Developing apps and websites for mobile devices is totally out of control, and that’s great news! It’s a new platform and new media for developers and designers, it’s fun to work on and I hope it keeps on growing.

Lately I’ve been fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to design a few graphic elements and UI stuff for a couple developers of apps for iPhone/iPad and it’s the most fun I’ve had at work in years. I’m pretty happy no matter what I’m working on as long as I’m designing something for someone, no matter what the media is. The graphics for mobile devices however, are just fun to explore and experiment with!

The most recent projects have been designs for iLoader by Tektrify, and Project 365 by Alvin Yu. I’ve also worked on an iPhone game, “iBlabber”, which is still in development.

iLoader

iLoader was my first experience working with iPhone apps. The developer (Ky Vu/Tektrify) just needed a little help with the app’s icon and “about” page. iLoader is one of few apps that I use all the time; it allows the user to connect to Facebook and upload multibple photos at once to any album on your Facebook page. It also allows the user to write comments on each photo and publish a status comment to the wall when uploading. I searched through tons of other apps until I came across iLoader, which worked so well that I deleted the others! iLoader also can upload and watch videos; a versatile and useful little app it is.

In addition to iLoader, Ky Vu/Tektrify has also developed FaceVideo, an app for browsing, watching, downloading and sharing videos on Facebook.

I am currently working with Ky on graphics for iLoader 2.0. Tons of new features are being added to the app as well as a new graphic user interface and an app icon redesign.

Go to the “Galleries” menu > iLoader gallery for more iLoader designs, published graphics as well as comps and early design explorations.

To read about iLoader or purchase the full version on the iTunes App Store, click here. Visit Tektrify.com for more information including updates, news and other apps by Ky Vu and Tektrify.

Project 365

Between the iLoader projects for Tektrify came another fun iPhone App job: Project 365 by Alvin Yu. Project 365/Project 365 PRO is another one of the few apps that I use nearly every day on my iPhone. Project 365 works a little like a visual calendar, as described on the site: “Take a picture every day of the year, become a better photographer and never forget a day in your life.” I thought it was a really cool idea and was something I had been searching for since I first got my iPhone. People like me, I mean artists and designers with ADD, need something like this to remember what we did two days ago, or two months ago on a thursday, or whatever. Until I started using this app, I couldn’t remember what jobs or projects I worked on prior to yesterday, and I would always feel like I was getting nothing accomplished. Once I was able to look back on my week, month, or year, I realized how much I actually do! Even though this app was created more to keep photographers prolific, it certainly has a bunch of other significant uses!

At the time of this writing, the update to the new Project 365/Project 365 PRO apps are still in development. You can find this app in the iTunes App Store by searching for Project 365 or Alvin Yu. You can also purchase the app from the developer’s website or read more about the app.

iBlabber

iBlabber is an iPhone game app that at the time of this writing iBlabber is currently still being developed. I will be posting the other designs and other graphic designs that I created for this app as soon as the app is published.

I created a few more background wallpaper images for my iPhone tonight. I’m posting some here for anyone who wants them.

…IF YOU ENJOY A GOOD SCREWING.

I don’t spend a lot of time writing about or commenting on things that suck, but this one really twisted me off. Rembrandt toothpaste is hardly worth reviewing except for the balls those folks gotta have to sell a tube of air at a higher price than any other toothpaste on the shelves.

Take a look at the two photos I’ve included here: one is the new tube right out of the box and the other is the same new tube, squeezed to the point when the paste finally started coming out of the tube.

I couldn’t believe it. A relatively small tube to begin with, compared to nearly every other brand on that aisle, it was nearly 70% air. Rembrandt the brand has a pretty high opinion of their stuff judging by what they charge, and in the past when there was a lot more money floating around for frivolous crap like this, I wasn’t as reluctant to spend a few extra bucks on a better tasting toothpaste. In my attempts to curb frivolous spending, I’ve managed to avoid purchasing this particular brand for more than a year but I decided to splurge a bit on the last grocery shopping trip and purchased a tube of Rembrandt, only to be disappointed and outraged.

Everyone is cutting back these days in order to make it through this economic disaster we are all experiencing, consumer and manufacturer alike, but these guys are going about it in a way that just makes me think they believe we’re all so stupid that we won’t notice. When you sell a tube of toothpaste that costs twice as much as any other brand and then fill the package with mostly air, what is the message that they’re trying to send us? The message I interpreted from it all is “we are so superior that we can sell you idiots air and you’ll like it, if your soft little brains even have the capacity to notice, that is, which we all doubt very much down here, so piss off!”. At least that’s how I understood it.

Go buy a tube of this crap and I’m sure you’ll reach the same conclusion. Or better yet, don’t. Don’t waste your money, just take my word for it and forego the anger and frustration.

Working with massive graphics files creates all kinds of storage issues. Some of my Photoshop files for print have been more than 4GB, and when combined with other support files and elements of a job, leave me with limited options for backup and storage.
Until my layered PSD files became 250MBs on average, all of my backups fit on a DVD just fine. The problem with DVD backups is finding stuff when you have to reference an old job in a hurry, especially when the files are massive.

As the job folders have grown over time, the most sensible means of data storage for my needs turned out to be external hard drives After trying several external storage devices, my final solution for the problem was the purchase of an ICY DOCK (MB559UEB-1SMB) external enclosure and an internal SATA hard drive (several, actually).
I have several portable external units including a G-Drive (which is an excellent external unit), a LaCie, a Rocketfish drive, an Acomdata drive (also surprisingly reliable for a cheap portable), and a few VST FireWire portable drives, all of which are good devices overall and each with their own unique positive qualities. In contrast to the good qualities each of those devices possess, they all maintain one common downfall: when the hard drive is full, you still are left finding a way to burn, archive, purge data or shelve it and purchase another. Portable external hard drives are getting cheaper all the time but they don’t even come close to the cost of a bare internal SATA hard drive. The last 1TB SATA drive I purchased was less than $100 bucks; there’s no way a powered portable 1TB unit sells for that cheap. Not today anyway.

Dual ICY DOCK Enclosures

The ICY DOCK units I purchased, with USB 2.0 and FireWire 400/800 connections, I am able to plug in any of my bare internal hard drives for tons of extra storage and never do I have to stress out about running out of space. With SATA drives getting larger in capacity and cheaper every day it’s no problem for an unemployed art director like me to pick up another drive when one fills up or if I just need a redundant backup.
Another big bonus of using SATA drives is the ability to format them as a boot disk, allowing me to have additional backups of my operating system in the inevitable event of disk failure. Some of the other units have that functionality but only the more expensive higher end drives.

The ICY DOCK enclosures with SATA drives have worked out great for archiving large jobs and even temporary storage for the jobs that are on hold indefinitely. I was so happy with my first ICY DOCK that I purchased a second one a few months later. Having a second allows me to move data from one drive to another without actually adding anything to my internal drives. Ten years ago I would have never dreamed that 4TB worth of internal hard drive capacity wouldn’t be enough! Now it just gets me by.

No technology is flawless however, just like no technology is permanent. After three years of heavy use, I recently ran into the very first issue with my two ICY DOCKS. The problem wasn’t as much with the enclosures as it was with the evolution of the (Mac/Apple) operating system, software and firmware updates. Recent updates to Snow Leopard OS 10.6 (.4) created drive mounting issues with several SATA drives connected via ICY DOCK. After some time spent troubleshooting the problem and tracking down the source, I sent one email to the ICY DOCK tech support folks which immediately prompted a series of troubleshooting messages and other suggestions within a couple hours. After a few attempts to resolve the issues via email, they issued me an RMA # and had me send both enclosures back to their service department. It only took a week for them to do the repairs and upgrades, and my ICY DOCKS were back on my desk and working perfectly.

The best product on the planet is only as good as it’s customer service and tech support when it comes to computer technology, software and hardware. The folks at ICY DOCK have the best of both; excellent products and fantastic support – a rare thing to find in any company these days.

If anyone is looking for a data backup solution that is expandable, the ICY DOCK (MB559UEB-1SMB) external enclosure (usually ships with no hard drive) is an excellent choice and can be purchased for $79.99 at NEWEGG.COM.

If you are a designer or illustrator, graphic artist or whatever, then you’ve probably had an image, a photo, a logo image, or some kind of image object that you would like to convert from a bitmap image to something a little more useful like a vector object that you can work with. I do – all the time.
Maybe you have a specific type treatment, like a logo with a font that’s been tweaked beyond recognition, and you need to use it at a variety of sizes and other scenerios that make working with a JPG or other bitmap image really difficult. What do you do?
Scan, trace, redraw, etc. You waste a lot of time reproducing the graphic is what you do. There should be an easier way, right?

There is. I found an app that does nothing but trace bitmap images, converting it to vector. The app is called Cocaopotrace (“Potrace” for Windows). It does a fantastic job tracing images. It can be adjusted to refine the way it traces; tighter paths, less points, more or less detail, and so on. I first came across it in a post by David Malki on Wondermark.com. I was so glad I checked it out!

Adobe Illustrator has it’s Live Trace/Live Paint features which does the same thing, and more, but the accuracy just isn’t there. Cocaopotrace really gets you close to a vector replica of your scanned image and since that’s all it does, it’s fast and clean and does a very nice job.

I still find myself using Live Trace on ocassion, but when I need a really clean vector outline of something, it’s Cocaopotrace all the way. Since I started using it my vector textures have been turning out much tighter. A photo of a texture, such as a cast iron manhole cover with lots of different textures, is really easy to convert and I can refine the settings to make the vector output as accurate as I choose.

Many, many years ago before global warming, the moon landing and the assembly line, back in the 90′s actually, there was an app called “Streamline”.

When I first purchased my iPhone, I was a week away from travelling to Bulgaria. Long flights are a bitch for a guy with A.D.D, and I always stress out about bringing enough stuff to keep my little brain busy while I’m in the air. I found that this time I could have taken my iPhone, camera and a sketchbook, and wouldn’t have needed to lug the other 300 pounds of crap along that I never used. In fact, it was the iPhone that kept me entertained 50% of the time. Most of that time was spent scrounging the outer reaches of the App Store wasteland looking for that one little productivity app which I hoped would be the solution to my organization and task-based problems.

Three weeks had passed, I was back from the trip and after countless hours of searching, I never did find The One. In fact, nearly a year later I was still searching and downloading, trying and testing, and failing. My browsing for this one particular White Whale had decreased to a bi-weekly and then monthly affair, but I continued to be disappointed.

Then after downloading and trying about 30 different list, task, and to-do type apps with no success, I stumbled upon “2do”. It was too good to be true!

“2do” has almost everything I was looking for in an organization/productivity app. It has customizable Calendars so you can organize your projects, tasks and checklists by type (personal, work, home improvement, or whatever), and they can be named, color coded, and you can add as many as you need, but in the paid version only. There is a free ‘lite’ version but you are limited to 3 calendars and other options are also limited.

Features that really made me do a little happy dance are the options you can utilize within the calendars. For example, Notes are my most frquently used because I can jot down the details of a project so I don’t forget. Another is an option to add a photo for reference. You can also schedule reminders and have it send an email to you, or an alarm, an instant message, and so on. You can set your Task up as a Task, a Checklist, or a Project, where you can actually group a bunch of tasks and checklists within it.

The list goes on and on. I was even happy with the Lite version until I found myself with the need for several Calendars to keep my insane list of things to do better organized. I also needed the Sync functionality so I don’t have to worry about losing my data. I can simply Sync everything to my desktop Mac and no worries!

If you have so many things to do that you need software to help you get your shit together, then I would recommend that you check out “2do”. I think you’ll sleep better if you do!

Have you ever had a bunch of photos you wanted to post to Facebook on your iPhone only to get absolutely frustrated going about it one at a time through Facebook itself? It can be quite a pain in the ass. I went searching through the app store and finally found an app that does it all in one stroke, and the app is iLoader.

iLoader by Tektrify is an iPhone app for batch uploading photos and videos to Facebook. In addition to allowing you to select several images at once to upload, it also gives you the option to write captions on each image. When you’re ready to go, you can also choose to post with a comment and actually select any one of your albums to upload to. It sure makes life easier for people like me who don’t want their photos automatically going into the ‘mobile uploads’ album.

I always get excited when I find something that works well and makes my life easier. iLoader is one one of those things. If you have been looking for a way to batch upload photos to your Facebook page, I would definetely recommend checking out iLoader by Tektrify. You can also find it in Apple’s app store, just search for iLoader, and it’s cheap.

The last three weeks have been super nuts; I haven’t had two free minutes to do any updates or upload any new graphics, it’s taken all I have to keep up the pace.

Starting with a small marketing design project after several weeks with nothing to do at all, the projects and issues just snowballed. Right up until I started getting paying gigs again I had been working on Cindy’s chopper, finishing fabrication of the frame and some of it’s components, hoping to get it on the road this summer.
In the middle of my new project, we became victims of Comcast’s evil plans to go totally digital, forcing us to upgrade and pay thriple for the service, as well as screwing up our Internet connection for several days.
While this was all happening I have also decided to take on a little pro bono project for an iPhone/iPad app developer just because I like the app and he needed some help. I’ll explain this in detail later when I can talk more about it.
In addition to those projects I have been working on a prototype backrest for my own motorcycle which I finally wrapped up last weekend and did a little R&D this week.
Finally, a friend with a local shop referred a customer to me yesterday for a minor motorcycle repair job on a H-D Softail.

So, over the last couple weeks I’ve fabricated motorcycle parts, set up all new cable connections and installed a new digital cable box, new modem, new router, and rewired half the house to get connected, designed some marketing materials, designed an iPhone app icon and launch page, designed and fabricated an adjustable backrest for my bike, and repaired a customer’s bike. One thing I can say for certain is that it hasn’t been boring!

This entire time however, I’ve been staring at a folder full of really cool photos I took back in March that I’ve been dying to add to my free grahics on the website. I just haven’t been able to get to it.
My goal for the weekend is to process at least a handful of the photos and post for everyone to download. Look for at least a couple new ones tomorrow and maybe a few more on Sunday unless things go completely sideways on me over the next couple days, which has been known to happen!

I’m also planning to post some progress pics of the Sportster as well as the backrest prototype. If all goes well, I’ll have those online by Sunday.

Until then, have a happy happening, keep the rubber on the road and your mouse on the pad!
- J