January 2007 Archives
16 entries
New Icons: Chameleon Chunky and SuperPack
Posted at 2:20 PM
While I was putting together an hCard example for next week’s Web Directions North presentation a while back, I whipped up a few icons that were Chameleon in spirit — but doubly thick. And so, Chameleon Chunky was born: the newest addition to the color-changing family of stock icon sets.
The extra-thickness of this style was a bit more challenging for some shapes, but the ability to add single pixel details makes for good contrast when using just one color. Like all the Chameleon sets, these are royalty-free stock icons that are customizable to fit your site’s color pallette. Just punch in a hex color, hit a button and we’ll magically generate a custom-colored set for you immediately. Ah, the wonders of technology, and all for $25 USD.
If you’re feeling lazy or indecisive, a Ready-Made Pack is also avaible that includes 6 pre-selected colors for $35 USD.
Chameleon SuperPack
In addition to the new Chunky style, I’ve also put together a SuperPack of all four Ready-Made Packs in one convenient (and low-priced) bundle. For just $85 USD, you’ll get all four styles in 6 different colors — 1,680 icons in all. That’s a lot of pixels folks.
Hope you dig ‘em!
Brusheezy
Rate and download free custom Photoshop brushes and patterns. Looks to be recently launched, but promising.
Mint 2: The Freshmaker
Shaun Inman releases a big update to his popular and invaluable stats tool. There’s also a fresh coat of paint on his personal site. Bravo!
Fishing With Sandy
Jack Handey: “Dexterous as he is, he has broken about seven or eight of my fly rods … When I got it back from Sandy, he had tried to tape it back together with a piece of black electrical tape. The tape didn’t hold, but just making the gesture was so Sandy.”
BookCrossing
Mark a book you’ve read with an ID number, leave it in a public place, then watch others pick it up, read it and log journal entries about it. A bit like Where’s George?, but for books (and less illegal!).
@media 2007
The tri-continental web conference site goes live, in a trippy, “Magical Mystery Tour”-esque design.
Bulletproof Ajax
A new book by Jeremy Keith for front-end developers. I couldn’t think of a better author to carry on the “bulletproof” adjective to another aspect of web development. Look for it next month.
Twitterrific
A little Mac desktop application designed by Iconfactory that lets you read and publish Twitter posts. I’d been playing with the beta, and it’s really useful if you’re into Twittering. Especially the auto hide/show based on new posts.
The Office: The Best of Andy Bernard
Well, it is Friday after all.
AEA Boston Registration is open!
There’s an early-bird discount through February 26, but SimpleBits readers can save an additional $50 by entering the following coupon code at checkout: AEACEDE. A full schedule of the kick-ass two-day event has also been posted. I certainly hope to see you there.
Max Fischer: Official Uniform T-Shirt
“Inspired and modeled after the attire worn at Rushmore Academy, this full-print t-shirt features a collared shirt, loosened tie, and navy velvet jacket wrapped into one easy-to-wear piece. To top it off, we are including two very special pins that will add the final flair to your ensemble (and truly need no explanation).” Brilliant. (via)
Do the Collapse
Posted at 1:44 PM
“Pretty soon you’ll be using your iPhone”, said the attorney in the elevator just five minutes ago. He’d glanced at me checking things on my (now terribly outdated) Blackberry Pearl. Everyone’s talking about the iPhone. No, everyone is talking about it. Just goes to show how big an announcement it really was.
There are so many thoughts about this thing, but rather than add to the noise, here’s one I hadn’t yet seen mentioned: with a reliable browser on the iPhone (Safari) and all that it brings in terms of standards support, JS, DOM, etc., will we start looking closer at resolution dependent layouts (or other methods) for sites that would or could function as well as their larger screen counterparts?
We’re essentially talking about a fully-browsable web and everything that comes along with that in Safari. Just on a smaller screen. I realize that already exists to a certain extent with Webkit on the Nokia, Opera, and probably others, but the typical screen dimensions on a mobile phone are tiny. Seeing Steve Jobs turn the device and browse “widescreen” was eye-opening. That extra horizontal space could really increase the readability of non-mobile-specific sites as is.
The vulcan-death-pinch-squeezy thing for zooming looks great, mind you. Fluid layout for screens this small isn’t optimal, while multiple columns could just get too narrow (in the absence of min-width) — but I could see where leveraging the browser to adjust layout based on screen resolution could make things interesting in certain situations. And it’ll of course be fun to find out what this all means.
Free vintage SimpleBits sticker to the first person who names (without Googling) the band for which the title of this post is named after.
Hivelogic podcast
Dan Benjamin interviews Daring Fireball’s John Gruber about what we might see from Apple at next week’s MacWorld 2007.
Had a great chat with Brian Oberkirch earlier this morning, and it’s been posted in the form of the latest episode in his ever-growing “Edgework” series of podcast interviews. Brian’s amassed some 50 interviews with interesting people from all over the web, and he continually has his finger on the pulse of what’s happening out there. Great stuff.
I’ll also be sharing a mini panel (I believe “power session” is the term they’re using for these half-sized slots) with Brian at SXSW this year, where we’ll be talking about creating web apps outside of the Valley.
Pressed
Posted at 3:33 PM
With a new logo, comes new business cards. I’d used Dependable Letterpress for a previous run of cards and was really pleased with the quality, service, etc. Today, the new cards arrived, and I’m just as happy with the results. Highly recommend them, but be warned that it’s not a quick and cheap option.
Nothing beats seeing the art and type stamped into thick card stock, with visible embossing from the weight of the plates (more evidence of letterpressing awesomeness here). It’s also reassuring to see the flexibility of the new vector-based logo in action. Smooooove.
Röntgenschall
Setting out to be the first band in history to tour online. Also loved this in the footer: “It’s private, non-profit and supernaturally beautiful.” (via)
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