PLUX Works

Windows 8–UI demo’s an Internet Explore 10

2011-06-04T10:58:00.001-04:00

With recent talks and presentations, Microsoft has pulled the covers completely off the Windows 8 operation system early development for all to see.

With a Windows 7 phone like live application tiles it feels like the Metro design theme on a big screen which users can interact with using touch screen on the desktop. The center “hub” is a screen full of what they are calling “live” tiles which like on the phone system can be push notice feed, thus even with out have the application open the title can be updated with notification , for example email counts, new post…etc. The OS is presented on the screen in a full screen, engaging “chromeless” way that’s very clean and fresh. The system will also come with the similar experience in the newest version of Internet Explore 10 , IE 10, ( I added the link for the Platform Preview at the bottom of the post).

The cool thing is that the “app tiles” and interfaces are all built with common code used today , in what Microsoft is calling “Tailored Apps” environment, using HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS. I was totally expecting the words Silverlight to come out of the presenters mouth but , luckily we were spared that. I am not knocking Silverlight at all, I love it very much but it seems that the community is still cold to it and there size of the development pool is growing slower that I had expected.

The following is a collection of videos I found talking about the upcoming Windows 8 operating system:

Building Windows 8

Microsoft Windows 8 for Tablets

Microsoft Unveils 'Windows 8' to World (full event)

You can also go ahead and download and explore the IE10 Platform Preview 1, that was released April, 2011. It a very interesting experience and for once dose not force out your current IE version.

IE10 Platform Preview 1

Seekonk Speedway MotorHead Magazine Ad

2010-03-30T12:34:00.001-04:00

Hot off the press, just completed the marathon design / build of the Seekonk Speedway Ad for Motorhead Magazine. This is a new marketing avenue for Seekonk Speedway and features there promo tag lines and a completed track event schedule. the Design came easy but it was having to combine the normally separate Fast Friday and Supper Saturday Scheduled events along with a few special events and their exciting Thrill show all in one big list.

Thankfully, I had some extra motivation, though we are in day 2 of 3 of yet te fourth rain storm of this early Spring in New England, first practice of the season is this weekend and the weatherman is calling for 70 deg, an sunny.

New Pro 4 Modifieds Site Goes Live

2010-02-26T20:28:00.000-05:00

After a few months developing and test the new site and pulling over all the content from old to new, we are re-launching the the Pro4mods.com website. The new site is driven by a highly customized database system that will greatly improve communications within the drivers and fans. Also check out the improved photo galleries as well. We still have some more goodness we will be revealing on the site soon, so stay tuned.

pro4mods:
http://www.pro4mods.com

B-1 Bomber Model Project logo

2010-02-08T01:46:00.001-05:00

In addition to the special project subdued insignia patch we add the official project logo now. After getting a request from John the webmaster for the really cool, ongoing, project of Bob building his giant scale B-1B remote control bomber model plane that will take off under the power of 4 screaming mini jet turbines, and feature active swing-wings, complete with fuller flap action.

Bob’s project, especially his amazing build You Tube videos has turned him into an online success story.

Project website:

http://www.b1modelproject.com/

Bob’s You Tube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/hornitpilot

Kidd Motorsports website launches

2010-02-08T01:31:00.001-05:00

After a lot of hard work and long hours by GREY WOLF DESIGN working close with Mat Fritz, we are happy to announce the launch of the Kidd Motorsports, totally redesigned, website.

http://kidd-motorsports.com/

We still have some small touches to add like special things for the fans in the Fan Zone Section, so make sure you come back to the site and check it out. We will also be flushing-out the remaining sections of the Gallery very soon. You will want to keep an sharp eye on that section and here in the news section as Matt and the team will have some exciting updates on the cars for the highly anticipated 2010 racing season.

All of us at GREY WOLF DESIGN are totally excited about working with Matt, Kyle and the rest of the KMS team and are happy to have them join our Motorsports Division wolf pack of racing teams.

KMS literally was or first client of the new year with us closing the deal as New Year Eve was taking place. Thought some new server rack errors delayed the site launch a few week, I can think of no better way to cap off a week filled with the first ARCA and NASCAR races, oh yeah an some football than launching KMS live.

Code Camp 13 Logo

2010-02-03T00:07:00.001-05:00

With the new Code camp notice comes, another Code Camp logo. This time its a Spring date and it’s already Code Camp 13, WOW so fast.

A quick post to let everyone know that the date is set and the venue reserved for

New England Code Camp 13: Saturday, March 27th, 2010

The Microsoft offices in Waltham, MA will host this free, full day of knowledge sharing and networking, by the community, for the community.

News and updates are on Chris Bowen’s blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/cbowen/archive/2010/01/30/new-england-code-camp-13-save-the-date.aspx

Boston WebsiteSpark Group Success

2010-01-29T03:16:00.001-05:00

Last night was the very first meeting of the new web design & development group that I run called the Boston WebsiteSpark Group. The group have four core purposes (1) to talk about the Microsoft WebsiteSpark program (2) talk about and learn about the Expression suite of web design & development application, and most important (3) Bridging the Design & Developer gap and running a small – medium sized web design &development firm.

The group meets normally in the last week of a given month at the Microsoft New England Research & Development Center, also called the NERD building. Less than an 5 min walk from the Kendall MIT MBTA stop on the redline. As you can see from the photo above it’s an amazing space. NERD is our host sponsor and provides our hungry post work minds with food & drinks while we educate an learn. We already have an amazing bunch of sponsors:

Microsoft WebsiteSpark program

Microsoft New England Research & Development Center

GREY WOLF DESIGN

NaviSite

O’Reilly's Technical Books

Stuart Goldman, CPA

More information can be found on the groups Meet Up web page at: http://www.meetup.com/Boston-WebsiteSpark-Group/

B-1B R/C Project Logo

2010-01-27T01:00:00.001-05:00

I was working on an unrelated Insignia project and listing to Bob’s project YouTube videos while waiting for a client to get back to me and the idea for a logo patch for him popped into my head an 20 min and ta-da, they already got it posted up on his project website and even kindly linked it back to the GREY WOLF DESIGN site and I did not even asked them too, that was nice. Its an amazing project the remote Control B1-B he is building is a monstrous 18 ft and he will be using four mini turbojet engines…its a great learning experience for hobbyist RC guys as well.

His project website is at:

http://www.b1modelproject.com/

An you can subscribe to his You Tube video uploads at:

http://www.youtube.com/user/hornitpilot

Latin Cash 4 Gold moves into Beta Testing

2010-01-26T11:24:00.001-05:00

Today we have wrapped up the last of the English to Spanish translation conversion and replaced the last graphic to be complete on the site. The site will now under go about a week or less of beta testing by some native speakers before final site launch.

Sneak-Peek at IST’s Second Site

2010-01-25T15:34:00.001-05:00

While on a roll, and since several people have asked for a sneak-peek at the near final design for the second site for the International String Trio ( IST). This site is their face forward for the High End events and party clients. More news soon on this one as its about 80% done we are just in the fine-tuning stage right now.

Pennington Flower Temp Page Going Up

2010-01-25T15:21:00.001-05:00

In a huge jump forward on yet another project that was placed on hold until after the holiday season, we will be posting up the first sign of what's to come for the Pennington Flowers website this evening. It’s always great to really be working on a project like a high-end florist business because they have tons of great images to work with. The added bonus on this project is that we are working for a great agency Mark Gentile out of New York & Seattle.

UPDATE: The temp holding one page mini-site is live now: http://www.penningtonflowers.com/

Seekonk Speedway Annual Banquet

2010-01-17T13:38:00.001-05:00

Last night, 16 Jan 2009, at Venus De Milo’s it was a great night to gather and toast all the drivers and teams from Seekonk Speedway. I had the best time working and socializing with some of the best photographers that have been covering racing tracks in New England for over 40 – 50 years. The event was my first time with Seekonk but was a great event (the best banquet food I have ever had). It was minus one person I hope will be there next year Chuck Vanada, somehow a racing event without him is not the same (get recovered soon champ).

Jake Vanada was there and it was great to see him as he gets ready to shake off 2009 and tear up the track in 2010. Kyle DeSouza and his father/owner were there and collected a long list of awards.

Our newest and first client of 2010 Kidd Motorsports also were award winners in both Late Model and Pro Stock series.

I will get some more detailed information and update this article later in the week, but congrats to all the drivers and awards winners.

We can not wait to get the 2010 season started for all our clients at Seekonk Speedway, the Track, Mad-Dog Motorsports, DeSouza racing, and Kidd Motorsports.

Finally DSOF is Launched

2010-01-14T12:31:00.001-05:00

It took some time to get it all changed and up-dated, but we are very happy to launch the Distinctive Surfaces of Florida site go live. We were brought in by Heavy Advertising to produce the non flash portions of the site ( Just the home page is Flash). Heavy is our favorite agency to work with and there is a huge world of difference from their very old 4-5 page site. We are very proud to be delivering to this multi-location client a new site that represents their business and promotes there large range of products.

Distinctive Surfaces of Florida: http://www.distinctivesurfacesofflorida.com

Heavy Advertising: http://www.heavyadvertising.com/

Kidd Motorsports joins the client list

2010-01-02T16:18:00.001-05:00

GREY WOLF DESIGN is very excited to announce our newest client, Kidd Motorsports, that literally took shape on the door steps of New Years Eve 2010. The race team based out of Exeter, Rhoads Island, managed by Matt Fritz. The two car team with driver Kyle Casper operates the #07 Pro Stock and #7 Late model car. This a great team an any fan at Seekonk Speedway will recognize them by their sharp looking blue and yellow car. We look forward to working with them and have the GREY WOLF DESIGN logo on their car during the upcoming race season.

Happy Holidays to all

2009-12-25T16:15:00.001-05:00

Some interesting Stuff from WebInno 24

2009-12-07T22:49:00.001-05:00

Just back from another exciting Web Innovators group meeting. If you're in the Boston area and have not heard of this group check them out (www.webinnovatorsgroup.com). From the presenters and side-bar companies tonight I present a few i found very interesting:

ThredUP: They provide a service were you can trade your clothing, with others in a fast growing network. Got a shirt you do not wear, thread it up and get something back you like and can wear. (www.thredup.com)

BlankLabel: Gives you total control of more details than you can image to create a dress shirt that's just they way you want it. You the user can design by selecting from options to create the perfect dress shirt just for you. (www.blank-label.com)

Kango Gift: This one is a fun and quick way for people to send gifts as text message (SMS) vouchers to your friends cell phone. Gift recipients then stop by the store and present their voucher ( on their phone) and redeem their gift. (www.kangogift.com)

KartMe: is an interesting link and list organizer that you can access online line from anyplace from office, home or smart phone. (www.kartme.com)

last but not least….

Survey on the spot: this mobile ( iphone app) and web product allows business to get customers to complete a survey while they are still in store, or right after completing an meal. This gives a business direct, relevant, and immediate feedback from customers. (www.surveyonthespot.com)

Launched Blogger / New Section For Mad-Dog Motorsports

2009-12-01T17:16:00.001-05:00

Today we just launched a new News/Blog site for Jake driver of the Mad-Dog Motorsports # 46 Pro Stock racing car. Currently it houses the Race Results and Team News for the 2008 and 2009 racing seasons. We have already infused the blog with some images and more will be forth coming before the end of the year. Mad-Dog Motorsports is a very close client of ours and we can often be found down in the pits with at Seekonk Speedway (also a client of ours).

This news blog rather than driven by Word Press has an Google Blogger engine under its hood. We set up an free Google Picasa photo account for the client and PR staff and will be setting them up to use Microsoft Windows Live Writer for quick and simple blog posting.

Link: http://maddogmotorsports.blogspot.com/

Software: The Glass Runneth Over…

2009-11-29T15:34:00.001-05:00

For the first time in my long professional career i can say that my cup do runneth over in the software departments. Well all have go around and around the software/ applications rollercoaster in our carriers. Especially know in the doom days of the error of the “Suite” almost everyone has these, often expensive, bundles of joy for us end users. Most of the time i find myself picking and choosing and trying to develop a upgrade path that fits mine needs, witch almost always seems different than the industry or big software companies marketing departments understanding of my needs ; )

GREY WOLF DESIGN has been developing and evolving a very strong partnership with Microsoft these days with our own CMS system, “Nb” or New bits, and small CMS to Flash, “Sb” or small bits, and looking to exploring more powerful web application development. However, along came Microsoft's newest web design suite Expression Studio, and its current evolution, version 3 is nothing less than stunning. If you have not seen it then you seriously should take a look at it. When you see the stunning power of Blend 3’s Sketch Flow for developing powerful mockups from simple to data driven prototypes ( an dead simple and fast) you will want it. And if you work with back-end developers that work with Microsoft Visual Studio the walls between designer and developer are torn down with asset sharing and integrated work flows.

The Microsoft Expression 3 suite consist of:

Expression Web 3

Expression Blend 3 w/ Sketch Flow

Expression Design 3

Expression encoder.

We had always been an Macromedia shop on the front end, then pulled into the Adobe family with their buy-out of Macromedia. And with the very recent introduction of Adobe Creative Suite 4 – Design Premium into the office, we feel the dark force is so very strong with this evolution of Adobe’s creative software.

The Design Premium suite CS4 consist of:

InDesign cs4

Photoshop extended cs4

illustrator cs4, Flash cs4 Pro

Dreamweaver cs4

Fireworks cs4

Acrobat 9 Pro

Adobe bridge cs4

Adobe Device Central cs4

Version Cue cs4

Over the coming winter months I will post some more post, especially about Expression since I have been getting a lot of question about it.

Barak Uranovsky Site Launched

2009-11-19T00:51:00.001-05:00

We just launched Barak’s site last night ( morning for him in Israel ) and he will be busy uploading all his text into the sites CMS (content management system). This was not our first multi language site, but or first English–Hebrew combination, luckily for me I did not have to learn it, my friends tell me its very hard to learn. If you get a chance, do check out his amazing stained glass creations and design work, the Eternal Flame creations of his or just stunning..

http://www.barakuranovsky.com/index.htm

Catching Up on Stuff

2009-11-17T16:35:00.001-05:00

Previously I have blogged about little applications, frameworks, and tools that we have tried-out and/or added to our mix-bag, rather tool set. As they say something's stay the same yet other things change.

One of things that I have found very useful is using Yahoo’s new homepage design as my home page in my browsers, not because I find Yahoo any great source of information news wise, but being used to it for so, so, many years and I totally love their new “My Favorites” menu. I have played with it for some time and now have it pretty settled down to be my key jumping off point. My current list is a combination of personal but mostly mix sites:

Yahoo Mail; Facebook; MS NERD (Microsoft Research Office – Cambridge, Ma); Google Voice; Mashbord; Meetup; Netflicks; NPR radio; MyHours; NASCAR; YouTube; Google Calendar; and Flickr

Some of these are new tools:

Google Voice: (www.google.com/voice)
By setting up an account, I am able to separate personal from business incoming calls which helps. The biggest key though is the way it handles voice mail. You can set up Google voice to not only take your voice mail and make it available online ( both as a text translation but and a mp3 recorded file). Still there is the killer feature for me, the text translation is also forwarded to me as a sms text message which I have found to be a very powerful tool.

Mashboard: (www.mashbord.com)
This nice little online application allows you to load-up sites you would like to have handy and organize them in one small header “dashboard” and then gives you three columns of linked thumbnails. All the thumbnails are created by their system from the links you add to your sections, its very easy and fast. When you click on a thumbnail it dose open up the site framed by their won frame , but with a click the frame is gone an your URL pathway is directly to that site. I use the Dashboard for our various main sites, this blog, a second web design gallery like blogger account, the main GREY WOLF DESIGN SITE and some sub or mini sites we run. The first column is used for quick links to site in progress and on our development server. The second column in most recent client sites, whit the third being links to design reference sites and misc. sites I visit a lot in my work and training processes.

Google Calendar: (www.google.com/calendar)

I had left this one but came running back still find it the best way for me to manage events, projects, and deadlines. Their calendar also is very easy to share with other team members with ease.

myHours (www.myhours.com)
I still love this online time tracking application and though I have only used it a few time its mobile version works with easy as well.

Other tools:

Windows Live Writer:
I just recently started using this application that comes with the new Microsoft Live application package, and to be honest I really like it.

Adjustments and New Blog for GREY WOLF DESIGN

2009-11-15T17:08:00.000-05:00

We re-launched our GREY WOLF DESIGN website today after making some adjsutments to the pages. The two things you will notice right off the bat are the new supper-sized the thumnail images for all the work galleries and we added in a second gallery page to the Web section. We have also totaly changed our blog from the previous Wordpress driven blog back to using Google Blogger, and directly intergrated it into the site, this time with a slightly modified template.Eventually you will see the Facebook and flickr links appear across all the site pages and be joined by other social media sites.

Stay in touch as we plan to bring in alot of additional small changes and improvements ver the upcoming holidays which run from Thanksgiving thru Chinese New Year for us.

Kyle DeSouza's Site Goes Live

2009-11-06T14:59:00.000-05:00

More info and news soon.

Let The Music Play…….Twice

2009-11-06T14:50:00.000-05:00

It has been a very busy start to the Fall of ‘09, yesterday we had a double-music-header with the launching of two Violinist websites. Ben Powell, a member of the International String Trio (we launched their site this past Spring, was the first site to go live. Sariata Uranovsky another amazing violinist ( an fellow B.U. Alumni ) followed soon after on the same day. Ben had contacted us with a very short design & launch time frame, and he referred Sariata to as well, so it was off to the races.

Ben's site: http://www.ben-powell.com/site/

Sariata's site: http://www.saritauranovsky.com/

Internastional String Trio's site: http://www.internationalstringtrio.com/

Kyle DeSouza Joins Motorsports Client List

2009-07-29T13:24:00.000-04:00

We are over joyed to announce that Kyle DeSouza is the newest client to join GREY WOLF DESIGN motorsports department client list. Kyle , from Fairhaven, MA,is a very talented young driver in his rookie year in the # 88 Sport Truck division, and is also driving in the # 88 SYRA 750 division at Seekonk Speedway, Seekonk Ma.

Just past the halfway mark of the Seekonk Speedway season and Kyle is in 5th place in the Sport Truck division, with an impressive 574 pts. with 2 top 5’s and 10 top 10 finishes. After three races in the much-rained-out SYRA 750 season, Kyle sits atop the pack with one victory and never finishing outside of the top 5.

So stay tuned, we plan to roll-out a kicking site for Kyle as he joins the growing client list for the new motorsports department alongside our main man, Jake Vanada.

Double Vision - Double Solution

2009-07-14T13:22:00.000-04:00

Recently a client came to us to help them out with the fact visitors to their site were not completing an request for information form out a vast majority of the time. They were also getting alot of spam, or atleast they think was spam because it was hard to sort incomplete forms submissions from the spam chatter. The solution is to give the form verification to the form submission.

The first step was to swamp out the previous php mailer forms with the new one. I did his, because I had come across a nice new mailer php script that has a verification function built into and it was simple enough to convert their form to the more input heavy one the client needed. This form can be found at The Web Help site, at the link below, with very simple one page code illustrated instruction page. An additional bonus is the built-in passing of the senders IP address with the fomr data. I was really satisfied with the ease of use and quick turnaround of the conversion of their from to my needs, and this script will defiantly go right into the code snippet tool box.

Contact form with Image Validation: Find it here

Now, the second part came along after further client review an input came the additional requirement of input field validation. Well, had I been good with my php I am sure i could have done this server side or a mix of client-side and server-ide php coding ( stop laughing - I am after all a designer slowly learning more developer stuff). I also like to find and add small scrpit peices to my code tool kit that I can pull an apply as needed on the fly rather than recoded features.

To accomplish this, I found after hunting around an amazingly simple little system that required just the addition of two functions in the header, re-setting the form ID, and identifying the input fields that reguried verification. The JavaScript is poetic in its simplicity and uses the system pop-up note box and tells the user what required field they failed to complete. Sometimes you just have to hammer a site visitor over the head to get their attention. Now the funny things after all that, i re-found a forgotten build in function in Dreamweaver MX , which is also in the CS3 verision for form element verification (read duh).

Now with the form fields validated as not empty prior to from submission, and the enhanced image validation features activated both task were completed. I was a little behind schedule but both of the clients needs were address in a very user friendly way and two new code snippet added to the kit as well as re-learned a built-in feature in Dreamweaver!!! Double vision - Double solution.

Pro 4 Mods Launches & Press

2009-07-02T13:21:00.000-04:00

Okay another rain soaked week here in New England ( we think its summer but not sure yet!!!) Late yesterday we launched the new site for our exciting new client the Pro 4 Modifieds series, and this morning we got new press from Yankee Racer website (YankeeRacer.com):

New Motorsport Marketing disvision

2009-06-23T13:19:00.000-04:00

Okay put all the rumors away, we have finally launched our new division “Motorsports Marketing”. Those that know me will say, duh , about time. We are not just a race fans, we love racing. I grew up bouncing around Darlington and Charlotte ( sorry Lowe’s) race tracks and then did some motorcross out west. So finally after reaching out to the local race community here in New England we are taking the plunge.

The new division site will be up soon. At the core of this campaign is pulling together a range of technologies and our in-house Nb, “New bits”, and Sb,”Small bits”, content management systems, all packaged to create a site teams can afford thats professionally designed. At the same time we are taking great pains to make sure that the site is extremely easy to update by the race teams. We will also offer the skills of a very talented local marketing resource.

The new division is starting off in a good position, having recently completed phase I of the Seekonk Speedway website and re-branding launch. This backed by the launching of the Chadwick Porsche site and our special client Mad-Dog Motorsports. We hope to soon add to the family the new Pro4Mod’s New England series site and a new race team member…

New Seekonk Site Gets Fast Press

2009-06-21T13:18:00.000-04:00

The very day the we launched the new Seekonk Speedway website, the staff over at the Yankee Racer had already posted an announcement and showed us some love for the new sites design improvements:

“The site is easier to navigate with information on upcoming races, news, race results and point standings. New photo galleries and video clips are some of the features included in the latest version of the online home for the “Action Track of the East.”

This is an honor for us, because the Yankee Racer is the largest source of racing news in the New England area. To get great feedback from them is a humble mark on the hard work that went into getting the site gone. Thanks guys.

Seekonk Speedway Site Goes Live

2009-06-21T13:16:00.000-04:00

It has been a very hard three months here at Grey Wolf Design since we secured the Seekonk Speedway site re-design project there was really nothing to salvage from the old site. So, in that regards it was the best kind of redesign: nuke and re-build!! We evolved a new version of our Nb “new bits” content management system (CMS) to pull in alot of new features. The new site release ver. 1.1 is about 90% the final version. Some minor additional features were bumped to meet deadline after we lost several weeks during the warp-speed design & build track for the site. The office got selectively hit with a full round of the flu early on the project then near launch we had an utter collapse of the developmental server (ugh host to be named later!!).

After the visual design and sire information architecture was finally resolved full attention went into making sure that every element of the backend, admin, section was as user friendly as possible. To my great satisfaction, the client basically figured it all out, a good 90%, after I let them have a preview two days before training day. I did not even have to really do up training day presentation or screen cast. My meeting at the clients turned out to be a short relaxed huddle around a computer in their office.

We are making some minor changes and these are just small adjustments to make race result entry and related small form entry better fit the clients previous work flow. In addition we are already experimenting with some cool additional race fan out-reach and communication ideas to present to them…so stay tuned.

Mad Dog Motorsports

2009-06-13T13:14:00.000-04:00

Mad Dog Motorsports joins the GREY WOLF DESIGN clients list. We jumped right into things and created a nice promotional site with alot of additional pages and support for the sponsor related visitors, but primarily for Jake’s growing fan base.

Keep this one in mind…more to come…

Another Flash/XML Calendar CMS launch

2009-06-13T13:13:00.000-04:00

Heavy Advertising, recently gave the Marina Bay Beach Club website a much need redesign and we tagged along deploying or custom flash/XML calendar CMS yet again. We used our very intuitive content managment system for a flash site the Heavy Advertising crew built. Our system give the end user client the ability to log in from an web access point and add/delte/edit postings in their calendar system with very easy controls.

GREY WOLF DESIGN: http://greywolfdesign.com/

Heavy Advertising: http://www.heavyadvertising.com/

Wire Frame / UI Sketching and Grid Tools

2009-06-13T13:11:00.000-04:00

Since New Years, I have found and employed some new tools to speed-up the design phase of our firms design-build process.

GRIDS

Grid Designer 2 :

In an effort to speed up and play with the gird layout an elements, I found a joy of a tool online. Grid Designer 2 (http://grid.mindplay.dk) is nothing short of an amazing tool, rather tool set. You can quickly play and adjust you grid to need, toss in some typography needs, and the pack it all out in html and css that get you off an running.

Boks:

This is a new find ( about a week ago) this is an Adobe Air application ( so far only the second one I found useful to me) That seems to operate much like Grid Designer 2, so so far I am not as impressed, but I have only had a few interaction with it an seems it has some potential as well. (http://toki-woki.net/p/Boks/)

WIRE FRAME / UI SKETCHING

IPlotz:

This is a supper nice high-end, simple and easy to use, wire-frame online tool. A tad pricey but the free account will let you mock up five pages for small task or sites. (http://iplotz.com/)

Creately:

Still in beta but it’s got more potential than Iplotz and has alot more to it from charting to layouts and UI wire frames ( with data behind it for building working wire frame models). I am still just getting time to play with it and the more i do the more I love it. It has powerful simple to use collaboration tool that make team coordination a snap. We are seriously loving this new online tool. This is a tool that can speed-up a lotof stuff while making our team much more colabratve with more than task than we currently are. (http://creately.com/)

Time Tracking - Home Run

2009-05-20T13:09:00.000-04:00

For many long years freelancing as an designer I have looked for an affordable solid solution to tracking my time of the many projects both new and ongoing. Done it all the various accounting software features, time trackers, and paper time sheets. From time to time when trying to escape work or designers block I would search the net roaming for something I never tired before. A few months ago I found the holly grail to my need and search: MyHours.com.

My requirements was a solution that would work like the timesheet system that was more like the one I used at my last firm. The system had to be simple and not time consuming to set up or use on a daily bases. Without alot of the added complication or trouble.

MyHours was very easy to set up and its free. It took me less than 30 - 40 min. to poke around an learn whats what without reading much of the help stuffage : )

I quickly set up task and my already 50+ active and updating projects. Flushed out the previous 3 week in that’s month, and the current day. The reports or extremely flexible and “spot on” easy to use. You can also export them for filing as well as using for the project were you need to include detailed records of time spent on the project.

So if your like me an still looking for a simple but smart time tracking application, check out MyHours.com. They also have an mobile application component that I have yet to use as my phone is only semi-smart and the screen text is to small for such things. For those whom need more features than I mention please poke around their are a lot of features in the system that I just did not have a real need for.

http://www.myhours.com

Nb cms system branding launched

2009-03-06T13:08:00.000-05:00

Today its now official, the content management system we developed now has an official name Nb standing for “New bits”. previously code named Dex after the office cat Dexter, it now got its own brand identity as it marches off into the world. From the very start we were on a mission, and what Nick created has been nothing but 200% successful. Clients have praised it with “it amazing”. “I never though site management would be this easy”, and “we are stunned”. From a development program you can not ask for more than that.

Sustainable Urbanism Summit Site Launch

2009-02-26T13:06:00.000-05:00

We are excited to announce we have created and launch the website for CNU New England Chapter’s huge Sustainable Summit. It was a fast paced and exciting development project, with great results. The blog should be comming early next week so they are off to a solid fast start.

website: http://www.cnunewengland.org/summit/index.htm

YouGotListings.com Website Launch

2009-02-09T13:05:00.000-05:00

Right on the heels of their logo completion, we announce the live launch of the YougotListings.com website, sporting a clean and fresh modern design, catering to their dual client base; both agents and landlords. This is our latest and most exciting client and we are happy to launch this great site visual design for them. No we turn toward the collateral branding materials and related marketing items. So look for more news on this client in the near future.

website: http://www.yougotlistings.com/

YouGotListings.com Logo

2009-02-01T13:03:00.000-05:00

Grey Wolf Design, announces, the logo for a new great member of the client family, You Got Listings. Simple clean logo, the conveys the business services and market out reach, clearly.

Cash in Gold USA - Brochure

2009-01-29T13:02:00.000-05:00

New client Cash in Gold’s brochure is off to the printing press. This eye-catching full color two-sided, slim flyer style, brochure, is design to get out their marketing message.

Camden Insignia - Subdued

2009-01-11T13:00:00.000-05:00

Grey wolf design was tapped, to create an subdued version of the Camden insignia. We are very happy to be able to show off one of our insignia. Since 2000 we have design and generated over 200 special operations team insignia which most often we can not show-off publicly. I will make an effort to post up the ones that we can as we move forward. For the most part these will have to remain an “out of public” design department. We do however, hope to have a print-on-demand book covering most of our special forces team insignia out by summer of ‘09 (keep your fingers crossed).

Web User Stats

2009-01-05T12:58:00.000-05:00

Looking at Market Shares’ (link) end of the year trend and stats an interesting picture of were we are and what we are doing as-far-as Search Engine usage, Browsers, and Screen Sizes, other stats are also available on their great site as well if you in the trade.The following is snap shot of there data (numbers rounded up):

Browser use:

Internet Explore 68%

Fire Fox 21%

Safari 8%

Chrome 1%

Others 2%

Search Engines:

Google 81%

Yahoo 10%

MSN/Live 5%

Other 3%

Screen Sizes:

1024 x 768 37%

1280 x 800 20%

1280 x 1024 13%

1440 x 900 8%

1680 x 1050 6 %

other 17 %

In summary, we can say that IE, though slightly down, remain top dog but others gained about 1% each, and Fire Fox finally passed the 20% mark. Google still rules the nest for search engines, as Yahoo continues to slide Microsoft with MSN and Live is slow to make any gains. On the screen resolution, the march forward continues with 84% of us using a resolution of 1024 x 768 or higher (this might grow post-holiday based on huge deal offers).

Kids Clothes Club - Site Launch

2008-12-17T12:57:00.000-05:00

We are very proud to announce, the launching of the new Kids Clothes Club site, a heart warming and amazing charity, and we are honored to call them a client of ours.

Since 1991, the Kids Clothes Club has been providing new, warm winter coats to children in need. In our first year, we helped thirty children stay warm through the cold New England winter. Today, thanks to the generosity of donors like you, we distribute thousands of coats each year.

The Kids Clothes Club works through schools, day care centers, shelters, and community agencies to identify children in need and deliver new winter coats that are stylish, warm, and guaranteed to bring a smile to a child’s face. With your help we have been able to expand our reach to serve children throughout Massachusetts, but as additional schools and community agencies hear about us, the requests for help keep growing.

vist site: http://www.kidsclothesclub.org/

Rocco and the Stompers - Site Launch

2008-12-17T12:55:00.000-05:00

Busy last couple of week here at Grey Wolf, we are proud to announce the Launch of the Rocco and the Stompers website this past Monday.

Boston-based all-star octet, Rocco and the Stompers, merges the traditional 1930’s Swing Era sound with contemporary arrangements and compositions. Formed in mid 2008, the group’s focus has been to actively write and arrange material that lends itself to exciting live performances. With one sensational full length studio recording under their belts, the Stompers’ are quickly turning the heads of jazz audiences.

vist the site: http://www.roccoandthestompers.com/

Star Trek Online Store Gets Face Lift

2008-11-27T12:53:00.000-05:00

Launched the new home page for Themed Merchandise Corporation’s Star Trek store site. So, hey if you like or love Star Trek, hop online and check them out. Especially the Enterprise Gummi candy, because, grey wolf design designed the packaging for thie really great looking and tasting gummi candy.

link: http://themedmerchandise.com/

Flash/XML Calendar CMS system x2

2008-11-26T12:52:00.000-05:00

We recently wrapped up two great projects with Heavy Advertising. We created a very intuitive content managment system for a flash calendar system Heavy built into their two recent club site launches. Both The Estate Boston and Eyebar DC, no sport smooth control over their club calendars including both text, limks and image uploading.

The 4-1-1:

Heavy Advertising: http://www.heavyadvertising.com/

The Estate Boston: http://www.theestateboston.com/

EyeBar DC: http://www.eyebardc.com/

grey wolf design: http://greywolfdesign.com/

Building a Better Process Foundation (Part I)

2008-11-25T12:40:00.000-05:00

A design team is always looking to improve its process. Often new tricks and tools are added rather piece-mill on the fly. From time-to –time I like to look at the process we are using and streamline things. The end of last year I set out with an objective of really performing a deep spring cleaning of the foundation set we use.

My objectives were:

1.Develop a clean & clear css foundation

2.Establish a set of solid (usable) design grids

3.Establish a better code snippet tool box

CSS

The first step was to replace our current patch work of CSS files (all the browser hacks and styles) with a new system. After several months of reading and research, I selected the Google Boilerplate CSS as the best model. Their system consist of one primary external style sheet containing import links to several style sheets contained in a library folder. The Google library consist of: forms, IE, reset, and topography style sheet files.

To simplify this process, I pulled the reset styles along with all the standard styles used the establish and clear tag s and establish a solid foundation from all the style sheets into one master file and call it “basecode.css”. The exception here is the IE file (because this one is larger and with IE 8 coming out I know it will be getting revised soon). Thus I used it not just for importing the various files from the library folder but I deploy my reset styles here to clear up all browser issues and start every project with a nice clean slate.

I revised the library folder based off the Google concept with some small modification to fit our process and flow. The new library contains style sheets named: fonts, forms, IE (like Google I retain this as a separate file), menus (only used on large projects), and project.

The project file contains project specific structural (non-typographical or font related) style elements. As the new grid design system is brought into place, most of the style in this file will be cleared out. Despite having the grid frame work there is always the need for project specific modifications or project specific specifications so this file will remain for that need.

I have used this system for several projects to-date and I can tell you it is a huge time saver. It really allows you to focus on the visual design rather than grinding out the code frame work for the site design. This also sets the stage to make updates and changes in design down the line are much faster. The file commenting and organization also makes it much faster to work with.

Following our previous standard the basecode file and library folder is located inside the “scripts” folder. It shares this folder with project needed JavaScript files and any other specialty scripts of code, such as asp or php mailer files. These other files represent a standard tool set that I will talk about later.

Resources:

Google Boiler Plate CSS page: http://code.google.com/p/css-boilerplate/

MassArt Senior Projects Show 2008

2008-11-21T12:48:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, in-between meetings , I managed to stop over at MassArt. Two of my friends are seniors and had presentations at the senior project show.

Shawn’s, i had seen during production, but its was great to see it finished. I really like his idea of playing with the typology of everyday sounds, as he experimented with the power of sound words from comics and print. I had only seen on of the clips until today, of course my favorite ones are the cooking & prep at the local Chinese place in Brigham circle. I think it was a great project, I know we have all made fun of the 60’s Batman T.V. show with its large “Pow”… “Boom” graphics & sound mixed into the action, but Shawn took a fresh modern look at this and it makes you think about sounds.

Soya’s project ,I had only knew it had to do with light projection, was very impressed. I know alot of people go dazed at abstract work, however, I found his project very cool and totally understandable. His selection of materials was great an the layers and reflectivity was cool. Soya was also one of the better students at explaining thier idea and evolution of their idea. I wish the room was fully dark because it would have been more fun. Great work though. I look forward to seeing alot more of his work.

Aside for my good friends, I have to give mad props to Corey Ledin, I really liked his project, great clean and interactive site, was very impressive. His “Streams of Emotion” take interactive survey taking to a new level of ease of use. He did not stop there, he took the data and created a great interactive stream view and gave it an nice and easy to use searchable interface. I like the fact he used the Wii remote as an interactive device. What can I say he has mad skills already ( check out his iPhone beer pong app )..cheers.

I did not get pictures of all the other I wanted to mention, first props to Frankie for most impressive video and smart sharing of the greater Boston skate spaces info, great work there. Mike Mai’s, presentation and multi level packaging was very nice. I like the clean designs of Nicole and Alexandra’s projects, both very good ideas there, and its nice to see young designers showing clean UI’s.

Other mention goes to the Hello Stranger project and her cool guerrilla marketing starter kits, great idea, but can be pushed alot further than guerrilla marketing basics. The body project was also well designed, as was the Magazine data site, very smooth data presentation. Thanks again to all of you, very impressive, and I look forward next semester to see you on portfolio day ( were I am very critical : ) )

STYLE 2008

2008-11-12T12:47:00.000-05:00

My top client, William George, owner of James Joseph Salon, and two James Joseph Studio locations, participated in STYLE 2008, held at The Estate Boston and sponsored by Fashion House and Efen Vodka. I have never been to any of the thousands of Fashion shows they participate in and thousands of Photo shoots, so I wanted to check it out.

It was exciting to say the least. Just watching them creating such a masterpiece, I was in awe to say the least. The model, she was amazing, not just on the runway but I never realized just what they go through.

William did a great write-up on his blog see link below.

To Cindy, Cristina, Eva, and Michelle and all the others that pitched in backstage, I tip my hat to each and everyone of you. William said he was biased, I might be too but Best in Show in my book!!!

William’s blog entry: “Style 2008“

Improving TV websites

2008-11-11T12:46:00.000-05:00

If you missed the short and very informative artice by Whitney Pastorek ” A Better TV Website in Just Four Easy Steps” in Entertainment Weekly (11.7.08) pg 81, you should check it out. For a very long time TV stations have been very bad at understanding this aspect, and today with so many watching missed or re-watching their favorite episodes online, this has become a major if not primary marketing means for every TV show.

Whittney dose a great job an attacks the sites from a web designer/developer angle as well as the end users in writing a very detailed but entertaining article. He four steps are:

1. Have a clean design.

2. Play to the fans.

3. Take content cues from your show.

4. Bonus features should be, you know, a bonus.

Perfectly outlined an clear if you ask me!!

A great example of this along with the examples he stated was the two sites that support Jericho. Not only were there lots of goodies and some good design work put into the site, but you were left craving the weekly additions and teasers not seen on TV. They also ran a second entirely different site that played on a supportive almost second mini-series, and educated the viewer on the realities of national defense, keys on what to do if it really happened, and insight to related truths and thus dispelling misconceptions.

The result was, when they first canceled the show hoards, and I mean hoards of views launched a campaign that got the show back on the air. Sadly, the director and writers failed to keep us after the delay ( the writers strike did not help). Even after the second canceling of the show, their still remains a heavy set of viewer blogs and a grass root effort to see the rumors of a movie come true.

To se articvle online: http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20237217,00.html

Building an iPhone site

2008-11-04T12:45:00.000-05:00

I came across one of the best blog articles I have ever read: Lessons Learned while Building an iPhone Site Posted by Ross Harmes, posted on the Flickr blog. Having recently gone through an interesting effort developing the mobile site for Galen Partners, I totally was not only able to relate to his article but clearly appreciated his approach.

Ross clearly states the hardest part about developing mobile sites, and states this right up front in the first paragraph:

“A lot of the current best practices get thrown out the window in the quest for minimum page weight and fastest load times over slow cellular connections.”

From how you code to squeezing every little thing out of your code, to thinking out of the standard website box model he shares with us great insight.

Ross breaks his enlightenment down to 5 great advice points (plus a golden nugget of advice):

1. Don’t Use a JavaScript Library or CSS Framework

2. Load Page Fragments Instead of Full Pages

3. Don’t Build for Just One Device

4. Optimize Everything

5. Tell the User What’s is Happening

plus:”One Easy Option”

This article applies not just to iPhone but all mobile site design (application) development, and in-fact he clearly this out an encourages all mobile developers to design from a wide span of devices.

So pop on over to the Flickr blogg an give is a read:

http://code.flickr.com/blog/2008/10/27/lessons-learned-while-building-an-iphone-site/

Building a Better Process Foundation (Part II)

2008-10-26T12:43:00.000-04:00

Grids

Over the early half of the year I set off researching various articles and examples of design grid systems. I took a lot of these theories and systems and most of the visual designs produced over the past two years to see what fit into my love for clean design and a body of client selected designs. A clear winner emerged from my research.

I found that the 960 grids systems worked perfectly for my design theory and body of recent work. Using the 960 girds system (down load available from their website) to establish three systems of 960, 900 and 722 pixel widths. For each grid a visual design template was made in JPEG format (for use in both Photoshop and Fireworks). In addition a foundation code set of CSS, image holding jpegs, and tables was also established. The foundation style sets are labeled and pre-located in the master scripts folder.

However, let me say even though I have a penchant for clean, clean, and modern design that does not mean I am stuck in the grid. The grid is just a resourceful building block and I have found it to be just as powerful when you need to design, literally, outside the box. Once you develop and employ a grid for the first time you will find it infinitely flexible as it is ridged and very easy to customize to fit any design.

Tool Box

Over the years everyone sort develops a lose set of often used code snippets and functions. I use Dreamweaver and a lot of time I use their built in behaviors. This leads to bulky in page scripts being added. One thing I have done is to establish a process and set of snippets in external files to clean up the header code area of pages. The same happen if you use behavior added from Fire Works.

In addition I have various DTHML code function for navigation, images, scrolling, and galleries I often use. We have two different form mail processing codes; one asp based the other php. I also have non- JavaScript functions for slide shows as well as flash plug-in in the tool set.

To better organize all this, I took two steps. One was to add the smaller most common snippets into the standard script folder (were the css was already located). The rest, along with any installation and modification notes, were added into one master resource folder on the team server. This way everyone can access them. The tool box is not established to limit and everyone is encouraged to add new scripts and tools.

Conclusion

The combination of the new css foundation and the grid design set combined with a more organized tool box gives us a huge reduction in production time. Both small and large projects have seen a great boost from the new foundation already. A lot of the browser struggles and css structural layout issues before are removed from the production equation now.

Small sites and micro-site projects especially benefit from a well established code foundation. These often now spend more time in the visual design cycle than production. The visual design phase is also reduced by using image templates of the grid designs and better management of layer in Fire Works.

Next mission: streamlining applications

Resources:

960 Grids ( a must read): http://960.gs/

Engine 7, MFD, 100th Anv. Logo

2008-10-12T12:38:00.000-04:00