Time flys when you're busting ass.

(I apologize if this post is a little sporadic, or if the grammar sucks. I've been working 9 hour days at my day job, and then coming home, eating, and working on this project until 11 or 12 at night. My brian isn't working too well right now.)

Wow, it's been too long since my last blog post. I've been trying to spend every free moment on my design approval app/service. My main focus is getting the UI for the display, management, review, commenting, and approval of the design pieces perfect. Once I've got that exactly how I want it, I'll use the conventions I'm establishing for the UI of the other components of the site.

One of the things I really like about Ruby on Rails, the platform I'm building my app on, is that the abstractions the framework gives you (framework being Rails) allows me to spend more time on the UI. A large part of most web apps is the typical CRUD stuff. Ruby on Rails gives you the ORM framework, Active Record, which has completely elimanated all the time needed to work on the CRUD operations. I don't even have to setup any "mappings".

If it wasn't so late, and I wasn't so tired, I'd go into more detail.

There's only so many hours in a day, and not having to spend my time on CRUD is saving me a TON of time.

'night.

Google + fluxiom?

I previously asked the question, "Who is going to buy these guys?" in regards to fluxiom. Now I don't have any insider info (I'd even argue I don't have any info about anything in general. ;) ), but we've all heard the rumors about Google's mass storage service (here's one) and we've all seen how sweet the fluxiom UI is shaping up to be (check it out). With a seemingly (from an outsider's point of view) small change in direction the fluxiom UI could be drapped over a Google mass storage service. Now that would get me exicted about storing my files on someone else's infrastructure!

Google has scooped up a few software companies this year. If fluxiom ever goes into the eternal-public-beta-mode, like Writely was/is, then be on the look out.

But what the hell do I know? :)

Graphic Artists Make Things Purty

My cousin, Chris Scalici, was kind enough to wipe me up some slick looking tabs for my designer service.

Here's a sample.




My core functionality is mostly complete, I just need to continue to add needed administrative features, kill bugs, and polish up the GUI.

It's going to look similar to....

I'm sure you've all seen the fantastic demo of fluxiom. (If not, you should check it out. They are building a very nice looking application.)

Since I started working on my designer service I knew the color scheme of the application had to be gray, black, and white. (I said in my first post about the UI, "(Here's a hint on the color scheme I'm using. There isn't one.)")

As I stated a few posts ago, I've changed the way the UI presents the "pieces" a graphic artist is displaying to the client from my original idea of showing them REALLY LARGE to the thumbnail approach.

I'm not going to show you my UI screens just yet (I'm still polishing them. :) ), but I'm kind of scared people are going to think I'm attempting to rip off the fluxiom UI. Both apps are gray, black, and white, have tabs across the top, display images, and present them in a thumbnail view.

Now, I'll state for the record that their UI (and the way it functions) is at least 47% more bad-ass than mine. Maybe even 74%, depending on which time zone you're in and your distance from the prime meridian.

On a side note, I'm really curious to see the exact feature set of fluxiom. I know they are an "asset management" application, but I'm wondering if they will have a client-approval feature. The first version of my app is pretty much just that. (Hey, I'm only working on it nights and weekends! I have grander plans for the app, and a series of related apps, but like I said, "nights and weekends".)

Marketing Blog

I'm a big fan of Seth Godin's marketing blog, and more recently I've discovered another marketing-based blog I like.

Enter, "tangelo ideas - erniesblog".

A recent post of his makes the statement, "Paying attention to what's important is important." The point of his post is that you should pay attention to the details, but the big picture is just as important. Don't obsess about the stuff that just won't matter in the end result.

This holds true in making commercials (as his article describes), print work, web design, software development, landscaping, dating, film making, cooking, cleaning, etc... (basically everything).

I like marketing blogs. Most of my reading revolves around software blogs. It's really nice to hear stories and thoughts from the non-software world.