"Apple has always said it was a hardware company, not a software company. Now with the cash cow iPod line, it can afford to drop expensive OS development and just make jazzy, high-margin Windows computers to finally get beyond that five-percent market share and compete directly with Dell, HP, and the stodgy Chinese makers." ... Is Apple dumping its OS for Windows? Just keep telling yourself, "It's only a theory. It's only a theory. It's only a theory."
This is a brief post to say farewell for a couple weeks. Rachel and I are off to Hawaii tomorrow for our fourth anniversary. This will also be our last vacation together before our first little addition to the Williams' family arrives late this summer. Fun stuff. So with the excitement of a couple Firewheel product launches looming this spring, and a HUGE family launch this summer, it's time for us to queue up some Jack Johnson and take a little time to breathe.
Never fear, the studio is in good hands. John, Brian, Scott and JC will be manning the fort, cranking the icons, and improving Blinksale while we're away. In fact, who knows what they'll get done while I'm gone and not distracting them from what they do best. So, until March, I'm outta here. Later!
Without further ado, we're pleased as punch to announce the winners of the ColorBurn color palette contest. There were plenty of great entries, and deciding the winners was a tough call. All winners will receive their choice of one of five IconBuffet stock icon collections. Their color palettes will also run on our ColorBurn widget during the month of March.
We'll be contacting the winners below to get you your prize based on the email you posted with your entry. If for some reason you don't hear from us, drop us a line. And thanks again to everyone who entered. It turned out to be a really great contest. I'm sure we'll be doing it again.
In the screenshot on the left you'll see two variations of the exact same page. On the top is the New Invoice form from the current live Blinksale application. On the bottom is the exact same form from Blinksale 2.0 in development.
Care to guess which version is more feature rich? While its hard to tell from these small screens (since its all we're going to give you now), the form on the bottom probably includes about 50 percent more features than the form on the top. You see, when we finalized our feature and improvements list for Blinksale 2.0 we had two goals. The first, obviously, was to add to the power and functionality of the application.
The second goal was to make the application even simpler than it already is today. For those who already use Blinksale, you know that this is a tough order. It's already pretty darn easy to use. Simplifying the complex is no easy task, but the rewards are great. Consequently, we've hashed and rehashed design concepts, looking for ways to improve the personal experience of billing your clients.
In order to add features and simplify the experience, we've had to ask ourselves what each page is about. In this case, this page shown is about creating the invoice. In the present version of Blinksale, there are some features on this page that are not about creating the invoice. They might be about paying the invoice, or sending the invoice, but not creating it. Those features have now been moved to their rightful place. This allows us more room to add tools that are about creating the invoice.
These improvements will let you create invoices even faster, with more ease, and oddly enough, more flexibility all at the same time. Blinksale 2.0 has the ability to change your entire mindset about billing your clients. And simplifying the complex is one way we're going to make this happen.
Update: Under the Radar notes Blinksale in a recent post about Web 2.0 along with 37signals, Flickr, Gmail, Writely, and a couple others. That's some fine company.
If you're on our IconBuffet newsletter list you probably received your issue of the IconBuffet Hookup this last week. We use the unmatched Campaign Monitor to manage our email campaigns, and as it turns out the Hookup is now featured in Campaign Monitor's design gallery.
All that said, if you're looking for the best solution for email campaign and list management, look no further. With Campaign Monitor its a breeze to add new subscribers to your list, and a load of fun to manage and track your campaigns. We've referred a handful of our friends to CM, and all of them have told us how much better CM is than their previous solution. We think you'll like it too.
Hey, quick shoutout to all those with hi-def TV and DVR solutions. Who do you use to provide your signal and your DVR? Resident Firewheeler John Critz ordered service and equipment from Dish Network last week, and they sent him the wrong stuff. All that said, I've just listened as Dish Network has strung out, hung up on, and even transferred JC to a fax machine. They've wasted his time. Sent him the wrong stuff. And no one seems to care to help him out.
So, if you have ideas for better service and solutions, hit us up. I'm in the market for an HD DVR too and would appreciate the ideas. And if you're from Dish Network, and are reading this, it would be nice to speak with somebody (since you keep hanging up). Give us a call please.
Fresh from production comes our latest upscale stock icon collection, Modena. Featuring 64 icons in three different color styles, Modena is great for high-tech web application interfaces, media player UIs, and just about anything else that needs a touch of tasteful chromality. It's on sale today, along with hundreds of other icons at IconBuffet. If you haven't stopped by IconBuffet lately, you'll be glad you took a look.
As much as I don't care for the "2.0" label, it is what it is, and is probably the most accurate description of the update our Blinksale invoicing service will receive in the near-term future. If you haven't had a chance to tryout Blinksale, you can sign-up for a free account today.
It should be noted that the new update will contain a good handful of wonderful (and quite powerful) new features in addition to a bit of a facelift. Current Blinksale subscribers should be thrilled with the improvements, and new subscribers will wonder why they weren't using Blinksale for their invoicing all along.
I wish we could show you more today, but that would spoil the fun. You'll have to wait just a little bit longer. We can't wait to get this one out the door.
Our new killer "Flaming Wheel" t-shirts arrived over the weekend, and we currently have a limited few for public sale. We may or may not reprint these once we have sold out, so if you want one, here's your chance. Shirts are black 100 percent cotton with an orange silkscreen. Get yours ordered today before they're gone. Also, we still have a small handful of I Heart Rootkit shirts available as well.
I have two tickets to Coldplay at the American Airlines Center in Dallas on Sunday, February 26 to sell. Unfortunately Rach and I will not be here to attend. The tickets are in Section 320, Row A, Seats 3 & 4. You can view the seating setup for the concert here. Also included with the tickets is a Blue Lot parking pass for the evening.
Price for both tickets and the parking pass is $250 (yes, this is more than I paid for them). If you're interested, email me at josh [at] firewheeldesign [dot] com. Shipping is not included. If you want to pick them up at our office in Southlake, you're welcome to.
Well, after three (official) days online, our ColorBurn widget is now Number 2 on Apple's Top 50 widget list (we've also archived a screenshot). We've received a ton of great feedback, and of course we're completely thrilled with the response. If you haven't had a chance to download ColorBurn for your Mac, what are you waiting for?
If you're a Windows user, no worries... A Yahoo! Widget is planned. Subscribe to our RSS feed to stay on the up and up. What's next? You'll have to wait and see. There's more fun to come this spring from Firewheel.
Sparkplug reader Todd Wheeler sent us this lovely palette (Kimberly Loves Me) to be used in our ColorBurn dashboard widget at a future date. It's such a great set of colors, we decided we'd find out what other colors our readers could come up with. So here's the deal...
The ColorBurn Contest has now begun. Here's how it works: post a link to your four color palette (preferably an image link) in the comments below. Include a name for your palette (a tasteful name would be preferred, don't be an idiot), and the hex values of your four colors. We'll leave the comments open for a week, at which time we'll select our favorite ten palettes for inclusion in March's rotation of color palettes.
If we choose to use your palette, you agree that you allow us to use it until the sun burns out, and we agree to give your choice of one of the following five icon collections from IconBuffet (Soho, Alexandria, Montgomery, Halifax, or Durango). Todd will also receive the IconBuffet collection of his choice for starting this fire. Let's see some color!
Update: The contest is now closed. We'll be announcing the winners during the week of February 11. Thanks to all who entered!
As Rachel and I were returning from last nights Mavs game I noticed a new AT&T billboard across from Dallas' Infomart. It reads nothing more than "Blogging Delivered" (with the O in the word Blogging thoughtfully replaced by the AT&T logo). What the heck?
Now that I'm writing this I just find that Scoble picked up on this a week or so ago, so it's kinda old news, but still... where does AT&T get off telling us how they deliver blogging? I know that some of us unfortunately have been subject to use SBC's (now AT&T's) DSL service, but really guys, this is ridiculous. Other iterations I have now seen include "Photos Delivered" as well. Oh really? I though that was Flickr. Oh no wait, that's just me. I'm the one taking the photos.
AT&T is lost, and their ad agency is not helping them find themselves. I just can't wait to see what AT&T delivers to me next week.