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For those of you wanting to learn to develop for the iPhone, there is a very good article/tutorial on Mobiforge.com about using DashCode, one of Apple’s development tools available from our iPhone Dev Kit at AID. A
web app is different from the “native applications” as sold in the AppStore. These web apps are created with JavaScript, CSS, and XHTML via the excellent DashCode dev tool. Check out the tutorial for a better understanding of the types of web apps you can create and a beginning tutorial to see how fantastic the DashCode tool is to use. Dashcode is available in labs 302, 317, and 300. More on this topic later…

Mobiforge

I received a “Meetup” invite to a new flex user group some of you may be interested in. It appears that their first meeting will be at an event TechFlex09 to be held Friday, November 13, 2009, from 8am – 5pm at the

Dallas/Plano Marriott at Legacy Town Center
7120 Dallas Parkway
Plano, TX 75024
There is a fee for the event but it appears that the usergroup will form from this first event, so there should be monthly usergroup meetings also. The event is sponsored by Miller & Assoicates with Mike Smith and Matt Bugbee (AID Grad) part of the presenters for the event.

Check it out at: http://www.meetup.com/TexFlex09/?gj=wg2_ej1b.

George Siemens just posted an article about “technology as Philosophy“. While the concept and article are sobering, it was the reference to a Wired article that really captured my thoughts about how serious our work as web designers really is. I highly recommend the article In Iraq With Web 2.0 Luminaries by Steven Levy. It helps us understand the big picture of what we are working to learn and express. It challenges the significance of our task to bring technologies to life, and not see them simply as tools we may or may not want to understand.

I used these terms to describe our Web Design & Interactive Media program at Open House today – not quite in this order, but its all there!

The WordPress User Group in our area meets this coming Saturday at 4:00 at Spaghetti Warehouse on Central Expressway in Plano, just north of 15th Street on the West access road. Unfortunately there is a limit on attendance and only 1 spot remains, however, try and register and RSVP in case there is more space. The Meetup announcements are located at: http://www.meetup.com/dfwwordpress/calendar/959387. This is a good way to meet bloggers, and learn from the professionals, as well as learn more about WordPress!

Mozilla labs has recently announced “Bespin” a new “text editor” available online that works through a browser. The promise of this type of cloud-based product (available online) is one I would love to see become a standard. As an opensource editor this just might happen. I registered to try out the current demo framework – not a beta, and found the interface and speed very interesting and simplified from existing html editors. The fact that it will be a collaborative tool also makes it interesting. And I wouldn’t have to ask anyone if we used it for classes! As I have shared many times, I think cloud computing is where we are headed, and this is an exciting example of a new breed of tool with fresh open-source ideas to grow it. You and I can participate by trying the demo and offering suggestions to the team at Mozilla Labs.

You can register and view an introductory video at bespin.mozilla.com to get a feel for the product.

I would like to collect some comments from students/instructors on your reaction to this product.

On December 11, 2008, the W3C announced the WCAG 2.0 is now a W3C Recommendation. This is an important new component of everything we do as web designers. It is important that you read the documentation, collaborate with others in the program and outside in the developer community, and begin to understand the changes and the significance of the new standards for accessibility. A good starting point has been provided by Roger Johansson at 456 Berea St. The actual specification can be found at WCAG.

More on this later and expect to be working on this in all web scripting classes.

One of the most valuable tools for your learning environment is a digital notebook tool that is capable of capturing practically any digital file, image, video, or other type of presentation. Mashable.com has an excellent review of 12 notebook tools that should help you in choosing one of these tools for your personal needs. If you want to find new ways to manage information you choose to capture, this type of tool may be of value to your arsenal.

Looking for places to hang? Smashing Magazine offers “42 Design/Tech magazines to read”. I often have difficulty getting started on a project or writing assignment and I go to my aggregator and read until I find inspiration. I always start with some that I know consistently spark an interest, but I do a lot of exploring for new ideas and just to initiate the get-started juices flowing.

Sometimes you may need to find a community or a person who offers regular news, tips, design wisdom, etc. to get you started on new ideas or just to keep up with what professionals are doing. The Smashing article lists a lot of sites I haven’t checked out yet – so if any of you read one I haven’t seen, let the rest of us know it was of value to you and why – when you get a chance of course!

Some of my regular spots to hang include:
Digital Web Magazine, a solid edited work of many of the top designer/developers, with topics on everything anyone has felt important to write about.
A List Apart, sponsored by Jeffrey Zeldman, is also an important source of invited guest authors, some of the best in the business here also.
Boxes and Arrows is a serious journal approach to peer-reviewed articles about design, info architecture, and related topics. It has been an important voice in the industry since 2001.
Vitamin is a newer community oriented approach to zines, focused on the web design/developer industry. Good articles, job boards, community forums, etc.
9 Rules is also a community oriented site that collects the “best of the web” with articles, practical tips, and news of the industry.

A group of sites that are industry references, specialty areas, and news about the industry include:
Read/Write/Web, a no-nonsense place to keep up with emerging web trends, web 2.0, and general news.
Wired, online and print versions (AID library) is one of my must reads. My personal subscription to the print version is running on about 12 years now!
TechCrunch, is about technology issues affecting our industy – that stuff we absolutely have to keep informed about to do our work.
Mashable specializes in everything social networking, and it does it with flare and depth. Their reporters give live views of conferences about this exciting aspect of the industry.
.net is another online and print magazine with some of the top guys in the industry such as Andy Clark and Andy Budd serving on its editorial board. One of several outstanding British publications, I catch this one in our library every month.
Lifehacker is the tech workers answer to organization processes such as Getting Things Done. Useful and informative information about how to keep yourself participating in the information explosion and to many due date deadlines!
Digg and Slashdot bring us user directed news about the industry – each with its own unique process, but driven by its user community as to what is published, and important to be published. At least one of these may be a mainstay, depending on which you like.

With all of these resources, find the ones that are meaningful to you, and find out who is behind the effort. Get to know the names of people communicating about the industry, as well as noted designers and developers whose work you respect and admire. Build yourself a community within your domain of interest.