The Objective Blog

Keep up with what we're thinking, reading, and doing.

Fusion Radar: December 19, 2012

December 21st, 2012 - by marissa - Salt Lake City, Utah

Keeping up with technology is a lot of work. Luckily, we enjoy wading through the noise just to find the gems of awesomeness sprinkled throughout. Fusion Radar is our gift to you, Current or Potential Client, so that you can enjoy all of the awesome without any of the drudgery. Unwrap it each week, and know that you’re loved by the geeks and pixel-pushers at Agency Fusion.

Scratchpad

Scratchpad is a useful tool for those who are just beginning to learn CSS, as well as anyone who needs to perform collaborative coding in realtime. This simple site allows users to code and watch it render instantly; and they can also share the URL, which allows other contributors to see their work.

http://scratchpad.io/

DocHub

Although they’d never admit it, it’s not possible for most developers to remember every single command while using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, DOM, jQuery, PHP, or Python. Forget the orphans property in CSS, or how to convert binary data into hexadecimal representation in PHP? DocHub is there to help.

http://dochub.io/

BuiltWith

BuiltWith gathers information from any site you want, and then lists out server information, content delivery network, widgets, document information, and other useful tidbits of info.

http://builtwith.com/

Analytics.js

Although analytics are vital for just about any project, it’s a pain to have to use third-party APIs for all the different analytics services you want to use. Analytics.js provides an alternative: it allows you to add a single set of hooks that then route to any analytics service you want.

http://segmentio.github.com/analytics.js/

Google Tag Manager

And while we’re on the subject of analytics, you might find yourself interested in the Google Tag Manager. The Tag Manager is a user-friendly service that lets you add and manage analytics on your website without having to update the actual website files each time you change an analytics setting. This is especially helpful for developers or IT people who want to allow clients or the marketing team to control analytics settings without getting into the actual website code.

http://www.google.com/tagmanager/

HTML5 Test

The onset of HTML5 left many browsers behind, technologically-speaking. This simple site tests your browser’s compatibility with HTML5-based audio, video, parsing, forms, UI, and microdata elements (among others). My browser’s score? A solid 426 out of 500.

http://html5test.com/

The Game of Books

Apps are a constant source of either entertainment or utility, and The Game of Books looks like it combines the two. Project founder Aaron Stanton developed The Game of Books as an attempt to encourage and stimulate an interest in reading by gamifying the experience.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/aaronstanton/the-game-of-books-a-discovery-game-for-libraries-a

Ed Lund Art

Artist Ed Lund has taken infographics to a new level with HTML5-powered interactive infographics.

http://www.edlundart.com/index/index.html

Google Analytics in Real Life

If you haven’t had the chance yet to be frustrated with the checkout process on at least one website, you probably haven’t been online for long. Google Analytics plays off of all of our frustrations in this fun YouTube video.

Google Analytics in Real Life – Online Checkout

Olly

Olly is one of two awesome gadgets we’ve found this week. You link it to any of your social media accounts – Facebook, Twitter, etc. – and then Olly “notifies” you whenever activity occurs on your account with a scent it releases into the air. So, if you get a comment on your blog, or someone Tweets @[you], or someone shares a cat photo with you on Facebook, you get to smell whichever favorite scent you’ve added to your Olly.

http://www.ollyfactory.com/

Projecteo

Projecteo is the little gadget perfect for anyone who loves old things (like 35mm slide film) and new things (like their Instagram and/or their iPhone).

Projecteo Kickstarter

Fusion Radar: December 12, 2012

December 12th, 2012 - by marissa - Salt Lake City, Utah

Keeping up with technology is a lot of work. Luckily, we enjoy wading through the noise just to find the gems of awesomeness sprinkled throughout. Fusion Radar is our gift to you, Current or Potential Client, so that you can enjoy all of the awesome without any of the drudgery. Unwrap it each week, and know that you’re loved by the geeks and pixel-pushers at Agency Fusion.

Aware.js

Aware.js is a surprisingly-simple toolkit that enables reader-aware design for your site. It’s a jQuery plugin that allows a site to customize and personalize the display of content based on a reader’s behavior and history.

http://xoxco.com/projects/code/aware/

Photobooth.js

This widget allows users to take avatar pictures directly on your site, instead of having to upload another file from their desktop or link to one online. Photobooth.js also offers editing capabilities (like saturation and hues) so your users will be happy with the image they take.

https://github.com/WolframHempel/photobooth-js

Brackets

Brackets, a fully open-source, community-driven project, acts as an editor for web design and development. Built using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, this editor provides an uncluttered, user-friendly, quick way to design and develop with your browser as your design view.

http://brackets.io/

InterTwitter

If you’re having trouble generating Twitter followers the old-fashioned way (that is to say, by producing genuinely interesting and useful content), don’t worry. For anywhere from $14 to $487, you can buy Twitter followers ($14 gets you 1,000 followers, and the price gradually increases until you’re getting 100,000 followers for $487).

http://intertwitter.com/

Fake Follower Check

If the previous Twitter-follower-for-hire site seemed tempting, however, you should be wary of sites like Status People’s Fake Follower Check. Anyone can enter a Twitter handle and the site calculates the percentage of “fake” Twitter followers that account has.

http://fakers.statuspeople.com/

Sunrise and Clear Apps

Although these two apps have different functionalities, they do have a few things in common: nice design, great user interface, and the ability to help you get your life in order. Sunrise combines Facebook, Google Calendar, LinkedIn, and other social networking sites into one daily email. Clear is a simple to-do list app with an intuitive user interface.

Sunrise & Clear

Foldify

Although it isn’t available just yet, Foldify seems like an entertaining, interactive, fun-for-the-whole-family kind of app. It’s a sort of digital do-it-yourself origami, where you draw, create, and print 3D figures.

http://foldifyapp.com/

Police Pin Down Perps with Pinterest

Local police departments have found a new use for Pinterest: posting mug shots, sketches, reward offerings, and alleged crimes of police suspects. Apparently, this has led to a 57% increase in arrests!

http://pinterest.com/themercury/wanted-by-police/

DoorBot

A few weeks ago, we talked about Lockitron, a gadget that lets you open your door with your smartphone from anywhere in the world. Now, there’s another way you can avoid ever having to come to the door. DoorBot is a camera you place over your doorbell that notifies you when someone is at your door. You can then see and speak to the person at your door – it even coordinates with Lockitron, so you can open the door for them, even if you aren’t home.

http://mashable.com/2012/12/08/doorbot-iphone/

Square’s Wallet App Gift Cards

Square, a mobile app service that makes paying anywhere easier, just launched gift chards as the latest version of its Wallet app. It allows you to send and use gift cards to any of the vendors Square is partnered with, so there’s no plastic card you have to carry around.

http://venturebeat.com/2012/12/09/square-launches-digital-gift-cards/

ATOMS Express Toys

ATOMS (which just met their Kickstarter goal) are creative toys that, basically, let you build things that do things. Designed to work with toys kids already have (like Legos, action figures, even stuffed animals), ATOMS are iOS controlled construction sets that make other toys mobile and interactive.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/atoms/atoms-express-toys

Arduino Esplora

The Arduino Esplora is another toy (albeit a more complicated toy) that acts as a microcontroller for . . . well, almost anything. It comes equipped with an analog joystick, a linear potentiometer, a microphone, a light sensor, a temperature sensor, and a half dozen other inputs and outputs that allow you to communicate with and control a variety of electronic or non-electronic devices.

http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardEsplora

Fusion Radar: December 5, 2012

December 5th, 2012 - by marissa - Salt Lake City, Utah

Keeping up with technology is a lot of work. Luckily, we enjoy wading through the noise just to find the gems of awesomeness sprinkled throughout. Fusion Radar is our gift to you, Current or Potential Client, so that you can enjoy all of the awesome without any of the drudgery. Unwrap it each week, and know that you’re loved by the geeks and pixel-pushers at Agency Fusion.

24 Pull Requests

If you’ve ever benefited from the open source projects over at Github, ’tis the season to say ‘thanks’ to the developers and maintainers of those projects. 24 Pull Requests is a yearly initiative that encourages developers to send a pull request every day in December till Christmas.

24pullrequests.com

Zeus

If waiting for rake and Rails commands makes you crazy, you’ll probably be interested in installing Zeus. It’s a simple tool that lets you boot any Rails app in under a second.

https://github.com/burke/zeus

Honeybadger

Here’s another useful service for Rails: Honeybadger’s goal is to update the way we log and fix errors. Not only is it faster than other error-reporting tools, but it also offer SMS alerts, Github integration, Syntax Highlighting, and organization tools for you and your team.

https://www.honeybadger.io/

MailCatcher

MailCatcher (obviously) catches your mail, and then things get good: it runs a simple SMTP server that displays it in a web interface. It also can send HTML for analysis, offers command line options to override the default SMTP/HTTP IP and port settings, and lists attachments and allows separate downloading of parts.

https://github.com/sj26/mailcatcher

A!ertifyjs

Speaking of alerts, Alertify is an unobtrusive customizable JavaScript notification system that also includes a callback parameter handling both OK and Cancel button clicks, as well as chaining (which allows queued dialogs).

http://fabien-d.github.com/alertify.js/

Apps Funder

If you’ve had a tough time getting enough attention on KickStarter, Apps Funder is something you’re going to want to check out. Not only do app builders have the chance to fund their app’s development here, but funders also receive rewards and revenue shares.

http://appsfunder.com/en

Eye-Popping Pumpkin

We’re about a week late with this one (since Thanksgiving was a little while ago), but we still enjoyed the innovation and simplicity of Garrett Winther’s “iPhone Eye-Popping Pumpkin”. With an old pneumatics kit, an iPhone and Arduino, Garrett conceptualized, built, and programmed a wirelessly-controlled eye-popping pumpkin in an hour.

http://labs.ideo.com/2011/12/05/one-hour-prototype-iphone-eye-popping-pumpkin/

Staples’ In-Store 3D Printing

It seems like we’re constantly talking about 3D printers on our blog, and maybe we are – but hey, we’ll stop talking about them when they stop being so cool. Staples seems to share our affinity for them, since they’re starting to offer customers the opportunity to upload their 3D designs to Staples’ website, and then pick up the printed objects (or have them shipped).

http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/30/tech/innovation/staples-3-d-printing/index.html

Droidfooding at Facebook

After years of giving their employees iPhones, Facebook’s made the switch over to Droids, in an effort to get employees downloading and using its apps for Google’s OS.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/24/facebook-droidfooding/