May 2011
3 posts
February 2011
3 posts
X
December 2010
1 post
November 2010
5 posts
WONDER-TONIC: TSA Announces Facebook Integration... →
wondertonic:
John Pistole, the head of the Transportation Security Administration, announced yesterday that full body scanners at airports across the nation will be seamlessly integrated with Facebook next month, allowing travelers to save, tag, and share their near-naked security photos with friends,…
September 2010
1 post
August 2010
6 posts
1 tag
Mihow.com - Hope. →
Some exciting news, and a helluva story!
2 tags
Automating partitioning, sharding and failover... →
Sweetness.
July 2010
12 posts
1 tag
Inception Explained in Code →
This is… special.
3 tags
I Hate Updating My Apps
Updating apps via iTunes is the clunkiest workflow, ever. Spread out all over the screen, we have to deal with dialogue boxes, text links in the lower right corner, buttons in the upper right corner, centered prompts for email and password (for free updates?!?)…
Apple, this should be invisible, automatic. Drives me nuts…
Scala Lift Off →
Can’t wait for the NYC venue to be announced and registration to open.
NPR on Neighborgoods →
Congrats to Micki!
1 tag
True 8-bit Color Cycling with HTML5 →
When you see this kind of demo, you know a technology is just about to explode. It’s part of the lifecycle, people.
2 tags
lift_sbt_prototype - GitHub →
This makes bootstrapping new Lift prototypes super easy.
1 tag
Simplifying
Last night I moved everything from my blog VM to Tumblr. Sorry to all my followers and feed subscribers for the mass-import.
February 2010
6 posts
2 tags
ChatSnapper - Alpha
Here’s a quick idea I threw together after posting my thoughts on ChatRoulette and ChatRouletiquette. No Sparkle support, no image upload support, and no preferences – yet.
What is ChatSnapper?
ChatSnapper lets you view ChatRoulette in a dedicated window and use the Apple+S command (aka, “Save”) to save a screenshot to your computer. It will save to your ~/Desktop in the most...
4 tags
ChatRoulette, Elevators, and Panopticons
My wife and I – and millions of others, I’m sure – are continually annoyed by folks who walk up to elevators and press buttons already lit.
Though not a new phenomenon, we think we have a solution.
If pressing a lit elevator button were to cancel the call and simply send the machine to the nearest floor in the current direction, there would be a penalty to pressing it more than once....
3 tags
On Storytelling
Sure, it’s Chip Kidd’s nightmare and neglects entire sub-genres of modern literature, but to me, the relative homogenization of story formats on the Kindle is great. It’s making me read more often and with less prejudice.
I’ve often wondered about the gap between the story an author creates and the experience had by readers. I’m not thinking of the changes that come...
2 tags
Wonder Bread iPhone App
I know, I know – I’m a hater. I can’t help it. Thinking of the cash and mental energy spent building inevitable flops like the new Wonder Bread Sandwich Wonder-izer makes me cringe.
Certainly, I’ve contributed my fair share of aesthetic pollution/terrorism during a lucrative and decorated career in interactive marketing, and if I end up starting my own shop, I’ll likely...
1 tag
Too Much Buzz!
Today, Google launched a new product, Google Buzz, which is being touted as a Facebook killer, Twitter killer, and probably the killer of a few other things.
If the name – or functionality – sounds familiar, it’s because at least two other companies have launched (basically) the same service using the same name.
Yahoo! has Yahoo! Buzz along with status message integration into Yahoo!...
2 tags
Amazon vs Apple Has Gone Too Far
I received a message from Amazon this morning letting me know that the Kindle Developer Kit application process was ready for the general public. I clicked the link and was taken to the KDK site, only to be told that Safari isn’t supported.
Amazon was nice enough to give me a link to download Internet Explorer, so at least their user agent sniffing is tuned to perfection!
January 2010
2 posts
1 tag
Marketing the iPad
Overall, I think the iPad is an interesting device and once the dust settles I think the price point will be attractive for a supplement to our “main” computers. The iPad will fill a spot for people who consume more than they create – a large audience, for sure, and one most of us fit into depending on context and day-part.
One criticism I have is the name. Many, many others have...
3 tags
Kindle vs Apple iPad
Many have chimed in, ahead of the Apple tablet announcement, on whether the new Apple device will be a “Kindle killer”
I don’t believe this will be the case. It’s not so much about the pros and cons of e-ink, backlights, or screen resolution.
To me, the Kindle DX is a brilliant device because it forces me to read a f’ing book.
No dock icons blinking. No...
October 2009
1 post
1 tag
I Am the Former CTO of The Barbarian Group
I don’t have a big announcement drafted, but if you are a friend or colleague who uses my Barbarian Group email address, please switch over to my tobyjoe.com address.
Today is my last day at the most fun, creative, weird, and politically-incorrect digital advertising agency in the world. Everything is mutual, long-planned, and awesome. It’s been hard keeping a secret for the past...
August 2009
11 posts
3 tags
Cartilage: A Monk Skeleton for DataMapper
I created a skeleton for MonkRb that leverages DataMapper and, of course, Sinatra.
Check it out: Cartilage.
Add it to your Monk set up with the monk command.
monk add cartilage git://github.com/tobyjoe/cartilage.git
Once it’s added, create a new project with the monk init command.
monk init --skeleton=cartilage myapp
Once that is done, freeze all the dependencies.
dep vendor...
3 tags
Lazybones: A Monk Skeleton for CouchDB and Sinatra
I created a skeleton for MonkRb that leverages CouchDB and Sinatra.
You can find the project over at GitHub.
Check it out: Lazybones.
Add it to your Monk set up with the monk command.
monk add lazybones git://github.com/tobyjoe/lazybones.git
Once it’s added, create a new project with the monk init command.
monk init --skeleton=lazybones myapp
Once that is done, freeze all the...
3 tags
UX in Bed
One of the questions I ask when working on a new project is, “Where will people use this?”
The question is obvious for mobile projects because highly variable environments are par for the course. It matters with all non-stationary touch points, though – from door handles on train cars to Android applications to the work we’ll surely be seeing from the new Schematic Touch...
2 tags
Building Erlang on Snow Leopard
The macports install of CouchDB requires Erlang (naturally) and Erlang requires WxWidgets and Tk, which are probably pointless for most uses, and won’t compile on 10.6.
Here is a patch for the Erlang Portfile that will let you build on pre-GM 10.6.
Save the patch to ~/Desktop/erlang.diff
Patching icu
You might also have to patch icu. To test, run:
sudo port install icu
If it errors,...
2 tags
Microsoft Deprecating IE6 the Right Way
I am pretty far from a Microsoft fanboy. In fact, most of what MS produces scares, worries, and downright nauseates me: UX, security, maintainability, compatibility…
Still, I like two things about this blog post about their Office web apps.
First, I like that they are officially focusing on (admittedly, a subset of) modern browsers for their very dynamic web apps. Developers and...
3 tags
My iPhone User Experience Book!
It’s shorter than I would have liked, and took longer to write, but it’s nice to have it in my hands.
You can buy it at Amazon.
2 tags
Renewed Interest in Rails
I like a lot of Leo Laporte’s podcasts and listen to a few of them regularly: TWiT, MacBreak Weekly, Security Now, and FLOSS.
I killed a good chunk of time at the bus station listening to an episode of FLOSS featuring David Heinemeier Hansson. For those not in the know, he’s the very bright and ambitious gent behind the Ruby on Rails framework.
FLOSS stands for “Free, Libre,...
3 tags
Don't Stop Supporting IE6
Planning to drop support for IE 6? Instead, redefine “support” and stay positive.
Yes, creating cross-browser experiences can be painful when support for Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) is required. There are dozens of hacks to get around certain issues, and it is possible to design experiences that are functionally identical on IE6 and more modern browsers. It may mean designers don’t have...
1 tag
Wildly Successful AR Ads for Best Buy
Out of 43 million copies of their circular, 6500 people interacted with their AR print campaign. Wow.
Who wouldn’t jump on a goofy bandwagon to get those kinds of numbers? Engagement rates of 0.00015% are a sure sign this Flash-based AR thing is going to take off. Or am I reading that wrong?
Read more on Flash-based AR in advertising.
3 tags
Social Media = Advertising Honeypot
Brands are obsessed with “going where the conversation is happening” or “going where users live” these days. Ad rags give advice for using Twitter to clueless marketing types. Every ad campaign has a checklist of touch points on the “social” web. Every RFP demands an itemized list of social networks that will be a part of the campaign. Twitter is the new Flash...