Making the switch (again?)

Posted on January 5, 2009

Over the past few weeks, I have realized that I love MobileMe when I’m using my iPhone or my laptop, but I absolutely hate it when I am using these services via my web browser.

You see, the MobileMe service basically offers a handful of things that you can get on the web for free, but they have done a good job of packaging them into a Mac/iPhone centric way that just ‘makes sense’. If you change a contact on your iPhone, it is nearly instantly reflected on any other computer you have. Add or remove a calendar entry? It’s reflected on any number of machines that you use. Change a bookmark on your laptop? It’ll be changed on your work computer, iPhone, and any other computer you use next time you use it. This is a really amazing thing that has, over the past six or so months, become something I have taken for granted.

It goes without saying that it’s also a push-based IMAP mail service. On top of that, you are able to sync things like saved passwords, mail settings, ftp logins/passwords (thanks to the Panicguys!), and more. All of these features, along with a 20gb web storage space that I generally store lots of things on (generally documents I might need while out and about but aren’t what I’d call ’secure’ either), and $99 for a year isn’t that bad of a deal.

Failure to deliver

While I am at work, I depend on the me.com website to allow me to check my email, update contact information, access files from anywhere, and I expect to be able to do this reliably and quickly. That’s where the problem lies. The web-based software is just a mess. Things take dozens of seconds to load at times. The UI is not intuitive – there is no feedback when you click on some buttons, but others do have feedback. There is no rich text editor for composing emails. Sometimes, when you read an email then return to the mail index, adjacent emails are now marked as read. Simple things like “keep me logged in for two weeks” does not work reliably so I am forced to log in repeatedly over the course of the day. These may be first world problems, but when you are paying money for something, you expect it to work at least as well as the free competition does.

Honestly, I’ve always been struggling with iTools, .Mac, MobileMe (whatever you want to call it). It always sounds so much better than it actually could be, but it’s generally just good enough to make you stick around. MobileMe succeeds everywhere but the web-based space. Using MobileMe mail, contacts, etc is a pain. They have tried too hard to shoehorn desktop metaphors into a web based world and it simply doesn’t work well. I think that Apple has invested way too much into selling the platform and using it to push OS X to turn away from this approach and come up with a fast loading, easy to use solution.

Switching to free services

With all of that complaining out of the way, I have considered switching from the MobileMe service to free services like Gmail (using google apps to check my daniel@danielandrews.com mail), Google Calendar, Dropbox for file sync between platforms, and saving myself $99 a year. Then of course I start thinking about issues with Gmail’s IMAP (which they have kind of addressed with more advanced IMAP controls), the fact that I would no longer be able to sync keychains, Transmit favorites, desktop widgets, or use OmniFocus the way I currently do (I currently use the iDisk to sync OmniFocus between my laptop, my iMac, my iPhone and my work computer).

What is the solution?

Again, first world problems to be sure, but I am torn. Is saving $99 and getting a better web experience a fair trade in exchange for a slightly worse experience on the desktop and iPhone? If I abandon the push services of MobileMe, I would only be able to sync my bookmarks, calendars and contacts when I manually sync my iPhone to my laptop (which I do not do very regularly). I spend 8+ hours a day at work using web-based solutions to communicate with people, and the MobileMe web solution just isn’t cutting it. But I also spend a lot of time on my computers at home and using my iPhone out and about. I’ll probably wait and see what Apple has to offer at Macworld tomorrow and make a decision shortly thereafter. I could see further integration with iLife 09 (assuming something like that is announced), further integration with the iPhone 2.3 or iPhone 3.0 software, or simply promised improvements when Snow Leopard comes out this year.

So after all this ranting, no solution just yet. Stay tuned to the saga.

iPhone Apps

Posted on July 20, 2008

Allow me to be the last blog owner in the galaxy to write a post about the iPhone apps that I’m using, and a few that I’d love to see come to fruition in the near future. I’ve been really impressed with the first batch of software released last week, but a few have really stood out:

Twinkle – Twinkle is a really cool Twitter app that also shows you folks around you that are posting to the service. Stalker-ish, but not too terribly much as it only gives the city and how many miles (roughly) they are from you. The UI is kind of lame, but overall a nice product.

Facebook – the 1.0 release was kind of weak, but by 1.1 they have really put out a solid version that quickly allows you to update your status, look at other’s profiles, and upload photos and whatnot. Pretty cool stuff if you’re a Facebook user.

OmniFocus – I have a tendency to forget things if I don’t write them down and keep them super organized. OmniFocus for the Mac lets me quickly enter my thoughts, assign them to contexts, and remind myself to get things done when they need to be done. Having a mobile interface for the same program is excellent, as it insures I can always enter those random thoughts into my OF database.

BofA – The Bank of America app isn’t all that pretty, but it does what it’s supposed to do, and rather quickly. A UI refresh (it currently looks just like the mobile version of the website) will surely improve that.

Remote – A cool app that allows you to control any iTunes installation on your LAN, or an AppleTV if you have one. Great for when I’m playing video games and want to change the tunes on my Mac.

Last.fm – Streams music over WiFi, EDGE, or 3G to your iPhone from the excellent Last.fm service. Unfortunately, as of now it doesn’t submit songs played thru your iPod to the online service (yet). Fingers crossed on that.

Yelp – Yelp is an excellent service for finding ratings and info on local restaurants. This application finds your location and shows you the top rated places around you. Very cool, especially when you’re lacking inspiration on where to eat and need a nudge in the right direction.

Exposure – Nice app by Frasier Spears (of FlickrUploadr fame) that allows you to browse your Flickr library and view and comment on other’s. Very nice app.

NYTimes – A very straightforward app that allows you to browse the NYtimes site and customize what type of news you see when you launch the app. It has a customizable bottom row of icons, much like the customizable iPod app’s buttons. If you don’t care about political news and want to see an editorial menu items instead, so be it.

Shazam – If you’ve ever been out and wondered what the song on the radio or in the store was, Shazam can help. Simply open the app and press the ‘tag this song’ button, and after about 20 seconds, Shazam will record the audio, send it to their server, analyze the waveforms, and send back a result. I’m yet to stump this app with any songs in my iTunes library. It’s truly amazing how far technology has come.

Other apps I’m using

Here are some other great applications I’m using on my iPhone right now. Some of these I either don’t use much, or are rough around the edges and need some work.

AIM
Twitterific
NetNewsWire
Instapaper
Jott
CheckPlease
Mobile News
Scribble
SportsTap
Loopt

Apps I’d love to see

Amazon.com barcode scanner – Let’s say that I’m at my local Target, Barnes and Noble, or some other retail establishment. I’m browsing around, and see a book that I’d really like to get, but not today (for whatever reason), or that I just cannot carry at the moment. It would be amazing to have an app that let you use your iPhone’s camera to scan the barcode, and either a) buy it now or b) add it to your wishlist. Someone would make a killing off of the referral cash alone.

Fantasy football app – Once fall gets here, I will be playing Yahoo! Fantasy Football. I would love an app (even if it’s only for the paid members) that allows you to quickly see lineups, player news, and league standings.

And Finally…

I’m really excited to see where the software development community takes us as the platform matures, and competition begins to spring up. I think that the iPhone OS will be the dominant Apple OS within a few years, and this is going to be a huge cash cow for them. Moreover, I can’t fathom what type of amazing technology is going to be in our hands within the next 5 or so years. The iPhone 3G and the iPhone OS 2.0 is just the beginning.

The Definitive Dominican Republic Review

Posted on June 24, 2008

Well, we’re back in town after a delightful weeklong trip to the Gran Bahia Pricipe Ambar hotel in the Dominican Republic. Michelle and I have been talking about taking a ‘real’ vacation for quite some time, and after much research, saving, and rushing around at the last minute, we were on our way. We finally decided on the Dominican because of the amazing deals for the all-inclusive resorts down there, and even thought it was inexpensive, it wasn’t cheap. Everything down there was top notch – the service, the rooms, and the activities.

The resort

The resorts in Punta Cana are on the easternmost tip of the island, and basically they’re the only things around. There are a handful of developed towns out there, but not much else yet. Most of the towns in the eastern Dominican exist only as a place for the hotel staff members to have somewhere to live. This is actually kind of a good and bad thing – good because despite the massive resort, you can walk down the beach a mile or so and you are completely to yourself. It’s bad because other than the activities at the resort, you’re pretty much on your own. There isn’t really a town to speak of within a few hour’s drive, so the activities at the resort are basically what you get. That’s not to say there isn’t a lot to do, but I didn’t really hear anyone talk about leaving the area very often.

The flight from Atlanta to Punta Cana is only about 3 and a half hours. We had a layover in Ft. Lauderdale, but a direct flight would have clocked in under 4 hours easily. At the airport – which is one of those really neat ones where you get to walk out on the runway after you land – we easily found a cab driver (there were dozens there waiting when we landed – look for the guys in pink polo shirts) who spoke some English, and happily drove us to the resort for $33. Considering it’s nearly 30 miles, that’s not a bad deal at all. As soon as you get to the resort, an employee takes your baggage and shows you to the front desk, where you are checked in, given room keys and are taken by a little cart to your room. We lucked out bigtime, as we were told that we had been upgraded from the Punta Cana resort to the nicer Ambar section of the resort. While the word ‘upgrade’ is always a nice thing to hear, I was honestly not too sure what that actually meant at the time.

One of the things that confused me the most before our trip was the layout of the resorts at Gran Bahia Principe. Gran Bahia Principe is the name of the hotel chain, much like Hilton or whatnot. Within this chain there are 3 actual connected but separate hotels: Gran Bahia Principe Punta Cana, Gran Bahia Principe Bavaro, and Gran Bahia Principe Ambar. Visitors to any section can take advantage of most of the facilities of the other resorts, with one major exception: Ambar guests belong to the ‘adults only’ section of the resort, and as such have their own restaurants, pool (with swim-up bar), beach area, lobby area, and 24 hour room service.

Once I realized what we had been upgraded to, I was pretty excited. Closer to the ocean, our own pool, and adults only? Not bad!

Things to see

The resort is pretty well secluded from the rest of the island. There are a handful of other resorts in the area (apparently Punta Cana is the largest concentration of rooms in the Caribbean region), but other than the actual resorts, there isn’t a whole heck of a lot to do in the area. That means that most of the things to see are on the beach or around the resort itself. The beaches are absolutely beautiful, and while they can be crowded in places, it’s really simple to escape to a more secluded area. Michelle and I actually took a few walks away from the main resort, and within a half mile or so, there were only a dozen or so folks visible. Another mile or so and you’re the only person on the beach.

One of the first thing you’ll notice when you’re at any of the Gran Bahia Principe resorts is the shipwreck about 200 yards offshore. This is the remains of a Russian freighter named the Astron, which was scuttled there a few decades ago. The entire shoreline is pretty shallow in this area due to a pretty extensive reef/coral system, but near the shipwreck the water can’t be more than a few feet deep – in some places it was only 2 or 3 feet deep 100 yards out.

The architecture is really beautiful at all of the Gran Bahia Principe resorts. It’s a mixture of Caribbean & Victorian styles, but everything is kept absolutely spotless, and doesn’t look very old at all. I’m fairly certain the resort is no more than 5 years old, and it certainly shows. Our room had tile floors, marble everything in the bathroom, a garden tub, a stand up shower, and a separate stall for the toilet. It was a really big bathroom compared to some I’ve had. About the only complaint was a relatively small TV. It was probably only 25 inches, and I kind of expected something nicer. But it wasn’t that big of a deal, as there weren’t that many TV stations worth watching. I doubt we would have even noticed it if it didn’t rain all day during the fourth day, but it would have been nice if they had HBO or another movie channel in English to watch. TBS gets old really fast.

Things to do

The resort we stayed at had a lot of things to do, and most were free. Everyone could take advantage of the ‘all inclusive activities’ such as snorkeling, banana boat rides, catamaran rides, kayaking, and even scuba diving lessons. Each person could do one of these activities per day, and it was as simple as giving your room number to an attendant and you were on your way. Michelle and I tried to kayak out into the reef near the shipwreck, but turned back once we realized we were most likely going to die when the waves nearly threw us on top of rocks.

There are also a lot of activities to do that cost money. Things like parasailing, scuba diving, island tours (there are a few large islands a hundred or so miles offshore that you can visit), deep sea fishing, speedboating, massages, mountain excursions (there is a mountain range roughly 100 miles from the coast), and things of that nature. We wanted to take an island trip, but never really got around to it. Next time.

Because it’s an all-inclusive resort, all of your meals are included, and most of them are buffet-style. Even those meals were pretty good, but slightly hit or miss, mainly due to the fact that someone from another country is inevitably going to cook things slightly different than what you’re used to where you’re from. For every week that you stay at the resort, you get to make reservations at smaller ’speciality’ restaurants. These are more traditional ’sit-down’ places that allow you to place your order at the table and get waited on hand and foot.

The speciality restaurants we went to were: BBQ (steaks, chicken, etc), Italian, French, and Japanese. All of them were pretty good, with the Japanese probably being my favorite. The staff at all of the restaurants were fantastic, and most of them spoke english fairly well. It’s funny, most of the places I eat in America didn’t seem to have staff that came close to what we got while down there.

In the middle of the resort are most of the restaurants, an open air theater which had nightly shows, and two of the lobby areas. The lobbies are neat because they’re open all of the time, have a bar, and have lots of comfortable seats in and outdoors. If the weather is crappy, you’ll probably end up here to hang out for a while. Honestly, even if the weather is nice, you’ll probably be here at some point too. There’s usually some sort of entertainment going on (singer, pianist, etc) which contributes to the nice, laid back atmosphere.

At the front of the resort, there is a market area that has a neat open area courtyard for night time entertainment, a casino, a bunch of shops, and some open-air carts that are in the middle of the courtyard. Beware of these guys. They’ll try every trick in the book (most of them hilariously awful) to try to get you to buy their crap. Stick to the stores that ring the market and you’ll not only avoid the high-pressure sales, you’ll probably find better stuff to buy.

By the Numbers

Some number-centric estimations:

25% of the men wear speedos. This was a huge cultural shock. Even more so, around the same percentage of the women were topless. By the end of the trip, this wasn’t a big deal, but I must admit that the first few days were interesting. Us Americans aren’t used to turning around and seeing a topless sunbather.

The make up of nationalities went something like:

20% American or Canadian
20% Eastern European
40% Central American / South American
10% French
5% British
5% Other (Chinese, Italian, German)

The drive from the Punta Cana airport is around 30 minutes.

100% of the salespeople were high-pressure. Avoid them at all costs.

1 US Dollar equals roughly 30 Dominican Republic pesos. While this sounds great, it’s not as amazing as you’d think. Most things cost about the same as they do here in the USA. For example, a t-shirt is around $10-$15. However, they do accept US Dollars everywhere, which saves the hassle of changing money at the airport or the resort.

What I learned

I was really happy with how ’seamless’ the entire week went, but that’s not to say that there weren’t any snags. I made a few mistakes based on either me being too lazy to read up on the resort’s policies, or just sheer chance. First of all, all guys should bring a fair amount of business casual type clothes with them, as the dress code at all of the restaurants lean that way. I made the mistake of bringing only one pair of khakis, and was wearing them almost every night at dinner. Another little tip is to bring your own insulated cup. While the bars are ‘all you can drink’, they give you drinks in fairly small cups, so your tasty fruity drinks get melty pretty fast. We picked up two of these insulated cups from target for about $9 each, and they were well worth it.

We also learned that if you don’t want to spend a lot of money (other than the costs associated with airfare, taxi, and the actual hotel), you don’t have to spend a dime. We spent $33 on a taxi each way from the airport to the resort and back, and $10 each to enter the country. That’s it. We bought some souvenirs for family members, but the only real costs were under $100.

The only news you’re going to get is CNN International. While it’s a great network, you get absolutely no weather information or local news. On our fourth day, a huge rain system roughly double the size of the island blew through, sending us indoors for the entire day. We were completely oblivious to what was going on until we ponied up $12 at the local internet cafe to look up the weather on the web. The moral of the story is: check the weather online once you’re there. It’s the only portal to local news you’re going to get.

Overall impressions

I was floored by this place. I honestly didn’t know exactly what to expect at an all-inclusive resort, but these guys set the standard by which all other Caribbean resorts will be judged in my mind. Even if the service wasn’t excellent, the rooms weren’t great, or the beaches weren’t fantastic, I’d be okay with it because of the great deal we got. But the fact that we were able to book a fairly inexpensive vacation and have it be one of the best weeks I’ve ever had makes this place even more special to me. I’ll definitely be recommending any of the Gran Bahia Principe resorts to people, but if you don’t have children I do suggest you go with the Ambar section. It’s only $30-$50 more a night, and it’s much less crowded, there are no kids, and you get 24-hour room service for free (even though I didn’t take advantage of that).

I think the best endorsement you can give a place is to say that you’re going back again. And without a doubt in my mind, I will be back at the GBP resorts in Punta Cana again.

You can find all of the photos that we took while in Punta Cana on my Flickr page.

Deception.

Posted on March 12, 2008

So, a funny thing happened to me last night. While going through my Mint site statistics, I noticed that one particular site was bouncing quite often – all while trying to visit one specific page. The way my blog is set up, any 404 redirects back to my main page, so the only information I really had to go on was the referring site. After clicking on this site and going through a few of the pages, I noticed that it was a coffee / restaurant review site, specifically for the Orlando, Florida region. Keep in mind that I attended college at Full Sail roughly 3 years ago, so I do have contacts down there. More specifically, one of our projects involved making a website for Palmano’s, which is a small coffee shop down in Winter Park.

As it turns out, the site that was linking to my site was actually linking to the location of a testing page that I had accidentally left up for about six months. You see, the Palmano’s folks had contacted me last spring regarding revamping a lot of what we had made for them while at school. Their host had gone down, and they lost their entire site. They wanted me to help them get their site back up (if I still had it – which I did) add some features, tweak some text, add some new photos, and things of that nature. I told them that I would gladly do that for them, and I did have the files they needed, but I did not have the sql database backed up. If the server was in fact down, I’d have to re-create all of that for them, and it’d take me maybe a work day to make all of the changes they wanted. I told them that would cost them, they said okay, and away we went!

Fast forward to July of last year. By this time, I had re-created everything and gotten most of the content back where it needed to be. I had also sent the clients some hosting options, told them what it’d take to get this thing live, and thought we were on our way to essentially getting the site back to where it was 2 years prior. As soon as money was mentioned, all I got was radio silence. No replies to my emails, and even to my phone calls. I had obviously seen this behavior before from people, and gave it a few weeks and tried again. Still nothing. At this point, I figured I’d just let it go and move on. If they wanted to continue working, I’d demand payment in full and we’d move forward from there. If not, I guess I was out a few hundred bucks.

I didn’t hear anything from them until I emailed the son of the owner (the guy I had been working with when I lived in Orlando, and the contact I had when I was getting things set up for them again) last night. I basically told him that I noticed a site was linking to my site, and I’m not sure how that happened, but I have since deleted the test pages and made a meta refresh that will send traffic to a google search for their company. Additionally, I offered to redirect it somewhere else if they so desired. I just figured this was a simple mistake, and we could sort this out quickly and easily.

No reply.

I decided to see what would happen when I typed in the client’s address. Wouldn’t you know it, it redirected to my site as well. This, of course, set off a nerve. Someone could have made a mistake and linked to my personal site, but it takes a real set of balls to log into your registrar and redirect it to a testing location when you have stopped replying to their emails and phone calls. Simply amazing. Torn, I wasn’t sure how to react. Part of me wanted to do something vindictive, and the other figured I should remain as professional about this as possible (although this could hardly be considered professional work). I decided to strike a compromise and simply link the redirected location on my website to a starbucks.com search for locations in Winter Park, Florida. I also sent an email to the client in question outlining how unprofessional they have been with me from the outset, but this was obviously the icing on the cake.

The money is certainly not the issue. At this point, it’s been a year since we got started and it’s only a few hundred dollars. I just find the fact that they chose to go behind me back and link to my personal site hilarious/infuriating (if that’s possible). These guys seemed sketchy from the outset, but I certainly didn’t anticipate anything like this.

Anyway, if you’re ever in Winter Park Florida and need to quickly know where a Starbucks is, don’t waste your time fiddling around with their search interface. Just type in palmanos.com!

UPDATE: Looks like they have changed their DNS info. It was fun while it lasted! To at least see what the client saw, you can go to http://www.danielandrews.com/palmanos/ – where he had palmanos.com pointing to.

Full Sail University, Revisited

Posted on February 7, 2008

A little over a year ago, I wrote a review on Full Sail University’s Digital Media program. It was met with a minimal amount of controversy, with a few folks saying that the school was a joke, that Full Sail University doesn’t provide the necessary tools for success, and they are now in huge amounts of debt with nothing to show for it. I’ve had more time to think about things since then, and figured I’d write a follow-up about some of the pros and cons of the Full Sail University Digital Media program. Despite some of the criticism I’ve read, I’ve never really seen how this differs from any other college — a student will get out of the institution a result proportionate to what they put in. The ones who complain are the ones who are not talented, are not dedicated, or have unrealistic expectations of what any college education can do for them. Every student I went to school with that actually had the talent, the desire to learn, and put the time into the classes did great and are all in career-related fields now. Some are web designers or developers, some work in the video field, and others are involved in the video game industry. In all cases, these guys and gals showed tremendous amounts of initiative throughout the 13 months that we were at school and now have good jobs to show for it.

However, if you are an aspiring designer, videographer, or (insert creative career choice here), it should be noted that no school can teach someone to be creative — and Full Sail is certainly no exception. I think schools like SCAD are better suited to traditional artists or aspiring artists who are looking to break into the design field. Schools like that exist to spend more time and invest in your development as a designer/artist, and Full Sail exists to teach people how to harness the massive number of tools at their disposal to be successful in the design industry. That’s not to say that creative people didn’t come out of Full Sail – quite the contrary. There were a lot of amazingly talented designers that I went to school with — but I think the point is that these people were quite talented before they even walked through the doors.

Admissions

That’s the difference between Full Sail and other design schools in my mind – Full Sail will essentially let anyone with a pulse (and a decent credit line) through the door, portfolio/talent be damned. This dilutes the talent pool, harms their long term reputation, and will eventually make it difficult for them to appeal to young designers who want to get into the DM field quickly with a robust skillset. The people who graduate from Full Sail and succeed are the ones who were talented before they showed up, and I’m not sure their program is set up (or will ever have the capability) to allow up-and-coming designers that simply need refinement the time to blossom and be at their best. If they continue to have no admissions requirements, no quality control mechanisms, and continue to recycle former students as teachers (lab instructors mainly), the number of graduates who feel like they ‘got their money’s worth’ will remain quite low. With all of that said, I still feel the school is worth every penny if you are a very specific type of person — one who already has at least moderate amounts of design ability but lacks the knowledge needed to get all of that creativity out there. Full Sail’s Digital Media program definitely will empower you to take your ideas and express them in any number of fields — with careers involving motion graphics, video production, 3d animation, flash development, and web design & development being just a few. If you’re that type of person, you can handle long days (8+ hours a day of school is the rule, not the exception), and don’t mind living in Orlando, this is a school that will have you in the design world within a year and a half. And a lot of schools cannot say that.

Placement

I think the one thing that has never sat well with me was this unrealistic expectation that Full Sail was supposed to ‘place’ you in a job related to your field of study. All colleges offer some sort of job placement or career department, and I feel it’s any university’s best interest to help with job placement, as it reflects on their ability to educate their students. However, when the graduates stop taking the initiative and use the placement department as the solution rather than a tool, problems obviously will begin to show. It would seem to me that a disproportionate number of Full Sail grads have unrealistic expectations for what this department can do and should do, and when they are unable to help them find a job in the city of their choice in the field of their choice, they blame the school for the failing. As long as Full Sail touts this program to incoming students, they will continue to experience this problem, and get undue criticism from jobless students. It should be noted, of course, that most of the people with these complaints are not Digital Media, 3D, Video Production or Game Design students. The vast majority of these complaints are from the students that make up the recording arts program. If you’re a designer, or really a non-RA student, you have little to worry about. You will easily find a job right out of school if you have a good enough skillset.

Long story made very, very short: I do not regret going to Full Sail one bit. I met some amazing folks that I learned a lot with, and I know that I would not be where I am today without that education. During those short 13 months in Orlando, I learned ten times what I learned at the Art Institute of Atlanta. I’m not sure if that’s a huge plus for Full Sail or a huge negative for AIA, but I can say that I came out much better prepared for a career dealing with digital media after my graduation from Full Sail.

Leopard.

Posted on October 23, 2007

In case you didn’t know, Apple’s newest OS is due to be released this weekend. I pre-ordered my copy, but will probably wait a few days before installing, just to make sure it doesn’t melt peoples computers or anything. However, there are a few new features I am really excited about with the forthcoming update to OS X:

Font Auto-Activation

Automatically activate fonts as you need them. When an application requests an installed font that’s currently disabled, Leopard activates that font and keeps it active until the requesting application quits.

This will negate the need for a lot of people to have to use separate applications just to manage and automatically activate fonts when working on larger projects with many different font sets.

Mail Data Detectors

Act on information in Mail immediately. Mail automatically detects text fragments like appointments and addresses, and lets you choose smart actions with a click: create a new contact, map an address, or create an iCal event.

This is something I miss from Gmail, so it will be nice for this to be in Apple Mail.

Notes

Write handy notes you can access from anywhere — including graphics, colored text, and attachments. Group notes into folders or create Smart Mailboxes that automatically group them. Your notes folder acts like an email mailbox, so you can retrieve notes from any Mac or PC.

Notes & To-do lists synced between my home and work computer, and my iPhone? Not bad!

PDF Manipulation in Preview

Re-create your PDF as you like. Move individual pages around, or remove pages altogether. You can even combine PDFs with a simple drag and drop.

I work with PDFs a decent amount at work. Acrobat Professional is garbage. This will allow me to use a bad application less. I like that.

Quick Look

Look inside any document without launching an application. Use Quick Look with documents, images, songs, and movies and get a large-size preview of the file. Flip through multipage documents, preview movies, even add images to iPhoto. You can use Quick Look in Finder, Mail, and Time Machine.

Description says it all. This will save me tons of time trying to find images and documents I need.

Spaces

Organize your activities into separate spaces and easily switch from one to another. Make a space for work or play. Choose from a number of convenient options that make moving from space to space fast and easy.

I used to use VirtueDesktops, but it’s lack of OS-level integration made it kind of flimsy when working with applications assigned to certain virtual ’spaces’. This should work a lot more cleanly.

Spotlight Network Indexing

Hopefully this will be able to index non-macintosh networked computers. If Leopard can index our windows server at work (which has all of our files) that would be worth the price of admission alone.

.Mac stuff

Back to my Mac (basically like Remote Desktop, but it lists the files of your remote mac in the file sources menu just as if it were a locally networked machine), .Mac synching of Dock items & System Prefs should make using more than one mac even easier.

Finder Improvements

See the path of a file when you view it in the Finder. Just choose Show Path Bar from the View menu and the path is visible at the bottom of the Finder window. You can also drag files to any location in the Path Bar.

Welcome to 1999. Finally.

Start an interactive screen sharing session with other Macs on your network. Just select the Mac from your sidebar and (if authorized) you can see and control the Mac as if you were right in front of it. Change a system preference, publish an iPhoto library, or add a new playlist to iTunes.

This should be outstanding as well.

Overall, it looks like a pretty impressive upgrade, but not earth-shattering (or Vista-killing) yet. I plan on upgrading within a week or so of it coming out, so I’ll post my thoughts then.

Refresh.

Posted on October 22, 2007

I recently came across a really interesting article about Firefox 3’s upcoming UI refresh. That may sound boring to some, but to a interface snob like myself, knowing the Mozilla team is hard at work customizing the underlying XUL to allow for deeper system integration makes me a very happy person. One of the main problems with Firefox, especially on the Mac, is that it feels out of place, slow, and pretty ugly compared to other system applications. I’m a Camino user for this very reason, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t care about some of the fantastic extensions for the Firefox client (Camino, while based off of the same rendering engine as Firefox, does not support extensions). If they are able to modify the UI to match 10.5 (and Vista, XP, Ubuntu, etc) and speed things up a bit in the process, I think a lot of people who are Camino users might switch to Firefox – myself included. Developers are already working on making things like submit buttons, checkboxes and textareas respect the OS look and feel, so by the time version 3 ships, we could be in good shape.

Why is UI consistency important? From the author:

Fitting in to the visual appearance of the native operating system may seem like a reasonably obvious decision, but it certainly isn’t one that every cross-platform application or windowing toolkit makes. For instance RealPlayer (image) uses a custom appearance across operating systems, as do applications built using Java’s Swing windowing toolkit (image). Personally I think a unified cross platform UI results in applications that at best feel foreign everywhere, and at worst don’t even feel like real applications.

He hits the nail on the head when he mentions that when using a default skin, at best the application looks out of place everywhere it goes. At worst, it looks like a flimsy Java app that nobody really wants to use. It makes the application easier to use and feel comfortable with when it fits into the operating system’s UI paradigm. This will be a big step in that direction.

I think it really depends on how far they go with it, and what parts they focus on, coupled with the limitations of Firefox as a non-native app. As long as we’re dealing with a cross-platform application, it’s pretty doubtful it will ever match the application (not rendering) speed of a Safari or Camino. But based on the few screenshots, it is looking promising. Firefox 3 is still a ways off, so we’ll see how this turns out.

Convergence.

Posted on July 26, 2007

Did you guys hear? Apple came out with a phone!

A few weeks ago, I said I wouldn’t be getting an iPhone on the day it came out because I wanted to have some questions about the UI, data speeds, and a few other nagging issues sorted out before I took the plunge. It took me a week and a few trips to the Apple store, but I went ahead and got the 8gig iPhone the Friday after it came out. Overall, I’m very impressed with the device, and it has met all of my expectations save for a few minor issues.

First of all, activation was not a problem for me like it was for some. I got the phone, drove home, plugged it in, and within 5 minutes the phone was activated and ready for use. Once this part of the process was done, it was a matter of getting my ’stuff’ onto the iPhone. This was also easily accomplished from within iTunes. I’m still not so sure how I feel about iTunes being the center of my iPhone/computer interaction, but at the same time, I’d rather use that than another standalone app. My contacts, calendar, music, podcasts, email accounts & photos were all loaded onto the device, and I was good to go. I spend the better part of that weekend playing around with the iPhone UI and the apps.

It really does seem like a lot of thought went into almost every decision that was made about the interface of this device. I think almost anyone can instantly get used to how this device works, and easily navigate it’s applications. I think those iPhone commercials were a great idea, as everyone I have let play around with my iPhone try basically the same actions displayed in the ads (play with coverflow, use google maps, pinch and zoom photos). People instantly know what the iPhone is all about, and that gives them a big advantage over Blackberry and other competing phones in the market.

Some of the things that have jumped out at me over the past 3 weeks of owning this device:

Battery life is great. Even using WiFi and browsing the web, I get the advertised battery life. In a normal day (taking a few calls, sending a handful of text messages, checking a few web sites, listening to music for 5-6 hours at work) I only seem to use about 25% of the battery. Even with heavy use, I haven’t gotten much below half in one day.
The phone is a near perfect size. It feels very solid in your hand, and it really seems well-built. It freaking better be, but still … feels great.
EDGE isn’t great, but it works for basic tasks that I use – email, rss/news, twitter, google maps, things like that. I was on vacation last week with my family and got a chance to really put the data network thru it’s paces while I was on the road, and it got the job done … although it was frustratingly slow every once in a while. Overall, I get somewhere between 125-150kb/s in good areas … and something much, much slower in others.
The Google maps app is outstanding. We had to use it a few times to find some places in Orlando, and while it doesn’t have GPS, the driving directions with it’s ‘turn-by-turn’ feature is good enough … especially in a pinch.
Using the WiFi for internet access is ideal, but I have left it off most of the time unless I’m at home, work, or a friend’s house with WiFi. It seems to affect battery life marginally, but I’m not sure turning it off while driving and such makes a huge difference either way.
The touchpad isn’t perfect, but I’m really fast at it now. You really do get used to trusting the software to auto-complete even the most obscure terms, and 99% of the time, it works wonderfully. I have sent out a few emails I didn’t re-read in a pinch, and it included some interesting wording, but for the most part, it’s been great.
No AIM is a downer, but I’ve just had IMs forwarded to SMS and that does the trick. Also, for now, FlickIM fills the actual AIM issue pretty well. Perfect? No way. But hopefully we’ll see an update eventually from Apple that allows me to chat it up on my phone when killing time or in a pinch.

Now, of course the iPhone isn’t perfect. There are a handful of glaring issues – some that can be fixed with software, some that cannot – that annoy me to differing degrees. The ringer is pretty quiet, and I have missed a few calls already when walking in a public place, and the vibrate function is a bit weak as well. Additionally, while the camera phone quality isn’t bad at all, the interface for the camera app itself is pretty abysmal, and in my opinion, counterintuitive. There is one button for taking pictures, and it works when you RELEASE the button, not when you press it. I can understand the logic, since the camera is on the opposite side of the touch screen. If you’re taking a self portrait or something along those lines, the best way to take photos is to place your finger on the button, turn the camera to where it needs to go, then release the button … but I just find that odd, as every camera ever has used the opposite action. A cool option to add would also be to have, say, a 2 second hold of the home button automatically take a photo. This way, no fumbling around finding buttons, no ambiguity. But I doubt we’ll see anything like that – nor will we see an added button to a 2nd gen iPhone for the camera.

The ‘notes’ application, which ostensibly will be updated to work with Apple’s improved Mail application that’s coming out with Leopard, is god awful right now. There’s no way to synch it with anything, so you can create to-do lists while on the go, which is helpful, but you can’t easily get it onto the computer since there is no cut/paste functionality on the iPhone (yet). If there were cut and paste, you could at least email yourself the list.

Finally, the YouTube application is a great idea, but currently there are almost no worthwhile videos on the ‘quicktime version’ of YouTube. Therefore, other than a few great clips of Family Guy, it’s a complete waste of my time.

Mr. Zeldman wrote an article recently about how the iPhone is the only thing that has ever really ‘forced his hand’ and had him switch over to many of Apple’s default OS X apps. I have made a similar transition, away from Google Reader, Google Calendar, and gMail in favor of NetNewsWire pro + NewsGator (which now syncs items between the online & desktop apps so I can read unread RSS feeds on my iPhone and have the same list at home, work, and online), iCal, and IMAP/Apple mail/Address book. There are certain benefits to making this switch, but it has been a process getting used to new habits, workflow, and ways of storing/using my data.

I’ve used the Apple apps on and off over the years, but generally have sought out the best product for each task, not always the default app. Now, due to how easy it is to get all of that data (not to mention it being the only way right now) into your iPhone if you use all of the Apple apps, Using Mail/Address Book/iCal/iTunes/Aperture is a no-brainer.

Overall, I’m nothing short of floored by the iPhone. It’s rare a ‘convergence device’ works as well as this does – it’s a fine iPod, a great phone, and a very useful PIM / web browser as well. Apple hit this one out of the freaking park. Not only that, I really feel it has changed the way I interact with computers and the web. I actually spend less time online, as in a pre-iPhone world I would sit down to check email, then get sucked into AIM, then start reading RSS feeds, and next thing you know, it’s 2am. No more. I’m more accessible to others, yet I spend far less time actually being in one place waiting for this interaction to take place. I definitely text more now, as well. If/when we see iChat for the phone, it’ll be over.

Simply put, the iPhone is the nicest piece of consumer electronics I have ever used. It meets all of my needs in the personal and professional realm, is fun to use, and the best is yet to come. With software updates on the horizon from Apple, you can only assume this product will improve over time. Is it for everyone? Of course not. But it’s a fine device that has ‘enough’ storage to let you throw your contacts, photos, music, videos and calendars onto an easy to use, great looking phone that’s an absolute pleasure to use.

My site is now ‘iPhone optimized‘ as well: the default zoom level & page width have been adjusted for the viewport attribute.

My take on Full Sail University

Posted on October 1, 2006

Well, it’s been a little over a year since I graduated from Full Sail University now, which is absolutely crazy really. I’ve always wanted to write something about what I thought about the school, my experience, and if it’s ‘worth’ the cash you have to pay to attend. I guess after a year, I’ve had time to really think about it, and work a few jobs to see how the skills I learned have translated to a career in the Design world.

First off, I’ve always been more of a ‘coder’ than a ‘designer’. I’d like to think I have a good eye for design, and I’ve certainly learned over the years what works and what doesn’t. But I don’t think I’m the most creative person out there, either. I know what principles work, which don’t, and typically just make design choices based on that. When I enrolled in school in Orlando, I was hoping to get a better background than another Atlanta area school supplied me in, design wise. With that said, I think I did expect Full Sail to supply more design theory versus a simple crash course in certain applications.

Right out of the gate, I did feel like I was going to get a lot of that. Once our core classes were out of the way, some of the early classes I was in had names like Fundamentals of Design and Computer Graphics, real basic names that would lend themselves to being classes that would stress the ins and outs of the wonderful world of design.

I’m not implying we learned nothing about practical design concepts – we certainly did. I am simply saying I wish we had spent more time on it. I felt we rushed through that part of the courses on the way to how to use whichever application we were going to focus on that month. The practical knowledge we learned at school is second to none. When I left, I had intermediate to advanced knowledge in the following software: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, GoLive, After Effects, Flash, Dreamweaver, Final Cut, 3D Studio Max, and a host of others. I learned, or honed my skills in, 5 different programming languages, and worked on tons of projects by myself and in groups. A lot of the things we churned out (in just one month!) rival anything I’ve seen from other design-related schools. When I left, I really did feel like a well-rounded designer, and felt I had a huge leg up over many other entry-level students due to the amazing number of programs I had learned.

However, this also makes a lot of the students who graduate from Full Sail Jacks of all trades; master of none as the saying goes. A lot of students come out of school and are kick-ass web designers, or they go to school for some other field we dabbled in but are masters in it. Full Sail students can speak the lingo, but can’t always deliver the goods as well as someone who has been doing it for years can.

Bottom line: is Full Sail University worth the price tag ($40k or more, depending on living expenses & your specific major)? I honestly think it depends on so many factors that it’s impossible to say yes or no definitively. I’ll be paying off student loans for the next 10 or so years, and while my earning potential has certainly skyrocketed due to the knowledge I acquired while at Full Sail, I’ve also been handcuffed by the loans to gain that very knowledge & skill. I pay approximately $6,000 a year right now to Sallie Mae to cover my loans from school. If you factor in how much I have to make hourly to pay that off, that’s almost $8,000 a year (before taxes) in income to pay off my debt. Did Full Sail enable me to make $8,000 a year more than I would have if I didn’t go there? Perhaps. The only skill that I use at my current job that I did not have before going to Full Sail was my background in Flash. I’d say I spend about 5 hours a week in Flash right now, so it’s hard for me to say whether or not it was ‘worth’ it or not.

I just think that it’s something for anyone considering entering a school like Full Sail. Really think about what you want to be doing with your life when you get out of school, because this isn’t some broad degree like, say, some sort of Business degree that will allow you to enter a huge amount of fields when you graduate. If you attend Full Sail and get out, odds are you’re going to get a job in your specific degree-related field, or you’re going back to college somewhere else afterwards. Of the 30 or so kids that graduated with me, roughly 10 of them are in Digital Media/Graphic Design related fields. The rest of them either moved back home with their parents and are doing nothing, or they’re back in school somewhere else.