eat & code

Quick note for beginning iOS designers.

Fri, 18 May 2012 12:19:14 -0400

This applies to any and all designers that decide to take a stab at designing anything for the iPhone or iPad. Whether its a website or an app, the advice I am about to give you is of the utmost importance. READ APPLE’S iOS HUMAN INTERFACE GUIDELINES! I don’t care if you have been designing things since before designing was cool, you need to do this before you start. It is available online (here) or you can even download it to your own iPhone or iPad (here). And it’s free.

So please, don’t assume you understand design and UI for the iPhone and/or iPad just because you happen to own either device. Respect the platform and it’s users enough to really care about how usable the UI will be. That’s all. Happy Friday!

Public Education in Peril

Thu, 10 May 2012 10:51:00 -0400

This is nothing new, our education has been crumbling for quite some time now. And it sucks. And no one is surprised. But that doesn’t make it any less heart breaking. We are supposed to be the world leader. But how can we do this when our future generations are falling farther and farther behind? The hard part is, what the hell can we do about it? I have no idea, but I am hoping and praying that smarter people than myself have some answer. And more importantly I pray that those in power have the sense to listen to these individuals.

Since this is not a typical post for me you are probably asking what brought this on. Well my wife and I are getting closer and closer to the point of bringing another life into the world. So of course my thoughts are turning to things that will have a greater effect on that child’s future than on my own. But the real driving force behind these feelings of impending doom is what is going on in the Upper Darby School District. Which is not only my childhood home but also the place I chose to set down roots and possibly start a family. That’s all changing now.

In 1996 (6th grade for me) I moved to Drexel Hill (part of UDSD) and began attending the Drexel Hill Middle School. It was at this time that I started playing the drums and eventually other percussion instruments as a part of the middle school band and orchestra. When I got to high school I joined the Drumline and participated in Marching Band as well as Indoor Drumline. And this was serious. We traveled the country to compete and perform. And not only did we compete but we won. There is absolutely no way that I could ever properly communicate my experience to someone who hasn’t been there, but I can tell you it was truly life altering. The things I learned (so much more than just music), the values I instilled in me, and the bonds formed during this activity have forever altered who I am to the core.

The video below showcases the Upper Darby 2012 Indoor Drumline. Which placed 4th in the nation! An incredible feat. These kids practice and perform with everything they have and still manage to do better in their regular classes than most. This is a much watch.

And this was one of the main reason my wife and I chose to buy a house in the very same school district. Truth be told I dreamed that my children would get the same great public education and hopefully follow in my footsteps with the music program which is one of the best for a public school in the tri-state region. But now that is all in danger. The Upper Darby School District is literally 30 days away from dismantling “special” education programs (learn more here http://www.saveudarts.org). This means art (performing, musical, and traditional), library sciences, foreign language, and technology. I’m sorry but what is “special” about those programs? Those seem like core ares of study in what should be a modern, well-rounded education.

These proposed actions are in response to budget cuts and lack of funding all around. Which also makes no sense to me considering my taxes are the highest of the surrounding areas. For a 3 bedroom, 1200 sq foot twin home I pay $4400 per year in taxes. That’s insane. Also, with the rise of casinos and table games, our state is bringing in more money than ever. Where the hell is it all going? Certainly not to the education of our future generations.

As I stated previously, I have no idea what can be done in this district or the districts across the country that are fighting the same battles. But please, someone get this right. The future of our society is counting on it. I can’t imagine a nation of people educated solely in math, science, and english. What a sad, dreary world that would be. Now I may not know how to fix this district but I will do whatever I can to make sure that my children are in a position to experience everything I have. I am sorry to say that I absolutely will not under any circumstances send my children to a school that does not take these “special” subjects very seriously.

She really wishes she could just teleport to NC. (Taken with...

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 14:02:22 -0400

She really wishes she could just teleport to NC. (Taken with instagram)

Tony Million's Stuff: How to really reduce the size of your iOS app.

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 12:31:55 -0400

Tony Million's Stuff: How to *really* reduce the size of your iOS app.:

tonymillion:

I recently read this article via @_DavidSmith on twitter. While noble, it does miss a fairly big optimisation technique. That is reducing the bit depth of your PNGs from 32bit(16 million colours) to 8bit (256 colours).

I hear many of you crying out in pain right now, but stay with me.

Really,…

First BBQ of the Season

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 12:12:11 -0400

This weekend the weather was just too beautiful to resist so I fired up the smoker. We went to the butcher and picked up 16 lbs of pork shoulder and a rack of baby back ribs. The shoulder was boneless, because that’s all they had, but it did the job well enough. Personally I prefer bone-in poor shoulders but beggars can’t be choosers, right. We got the rack of ribs to enjoy as a snack while the shoulder was cooking. Good thing we did too because that big clod of meat went on later than I wanted and wasn’t ready till around 3am. So we feasted on smoked ribs and grilled corn and saved the pulled pork for later. I also made a fresh batch of BBQ sauce since I had nothing better to do. All in all, not a bad weekend. Below are some pictures of the before and after for you BBQ junkies.

Makin the rub.

All rubbed down and ready to go.

Like two delicious meteorites. And don’t worry, thats not burnt. That’s what happens after 12 hours an the smoker. And that crust is amazing. It’s called bar for those of you who don’t know.

All pulled and ready to eat!

Yes, people actually use our products.

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 13:32:27 -0500

Working in digital it can sometimes be hard to see the impact we do or don’t have (forest through the trees and all). We don’t always think of all the use cases, and even if we think of them we hardly ever know if they are being used the way we intended them to or not. Sometimes we just love working on a project and that’s enough for us. What I’m trying to say is that as purveyors of non-tangible things, it can be difficult to see them actually enriching lives and actually contributing to the world.

For first time today I saw something I built being used in the real world. And not just for pleasure or some other vain pursuit. A classroom was actually using the American Revolution Timeline app to learn about the subject. The teacher felt strongly enough about this app that he decided to use it in the classroom. Now don’t get me wrong, vain leisurely activities are great. And something can be said for someone choosing your app to spend some quality time with. But knowing that something you made is being used to educate future generations is in a class all by itself. Check out the video and head to the school’s blog for more.

First Take - Clear for iPhone

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 11:42:35 -0500

As many of you may already know, Clear for iPhone was released in the app store today. Like many folks, I’ve been following this app since the teaser site popped up and I was pretty excited to finally install it.

As an app developer I was really interested in its utter lack of traditional interface. Just the idea of finally moving away from buttons, bars, tabs, and the other usual interface items and moving towards gesture based navigation seemed like a not only a logical next step but also an exciting one. I applaud Impending & Real Mac Software for taking a risk on this new paradigm.

After downloading I was pleasantly surprised by the walk through the app takes you through. Not everyone is 100% comfortable with gestures yet and having no buttons or traditional UI elements could have been disorienting for some. The best part about their walk through is that its not just a series of instructional screens but it actually teaches the user by having them interact with the app. This is very similar to the way a lot of games (both iOS and otherwise) take you through an initial walk through so you understand the controls, objectives, and how to play.

Now I’ve only had the app for a few hours but already I know I’m going to love it. The gestures are easy enough to use as is the entire app. I have tried a number of To-Do List apps and so far none have made me want to continue using them. I have a feeling I’m going to be much more organized now that I have an app that very easily allows me to add, delete, edit, and complete my lists!

Good day of riding ends with a cold beer with good friends....

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:57:30 -0500

Good day of riding ends with a cold beer with good friends. (Taken with instagram)

Who manages the Project Managers?

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 10:53:52 -0500

Who manages the Project Managers?

"Converting an iPhone app to an iPad app is like making an electric bicycle and then converting it to..."

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:45:20 -0500

“Converting an iPhone app to an iPad app is like making an electric bicycle and then converting it to a fuel-powered motorcycle! They are very similar at what they do, but under the hood, the difference is immense.”

- From an excellent article by Kent Nguyen on pricing an iOS application.

Oh the client rant...

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:25:00 -0500

I was going to put this on twitter but I realized it would take me far more than 140 characters. There is just no way I could properly express myself in that particular format. So here goes nothin.

Let me start by saying I love clients. If it weren’t for clients I wouldn’t get paid for doing what I love. And I really love getting paid. So thank you all clients past, present, and future. You make my life possible.

Now as much as I love clients there are of course things that I may not particularly enjoy. And all of those little things can be lumped together in the category of client input. I know I know, it’s their money, their product, they have to live with the end result. I get all that. But just once I would kill to have a client that hires me (through my company or otherwise) who truly trusts us. I mean like trusts us with their life. So much so that they hand us their brief, some guidance, agree to our approach, send us the content and then leave us alone.

Now of course that is the extreme, but let me explain where I’m going with this. When you hire a builder, plumber, electrician, insert any other service professional you don’t give them your input and guidance every step of the way. They asses the situation and make recommendations based on their expertise and experience. Once you approve their plan and have them start their work, you don’t regularly pass them guidance on how it should be done, what materials should be used, or question their methods. You hire these professionals because you trust them and trust that they are going to complete their task with an acceptable manner. But more importantly you don’t hold their hand because you generally know squat about what they are doing.

Well design & development services are no different. If clients knew how to do it, they wouldn’t need us yet they feel compelled to be involved in every part of the process. That would be like going to Home Depot to help your electrician pick out wires. We are pretty awesome out our jobs, trust us. If you didn’t why would you hire us? Checking in with a client to show progress and maybe get some feedback is one thing, but too often it goes far beyond that. Very rarely does all the input and guidance actually lead to a better product. More often then it results in something that is much less awesome than it could have been.

Using custom fonts in iOS

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:18:00 -0500

So there is this list of fonts available on iOS devices at http://iosfonts.com/. But that’s kind of boring. Luckily you can add just about whatever typeface you’d like to your app. Step by step & code to follow…

First you need to add your font file to your project. I prefer to first add my files to my project folder and then drag it into Xcode to add it to the project. This way I can control how the folder is organized.

Once you have your font files added to your project you need to add a key to your info.plist file. The easiest way to do this is to click on your project in Xcode and then select your target. Then go to the Info tab and add a row (right-click > add row) under Custom iOS Target Properties. Name this row Fonts provided by application and make it an Array. Each item in the array should be a string that contains the the file name of each font (including the extension).

Now that your fonts are added to the project and are listed in your info.plist file you can call them pretty easily in your code. Occasionally the name of the font is actually slightly different than the file name. If you know the name you can simply use it as you would any other system font.

myLabel.font = [UIFont fontWithName:@"ProximaNova-Semibold" size:11.0];

If you the font isn’t loading and you are unsure of the proper name to use you can easily print all available fonts to the log. You just drop the code below where ever you’d like and it will log all the fonts broken into family. Once you’ve done that you just search the log contents for the font you need.

    // Get all the fonts on the system
    NSArray *familyNames = [UIFont familyNames];
    for( NSString *familyName in familyNames ){
        printf( "Family: %s \n", [familyName UTF8String] );
        NSArray *fontNames = [UIFont fontNamesForFamilyName:familyName];
        for( NSString *fontName in fontNames ){
            printf( "\tFont: %s \n", [fontName UTF8String] );
        }
    }

Things to remember

Your font must be either .otf or .ttf
The Mac file system is not case sensitive where as the iOS file system is. so if your fonts are working in the simulator and not the device, check your capitalization
These custom fonts can be used in UITextViews, UILabels, and UIWebViews
Just because you can use all the fonts in the world doesn’t mean you should. The more fonts you load the slower your app could become and the more memory you will use. Not to mention the irreparable damage you could do to your users retinas.

3 SXSW finalists for Bluecadet

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:56:27 -0500

Holy hot shit. Looks like Bluecadet has done it again. Last year we had two finalists for the SXSW Interactive Awards. This year it’s three! Needless to say I am incredibly excited. This makes it three years in a row that a site/sites I’ve worked on are nominated for these awards. Sites and their categories are listed below. Check out all the nominees.

Joshua Cogan Photography - Personal

Starved for Attention - Activism

Philadelphia Orchestra - Music

Awesome cutting board my mom made is in Kuwait! (Taken with...

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 19:47:47 -0500

Awesome cutting board my mom made is in Kuwait! (Taken with instagram)

Initial concept for my BBQ Sauce brand. Thoughts?

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:23:28 -0500

Initial concept for my BBQ Sauce brand. Thoughts?

iOS Design Inspiration

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 11:11:35 -0500

Last week I mentioned my love of iOS icon design. Well as it turns out I’m also a huge fan of great app design (iOS or otherwise). So I figured I’d share my favorite resources for getting the creative juices flowing. Enjoy

http://mobile-patterns.com/ - One of my favorite mobile design resources, this site features designs from all mobile platforms and organizes the content by the type of interface (lists, maps, notifications, etc). This makes finding the right type of inspiration extremely fast and easy.

http://landingpad.org/ - A site after my own heart. This site showcases nothing but beautiful iPad apps.

http://www.iosinspires.me/ - Not only does this site feature app icons, interfaces, and websites, it also lists a ton of great resources for mobile design.

http://www.iospirations.com/ - Covers iOS icons, iPhone & iPad apps, as well as app websites.

http://app.itize.us/ - iPhone and iPad designs broken into a ton of useful categories.

http://creattica.com/mobile/latest/ - Creattica has always been an excellent resource for design inspiration, this is a collection of nice mobile designs.

Mmmm, deep fried pickles and home made ranch dressing. Delicious...

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 09:32:49 -0500

Mmmm, deep fried pickles and home made ranch dressing. Delicious is an understatement.

App icons can be art too.

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 11:11:17 -0500

I absolutely love seeing what designers can do with 72px².

More at http://nathanbarry.com/25-inspirational-ios-application-icons/ and http://iosicongallery.com/

"If you create an App ID, be prepared to live with it for the rest of your life; App IDs are the..."

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:10:56 -0500

“If you create an App ID, be prepared to live with it for the rest of your life; App IDs are the herpes of iPhone provisioning.”

- David Foster

Let's put this to good use

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:00:11 -0500

So I think I might finally put this thing to good use. Be aware however there will be no consistency. Get ready for absolute random babbling, link sharing, and whatever else I come up. I guess here goes nothin.