Right now this is some of the stuff I’ve been doing and more will be coming after I get moved in and get to bang some ideas out.

So here goes, I’m sitting in a room watching people being tested on an iPad app and finding out they have no fucking idea what they’re wanting in an app. They want a lot of unreal shit that would really relate to no one else but them. One guys wants it to be a concierge this lady wants it to do her itinerary for her with menus and public transportation.

I started using Dropbox this spring for my contract job with Holiday Inn. I couldn’t get my mac to connect with their servers and was dependent on passing a jump drive to someone to copy onto the local servers. I signed up for the free account which is 2 gig and is plenty for doing web design work. My coworkers signed up and then we all started sharing our folder amongst each other. Since it’s web based, people were able to go home and set up dropbox on their home computers and access the files without having to remember to put them on a flash drive and then replace them when they got back to work. Since I’m working on a laptop and things can happen, I used this as a backup just in case something should happen to my laptop after work.

Now begins a tale of how this method save my sanity. I’ve been working on a 43 page document while I’ve been driving cross country with my wife. The other morning I was up early and decided to get onto the internet to check my bank account and while I was doing that, my files were saving in the background to dropbox. When I finished, I closed my laptop and headed back to the room from the lobby where I was having my coffee. When I pulled my computer out, I discovered it was really warm and had shut itself down, this happens once in a while. So restarted it and when I went to open my document, it was corrupted and wouldn’t open. At this point, panic set in because I didn’t want to spend 6 hrs redoing everything again.

It was at this point I remembered I had been on the internet and dropbox should have synced. So I went back to the lobby and logged on the dropbox website. Right there in the history, I saw where the file had been synced that morning and I was given the option to restore the file. Of course I want to restore the file! After I hit ok to restore the file, my dropbox folder started syncing and put the file back to the way it was. I opened it and everything was working the way it was before. What more could you want for free?

Now that the iPad is out, there are magazines beginning to appear. The only one I’ve purchased is the new Wired edition because it seemed to have the most potential. I wasn’t disappointed with my purchase. That said, I don’t plan on making regular purchases if the price stays at $4.99 especially since I have a subscription to the print edition.

The magazine is enjoyable to read and has some nice features. Some things I like are product reviews that allow you to click the item and read about it. The interactive feature showing mars and the timeline is quite a good start. The best ads just place a commercial to view with in the ad. It’s a quick start but I hope they become more immersive experience to learn about their product.

I haven’t gotten any other magazines because the reviews tend to be negative because the app is just a PDF of the magazine. As of right now, Apple has sold 2 million iPads. With more companies getting on the tablet bandwagon, I think magazines are going to do more with both experience and pricing if their going to deliver onto the tablets.

Today was the last day for Emma and her charter school. Picture was taken on the iPhone using Hipstamatic.

It’s been quite a while so all the old posts have been trashed and we’re starting fresh. Look for more posts coming soon.