October 24, 2010

Flipboard for iPad

Flipboard for iPad masthead
As I finish re-tooling my new design for bradmccall.com, I’m finding how much less I want to “blog” about design in the typical sense of the word. There are some great designers out there who do that full time and have refined it down to a science. That’s not me. I’ve decided that I’m going to use my blog “zone” as a format for sharing things I’ve run across that inspire me.

Lately much of my inspiration has been linked to my new toy, Apple’s iPad.

After hearing that I had purchased an iPad, a coworker mentioned that I try Flipboard, an application that turns your Facebook, twitter, and other new streams into a new, more consumable format. After downloading it, I’ve found that I can hardly view my regular twitter stream in any other format versus the more compelling view that Flipboard has created. Just this simple “redesign” of information has inspired me to think of other things in my world that can be looked at in new ways. It’s a product where the aesthetic design and enjoyable interactions have clearly improved the experience.

Links:
Flipboard for iPad: www.flipboard.com
Apple iPad: www.apple.com/ipad

October 14, 2008

iPhone away!

So I thought it appropriate that I announce my new iPhone by posting a blog from it. So I downloaded the WordPress blog tool, then found out the code on my blog was outdated. After updating that, I came back and typed a post and then for some reason, the post or save buttons wouldn’t appear. So after some practice, and the realization that it’s not the most practical device for typing, here it is. Expect to hear more about my new “toy” in the future, I’ve already come across a couple things of interest.

August 31, 2008

Facebook and flippin’ houses

Flip in Utah masthead
So you might have noticed that my blog postings were somewhat sparse this year (for the 2 of you who follow it on a regular basis). Beyond not having much time to present my interesting findings, I’ve been busy flipping a house I purchased in January of this year. I blogged about it through most of the process, and now it’s just time to put up all the “after” pictures to enjoy what I came up with.

I’ve got to say I learned a lot in the process about many things that apply directly to being a freelance designer. While working with contractors, sub-contractors and people who I thought were “skilled” tradesmen in their respective fields I learned valuable lessons about being on the “client” side of things. Perhaps I’ll share those in a future post. I also enjoyed being creative in a format beyond my day-to-day job of doing UI design. Picking tile, wood floors, designing window woodwork, picking carpet, tearing down walls, etc. all provided a tactile experience that the design of software lacks. From that standpoint, I’d have to say the experience was an enjoyable one.

I also wanted to mentioned that I joined Facebook recently. I had been interested in some of their use of the latest-and-greatest technologies and wanted to keep track on what changes they make overtime. (Their growth rate has been phenomenal!) I’ve already found many people I know there, and have enjoyed exchanging messages through their internal email, or their “wall” functionality.

July 23, 2008

Losing the top spot on Google

I meant to mention this the other day when I Googled myself and found I had lost the top spot on Google’s search engine to a blog. (I question Google’s mixed relationship there, because it owns the blogging tool.), but today when I checked, I’ve even moved further down the line to be 5th. I’m talking about when you do a quote-less search for brad mccall. I’m number 4 when you add back in the quotes.

Yahoo’s still got me on top, so I’m good there, and so does MSN.

Perhaps it’s because of my lack of frequency of added material to the Daily Brad? Or my lack of mentioning my name – Brad McCall in my posts with relevant content? I’m number 2 when searching for “Daily Bread”, just beneath a site that I think has been using that phrase a lot longer than me, so that can’t be it. I’m still highly suspicious about Google’s blogs appearing on top, and then not in any of the other search engines. Conspiracy theories aside, I think Google may have it’s hands in too many pots to be unbiased any of them.

March 6, 2008

Rediscovering CSS – again.

I had an “ah-ha!” moment over the past couple days. CSS is awesome!

Perhaps it’s the fact that I’ve been so focused on the aesthetic design of websites for so long, and not how they’re engineered that I took CSS for granted? (I have always been able to surround myself with excellent programmers who’ve spoiled me.) So maybe the power of CSS hasn’t sunk in due to the fact that I’ve never gone in and tweaked it for myself?

But now I get it. CSS is awesome! (Did I say that?)

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