, everyone who bought a television was going to be a Google TV user on December 26th? Six billion (with a “b”) is a lot of fucking money. I think it’s technically a shit-load. One sixth of that is still more money than I can fathom, and I can fathom quite a bit. If you’ve got 6 billion to drop on something as ridiculous as Groupon, don’t you think you could put a little of that cheddar behind something you actually own and developed in an effort to see it gain traction?

What am I missing here?

Filed Under: Development & Design Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Logitech Revue with Google TV: First thoughts.

December 3, 2010 By 1 Comment

Okay, so my Logitech Revue arrived yesterday and I set it up in the back room on a 40-inch Toshiba 1080p LCD HDTV.

Quick thoughts, then I’ll spend some time with it this weekend and maybe discuss it in a little more depth over the holidays.

The setup was stupid painless. I’ve seen postings online about how long and arduous the setup is, and I think these must be some seriously jaded people. There was nothing in the setup that felt overcomplicated, or unnecessary. You’re hooking up a pretty damn complicated device that has a lot of moving parts in terms of technical touchpoints. Do you have an HD converter box? Do you have cable or satellite? Do you have an AV receiver? Do you want to use the keyboard as a remote? Unfortunately, it’s inherently a little “more” than an AppleTV and as a result is going to suffer from a bit more of a setup process. Not to mention, it’s not an Apple product designed to talk to other Apple products, so there won’t be that sort of Fisher-Price Apple setup as a result. It just simply is a little bit more or a device.

The keyboard is cool. Period. It’s got a lot of features beyond a keyboard, and I loved how it immediately set up as a remote to the TV. It took me a couple of times playing with it to figure out how to switch Video sources from TV to Wii to GoogleTV, but it’s all good. That could be frustrating to people who aren’t natural tinkerers.

It immediately saw our NetGear Stora on the network, and within minutes we were selecting from hundred of movies, thousands of pictures, and an endless supply of MP3s that we’ve archived over the years. All of our family movies, taken on our FlipHD and stored on the NAS were available, streamed flawlessly, and looked brilliant on the TV. To me, this is THE feature I was most looking forward to. We literally have the entire Disney library on the Stora, and having access to that outside of Xbox was a Godsend.

Netflix Streaming, again, perfect. I understand the frustration with it using the older API which doesn’t allow for searching. That has become the number one feature over on the Xbox, but my wife remarked, “well can’t we just go to netflix using the browser and edit/add/delete from our Queue?”. Now you know why I love the woman. She’s right. We don’t miss it. It looks great, and again, we’ll use the shit out of it in the back room of the house (while some of us play Fallout in the front of the house…).

Flash? Okay, well that kinda sucked. We went to Cartoon Network, because I had already spilled the beans to my daughter that she’d be able to play Finn and Jake on the HDTV in the back room on a MUCH bigger screen than her laptop (4 years old and she’s all over Cartoon Network with her laptop) and she was all over that. Sadly however, when we went to Cartoon Network and headed over to the Adventure Time page, the animation was so slow and gruesome that my daughter said, “Daddy, can you close that because it’s going so slow that it’s not fun when it does that…”. How sad, a 4 year old child already knows what to do when, “your Flash is slow”.

Web browsing and YouTube? Again, pretty sweet, but that shit’s all pretty much WebTV. I don’t really see using it much beyond maybe looking up something you need quickly on Google, or checking weather… I’m much more inclined to reach for the iPad for quick browsing. Likewise, I don’t think either of us will be checking email on the TV. We just won’t. That experience I think is much more “personal” than feels comfortable doing on TV.

Overall? I think I’d have to give it about an 8 out of 10. If I had an HD converter box in the back, and set it up as a DVR, then I’d probably bump it up to about a 9.

But here’s the thing. It’s $300. If I’m about to drop $300 on something, I’m MUCH more inclined to start looking over at iPads. I just don’t “see it” as something people are looking at and considering buying. But I’m likewise on AppleTV. I have no desire, even at $99 to go out and buy an AppleTV. I don’t care how much it integrates with my “iTunes whatever”.

Also, the lack of content is noticeable. No Hulu (actually, it’s blocked. You go there with the Chrome browser, and you get a nice note, “Hey there, we notice you’re using a Google TV. Unfortunately, fuck you and the horse you rode in on…”) and none of the other video content providers outside of social/shared video services like youtube and vimeo, which I suppose are okay, but certainly not content I give two shits about watching.

So it’s cool. I think it’s pretty sweet overall, but I absolutely see why people are hesitant to get it, why it just seems like it doesn’t fit into any sort of “consumer experience process” and why it’s going to be quite the uphill battle going forward. If developers figure it out and deliver some compelling apps for it, you might see it start to catch on. People are warming up to the “mini OS / App experience” on devices I think and this could easily be the first of a trend that heads over to Television. I already see an opportunity for an app that I might consider working on over the holidays that might plug what I think is a hole in the experience with shared/networked media. That’s why I thought I’d spend a little more time with it over the holidays and perhaps blog a little more about it later.

Since you made it all the way down here to the bottom, I thought you deserved a little prize. Enjoy.

Filed Under: Development & Design Tagged With: , , , , , ,

“The Best Laid Plans…” and what my gut told me.

November 8, 2010 By 1 Comment

I had actually planned to write a lot this weekend. I felt like I had a lot of pent up blogging inside me. Like I had things to say and there was some underlying emotion bubbling through me that would somehow be cathartically released if I wrote about it. I mean, I can’t explain it. Ever have one of those feelings like, things are just over the horizon, and you can’t quite see them yet? They’re just not in focus, or not completely visible? That’s how I’ve felt for about the last couple of weeks. I think a lot of it has to do with Adobe Max this year. I’m struggling with the “all over the map” feeling that this year’s Max Conference has left me with. Oh, not in a bad way. In fact, it’s just the opposite. I feel as if there are dozens of opportunities out there for me to apply a little talent, a little skill, a little elbow grease, and wind up on the other side of a hugely rewarding experience. So I thought maybe meditating on it, spending a little time writing about it, and talking to some friends this weekend would help me sort things out in my brain-container.

Then Fallout: New Vegas arrived. Then I got a new iPhone.

I mean, seriously, could I have had two bigger distractions fall into my lap? First off, don’t even get me started on Fallout. I wrote about it a while back on my other blog. The previous version was my number one game of 2010 and the damn thing was released in 2009. I’m almost embarrassed to tell you how many hours I spent playing Fallout 3, but I will cop to it being in the hundreds. And don’t think I’m the only one. My wife not only loved Fallout 3, but she’s got a book she checked out from the library that’s a 14-day checkout (that’s already overdue), and on about three separate occasions this weekend she stopped what she was doing and sat next to me watching me fight dehydration (of course I’m playing it on hardcore mode, silly), fend of radscorpions, and work with “Fantastic” to squeeze more efficiency out of a solar panel array in the nuclear wasteland formerly known as “The Nevada Desert”. Quite simply, the game is magnificent. Oh sure, it’s basically an add-on pack to Fallout 3… but I don’t care. It’s more wasteland, more post-apocalyptic carnage & mayhem, and more piled on top of more. So here I sit, Monday morning, with barely any sleep on a weekend where I actually got an extra hour built into the weekend, having accomplished nothing more than learning how to tan golden gecko hides in the desert with some roots and turpentine. Oh, and I shot some ghouls into space. That was pretty cool.

The iPhone? I dunno. Jury’s still out on that one. I played with it a little. Wasn’t “blown away” but wasn’t disappointed either. Apple is Apple, and everything they touch they think through to such extreme that it’s almost annoying how perfectly everything works together. UI isn’t so alarming after owning an iPad for six months, but I have to tell you, if I didn’t own the iPad, jumping from 2 years on an Android phone to the iPhone would’ve been a lot more jarring experience. Having a Droid 2 and an iPhone simultaneously should be an interesting experience that I hope to spend a little more time exploring. Initial thoughts however, are a resounding, “meh”. It was, however, nice to have a new iPod. I will admit to spending an inordinate amount of time this weekend loading the shit out of it with Video/Movies/TV shows and music. Somehow Band of Horses just sounds better on a new iPod/iPhone. I can’t explain that… something about how shiny it is, I think.

But you know what? I don’t regret a minute of it. I think my gut was telling me to relax. I spent a week in Los Angeles on sensory overload and it actually felt nice to curl up on the sofa all weekend, enjoy time with the family and decompress a little. I cooked dinner for my mom, went grocery shopping, and helped my daughter go on a “wildlife safari”. Taking occasional time outs to shoot the arms off of legionnaires who don’t like me because of my tremendously good karma (the idolize me in Novac!) was just the icing on the cake as far as I’m concerned.

Filed Under: Development & Design, Fun and Frivolous, Personal Tagged With: , , , , ,

Adobe Max: My Conference Photo Gallery

October 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Click on any photo to launch the gallery view, and when you’re done, just click on a photo to end the gallery view. This is kind of my own little “highlight reel” of my experience at this week’s Max Conference.

Filed Under: Development & Design, Photos And Video Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Adobe Max Day Three. I’m exhausted… but today’s going to be awesome!

October 27, 2010 By 3 Comments

7: 18 PM
Wow. What a couple of days (three for me, including pre-conference sessions) and I’m starting to feel it. I don’t have a lot of time to write a lot this morning, today begins the day that I’ve been waiting for. Today I get to code in a couple of “Bring Your Own Laptop” lab sessions. These are hands-on coding sessions where you actually create software. This morning we’re going to create an Android App from scratch, and in the afternoon, I’ve got a four hour “Adobe AIR Code Camp”. This is going to be basically an Adobe AIR Boot Camp. You must have the software installed (In my case, the Android 2.2 SDK, Flash Catalyst, Flash Builder, and AIR) and you work on your own machine.

In between those two sessions is “Designing with Fireworks”. This also represents one that I’m really looking forward to, but for much different reasons. This session will be “me out of my comfort zone”. I’m a developer, not a designer. As a developer, I need to have what I call, “Designer Empathy”. So I’m going to put on my “designer hat” and do some learning “as a designer”. Should be fun, and I’m hopeful it’ll give me some great stuff to take back to my creative department that can facilitate the “design to development” workflow. Fingers crossed!

So I’m off. My sessions are long, so I might not blog as much today, but since it’s the last day, I’ll try to wind up this post with a Photo Gallery tonight. I’ve been taking a lot of pictures over the last three days, and it’d be fun to put them into a fun little gallery and blog ‘em. So I’ll make up for not blogging as much by posting some more visual, fun things.

9:23 AM
*groan*

Sometimes it’s great to be able to make an informed decision. For instance, I don’t think I’ll do any AIR for Android development. I’m going to stick with this, all the way through the end. I promise I’m not going to bail on this one. I just… well… I just don’t see it. My first thought was, “Do I really want a runtime layer on top of my cellphone or device?”. Superficially it seems cool, and I admit, if I had a client that needed a branded app for Android, this would certainly be a way to rapidly deliver something for a reasonable price… but it feels a little… I dunno… “dirty”? I mean, these little computers are pushing it to be able to deliver the experience they’re delivering. A lot of the most brilliant apps and experiences come at the cost of squeezing every bit of performance out of these tiny little processors, and adding a runtime layer to that just feels like it runs counter to everything you learn in college computer science classes. You remember those? Back when discussions were centered around clock cycles, memory management, and efficiency? Right. Those.

Let me be clear. This is just my initial reaction. I haven’t dug any deeper than an initial gut-reaction to what I’m sitting here doing. If I played with this a little more, I’m sure I’d become a little more comfortable… but that’s the problem. Do I want to become a little more comfortable using this as a mobile development process? I mean, if I’ve got a certain amount of time in a day to learn new things… why wouldn’t I just learn how to do all of this natively? Objective C for iOS? Java for Android?

I’m just saying. This is my sort of… initial reaction. My gut, so to speak. Like I said, I would love to give all of this the benefit of the doubt, and I certainly will… but for now, if I were to make a list of “skills I’d like to learn more about and become better at”, “making AIR Apps for Android Phones” isn’t really in my top 5 right now.

3:51 PM
The “Design with Fireworks” session was great. I mean, every time I do something or learn something new about that program, the more I’m convinced it’s just THE way to create and move graphics from the design process into the web/interactive production execution process.  I understand why Photoshop is still used. I just don’t necessarily agree with it. If I were working on CMYK, high resolution images going to print, it would be all over my workflow. But I’m not. If I were to start any interactive project right now from scratch, I’d basically only need Fireworks and Dreamweaver. I could prototype, design, create, and execute using just those two tools and I would need nothing else. However… old dogs are old, and new tricks are new… and well, a cliche becomes a cliche because it happens enough.

That being said, I’ll just end with, “I love Fireworks” and this last session I attended on designing with it, was preaching to the choir.

I think I’m gonna end the evening with a trip over to Hollywood and hunt for some authentic mexican. I’ll let you know how that works out, but first, I really gotta lay down. The last four days have completely wiped me out and I’m not even sure I’ve got the energy to walk downstairs… Way too much nerd-action over the last four days.

Filed Under: Development & Design Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »