Tuesday, December 18, 2007 @ 5:43 PM

More Wallpapers...

The MindComet creative team has been hard at work bringing you more wallpapers for your iPhone or iPod Touch. Okay... they haven't really been hard at work putting these together for you specifically, but it sounds nicer when we say it that way.

Some of these wallpapers are holiday in nature and some are to showcase a couple of our clients. In once instance we even combined "holiday" and "clients" and brought you a third freakish kind of wallpaper. I know... the humanity of it all! As previously mentioned, if you need help downloading and installing the wallpaper, check the iPhoneMinds archives to see a how-to post on just such a topic.

// MC Creative Team

Labels: wallpapers

MindComet at 5:43 PM - View Post | 1 comments

Monday, December 17, 2007 @ 5:19 PM

Basic AJAX Scroll Animation w/YUI

Going through someone else's code is an art, you have to get into the developers mind and discover what he or she was thinking when writing the piece. While scavenging the Internet for an AJAX scroll animation, similar to that of the iPhone, I was so disgusted by the code I saw that I just wrote my own.

Some key things I had to keep in mind while writing this javascript code were, "How can I dynamically make one object slide off the screen while a second object slides onto the screen?" And "How can I keep users from going psychotic with my slider?"

To make the code dynamic, that was the easy part, I created a function calling out to the Yahoo UI Library (an AJAX source library). But to restrict when they user could slide the objects, that was the tricky part.

The YUI Library has three animation events that would allow me to limit when the slider would, well, slide...

onComplete

onStart

onTween

It was actually rather interesting how these three events functioned together. Checking if the animation is active (ie. isAnimated();) proved to be a thought provoking process. The onStart function would always return false while checking isAnimated, because onStart does a check right when you start the animation, not yet animated but almost animated. The onComplete function did exactly the same thing while checking isAnimated, it's done being animated. While the onTween function checks for every single tween or frame, it always returns true.

You can download the following YUI files from the Yahoo Developer Site (http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/):

yui/build/yahoo/yahoo.js
yui/build/event/event.js
yui/build/dom/dom.js
yui/build/animation/animation-min.js

<script type="JavaScript">
var movethis,target,x,y,goodToGo=true;

var waitForIt = function() {
 var onTheMove = this.isAnimated();
 if (onTheMove == true) {
  goodToGo=false;
 } else {
  goodToGo=true;
 }
}

function slide(moveThis, x, y) {
 if (goodToGo == true) {
  moveThis = document.getElementById(moveThis);
  if (x != null && y != null) {
   var anim = new YAHOO.util.Motion(moveThis, { 
points: { by: [x, y] } });
  }
  anim.onTween.subscribe(waitForIt);
  anim.onComplete.subscribe(waitForIt);
  anim.animate();
 }
}
</script>

// Jay, aka W3prodigy

Labels: ajax, how to, iphone development, javascript, yui

MindComet at 5:19 PM - View Post | 1 comments

Friday, December 7, 2007 @ 4:32 PM

Happy Christmannuza!

It's that time of year again! Time to pack up everything you spent your annual savings on and head to someone else's uncomfortable futon for a holiday of overeating and oddly shaped sweaters.

To cushion the blow, we've put together a few quick and free iPhone wallpapers. We'll try to create more before we all leave for our own holiday adventures, so stay tuned!

note: if you need help downloading and using the wallpapers - check out our "how-to" post.

Happy Christmannuza!

//scott

Labels: wallpapers

MindComet at 4:32 PM - View Post | 0 comments

Monday, December 3, 2007 @ 2:58 PM

iPhone WebApps Review - Dec 2007

The best iPhone apps are the ones that make your life easier. Most of them are timesavers, or even though you can view a normal website on the iPhone, these applications make it more usable. As a consumer, here are 5 that I use and think my life would be incomplete without.

Facebook
70 million users (or so) can't be wrong. Even if they are, it's easier to access all of the functionality of Facebook using their site by going to iphone.facebook.com. Honestly, this app sets the standard for any forthcoming iPhone applications; the UI is excellent, page transitions are smooth and the tabbed navigation is just right.

Amazon
Believe it or not, Amazon has a website that recognizes that you're accessing the site using your iPhone and comes back with a very usable interface. When I went to my local Barnes & Noble and they couldn't find a book that I wanted, I quickly navigated to Amazon.com with my iPhone and found it there. It's fast, simple and usable. I like.

Google Reader
Arguably one of the best web-based RSS feed readers online, Google Reader behaves remarkably well on the iPhone as well. I use it to keep up to date with the many news feeds that I follow all day long. Definitely a must have. If you'd like to make it look even prettier, check out David Cann's iPhonify script.

Bejeweled
I admit it, I wasted 2 hours this Sunday scoring 109,000 points with my best move being 3330. God bless Pop Cap for creating this gem (horrible pun). I do tend to fat-finger the jewels a little bit, more dextrous individuals will be just fine. This is the best game available to iPhone users to date that I'm aware of. If you'd rather play a game where you have to think, a close second would be iChess.

iPhoneMyeBay
It's getting closer to Christmas which means it's a great time to talk about custom apps used to make eBay's horrendous native UI more accessible. Enter what was once called iRibbit, but now known as iPhoneMyeBay.com. They make it easy to browse and find products, without all of the clutter found on eBay.com itself. It could use some design help, but it gets the job done nicely anyway.

Shoutouts:
Since this is an entirely subjective list, a few shoutouts go to some other apps that I don't use but hear are really good.

GoMovies
It's like having Fandango on your iPhone. A simple way to find movies showing in your area easily.

Twitterific
If you're a user of Twitter, there is no better site than Twitterific. It looks great and has simple navigation - not that anything in Twitter is hard... Anyway, it's one of those apps that you can't miss if you're into the "I'm eating now" kind of messaging scene.

iPhlickr
If you're a heavy user of Flickr, then this is the iPhone application for you. It's a great way to browse your Flickr images in an iPhone friendly UI.

--------------------

Erik Hersman
Erik is a web strategist and blogger at Zungu.com, and has been involved with web app development for real estate (eppraisal.com) and eBay (listd.com). He is also an avowed MindComet fan and can't wait to see all iPhone apps they have in development.

Labels: webapps

MindComet at 2:58 PM - View Post | 0 comments