An Event Apart: Seattle 2011

I'm excited to announce that I'll be unavailable Monday, March 28 through Wednesday, March 30! But for good reason: 3 days of design, code and content at An Event Apart web design conference in Seattle.  An Event Apart is put on by some of the web's most formidable design and development gurus and I'll be attending to glean and extrapolate everything I can in order to keep up with the latest standards and practices. All of this, of course, is to benefit my clients.

I am most excited to learn more about mobile web development strategies and practices. As many of my clients and friends know I am a huge gadget nerd, and that the iPhone is the single best gadget ever invented.  With mobile web traffic increasing every day and more people surfing on their iPhone, iPad or Android devices I want to make sure that my clients will have the choice of optimizing their website for viewing on these magical gadgets. 

So, want to follow along? I'll be posting updates to my twitter account as they happen, and checking in on Gowalla.  I'm very excited for the conference, and more excited for my clients and future clients.

Finally, the good folks at Squarespace are hooking me up with stickers and t-shirts to hand out.  Follow me on Twitter to find out where I am, shoot me a direct message and I'll hook you up (while supplies last of course)!

Update on Thursday, April 7, 2011 by Shon Dempsey

I had a great time at the event. I met lots of great people from all over the country, and even a fantastic guy from New Zealand.  The speakers were fantastic and I certainly learned quite a bit about user interface and user experience design.

Download the full press release

Connect to iTunes

One of my favorite things to consult my friends and clients about is their iPhone.  So this is the first in a series of on-going posts on maximizing your iPhone's usability. 

Connecting your iPhone to iTunes is probably the single most important piece of getting the most out of your iPhone.  Unfortunately there are so many users I've talked to where they've never connected their phone to iTunes after they first bought it.  If you're in this boat, you're ship is still at dry dock.

Backup

One of the main advantages to connecting to, or syncing with, iTunes is backup. All your app and song purchases are transferred back to iTunes on your computer, and, if you have it set up, your contacts, address book and calendar are also synced to your Mac Mail, Address Book, and iCal respectively (or Outlook if you're stuck on a PC). Conversely, if you add contacts and appointments on your machine, it will sync those to your phone.  Simply make sure these settings are enabled when viewing your iPhone Setup. Finally, if you break or lose your iPhone, or simply upgrade to a new iPhone, all this data will be transferred exactly as you left it to your new iPhone.

iOS Updates

iOS is the operating system your iPhone uses.  The iPhone is probably the first phone that gets seriously better with time because of these OS updates Apple releases.  New features, speed and security enhancements, multitasking, folders and more. Literally hundreds of features and enhancements have been added since the first iPhone was released.  If you don't have app folders on your iPhone, connect to iTunes.

While there are other benefits, such as arranging app icons, selecting which music playlists are synced, photo management (and backup), backups and iOS updates should be reason enough for you to connect your iPhone to iTunes on a regular basis.  Keeping a backup of your iPhone's data will be a life saver, and you'll thoroughly enjoy all the cool new features iOS has to offer.  The iPhone is the one phone you'll own that will actually be a better phone than than the day you bought it.

If you'd like to learn more about how your iPhone can work for you and your business, I'd love to hear from you.  Shoot me an email today.

SquareSpace iPhone App

My preferred CMS for web development is SquareSpace. Tonight they released an official iPhone App. Infact this post was composed from my iPhone.
The app allows you to:
• Post a new blog entry and use a picture saved on your iPhone
• View key statistics
• Manage blog posts
• All the above for multiple SquareSpace sites

So far it proves to be a handy tool, especially
when you're on the go. The app is now available from the app store for free. Another great reason to have your site developed by Dempsey Design on SquareSpace.