So What Does This All Mean?

For starters, It means that I’m going to be attempting to move all technical related posts (maybe just the future ones) to the Fresh Blocks Blog.

Secondly, I’m going to do monthly and yearly goals for both Fresh Blocks and myself. Of which, I will be using the blog to document my progress, successes and failures similar to John O’Nolan’s concept.

I plan on separating content into a few broader categories, such as following my Thoughts and my Learnings. I’ll likely keep this page more personal and the Fresh Blocks page more professional.

Hello World

It seems appropriate in a way to start anew. But as we all know, Google never forgets. Some of the things that I am looking to document will be highly related to personal development. Of course, it will also overlap with what Fresh Blocks does, simply because Fresh Blocks is a large part of my development.

I’m going to be going over goals and what was achieved, what was not and why not. I will also go into noting special blog posts from around the web that have in some way contributed to my personal development.

The Year That Was 2009

Last year brought a bunch of changes. In the beginning of the year, I started up a company called Fresh Blocks. It was created to transition my freelance work from my personal name to a more distinguishable brand. The creation of Fresh Blocks also allowed me to learn what it takes to run a business and be a freelancer. I quickly became involved in social media networks such as Twitter and Friendfeed to connect to others in the fields and learn from them.

Another by product of Fresh Blocks was getting into iPhone app development. This of course meant learning a complete new programming language (Objective C) and framework of Cocoa (Touch.) I signed up for a developer’s account and began reading through tons of Apple Documentation, Dave Mark’s Beginning iPhone SDK Development book, and following along with Stanford’s CS193P iTunesU iPhone Programming Course. I also joined various Google Groups, the iPhone Dev SDK forum and Apple’s own Beta forum. I quickly developed 2 internal iPhone apps and 1 that was rejected by Apple’s App Store due to being a purely self-marketing app. All in all, I learned a great deal and am still thoroughly excited about iPhone programming.

On the web design and development end of things, I got my feet wet with some jQuery, seeing as I haven’t done much Javascript since back in 1999, it was quite a breath of fresh air. I also got started with some frameworks such as 960.gs and BlueprintCSS. I started getting down to learning Ruby on Rails and Python. I also introduced myself to Git towards the middle of the year and been working on transitioning from SubVersion over to Git.

And quite possibly, the biggest accomplishment of last year, was my engagement. One that I’m quite proud of and very excited about.

The Books

The following is the list of books that I read as part of my personal development last year.

• The Principles of Successful Freelancing
• Good to Great
• Escape from Cubicle Nation: From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Entrepreneur
• Web Standards Solutions: The Markup and Style Handbook (Pioneering Series)
• Bulletproof Web Design: Improving flexibility and protecting against worst-case scenarios with XHTML and CSS (2nd Edition)
• Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition
• Beginning iPhone SDK Development
• The Principles of Beautiful Web Design
• Learning jQuery: Better Interaction Design and Web Development with Simple JavaScript Techniques
• Designing with Web Standards (2nd Edition)
• CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions
• iPhone SDK Development (The Pragmatic Programmers)
• Adobe Illustrator CS4 Classroom in a Book
• Free
• Unclutter Your Life in One Week
• The Complete Graphic Designer: A Guide to Understanding Graphics and Visual Communication
• A Designer’s Research Manual: Succeed in Design by Knowing Your Clients and What They Really Need

Where I Am Now

I’ve started my Mobile Programming course at Hawaii Pacific University. The course is centered around Google Android and iPhone OS programming. The class runs until the middle of May. I’ve also got an iPhone app I’ve been working on that I plan on finishing up and submitting it for an Apple Design Award. Hopefully winning one as well. I have a Magento project that I’m also working on.

I’m also in the process of re-arranging content and the overall design of this site. Primarily making it easier for future clients and employers to find information about me and at the same time documenting my personal development growth.

What’s on Deck for 2010

I currently have the following upcoming for the remainder of the year:

1. Getting deeper into Android Development
2. Starting up on iPad SDK Programming and releasing some Beta apps
3. Finishing up some iPhone apps and getting them published on the App Store
4. Getting back into Ruby on Rails and Python/Google App Engine
5. Learning more about ExpressionEngine 2.0
6. Finishing up a Magento eCommerce site client project

And I’m fairly sure I’ll come up with some more goals and such along the way.

It’s Official

I’ve started a web and mobile design/development company called Fresh Blocks. The focus is on creating either website design and web apps or iPhone and Android apps. I’ve been working under the name since earlier this year, and the the small site launched for the company.

The idea of Fresh Blocks came around during a moment of “Designer’s Block.” Where I was looking for fresh ideas to work with. Hence the name of the company being born. A lot of work went into making sure the name was viable as a brand. ThinkVitamin has a great article about choosing a name: What’s in a Name? What we’re trying to do is help individuals and businesses grow their online presence through the web and mobile web.

Here’s to new beginnings! Head on over and say hello to Fresh Blocks. Alternatively follow Fresh Blocks on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook.

Further Education

I’ve also registered as a Special Status Student at Hawaii Pacific University for the Mobile Application Development course. This course will be focusing on teaching both iPhone and Android Application Development. I’m looking forward to enhancing my knowledge of both the iPhone and Android SDK.

Hot off the trails of the news that Apress acquired the publishing rights to Kapsoft’s iPhone Application Sketch Book, comes the new iPhone Stencil.

In Detail

The new Apress Book is has been improved. A new cover. It’s now 1.5x scale (150% of actual size iPhone). Pages have been increased by 25 – that’s 50 more templates. And the pages have been perforated for easy tear out.

The Stencil is also 1.5x scale but includes a 1.0x scale iPhone should you need it. It is made of green plastic, much the same as most stencils you buy at a design store. It also features a nice little ruler on the side. Something extra that I had not anticipated, but find very handy. The stencil itself, features the majority of UIKit elements you will use in sketch design and comes in very handy. While, it is a bit on the larger end, it does fit nicely within the new sketchbook pages for carrying.

The Stencil will cost you $9.99 while the new Apress version of the Sketchbook comes in at $14.99.

Compared against Design Commission’s Stencil

While both stencils are larger scale than the actual iPhone size, the new Kapsoft one is a tad bit bigger. 1.5x the size of the iPhone. Design Comission’s stencil seems to be roughly 1.25x scale.

Kapsoft’s stencil is also cheaper in cost. $9.99 vs $17.95. Though, I’m sure that the material cost plays quite a role in this. Plastic against Stainless Steel.

I do find the Design Commission’s Stencil to be much more portable due to it’s smaller footprint. And the stainless steel material feels a bit more Apple-like and sturdier. Plastic can break easily.

Overall

You really can’t go wrong with either Stencil kit. And you definitely should be sketching designs before jumping into XCode. If you are planning to use the Apress Sketchbook, you’ll want to get the new Kapsoft Stencil due to the matching iPhone scale. Similarly, Design Commission offers both a downloadable PDF template and now a Sketchpad for $7.95 to go with their own Stencil Kit.

Gallery

The general questions were centered around: The importance of passion.

In the Boagworld podcast, there were quite a few thoughts and options to the questions since it was an interview with the Clearleft crew. So, you got the perspective of not only Paul Boag and Marcus Lillington from Headscape, but also Andy Budd and Jeremy Keith. The discussion centered mostly on how one finds the time to keep up with new trends, technologies, etc in the web design industry. The general consensus being that there’s a very blurry line between the work-life balance when it comes to this kind of thing. One of the important takeaways from listening to Andy talk about it, was that if it’s not making you all jumpy and gitty to want to know what’s changing, what the new hot trend is, or what new technologies are coming out, that it raises a red flag and you should really take a step back and re-evaluate if this is really your passion. Of course, you could just be burnt out. As Paul mentioned that he does the majority of his RSS feeds reading in bed on his own time, it’s important to remember, most of us would be doing this anyway because it’s what we love to do.

Although, not exactly the same question, the same topic was brought up in a different manner on the StackOverflow podcast. This time in regards to what technology to choose to learn for future profit. Specifically, the listener was not interested in coding in Objective-C for the rest of his life, yet concerned if Ruby on Rails would still be a viable way to make a living in the area he currently lives in. To this question, both Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky answered similarly with:

• “Joel and I concur: it probably doesn’t matter what language and toolchain you use, as long as it has a certain level of critical mass. What you should be more concerned about is the product you’re creating.
• If you’re happy with your current tool chain, then there’s no reason you need to switch. However, if you can’t list five things you hate about your favorite programming language, then I argue you don’t know it well enough yet to judge. It’s good to be aware of the alternatives, and have a healthy critical eye for whatever it is you’re using.
• Most programming languages don’t evolve particularly well over time. They’re usually replaced by other languages rather than new iterations of themselves. Why? What languages would you point to as the best example of growing and evolving in useful, relevant ways?”

While neither Joel or Jeff mentioned anything along the lines of picking something because it’ll make you a lot of money. I can’t imagine either of them would even come close to making any suggestion like that to anyone. Picking something just because it’s the new “money pot” or pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, is just asking for short term gain and potentially, long term unhappiness.

In the End

It’s my own opinion that you should not do or choose a path just because it has the potential to make you a lot of money if it doesn’t interest you at all. More so, if you have some inner hatred for Objective-C and think you should just suck it up and make something for the iPhone because it can net you a lot money. It’s not my recommendation, but do as you will.

What are your thoughts on Doing for the Money vs Doing for the Love?

The Art Pen

The Art Pen itself has a much bigger tip area than the Grip Pen that comes with the tablet. The Art Pen’s bigger tip area also doesn’t have the user swap-able color rings. One thing to note, the nibs do only fit in one way and they will rotate a bit during use. The nib won’t fall out, so you don’t have to worry about that when swapping nibs.

Even though the drivers for the Intuos4 are a bit old, they were able to successfully identify the Art Pen just fine from the start. Wacom just updated drivers for the new Bamboo Touch series, Graphire and Cintiq tablets for Windows and Mac OSX, but the Intuos set hasn’t been updated yet. As such, I still have to launch the 32-bit Settings for the tablet. Not a big deal.

After using the Art Pen with Corel Painter 11, I have noticed that I don’t have much of a tactile response from the pen during barrel rotation. As such, it’s really useful to have the Enhanced Brush Ghosting setting enabled while you get used to the feeling. It’s quite a bit different than the Grip Pen. After spending a bit of time getting used to it, I was able to turn off the ghosting setting again.

The Pen Stand

The Art Pen stand also has exactly enough slots for all of the Nibs that come with the Art Pen with one nib in the pen itself. It also fits the Professional Kit’s Nib Extractor in the middle spot of the stand just like the one that comes with the tablet and grip pen.

The Nibs

The Art Pen comes with 11 nibs. 1 on the pen itself and 10 replacement nibs. The 10 replacement nibs fit in nicely into the new housing of the Pen stand. The nibs have 1 shaft, just like the ones for all the other pens. This is a change from the Intuos3 Art Pen’s nibs which previously had 2 shafts. The difference being that the 2 shafts on the Intuos3 version, prevented a rotation effect on the nib when rotating the Art Pen.

The Details

The following come in the box:

• 2 Chisel POM Nibs
• 2 Chisel Felt Nibs
• 3 Bullet POM Nibs
• 3 Bullet Felt Nibs
• 1 Pen Stand
• 1 Art Pen with 1 Bullet POM Nib inside

Model #: KP701E
Price: $99.95

Final Thoughts

Although Wacom’s eStore states: “The Intuos4 Art Pen ships with the following accessories: 10 replacement nibs, a nib puller, and a weighted pen stand.” The package does NOT come with a nib puller. There was not one anywhere in the packaging and others from the ConceptArt forums have had the same results.

As for the Art Pen itself, I love it. Barrel rotation is definitely it’s main feature and it does it extremely well. It’s an amazing feature to have. Corel Painter 11 recognized the barrel rotation immediately, and it also works wonderfully with Illustrator using the 6D Art Brushes set or in Photoshop, by using the Wacom Brushes 3. All in all, it’s the one additional pen for the tablet that I need. I have very little use for the classic pen, airbrush pen or inking pen.

The Pictures

“I happened to be auditing the Stanford iPhone Programming course,” says Kaplan, “and one of the guest speakers discussed how he went about creating his user interface designs. Paper was one option he mentioned. Almost instantly the notebook idea light bulb went off. Other options of various computer programs were mentioned, but it always got back to paper and pencil. Subsequently, I did my own online survey that revealed designers prefer paper 95% of the time.” – theAppleBlog

The sketchbook contains 100 grid pages with an iPhone designed to scale on it. Each page has it’s own header that allows you to put in the name of the app and the name of the screen. The pages are big. There is ton of free space for taking side notes during group sessions and team meetings. The notebook itself is paperback, plastic spiral bound, and can be ordered from Amazon.com for $14.99.

Q & A with Dean Kaplan

1. What are your plans for the future of the sketchbook?
   “There will be a huge exciting announcement concerning the book next week. Stay tuned.”
2. Do you plan on creating a Stencil Kit similar to The Design Commission’s one? Or perhaps making the iPhone on the pages slightly larger to be more compatible with the Stencil Kit?
   “LOL. Are you spying on me? As for size….I guess you are saying size matters. And I’m listening to feedback and it is likely that you “might” see a version that is 1.5X actual very soon. (DC’s stencil is smaller then 1.5x and I don’t think its very useable. )”
3. Have you considered perforated pages for easier tear-off?
   “I’ve heard the perforated request once before. Not likely on that one. As one reviewer told me he like to tear the pages right out of the book and paste them on the frig.)”
4. A folder built-in either the front or back cover for keeping materials given from other team members or clients together?
   “I love that idea. It crossed my mind a few months ago. Likely in a future UBER Sketch Book.”

The Good

• Keeps all your apps and screens together instead of having multiple pieces of paper that can get easily lost.
• Grid pages are very handy for going from sketching to computer rendering.
• To scale iPhone keeps you in the restriction of the small space while also reminding you to beware of your font sizes.
• Cheap. $15! If you’re just getting into iPhone app design, this can definitely help you on your way in keeping your ideas organized.

The Bad

• Not compatible with The Design Commission has created an iPhone Stencil Kit. Different companies, Can’t really complain.
• The to scale iPhone on the page is also a bit harder to draw stuff inside it.
• Since there’s no stencil, you need to keep in mind what you get with the SDK and what needs to be custom made. Thought it’s not that big of a deal.

The Pictures

Final Thoughts

Right now, I’m using a Moleskine Squared Notebook to do my sketches for iPhone apps and other web related work. It’s much smaller than the iPhone sketchbook, but it does allow me to put other thoughts and ideas inside. For what the purpose it was designed for, the iPhone sketchbook delivers and does so very well. Compatibility with the Stencil Kit would definitely put it over the top. The last things that I would like included in the sketchbook, would be a small folder built in and perforated pages. Those are some very small personal requests though.

Special Note: If you order between September 10th and October 10th you’ll be entered to win ONE free ticket to the Voices That Matter iPhone Developers Conference 2009.

SitePoint’s amazing reference add-on CodeBurner is breaking free from FireBug and later this week, it will become a full-fledged FireFox add-on. CodeBurner provides reference material for HTML and CSS such as syntax, code samples, live demos, and browser compatibility information all in a handy dock at the bottom of the browser and can also be a window on it’s own.

The new main window

The reference material is linked to SitePoint’s Reference page. Clicking on a more link will open up a new browser window/tab for that item.

The Reference Page

The new plug-in will continue to hook into the DOM crumbtrail, adding options to look up a selected item (ie. search for it in the Reference panel) or to view a sample code example.

The new DOM view

Advantages over the FireBug version

• Specialized interface gives more room for the reference information
• works in Firefox 2 and has no other dependencies
• The new DOM can load any web site for referencing. Not just the current site. You don’t have to leave your current site to do your research.
• No longer requires you to have FireBug installed.

Disadvantages over the FireBug version

• No longer follows the FireBug inspector.

The new FireFox plug-in is much easier to launch. Instead of going to FireBug then selecting the Reference Tab, now you can just simply click on the CodeBurner icon.

Final Thoughts

With the FireBug version recently selected as one of the 13 Firefox Add-ons For Web Development, and the new FireFox version will be no exception. A web development reference resource just got better.  There’s absolutely no need for those HTML and CSS Cheatsheets with CodeBurner at your fingertips. Searching through a PDF or printout takes so much longer than simply opening up CodeBurner and using it’s brilliant search capabilities. Be sure to catch the new FireFox edition of the CodeBurner and get a free eBook Build Your Own Firefox Add-on later this week!

1. iphone-exif

   An Exif Tag library editor that enables direct viewing and editing of EXIF Meta Data tags in Jpeg files on the iPhone. The most obvious use is to manage Geo location tags into the image. However, it is also possible to edit any of the Exif tags or add your own that are not in the spec.
   This is really useful for image uploads from the phone for sites like Picasa and Flickr.

2. json-framework

   This framework implements a strict JSON parser and generator in Objective-C. You get free XML parsing support from the official iPhone SDK, but not JSON support. This is a way to add it.

3. openssl framework

   It is specifically intended for use in building secure iPhone
   applications alongside SQLCipher (http://www.zetetic.net/software/sqlcipher).

4. iphone-smtp

   This code implements a quick class for sending one off messages via SMTP on the iPhone.

5. cocos2d

   framework for building 2D games, demos, and other graphical/interactive applications. It is based on the cocos2d design: it uses the same API, but instead of using python it uses objective-c.

The guys over at the Design Commission [@designcom on Twitter] have gone and made an iPhone Stencil Kit as a follow up to their popular Website Stencil Kit. Initially they had 1,000 stencils made for sale, but due to popular demand, have since made many many more. I received mine on Monday and have started using it for an iPhone App that I am currently developing.

The details:

The kit costs $16.95 + shipping&handling [Domestic shipping is $4.95 and international is $15] and includes:

• One iPhone UI Stencil
• Zebra mechanical pencil
• 2 Design Commission stickers
• Downloadable .PDF letter-sized paper template

Using the kit

The kit is really created with the intended use of the printable PDF templates. It doesn’t have a full iPhone body stencil to draw your iPhone on a separate paper. It does do a decent job at half-skeleton of one though. You’ll have to fill in some missing lines yourself. The notable missing seems to be status bar, the section with the wifi, 3G, and battery icon area, not being stenciled. The other small problem I ran into so far is that it’s made of stainless steel. I can’t see what’s under the stencil as I try to approximate the needed spacing between Tab Bar icons. Although, I do need to keep in mind that it’s made of stainless steel to be more durable than plastic and also that I’m making prototype designs to show clients, not finalized work.

Overall, the only real downside I can see, is that you really do have to use a mechanical pencil. The one provided by Design Commission, is a Zebra, which are extremely good. But, if you use a regular #2 pencil, you will likely run into some trouble on some of the smaller stencil bits, requiring you to constantly sharpen your pencil tip. Other than that, it’s a really great addition to any iPhone developer’s arsenal.

Now of course, this is all for paper prototyping. And if you have been following Stanford’s CS193P iPhone Programming class on iTunes, Steve Marmon discussed the importance of paper prototyping for iPhone App design in his lecture How to Build an iPhone App that Doesn’t Suck [iTunes link.]

If you prefer digital prototyping, Balsamiq has updated their software to include iPhone designing, and  in my previous post: 5 Free iPhone Resources, I have links to Omnigraffle, Adobe Fireworks, Photoshop, and Illustrator stencil kits.