There's an App for that

I have an iPhone, and an iPad, and I like them very much. I just got back from the first business trip I've ever been on without a laptop; I used the iPad and iPhone instead. There was only one thing I couldn't do during the trip, and I might have been able to, but I didn't know how. Anyway, my point is: the new wave of iOS devices are making an impact in how I do business, surf the web, read books, watch Netflix, etc.

One of the apps I downloaded on my phone was the Fly Delta app, which lets you check in to your flight, check status, including gate changes, on the fly. You can even use the screen of your phone as the scannable boarding pass. One thing it doesn't have is maps of airports, so if you wanted to see how close Gate A4 and Gate T61 are, you're out of luck. But no problem, I can get those on the web for the most part. And of course it only works for Delta flights.

There seems to be apps for just about everything, and I'm beginning to wonder if that's a dangerous trend. The one thing I didn't do, for example, because I didn't have an app for it: that doesn't make sense. You shouldn't need apps for every little thing. Apps are small and focussed, but that focus may be too insulating. It makes the entire experience more of a 'black box' than it should be.

You probably won't see too many 'big' apps. I think Bento might be the leading edge of apps where you control how you work. It's a database app from Filemaker that allows you to define the fields of your database, and how those fields collect data, from the iOS device. I use it to track expenses and time for projects. Every other app doesn't give you that flexibility - you can't modify the workflow that they present.

I'm not a big expert on apps, I own maybe three dozen or so. But they consistently feel like very closed environments, compared to a desktop, and until more start opening up like Bento, I'm not sure how well they will ever replace laptops.

New website for Argos

I've made a new website for Argos Designs. It's very graphics heavy, but that's kind of what I make my living with, so, what else is new. I may rearrange it a little, put all the work pages together under one subhead or something like that. I'm still not sure if I want an 'About' page or a specific 'Contact' page. We'll see.

I will probably move it over from the .net address where it is now (my 'test site') to the .com site by this weekend.

Recent work

I've been trying my hand at Blender and this is a test render. It's a little dark and the model is far from finished. I'm trying also to figure out some rigging to make it an animatable model, to show the vehicle moving and banking in turns, doors opening, that sort of thing.

Texture wise there are a lot of missing details, obviously, so I need to decide when it's actually finished.

I've also uploaded an animation to YouTube, but I'm not sure why the colors look so weird.

(Edit 8-9-11) I've re-uploaded that animation, now the colors work.

Old job, new tricks

You know, while I've been working on the Argos website, I've been thinking: Gee, there's a lot of good stuff we've worked on over the years, where can I put that so people can find it.

Well the website is one obvious choice, but this blog is underused as well, and there are links back and forth. I'm thinking I should put some of the other projects that didn't quite make it to the main slideshows of the web page and put them here.

Like this one, which is a map for Northgate mall. It was a backlit display about 4 feet across with removeable text areas for updating listings. For several years I had to drive out to Northgate something like twice a year to update them. I think they're doing it all in house now, or have moved to digital displays.