April 21, 2017
Talking About the Weather
Weather is usually something pretty boring to talk about. Something reserved for last resorts to fill some awkward silence. Why is that? Is it because of how universally affected people are by the weather. It has a significant impact on every human's life. So on the most basic level, we all can think of something to say about it.
In my family weather is usually considered with a pretty high degree of curiosity. Maybe it's because my dad was a Navy man, or my brother's time working as part of the search and rescue helicopter crew in the Coast Guard. Whenever hurricane season starts I start scanning radar maps for potential storms far out in the Atlantic. And when the family vacation starts to approach, my dad and brother get excited checking the forecasts.
This got me thinking: What are the best weather apps? This seems to be a surprisingly elusive question, maybe due to how many there are, each with pretty much the same sort of pros and cons that really just boils down to personal tastes.
I've tried quite a few, and have some recommendations. First let me say that I am a bit picky about which apps I download. I tend to do a lot of research beforehand. Another caveat, I really don't like ads in my apps. In my research, Yahoo's weather app, the redesigned Weather Channel app, the Weather Underground app, and Dark Skies all were commonly referenced as great weather apps. I've also asked co-workers which apps they often rely on. Here is my review...
Native iOS weather app – If you use the iPhone and need a no frills app the one that's built into iOS will do. You can easily keep track of multiple locations and know what’s in store for the next seven days. Lacks advanced features, but hey its free and no ads!
The Weather Channel – I had assumed that the Weather Channel's official app would be the stand-out winner, but to be honest I was never very impressed with the experience using the app. I understand that it went through a pretty extensive redesign a few years back but still I find it to be pretty average. It does offer all the bells and whistles such as a radar map, an extended forecast, but it also features annoying ads, and was pretty sluggish especially if you're working on an older phone.
Solar – the first weather app that really impressed me visually was Solar. Solar has an extremely minimal and delightful interface. Colorful animated backgrounds with warmer colors indicate warmer weather, and cooler colors (blues) indicate cooler temps. Solar is the exact opposite of a feature rich app, instead it's focused on the aesthetic. It's just an ultra simple and elegant presentation of the weather. And although free, it never featured ads while I was using it. Solar is in my view the best looking weather app to date. However it has not been updated since 2013 so I am hesitant to suggesting using it.
Yahoo Weather – Yahoo tends to get a terrible rap when it comes to most of it's endevors, but Yahoo's weather app has been pretty amazing. It was for a while my main weather app because of it's very nice interface and greater degree of weather data. The app is free, but it does have some annoying ads that are not possible to remove. The nicest and most unique part of the app is the simple UI that features background images taken from local photographers' Flickr accounts (Flickr is a photo sharing service also owned by Yahoo). I've noticed that the backgrounds will update depending on where I am in the city, showing sculptures or areal shots when I'm near my office, or shots of the skyline when I'm closer to home. So it really takes advantage of location data to serve up interesting background images. This alone is reason to check it out. The UI also features minimalistic animations to depict when sever weather is happening, such as flashes to indicate lightning, or rain washing down the screen. The app has quite a lot of useful features including extended forecasts and a radar map. I really like the Yahoo weather app, but the fate of Yahoo after it's recent acquisition by Verizon has me questioning how much effort will continue to be put into keeping up with the app. Also the fact that I can't get rid of the ads is irksome.
Dark Sky Weather – A lot of my research favored the Dark Skies app for having a really nice design, and very accurate weather predictions, some suggesting to the minute accuracy. It's not free however. It's a little on the expensive side as apps go, at $4, but at least it will never feature ads. The UI is very minimal and pleasing. I've not found the weather predictions to particularly more accurate than any other weather app but the presentation of the information is pretty appealing. And it does have a nicely designed radar map.
Weather Underground – By far the stand-out winner in my view is the Weather Underground app. The amount of information available is fantastic. With graphs charting the changing temperature overlaying chance of precipitation, detailed radar and other maps, and lots of other data available, you really get an advanced view of what the weather is shaping into. (The Weather Underground website also provides all the same detailed information, and has replaced weather.com as my go-to weather website.) The app comes with ads, but for a couple bucks you can pay to turn those off for a year. I wish Yahoo offered that feature. To me, the Weather Underground app has perfected having a lot of information available, with an understandable user interface.
It's worth noting that the Weather Channel cable channel and the weather.com website/app are no longer connected. In 2012 they were sold to a consortium and were brought under a new parent company renamed The Weather Company. In 2016 all the digital properties which include the website and the app became a property of IBM. The Weather Company is also the parent company of Weather Underground. So in a way, the Weather Channel app and the Weather Underground app are now sister apps.
if you're looking for an attractive minimal design with (apparently) ultra precise weather predictions, and don't mind paying a little, you might want to try the Dark Skies app. But the fact that you can turn off ads in Weather Underground, and the sheer amount of features it offers makes it a clear winner in my mind.
Labels: technology, weather
April 13, 2017
Atom has become my go-to text editor
A little over a year ago I wrote a post comparing text editors, so I thought I'd take some time to reflect back on those, as well as a new ones I've started using. Atom is becoming my favorite text editor and I'm relying on it for almost everything lately.
I spend a lot of time using text editors. I like to try out new ones every so often. I feel like if you work in code it's good to try out new tools. For a long time, Notepad ++ was my go to editor. When others argued the benefits of using Dreamweaver as an IDE, I found myself more drawn to the independence of open-source Notepad ++ (plus any old FTP client). Then I discovered that there had been an emergence in a lot of new text editor options. I still love Notepad++ and give it credit for providing a great tool that inspired others. I have found a few new tools that I think are pretty great.
For a while I was using Brackets, an open-source Adobe product. Brackets really is a great editor that has some awesome features designed specifically for web designers/developers. I really like Brackets and I'll probably keep using it for some time. There are some really great features in Brackets. I like that it offers some features that were nice about Dreamweaver, such as auto tag closing, and the image preview when you hover over an image file path. It also provides a live preview of your edits via Google Chrome. But even on my pretty fast work computer Brackets can be a little slow to load, but overall much faster than Dreamweaver or any other Adobe product, just nowhere near as quick as Notepad++, Sublime or VS Code.
My current editor preference is the Atom editor, from the GitHub community. Like Brackets, it's also free and open-source, and it's also cross platform. I find it to have a great set of options and is pretty easy to customize to your needs. This video has some great tips for setting up Atom.
Here are some of the reasons I have grown to love Atom:
- At first I was really missing the self-closing tag feature of Brackets, but I've found the Atom alternative of using the shift key to pull up a dialoge box when beginning a tag to be more than equal as an alternative. You can also quickly close any tag by keying 'Ctrl+Alt+.'
- The customization of Atom is so easy, and so thoughtful. I really like the line that designates where code will end, and the lines you can have to designate tabs, and the ability to let the page scroll below the last line. Little features like these make the editor very comfortable to use.
- Search and replace works great: the 'Ctrl+F' function of Notepad++ allows me to easy find and replace multi-lines of text and for a while I thought that function was absent in Atom. It is in fact built into Atom, however the command is 'Ctrl+E.' 'Ctrl+F' still works, however it is single line find and replace only. No problem, but because 'Ctrl+E' works perfectly.
Recently I discovered another option for text editors, Miscrosoft's Visual Studio Code. VS Code is also open source, and out of the box has a lot of nice features. I also find it to be pretty fast to load compared to other editors, because of this VS Code has become my go-to editor for quick code edits, and I really rely on Atom for most projects where I'm spending any length of time. With Atom, if you take advantage of the available extensions (like the minimap, and the pigments color previewer) and customization options, you have one excellent editor.
Quite a few, probably most, front end web developers swear by Sublime Text. Sublime may not be free, but it is very affordable at just $70 for a lifetime license. A lifetime license will let you use the app on unlimited machines and operating systems. I've tried it, and I like it, but my attraction for open-source products keeps me going back to Atom, Brackets, and VS Code. I suggest that designers/developers try out all the editors they can. It's nice to have options!
Labels: code, Front-end Development, Graphic/web design, technology, text-editors, web development
January 29, 2017
Digital Careers
There is no better time than now to consider a digital career. Depending on if you are more creative or technical, there are many kinds of digital careers to consider, and there are many ways to get into the business.
Types of Digital Careers (these are just some common types)
Front End Developer – someone who is often thought of as a web designer, or a webmaster, web developer, web designer/developer, and so on. This work involves working on the front end languages that comprise web design/development (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript). These anguages are the types of code that get delivered to your web browser.
Back End Developer – someone who works on the back end (server side) of a website, using languages that were designed to run on a server (such as Python or Ruby) as well as managing databases where information is stored.
Full Stack Developer – a Full stack developer is someone who works in both the front end as well as the back end of the web development process. This is someone who can take a project from concept to completion. They have an understanding of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, as well as layngagues like Ruby on Rails, and interaction with relational databases.
SEO Specialist – a Search Enginge Optinization (SEO) Specialist is someone who provides guidance to help web pages rank higher in search engines such as Google and Bing.
Web Copy Writing – a Web Copy Writer is someone who specialies in writing copy that is enhansed for web. They typically consider the useability of the copy, the SEO value, and the website audience when preparing copy.
Graphic Design – Graphic Design is a traditional discipline that can be learned at an art school
UX Design – UX Design (User eXperience Design) is often confused with UI Design (User Interface Design), they overlap however they are pretty different. This blog post does a good job explaining the differences.
There are a lot of great learning opportunities out there to get experience in a digital careers. Quite a few people have restarted their professional lives learning new things on the side, and launching a new digital career.
Online Education
One route you can take is to educate yourself in your spare time. If you're interested in learning to code, then its a good idea to try an online service such as CodeCademy, CodeSchool, Udacity, Udemy and Corsera. I highly recommend CodeCademy because there are a lot of learning resources available for free! Udacity offers what they term “nanodegrees” specifically for Front End Development and Full Stack Development, and many others. If coding and programming is of interest to you, it's a good idea to check out the free CS50 Harvard course available on edX.
Traditional Education
If you're looking to get a degree, you have some options. Your best bet is to find a good program in either computer science, communications, marketing or graphic design at a public institution (I would highly suggestthe SMAD program at JMU).
When it comes to coding, it is traditionally a computer science focused discipline, however people who work in web development often have all different sorts of backgrounds. Graphic design, UI, UX have a lot of artistic elements that can benefit from a fine arts education. I would suggest the free CS50 class provided by edX to get a taste for computer science. I'm hesitant to recommend any for-profit education system, however there are some non-traditional schools that specialize in digital: Full Sail, SCAD, RISDI, Cal Arts. You can get a bachelors degree from Full Sail that is specifically geared towards web development, but it's worth cautioning to keep in mind that there are intangible benefits of getting a well-rounded degree from an accredited higher institution. You may not always want to be a web developer but if your degree is specifically in that career path it could become more of a challenge to change later. And keep in mind that many web developers come a broad range of backgrounds and academic disciplines.
Where you might go is up to you. Whatever your path, perusing a digital career can be exciting and rewarding.
Labels: code, CodeCademy, digital careers, Graphic/web design, online learning, technology, web development
June 15, 2016
Open Source is Awesome
Why do I love open source software so much? Because it enables creativity. You don't have to have access to expensive software licenses to unleash your inner creative potential. I've been a big fan of Open Source Software ever since I first discovered the original Open Office software in the early 2000s. Open Office was capable of nearly everything I needed from an office/productivity suite of tools, and was compatible with Microsoft formats.
I also feel that the more tools you know how to use, the more overall capability you have, thus encouraging intellectual curiosity, a trait that is sought after in the technology world. Just like a master carpenter tends to have many tools that they may use for a specific purpose, the more design tools you have experience with, the more well-rounded of a designer you will be.
you can do nearly anything with Open Source software! Working in the creative world, its truly difficult to get by without access to a subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud (which until not too long ago was the Creative Suite) since it's the industry standard, and there are a lot of great features that make Adobe a logical choice. But if you're just interested in exploring your creativity, you can find an open source program that matches nearly every component of the Adobe Creative Cloud.
Office Software – don't waste you money buying MS Office. You can do just fine with Open Office software. Right now there are two prominent choices: Apache Open Office, and Libre Office (I prefer the latter). This is because the original Open Office software (which I have been using for over 10 years) which was developed by Sun Microsystems, was forked into two separate products when Oracle acquired Sun. The Document Foundation has been more actively developing Libre Office.
Web Design/Development – Coding – Now there are an abundance of execellent text editors to code with, as I have mentioned in a previous blog post. I recommend Notepad++ and Brackets for raw text editing greatness. If you need a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get editor, try out Kompozer or N/Vu (which is what I learned with).
Blender – 3D modeling, video editing—I was recently working on updating my portfolio site JhuffmanDesign.com and thought it might be cool to add a video background on the homepage. I needed a way to splice some video I made. I did a LOT of research, and it turns out Blender is the best open-source video editor out there. I also used the open-source VLC Player to edit the video format and save for web. VLC Player plays pretty much every video format imaginable. Blender is the best open-source video editor available, and VLC Player is the best open-source video player available.
Illustration – Inkscape is one of my favorite tools. It's perfect for logo design, map making, wire-framing, or really any soft of vector-based graphic design. It's very similar to Adobe Illustrator although it does not come with any of Illustrators frills such as the many brushes. But if you're savvy, you can recreate those features using Inkscape. Try it out.
Photo Editing – GIMP (or GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a great raster image editor. It's perfect for doing the kinds of things you would normally use PhotoShop. The tools have different names, and the UI is not as pretty as PhotoShop, but it gets the job done. GIMP can even do some things that PhotoShop cannot do, such as save nativity as multi-layered ICO files.
Desktop Publishing – if you've worked in desktop publishing then chances are you have used InDesign. It's great for putting together larger documents with different page layouts, importing images files, etc. Scribus is the open-source equivalent of InDesign, it's what you use to pull it all together.
You don't have to spend a dime to have all the tools you need to explore your creativity! Read about more Open Source Software tools here.
Labels: Blender, Brackets, GIMP, Graphic/web design, Inkscape, Notepad++, Open Source, technology
May 18, 2016
Cutting the Cord
Cable subscriptions are becoming somewhat like video rental store memberships—a relic of the past. (RIP Blockbuster, Hollywood Video and Video World)
I've finally taken the plunge and cut my cable subscription. I was a cable subscriber, but after persistent price jumps it just didn't seem like a value.
I was a little apprehensive to give up cable, but with devices like Roku and Apple TV, and online options like Netflix, Hulu, HBO Now, and Sling TV, it's a lot easier to cut the cord. All you need is a decent internet connection. TV is now more accessible than ever, leaving cable boxes and subscriptions in the dust. The key is getting the right set of apps to suit your needs.
For me, Netflix is the best entertainment app, having overall the best selection of shows. And there are no commercials. Netflix also offers a great selection of originals, with shows like Orange is the New Black, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe television shows such as Jessica Jones and Daredevil. They keep coming out with new shows that look great, and they are not afraid to take risks on par with HBO. I'm really looking forward to the re-imagined Voltron, and the 80s supernatural mystery Stranger Things.
Speaking of HBO, the HBO Now service makes it much easier to give up the relationship with your high-maintenance cable provider.
Hulu seems to have the best selection of shows you'd find from networks, and also a decent library of films. Hulu also now offers a commercial free option similar to Netflix, but it is somewhat more expensive.
Sling TV offers live television for only $20 a month that includes some of the best channels you'd find on cable (TBS, AMC, Comedy Central, TNT, CNN, ESPN, etc). For me, this was what really made cutting my cable subscription seem like a no-brainer. Sling allows you to add on some extra channels a-la-carte style if you're intersted.
Comparing costs. At first cable will try to sweet talk you with a cheap monthly cost. But after a time they often raise their rates, and may not make it clear what the price will be after the promotional period. A full cable subscription can cost well over $100. Whereas with streaming apps (and a cheap antenna for local over-the-air broadcasts) you can spend a lot less, even cut your costs by half.
Typical cable subscription: $120ish/month (typical price after promo period)
Cutting the cord: Hulu $12 (no commercial plan) + Netflix $10 + HBO Now $15 + Sling $20 = $57/month
And since you're using technology like your smartphone, you can access your content pretty much anywhere. The best thing about these services is that you can turn them on and off whenever you want, so no need for uncertain contracts, or glitchy cable boxes.
I'm really excited that Google Fiber is coming to Charlotte, and for the competition this forces upon the internet providers. I've already noticed that local internet providers are offering big upgrades in internet speed for free. Competition is always a good thing.
There are a lot of cross overs between Hulu and Netflix, such as: every Star Trek series, Firefly, Parks and Rec, etc. But the excellent original content on Netflix, plus the amount of shows that are exclusive to Hulu make it easy to consider having both.
Amazon Prime exclusive shows: Catastrophe, The Man in the High Castle, Orphan Black, Mr Robot, older HBO shows, Downton Abbey
Hulu exclusive shows: Brooklyn Nine Nine, Seinfield, Party Down,
Netflix exclusive shows: Jessica Jones, Daredevil, Luke Cage, Orange is the New Black, Master of None, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Stranger Things
Labels: hulu, Jessica Jones, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Netflix, SlingTV, technology
March 9, 2016
Task Management Tools
One of the most difficult things to do in the creative world is to find a way to organize all of your tasks. There are lots of techniques and applications available, and I have tried quite a few (using post its, creating documents with lists, setting things a calendar appointments,) but it's hard to find one solution that covers all the bases. So instead I use a handful of different apps for different purposes. Here are a couple that I like.
One of the first web-based task list apps I ever tried was The Big Pic (wwww.TheBigPic.com). The interface, which uses gumball storage system, is simple and effective. It's a very visual way to organize projects. The downside is that it runs in flash, so it's desktop only. And considering that Flash is all but a dead technology, and there are other mobile friendly and free options now, I really can't recommend The Big Pic any longer. So instead, I'll recommend …
Google Keep
After trying The Big Pic, I've discovered a similar and better alternative that comes as part of Google's product-line. Google Keep allows you to create color-coded tiles, much like post-its, and also offers a check list function. It's a great general To-Do application. It comes standard with Android as an app, but is not available as an app for iOS (still you can simply save it as a web-page on your iOS home screen and treat it like an app). You can also tag the tiles with a theme – for example: “Beach Trip 2015”. Then when you view only tiles with a certain tag, it' a great way to organize you're projects.
Google Keep is great for the basic stuff, but if you need a task manager with a little more depth I've found two other options that I think offer quite a lot. And since I've used The Big Pic and Google Keep to plan for past vacations, so I thought I'd try out these two new apps to plan this year's upcoming vacation.
ToDoist
ToDoist is a great tool for creating in-depth check lists. The app lets you easily create projects that contain lists, and by hitting the control and left or right keys, you can nest lists within lists, which provides a great way to organize components of a project. The interface is very clean and simple. The app lets you set due dates/reminders so you'll get emails reminding you when tasks are due. The paid version allows for collaboration and added storage for files. Overall, its a great option for managing projects.
Trello
Trello is looking like my favorite overall task manager lately. Like Google Keep and The Big Pic, Trello provides a very visual format for organizing information, it being based on Toyota's Kanban style of task management. Tasks are organized as cards on lists, which are then organized into projects. Note: Trello is from the same people who created Stack Overflow, one of the best web development question and answer boards out there.
Both ToDoist and Trello are great task management applications, and both offer free basic accounts, are availabe as apps, and the ability to share with other users (though, with ToDoist you'll have to pay for that feature). If you prefer clean tidy lists, then you may prefer ToDoist. If you're more of a visual person, then you may prefer to use Trello. The only way to know for sure is to try one out.
Labels: Graphic/web design, tech, technology
January 25, 2016
Retro Gaming with the Raspberry Pi
As mentioned before, there are a lot of really cool things you can do with the recent proliferation of tiny computers. Specifically for me, the Raspberry Pi provides a perfect solution for retro-gaming.
For some time I was contemplating ways to create a simple, easy to use, inexpensive retro-gaming system – a way to play all the classic video games I grew up with. I had high hopes that the Nintendo Wii Virtual Console would accomplish this, and it did to a large extent, however it had some pretty glaring omissions when it came to game and system selection (For example: missing games like Castle of Illusion on Genesis, and the entire Atari catalog). And oddly, it seems to take eons for classic games to get released on the virtual platform, and even more strangely, when the updated Wii U system came out, they started all over again slowly re-releasing games. They should have dumped them all online much sooner for classic game enthusiasts to take the Virtual Console platform seriously, but I digress...
I considered several options to build my own system, but pretty much all them involved a computer running some version of Windows, making them a fairly costly option (unless I was willing to try buying a used computer on Ebay). Ultimately this would result in a fairly clunky experience, using multiple emulators to cover various video game machines, switching back and forth on an outdated version of Windows.
Then I stumbled on the Raspberry Pi, and the Retropie and Emulation Station programs. Retropie, along with Emulation Station, creates a very nice interface for playing classic games across multiple emulators. When you put them together you have one cost-effective, excellent platform for retro-gaming.
For less than $100 you can get a Pi, a couple USB controllers, a micro-USB charger, and a large capacity (not that it would be necessary) SD card and once configured you have the perfect retro-gaming platform. This Lifehacker article does a great job explaining the process of setting up a retro game console on the Raspberry Pi.
Should you choose, you can find all sorts of interesting cases and accessories for the Pi online, including control pads that look identical to the original NES control pads.
Labels: tech, technology, video games
January 24, 2016
Tiny Computers
Just a couple years ago a charitable organization was formed in the UK with the goal of creating small, affordable computers, to make hardware more accessible for those interested in learning to build/code. This movement just happens to coincide nicely with the development of smaller processors and electronic components needed for smart phones and all of the increasingly smaller devices in our lives, and with that comes a convenient surplus of available tiny hardware.
Their creation, the Raspberry Pi, is a credit card-sized circuit board with a CPU, RAM, and multiple ports for accessories – basically a computer the size of a deck of cards that costs under $30.
Since the original Raspberry Pi there have been several new releases with updated specifications. The Pi 2 includes a gig of RAM, and faster quad-core CPU. It's actually more powerful than the first computer I ever purchased, which ran windows 98, despite the fact that I could fit the Pi 2 in my pocket. Even at it's tiny size, the Pi can run older Windows, as this video demonstrates,. But it's much better suited for operating systems tailored to its configurations, such as the version of Linux released by the Raspberry Pi foundation.
There is a free slimmed-down version of Windows 10 (Windows 10 IoT Core) available for the Raspberry Pi 2, and paired with the Microsoft Hololens Augmented Reality headset allows you create some pretty amazing things. Learn more about Windows 10 IoT Core here, and get it here.
The Raspbery Pi Zero is a smaller version of the Pi with only the bare essentials, and not much larger than the circuit board itself. It's about the size of a thick business card and could easily fit in a wallet, yet it has the same computing power of the original Pi.
Initially intended as an educational device, the affordability and extensibility of the Raspberry Pi make it a device with nearly limitless possibilities. And with the ever growing Internet of Things (IoT) there will be increasingly more and more ways a Pi, or similar small computer, can enhance our lives.
Other folks have taken notice, and there is an increasing number of Raspberry Pi competitors out there, including C.H.I.P. which is basically a slimmed down Raspberry Pi that costs only $9. And just yessterday I read about a Kickstarter campaign for the Pine64, a more powerful competitor to the Raspberry Pi that runs on a 64 processor, has 4K video output, and can run Android OS, all on a board slightly bigger than the Pi 2, and only costing $15. It blew it's Kickstarter goal out of the water. So it's likely we'll continue to see an explosion of small computers supporting the IoT.
Labels: Open Source, tech, technology