Happy Christmas!

Flash

Enough said....

utopian work update

Here's a few things that have been keeping us busy...


Finalised Boomeco website:

3D Timeline animation for Polypool:

Simple 1 page 'catch-all' website:

Updates to 4itGirls, including animated flash header graphics, sale features and super-zoom:

With another couple of website previews coming very soon, a rails based intranet App and 2 iOS applications.... we'll get some screenshots done real soon!

Update iPhone to iOS 4.2 installation Error

If you are having some fun and games getting iOS 4.2 onto your iPhone then the following may help.

It seems the quick'n easy way to get the new OS onto your device for testing your Apps will no longer work. You'll find that downloading the updated OS and then restoring the phone in iTunes will partially complete, but right at the end you'll receive an error (often error 10) which leaves your iPhone in a state that needs fixing (restoring back to iOS 4.1 in iTunes).

Here's what you need to do:

- BACKUP your device.

- Ensure you have downloaded and installed the latest beta XCODE.

- Run XCode and connect your iPhone.

- Click 'USE FOR DEVELOPMENT'

- You may need to authorise with Apple using your DEV account.

- Once you are done, you'll get the option to restore the iPhone in XCODE. Ensuring the right OS is selected in the drop-down (other > select OS 4.2 that your downloaded from Apple), click restore.

- Once restored, fire-up iTunes and restore your backup. You 'may' have to try this a couple of times as sometimes the first time fails (don't panic!).

- Test away.....


Personally I think what we have to do now makes sense, it was too easy previously for anyone to hack-about and play with the new OS (non-devs just to get the latest features). Bringing it into XCode somehow makes me feel happier.

NOTE: no guarantees, do at your own risk!

Why the App Store rules are good (mostly)

To some, they are a complete pain - 'big brother', 'just let us do what we want' and 'you are stopping our creativity,freedom & choice'.

I disagree.

There are bad people out there, that like to do bad things. As proved with Windows when it's on millions of desktops, that's a heck of a lot of data that someone can capture, use and profit from.

We now have millions of iPhones - which is a real possible boon for the savvy hacker to exploit so they can steal your data. At-least they would if the App store was an open system like Android. It's not perfect (take for instance the flash-light app that made it through the gates with a little 'easter-egg' which allowed you to use your phone as a proxy server), but the vetting process does do a good job and protects its users.

Some feel they do not need protecting - I say go buy another phone.

To prove my point, Android the 'open' system has a lovely wallpaper app out there (Jackeey Wallpaper), downloaded by millions of users. Lovely stuff - until you find out that whilst you have been enjoying the wonderful imagery it has been sending your data off to some servers in China (browsing history, text messages, phone’s SIM card number, subscriber identification, and your voicemail password). This is just screaming 'windows spyware'!

Enjoy your freedom.

Jumping on the iPhone bandwagon

There is a right hoo-ha going on right now in the blogosphere... It revolves around the iPhone 4 and it's serious problem with reception (cough).

Yes people, we have a problem - if you are into holding your phone in a really awkward way, if you are into being awkward then this is truly a massive problem.

I'm ambidextrous (great for drumming or doing a 'Ronnie' on the snooker table), so without thinking use my phone in either left or right hand mode. Guess what, I don't get any problems. However, I can recreate the reception issue if I hold my phone at a certain angle, in a certain way... and do you know what my thoughts are?..... it's really not a problem at all.

If you want to make it a problem then buy a bumper.

Logo Size

Source credit to Smashing Magazine

A nice blog post

I just thought I would quickly post a link to a great blog post that I read a couple of days ago:

Why Design By Committee Should Die

It's got some great points in it which we come across very often.

It's apt for us, and it's also apt for clients when they think about setting up an internal focus group to decide on how their site/app should progress. In most cases - don't.

Enjoy.

DIY Swimming Pools by Polypool

Following on from the recent release of the utopia 365 designed and developed Polypool website, comes the newly launched DIY Swimming Pools website.

As you can see below, it shares a common(ish) look to the main Polypool company website, but with a few twists, additions and things (that’s a technical term that is).

We’re sharing common content between the two sites as part of our "Polypool Shared” project, within both associateMe and Rails directly.

Here it is.... almost as lovely as the main Polypool site from last month!

utopian concept

There's always lots going on in utopia, but as so many development firms know it's vital to maintain free flowing creativity. Once in a while we like to sit back and write something ‘fun’.

We have been developing our Ruby on Rails CMS system (associateMe) recently, with the addition of some fantastic gallery modules which are so simple to implement and manage.

There is a lovely system for uploading large images, and then producing various sized versions for use within the webpage (in what we call media blocks). These media blocks can be various sizes so we simply centre on the image to get the best fit. This works most of the time, but if an image is uploaded where we want the top area viewed we run into a problem as the image used is centred.

eg. We upload this image:

But we're using a letterbox view area on our webpage so we end up with this:

The normal solution is to edit the image offline by cropping the area we want to be viewed, then uploading and using in our media blocks....but, that's not smart enough for us...

Recently Andy has been working on a concept to allow us to control what areas of an image are viewed on a webpage.

This means we can end up with this:

If implemented into associateMe, will not only prove very useful for our general associateMe users, but hugely useful for our soon to be released eCommerce module for associateMe.

Enough words and pictures though, video demos are always much nicer!

Image Manipulation in Browser from utopia 365 on Vimeo.

Polypool website

Big concepts. Cute designs. Clean looks. That's the new Polypool website, just about launched at www.polypool.co.uk today.

We're still working together on some content so expect a few changes over the coming days/weeks.

We'll be working with Polypool on more future developments and designs than you can shake a stick at over the coming months! Big thanks especially to Ryan and Karen at Polypool - we're glad you're loving it all as much as we are.

Below is a massive preview of how it all looks. Nice isn't it! :o)

Gorgeous Galleries

Polypool.co.uk makes extensive use of our gorgeous galleries, through our own 'Media Block' system (dubbed UTMediaBlock, for our use only) - built directly into associateMe. We can also utilise UTMediaBlock independently of associateMe in other Rails websites we develop. As well as images, it can also handle: Video, Flash Video, Flash Movies, Silverlight, YouTube and audio (such as MP3).

Our famed in-line contact forms

We use these a lot - our famed in-line contact forms, and Polypool has one! Click the main 'contact us' link and it drops down from the top of the page ready to fill out... nice, smooth, functional and pretty much universally adored by our customers.

Beautiful Case Studies

Another advantage of UTMediaBlock is that we can utilise it as a method of navigation. That's just what we do for Polypool with their Case Studies, Completed Projects and Live/Current Projects. A large UTMediaBlock shows a pretty picture for each entry and you select between them using the Next and Previous buttons. UTMediaBlock then loads in the correct content for each entry as you work your way through. It looks and works beautifully.

associateMe

Polypool.co.uk is the first website to be built from the ground-up with associateMe and with associateMe in mind. We've used associateMe with a fair few earlier developments, but it has often been a case of trying to hack concepts and ideas into existing developments - never ideal. Now? We can start building our sites from day one with associateMe - and instantly gain access to much of the power it offers.

2 years on

It is with great pleasure that we wish ourselves “Happy Birthday” today. utopia 365 LLP are 2 years old!

These past 2 years have flown by and we have gone from strength to strength. It’s been an extremely exciting time, especially taking into account we have effectively started up during one of the worst recessions in history - we’re still here, and we’re still busy!

Being careful, selective and Andy doing some crazy hard work has ensured we have been able to progress rather than regress.

We look forward to what the future holds knowing some of the exciting things we are working on.

A big thanks to all our customers.

Cheers,

Chris

New website - Tyme4u

We've just put together a website for a local beauty therapy studio called Tyme4u.

This particular site uses Word Press (WP) for its back-end which enabled us to put the site together quickly and competitively.

Whilst WP does not have the flexibility, power and control of associateMe, it was able to fit the needs of this particular clients requirements and budget. To find out more, contact us.

Playing with iPad

Unfortunately we don't have an iPad yet (Apple, Mr Steve! can we have one please???) but, what we do have is the beta of the new SDK for iPad development. And.... it's beautiful.

We are of course under an NDA regarding new features so I cannot say much. However, I do think I am able to share the following with you.

The iPad is of course (at its most simplistic) a giant iPhone device, although the larger screen and improvements/additional features Apple are providing allow for much richer software experiences and usability for a lot of applications that could never function properly on an iPhone. This is mainly down to the physical size and the resolution of the screen you have to work with. That sounds obvious, and it is. 'Serious work' on a display the size of the iPhone's is difficult. The iPad make it not only feasible, but also useable, and in many cases, probably pretty enjoyable. That is massively important.

One thing that I'm sure you can understand Apple are likely to encourage with the iPad is the way applications adapt themselves to the physical handling of the device by its users. Many iPhone apps only run in a portrait mode because it is more useable for viewing lists of information or data entry and more often than not offers a better user experience for non-media content than landscape views do. This is mostly negated with the iPad because of the high resolution. In practice, for the first time with an iPhone OS device, you can have landscape views that are more useful than their portrait cousins for all kinds of applications. Showing more information and alternative information in a useful manor. I'd suggest that all iPad applications (except maybe games) should work in whatever orientation the user is holding the device in, and give the power back to the user.

Porting an existing iPhone app to the iPad can be either a relatively simple task, or a more complicated task - depending upon what the app is and what resources it contains and needs to work with (especially image resources e.t.c. which must be provided in much higher resolutions). This is mostly obvious because of the massive difference in the physical resolutions of the displays. The iPad does allow you to run existing iPhone apps natively at either their original size (smaller rectangle in the middle of the iPad screen), or zoomed in to fill the iPad's screen. This does not automatically gain you any advantage in terms of the actual screen space you have to work with because you are ultimately just looking at exactly the same as you would be on an iPhone.

iPhone apps which consist mainly of table views and lists of information (which so many do) are far easier and more efficient to port to the iPad. Other apps will likely require much tweaking, additional resource provision/creation and even more thought because you now have an iPhone OS device which is close to the screen size offered by your laptop. That's much more than a phone and you need a different mindset when thinking of the possibilities.

With some of our current 'play time', I have ported most of one of our client's apps to the iPad (I won't tell you what app it is because they don't know yet and now isn't the time!). As it's largely a data entry app, the process was more trivial than most ports are likely to be, but there is still much to do in terms of images used and the original assumption of an iPhone's 320x480 pixel display when designing, preparing and developing the app.

Whilst I have a few personal doubts about whether many people will feel an absolute need to own a product that fits neatly between their iPhone and MacBook/PC laptop, there is no doubt that the iPad is a lovely thing - and I'm sure anybody with an income that allows them to purchase a lot of new shiny things will be snapping one up. We're looking forward to getting our hands on a real iPad ASAP (whether Apple or Mr Jobs send us a freebie or not remains to be seen - come on Steve, go on..... you know it makes sense).

Polypool swimming pools

This is a nice one, a really, really nice one!


We are very proud to let you know that we are currently working on a website re-design for Polypool. They are the pros who basically give you a stunning pool (well, I say give - but I'm sure you understand you'll need to have a few quid burning a hole in your pocket to get one of these babies installed!).

The results are awesome, Polypool's products are awesome, the pictures we have to work with are awesome and the website we're building is awesome. It's going to be clean and cute and associateMe^™ powered. Enough said.


Polypool is the leading manufacturer and supplier of insulated swimming pools in the UK and have been at the forefront of swimming pool design for over ten years, working with domestic and commercial clients.

The new website will replace the existing website over at www.polypool.co.uk and will hopefully be launching within the next few weeks. We'd like to be able to give you a few picture previews of the site here, on the utopia 365 Blog, before the new site launches - so watch this space.

Staring at a desktop...all day

Often we'll spend more time looking at a computer screen than anything else during the day - in some ways a sad fact, but in other ways it's because we have lots of work to get on with and we enjoy what we do.

Having a nice calming desktop picture is always a nice addition to motivate; not too busy, not to bright - my preferred styles are plain and simple, so I thought I would share a lovely little site that often dresses my screen wallpaper:








http://simpledesktops.com/

There are thousands of wallpaper sites out there, but I really enjoy the simplicity of this site along with the great artwork. Resolutions offered 2560x1600.

Tim Collins Interviewed

We've been working with Tim for several months now, seeing Second Shootr evolve from an idea to a successful and popular iPhone App for professional photographers.

We caught up with Tim to ask him some questions:

Q) What do you do for a living?

I'm a wedding photographer who dabbles occasionally in software testing to supplement my income.

Q) What made you want to create an iPhone App?

I've had an iPhone since they were first released in the UK. Since then, I've wanted an application to help improve my photographic workflow. In essence, I wanted to create the application for purely selfish reasons.

Q) Is this your first venture into something like this?

I do have experience of the software development cycle, but I've never commissioned work like this before.

Q) What made you choose utopia 365?

Three main reasons:

1. They are based in the UK. I prefer to meet with people face-to-face... build up a strong relationship and to get clarity on exactly what I want.


2. They use Agile methodologies. Whilst I appreciate that the majority of people won't know/care about Agile, I am very much an Agile convert and it works well for this type of development.


3. Their skill is in iPhone app development. The iPhone is a unique device with a unique user interface - you NEED someone who knows exactly how the iPhone works in order to build an application that works well on the device. If your application doesn't work well, you're left with an application that nobody wants.

Q) How did you find working with them?

The guys are great. I left them with some VERY specific requirements, but they went above and beyond what I asked for.

Q) Are you pleased with Second Shootr?

Very much so. It's far better than I imagined.

Q) What are your plans for Second Shootr?

Honestly? I have no plans. Second Shootr fulfilled all my business needs in version 1.0. What I've been doing from here is listening to user feedback and asking the utopia 365 guys to implement the most requested features (if I can afford it). It sounds like a pretty rubbish business model on the face of it, but if you give your users what they want, then they'll use your app!

Q) How have you found the marketing / App store process?

I'd describe myself as very computer-savvy person, but the app store is a strange little place! Setting up your seller account can be challenging (lots of tax forms and stuff), but the guys at utopia 365 talked me through everything. I still don't know anything about code signing or uploading updates to the app store... I just leave it all up to them.

Marketing an iPhone application is hard. Especially a niche application like mine. If I was going to offer advice to anyone it would be to have a good marketing budget. If you can afford it... split the cost of development and marketing 50/50... otherwise your app won't be seen by your target consumer and you won't make money!

Q) Knowing what you know now, would you do it again?

Yeah... I'd do it again. At times its been hard (testing an application over and over again isn't exactly fun, but its important), but its been very rewarding to see an idea be released out into the big, wide world.

Second Shootr v1.1

The updated version (v1.1) of Second Shootr has now been approved by Apple and is available on the iPhone App Store, either for a new purchase or as a free upgrade from v1.0 for those that have already bought it.

Second Shootr was developed by utopia 365 for Plinkk Photography. Many new features have been added in v1.1, which are best described by Tim from Plinkk directly:

"

Second Shootr is a revolutionary digital photography assistant for professional photographers. Use Second Shootr to help you plan every aspect of your photography beforehand, leaving you free on the day to get on with what you do best....taking awesome photos!

Whether you're a portrait, wedding or event photographer (to name but a few!), Second Shootr will help you be on top of your game for every shoot.

Features of Second Shootr:

- Store detailed information about your clients, ranging from their names and addresses to detailed information about the event.

- Contact your clients from within the application by phone and email, or check their location using the in-built map.

- Store everything you need to know about the people involved in your photographic event. For example, if you are a wedding photographer, Second Shootr could prompt you with the name of the Best Man, or store the Vicar's contact details for later reference.

- Plan your session's shots. Second Shootr will help you to remember the must-have shots you'll need to take. Once you've taken the picture, you can mark it as complete, leaving Second Shootr to tell you exactly which shots you have left to shoot.

- Know the upcoming key events. Second Shootr is there to give you a gentle reminder to let you know where you need to be, and at what time.

- Ensure you have all your kit with you. Just cross off the items as you pack them into your bags in the morning, and check them back in again when you're packing up from the shoot ready to go home.

"

- Keep on top of your day-to-day photography tasks both before and after the photo session.

iPad App Development

Unless you have been incommunicado for the past few days then you'll know that Apple have released the iPad.

A new device that sits nicely between the iPhone and Mac range, we are anticipating a new range of customers utilising this smart device (along with existing Apple users enjoying it).

Based upon the iPhone OS most Apps can be natively run out of the box on the iPad. However, to make use of the new screen-size updates can be made to give a nicer user experience. The iPad also introduces some new features which will only function on the iPad (you can either build explicitly for the iPad or universally for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch).

We're looking forward to porting and creating new Apps for this marvellous little device. If you want an App for the iPad then contact us to find out more.

p.s. Just in-case you have missed it watch the promo Apple iPad video.

Promo Apps on 3GS launch

It's always nice to work with people who enjoy what they do, and appreciate what we do.

We have worked on several applications for EquinoxApps and it was nice to be notified that their local telecoms provider was running a promo for the iPhone 3GS, featuring several of the Applications we have worked on together. (Andy Edit: Which are of course; MyBabyTree, Gold's Gym, TransJakarta and KidsCards - all iTunes App Store links).

Telkomsel are the Indonesian equivalent of our UK based O2 or Vodafone.

Where are we?

It's been a while since I posted anything so I just thought I would state we are very much alive and kicking...just heads down and cracking on.

We're really busy with work at the moment and working on some very exciting projects.

We're also awaiting news on the potential Apple Tablet so we can hopefully add to our list of devices we develop for.

Also just added is iTunes LP development as a service offering, but more news on that and our exciting partnership with Twisted Records will be made known in the 'not so distant future'.

Look out for Second Shootr 1.1 which has many additional features implemented and opens the App up to many more customers. Tim from Plinkk has worked very hard ensuring his 'number 1' wedding photography App becomes one of the top (if not the top) photography management Apps.

Lastly, we are happy to announce our newest customer 'PolyPool' - watch this space.