But it’s no iPhone killer. What I’ve been saying ever since I’ve been a Mac user has been this: “It’s all about the experience.” And with that, my $29 myTouch 4G, running Android falls short. The overall experience on the iPhone is easier and more intuitive and just feels better. I think it comes down to two things:

1. UI
2. Closed System

The User Interface from Apple is fantastic. It feels simple by design. The first experience one might have with the phone is it’s looks. If we take away the physical look of the phones (I think the iPhone 4 is absolutely stunning) and pair it down just to the screen and operating system  the iPhone’s iOS stands out. The thought that goes into itsy bitsy details are there. Typography is ever present. Letters aren’t uncomfortably close to edges of boxes. Round corners or square corners fit within their space – not competing for visual attention. The list goes on and on. Your Android phone, or my Android phone running T-Mobile and HTC’s skinned Sense UI from the factory try to alleviate or address the GUI in a positive way – but in the end there is not that attention to detail or that coherent feeling across applications that is inherently part of iOS. I installed Cyanogen Mod 7 with the latest version of Android 2.3.3 a.k.a. Gingerbread. It removes the Sense UI and cleans things up a bit. It’s a step in the right direction but still not on par, let alone kill.

As far as using the OS – there are many things that are predictable about iOS. The lack of hardware buttons creates a common theme of swipe left and right to navigate. It could be that I’m used to this method of navigation but it’s common in almost all applications. In Android you have at least 5 hardware buttons to access the OS. The ‘menu’ button is nice because it brings up settings, then there is a ‘back’ button, a ‘home’ button and on my phone the ‘genius’ button (on other phones the ‘search’ button) and at last the track button thingy. It takes a while to get used to and can be confusing as to what button does what? The beauty of iOS is that all of the navigation, sans ‘home’ button, is virtual – so there will be visual clues as to what that button does. It eliminates guessing. What I’m really getting at is that the overall experiences takes less time to get familiar with and makes it easy to use for simple tasks. On the other hand the Android OS’s menu button seems to have special magic and does allow quick access to an applications settings. This I do like.

In the end. My new phone is really nice. Visually its not as clean as the iPhone line. But for a geek its open source platform is awesome because I can modify the heck out of it without much work. It’s fast and has a great built in navigation app that trumps my TomTom. So I’m a very satisfied customer. And in two years when my contract is up. The Android OS might have grown up enough to keep me here.

I took the plunge. I left the comforts of my Apple world and succumbed to the powerhouse that is Google. For 29 dollars I purchased I.contract a new t-mobile MyTouch 4G. So I’m still in the learning curve and that part is somewhat fun. My initial impressions are that Apple gets the fine details down from the weight of the phone to its intuitive-ness to the responsiveness if its GUI. That’s what having total control can do. And that can spoil the heck out of someone. I think this phone can come close to an Apple like experience but not without effort. There are, however, some really nice things about Android. The notifications are way better managed than iOs.

I’ll provide an in-depth comparison after a few weeks of use. One thing is for sure. I couldn’t get an iPhone 4 for 29 bucks if I stole one.

It’s the new year and I haven’t had much time to write on this here blog. Lots of things going on. Work is nice and busy. Life at home is busy as well. So I wanted to say “Hello World” for those who keep tabs here.

Recently I’ve been fussing around trying to decide what kind of text editor I want to use. I’ve grown tired of using Dreamweaver. The version of Dreamweaver I have is old – but I see no need to upgrade to the latest. I mostly use it for the syntax coloring and  code hinting when coding websites –the WYSIWYG aspect of the program just doesn’t do the trick as well as looking at the sites on a real server or at least on a MAMP setup. I’ve been testing the waters with TextWrangler, BBedit and more recently Coda.

I’m not sure which one I’ll end up with. TextWrangler is free and it doesn’t code hint like BBedit or Coda, but I find I rarely need that help now. So it comes down to the ‘extras’ that are offered with Coda and BBedit. Once I find my decision I’ll report back here. Until then – in the words of a fellow AT hiker: PEACE & CHICKEN GREASE!

Buy me a Coke! For the last day of 2010 I’d like to announce that I’ve moved my website to a new server. In a never ending quest for performance I  ditched the ‘el cheapo’ hosting plan and picked up my own VPS. I’ve been managing a VPS at work for quite some time and there are some tricks and things I’d like to try but don’t feel comfortable in the ‘work’ environment. I ended up with a VE plan from MediaTemple. I’m quite satisfied with the admin features, tutorials and the cost.

On the performance side of things I figured I’d ditch the standard Apache2 web server and go with NginX – pronounced Engine X. From what I gather the main different is that Apache is process based and NginX is event based. It is supposedly less of a resource hog. One caveat is that NginX doesn’t support PHP natively.  But it can pass the requests to Fast-CGI and the install was pretty simple. It didn’t take me long to get the config files correct and start serving up pages. It did take a bit longer to get things set up for multiple domains. But it’s relatively simple. Once I’m completely satisfied with my setup I’ll post some sample configs for my use.

Next I decided to setup my own mail server. Oh… man. Yeah I know why I’m not a mail admin or system admin. This stuff is way harder. At first I tried to setup with SendMail and kept hitting walls. Then looking through the wiki for my host I found some tutorials on PostFix and still came out very frustrated. Yesterday I decided to give it a rest and today I went and tackled it some more. Viola! I have email working now. Now to tackle that spam…

I’ve learned so much in the past few days. I feel like I just did a crash course in the interwebs! One funny thing I’ve noticed is that all these programs like Postfix and SendMail have some really simple websites. They look sooo dated and I guess it’s because graphics people really aren’t drawn to this side of the web often. I guess I can understand. These applications are so complex that by the time they get everything in tip top shape they could care less about how it looks.

Well … have a great new year and here’s to things looking up in 2011!

Yesterday I stumbled upon Google’s new Apache module mod_pagespeed. I already use their Page Speed extension for Firefox to help determine what I can do to my websites to increase their performance. I normally don’t spend a ton of time compressing code and utilizing different utilities because most of the sites I deal with just aren’t big enough to see benefits beyond basic clean coding and image optimization. Mod_pagespeed might just be worth that extra little bit of time.

To fully optimize a site to serve content fast to a browser requires lots of attention. Attention to clean coding practices. Attention to image file size. Attention to external CSS and Javascript file sizes. Attention to the number of requests made to the server from the browser. Attention to server side optimizations. Attention to make sure all these practices play well with each other.

All of this attention takes time. It requires testing and it incorporates a lot of separate tasks. What mod_pagespeed does is provide a set of server side filters that do a good amount of these tasks for you. My excitement about this module is that I can run this while in development. The results are pretty good, maybe not 50% better like Google suggests, but pretty good. Good enough for me not to go and use some other techniques that require you to wait until the coding process of your site is done. Let me explain.

In simple terms this module tells the server to compress all my files before the server shares them with a browser. I could manually compress my javascript and CSS files to make them smaller. I could manually compress my HTML code to make it smaller. All which will require less bandwidth and time for the browser to load the website. The normal work flow would be to code the site, get approval, test the site,  manually compress the files, test the site again, fix bugs, test and go live. Now with mod_pagespeed I don’t have to manually compress the files. It eliminates that time consuming step.

Another benefit is changes are easier to make after the site goes live. Here’s the scenario: Let’s say you, the web developer, are on vacation. While in the plane the flight attendant spills tomato juice over your trusty laptop and it’s ruined. It’s rendered useless. You check into your hotel and get a voicemail from work. You know the one – the one that no-body at work wanted dial. The client needs a change and for some reason it requires you to go into the javascript. It’s a relatively simple task for you to do if you had a working laptop. Fortunately the hotel has a business center with internet access. In a normal situation you could log into your development site, download the javascript file and make the changes. Then upload them to the live site. But the development site has a javascript file that is way different than the live site because it’s still waiting for client approval and in the meantime this new request needs to be made. So you download the javascript file from the live site, make the change and upload it back to the live site. Everything is good and working. Had you not used mod_pagespeed and manually compressed your javascript with YUIcompressor or something similar you woudn’t have been able to read your code and make your simple change. You would have had to ask work to send you files off your work computer in the office – but your trusty sidekick is in a meeting for the next 3 hours and the time difference is 7 hours and YOU’RE ON VACATION. I hope this never happens to anyone but in reality this is a good situation for mod_pagespeed.

This past Friday my old co-worker, college roommate and good friend Scott Clontz did a wonderful thing. He brought his students by the Crown Communications office to give them a glimpse of the real world. This is the second year Scott has brought his students by and every time he does I sure wish I had a teacher like him while I was in school.

I really enjoyed having his students from Southwestern Community College. I discussed with my Art Director what project I should show them. We ended up deciding on Red Rover. It’s a fun client and he still had some prelim sketches of the logo scanned in. I took them from the concept of the logo, through our presentation process, development of collateral and finally the website. The goal was for the students to see all the ins and outs of designing, what programs were involved, what issues we faced and how we worked with the client for a great end result. I think it went well.

Afterwords I spoke with Scott some more about where he’s taking his students. He’s already taken them to a nice photo studio in Asheville and plans on taking the students to a newspaper. They’ve also visited some museums in Charlotte along with going to the yearly Graphic Arts show. I am so impressed with all the exposure he’s giving his students before they head out into the real world. We all know that there is a big difference from school and work and Scott is doing his best to prep his students. I thank you Scott, because our industry will be better for it!

With all this new HTML5 schtough on the way … I was thinking… about the support for geo-location. This is where the browser can detect, based on your network, an approximation of where your computer is geographically. Back to my thinking… so how fun would it be to implement a design of a web-page that changed colors depending on location and seasons appropriate to that location?

If you lived in a four season climate in the northern hemisphere – something like here in Charlotte – the posts, depending on date, might have different styles or colors associated with them. Take, for example, the reversed out date of posts on this page. I could have a set color for “fall.” And that part of the site would reflect the “fall” color. But if a post was made during the “summer” then the date element would reflect the appropriate style. You could have all sorts of fun with this – as you could have elements of your site reflect the current season (dependent on location of course!) and other elements reflect the season on which they were created. Even better, you could have a gradient of colors that represents the beginning peak and end of each season. Oh- and add a condition for day and night. I could go on and on.

This would add a nice lively element to the site. I’d probably have to find some more vacation time just to test out my code. I’d fly to Bangkok, Thailand, to visit my family and test this code. Then down to Brasil to play some capoeira with my old college roommate and test the code. I’d love to go to Rocklands, South Africa, to test my code while pretending to be Daniel Woods crushing some V15 boulder problem. Ahh… yeah… well at least I can start thinking about the code and possibly implement it on this site – some time down the road.

So… recently this summer I tore my PCL (grade 2) and my meniscus while climbing in the gym preparing for my summer climbing trip to the Frankenjura (awesome area in Germany). Bummer, I know. I still went to Germany – climbed a tad, came back, and had surgery on the meniscus one week after my return to The States. Afterward, I underwent physical therapy (PT) for the meniscus and PCL.

PT was so interesting. My right quad had diminished from me babying my leg as not to further injure the PCL or wreak more havoc on the meniscus prior to surgery. The main goal of the PT was to strengthen those quads, which in turn support the PCL function of keeping the shin bone from moving backwards. The interesting part about the PT was how many cool exercises I was learning and that my quads were getting stronger than they had been in quite some time – even stronger than when I finished hiking the Appalachian Trail.

Once I got the okay from my physical therapist and doctor to start mountain biking again –  the dog and I were out the door and on the trails. At first I had to ride with platform pedals (ones you don’t clip in) as the upstroke on the clip-less pedals (weird term for clipped in pedals) put too much pressure on my PCL. What this did was make me way more conscience of how I was riding my bike.  I didn’t want to fall off and risk more injury and because of that, I really had to pay attention to my technique to keep my feet on the pedals. As a result, I learned to turn the bike much better at higher speeds. I guess I was just better balanced. I also noticed that my legs had more power and I didn’t have to use the sit and spin method as much (that method is a tad harder on the PCL). So I’ve had some of the best bike rides I’ve ever had. Period . All thanks to this injury. How’s that for optimism?

But… climbing is a different story. I finally got back to the gym to ease back into the sport and see where my new baseline would be. I lead a route in the cave (a steeper area of the gym) and felt decent. Again, I was way more conscience of what my legs were doing. I suspect my technique will get better. I’ll be staying away from heel hooks (how I injured my knee in the first place). While my quads have fantastic strength, I let my core and forearms go to pot. I felt heavy, but that was to be expected. The hardest part now is that my range of motion really isn’t where it needs to be for climbing. And my PCL and hamstring combo isn’t up to snuff yet either. It makes me nervous to have to pull with my right leg. Looks like I’ll be consulting the physical therapist this week.

So to keep my head up I went for a killer ride today with some good friends. I powered up some hills in taller gears than I’ve ever used. Hopefully the new strength in riding will help build my cardio to reduce the onset of forearm fatigue when climbing. Then I can just campus all the overhanging routes and not worry about my PCL =).

I’m new to this! So bear with me. I’ve decided to start my own blog. Really for learning purposes. So this site might have some bugs etc. I really am just using it as a test bed for some work stuff, etc.

about me:

At work I’m an “Interactive Specialist.” Essentially, I develop and design websites. I mostly develop since my boss, John, does most of the designing. (If he had a website it would be beautiful.) I study the latest technologies and happenings on the interweb. Yep, that includes Facebook, twitter etc. Initially, I started coding e-mail blasts, some simple HTML websites, and Flash. Now I do everything from WordPress CMS deployment to custom Flash pieces that our clients and users can interact with. I’m really excited about the new features of HTML5 and mobile web development.

At home I’m a husband and dog owner. My wife, Kelly, is the absolute best. She keeps me smiling and laughing all the time. My dog, Moxie, is the shizzz. Together they are a great start of a family.

When I recreate (my knee is prohibiting most of this now) I tend to do so outside. I go through phases, though. Recently, climbing has been my main focus. I mostly sport climb but will follow a competent trad leader anywhere. I also love to mountain bike and Charlotte, believe it or not, is a pretty good place to do this. One love of the outdoors that I share with Kelly and Moxie is backpacking. Kelly and I (prior to Moxie) backpacked the entire length of the Appalachian Trail in 2007. It took 5 months and 11 days and we started on March 25. It was the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done in my life. Aside from outdoor recreation, I love martial arts. I’ve dabbled in many styles from Judo, Tae Kwon Do, Jujitsu, to Capoeira. I spent most of my time with TKD and Capoeira. I still meet up with the local groups here in Charlotte and play a little Capoeira.

I want to learn German. Recently I went to Germany for vacation with some good friends of mine. We went for the sole purpose of rock climbing. Our destination: The Frankenjura. More generally: Bavaria’s Franken Schweiss (Franconian Switzerland). The area is beautiful but it doesn’t see many outsiders, especially Americans or English speakers. I never felt so dumb when trying to communicate. The locals were very friendly and helpful, but I couldn’t stop imagining how much more helpful and friendly they’d be if I even had a tiny bit of German in my vocabulary.