Much of the past 24 hours was spent on episode 12 of Noboto – have a look, or subscribe with iTunes if you’ve got it.
This month we’ve tried to act out some of an interview with the fascinating Why the Lucky Stiff, and found that we could probably spend the next five episodes doing the same thing. Hope you like it!
Yesterday we spent several hours working with Joel Burrows on a rough draft of what may turn out to be the album art for the next Minders CD. We shall see, the rest of the band has not yet seen the artwork, but we like it so much we thought we could at least share with you the front cover.
Heavily inspired by the notebooks of William Morris and conceived by Joel, the look matches the music perfectly. We can’t wait to buy the CD!
If you are not already subscribed, take a peek at our October Newsletter where we chat about our newest project and catch up on an array of behind the scenes goings on.
For our everyday browsing, we in the Needmore Labs use Safari. Fast, elegant, and nearly crash-proof, it is the most practical browser to run on your Mac. But there are a lot of things you cannot do with this browser, the biggest shortcoming being the inability to write really creative extensions.
That is when you pull out Firefox. It may not be as fast as Safari, it may not render fonts quite as well, and it does not look nearly as lovely or lickable as an Apple program, but it makes up for these shortcomings with its expandability and better adherence to standards. And it can be made even better with a few web designer must-have accessories:
We might love Safari with all our hearts, but I can’t imagine building a website these days without a tricked-out copy of Firefix!
The recent release of the Motorola ROKR phone might have been the most widely anticipated, and strongly debated, release of a cell phone ever. Obviously this is because of the inclusion of iTunes, and the association with Apple. After reading so many terrible reviews, I admit that I had pretty much written it off.
Yet the battery in my old cell phone was dying, and I never liked that phone anyway, so instead of just looking for a replacement battery for a crappy phone, I started looking for a nicer, newer phone. And lo and behold, here I am with a Motorola ROKR in my hand.
Thing is, it seems as though most folks are comparing it (unfavorably) to an iPod. But to me, that misses the point completely. I am comparing it to the other cell phones on the market, and I love it! It’s a wonderful, excellent cell phone, which also happens to have iTunes. It’s like having a Shuffle integrated with your phone, and you get the display for free. It even shows the album art, and in that sense, it works better than my iPod that cost $399 two years ago – my iPod doesn’t even show the album art.
The neatest thing is that pausing music for incoming calls actually works. Not long ago I was imagining this ability – and now it’s here. Music pauses automatically for incoming calls, and then you resume it when you hang up. Finally. No more pulling out the headphones to take a call, kind of a nuisance when you’re riding a bike.
In conclusion, look at this if you are getting a new phone anyway. No, it is not a phone worthy of the Apple name, nor does it bear the Apple name. It’s a Motorola phone that happens to support iTunes pretty well.
Needmore Designs is looking to hire a Ruby on Rails programmer for part-time contract work. Someone with a good understanding of Ruby and Rails is essential. System administration and database skills are a must. Knowledge of AJAX, ActionScript, e-commerce and other web technologies would be most helpful. And you’ll need good communication skills, especially if you’re nowhere near our office.
We are looking to contract a programmer for 10 to 20 hours a week, for a couple of months. We have an application in development that needs a little love, with probably more applications to follow. Much of the code is already written, but it needs to be more robust, needs to pass tests, and there’s still quite a few features lacking. You can get an idea of what we’re working on at getladybug.com.
Needmore Designs, LLC is a small web development and services firm located in Portland, Oregon. Our focus is on new media design for creatives, and building tools and applications for other new media designers.
Contact ray at needmoredesigns (dot com) to chat or to find out more about our needs. Or visit our website to learn more about our company.
Our friends Kelley and Jason (Koto Y Soto, Lightbox Studio, our neighbors) are up to some zany fun tomorrow night at Holocene. From the creators…”This is first Installment of a new monthly variety show featuring live funny stuff and hilarious video stuff.” WOW. Kelley and Jason are pretty pumped and you should be too (8pm doors, 9pm SHARP show, $1). Look for us there. We’ll be the nerds in the corner.
You know, for some of the more scatterbrained among us (er, I mean, visionary dreamers!), things get lost. As a direct consequence of getting completely absorbed in the myriad of tasks-at-hand, we here in the Needmore offices tend to lose things. A lot.
Of course, the nicest thing to lose is your cell phone. Provided a friend has theirs, they can call your phone, you hear it buzzing, and bingo – you’ve found your cell phone! What I’d like to see is a sort of universal remote for people who lose things around the house (which I would fasten to the wall, so as not to lose this, of course) which had a button for every thing you find yourself losing. Hit the button, and a tiny receiver on the item buzzes… be it keys, wallet, purse, glasses, or whatever.
That would be great.
For those of you working with our project area, you may have noticed a new look this week. There have been a number of subtle improvements as well as some design changes. In order to see the latest version of the design (and perhaps for everything to work well), you may need to empty your browser’s cache before logging in. We hope you enjoy the redesign as much as we have!
One change note: If you are composing a message and want someone to get a copy, check off their name. The names are now on the right of your screen (no more scrolling to find names)!
It would be neat if the DVD software I used on my Mac had an add to queue feature. That way, when I actually watch a movie preview, I could quick add the flick to my Netflix queue. Bonus for an extra button for adding to the top of my queue. I’d watch more previews.
