Design Woop | The Web Design and Development Blog » iPhone

iPhone Pacman Wallpaper v2

Stu Greenham — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 16:31:15 +0000

After seeing this post on engadget regarding the pretty sweet Pacman wallpaper for iPhone by some Japanese dude, Myself and Jamie decided to tweak the colours to be more ‘Pacman Like’. Here’s my version:

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Give Your Website A Custom iPhone Icon With/Without The Gloss Effect

Stu Greenham — Tue, 25 May 2010 21:29:36 +0000

When creating a website, it is more common then not now that we will add a custom favicon that will display in the browser tab alongside the website page title, this is fairly simple in fact only one line of code as below:

What is becoming just as popular is to add a custom iPhone icon that will appear on your iPhone’s Home Screen. Again this is very straight forward with one line of code in between your header tags, as shown below:

If you use an image of anything around 50px by 50px in size that will be, as the iPhone will resize and round off the corners for you on the fly. To add your site to your Home Screen, simply visit the webpage on your iPhone, then select the plus sign, followed by Add to Home Screen. You will get a prompt now and your icon should show, to finish, simply click add.

You will now be taken to your Home Screen where the icon should now be appearing. Here is the example below for Design Woop:

Now if your a picky sod like me, you will notice the horrible gloss effect that Apple adds to the icon by default. Until today I was using jQTouch to remove this until I came across this page on Apple.com which brought my attention to the additional -precomposed option. This stops mobile Safari adding any effects to the icon which is just what I was after! The line of code we use for this is now:

After refreshing the page and re-saving it to my iPhone Home Screen I was left with the much nicer…

I hope you agree with me but I think the no gloss icons are nicer!

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Meebo Finally Launches on iPhone With Support for Dozens of IM Networks

Stu Greenham — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:45:27 +0000

Mashable (first again, man these guys are good) just posted an article on the new iPhone app Meebo. For anyone else using the webtool already this app looks great and is free! Check out the post for Screenshots and a review.

Click here to visit the article »

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Favourite Links 3

Stu Greenham — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 20:20:00 +0000

Time again for another round of fun and exciting links! We have free fonts, tutorials for image replacement, inspirational blog designs, comedy moustache mugs and a few more! If you have any you want featuring on next weeks roundup then let me know via Twitter (via @stugreenham).

Moustache Mugs!

Visit Source: http://www.peteribruegger.com

Safe to say this is on my next to buy list! I will no doubt be the coolest kid at work! Just need help deciding which one to go for?

20 Super Clean Fonts Perfect for Minimal Style Design

Visit Source: http://webdesignledger.com

Web Design Ledger posted this great article showcasing 20 great font’s that are especially good for minimalistic designs. Another great point to make is they are all free! Go Nuts…

Chomp iPhone App

Visit Source: http://chompapps.com

A new iPhone App that attempts to take on Apple’s app store genius feature. Called Chomp, it is based around giving you app recommendations based on the reviews you give other apps. Probably not the best explanation their but its free so give it a try!

Nine Techniques for CSS Image Replacement

Visit Source: http://css-tricks.com

Chris Coyier wrote this great tutorial article I came across looking at nine techniques for CSS Image Replacement. I myself was only aware of a couple of these so its good read for anyone who actively uses this technique to freshen up on possibly better methods of doing the same thing.

Better html anchor, a jquery script to slide the scrollbar

Visit Source: http://www.position-absolute.com

Great jQuery script that gives you a smooth page jump anchor effect replacing the standard jump to links. This is really cool and you will probably have seen in on various sites around, well now you can use it on your site too.

50 Most Amazing Beautiful Blog Designs

Visit Source: http://creativenerds.co.uk

Creative Nerds posted this article showcasing 50 inspirational blog designs. Some great sites here and one to keep on record when your looking for some inspiration yourself!

30 Gorgeous iPhone App Interfaces & Icons

Visit Source: http://iphone.appstorm.net

The Appstorm guys posted this article last week and for an aspiring future iPhone app developer (nice title indeed) its a keeper! The post looks at 30 apps all look amazing! Not only good for inspiration but there are some good apps I didn’t know about here so take a look!

Right thats it for this week but be sure to check back next week! Tweet me @stugreenham if you find any interesting articles that I can use or you think is interesting and I will take a look!

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5 Reason’s to work directly from your Dropbox account

Stu Greenham — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 21:11:08 +0000

Dropbox, the must have app for 2009! Right? Well for most of us with a brain it was and my god it’s a life saver! For anyone who hasn’t heard of Dropbox yet, in a nutshell, its a piece of software that allows you to sync your files online and across your computers automatically. Better yet, it works on Mac, PC, Linux and as from a few months back the iPhone too.

Dropbox can really be a lifesaver when working on any project and here’s 5 reasons why you should be using it too:

Share Files without a Pen Stick

As Dropbox allows you to share folders with other members, this makes a great tool for collaborating with projects. Your files instantly sync to your shared contacts folders each time a file is saved or created ensuring that everyones folders look the same. Although it’s not possible to work on the same file at the same time, it removes the need for removable storage devices to exchange files or having to email files back and forth and back and forth again, thus saving a lot of time.

Reverting back with File Revisions and Undo Deleting Files

This is a great feature and one that I imagine a lot of noobs won’t be aware of, but Dropbox stores revisions of each of your files allowing you to revert back to previous versions via the web interface of your account. This is super if you accidentally overwrite a file and perfect when working on documents or spreadsheets as an example. Extending this further, Dropbox will even allow you to restore recently deleted files meaning that your covered from all angles.

On the Fly Backing Up of Files

Similar to my previous mention of restoring old files and file revisions, Dropbox also relentlessly backs up your files on the fly. For them days when your computer decides to play blue screen you have the piece of mind knowing that should your hard drive decide to pack up on you, your files are nicely tucked away over on the Dropbox servers. What differentiates this from other backup services is that the backup itself is always running, meaning that you don’t have to wait for a specific time at which point the whole backup will begin. Yes yes I know paid for backup services will probably be a safer option, but for specific folders Dropbox is perfect.

At work, I save all my concepts I’m working on straight to Dropbox as I do any code or handy scripts / plugins / links I find allowing any of the other guys I work with to access these from their machines. Once a project is complete, I then copy the files over to the Network Shared drive which is backed up securely.

Mac, Windows, Linux and iPhone Compatible

There are a lot of programs available that only built to support one OS, say Mac or Windows for example. If your in my situation where you use a Mac at home but a PC at work then you will probably have spent hours trying to hunt down similar programs that offer the same features as the Mac does for your PC (As an example, finding a To Do List as good as Things grr). Well fortunately, Dropbox has Windows, Mac, Linux and iPhone versions of its popular software and all work together seamlessly. By the time I get home from work, my Mac is already up to date with any files I have been editing at work!

Saweeet Prices and Referrals earn you Extra Storage

Dropbox offers storage from 2GB up to a whopping 100GB depending on your account and obviously price plan you choose. For a standard FREE, yes free account, you get 2GB worth of storage and you are not limited to features, meaning you can share folders / files, revert to old files and your files are backed up. What’s even better is that if you refer your friends using your unique referral link, you can earn up to 3GB additional storage.

If you have given the free trial ago and are ready for more space then you can pay $9.99 p/m for 50GB’s worth of storage and $19.99 p/m for 100GB!

Conclusion

To sum things up, Dropbox just works, and works well! What other product can you say offers you storage space with on the fly backups, file / folder sharing capability as well as the option to restore deleted files for Free? Well short answer is you can’t. I find myself constantly telling people about this tool and I have my friends, my family all using it to share / send files.

I also think for any students out there, this would be invaluable! I can remember snapping numerous pen sticks when I was at Uni and losing my work, as well as misplacing them or having them pinched and this is not a very efficient method compared to Dropbox, and your files are secure!

Finally, The iPhone app which was recently released is another feature that the guys at Dropbox dropped on us and now I can access my files on the go, literally! I can even make files available offline if I want to.

What are you waiting for, get over to http://getdropbox.com and signup for your free account now and let me know what you think.

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Google Sync now supports Push Mail

Stu Greenham — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:08:41 +0000

Back in February I wrote a post about Google Sync and how you can sync your Google Calendar and Contacts to your iPhone wirelessly using the exchange feature on your iPhone. Well Google have now added support for push mail to their sync feature! In their blog post they write about their decision to add this.

If you have already setup your Gcal and/or Gcontacts as per my guide here to your phone then adding the mail to it is super simple….

Go to Settings
Go to Mail, Contacts, Calendar
Click on the Exchange account you currently have setup to your Gmail Cal and/or Contacts
Flick Mail to Yes
Now choose which folders you want to sync at the bottom of the current page

Now when you go to Mail from the home screen you will now have your Exchange account listed in your accounts list.

It’s really that simple! :) any probs let me know in the comments.

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Get Ego on your iPhone

Stu Greenham — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 22:32:07 +0000

I came across an interesting application today for my iPhone, called Ego. It gives you up to date stats from your Google Analytics, Feedburner, Mint, Squarespace and Twitter accounts all in one neat little Application. The interface is really cool, and slick looking and its very simple to use.

From the settings page, you add a new ‘Widget’ which then gives you the option of which account you want to setup, for example, Google Analytics. From here you enter your account details and save, at which point you will get a nice colourful box on the main app screen which will show your accont details.

For me this is great, I have Ego setup to show my Analytics stats for selfconclusion.co.uk as well as my SC feedburner figures and also my main Twitter account.

The default view for the Analytics Widget shows you your page views for that current day, which once tapped, moves onto show you your views for yesterday, then for the week, then for the month, and finally the year. On the left hand side of the box, you also get a unique visitors figure which is handy. I much prefer this app to the Analytics application, because it simplifies things down! When I am on the move I don’t need to see all my Analytic stats, seeing my page views is enough for me.

Moving onto the Feedburner widget, you are shown a figure that is your number of subscribers which is also joined with an arrow to show you if this figure is down or up on yesterdays figure. If you tap this figure then you get the difference in subscribers from that of yesterday (for example, +2).

Finally, for the Twitter widget, it shows you your latest tweet, and also how many followers you currently have. Once again if you tap this number, it changes, in this case to the number of people you are following, if you tap on it once more you see your total number of tweets to date :)

Anyways, I hope I have explained it simple enough! The app is well worth the £1.19 price tag on the App store! check it out by clicking here [App Store Link]

** UPDATE 18/07/09 – An Ego update was released today allowing you to now track your Google Page Ranking right from your iPhone **

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Finally.. A Sync between Google and iPhone

Stu Greenham — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 23:53:23 +0000

Now this is something I have been patiently waiting for ages now! The option to Synchronize my Calendar data between my Google Account and my iPhone! Woop! Well here it is, be it only in beta mode at present, Google Sync.

There is also an option to Sync your contacts, but I am not going to bother with this part right now, mainly because its late and I am, for now, only interested in getting the Calendar section sorted. I have had a bad experience with getting my Mac’s Address Books contacts to match that of my Google Accounts. Anyways…

First thing you need to do is backup your iPhone, just incase any problems occur. The last thing you want to do is lose that important data, so make sure you don’t skip this bit. The second essential part is updating your iPhone so that version 2.2 is installed. Both of these two mentioned can be acheived by connecting your iPhone to your computer and hitting Sync. The final thing you need to make sure is that any existing Exchange Accounts on the iPhone must be removed, this is because the device supports one Exchange at a time and Google Sync is going to need it. Once you have got to this part the rest is easy, and won’t take longer then 5 minutes I reckon :)

Grab your iPhone
Select Settings
Then Mail, Contacts, Calendars
Next, chose Add Account

You should now have a screen in front of you that is the same as Picture 1 below. Select Microsoft Exchange, at which point you will see a form ready for your details (See Picture 2 below). You now need to enter you Google Account information in here using the following details:

Email – Enter the name you want for the account, this can be anything you like
Domain – Leave this blank
Username – Enter you Google Account username in Email format
Password – Enter you Google Account password
Now tap Next at the top of your screen
A new Server field will appear. Enter m.google.com
Press Next at the top of your screen again

After pressing the second Next, you will see the iPhone check the settings and fingers crossed it should verify the account. You must now decide what information you want to Sync, at present ONLY the Calendar and Contacts are available even tho the Mail option is there. I will select Calendar here (See Picture 3 below) as previously mentioned I only want to Sync this information. Finally I hit Done. You will be asked to confirm you want to proceed with the Sync and that all the information will be removed first, hit Sync both times.

This is the process finished and you will now see your Google Calendar Synchronized to your iPhone! If you have any problems with this let me know but fingers crossed its a fairly straight forward process. Good luck Synching!

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I Love My iPhone! But…

Stu Greenham — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 20:35:50 +0000

…it doesnt have MMS

The most annoying thing is that, although it can take, even edit (thanks to certain apps) photos, it lacks the ability to send them to my mates via MMS. Fair enough, I could still take a snap and Email to a friend, or maybe even upload to my Facebook for everyone to see, but there have been many times where I have needed this function.

Fortunately I am not alone on this, the guys over at http://iphonemms.net/ have developed a Web App for the iPhone which will allow you to send MMS, but unfortunately it isn’t free. They also have an actually Application in the works which will no doubt soon be appearing on the iTunes App Store. I have a few friends who have used this service to date and they have confirmed it does work.

…I still cannot get new ringtones because I’m from the U.K!

I am someone who likes a different ringtone each week, my song tastes are changing so frequently that my iPhone needs to keep up. If you have ever tried to create a Ringtone in iTunes, you may have experienced the following error message…

According to Apple, this is not because of a Network Connection, but in fact due to the fact I live in the UK and ringtones aren’t availble for me. Six months after first noticing this error, I am still no further on! If it hadn’t been for a great bit of software called iToner, my iPhone would still be blurting out that same noise that would of eventually led me to insanity.

…the Battery life ain’t pretty!

Now a decent Battery life is essential to any decent gadget! I will admit, since upgrading to the 3G version, the battery life seemed better, but not great! I am finding myself nervously worried about using any of the newer features like the built in GPS, purely because it sucks the life out of the thing! this leads me onto my four and final moan of the day…

…the Google Maps doesn’t auto move to the next direction!

This isn’t major as I don’t really use the Maps app unless in emergency travel situations, but it frustrates me because Google should have thought its users would need this feature. For example, If you are driving and you have your iPhone nicely cradled on your cars dashboard showing you where your heading, the last thing you would want to do it have to click the -> arrow everytime you want to see the next turn, because this is dangerous! The location based service should automatically move to the next set of instructions allowing you to concetrate on the driving side of things.

…now I’m tired and off to bed :)

Well I am tired now so I’m gonna end here, for today anyway! Okay Okay, this may seem like a negative post, and for any people reading who have been umming and arring about whether or not to get an iPhone, please don’t let this put you off! This truely is the best phone! and the pro’s outway the negs by sooooo many! But these are a few things that I feel let the side down on Apple’s end. So come on Jobs get it sorted!

Finally, I came across an interesting site whilst writing this post, which is http://pleasefixtheiphone.com, which shows me that I am not the only one. The site, based around its users submissions, focuses on how the iPhone could be ‘fixed’, check it out if you are an iPhone user with issues. I personally don’t think the iPhone needs fixing at all, I would probably have called the site http://pleaseupdatetheiphone.com or something along that line! Anyway’s let me know what you think about the iPhone and if you want me to add anything onto this post. Woop!