Rawkes Weekly – 20 July 2008
Stardate July 20th, 2008 – 7 CommentsThings are starting to calm down in my full-time job and here at Rawkes – in a good way. Work is still piling in but I’m slowly but surely taking control. You can definitely look forward to some awesome projects being added to the portfolio soon, and I have some developments planned for this website that I’m sure will go down well!
The week has most definitely been revolving around the iPhone and the super-cool app store. I don’t think I’ve ever spent so much intimate time with a piece of technology before, it feels kinda nice! My plans are still firmly in place for iPhone development so I’d love to hear any ideas for web or native apps you’d like to see developed – stick them in the comments below.
So grab your favourite mug, fill it with your beverage of choice and come join me for a round-up of the last 7 days.
This week’s news
Apple announced that they sold over 1 million iPhones and topped 10 million app store downloads in the 3 days following the launch – Quite astronomical numbers when you think about it!
It wasn’t all peachy for Apple this week as we saw with the botched release of MobileMe. After days of intermittent access and accusations about the push functionality Apple eventually apologised for the MobileMe mess by giving members a month of free access. They also apologised for a lesser known issue involving new members being overcharged for their subscriptions, myself included. This resulted in another apology from Apple and another month of free access. Well done Apple on doing the right thing!
In web design news; Steven Frank, one of the guys behind OS X development house Panic reckons it’s about time that we dropped FTP, in favour for the newer and more secure “SFTP” (Via 43folders). Personally I think this is a great idea; FTP is old and I feel slightly dirty knowing I’ve been sending personal information and FTP passwords unencrypted for so long!
On Tuesday WordPress 2.6 was released almost a month ahead of schedule. There are a bunch of improvements, most notably the ability to track changes to every post and page, and the new bookmarklet that lets you blog from wherever you are on the web. I mentioned this update in the past and I’m really glad WordPress are pushing forward with fresh ideas for blogging.
Mid-week Firefox 3.0.1 was released, introducing a bunch of stability and security fixes.
Nearing the end of the week Last.fm opened the doors to their new website, bringing with it some strong criticism. Yes, it’s plain, but I actually find it well made and it allows me to really concentrate on doing things with my music rather than fighting with a layout. Along with their native iPhone app I can see Last.fm making some serious ground in the coming months.
Links of the week
- Smart CSS ain’t always sexy CSS – Helping you make your CSS smarter
- ExplorerCanvas – This gem allows you to use Canvas in IE
- The story of the Fail Whale – The history behind everyone’s favourite whale
- How I use Evernote – Some great tips on using Evernote for productive means
- Twinkle: A location aware Twitter client – My favourite app this week by far; it allows you to see random Twitter messages from nearby
- Subversion for designers – How to use Subversion version control for web design work
Site of the week
Function
Clean and crisp; I love it! You should check out their free icons as well, they are really well made.
Tapulous
This set up produce stunning iPhone apps; their website is just as good!
Lesson(s) of the week
Brainstorming over a few drinks with some creative minds results in awesome projects.
Track of the week
“Join The Dots” by Sub Focus. Drum and bass doesn’t have to be dark and chaotic to sound good. Sub Focus just get better and better!
Predictions for next week
We’re finally going to see summer here in England! A man can dream…
Tags: weekly
Comments
7 Responses to “Rawkes Weekly – 20 July 2008”
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JaysGirl says: [perma]
Hey ho :)
.. nice post, I have been bored stupid all day, so it was great to see your blog updated.
still love my iphone too, had a few lagging problems with it which have been very annoying [when you type, the letters don't appear for a while]
apparently its a major problem as alot of people have vocalised on the apple forums. Hope they fix it soon!
A game everyone should get for the iphone is Taptap revenge! its bloody awesome!
anyway, bring on the next post!
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Rob Hawkes says: [perma]
@Curvball: It’s well worth the download. I’m not sure what it was like on the hacked phones but it looks really polished in the official version.
@Liam: Thanks for coming to the blog, it’s nice to put a face to the great sites I feature. You should check out the other new Sub Focus track, “Timewarp”
@Ruth: Hey! I’ve been having the lagging too, but a restart seems to sort it out until Apple release a fix. I’ve also been having apps crash and even had the phone reboot randomly on me a few times now. It’s still early days though, it’s only just been a week since release!
I downloaded Taptap Revenge the other day, it’s by the same dudes that make Twinkle. I’m not sure if I like it yet, I mean it looks cool but I find it doesn’t register my moves a lot of the time! :(
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A great blog. Definitely a place to checkout - Rawkes.com | Seth Goldstein Online says: [perma]
[...] Rawkes Weekly – 20 July 2008 » Captain’s Blog » Rawkes. [...]
Twinkle is great - was using it on my ‘hacked’ phone before upgrading to 2.0 - need to download it again…