Sep 17 2008, 10:18 am
Hey Everyone!
Again thanks so much for stickin' with me on Firerift!! I appreciate it sooo much!
As the title suggests, I am gonna give you the brutal honest truth on where Firerift stands:
I work on Firerift every single day. It is no way abandoned, nor will it ever be abandoned. As you all know I hired a developer to build the new version of Firerift with me. Unfortunately he greatly mis-quoted me on the timeline for finishing the software. I will not be posting another Coming Soon Date, because unfortunately we have just not been able to meet the deadlines, though I really hoped we could. I have learned a lot about launching a web app through this process, and as I have said before.. it's my first time launching my own app.
We are both working hard to get this thing out. But it is "delayed". If I had it my way, all of you would already be using this thing :) But rest assured... you will :)
I am going to do a screencast real soon here on one section of the admin for you all :) Hopefully I will have time to do that in the next few days :)
Thanks again everyone so much! sorry to disappoint you all :( But I guarantee you will not be disappointed by Firerift.
Peace,
Drew
Again thanks so much for stickin' with me on Firerift!! I appreciate it sooo much!
As the title suggests, I am gonna give you the brutal honest truth on where Firerift stands:
I work on Firerift every single day. It is no way abandoned, nor will it ever be abandoned. As you all know I hired a developer to build the new version of Firerift with me. Unfortunately he greatly mis-quoted me on the timeline for finishing the software. I will not be posting another Coming Soon Date, because unfortunately we have just not been able to meet the deadlines, though I really hoped we could. I have learned a lot about launching a web app through this process, and as I have said before.. it's my first time launching my own app.
We are both working hard to get this thing out. But it is "delayed". If I had it my way, all of you would already be using this thing :) But rest assured... you will :)
I am going to do a screencast real soon here on one section of the admin for you all :) Hopefully I will have time to do that in the next few days :)
Thanks again everyone so much! sorry to disappoint you all :( But I guarantee you will not be disappointed by Firerift.
Peace,
Drew
Sep 5 2008, 10:29 pm
Thank you sooooo much to everyone who has been keeping tabs on Firerift. I cannot tell you all how much I really appreciate it :)
A lot of you are getting annoyed at the delays.. and believe me .. I am too :) But I guess it is better than nobody caring about Firerift at all :)
I am working on it every single day. There have been some unfortunate delays that have been out of my control. However, I am 110% committed to launching Firerift as soon as possible, and making it the best it can be.
I am really truly grateful to all of you who read this blog and are interested in Firerift! Thank you so much!
If I had it my way you would all already be using Firerift :) But I am not a huge multi-million dollar company, so you will have to bare with my delays and bumps in the road. But rest assured Firerift will be out very soon (in the next week), and it will be a rock solid app!
I can't wait to show it to you all!
Peace,
Drew
A lot of you are getting annoyed at the delays.. and believe me .. I am too :) But I guess it is better than nobody caring about Firerift at all :)
I am working on it every single day. There have been some unfortunate delays that have been out of my control. However, I am 110% committed to launching Firerift as soon as possible, and making it the best it can be.
I am really truly grateful to all of you who read this blog and are interested in Firerift! Thank you so much!
If I had it my way you would all already be using Firerift :) But I am not a huge multi-million dollar company, so you will have to bare with my delays and bumps in the road. But rest assured Firerift will be out very soon (in the next week), and it will be a rock solid app!
I can't wait to show it to you all!
Peace,
Drew
Aug 5 2008, 10:23 am
Hey Everyone!
A month ago Adam Howell asked me to do an article for Vitamin on my project Firerift (previously Firebolt). It is now live on the Vitamin site, check it out!
Adam is a great guy and I really appreciate him inviting me to write about my project. My article will be his last at Vitamin, as he is stepping down from his position there as Editor. He has done an awesome job, and I suggest you guys check out his future projects at his website.
The article I wrote covers some very basic ideas I think needed to be incorporated into a CMS. It also offers some tips and my "journey" through developing my own software. Hopefully you will all enjoy that part :)
Along with the release of the article I have finally finished the Firerift Commercial!! It was super fun to make, and involved very long hours of keyframing and editing :) The commercial was coincidentally shot exactly 1 year (almost to the day) after the previous Desert Shoot I did, except this time it was with video gear and not photo :)
This commercial is 1 of 2 commercials I filmed out in the Anza Borrego desert a few months ago.
Why make commercials like this for web software? Mainly just because I love making movies :)
A lot of good stuff going on! Stay tuned.
Peace,
Drew
A month ago Adam Howell asked me to do an article for Vitamin on my project Firerift (previously Firebolt). It is now live on the Vitamin site, check it out!
Adam is a great guy and I really appreciate him inviting me to write about my project. My article will be his last at Vitamin, as he is stepping down from his position there as Editor. He has done an awesome job, and I suggest you guys check out his future projects at his website.
The article I wrote covers some very basic ideas I think needed to be incorporated into a CMS. It also offers some tips and my "journey" through developing my own software. Hopefully you will all enjoy that part :)
Along with the release of the article I have finally finished the Firerift Commercial!! It was super fun to make, and involved very long hours of keyframing and editing :) The commercial was coincidentally shot exactly 1 year (almost to the day) after the previous Desert Shoot I did, except this time it was with video gear and not photo :)
This commercial is 1 of 2 commercials I filmed out in the Anza Borrego desert a few months ago.
Why make commercials like this for web software? Mainly just because I love making movies :)
A lot of good stuff going on! Stay tuned.
Peace,
Drew
Jul 23 2008, 4:07 pm
My apologies to everyone waiting for the beta. Firebolt has been held up due to some legal issues. Nothing too serious, so don't worry it is still coming out.
I hate to be that guy who gets you excited and then says: "Delayed"
But it looks like I have to.
Expect an update real soon, things are rolling along and I will keep you all updated :)
Peace,
Drew
I hate to be that guy who gets you excited and then says: "Delayed"
But it looks like I have to.
Expect an update real soon, things are rolling along and I will keep you all updated :)
Peace,
Drew
Jul 12 2008, 1:29 pm
Hey everyone!
The time has come to take Firebolt out from under my microscope, and put it under your’s.
I will be accepting 200 applicants of all web skill levels (zero to code ninja) for this closed beta round.
Please email me at: beta[at]valioinc.com with your brief bio & skill set if you would like to be apart of the Firebolt beta test.
I will be selecting candidates for the beta test over the course of this next week. You will be notified by the 21st of July if you were selected for the Beta test.
If you were not selected please know that it is simply because this is a small and closed beta of around 200 individuals, and that I really am so appreciative for your interest an email.
Peace,
Drew
**** UPDATE
The response has been absolutely amazing! Thanks to everyone who emailed with interest to test Firebolt.
And my apologies to anyone who got 5 auto-responder emails from me.. my bad. I have no idea why my Mail program is doing that (using apple's Mail app). Please comment if it keeps doing this to you. Again, I'm very very sorry.
The time has come to take Firebolt out from under my microscope, and put it under your’s.
I will be accepting 200 applicants of all web skill levels (zero to code ninja) for this closed beta round.
Please email me at: beta[at]valioinc.com with your brief bio & skill set if you would like to be apart of the Firebolt beta test.
I will be selecting candidates for the beta test over the course of this next week. You will be notified by the 21st of July if you were selected for the Beta test.
If you were not selected please know that it is simply because this is a small and closed beta of around 200 individuals, and that I really am so appreciative for your interest an email.
Peace,
Drew
**** UPDATE
The response has been absolutely amazing! Thanks to everyone who emailed with interest to test Firebolt.
And my apologies to anyone who got 5 auto-responder emails from me.. my bad. I have no idea why my Mail program is doing that (using apple's Mail app). Please comment if it keeps doing this to you. Again, I'm very very sorry.
Jun 29 2008, 11:28 am
FireFox 3 has been a pain in the neck ever since I downloaded it. Please tell me I am not the only one.
I continually come across a nasty text rendering bug when using this browser. At first I expected to see this bug being written up all over the internet. But I never heard anyone else complain. So I threw up some screenshots of my issue on twitter, and came to find out that some other people did not have this issue with their install of FF3. So I completely removed FF3 and then re-downloaded it. Same problem.
What is the problem you ask? This:
This is what every single Google webpage looks like for me with FF3. Horrible. The kerning is completely messed up, the margins are all jacked up, and look at the links!!! Look at those underlines, unbelievable!
And it's not just Google:
CNN suffers here as well.
Even ThinkVitamin.com gets bitten by the bug.
Now the odd thing is that not all text shows up like this. Most websites show up completely normal. Like mine for example:
Nothing wrong with any of the text on my website at all. Shows up completely normal. And there are many other websites like this... Just look at the above screenshots. With the exception of Google, all the screenshots have text that shows up completely fine, with some text that is totally ruined by this bug.
So what's going on here? You got me. My guess is is has something to do with NOT applying enough CSS to the text. FF3 displays text horribly on my machines (Quad core G5 and an Intel Macbook Pro) by default. So if all you did was change the "color" in CSS, that wouldn't be enough and FF3 would force your text to look like crap. But if you applied a "font-size" property and a "margin"... FF3 would give in and decide to display your text like other normal browsers.
Even Mozilla themselves are not prone to this disease:
Yes, this is the kind of crap I deal with when using FF3.
All I can say is LONG LIVE SAFARI. In my personal opinion, I think every browser should be forcefully shut down, and Web Kit should be the browser we all use. Wouldn't that make things easier :)
Anyone else have this same problem with FireFox3?
Peace,
Drew
I continually come across a nasty text rendering bug when using this browser. At first I expected to see this bug being written up all over the internet. But I never heard anyone else complain. So I threw up some screenshots of my issue on twitter, and came to find out that some other people did not have this issue with their install of FF3. So I completely removed FF3 and then re-downloaded it. Same problem.
What is the problem you ask? This:
This is what every single Google webpage looks like for me with FF3. Horrible. The kerning is completely messed up, the margins are all jacked up, and look at the links!!! Look at those underlines, unbelievable!
And it's not just Google:
CNN suffers here as well.
Even ThinkVitamin.com gets bitten by the bug.
Now the odd thing is that not all text shows up like this. Most websites show up completely normal. Like mine for example:
Nothing wrong with any of the text on my website at all. Shows up completely normal. And there are many other websites like this... Just look at the above screenshots. With the exception of Google, all the screenshots have text that shows up completely fine, with some text that is totally ruined by this bug.
So what's going on here? You got me. My guess is is has something to do with NOT applying enough CSS to the text. FF3 displays text horribly on my machines (Quad core G5 and an Intel Macbook Pro) by default. So if all you did was change the "color" in CSS, that wouldn't be enough and FF3 would force your text to look like crap. But if you applied a "font-size" property and a "margin"... FF3 would give in and decide to display your text like other normal browsers.
Even Mozilla themselves are not prone to this disease:
Yes, this is the kind of crap I deal with when using FF3.
All I can say is LONG LIVE SAFARI. In my personal opinion, I think every browser should be forcefully shut down, and Web Kit should be the browser we all use. Wouldn't that make things easier :)
Anyone else have this same problem with FireFox3?
Peace,
Drew
Jun 26 2008, 7:49 pm
Hey everyone!
I have spent part of today witting my 2nd article for Vitamin. Thanks a ton to Adam for the invite :)
I am writing about Firebolt, CMSs, and my experience through the whole project. I know some of you will be reading it, so I wanted to throw out this question to you: What do you want to know?
Leave me a comment with something you would like to know. It can be business related, CMS related, design or development related. It just has to tie in with the Firebolt project.
Thanks so much everyone!
Peace,
Drew
I have spent part of today witting my 2nd article for Vitamin. Thanks a ton to Adam for the invite :)
I am writing about Firebolt, CMSs, and my experience through the whole project. I know some of you will be reading it, so I wanted to throw out this question to you: What do you want to know?
Leave me a comment with something you would like to know. It can be business related, CMS related, design or development related. It just has to tie in with the Firebolt project.
Thanks so much everyone!
Peace,
Drew
Jun 23 2008, 9:06 am
Yep,
The pirates strike again. My old site's design has been ripped off, and the guy is a... freelance designer??? what!?
I think he should swap that title with SCAM ARTIST.
I would love to see someone design a site that is inspired by my work.. that would be awesome. By why do people have to straight copy it... they actually take the time to download every single one of my images (I have hotlink prevention), and every line of code.
Anyway, check out the thief here: http://www.livestudio.be/
He even has a blog post announcing "his" new re-design: http://www.livestudio.be/fr/index.php?newsid=5
To Jeremy the priate from livestudio.be: Try asking before stealing.
Thanks a ton to Colum for the heads up on this one :)
Someone needs to create a community site that exposes these types of crooks (like a css gallery), and the ENTIRE design community can know when this happens. Then these guys will "never work in this town again". lol
Peace,
Drew
*** UPDATE: The thief has taken the site down, that was quick! But it gets BETTER!! He put up a coming soon page, and on it there is a light blue gradient background... THAT IS MY BACKGROUND IMAGE for the Valio, inc. site!!!!!
Open up my Valio site in one tab and his coming soon page in another. Switch back and forth and you will see it is the SAME repeating image. This is hilarious!! This "freelance designer" lacks sooo much creativity he can't even make his own gradient from scratch... he has to go and download mine... unbelievable!!
This is a first, normally people tear down my stolen design, but this guys tears it down only to steal more of my images!!
To the Pirate Jeremy: Come on bro, you are better than this. Just open photoshop and have fun.
The pirates strike again. My old site's design has been ripped off, and the guy is a... freelance designer??? what!?
I think he should swap that title with SCAM ARTIST.
I would love to see someone design a site that is inspired by my work.. that would be awesome. By why do people have to straight copy it... they actually take the time to download every single one of my images (I have hotlink prevention), and every line of code.
Anyway, check out the thief here: http://www.livestudio.be/
He even has a blog post announcing "his" new re-design: http://www.livestudio.be/fr/index.php?newsid=5
To Jeremy the priate from livestudio.be: Try asking before stealing.
Thanks a ton to Colum for the heads up on this one :)
Someone needs to create a community site that exposes these types of crooks (like a css gallery), and the ENTIRE design community can know when this happens. Then these guys will "never work in this town again". lol
Peace,
Drew
*** UPDATE: The thief has taken the site down, that was quick! But it gets BETTER!! He put up a coming soon page, and on it there is a light blue gradient background... THAT IS MY BACKGROUND IMAGE for the Valio, inc. site!!!!!
Open up my Valio site in one tab and his coming soon page in another. Switch back and forth and you will see it is the SAME repeating image. This is hilarious!! This "freelance designer" lacks sooo much creativity he can't even make his own gradient from scratch... he has to go and download mine... unbelievable!!
This is a first, normally people tear down my stolen design, but this guys tears it down only to steal more of my images!!
To the Pirate Jeremy: Come on bro, you are better than this. Just open photoshop and have fun.
