Categories
Blog

Diving back into iPhone app development

Man. It’s been 2 years since Felix and I build the Alphie app for Hasbro. At the time, our boss came to us and said “Which one of you knows how to make iPhone apps?” We looked at each other and said, “…Uh, neither of us?” To which our boss replied, “Well, you’d both better start learning. We already told the client we could.” What followed was a few months of a torturous crash course of trying to build an app that was a cross between a childrens learning game and a provide a backstory for the companion toy they were selling. After that, Felix went on to develop apps full-time, while I returned to my comfort zone of building Adobe Flash websites. Two years later, Flash is all but dead, I’m developing HTML / Javascript websites for a living and I’m wishing I had kept learning IOS.

Well, I finally got back into the iPhone app saddle and I’m spending all my free time learning Objective C. I’m taking a class a Santa Monica college, devouring a steady stream of tutorials and building a few different apps simultaneously. It won’t be quick but my goal is to be a bona-fide IOS dev in about 6 months. My goal is to post some tips and tricks here that I learn along the way, and also take note of any growing pains I come across that might help any other developers out there.

Categories
Blog

GoPro Sledding [vid]

Snow is fun! As long as I don’t live in it. Thats’ been my life long mantra and after spending about 6 months in Utah when I was 17, I confirmed that. So I’ll stick to sunny California, but when I need my snow fix I know where to go.

Categories
Blog Inspiration

Every bank should be Simple

I hate banks; the times I’ve been screwed by a bank is easily in the double digits. So I remember the first time I was excited for a new bank, when Washington Mutual came around. They were the closest thing to what could be called an un-bank (a bank without all the B.S.). I guess that plan didn’t really work out so well for them since they went bankrupt and became a part of Chase. And just like that, all the cool factors (no-fee atm charges, individual teller kiosks, actual customer service) went out the window with the rest of their liquid assets. Enter Simple.

Categories
Blog

From Tokyo With Love

It’s been a dream of mine for a while now to go to Japan, although to be honest I’m not 100% sure why. I guess it’s some combination of what I imagined to be the urban insanity of Tokyo plus the hi-tech gadgets they’ve had for years before we did. William Gibson novels like Neuromancer didn’t help either. In fact, I think the most accurate information I had about the country came from the Simpson’s episode where Homer loses all their money in Japan and have to compete on a wacky game show to get back home. Maybe that’s it; the unknown factor. Still so much of Japan is foreign and unknown to Americans, and that was really what sold me. So when my wife and I compared wish lists of places to travel and Japan was at the top of both of our lists, I knew we were in for a crazy trip.

Categories
Blog

Happy Beard Day

Yesterday my wife successfully pulled off a legitimate surprise party for my birthday, which until now I honestly didn’t think was possible. We had already planned for my parents to come down for the weekend and stay at our apartment, which for me was a big step on its own. Even though I’ve lived on my own for the past 16 years, this was the first time my parents actually came and stayed with me. Kind of a big deal in the feeling-grown-up sense. Previously I either had roommates, lived in too small of a place or lived a couple thousand miles away. Not quite that convenient.

Categories
Blog Inspiration Video

Puma + Subaru join forces for the Global Rallycross Championship [vid]

It really doesn’t take much to get me excited about Rallycross: Fast cars driven at top speed over rough terrain with a good chance of glorious crashes? You had me at “Fast”; not to mention how big of a Subaru nerd I am. So naturally Puma sponsoring Subaru’s 2012 Global Rallycross team got me more than a little interested.

Categories
Blog

Officially hitched!

Russ and Kat got married

It’s official. The dishes are done, man. Yup, I got married! On October the 15th, my fiancĂ© Kat and I tied the knot here in Los Angeles. It was a whirlwind of crazy planning and a heck of a lot of last minute scrambling, but we somehow were able to get everything in place and we pulled it off.

And of course by “we” I mean my wife. She did the lion’s share of the planning (and bore a lot of the stress) to get this done, along with an amazing rag-tag team of awesome friends who helped get so much done. They were like the A-Team of wedding helpers and we couldn’t have done it without them. After the reception we went straight on our honeymoon to Playa del Carmen. We just got back so when I get a chance I’ll put a post with some Mexico pictures.

Categories
Blog Inspiration

Tokyo Slo-mode [vid]


Seriously sick. This is why after the wedding I’m saving all my money for a Tokyo trip.

Categories
Blog

Pour a refreshing bowl of Kevin Garnett Murder-Ohs

P54I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; I’m a sucker for packaging: great or horrendous. You know this. Having sat in one too many creative brainstorms in my day, I inevitably find myself taking guesses at what the creatives were thinking when designing something like this cereal box. I’m sure they were trying to capture the “raw intensity and determination” of a professional athlete, but to me it’s more like Kevin Garnett is saying, “Buy my cereal or I’ll murder you In your sleep!!” which, hey, I mean I guess it worked either way because I bought it. So… we’re cool now, right KG??

Posted via email from My name is russdogg

Categories
Blog

The pros & cons of handmade wedding invites

This weekend Kat & I decided to silk-screen our wedding invites by hand. Why, you might ask? Mainly we wanted to do something handmade fitting our style, but it was also a heck of a lot cheaper than having someone else do it! One caveat: neither of us have silkscreened anything in the last 6 years and we had no equipment. Minor technicality. Yeah.