Einstein & Sock Monkey

We're back after a month and half break with a massive pack of mobile news! We discuss a recent Adobe acquisition, the Kindle Fire, new advances in HTML5 that promise to make mobile development better, and how shopping on the iPad means you're gonna buy more stuff!

We're joined this week by Daniel McQuillen, a Air/Flex developer here in Fort Collins who built the Air application called Simple Diagrams http://www.simplediagrams.com/, it's a tool used by many people including UX designers, education-types, and anyone who wants to get across complex ideas with simple diagrams. We do our normal news stuff, too, but we really loved talking to Daniel about what it takes to build your own app, and the value of making yourself ship it even if everything isn't perfect.

Now that HP's WebOS is going away, we all have one less thing to worry about!! (for better or worse) We discussed that, among a bunch of other things, with John Wolters (@jochenwolters) who stopped by for another AWESOME guest appearance before he headed back to Germany. Since we all end up having too much fun and talking for hours, we decided to make it an "all news" show to avoid filling up everyone's hard drive (mission accomplished!).

Another fun episode of the web design world's most lovable podcast! We return for our crystal anniversary episode (look it up, nerds) to talk about UX research on the iPad, some important mobile news, the Iconathon, more thoughts in the "native app" vs "web app" for the mobile world, and Ron gives us some really cool insight into the mind of the iPhone addicted person by sharing his story of loss (funnier than it sounds, I promise!!).

We brought back Nick Armstrong (@IMNickArmstrong) for another awesome episode! Nick's our resident social media expert, so we asked him to come give everyone the low-down on Google's new social network: Google Plus! Nick had a lot of great information and even told us about features we didn't know about. We also talked about Apple's strange decision to switch the scrolling direction, some amazing mobile content stats, how to get people to take your design advice, and the trickiness of the HTML5 audio tag. Don't miss this one!

John Wolters (@jochenwolters) is back for round 2 - or 4 (whichever) either way, he's awesome! We decided to shorten the podcast just a bit and skip the "feature" section, only to wind up with the longest podcast to date!! But never fear, dear listener, it's 1hr 27min of pure AWESOME! We go through the sordid details of our Wordpress site getting hacked, briefly turn the show into "Mobile News Weekly" as we discuss the HP TouchPad, talk about some mobile stats Ron came across (mind blowing stuff), and more great news in the web & UX design world. Enjoy!

John Wolters (@jochenwolters) once again flies all the way from Germany JUST to grace us with his presence. Do we have good friends or WHAT? While he was here, he had great stuff to say about usability, iPhone web app prototyping, and even got to critique some websites live before a non-studio audience (which we naturally discussed). Oh, and there was some web news thrown in there someplace. Give it a listen - and come back next time for another episode of Einstein, John & Sock Monkey!

Special guest Sarah Jane Griesemer (@savvysarahjane) joins us to chat about her love of kale (as in, the vegetable) and has a ton of great stuff to say about building communities, dealing with negative comments on your blog, and kale! We also discuss the news of the recently announced Google Wallet, YouTube turning 6, and ways to make your iPad app and web experience better. We had a lot of fun recording this episode, so let us know if you had fun listening!

Not only did we get to sit down for a 30 minute interview with the ineffable Cennydd Bowles (UX Designer Extraordinaire) but we have some great discussion on the "cloud" (is it the same as the internet, or not?), some interesting mobile news, what the Google I/O conference means for you, and the return of the Social Media Minute with Nick Armstrong!

Real web fonts have finally become easy to use for just about anyone - FINALLY! Ron gives a great explanation of the different ways to approach having more than "web safe fonts" on your site, and gives a review of a few of the more popular font services. Also news about Google Apps for Business, the Apple location tracking fiasco, and a great discount on Rosenfeld Media books. All with massively upgraded sound!!