The Objective Blog

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

Fusion Radar: March 26, 2013

March 26th, 2014 - 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.

Macaw

Macaw is a web design tool that allows you to “draw” your code. It’s as flexible as your standard image editors–and at $129, is much more reasonably priced than most of them. In addition to the low price point, Macaw also writes semantic HTML and succinct CSS for you while you design. This allows designers to define responsive breakpoints, resize all elements on a canvas at once, and build clickable prototypes with dynamic interactions.

Macaw

Offscreen

Offscreen.js is a lightweight jQuery plugin that can detect if an element is cut off by the sides of your screen, and adjusts its placement accordingly. More specifically, Offscreen.js adds a special class to the offscreen element, bringing it back into view so you can address the problem.

Offscreen

Madeira

Madeira is a set of powerful and simple tools that allow users to design, build, and manage their AWS cloud. It uses drag-and-drop controls to help you quickly and efficiently design your application architecture. It also enables users to configure specific resources and security group rules. Finally, users can launch their design into a real environment to see how well it works.

Visual Ops (formerly Madeira)

Gremlins.js

Gremlins.js is a monkey testing library you can use to test the robustness of web applications. The creator states that it “unleashes a horde of undisciplined gremlins”; Gremlins.js basically throws events at your HTML, and is able to report back when something goes wrong.

Gremlins.js

Squirt

Squirt is a simple speed reading web app that shows users one word at a time, allowing them to read up to 600 wpm. (Note: the average adult reading speed is 300 wpm.) You install Squirt as a bookmarklet in your browser; then, whenever you come across something you want to speed read, click on the bookmarklet. Squirt will help you speed read your way through whatever text is currently on the page.

Squirt

NameChk

NameChk is a simple site and iOS app that lets you search for available usernames on dozens of social networks sites all at once. Simply type in your desired username or url and NameChk will review sites like Pinterest, reddit, LinkedIn, and about 80 other sites for that name’s availability.

NameChk

Why Don’t Designers Take Android Seriously?

Cennydd Bowles, a design lead at Twitter, recently wrote an article that explores why he thinks Android will be the dominant platform of the next decade. Among other reasons, Bowles cites Android’s universally accessible software that enables it to work with devices from many different companies. He also takes some time to address the issues he sees as the biggest barriers to designing for Android.

Why Don’t Designers Take Android Seriously?

Fusion Radar: March 19, 2014

March 24th, 2014 - 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.

Viaduct

Viaduct is an application hosting platform which claims that it offers everything developers need from a hosting platform. Although the beta hasn’t launched yet, if Viaduct works the way its creators claim, it will have the ability to mount shared directories across all deployments, deploy any applications from any platform, and configure “enterprise-ready” databases using MySQL, Redis, and other database systems. Viaduct

Cut&Slice Me

Cut&Slice Me is a free Photoshop plugin designers can use to export assets to different devices quickly and painlessly. Adobe Photoshop hasn’t really changed the way it exports for web since sites were table-based, so Cut&Slice Me aims to help users improve their workflow by speeding up the modern slicing process. Users name their layers appropriately, and Cut&Slice Me exports retina-display quality assets. Cut&Slice Me

Doing

Doing is a basic CLI tool that helps users keep track of what they’re working on and what they still have left to do for a project. Users add and list “doing” and “doing later” notes in a TaskPaper-formatted text file, then can type commands like “doing last” to see what they were last working on, or “doing today” to see everything they’ve been working on since midnight of the current day.
Doing

Hopscotch

Hopscotch is an iOS app designed to help kids learn how to code using simple, intuitive building blocks. The app enables kids to create games, animations, and other programs in a colorful interface. Kids can also program their characters to move, draw, or collide by using shaking, tilting, or verbal commands to control them. Hopscotch

Brackets

Brackets is a slick-looking open source code editor designed specifically for web designers and front-end developers. This free code editor offers a number of useful features, including live HTML development, JS debugging with Theseus, and the ability to edit external styles and code without leaving the main document. Brackets

Jonathan Ive Designs Tomorrow

Time Magazine recently published the first in-depth interview ever conducted with Apple’s design chief Jonathan Ive. Although the interview doesn’t reveal much about Apple’s future plans, it does offer interesting insights on Apple’s view of the world, its policies, and Ive’s personal memories of Steve Jobs. Jonathan Ive Designs Tomorrow

Android Wear

Google recently announced that it was developing Android Wear, a version of its OS designed specifically for wearable tech. The interface looks crisp and intuitive, and Android Wear will enable users to ask Google questions, view information and notifications, and synchronize with wearable sensors like accelerometers and heart rate monitors. Android Wear

Fusion Radar: March 12, 2014

March 24th, 2014 - 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.

Code for America

Code for America is a non-profit organization that promotes government reform via development, design, and research (all at a city level). Their site contains dozens of resources for getting involved in or informed about your city’s government; this includes everything from an app that will text you when your bus is getting close, to a site that helps users find food, heath care, housing, and employment within their zip code.

Code For America

Squarespace Logo

Squarespace, a site that provides templates and guides to help you build your own website, now offers a way to build your own logo. You type your logo’s text, then customize it with a tagline, symbols, and colors. Squarespace displays the logo on business cards, a mock website, and t-shirts to help you visualize your creation.

Squarespace Logo

Facets

Facets is an app by Hakiri that helps developers keep their code under constant supervision, without having to watch it themselves. It’s a free Gemfile.lock scanning tool that looks for vulnerabilities, and automatically reports back to the user when it finds them.

Facets

Apple CarPlay

Although it won’t be widely available, Apple is announcing CarPlay in select new cars this year. This is designed to make iPhone use safe while driving by adding a large built-in touchscreen you can use in lieu of your iPhone’s smaller screen, and by connecting your car’s knobs and controls to your iPhone.

Apple CarPlay

Placeit

Placeit is a service that enables developers and designers show off apps in-context. The team at Placeit uses your screenshots and workflows and places them in realistic settings with different devices and backgrounds.

Placeit

Truth

Truth is a new iPhone app that lets you send anonymous messages to anyone on your contact list. Instead of seeing your name and number, friends will see the Truth avatar and a code name. And in order to combat the possible abuse that could occur with anonymizing text messaging, Truth allows you to block anyone sending you messages you’d rather not receive.

Truth

Brick

Brick is a pack of reusable UI components built with x-tags, enabling users to quickly build mobile HTML5 apps. It provides you with cross-browser implementations of commonly-used UI elements, including items like calendars, slidebars, and cycleable galleries.

Brick

Zach Galifianakis vs. President Obama

Dismayed by the low numbers of health insurance applicants–particularly applicants in the 18-34 range–it looks like the White House is trying something entirely new to raise awareness of the ACA: humor. Zach Galifianakis interviewed President Barack Obama on his popular Funny Or Die webshow, Between Two Ferns. The video, which features dry sarcasm and not-so-subtle jabs from both President Obama and Zach Galifianakis, has generated hundreds of thousands of views within hours of its publication and has sent thousands of visitors to the government’s healthcare site.

Between Two Ferns

2048

2048 is a simple but addictive online game created by GitHub user Gabriele Cirulli. In it, players attempt to add numbered tiles together until they reach the number 2048. It starts with small even numbers, and when two tiles of the same number are combined, they merge into one sum. This continues until you run out of space or hit the magic number: 2048.

2048

Fusion Radar: March 5, 2014

March 5th, 2014 - 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.

Ratchet

Ratchet is a UI framework designed to help you quickly and easily create mobile apps using only HTML‚ CSS‚ and JS components. It supplies its users with pre-built UI components, including box-sizing, flexbox layout, and gradients. To get started, you create a container div in your HTML, throw in a few items with preset classes, and start customizing.

Ratchet

GluePrint

GluePrint is an app that enables you to turn any mockup into a floating guide, which in turn lets you drag your guide across another image and visually align pixels with ease. You can also use the arrow keys to make small placement adjustments, and use scroll to adjust the transparency of your guide.

GluePrint

Recordit

Recordit is a free Mac app that lets you record screencasts. Before you begin, the app has you drag to select the area on your computer that you want to record. Once you’ve finished, the app generates a URL that links to a video of your screencast. You can also generate a .gif file if you want to share your screencast that way instead.

Recordit

Flag

Flag is a phone and tablet app that prints and mails your photos to you for free. By placing ads on the back of the photos they print, Flag is able to offer its users 20 free prints a month; however, users can also pay a small fee to have the ads removed, or pay extra if they want more than 20 of their photos printed per month.

Flag

Atom

Atom is modern, approachable, and hackable text editor created by the owners of GitHub. Described as the “text editor [they’ve] always wanted,” Atom is an easy-to-use desktop app with a web-based core; this core includes Node.js integration, modular design, and the ability to add major features with HTML and JS.

Atom

Beta List

Beta List is a site that focuses on and showcases early-stage internet startups. The site describes and reports on these startups and offers early access to many of them. Some of its past spotlights have included sites like about.me, IFTTT, and Fab.

Beta List

A Collection of Cool Unix Tools

Kristof Kovacs, a software architect and consultant, has put together a list of 28 useful but obscure tools for the command line. If you check out his article, you can see tricks like slurm, which visualizes network interface traffic over time; ttyrec & ipbt, which records and plays back terminal sessions; and tpp, a PowerPoint-style presentation tool for terminal.

A Collection of Cool Unix Tools

Cortana

The web is abuzz with rumors of Cortana, Microsoft’s upcoming personal digital assistant designed to rival Siri and Google Now. The software is slated to appear in the new Windows Phone 8.1 update, which is rumored to be released in July or August of this year. Some critics think that Microsoft is too late to the game to bring anything innovative; other, more hopeful techies think that Cortana could be the perfect combination of Siri’s personality and Google Now’s functionality.

Cortana

Density

Density is built to measure the foot traffic to and from your business. The device is a small sensor that counts the number of customers, measures the length of their visits, and then syncs with the Density app to provide you with data and analytics. Density also includes a network, where you can share data with businesses nearby that also use Density.

Density

Oscar Night Twitter Activity

Twitter’s data team created this animated map by pulling all tweets with the hashtag #Oscar2014 that were sent during the show and compiling them using Cartobd’s geospatial data mapping tool. The animation, which lasts about 50 seconds, is especially active at the 22:00 mark, which is about when Ellen DeGeneres tweeted her record-breaking celebrity selfie.

Oscar Night Twitter Activity