Freitag

Build The Rocket First

Mon, 07 May 2012 09:29:23 -0400

Wrote an a new post on the MetaLab blog about how we bootstrapped Flow:

…

We slept in our beds, not under our desks.

At MetaLab, everyone is responsible for their own schedule. No bunk beds in the office or ramen-fueled overnight programming melees. We usually clock between four and six hours a day, and most of us don’t even get to the office before noon. We believe in working smart, not hard, and having lives outside the office. It might sound wimpy, but it’s working.

Of all of the important points he makes, this is the one that hits home the most for me. My schedule, especially in this field, has always been dictated by my creativity. Some people understand that. Most people don’t. Just because you want me at the office from 8am until 5pm, doesn’t mean that’s when my creative thinking begins and ends. As an employer, you’re literally paying for my down cycles because you insist on a factory-style work day.

"Here’s the thing about jokes. They only work when they’re aiming up. I wrote this in another piece..."

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 11:27:35 -0400

“Here’s the thing about jokes. They only work when they’re aiming up. I wrote this in another piece recently, but I’m just going to plagiarize myself: People in positions of power simply cannot make jokes at the expense of the powerless. That’s why, at a company party, you never have a roast where the CEO is roasting the janitor (“Isn’t it funny how Steve can barely feed his family? This guy knows what I’m talking about!” [points to other janitor]). Because that would be GROSS, and both janitors would have to work late to clean up everyone’s barf. Open-mic comedians, I know you think you’re part of some fresh vanguard in alternative comedy who just discovered that a lot of black ladies don’t like it when you touch their hair, but pleeeeeeease just stick to stuff about how your stupid girlfriend is a bitch. (Just kidding. Please never speak again.)”

- A Complete Guide to ‘Hipster Racism’
(via npr)

What a great read.

agenttoast: I’ve noticed that a lot of apps lately don’t have a...

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 15:02:56 -0400

agenttoast:

I’ve noticed that a lot of apps lately don’t have a ‘confirm password’ box on their registration pages. This is fairly surprising considering that more phones are touch-only which can enable mistakes to be made more easily.

My money is on all of the evidence that people just copy/paste the text from the first field to the next. So if a mistake was made, it was made twice.

Amazon changed their layout a little today exposing their left...

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 11:34:59 -0400

Amazon changed their layout a little today exposing their left menu. The element has a drop shadow and it makes me think there’s content under that element. However, it’s not collapsable. Seems odd.

At no point do I remember any communication from Comcast that my...

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:05:00 -0400

At no point do I remember any communication from Comcast that my service was capped. Only today after reading Reed Hastings’ rant on Facebook did I look into this. When did they do it? Did they just change the terms of my service on the fly? Or is this now more honest than it was before?

Not that I need 250GB (yet), but I find this data-capping business deplorable. Glad I didn’t plunk down for a new Apple TV with 1080p movies. Watch a few trailers, movies and TV shows at 1080p and I’d hit that 250GB.

True Story

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 17:17:10 -0400

A conversation between me and my 6-year-old son on our way home from Home Depot.

Me: I’m going to need your help putting this grill together.

The Boy: For real?

Me: Yes, for real.

The Boy: That sounds really hard.

Me: Well it may be but that’s what makes it so rewarding when it’s done.

The Boy: Have you ever put a grill together by yourself before?

Me: As a matter of fact I have. When I got my very first grill I put it together all by myself.

The Boy: Well then you should be able to put this one together by yourself.

‘Paper’ for iPad

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 15:34:42 -0400

‘Paper’ for iPad:

cameronmoll:

There are so many things right about this app.

I couldn’t agree more. I’ve been using this for 1 day. One, single day. And it has already made a significant difference in the way I approach my work. Sketching done right.

Quick Tip for Streaming Video on iPad with LTE

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 14:10:23 -0400

On my old iPad, I watched a lot of Netflix over the Verizon 3G connection. The video looked good enough and I never even got close to my 1GB data cap. But with the new iPad and LTE, Netflix automatically chooses to stream a higher resolution to you based on your much faster speed. The video looks much better but you’ll hit that 1GB in about an hour. This is not only true for Netflix but for most streaming video services. They’ll send you the resolution they think meets your bandwidth.

Turn off LTE. It’s as simple as that. LTE is great for many things but video streaming is a gotcha that Verizon and AT&T hope you won’t notice. If you transfer a 20MB file to Dropbox on LTE or 3G, it doesn’t matter; it’s still only 20MB. But video streaming is completely different. Don’t fall into that trap. Don’t be a video snob and fork out more money to the carriers who damn-well knew this was going to happen when LTE networks started lighting up. This was a carefully planned move on their part to introduce tiered-data pricing while we were still using 3G. They loved to tout how most people would never come close to 2GB of use.

With LTE, that’s simply not true. I’ve had my iPad for 5 days. On Sunday I let my son stream some episodes of SpongeBob through Netflix. I’m at 765MB already. I’m glad I thought to look up my usage before I went over.

To turn off LTE, go to Settings > Cellular Data and switch off LTE. After about a minute you’ll be bumped back to 3G and then you can stream video for a very long time before hitting 1GB or 2GB. And it looks fine.

Hacking is Important

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 15:03:00 -0400

Hacking is Important:

I believe that I was on the right track in my early web career; choosing to learn to write my own code rather than utilize a WYSWYG editor. That decision proved to be invaluable to my career growth. While I’m very good at HTML and CSS, I’m terrible at Javascript.

I no longer work in static web design. The projects I’m working on are all software delivered through a web browser and the interactions in software are much more complex than anything I ever needed earlier in my career. Wireframes, mockups and static documentation are not cutting it anymore. If I want to present clear ideas to product managers and software engineers, I must be able to tell a more complete story that is alive and breathing, clickable and interactive. I need to be able to write and understand Javascript, in all of its flawed glory. I’m not sure how much deeper I need to dive as a user experience designer but if I must dive deeper then I will. The most important thing to remember is that I care more about the experience than product managers, software engineers, systems architects, or even quality assurance engineers. It is my job to help make that experience great. If I care about the experience then I must help create it.

via daringfireball.net

Zap your brain into the zone: Fast track to pure focus

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 13:33:31 -0500

Zap your brain into the zone: Fast track to pure focus:

Then this happened:

The 20 minutes I spent hitting targets while electricity coursed through my brain were far from transcendent. I only remember feeling like I had just had an excellent cup of coffee, but without the caffeine jitters. I felt clear-headed and like myself, just sharper. Calmer. Without fear and without doubt. From there on, I just spent the time waiting for a problem to appear so that I could solve it.

Scary and exciting. I would love to experience this kind of time with focus waiting in the wings.

tballardbrown: I WANT THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!! thrillist: An Aston...

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 15:32:41 -0500

tballardbrown:

I WANT THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

thrillist:

An Aston Martin with machine guns attached to it.

Mac OS X Versions to the rescue! I knew that Versions would...

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:36:21 -0500

Mac OS X Versions to the rescue!

I knew that Versions would allow you to restore a document to a previous state but I had no idea that you could also copy elements out of an old version and paste into your current document. I haven’t really used Versions because I rarely need to scrap my work and go back to a previous version of a document. But I often overwrite something I was working on and wish I could go back and get elements from my previous document. What a pleasant discovery.

The Words I Was Searching For

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:33:44 -0500

Here it is! My major complaint with Android, found in a blog post about Windows Phone 7. People that buy Android phones think they’re getting stuff done when, in reality, they’re just tinkering with all of the options and tweaking everything. It never ends. Never.

FTA - “I soon realised that my geeky 11-year old self would have hated this phone. There are almost no options to play with. You can change the “accent colour” in the UI. That’s about it. Maybe this is a problem in that the techy early adopter crowd won’t really appreciate the phone and thus recommend it to their less geeky friends. However, the busy 27 year old me appreciates this. This phone has good defaults. It just worked, and I didn’t have to worry about messing around with it.”

http://j0ejack.tumblr.com/post/15266867277/december-with-the-nokia-lumia-800

(via Daring Fireball)

Beer. And crayons. (Taken with Instagram at California Pizza...

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 15:13:00 -0500

Beer. And crayons. (Taken with Instagram at California Pizza Kitchen)

It’s true that the 4S isn’t a 4G phone. But neither...

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 04:38:00 -0500

It’s true that the 4S isn’t a 4G phone. But neither is the Atrix 4G, Galaxy S2 4G, nor Inspire 4G. Apple isn’t lying yet they have the best speed out of all of them. And, yes, I’ve tested them all. The iPhone consistently gets the best speeds and I believe it’s due to the relationship between Apple and AT&T. For some reason, AT&T brands these other phones as 4G even though they really mean HSPA+. But Apple wouldn’t go there and Phil Schiller said as much when they launched the 4S. Yet somehow people are disappointed that the iPhone isn’t 4G, even though it’s faster than any non-LTE phone in AT&T’s stable.

Also, compare this speed with a true LTE-phone on Verizon.

"Those who are going to be over 21 on November 12th, I ask for your support."

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 00:11:49 -0500

“Those who are going to be over 21 on November 12th, I ask for your support.”

- GOP presidential contender Rick Perry, misstating the U.S. voting age, which is 18. Also, the 2012 election is on November 6. (via officialssay)
Good ol’ Rick Fuckyeah Perry. The guy needs to do another line with G.W.

"…the censors were crawling out of the woodwork and challenging, like it’s our turn now, and..."

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 12:45:48 -0500

“

…the censors were crawling out of the woodwork and challenging, like it’s our turn now, and we’re going to say what we don’t want our children to read.

But I think it’s more than that. It’s what we don’t want our children to know, what we don’t want to talk to our children about; and if they read it, they’ll know it, or they’ll question it.

”

- - Judy Blume on the rise of censorship in school libraries over the last several decades. (via npr)

I see this now more clearly than I’ve ever seen it before. Now that my oldest is in public school, I am interacting with more parents and what I see is a group of people determined to believe their children will be children forever.

A Big Change

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 19:06:37 -0500

I let my hosting plan run out today. This is the first time in 12 years that I am not paying to have my domain hosted and it’s all due to the fantastic tools that people have developed over the last few years. I believe that custom domain names still look professional and I’m using custom DNS with my domains to point to online tools.

chrisfreitag.com

Tumblr hosts my personal blog. They have their moments but I’ve been mostly happy with the service. It’s a relief to not have to keep updating my Wordpress site to the latest software. Truth is, I’m not very back-end savvy and I can’t even remember how I set it up back in 2006. I don’t have a clue what my password for my database was. It was something I fumbled through and didn’t really understand. I’d say that probably speaks to about 90% of Wordpress installations.

creativefriday.com

Krop hosts my portfolio and resume. They have done a fantastic job making a good looking site with excellent tools for displaying creative work. I completely feel at home when I’m at Krop. I’m really going to put some effort into getting some side work and I will happily point people to my Krop.com profile.

A Few Concerns

There is a little bit of fear this. I used to use my hosted site to upload web pages that I created for clients so they could preview a live version. The next time I create a site for someone, I’m going to try the built-in web server on OS X and just host the site right on my iMac at home. I also used my FTP client to upload large files to my server. Dropbox will take over here, easily. And, I had an area walled off for family and friends to see photos of my kids. I’m not sure what my answer is for this yet. Flickr sucks because I have to force all of my family and friends to sign up with Flickr so I can add them as friends and they can see my private photos. What I wish Flickr allowed me to do is create a link that can be accessed by anyone with the link, just like YouTube. I really haven’t found a good service for sharing photos and videos privately.

The DNS is still propagating so my sites may not load correctly for a few more days. I notice that if I slap a www in the front of the domain name that the site has a better chance of loading. But it’s all starting to come together and I think everything will be working right by the end of the week.

From the Grave

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 15:58:55 -0500

From the Grave:

I started disliking Flash around 2004 when I realized how much of a usability problem it presented. My disdain really grew strong in 2005 and by 2006, I was dead set against the use of it for any reason. I know many people disagree with my stance but I feel there are far better options for almost every reason people give for using Flash. The only one worth noting is games. But I’m sure we’ll survive.

John Gruber of Daring Fireball linked to Steve’s “Thoughts on Flash” piece written in April of 2010. If I remember correctly, he also said something along the lines of “Flash is a dead technology” when he was participating in an Apple town-hall meeting. Steve saw it for what it was. And, finally, Adobe saw it too. Flash and Silverlight only stand in the way today. There are whispers that Microsoft may end Silverlight development. Flash’s future may be in creating apps for mobile platform app stores and have nothing to do with the web.

Maybe now restaurant chains will stop using it and just get me to their friggin’ menu.

My son drew this in his kindergarten class. It is 100% accurate.

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 10:02:47 -0500

My son drew this in his kindergarten class. It is 100% accurate.