BBC to offer first official iPhone Apps
According to the BBC the, erm, BBC is to release a few iPhone applications in April.
I’ve always been quite mystified on why it has taken the corporation so long to enter the mobile phone market. They were industry leaders when it came to implementing their extremely successful iPlayer (much to the annoyance of ISPs who are somewhat miffed about the bandwidth being consumed).
Hopefully they’ll release apps that are useful and do the job successfully.
They are initially planning to release News and Sports apps that include audio and video - something that may just leapfrog them past the current popular offerings. At a later date they are considering creating and app specifically for the iPlayer. Currently iPhone users are automatically redirected to an iPhone optimised version of the on-demand site.
My personal favourite news app is provided by the Guardian. You do have to pay for it (£2.39), but for me it’s worth every penny.
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TwitThisBest iPad parody to date
This is possibly the best parody I’ve seen since the recent release of the Apple iPad (still really not sure on that name). Even better, it was made before the iPad was even a twinkle in Steve Jobs eye.
Google finally kicks IE6 to the curb
The geriatric Internet Explorer 6 Microsoft web browser is the equivalent of a person that no-one really likes, but puts up with and supports because of a misplaced sense of duty.
As pretty well any web designer will tell you, supporting IE6 is a royal pain. In fact I wrote an article about it last year.
At least another of the big web daddies has also started to withdraw support. Google has now given IE6 its marching orders.
About time.
I’d avoid Internet Explorer if you live in China
You may or may not be living in a paranoid dictatorship, but if I ever saw a compelling reason to update to the latest version of Internet Explorer or try out another browser, this is it.
Dropbox on your iPhone
The online document storage service, ‘Dropbox’ has been a firm favourite of mine ever since I discovered it just over a year ago, so I was pretty thrilled to see they have released a version for the iPhone.
This free App. gives you full access to all the files you have stored in your Dropbox account, all of them can be accessed using your iPhone (subject to an internet connection).
A useful feature is ‘favourites’. After tagging a document a ‘favourite’, it is downloaded to your iPhone so you have a hard copy available for off-line viewing.
You can also use the iPhone camera to add photos and videos.
Top 10 Mac apps for Web Designers
Finding out which software you prefer is always a case of trial and error.
After a few years of downloading demos, trying out trials and occasionally getting frustrated with the rubbish that is on the market, I’ve settled on a few choice applications that make my work day a far more pleasant experience.
Of course my opinion is objective, so you you may find you agree or disagree with my choices. Obviously I’m always open to suggestions for alternatives if you have them!
1. TaskPaper
After using the online service Basecamp for nearly 2 years, I realised I was paying a monthly fee for what was basically a to-do list.
The main reason I enjoyed using it was because I could use templates, so when beginning a new project I could easily set it up using my pre-defined template project structure.
I have tried several computer-based applications such as Omnioutliner and Things, but these just seem far too complicated for what is essentially a very simple task list.
Recently I stumbled across TaskPaper, an incredibly simple piece of software that does what it says on the tin. There are no bells and whistles. I have created my project template which I duplicate and rename when a new job begins.
2. Billings
I use Less Accounting to manage my freelancing finances. However its invoice generation leaves something to be desired, very little customisation is available.
So I actually use Billings 3 to send out all my invoices. It produces beautiful looking clean invoices, estimates and statements.
It never ceases to amaze me when people in the design industry send out tacky looking invoices, they are just as much a representation of your work as your, well, work!
3. TextMate
Like I’m sure a lot of web designers do I started out using Dreamweaver (MX at the time).
While this monster can certainly help while you’re learning web design and transitioning from WYSIWYG to hand coding, it’s just too big and cumbersome to use daily when all you need is an advanced text editor.
TextMate fits the bill, with scores of bundles that enable you to write markup in numerous different languages. The clincher for me is that it has an ExpressionEngine bundle. meaning I can churn out code in my ExpressionEngine websites with a little visual guidance.
4. Bento
Bento is marketed as a ‘database for the rest of us’. Created by the people that brought us FileMaker - the leading Mac database application - it simplifies the whole process of creating databases and presents them to you in pretty cool graphical formats.
What first attracted me was the easy way to create custom fields and layouts. As a result I have used Bento to as a basis for my Client Database. I have included all the fields I personally need to run my freelancing business. Additionally I downloaded the Bento iPhone app so all my data is synced between my devices. Handy for being on the road.
5. CSS Edit
CSS Edit is a wonderful piece of software for, well, editing your CSS files. It’s quick, responsive and does everything I need it to. In fact this along with TextMate and Transmit fulfill nearly all of my web design coding needs.
6. Transmit
A few FTP applications have been released lately that are snapping at the heels of Transmit, but none of them have tempted me away from using this tried and tested application. Column view is essential for me.
7. Little Snapper
Little Snapper is screen grabbing software by the guys who brought us RapidWeaver. Mac OS X has a screen grabbing facility built-in, but little snapper has so much more including the ability to organise your screenshots, export, annotate, crop and publish them.
Once I tried the demo of the software, my old methods of taking screenshots and organising them felt long winded and were soon obsolete!
8. Tweetie
I tried numerous Twitter applications, most of them being pretty similar. The one that finally stole my heart was Tweetie. there is just something about it. It looks really good, works well and is unobtrusive. The iPhone companion App is also excellent.
9. TextExpander
TextExpander is a funky little application for saving regularly used text snippets and attaching keystrokes to them. You can then insert them in documents with little effort.
For example, if you get sick of typing out your address every day, you just create a new snippet with your address in, then attach a TextExpander keystroke to it.
Subsequently every time you type that keystroke your address will automatically be inserted in the document. This is quite similar to functionality available in Word, only this can be used system wide in any application that you can type into. I find this a great time saver.
10. VM Ware Fusion
There is not much to be said to VM Ware Fusion, apart from the fact that as a Mac user it is essential to be able to test websites in Internet Explorer. Fusion enables seamless integration between Windows and Mac, easily transferring files and networking between the two operating systems.
Lastly, I must give a brief mention to Dropbox, software that syncs your files online and across your computers whether on a Mac or PC. I’ve found it an invaluable tool to help me back up my documents and ensure they are up to date across machines.
Rick Astley attacks iPhone users
Aha. Another day and another story about the Apple iPhone.
This time it’s the BBC News website that leads with the headline ‘Worm attack bites at Apple iPhone’.
Somewhat alarmed I read further into the article and found that you actually have to have Jailbroken your iPhone for this particular worm to attack.
For those who don’t know and don’t particularly care, Jailbreaking is a process that allows iPhone and iPod touch users to run unofficial code on their devices, bypassing Apple’s official distribution mechanism. It enables the ability to download applications that are not available through the app store and official retailers.
Unfortunately, the side-effect of this is that if it’s not performed correctly it can leave your iPhone vulnerable and open to attack.
In this case the worm concerned doesn’t really do anything unpleasant apart from installing a picture of Rick Astley on your iPhone. I should imagine that some people however, this is enough.
So I guess there is a certain proof of concept in the article as it does show that as our mobile phones get more and more technologically advanced they are also more likely to be victims of hacking and malicious attacks.
At the same time, such scare stories don’t really help the general public, the majority of whom wouldn’t even know what a jail broken iPhone actually is.
To use an analogy, if you bought a brand spanking new BMW then removed the anti-lock brake system so your car would go faster, you wouldn’t be that surprised if you came a cropper the next time you needed to brake suddenly.
How to become a Dictator
My fingers were sore, but not any more!
These days I seem to spend all day typing using my computer keyboard, prodding at my iPhone and pressing buttons on my TV remote control. It may be exercise, but it’s certainly not the type I really enjoy.
So I was quite excited to read a review of Mac Speech Dictate in my latest Mac magazine. The last time I used any type of voice recognition software was way back when Windows 95 with the latest big thing. I remember it being awful, with most of its output being great comedy value, but not much use in the real world.
After reading the glowing review in the Mac magazine I hastily ordered myself as fresh new copy from Amazon. It’s not cheap, coming in at just under £200. For your money you get the usual CD installation software and also a special noise cancellation microphone headset. Which I guess is quite important. You don’t really want your speech recognition software to pick up someone behind you swearing as you’re trying to dictate out a very important e-mail to a client.
Installation was swift and easy, it took only about 10 minutes to load up the software and then you are taken through a set up process.
You’re asked to read out several paragraphs of text into your microphone, the software then uses this to adjust to your voice profile in the hope that it will produce accurate results once completed.
I have to say it was a very quick and easy process, it only took me about four minutes and then my computer pinged to tell me it was all done.
Of course the big test was trying it out. So I tentatively opened up Apple Mail and decided to try and dictate a message to my loved one.
You could say I was like a kid in a sweet shop, I was immediately impressed at the speed and the accuracy of the recognition software. Of course the odd stray word and miscalculation made its way through (for instance in the very first line of this article it spelt ‘sore’ as ‘saw’ but hey, how is it to know the difference?) but that’s to be expected.
Oddly, the one thing I thought I would find the easiest - talking into a microphone instead of having to type into a keyboard - is probably the hardest to get used to. I’m so used to typing into a keyboard and following my train of thought as I do, that staring into space and talking into a microphone feels oddly disconnected. I find that now I have to write a short list of points before I start blathering on into the microphone or the result is a complete mess of words. Some might say what’s new.
This entire article was dictated using the software and was relatively easy to do, albeit strange and consisting of a few long pauses in the process.
So all in all I could probably give it a 7/10 with the -3 points for the time it takes me to pick up using the software rather than any deficiency in the software itself.
Highly recommended.
Multiple Site Manager - First Impressions
Regular readers of my occasional articles may have noticed my gradual rejection of the Joomla Content Management System in favour of ExpressionEngine, an extremely powerful paid alternative and in my opinion well worth the money.
Jonwrightdesign.co.uk was the first site I decided to take the plunge and develop with ExpressionEngine (EE), I spent an intense couple of weeks downloading video tutorials, ploughing through every forum post and article I could find on the subject and generally make my head hurt with new information.
It was worth it.
For me, the one killer feature that reeled me in was that you designed the whole ‘back end’ of a website yourself. You code the pages how you want them to look from the very beginning, not having to tackle convoluted template systems just to change the slightest thing.
As someone who is inclined much more towards the visual design of the a website than learning programming languages this was a godsend. Enabling me to offer my clients hugely powerful and extensible websites.
Once Jonwrightdesign.co.uk had been ticking along nicely for a few months, I began to toy with the idea of migrating my two other websites, Jonparadisemusic.com and Myhotelonline.co.uk to EE too.
It was at this point I discovered a paid-for extension for EE called Multiple Site Manager (MSM).
Once installed from within your website, it enables the creation of new websites based on the same Expression Engine install.
To create a new site, I simply created a sub-folder at the root of my current website directory, popped a couple of files in there to ‘link’ my new website with EE, visited my EE Control Panel and selected the new ‘Sites’ tab to create my new website.
From there the setup the new website is pretty well the same as any other installation of ExpressionEngine (when first creating the site you do have options of duplicating or importing your existing site, which can save a lot of time if the new site is to have a similar structure).
Once the new site is set up is where the magic really starts.
The power of Multiple Site Manager is that it shares Extensions, Plugins, Modules and Weblogs between websites. Each Extension, Plugin and Module can have it’s own settings per website (it’s worth checking whether they support MSM though, most do, but if the add-on is vital to your site, make sure first).
It’s simple to display weblogs ‘cross-site’ in MSM, you simply add the “site” parameter to the opening weblog tag.
{exp:weblog:entries weblog=“my_weblog” orderby=“date” limit=“10” site=”Site_A”}
The simple addition of the “site” parameter tells ExpressionEngine that the weblog information is to be pulled and displayed from the weblog created in ‘Site_A’ to ‘Site_B’.
This parameter only controls the information displayed on the page, the style sheets and template of the weblog are totally separate.
It is also possible to add the usual Comment Form Tags to the weblog on the ‘Site_B’, and those comments will be linked in and display on ‘Site_A’.
A wonderful system.
My only problem has been when sharing Categories across sites. From what I gather it can’t be done. For instance I wanted to display all articles from Jonparadisemusic.com on Jonwrightdesign.co.uk under the category ‘Music’.
After much swearing and a few forums posts it seems it is not possible at this point.
The long awaited ExpressionEngine 2 is due out sometime later this year which the developers promise has huge changes. Maybe this issue will be solved then.
All in all, Multiple Site Manager is a must for any ExpressionEngine developer who wants to share information between their websites.
YouTube about to phase out IE6
The most interesting snippet of news that came to my attention today was that YouTube is phasing out support for Internet Explorer 6.
This 8 year old browser is a pain in the bum for any web designer, indeed I’ve mention it a couple of times on this blog.
The fact that one of the biggest websites in the world is preparing to cut off a large chunk of it’s user base, presumably so it can develop the site for more modern browsers, is significant.
In my opinion this needs to happen, it’s only when the hugely popular websites start taking steps like this that we’ll see a change in people’s browser habits.
