Posts Tagged ‘development’

What Do People Talk To Me About?

// August 10th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // General, Music, Technology and Gadgets

As a web-type-person, I often find myself in conversations with friends or new acquaintances who either:

  1. Have the bestest idea ever, ever, ever for a website that they want to make.
  2. Are curious about what stimulates my technological erogenous zones.
  3. Think I’m a gamer who can recommend the best video game to buy at any moment in time.

I don’t want to pick on my friends, (I value my friends dearly so would never) but a bit of chagrin on their part every now and again is an intrinsic element of the makeup of any 21st Century man; so a little ribbing here is fair game.

I’ll address point 3 first of all.  I know NOTHING about gaming (outside of the iPhone gaming world of course).  This is because of two reasons; one, I just don’t have the time to waste and two, I’m absolutely rubbish at most games (I blame my unwieldily large hands and small controllers). I of course pick up on the buzz that surrounds new games, platforms or emerging technology,  however I’ve only ever completed two games in my entire life: Splinter Cell and Silent Hill on the original Xbox. The only thing that compelled me to do such a thing was to test out the Dolby Digital surround system I bought around the same time.  I loved the fact that you could hear things creeping up on you and react to it.  It was an immersive experience that I found interesting.  However it soon wore off and my XBox and PS2 were again reduced to dusty ornaments on my TV cabinet.

Since then I’ve tried hard (for the millionth time) to get into games, buying a PS3 in the process and the only thing I spent any notable time on was Call of Duty 4.  The PS3 is still with us but now only gets rolled out at parties when my fiancé insists on getting SingStar going.  So to conclude, if you want games advice I suggest a visit to IGN would be much more valuable than a chat with myself.  One day though, I’ll find the time to get into it… one day.

Now onto the good stuff.  Every other webby or venture capital person will probably chuckle to themselves recognising this familiar situation.  Everybody I know has a great idea for a website, and naturally I’m their first port of call.  The only problem is that 99% of these ideas have already been done, and 70% of them have already been done well.  Being a person who spends at least 2-3 hours a day digesting something in the region of 300 individual tech, gadget, innovation, design and development RSS feeds I tend to have a good idea of what’s happening, what’s new and what works and doesn’t on the web.  So if a friend suggests an idea, chances are if it’s been done I’ll know about it.

The problem with this is that often you have to shatter dreams. :(  A lot of my friends don’t use the internet much, so they don’t see everything and aren’t aware of some of the great sites out there.  It’s not easy to tell them that something has already been done or that it might not work, but if someone has an epiphany and decides that what the internet needs is somewhere you can go and buy books then you have no choice but to point out Amazon.

I’ve had the odd idea suggested here and there that have been genuinely innovative, some of which are in my development pipeline, but the majority are unfortunately already out there.  I would never suggest that people stop approaching me with ideas though as you never know, they may hit a home run. There are a also a hell of a lot of sites out there that could be done better.

The final thing people talk to me about, and this is often the point where I somehow manage to bore and repel people at parties.  That is: what sites and technologies do I admire on the web?  I could (and often do) go on for hours about my favourites.  I’ll try and give a brief summary of typical daily web activites and favourites to save you all the boredom.

First of all, as previously mentioned in my RSS reader (NetNewsWire) I have something in the region of 300 RSS feeds.  The majority of which are technology and gadget blogs; Engadget, Gizmodo, Geekologie, Slashdot, The Register are typical examples.  Then there’s the meme, viral and web buzz sites like, Digg, Buzzfeed and Urlesque.  To top it all off there’s a bunch of fashion, design, style and trend sites like PSFK, Retro to Go, Springwise etc.

The upside to all those feeds is that I get a pretty good picture of trending technology, design, and development techniques.  Keeping me on my toes and ensuring I don’t get left behind.  The downside is that I end up seeing the same stories posted over and over again on different blogs.  I should at least delete two of Gizmodo, Engadget and Geekologie but I just can’t bring myself to do it.

As for my favourite sites that I actually visit… Well, I can’t resist a bit of time here and there on the Manchester United Red Issue forums (is it bad form to release football allegiance to potential clients?)  if there was ever a site not to be taken seriously then the Red Issue Main forum is it.  But it provides me with an entertaining source of United news and many comedy moments.  Weirdly I have no traditional news sources in any of my RSS feeds so I visit the BBC, Guardian and other major news sources on a regular basis.

Somewhat unsurprisingly to regular readers of this blog, the sites I spend the bulk of my none-work-related online time (I actually think all my time online is work related as seeing what the internet does is what I do) is spent on music sites.  I visit Metacritic, Pitchfork, RCRD LBL and Vice Magazine Music at least every other day to get a fix.  I always want to know what’s new, what’s great and what’s bad so these sites are an essential resource.

When working from home like I do your only company is often just music, therefore it is a huge part of my life.  Those sites make sure that the music I work to keeps me lifted and engaged, rather than bored and searching for something to listen to.  I also love to visit my last.fm profile every now and again to see what’s made it to the top of my chart that day, week or month.

But, the question I hear you ask is what is my favourite website?  Well, in all honesty it changes on an at least a weekly basis if not daily.  However the site I can’t pull myself away from at the moment is the Hype Machine.  The Hype Machine indexes a whole bunch of the best music blogs looking for reviews and tracks.  It then pulls the tracks into its own embedded media player and the reviews end up in their homepage stream.

There are many great things about The Hype Machine, for instance you can seamlessly go from page to page without interrupting the music player, it loads in new blog posts in real time via ajax, it auto tags tracks and artists to create charts and other dynamic content and of course it creates it’s own charts based upon popular songs played that day.

In my opinion the people over at The Hype Machine completely ‘get’ music online.  They even recently launched a new chart which monitors Twitter looking for song mentions: a great example of their ability to latch onto and integrate happening trends.

Creating your own profile allows you to feel a part of the site as your played tracks contribute to the overall charts, it even updates your last.fm and twitter streams with your recently played and loved tracks. I think it is a perfect example of how user generated content should be done.  You may – correctly -assume that Twitter and Facebook are great examples of UGC, but with Twitter and Facebook your activity and content is limited to your own pages and networks, but with Hype Machine you affect and decide the overall site content.  I believe it is one of the few “perfect” user-generated-content sites out there, the fact it is music related just makes things better for me.

So there you have it.  A little insight into my daily tech activities interspersed with some hardcore evangelism for my current favourite website – I did warn you I could go on a bit about my favourite things online!

Hello Camden. I’m Andy the Mancunian Digital Freelancer.

// June 8th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Design, General

After what seems like years and years I’ve finally completed my move to Camden. I’ve been here since Saturday and so far, I’m very enjoying it very much, despite a few little traumas.

Most notable is the distinct lack of furniture in this house, meaning I’m currently experiencing an unintentional extreme minimalist existence, with just two large bean bags being my only options for work and rest. Working on a bean bag all day is not an experience I recommend in case you were considering it. The only other ‘furniture’ is a stereo and a TV (I’ve got my priorities straight as you can see). I’m just hoping that’s not where the parallels with Steve Jobs’ late 20’s end; I’d quite like some of his entrepreneurial success too.

Hopefully I’ll not be without a desk for much longer, and the addition of a sofa and somewhere to sit and eat will be most welcome later this week.

Since my last post all those weeks ago, I’ve been working on an exciting new venture which I’ll go in to greater detail on in the upcoming weeks. I’m also now working on a few freelance projects here in my new home town which are shaping up quite well. Somehow I managed to continue functioning during my own little internet ‘prohibition’.

I’m looking forward to making the most of all that Camden has to offer, especially the pubs and places to eat. Even as a born and bred Mancunian, I’m very excited about living in Camden, so far it seems like a great place. Fellow Mancunians might liken it to a giant Northern Quarter, with large parts of it being a giant Affleck’s Palace. It’s creative, diverse, vibrant and in the right places warm and welcoming.

Now I’m back to full strength again I’ll endeavour to post more often again. Afterall, I’m sure you’ve missed my wittering this past few weeks.

iPhone Application Development and Google

// May 13th, 2009 // No Comments » // Design

First of all, I’d just like to give a warm hello to the swathes of new visitors to my little corner of the web visiting via Google searches for “iphone app development london”. I wasn’t targeting such a good Google result for that at the moment, but seeing as its there now I thought I’d say something about it. (PS I’m also available for SEO work ;) )

The most pertinent point is yes, I do offer iPhone app development services on either contract or freelance terms. I work on a case by case basis with iPhone app development rather than my usual hourly rate as app dev projects tend to be less predictable when it comes to intensive development time. Seemingly simple things can end up swallowing days of tinkering and experiments without actually being able to justify my high (but valuable) hourly rate and some of the most difficult processes often end up being a sync! So, if you are looking for an iphone app developer in either Manchester, London or anywhere in the UK for anything from simple apps to games or blue-chip business applications then get in touch.

I should also mention I do not work alone on iPhone app projects, my good friend and genius-code-wizard Ric Morton works alongside me.

To my regular readers who have been missing my musings recently, I apologise for the lack of recent content, I’ve been ridiculously busy moving house and suffering from the previously mentioned connection issues. I’ll also add to that an apology for making my first “back in action” post a shameless self-promotional piece. To make up for that; I promise both a new exciting post from myself asap and also a guest post from the aforementioned Ric Morton on the fun, frolics and frustrations of making and selling an iPhone app.

Bookmarks for March 22nd through March 23rd

// March 25th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Today's happenings from LifeStream

These are my links for March 22nd through March 23rd:

Hello, I’m Andy and I’m a Nerd

// March 25th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Design, General

One of those cool nerds though, at least that’s what I hope I am anyway, and this is my new blog and portfolio site.

The first blog post on any new site is always the hardest one.  It’s always tempting to simply jibber on about how I’ll use a blog and what you can expect from it just to fill up a page.  I’m going to try and stay away from that, unless I run out of things to say of course.  The truth regarding the future of this blog’s content is that I actually don’t have any firm plans for it’s future content.  What I do know is that it will be updated on at least a daily basis and I’ll try to cover anything I think you’ll find interesting.  Good and bad days at work, shiny new things I like, good and bad days at home, what I’m listening to and anything else that might catch your eye.

Anyway, here’s a little bit about me to get us started.  As you can probably guess from the blog title, I’m from Manchester, UK where I currently reside.  I’ll not be there for much longer though as in mid-April, I’m relocating with my fiancé (and our 3 dogs – who I’m sure you’ll also get to know sooner or later) down to that there London.  I’ll mainly be doing freelance and contract work in London, but I am willing to listen to full time opportunities from great companies too.

I’ve worked on the internet for over 10 years on all kinds of projects for all kinds of companies including big names like Apple, The Guardian and Christian Dior.  I like to dabble in a bit of design, a bit of development and a whole load of user experience and product development.

Outside of work I occupy my time with all manner of things from partying to cooking along with an almost obscene obsession for new music and gadgets.

I hope you’ll subscribe and of course I hope that the next time your internet needs a polish, you’ll pick up the phone and hire me!