The Objective Blog

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

Fusion Radar: June 20, 2013

June 21st, 2013 - 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.

Productivity

We’re not opposed to switching things up around here, especially when it comes to finding better ways to serve our clients. That’s why, from here on out on our blog, in addition to our traditional list of awesome sites and tools, you’ll also be seeing some of our own opinions, suggestions, and methodology.

Do you ever wonder how the AF team gets so much done so quickly? We queried the team and here’s what came out of the discussion.

One thing to keep in mind while discussing productivity is that there is no one system that works for everybody. For example, some of us just use paper and pens to create to-do lists and track our tasks. Others like various task management systems: Asana, 30/30Trello, and Any.do, to name a few. One person on our team uses a priority pyramid – built with post-it notes stuck to the wall next to his desk.

Another theme that kept coming up was the idea of distractions – little things like notifications on your phone or computer for emails or text messages. Turning those notifications off entirely works for some of us – it enables us to be in control of when and where we get our information. Another option is Inbox Pause, which lets you stop all notifications for a while – say, while you’re really focusing on a project – and then you reactivate your inbox and all your messages come through.

Lastly, here are a few extra links that are great tools for developers and designers:

MailDrop

MailDrop is a web service that saves you from having to send spam to your inbox when you have to give out your email address. Instead of giving out your real address, just make up an email address on MailBox; you don’t even have to sign up or create an account. You can just type in your user name and it will pull up any emails you had sent to that address.

MailDrop

Stylify Me

Stylify Me is a great site for designers to look into. Users can just type in the web address of any site, and Stylify Me analyzes it and creates a style guide for it, complete with colors, fonts, and image dimensions.

Stylify Me

Sidekiq

Sidekiq is simple, efficient message processing for Ruby (well suited for handling asynchronous, queued tasks). It uses threads to handle many messages at the same time in the same process. As such, it claims to work 20 times faster than other Ruby message processing services like Resque or DelayedJob.

Sidekiq

Fusion Radar: June 12, 2013

June 13th, 2013 - 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.

Jetstrap

Jetstrap is an online tool that developers and designers can use to rapidly build and launch prototype webpages. The interface is fairly lightweight, but it’s completely web-based, and allows you to drag and drop large sets of site components to customize your prototype.

Jetstrap

Text-align: Justify and RWD

This is a handy trick that can save developers from having to calculate margins on sites they’re developing. Instead of measuring the size of the images, text, or menu items, then creating margins that will spread them all out equally, you can simply use “text-align:justify” to do that automatically. The site linked below has a demo and a more in-depth explanation.

Text-align

Damn You Art School

This tongue-in-cheek site lists apps, tools, and other resources for creative professionals. It first divides the tools by occupation or interest (e.g. Architecture, Illustration, Fashion, etc.), and then further sorts them into categories like “color,” “time management,” “accounting,” “client communication,” and others.

Damn You Art School

ToS;DR

ToS;DR stands for “Terms of Service; Didn’t Read.” The people who run this site are trying to fix what’s been dubbed as the biggest lie on the Internet: “I have read and agree to the terms.” Legal professionals and other volunteers go through the terms of service of various popular websites, including Google, Facebook, Apple, and Instagram, and point out the favorable or dangerous conditions in their user agreements.

ToS;DR

Moolta

Moolta is a site that helps users raise money for a charity of their choice. First, users create a challenge – something silly like singing their fast food order, visiting a library in a Speedo, or eating a jar of mayonnaise. Then other site visitors can see their challenge and donate to their campaign. If they reach their monetary goal, they have to record themselves doing their challenge, and the money gets donated to charity.

Moolta

Project Dialect

We’ve previously showcased a map of American English Dialects, and Joshua Katz’s maps of dialect variations are equally interesting. He takes the minor differences in pronunciation (think the word ‘pecan’, or ‘aunt’) and word usage (soda, pop, or coke) and maps them all out.

Project Dialect

Elevatr

Elevatr is an iOS app that helps users take ideas and turn them into viable businesses and products. It asks specific questions about your idea (e.g. who are your customers, what’s the market size, what’s your business model, etc.) and helps you organize all your thoughts so you end up with a marketable idea.

Elevatr

StereoMood

StereoMood is a site that takes user-generated tags and creates mood-based playlists. Anyone can tag any song, and the tags can be simple, like “happy,” or more complex, like “sunday morning” or “beach party.” Then when you go on the site, you can type in your mood and the site pulls up all the songs with that mood tag.

StereoMood

Melon

Melon is a headband and app combo that tracks and quantifies your focus. The headband itself has an EEG sensor that measures brain waves while you wear it. The app has users record the activity they’re engaged in, and then measures their focus as they go. It offers tips for increasing focus, and even has games you can play, just by focusing your mind on a task.

Melon

What Android has that iOS doesn’t

By some metrics, Apple is the dominant player in the phone market, but Android does have a few features that Apple’s OS either doesn’t do well or doesn’t have at all. Things like keyboard replacements, widgets, and cross-app functionality all offer a customizable experience for Android users. The article linked below goes into detail about the benefits of Android, and what we’ll probably see happening in iOS in the near future.

What Android has that iOS doesn’t

Fusion Radar: June 5, 2013

June 7th, 2013 - 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.

GitHub Sudo Mode

GitHub’s taken some inspiration from the Unix sudo command and created their own version of the security measure. In order to avoid forcing users to constantly enter their password, while at the same time keeping all their information secure, GitHub will only require password confirmation if users attempt a “dangerous action” (e.g. adding email addresses or public keys).

GitHub Sudo Mode

Joli OS

We’ve mentioned Joli on our blog before, but that was Jolidrive, a personal cloud service. Joli OS, on the other hand, is an interesting new product that claims to be a full OS replacement for any old PC. It’s very lightweight, which makes it ideal for old computers, and is completely free.

Joli OS

Mailtrap

This Railsware application allows development teams to test email delivery on staging servers. More specifically, Mailtrap is a fake SMTP server that provides shared access to team members as well as multiple inboxes for single accounts.

Mailtrap

Minbox

Minbox is a lightweight Mac app that lets users send and share files “at least 2x faster” than their main competitor, Dropbox. It also boasts features like integrated address books, unlimited uploading (any file size or type is accepted), and both a free and a premium option.

Minbox

Red Pen

We’ve had our fair share of receiving ambiguous feedback from clients. So we were pretty excited to discover Red Pen, a site that allows you to upload your design, share a short URL, and get live, annotated feedback. The site doesn’t require you to create an account.

Red Pen

Screen Siz.es

Screen Siz.es is a simple but incredibly helpful site that details all of the screen sizes of the most popular devices (phones, tablets, and laptops/PCs). In addition to the screen sizes, it also provides information on the OS, physical size, pixel density, and popularity.

Screen Siz.es

Routehappy

Anyone who’s done a bit of traveling understands that although you may pay the same for every coach seat on a plane, that doesn’t mean they’re all equal. Routehappy is a site that provides scores for flights, planes, and seats. It also helps you find the cheapest prices and details amenities and flyer ratings for each airline and plane.

Routehappy

Zombies, Run!

Zombies, Run! is an app that attempts to provide a little extra motivation for those of us who aren’t really that into exercising. The app gamifies exercising by making each run an adventure where you have to evade zombies, pick up supplies, and build up your base.

Zombies, Run!

Geotagged Twitter Maps

Twitter recently posted maps that use tiny blue dots to display every single geotagged tweet since 2009. Maps of Europe, New York City, Tokyo, and other cities are available to view on their blog.

Geotagged Tweets

Shadow

Shadow is an app that uses escalating alarms to gradually wake you up, with the goal of helping you remember your dreams. The app then allows you to type, speak, or even just answer questions to record your dreams the moment you’re fully awake.

Discover Shadow

Redbox Instant

It looks like Netflix is going to have some competition, coming in the form of Redbox Instant. This is a subscription service that not only allows you to stream anything in Redbox’s library (like Netflix), but also gives you 4 DVD credits every month – all for $8, a steep drop from the $16 it costs to do about the same thing at Netflix.

Redbox Instant