Product Management UX/UI & Interacion Blog — Frank derFrankie Neulichedl

Frank Neulichedl

Frank Neulichedl

Retina Images for you website, 3 solutions - 1 Problem

You might consider upgrading your current graphics of your website for retina displays. Here are 3 solutions to do it in a very simple way ... but wait before you re-export all your images at a higher resolution. The new iPad and the iPhone 4S might not display the image at it's full size - if it is too big it will downsize it, making your efforts in creating a high res web experience a fail.

For more info read the following blog post, 5by5 Hypercritical Podcast and the specification from Apple of the mobile Safari webbrowser.

- http://duncandavidson.com/2012/03/photography_on_retina - http://5by5.tv/hypercritical/61 - http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#DOCUMENTATION/AppleApplications/Reference/SafariWebContent/CreatingContentforSafarioniPhone/CreatingContentforSafarioniPhone.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40006482-SW15

#apple #newipad #retina #fail #images #webdesign

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3 Solutions For Serving High-Res Images To Retina-Display Devices

Free Web Resources Everyday - WebResourcesDepot

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A handy portable Instagram Filters Cheatsheet

I stumbled across these guide to Instagram Filters and while I liked it very much it lacked 2 things - a couple of filters and it's not handy while you take photos on the road. So I fired up my Indesign and made up a free quick cheatsheet to keep with you all the time. Just print it out at 100%, cut and fold it - it's credit card size. Available both as jpeg and pdf for your convenience.

[one_half]

Instagram Filters Cheatsheet - JPEG VERSION

Instagram Filters Cheatsheet - JPEG Click here to download [/one_half][one_half_last]

Instagram Filters Cheatsheet - PDF VERSION

Instagram Filters Cheatsheet - PDF Click here to download [/one_half_last]

Quickly search frankie.bz from the the Chrome URL field

One more feature to integrate to your and your clients websites. Opensearch.xml is a simple file that helps Chrome search directly the content of a website. So it saves you the step of going to that website and enter a search. So just try to enter frankie.bz in the url bar and hit space - and bam you can search directly my website.

Very neat and easy - Thanks to Jeremy Keith for this tip http://adactio.com/journal/5137/

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Now you can read my ramblings even on your Kindle

I like to try out all publishing channels, in part for my work to advice clients, and in part to spread my thoughts :) I tried out the process offered by Amazon to publish Blogs on a Kindle and I'm proud to announce that I'm present on the Kindle now available in the US Kindle Store.

So if your have an US Kindle Account why not give it a try and let me know what you think.

http://www.amazon.com/Frankie-Design-Development-Blog/dp/B007PG5DXG/

#kindle #blog #publishing #subscription #channel #distribution

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I cracked the Pinterest code

Why is Pinterest so addictive for so many people? Because it's the first social sharing platform (it's not a full social network) that allows you to follow just specific "boards" of a user. How many times do we unfollow people on Facebook, Twitter or Google+ just because they overshare one aspect of their life, while we are interested in another. Or how many times have you restrained yourself in posting a cool recipe to your followers just because you feared that you alienate dilute your message.

On Pinterest I can select what boards (call them streams on any other social network) to follow and if the user sticks to what he advertised I can be sure to not see postings I don't care about.

It's the first time that I can do this without hacking around and asking my followers in what circle they want to be, etc...

Pinterest might be at the moment filled with "frugal" furniture, fashion and photography, but I will create some more themed boards and will start sharing my findings also on Pinterest - and this time you can select what topics you are interested in.

Let me know in the comments or by contacting me what boards I should setup - this has also the benefit that I can see what topics are most likely interesting to you guys and give you more of those :)

And last but not least, here is my Pinterest Account

http://pinterest.com/derfrankie

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Google+ launches new design - I like it

I'm curious to see if there will be the same outcry on google+ with the new design as you always hear on Facebook - but I like it. It is still clean but they have added a more App - Feeling. It seems that you can do more with Google+ now. The Toolbar on the lift is customizable and filtering your feed is also more intuitive.

I wonder if the page still consumes all the available memory of you computer if you leave it on in the background - will test that - but cudos in general to Google to improve quickly.

#googleplus #redesign #ux

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Google Currents available outside of USA - finally

We all hoped that Currents is the Flipboard for Android, and it wasn't, but more importantly it wasn't available internationally and lacking content. Maybe with the increased user base it will get better, and if you are interested in reading what I share on Currents just follow this link:

https://www.google.com/producer/editions/CAow9MIp/frankie_surprise_yourself

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Google Currents goes international - Official Google Mobile Blog News, features and tips from the Google Mobile team

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Responsive Design breakpoint traps

Allessandro has made a good write up about responsive web design and analyzed some examples - the only problem I have is that he falls into the device/breakpoint trap as many do - me included. Most responsive website just look great at certain screen sizes - a normal Laptop Screen, the iPad, the iPhone ... everything in between looks often akward.

If the design has fixed widths then we generate white space (therefore the many minimal designs) or if we have fluid designs, we get strange overlays when sidebars don't move to the right place or we have too long text lines, that make the content unreadable.

And there will be more viewers with odd screen sizes than we have now in the future - so most of the responsive websites of today will be redone in a couple of years when they become unbearable.

Another downfall of responsive is that it's not so easy to optimize the user experience because you are bound to the same structure. If you have to load a new page on the desktop, you have to load it on the mobile view as well. I'm still on the boat of having separated mobile sites if you have major functionality changes ... if not than responsive is good enough. #responsive #design #webdesign

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Responsive Design: One Design for Each Job: Not Enough! For any web designer, thinking responsive means accepting a new challenge: to be creative not only to produce something that works well on desktop PCs, but also on tablets and smartphones; to create n...

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Preview 150,000 Fonts directly in Indesign

A new plugin from Fonts.com allows you to try out fonts directly in Indesign before buying them. This could be a great tool for all Designers who do Identities, as they might want to "feel" and "see" if a font suits the design and the client. My first question is if it allows to create PDFs or to print out Pages to present them to the client - if not they are missing an opportunity, but it is still a great tool and we might not need to use the online previews anymore.

#indesign #plugin #typography #fonts #preview

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FontGazer – Fonts.com Plug-in for Creative Suite Preview the entire Fonts.com inventory of over 150,000 fonts in your Adobe InDesign document with the free FontGazer plug-in.

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Buy your competitors and shut them down - old ways of doing business in the web ...

To all you who call the web a hotbed for innovation - the business practices are just the same as in the old school offline world. Facebook for example has become big enough to swallow all upcoming and already established competitors. After acquiring Friendfeed, now Instagram. Both tried to be more than just blogging / photo sharing services - they are social networks. So what's next - Path? Reddit? Who cares.

The important thing is that we are in full transition from the early days of social networks to a mature market. Services will be launched just to be appealing to the big 3 (Facebook, Twitter, Google) and this strategy will fail, making the big 3 just bigger.

#facebook #instagram #socialmedia #business

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Breaking: Facebook's Buying Instagram for a Billion Dollars Mark Zuckerburg just announced that Facebook has agreed to buy mega-popular photo sharing service Instagram for $1 billion. Facebook's been on a buying spree of late, and has been beefing up its own a...

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Designers think and design for the future, and learn from the past

Seth Godin has written a long and thoughtful peace about the current and future evolution of the internet, mobile computing and the internet of things. It's an important read also for designers, who see their challenges in the problem they are solving right now, or the client they are working for (at least it looks like it). I think it's important because designers in their core have always worked with "data" and brought this data into a meaningful form. Data is according to Seth the key of a future proof and sustainable technological future and we as designers are the ones that can help make sense out of this data.

http://www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2012/04/06/apple-cloud/?single_page=true

#internetofthings #data #inspiration

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Apple and the Cloud: A Cautionary Tale | Xconomy The consumer's electronic world as we know it today is shared between Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and a handful of other popular brands. Most offerings

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Content aware photo retouching on your Android device

Are you already caught in the Instagram craze? Do you want to edit your photos before enhancing them with Instagram? Why not use one of the proposed Apps by Instagram themselves. The most interesting one is the content aware retouching App called TouchRetouch. Give it a try.

#instagram #android #photography #retouching #app

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Photo Tips: Android Photography Applications We’ve researched applications available for Android that can help you enhance and improve your photographs. Here are a few apps for simple and quick image editing to get you started! Photo Editing For...

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Free Open Source Crowdsourced translation service

I talked about crowdsourcing translations already a couple of times. Along with the Google Tool, and Getlocalized I found this service which is free for open source projects. Since I open source my projects I will definitely try this service out, as it looks quite established.

#trasnlation #localization #opensource #free

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Crowdin.net - Collaborative translation tool Crowdin.net is the on-demand software localization tool that makes translators collaboration efficient and smooth. Our online collaborative tool supports localization of web applications with absolute...

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Animated Fonts, the next frontier

Typography is a beast - everyone uses fonts, they are integral part of every operating system and application, and still in 2012 the art of making type look good is in the hand of the creator. And here are now animated fonts to make it even harder beyond the new challenges that web fonts bring. Animated fonts make fonts even stronger in character and make them express a style and a story.

This will make it difficult to use these fonts beyond the classic script fonts or as a demo. One of these demos is Typogami. I think zou can just use it for a documentary about origami - at least in the animated form, but still - great idea and execution.

Download it for free on their Facebook page and read more about the font following the link.

#typography #animation #font #free #origami

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Typogami: A Free Animated Typeface Inspired By Origami If you like typography and origami, this should set your heart ablaze: Typogami has letters that look like they’re made from folded paper. Still not smitten? It’s customizable and animated. Designed b...

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