Code Monkey Happy Ninja Banana Surprise!

So sometimes it’s the little things that can make me happy. And sometimes makes other people happy too, figure that!

Now that the iPhone is definitely a major player in the smart phone field, and major websites are (and have been) catering to it, I figured it was time to start learning when and how to sniff out the iPhone browsing my site, but also show content. But then my ADD kicked in, and I decided to figure out how to make whatever it was that was showing up as a neat icon on my iPhone’s homepage for sites like Facebook, Zipcar, and Fandango.

Some of you might have just said “what? What the crap you talkin’ ’bout?” K. Lemme ’splain.

First of all, if you use the iPhone to go to a site like Facebook or Zipcar, you will get a website designed specifically for the iPhone. They’re leaner, cleaner, and rock. You can actually view the FB iphone site here, and just resize your browser window so that it’s about a quarter the size of your screen, taller than wider, same ratio dimensions as an iphone. Only bigger. You’ll get the idea once you play with it.

So there’s that. Those sites are cool. They load fast, work right, and look good.

THEN – there’s the neat iPhone trick – that if you want to quickly make a shortcut from your home screen, (the first screen you see on the iphone), you click the bookmark icon on the bottom, and the iPhone asks whether to make it a regular bookmark or to add a shortcut to the home screen. When you choose the home screen short cut option, it then EITHER makes an icon out of the screen shot, OR if the site designers have been schmarrrt, finds the iphone friendly icon and uses that. The latter option is the coolest, because then you have a button on your screen that’s easily identifiable, it’s also good branding, and it just looks good.

I HAD to figure out how to do this for this blog and my other sites. Also – once I knew how to do this, I would be able to offer the same knowledge to friends and clients. Et voila! :: happiness ::

A preface to the instructs but I’m real sorry if you don’t have a copy of Photoshop. I can’t help you if you use Paint. Or MS Paint. Anything with the word “paint” in it? Can’t help ya. Sorry.

1. Open up Photoshop and create a new doc 158×158 @ 72dpi. People have found that allowing the iPhone to resize the icon results in the best resolution on the screen.
2. Place horizontal guides at 16px and 136px; place vertical guides at 19px and 139px — inside these is your *real* working area. Yes, leave more space on the bottom than on the top! Here’s mine.
3. Do your magic – make your icon, remembering that any logo or brand image you have to work with should be inside the guides.
4. Export as a jpg, name it whatever you want. For this example, we’ll use “logo_iphone.jpg”.
5. In your html page, in the header, add a link tag like so:
<link rel=”apple-touch-icon” href=”/logo_iphone.jpg” />
6. Then, upload the icon to the default directory of your site.
7. Upload your html page with the new edit.
8. Pull up your site on iPhone, choose to bookmark it as a short cut on the home screen et voila! :: happiness ::

Here’s a shot of my iPhone with shortcuts to Facebook, Zipcar, Fandango, and look! My blog. With my weo3 icon. Super cool happy Billy Vanilly™ Goodness!

Class dismissed.

The last time I heard new (ish) material from Portishead was when I discovered them at a lovely cafe, La Piazza, at the corner of Broadway and Sheridan in 1996 or 1997. And then we nearly didn’t hear from them again.

They’re BAAAAAACCCKKKKKK!!! And her voice is still just as haunting, melancholy as I remember and it is a lovely thing to hear. Time has sooo gone by, but seriously, it’s like I’m ten years back – in the cafe, hearing music I love and can live with for a long time again. Except this time it’s Dollop, and I’m literally a quarter mile north of where La Piazza USED to be (it’s now a Starfucks), and I’m ten years older. Physically. (Yeah you know who you are laughin’ already…. )

If you want to hear some tracks for free, go to SeeqPod and search “portishead third”. It’s the name of the album. Because it’s their third one. See how simple that is?

You can also enjoy an orchestra backing her up here on YT.

My fave track so far is Magic Doors. Starts out kinda offbeat rhythm, but you’ll get the groove soon enough.

Happy Thursday.

Thanks to a soon-to-be former Dolloper, here’s a site that will enable you to forget about TiVo for awhile and enjoy reruns galore for hours on end. Of course, if you live in Chicago, this comes in REAL handy when one day it’s 84 and the next day it’s 48. Freakin’ dyslexia at its worst, that’s what that is…

The site is a portal to other sites, but it’s free – generally you need flash to view it all – some cases it’s a slow download, but otherwise, super cool stuff! Now go waste some time!

Hope everyone had a GREAT Memorial Day weekend!! And now it’s “summer” and it’s time to plow.

Ciao.