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Month In Review – 19.07.12
Written by Jon Phillips on July 19th 2012
Time for another Month in Review! Our publishers are a busy bunch and we have lots of great posts and articles to share.
Before we dive in you may want to know we’re still booking ad placements for August. Space is very limited but we still have some room, get in touch with us if you’d like to book a campaign. We also have some spots left on our other 2 networks; Ad Packs and Yoggrt.
Make Your Idea Better
This is so true.
There are few better ways to work out an idea than conversation with smart friends over good drinks. If you have the means, I highly recommend it.
Caw.
Everyday we learn new tips and tricks and it’s often the small details that make a huge difference. Apple understands this.
The Sketchnote Handbook: Update 6 – Manuscripts & Videos
The more I read about this book the more I believe it’ll be a huge success. I personally cannot wait to get my hands on it. The great news is that you can actually pre-order it, and that, is cool.
The Settlement Numbers App
This is a great article by David Sparks. I love how technology is changing how we handle things, even things as stressful and difficult as lawsuits and mediation. I’ve never really thought Apple’s Numbers app combined with the iPad could become such a useful tool in a settlement conference.
Technology to the rescue.
Updated iOS Application Icon Ai Template
Jon Hicks has just released an updated version of his iOS Application Icon Template for Illustrator. Grab it now, it’s worth it – it includes Retina sizes for the iPad 3.
An Obstacle Illusion
This article by Nate Croft is such a great one. Thought-provoking and eye-opening, that’s for sure. We often don’t realize that obstacles are usually there for a reason.
[…] if you’ve ever seen a road construction crew, you know that it takes forever for them to get started, and it’s the same thing for me when I consider a new path to my goals.
Explorations on Type
Of Responsive Images & Cute Puppies
In this article Sacha talks about the different situations and problems we face when it comes to using responsive images on the web and mobile devices. It makes you realize that in order to work and show the correct images to every possible user there is a truck-load of things you need to keep in mind.
Someone is Coming to Eat You
How long can they keep it up? I don’t know, but I do know that Apple believes the future is invented by the people who don’t give a shit about the past.
‘Nuff said.
How to use premailer as a command line script
Ever wanted to learn how to use premailer as a command line script? This tutorial by Peter Bengtsson will show you how. Bookmarked.
Real Life With Shawn Blanc
Matt Alexander from one37 interviews another Fusion publisher, Shawn Blanc. There’s so many excellent tips, advice and insights in this interview, I think you’ll have to read it yourself :)
Simpler
This is a short and to-the-point post by Mark Otto. I agree with absolutely everything there, especially the sentence that’s in bold.
Minimal Mac: What We Believe In
Just a couple weeks ago Minimal Mac released their “What We Believe In” eBook. It features some of the best writing published on Minimal Mac over the past 3 years and is available now for $5. Well worth it if you ask me.
Replying to App Store reviews
Boom!
When conversing privately, the dynamic is a bit different. The internet fuckwad syndrome more often goes into remission, because suddenly society’s social rules start to re-apply. Don’t call people out in public. Don’t lower yourself.
Smart Objects for PSD Slicing
This is a great tutorial video from Joel Glovier on Method & Craft.
Canon 40mm EF f/2.8 STM
Tim shares some issues a lot of folks with DSLRs are facing. Who wants to lug around a bunch of lenses and a bulky camera body (along with everything else you may bring with you)?
Boom. Get a smaller pancake lens and call it a day – and most importantly, you can keep enjoying your DSLR.
50 Things I’ve Learned About Publishing a Weblog
Shawn shares with us 50 things he’s learned about publishing a weblog. This post is full of great insights and tricks for those of you into blogging (or I should say ‘writing’).
Book Scanning
What an awesome idea. I love the whole ‘going paperless’ concept, and the example at the end of Fraser’s post shows that going 100% paperless is something that’s doable.
Fluid Type
Is there a font-size ceiling? That’s a very good question that Trent asks in his recent post titled ‘Fluid Type’. this post is definitely one you’ll want to read, re-read and bookmark.
It’s A Part-Time Gig; But A Full-Time Frustration
I’m sure a lot of independent publishers, writer, bloggers and even just any creative types will relate to this post.
When I think about the possibility of taking this whole writing/podcasting/consulting thing full-time, it freaks me the hell out. Taking the financial reins in my own hands seems too scary to ever actually do.
Does a client pay for responsive design?
I would be tempted to answer that question with a strong ‘yes’. I guess it depends on the project though.
An Ode to the Comments Section
FIRST!
If you’ve been an internet user for any number of years I’m sure this post will bring back some fond memories – maybe from the days Digg was still worth something.
Metamorphosis House in Chile
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Month In Review – 19.06.12
Written by Jon Phillips on June 19th 2012
Welcome to a new edition of our Month in Review series. Before we dive in I’d like you to join me in welcoming A Better Mess, Jeff Croft and Philip Singh to the Fusion Network.
If you’re an advertiser you may want to know we have limited availability in July on the Fusion Network — get in touch now to reserve a spot, they’re going fast! If you’d like to get a campaign started right away, there’s some room on our other 2 networks, Ad Packs and Yoggrt.
More Affordable International Data
Justin Williams gives us some great tips on travelling and working abroad and doing so while staying connected and not wasting all your hard-earned cash on cell phone bills and data plans.
Hack the Cover
Covers are dead! Really, this essay by Craig Mod is a must read for designers — actually it’s a must read no matter your profession.
This is an essay for book lovers and designers curious about where the cover has been, where it’s going, and what the ethos of covers means for digital book design.
Has adaptive design failed? Of course it bloody hasn’t.
I think we can all agree that adaptive design has not failed. In this article Elliot explains why and offers a great rebuttal to Peter Yared’s (of CBS Interactive) article about the topic. It’s articles, arguments and conversations like this that help shape the web of today and of tomorrow.
Don’t Be Scared, Change Things Up
Not only do I love these guys because of the humor they put into their posts and videos, but also because they give solid advice.
Is it better to live safely or to take big risks? I think it’s the latter. Risks keep you on your toes, give you something to believe in and energize you each day. I don’t want to wake up 5 years from now and say, “Why am I doing the exact same thing? This sucks…
Back Button Placement
Great quick conversation/reply post regarding the back button placement in iOS. I’ll side with Lukas on this one — definitely makes you rethink how you design apps and also made me open some of my favorite apps to see how they’ve done it and if they went with the ‘best practice’ — most did.
Home Screens – Fraser Speirs
The Home Screen posts on MacSparky are quite popular. Last week David had Fraser Speirs on board. Fraser shared his home screen and walked us through some of the apps he uses. It was great to see two Fusion publishers get together on this
Responsive Content is not a thing
Responsive Content is not a thing. It sure isn’t.
The output that we’re lacking at the moment are the fragments […] Content that travels around with a set of rules or meta data that will allow responsive design systems to make good use of them. But this does not make this content responsive. On its own, it’s pretty dumb […]
API Design
Matt Gemmell shares with us 25 rules of API design. A must bookmark for all of you developers out there.
apple ipad smart case review
This review of the new iPad Smart Case by Apple has to be the most honest and straight forward review I’ve read in a while. Thanks Andrew.
How I deal with deferred image loading in Javascript
Here’s a great way to do it. This quick tutorial by Peter Bengtsson went straight to my bookmarks.
Please Learn to Write
Well said, really well said!
Writing appears more forgiving because there is no compiler or interpreter catching your its/it’s issues or reminding you of the rules regarding that or which. Here’s the rub: there is a compiler and it’s fucking brutal. It’s your readers. Your readers are far more critical than the Python interpreter.
The Sketchnote Handbook: Update 5 – Promo Video and Final Cover Design
I can’t wait for this to be released.
Why Cheap Customers Cost More
Sacha explains and shares some thoughts on why cheap customers might cost more in the end. Solid post.
[…] it’s not that cheap people require more support. It’s that people who require more support are more likely to make their decision based on price alone.
Review: Reeder 3 for iPhone
What a detailed and in depth review. You. should. read. it. period.
Thoughts on Apple’s WWDC Announcements
Fraser Speirs shares some thoughts on the recent WWDC Announcements by Apple. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing what the future holds.
Collaboration
When an article starts with the following it is bound to be a great article:
If I could add a superpower to my web design skill-set, it wouldn’t be perma-inspiration or psychokinetic coding, but the ability to Vulcan mind meld clients.
Presenting: the Perfect Code Editor
We’re all looking for the perfect code editor. There’s a ton of apps, softwares and tools out there, but most of them don’t really cut it. Visual Idiot’s Perfect Code Editor is the bomb, have a look for yourself and be amazed — this is future-proof.
Social media buttons — make them better
Social sharing buttons have always been talked about and discussed online. Some people like them, some hate them (personally I’ve always been on the fence, 50/50). In this post James shares his own experience with sharing buttons .
Old Mac Of The Month: The Macintosh Plus
My first Mac was a Powerbook G4 (back in 2001 or so) so I’ve never had the chance to actually see one of those old Macintosh Plus. But I’m sure this picture will and the post will bring back some fond memories of this little beast of a Mac.
Crayon Portrait Sculptures By Diem Chau
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Fusion Ads + The Syndicate
Written by Matthew on May 23rd 2012
Just over a month ago I tweeted Marcelo at The Syndicate to see how we could work together. A phone call, multiple emails, and many instant message discussions later we knew that forming a partnership was a must.
The Syndicate has a simple guiding principle: the best way to promote what you do is through an interesting and unique story, handcrafted for your readers.
This is an idea we can buy into. We believe advertising can be beautiful.
Running a campaign across Fusion and The Syndicate provides the best opportunity available to reach web designers, developers, and creative thinkers across the world. This targeted audience can’t be found anywhere else.
Our new relationship comes with rewards:
Book a Fusion Ad monthly placement and a Syndicate weekly placement together and receive a 10% discount. Reach thousands of your new customers for only$3,600$3,240. -
Month In Review – 15.05.12
Written by Jon Phillips on May 15th 2012
A lot has happened since our last Month In Review!
First of all we added 3 new publishers to our network, 70Decibels, Peter Bengtsson and Behind Companies. Please join me in welcoming them to Fusion Ads!
Also, we are currently booking ad placements for June – places are limited so if you if you’ve been wanting to advertise your product or service on Fusion Ads, now is the time. Make sure you get in touch →
Did you know we also run 2 other similar ad networks over at Ad Packs and Yoggrt? There’s room there too!
Now let’s see what our publishers have been up to:
How We Operate – The Potential Client
The first of Noah’s “How We Operate” series. There’s already some great advice in the first article, we’ll be keeping an eye out the the next one.
Handy Shortcut – Email A Link With A Key Command
They say you learn something new everyday, right? Well that’s exactly what happened the other day when I read this quick OS X tip on the 47m blog.
Project Detritus
A modular approach, a good naming convention, and an reduction of element selectors can make it much easier to determine what is and isn’t being used on a project.
My New Book: The MacSparky Paperless Field Guide
A couple days ago David Sparks released his new book titled “The MacSparky Paperless Field Guide”. Get it now!
It’s Not Working For Me: #crit
Could not have said it better:
Design critique is not a place to be mean, but it’s also not the place to be kind. You’re not critiquing to make friends. Kind designers don’t say what they mean. ‘Kind’ is not about the work, and design critique exists to make us better, but mostly, it’s to make the work better.
Familiar is not a design
More people should design for humans and keep the context in mind. If your work involves designing, and I mean designing anything, please read this article.
Optimizing Graphics with CSS Masks
Excellent tutorial video about CSS masks by Aaron Bushnell on Method&Craft. Well worth watching.
Fuji X100 – the extended review
I personally love reviews that don’t get too technical and instead focus on the actual experience and feel of a device. After all, real world reviews are often much more useful then jargon-filled reviews – this post is what I’m talking about.
Improving Your Process: Contracts, Proposals, Scopes of Work, and Complacency
A great article by Jonathan Christopher about contracts, proposals and work.
A contract is something that shouldn’t be cookie cutter or boilerplate, it needs to support what you do and how you do it. It needs to accommodate your process instead of your process facilitating a contract.
Two Universes
Portal, what a great game — and this article is a must-read.
Game designers and application designers might exist in different universes, but there is no reason one universe can’t teach the other.
Lessons Learned from an eBook Launch
A little over a month ago Sacha released an eBook title “Step by Step UI Design“. It was a very successful launch, and in this post Sacha now shares his experiences and things he learned from it.
Why the iPad Is My New Laptop
Shawn Blanc shares some of the reasons his iPad is now is laptop (and his Macbook Air is now his desktop computer).
A Welcome Letter
That says a lot about a company:
The Seven Deadly Sins Of Web-Design
If you’re doing any of these, you’re doing it wrong. Great one from Visual Idiot, as usual.
Mobile first is history repeating
That pretty much sums it up :)
We’re in one of the great cycles of the net, we had optimisation for dial-up, we’ve done big flash sites, holding pages and 2mb preloaders, we’ve done masses of keyword riddled junk copy and SEO link farms, we’ve done the web 2.0 gradient buttons and we’re back to the optimisation part again for different reasons but we’re here anyway.
Instagram Socialmatic Camera
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Month In Review – 18.04.12
Written by Jon Phillips on April 18th 2012
It has been a couple weeks since our last ‘week in review’ post so it’s definitely time for a new one, only this time it’s a month in review instead. We’re a busy bunch here at Fusion.
We’re currently booking May placements — if you’re interested in advertising with us and want to get your product or service in front of (a lot) more eyeballs make sure you get in touch →
The Cloud-Centric Mac Set-Up: 8 Months On
About a year ago Elliot blogged about his plans for a cloud-centric Mac setup. He did it and people wanted to know what’s under the hood — and it’s more than just DropBox!
A New Make Mantra: A Statement of Design Intent
As usual, another excellent article from the very talented Mark Boulton:
I’ve been trying to go back to something a bit more formal and create a single, actionable sentence that can be used to guide a project.
Learnings from open-sourcing Bootstrap
This is so true:
No matter the success of an open-source project, folks using your hard work begin to depend on you and what you’re doing. Communication becomes more important as the age and use of the project increases.
Keeping Track of Potential Clients
Great article by Jonathan Longnecker from 47m about keeping track of potential clients. Some excellent tips and advice in that post, especially for those living the freelance or the startup/design studio lifestyle.
The New iPad’s Screen Under the Microscope
Lukas Mathis puts the new iPad screen under the microscope. It’s great to see the comparison with other devices such as the Kindle Fire and Nintendo 3DS. Any self-respecting geek or Apple fan will enjoy this post.
States and Layer Comps
In this tutorial video, Andy shows us how to use the “Layer Comps” feature in Photoshop to mimic the “States” feature in Adobe Fireworks. Handy.
A Young Problem
What Chris Bowler said in his post really resonated with me, this part especially:
We want to support writers who have used the Internet to hone their craft and broadcast their thoughts. This is our entertainment, and it’s much more personal and intimate that the entertainment forms of the 20th century.
Automotive Inspiration
Some great inspiration on Trent Walton’s site — automotive inspiration that is.
Viewport Industries Launch
Keir and Elliot’s Viewport Industries website has launched and it’s gorgeous and already there’s some excellent articles on their blog, check it out.
iPad as a Mac Retina Display
If your current Mac/iPad setup has the requirements outlined in the post you could turn your iPad 3 into an external Retina display. Matt Gemmell walks us through setting this up – sweet!
Fool JS
Probably the best and most awesome jQuery plugin I’ve seen. I’ve never used it on a site and I don’t think I ever will, but it’s awesome and it does a bunch of awesome things — everything is better with Mr. T.
Shawn Blanc Realign
Shawn Blanc did a realign of his site design. It’s cleaner, easier to read and he now uses Proxima Nova (served via Typekit), which is always a great choice.
sketches 06 – paper
Andrew from Minimally Minimal writes about the awesome Paper app by FiftyThree and shows us some amazing sketches/drawings he did.
Hacking is Important
“Hackers Believe Something Can Always Be Better”
Great way of thinking if you ask me.
Book Releases
Stephen Hackett from 512 Pixels recently released his new book titled “Bartending: Memoirs of an Apple Genius.
Jonathan Christopher also released a book, it’s called “Proud to Debut: Client Oriented WordPress Development”
Two books worth checking out for sure.
A Half Dome Made Of Books
Speaking of books, here are some quite impressive images on Wanken:
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Week In Review – 08.03.12
Written by Jon Phillips on March 8th 2012
It seems we like to keep ourselves busy here at BuySellAds / FusionAds. Busy is good, right?
A couple of days ago we released our new BSAone mini-site. As a lot of you may know already, we run 2 other ‘one ad per page’ networks: Ad Packs and Yoggrt. And BSAone is simply a way for us to help better explain the differences and similarities of each network.
We currently still have 2 ad placements available on Fusion Ads this month (and some available on Ad Packs and Yoggrt too).
New Publishers
Before we dive in, I’d like to welcome Visual Idiot and Minimally Minimal to the Fusion network!
CSS Faux Browser Style on Your Images
I’m all for saving time and make switching things around and tweaking the design and content of a website easier. This tutorial offers a great and simple solution for all of you out there looking to make their portfolio images nicer. A great idea and some simple CSS to the rescue.
Stop the cascade
Mark Otto suggests we stop the cascade and I agree.
Some CSS should be allowed to cascade. Base typography, links, and the such are prime examples of something not to redeclare over and over again. This would only serve to weigh down a project and make it even more unmanageable. Instead, the goal as always is to strike a balance.
Photographing the Moon
Pretty amazing.
Opinion: The case for unpaid internships
Great opinion piece on idsgn about internships. I personally think any and all internships should be paid, but it’s definitely a touchy topic as you’ll see by reading the comments on the article. Must read.
Please Steal These webOS Features
I have to agree with Lukas as I’m in a very similar situation with my iPad. And some (most) of webOS’s features seem much more thought-out than similar ones you find on the iPad.
webOS isn’t quite dead yet. It’s just being open-sourced, which, when it happens to commercial software, often turns out to be the digital equivalent of being reanimated as a walking corpse in a George Romero movie. You’re still shuffling around a bit, and occasionally making some (mostly incomprehensible) noises, but you probably won’t make it too far anymore.
Going Simple With Javascript
For those of you used to always going for a specific library like jQuery, this article might get you to rethink your decision. It’s just not some old fashioned Javascript, it’s new fashioned Javascript.
Gridset
Gridset is not a bunch of code you download from Github. It’s a browser-based tool to create grid systems.
I like the sound of that. Check out Gridset here →
Optimizing Textured Artwork for PNG Export
Here’s an excellent tutorial video by Phil Coffman on Method & Craft about optimizing textured images and artwork—lots of great tips there.
Reaching The Next Level
obsessive Apple-level care
That’s how it should always be done. Period.
The Newest Blanc
Huge congrats Shawn!
Writing a Book on Sketchnoting!
That’s a book I’ll be looking forward to reading. Congrats Mike on landing this deal. Let us know when it gets released!
A Dependable iPad
It’s no secret that Apple has mastered the art of making all of us drool in anticipation when they announce new devices, gadgets or upgrades.
I don’t know what combination of features might make the iPad more attractive, but I’m certain that a dose of snappiness, a plethora of the pixels, and the three subtle details that no one will predict but everyone will love could make a difference.
House Kekkpaa In Finland
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Week In Review – 14.02.12
Written by Jon Phillips on February 14th 2012
It’s been a couple of busy weeks for us here at FusionAds / BuySellAds — proof is in the fact we didn’t publish a weekly review post last week. But like I said, we’ve been busy.
We recently added 2 new publishers to our network. Please join me in welcoming FortySeven Media, One37 and Desktop.ly to FusionAds!
Also, we are currently booking ad placements for March — so if you have a product or service you would like to get in front of the FusionAds audience, make sure you get in touch!
Millimetr
A couple of days ago Antonio Carusone launched a new photography blog called Millimetr. Definitely worth checking out if you’re into photography — it’s hard to believe some of those shots were taken with an iPhone.
Cancel Or Allow Overload
We’ve all heard the story of iOS application Path uploading their user’s complete address book to their servers, right? Justin Williams wrote a great piece on the topic of security and user experience:
A hybrid solution that takes the best parts of iOS’s one-by-one acceptance and Android’s expressed and obvious intents seems like a proper model here. In fact, Apple has many of the pieces in place elsewhere.
PatternTap
PatternTap got a redesign. It’s beautiful, it’s responsive and it’s even better than before! Check it out.
Making Rounded Rectangles Look Great
Mike shows us some great techniques on making rounded rectangles look great. Lots of great tips in there!
If you really think about it, most interfaces (especially for iOS apps) use tons of rounded rectangles in different shapes and sizes […] I actually joke around with friends that my main job is making rounded rectangles look great, so I thought it was time to show off some common techniques.
Slides posted from the Twitter Open Source Summit
Mark Otto shared the slides of the Bootstrap 2 announcement at Twitter.
Opinion: The case for unpaid internships
I’ve always felt that internships should be paid, but this posts definitely raises an interesting question: Are unpaid internships evil, or is education payment enough?
During my years in design school, I worked on countless projects with professors and never expected anything in return other than their vast knowledge. I understood it would help me in my future profession.
My Notes On Writing An e-Book
Jonathan Snook shares his experience writing the Smacss eBook. A must read if you’re thinking of writing your own eBook!
Sandboxing and the Mac App Store
While sandboxing sounds like a great thing it might cause problems with some apps like text expansion tools that need to access your complete system in order to work:
As part of the continuing effort to keep the Mac secure, Apple is preparing to require that all apps sold through the Mac App Store comply with Apple’s sandboxing rules. Sandboxing in Mac OS X is the process of requiring apps to obtain permission for access to different parts of your Mac’s memory and file system. For instance, if you are create a text editor app, you shouldn’t need access to the Mac’s Address Book database.
Structure First. Content Always.
It’s not ‘content then design’, or ‘content or design’. It’s ‘content and design’.
Amen! Read this article. Period.
How Designers Can Help Developers
Matt Gemmell outlines some excellent tips, tricks and techniques that designers can use or do to help developers in their work. Make sure you read the follow-up post appropriately titled How Developers Can Help Designers.
SaaS Fatigue
I can definitely related to Sacha’s post here. Software as a Service is a great model, but it’s not the only model out there and some applications, products and services may actually benefit from a different model.
[…] these days it’s all about SaaS (Software as a Service): every app wants to charge you monthly or yearly.
My .Net Magazine interview
It’s always nice to see our publishers featured in popular and industry leading publications. Congrats Brian for being profiled in .Net!
Redefined
I completely agree with Trent here — responsive web design isn’t bolt-on. It’s not something you can just add to a website or project. It takes careful planning, wireframing and brainstorming.
Another great article by Trent Walton.
Review: The Motorola DPC
The DPC was an incredibly powerful phone for the time. The battery alone is bigger and weighs more than an iPhone. Good old days!
