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Fusion Radar: April 30, 2014

April 30th, 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.

Project Naptha

Naptha is a Google Chrome plugin that allows users to select, copy, translate, edit, and even delete text found in images. Ordinarily, it’s impossible to perform any of those functions on text found in comics, document scans, photographs, infographics, memes, etc. However, Naptha helps Chrome identify and then read text in images, allowing us to highlight and interact with it as though it were plaintext on a page.

Project Naptha

Velocity

Velocity is a jQuery plugin that claims to be the best of jQuery, jQuery UI, and CSS transitions combined. It re-implements all of $.animate()’s features to produce significantly better performance (making Velocity also faster than CSS animations), and it includes several new features to improve animation workflow. These new features include tools like color animation, transforms, loops, easings, class animation, and scrolling.

Velocity

One Startup’s Struggle to Survive

This article from Wired is a long editorial piece that details the struggles of Boomtrain, a small startup in San Francisco. The article explores multiple viewpoints–from the founders to developers to investors–and is worth reading, especially for anyone interested in entrepreneurship.

One Startup’s Struggle to Survive the Silicon Valley Gold Rush

Digital Shadow

Although Digital Shadow is a promotional piece for the new video game Watch Dogs, it can be a bit scary when you see how easy it is for the site to grab and analyze your info on Facebook. Your “Digital Shadow” shows you the words you most frequently use, the friends you view (and who views you), and even tries to guess your password based on the information available on your profile.

Digital Shadow

How the Internet Works

This article (the full title of which is, “How the Internet Works and Why It’s Impossible to Know What Makes Your Netflix Slow”) is an in-depth but surprisingly understandable explanation of how the internet gets from its origin as a pile of fiber optic cables and servers all the way to you, the end user. It also touches on and briefly explains some of the “net neutrality” arguments that have been making headlines recently.

How the Internet Works

Endless

Endless is an iOS app that sends users interesting and unusual articles that educate them about the world around them. Some of the articles are random, and some are hand-picked by the team at Studio March (the creators of Endless).

Endless

The User is Drunk

“The User is Drunk” is a great video that takes just 4 minutes to explain what UI is (and what it is not), and how to build the best one possible. The video’s creators, the team over at Squareweave, suggest thinking of your users as drunks – they’re not paying much attention to their surroundings, they often need you to repeat what you’ve said, and although they’re impatient and sometimes pedantic, they aren’t stupid.

The User is Drunk

Google Street View’s Historical Imagery Feature

Google’s latest upgrade to Street View enables users to go back in time a few years and see how a given street or area has changed. The update rolled out just a week ago, and is being hailed as “Google Time Travel”. Viewers have used it to check out how rapid urban development has changed their city or how natural disasters have affected their area.

Google Street View’s Historical Imagery Feature

Nerdy NFC Tags

Kevin Purdy, from IT World, shared the unique uses he found for a cheap set of NFC tags in his recent article, “How to Nerd Out with NFC Tags.” While he admitted that NFC tags aren’t terribly useful in general (he described them as “trickery for trickery’s sake”), he still found a few ways to make them work for him; these include a tag on his bedside table that sets his morning alarm and turns off notification volumes when he touches his phone to the tag, and a tag on his bicycle that starts up a fitness app that tracks his miles.

Nerdy NFC Tags

14 Google Tools You Didn’t Know Existed

Here’s a quick, fairly recent article that outlines some of Google’s lesser-known tools. We’ve actually used our fair share of these, including the Webmaster Tools, Google Think Insights, and Google Trends. It’s worth reading through, even just as a quick refresher.

14 Google Tools You Didn’t Know Existed

Fusion Radar: April 22, 2014

April 23rd, 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.

GitHub Cheat Sheet

GitHub user tiimgreen recently published a GitHub cheat sheet – a collection of tools and features that the average GitHub user may not know about. Some of these features include viewing commit history by author, using GitHub to compare branches, and various keyboard shortcuts.

GitHub Cheat Sheet

Amazon Smartphone

There have been rumors that Amazon is working on a smartphone that will let you see in 3D without wearing 3D glasses. According to these reports, the phone will work by using its front-facing camera to track users’ eyes and alter the images on screen so they appear to be in 3D. Although Amazon hasn’t confirmed any of the emerging stories, it’s been reported by the Wall Street Journal that the product will be introduced later this year.

Amazon Smartphone

RegExr

RegExr is an online regular expression tool designed to make regular expressions easier for new (or even seasoned) users. This free tool comes complete with syntax highlighting, contextual help, video tutorials, a reference guide, and searchable community patterns.

RegExr

Why I Won’t Sign Your NDA

“Why I Won’t Sign Your NDA” is a succinct article by programmer-for-hire John Larson. In it, Larson describes the reasons why NDAs are “sloppy legalese at best, malicious traps at worst.” It basically boils down to the fact that while ideas are plentiful, good execution is rare; and signing an NDA impinges on his ability to properly execute a good idea.

Why I Won’t Sign Your NDA

Zed

Zed is an offline-capable, open-source code-editor with minimal interface elements and a robust set of features. This editor is also keyboard focused, meaning that users won’t need to take theirs hands off the keyboard for anything. It includes syntax highlighting and code completion for over 25 different code languages, plus multiple cursors and split-view editing.

Zed

SpotRocket

SpotRocket is a site that lists and ranks startups according to their capital, number of employees, and growth record. Site visitors can sort startups by location or industry, and clicking on a specific startup allows you to view more detailed information, like the company’s age, number of Twitter followers, and a short description.

SpotRocket

GoAccess

GoAccess is an open source real-time log analyzer and interactive viewer that runs in a terminal in *nix systems. It’s designed to make system administrators’ lives easier by providing instant HTTP statistics as it parses live web log files and outputs the data to your computer’s X terminal.

GoAccess

Brace Yourself, Here Comes the Mobile Appsplosion

CIO’s recent editorial theorizes that users are – or will soon be – overwhelmed by the number of apps on their phone. Although apps that break away from their all-in-one predecessors (like Facebook’s Paper or Dropbox’s Carousel) make sense, the sheer number of these apps may outweigh their usefulness. There are even apps that help you find or organize the other apps on your phone, like Aviate and Cover. Check out the article linked below for more information.

Brace Yourself, Here Comes the Mobile Appsplosion

XKCD: Lorenz

One of xkcd’s most recent posts is a “choose your own adventure” comic strip that takes users through multiple choices and endings. It’s worth checking out, and on some endings, you get to “fill in the blank” and write your own punchlines.

XKCD: Lorenz

Upcoming 3Things Event

April 17th, 2014 - by Objective - Salt Lake City, Utah

3Things Lecture SeriesOur second 3Things event is just around the corner. Tuesday 4/22 at 6:00 PM we’ll be featuring three more dynamic speakers, each presenting for 20 minutes:

Bret Rasmussen | Founder, Kuru
3 Things Every Entrepreneur Should Know

Andrew Scarcella | Copywriter, Ancestry.com
3 Things You Can’t Do, But a Copywriter Can

David Johnson | Art Director, Agency Fusion
3 Things to Keep Your High-maintenance Creatives Happy

 

 

If you plan to attend please RSVP to 3things at agencyfusion.com.

Date: Tuesday, 4/22/14
Time: 6:00 PM (sharp)
Location: 155 N 400 W, Ste 460, Salt Lake City, UT 84103 (map)

Visitor parking is on the north side of the building. If there aren’t any visitor spots open, just grab an open spot anywhere that doesn’t say ‘reserved’. When you exit the elevator on the 4th floor, go through the door on the right side and then turn right down the hallway to the Agency Fusion office.

Fusion Radar: April 16, 2014

April 17th, 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.

Amazon Dash

Amazon Dash is the new AmazonFresh product that aims to simplify shopping (even more than Amazon already does). The Dash is a small, handheld device that allows you to either say an item name or scan an item, and Amazon will automatically add it to your shopping list. Dash is also WiFi-enabled, so you can add items to your shopping cart throughout the day without pulling out your phone or going to your computer.

Amazon Dash

Reasons to Use Open Source Are Changing

For several years, the relatively low cost of open source software was one of the only reasons companies would consider using it. As the article title suggests, however, that’s changing, and fast. A recent survey suggests that now most companies that use open source software do so because it produces high quality products and attracts top talent. There’s also the benefit of being able to modify and customize software without having to build a whole new base.

Open Source For Businesses

Habit List

Habit List is a new iOS app designed to help users set and achieve maintenance goals. It’s sort of like a combination of Cal (a daily schedule app) and Everest (a goal-oriented app). Habit List focuses on how long you can maintain an activity–how many days in a row you complete items on your personal to-do and goal list. The app also sends you reminders of activities that still need to be done that day, and creates graphs of your weekly progress.

Habit List

MinnowBoard Max

Intel recently unveiled a smaller, faster version of its original MinnowBoard SBC: the MinnowBoard Max. This open hardware embedded board features more memory, a faster core, a microSD slot, and various other improvements over the original MinnowBoard. While it hasn’t hit the market yet, Intel plans to release it in June or July of this year.

MinnowBoard Max

Driving Curve

Driving Curve is an iOS app that records and analyzes your driving behavior. It uses your phone’s GPS to capture your speed and then evaluates your performance based on how quickly you stop or accelerate, and how steady your speed is overall. The app then ranks you along with other Driving Curve users and builds your driving profile.

Driving Curve

The Right Way To Ask Users For iOS Permissions

Brenden Mulligan, co-founder of Cluster, recently published an article aimed at app developers who lose users when they ask for iOS permissions. Mulligan’s main takeaway from the article is: don’t ask for access to something until your app really needs it, and plainly tell the user what they’ll get in return.

The Right Way To Ask Users For iOS Permissions

Velositey

Velositey is a free Photoshop extension that allows designers and developers to create prototypes of website designs within Photoshop. The extension comes with a pre-generated grid system and starts you off with standard elements like headers, sliders, content areas, and footers.

Velositey

Typeform

Typeform is an online survey builder that sets itself apart from the competition with its clean design, straightforward copy, and simple pricing tiers (including a free option). The idea behind Typeform’s slick look is that site visitors and customers are much more likely to fill out questionnaires when presented with something that looks simple, professional, and engaging. Their surveys are also mobile friendly and allow companies to incorporate their own branding.

Typeform

Style Manual

Australian designer Andy Taylor recently published a “Style Manual,” which he claims combines the best rules from British- and American-English. He admits that each system has both commonsense and nonsense rules, and highlights those rules that make the most sense. In his online guide, Taylor touches on issues like most commonly misused words, punctuation, and styling.

Style Manual

A Brief Typography Primer

April 8th, 2014 - by marissa - Salt Lake City, Utah

History

This month’s internal training was a crash course in the basics of typography. The history goes back several hundred years. Although Gutenberg is often called the “father of typography,” it was actually the Chinese that first started creating woodblock printings and wooden movable type as early as 1100 A.D. However, the simplicity of the Latin alphabet allowed printing presses to be created and used quickly and efficiently; whereas the Chinese language had thousands of characters, making the typesetting process much more complex and time-intensive.

Gutenberg’s first type blocks used a typeface called Black Letter, which resembled the handwriting in books and manuscripts at the time. Type slowly evolved to more legible letter forms, like Roman and Caslon. The first sans-serif typeset was developed in 1816 by William Caslon IV. Some of the most famous fonts, Futura and Helvetica, were created in 1927 and 1957, respectively.

Modern Typography

Letter forms have anatomy that typographers can refer to when describing them. Some examples include bowl, counter, stem, tittle, and leg. There are even more terms when it comes to digital typesetting processes, including leading, kerning, point size, line length, and tracking.

Few people outside of the typesetting industry understand the difference between typography and lettering. Typography is the style and arrangement or appearance of typeset matter, whereas lettering is the art of drawing letters.

Users also need to beware of free fonts! More often than not free fonts have poor quality, poor auto kerning, a limited glyph library and formatting issues. Often, if you’re looking for a font for your business or project, it’s going to be worth it to purchase a high-quality font.