Unfortunately, we do not have the kind of resources that some big design and development firms have at their disposal.

Fortunately, we DO have indomitable spirits.

Blocket Science Progress

We have run into a bit of a snag in our progress. ZeroMethod is not an Apple workshop, and so we have only one MacBook Pro. It currently is the only thing capable of running XCode / PhoneGap, and now that no longer is true.

Our snag basically breaks down into this: We have development issues related to an older version of PhoneGap and can’t proceed with Blocket Science until we get the latest version of PhoneGap; the latest version of PhoneGap requires the latest version of XCode; the latest XCode requires an upgrade of our MacBook Pro’s OSX version to Lion.

It’s a headache, but figuring out how to better handle issues like this is exactly what we’re good at doing. We are now considering making Blocket Science a Rhodes application as an affordable response to our 1-Apple-only issue. If we stick with PhoneGap, we have the benefits of a stronger open-source community. If we go with Rho, we will have the ability to develop on multiple workstations instead of just the Apple.

Decisions… Decisions… We will make them once we interview RhoStudio a bit more.

Chaos Reactor Progress

If there was ever a project that had growing pains, it would be this one.

The sheer amount of conceptual versions for this project alone is headache-inducing. However, we are determined to make it a project that really makes an impression, and so we are generating and scrapping ideas left and right in our effort to grow this project into something big.

The toughest question surrounding this project is what Chaos Reactor would actually be about. It has morphed from a personal blog into an amalgam of activist and entertainment media. By continuing to focus on the concoction of activist/entertainment media, we believe the project is slowly setting all of its wheels on the right track. The next big step for the Chaos Reactor is to really expand upon the treatment of the content shared via the website (i.e. make it more entertaining & attention-garnering), to expand the level of user interaction with the website & its content, and also to expand on the cover story for the entire project and its characters.

With a little luck and a lot of hard work, the expansions to Chaos Reactor should really attract some attention!

Yes, we gave our website another design!

This one is here to stay for a while.

Our new site is running a heavily-modified version of Kriesi’s Propulsion theme, a high-calibur business website framework. For the cost and the powerful functionality right out of the box, we simply couldn’t resist. Thanks Kriesi for your hard work and dedication!

From the ground up with all functionality included, we estimated this website would have cost us about 4-6 months. Thanks to Propulsion, it only took us a total of two months from purchase, through development modifications, through content preparation, through live transfer tests, and then finally through live deployment.

We hope you enjoy using this site as much as we’ve thoroughly enjoyed building it!

“Think different.”

This — as many of us know — is the long held motto of the technological colossus, Apple.

The passing of Steve Jobs has had a profound effect on all of us, and it is truly remarkable how sweeping of a response there has been to such a sad event. Looking through the social media and news feeds, it has been jam-packed with praise and commemoration. I would love to see the trending statistics of Twitter and Facebook, because I bet it would be awe-inspiring to see the sheer amount of discussion about the differences he has made in all of our lives.

To me, this is what the Steve Jobs difference means. He tried to make the world a better place by helping people unite with technology. His vision changed the world, quite literally. He has been compared to being the Henry Ford and Thomas Edison of our time, and I believe rightfully so. He took the world and made it his own, changing the way we all think, learn, grow and interact.

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The Power To Create

With the advent of HTML5 and CSS3, the Internet has truly blossomed into an environment that fosters now more than ever the ability for artistic expression, challenging all web designers alike to step up their game and become more than just a Photoshop jockey. Thanks to the hard work of many people including those at W3C, we designers now possess the tools and support we always needed to effectively make the web a beautiful place.

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Extinction, or Evolution?

While there’s no denying that mobile devices are gaining power and popularity, the argument that the PC is going extinct seems too near-sighted. Smaller and more efficient devices have stormed the market, allowing consumers to migrate certain activities from their PCs to mobile devices. There’s no doubt that this is an excellent development, but the immense amount of marketing hype has influenced some consumers into thinking that mobile is the be-all, end-all of computing. The desktop PC is still going strong, and is here to evolve.

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