Kooji Creative

They are inviting various creative types, across a broad range of specialism’s to join what they are calling a “Collective”.

A pool of multi-disciplined freelancers whom can call upon each other to collaborate on various projects when/if the need arises.

I think it’s a nice idea so I’ve added myself to the “Collective”.

You can find out more about what they are doing at www.koojicreative.com.

Shhh… we’ll turn a blind eye to their non-accessible, Flash website… just this once mind. ;-)

Jack Ryan Taylor

This is just a quick blog to say thank you to all our well wishers. I’ve been overwhelmed by all the “congratulations” I’ve received.

It was my birthday on the 22nd, and we thought that Jack would arrive then, but instead he decided he wanted his own birthday and hung on for another hour to make sure of it. :-)

He’s perfect and such a content baby, and he’s tiny! We thought he would be small but 6lb 6oz is smaller than we expected, not that my wife is complaining mind.

I have uploaded some pictures of him to Flickr for you guys to have a look at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ryanjtaylor/sets/72157609989846634/

Allow me to draw your attention to this picture in particular which I just think is hilarious:

James holding Jack

James is the “larger” baby and he’s only 16 weeks old! He looks like he should be starting school already compared to Jack.

Anyway, what more can I say but thanks again to everyone who has wished use well and joined us in welcoming my boy into the world. I love being a Dad!

Me, my wife Michelle and baby Jack

Arty shot of me and Paul traversing the Southampton wilderness...

Collecting Anna (Boagworld Technician) on route of course, all in all it was great fun and a chance to see Headscapes current setup, as they’re about to move offices to an amazing looking barn conversion. Hopefully we’ll be able to see that next time.

Also cool was meeting some of the Headscape developers who are also going to Future of Web Apps so an ideal opportunity to hang out with them a bit more.

Anyway this is just a short post to say a big thank you to Paul and Marcus for having us and link to the show for those who are interested…

Boagworld: Show 138. Q&A

OK, I’ve not written one of the six page spreads’ whose titles adorn the front cover (yet), but I am very proud to appear in the Readers’ Sites showcase on page 16. I’ve come across some great designers in this section since I’ve been reading .net and it humbles me to appear alongside them.

My slot in the readers sites showcase

I wrote:

Havoc Inspired is the home of my personal blog and portfolio and has just undergone a major redesign conforming to web standards throughout. My aim has been to link all my online personas into one central hub, giving visitors small snippets of what’s going on in my life as they move through the site. The blog is powered by Movable Type using my own templates, CSS, PHP and jQuery for elements such as the Ajax comments and preview. I used a neon brush set in Photoshop to achieve the flame effect and experimented with gradients and filters for the background texture that is designed to pull your focus towards the centre of the site.

Thanks .net people for including me!

What Annoys Me

There are a few minor things and one major thing that annoy me about the iPhone 3G.

The Headphones

I like that you can start/stop music from the headphones lead as well as pick up/hang up calls. This is great for me while driving (nice hands free) or just out and about. I can listen to music/audiobooks, and pick up a call with ease.

What annoys me is that the headphones sound quality is just OK. I have some Sennheiser headphones that I used for my Creative Zen that are fantastic quality however if I use them with my iPhone, I lose the lead control!

Unless Sennheiser, or someone equally as good, build a set of headphones specifically for the iPhone, I can’t really see a solution to this problem, unless of course Apple make better quality headphones or a set of better quality ones as an additional accessory of course.

No Bookmarking for Audio Files

I listen to audio books, a majority of which are from audible. Audible use a file format called .aa which auto bookmarks from the last point you stopped the file, so turn off your iPhone or move on to listen to something else entirely and when you go back to the file it will play from where you last left off. Great!

However, what if you have an audiobook that isn’t from audible, and isn’t a .aa file. You listen for an hour, turn off your iPhone and then have to fast forward to your last point to carry on! Very annoying!

My Creative Zen has the option to bookmark any audio file at any point, which is a feature I really liked and used a lot. Unfortunately this isn’t available on an iPhone/iPod. :-(

Occasionally Sluggish

Go too fast, for example trying to fly down my contact list as soon as it loads, and more often than not I get lag. The iPhone just seems to freeze for a couple of seconds. I’ve had this kind of problem happen for no apparent reason as well. Like half way through dialling a number on the keypad and then when it springs back to life I get a series of additional 4’s added to my number due to me repeatedly hitting that key with no response!

I’ve found it best to load an app, wait a second for it to catch it’s breath then continue…

Hopefully this will be fixed in a software update in the future.

The Battery!

This is seen way too often for my liking.

And I know other people are annoyed by this as well. I would expect my iPhone to last at least a day on a single charge! But unfortunately I’m lucky to make it home with 10% life left.

Maybe it’s me, maybe I’m just playing with it too much, but isn’t that the reason to have an iPhone, to use its features day to day?

It amused me when I found this list of recommendations on the Apple website over reserving battery life:

• Minimize use of location services: Applications that actively use location services such as Maps may reduce battery life. To disable location services, go to Settings > General > Location Services or use location services only when needed.
• Fetch new data less frequently: Applications such as Mail can be set to fetch data wirelessly at specific intervals. The more frequently email or other data is fetched, the quicker your battery may drain. To fetch new data manually, from the Home screen choose Settings > Fetch New Data and tap Manually. To increase the fetch interval, go to Settings > Fetch New Data and tap Hourly. Note that this is a global setting and applies to all applications that do not support push services.
• Turn off push mail: If you have a push mail account such as Yahoo!, MobileMe or Microsoft Exchange, turn off push mail when you don’t need it. Go to Settings > Fetch New Data and set Push to Off. Messages sent to your push email accounts will now be received on your phone based on the global Fetch setting rather than as they arrive.
• Auto-check fewer email accounts: You can save power by checking fewer email accounts. This can be accomplished by turning off an email account or by deleting it. To turn off an account, go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars, choose an email account, and set Account to Off. To remove an account, go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars, choose an email account, and tap Delete Account.
• Minimize use of third-party applications: Excessive use of applications such as games that prevent the screen from dimming or shutting off or applications that use location services can reduce battery life.
• Turn off Wi-Fi: If you rarely use Wi-Fi, you can turn it off to save power. Go to Settings > Wi-Fi and set Wi-Fi to Off. Note that if you frequently use your iPhone to browse the web, battery life may be improved by using Wi-Fi instead of cellular data networks.
• Turn off Bluetooth: If you rarely use a Bluetooth headset or car kit, you can turn off Bluetooth to save power. Go to Settings > General > Bluetooth and set Bluetooth to Off.
• Use Airplane Mode in low- or no-coverage areas: Because your iPhone always tries to maintain a connection with the cellular network, it may use more power in low- or no-coverage areas. Turning on Airplane Mode can increase battery life in these situations; however, you will be unable to make or receive calls. To turn on Airplane Mode, go to Settings and set Airplane Mode to On.
• Adjust brightness: Dimming the screen is another way to extend battery life. Go to Settings > Brightness and drag the slider to the left to lower the default screen brightness. In addition, turning on Auto-Brightness allows the screen to adjust its brightness based on current lighting conditions. Go to Settings > Brightness and set Auto-Brightness to On.
• Turn off EQ: Applying an equalizer setting to song playback on your iPhone can decrease battery life. To turn EQ off, go to Settings > iPod > EQ and tap Off. Note that if you’ve added EQ to songs directly in iTunes, you’ll need to set EQ on iPhone to Flat in order to have the same effect as Off because iPhone keeps your iTunes settings intact. Go to Settings > iPod > EQ and tap Flat.
• Turn off 3G: Using 3G cellular networks loads data faster, but may also decrease battery life, especially in areas with limited 3G coverage. To disable 3G, from the Home screen choose Settings > General > Network and set Enable 3G to Off. You will still be able to make and receive calls and access cellular data networks via EDGE or GPRS where available.

So basically Apples recommendation to reserve battery life on the iPhone is to turn it off and not use it. 300 hours standby my ass Apple.

Conclusion

So yes I have a few annoyances with the iPhone, do I regret getting it?

Of course not. It’s the best phone I’ve ever had and I love using it. The number of times it’s come in handy over the last couple of weeks are uncountable. The battery life is a big letdown, but hopefully Apple will address this issue in the next version?

What have your experiences been like with the iPhone 3G?

O2 servers go down the toilet!

I had just clicked the Place Order button at around 8.45am when O2’s servers went down. Infuriating!

Two hours later they come back up and I tried again. It kept failing to take the payment from my card. It took me two Visas and three Credit Cards repeatedly failing until I eventually got my order to go through. What a shambles. Come on O2, surely you must have been expecting and dare I say, preparing for a rush like this?

I’m actually moving from Orange to O2, and I’ve never had any problems with Orange so I hope this isn’t a sign of things to come with O2, and that it’s just an unprecedented demand for the iPhone2.0.

It makes me wonder how many they actually had in stock.

So who actually managed to get an order through?

The iPhone2.0 has sold out at O2.

My mind set before

iPhone 3G

Before I became a web designer/developer I was a PC technician. I’d never even touched a Mac, or used Linux for anything more than the most basic commands.

I like (and still use as my primary computer) PC’s. I know them, I’m comfortable with them and when they break I know where to kick them to get them working again.

So what has changed?

That’s a question I’m still grappling with, but I have noticed this change occurring with the way I approach everything recently.

It’s changed in the way I code. Once upon a time I would never have dreamed of using a framework such as Zend, cakePHP or the PEAR packages. That’s cheating I would say. But now I do…

I would never have considered using a javaScript library, how do you learn if you don’t do everything from scratch? But now I’m an avid supporter of jQuery, it’s fantastic!

I went on some training for Linux not so long back and now I have a Linux box sat next to me that I use for development.

And what about Mac’s? Well I’m still not convinced on how I personally will benefit from using one. I think what has always put me off about Mac’s are “Mac evangelists”. Apple seems to have this cult of passionate, preaching, followers who will happily beat you over the head with Mac keyboard until you believe! (it’s the same reason I don’t like football), which is a real shame because instead of just letting the technology speak for itself, it’s being rammed down your throat by it’s fans and I can tell you now, if you complain about that statement, you are one!

But like with everything else my view point is starting to change and I’m starting to become more open minded.

Overall I think this change is due to time. I don’t have enough time now days. And I seem to be constantly looking for ways to make my life easier and save me time.

The iPhone

Conveniently my mobile contract is coming to an end, so when I realised the iPhone 2.0 was being released at the same time; I started looking into it more. And I think most people agree that this version looks fantastic! Although I have heard people bitching and moaning about the camera, but does it really matter? Or is it just something for people to bitch and moan about? I’m personally not bothered about it. I’ve never had a phone with a decent camera anyway.

The idea of having a single device that I can get all my e-mails on, access the internet, phone from, use GPS, watch video, listen to music etc, etc, is very appealing and not only is it cool, I think it will make me more efficient.

The keynote from Apple just made me want one even more and has even made me consider getting a Mac just so I can develop apps for the iPhone and when I received my iPhone update the other day from O2, I got giddy.

Roll on 11^th July! I can’t wait.

Harry Nightingale - Born 17/06/2008

By the way, that .5oz is very important apparently, it has meant the “weight guessing contest” money pot is being split two ways!

He’s a little cutey. Only 12 hours old in these pictures. Mother and baby are both very well.

Congratulations to Robert and Vicky on their new arrival.