last week around this time I installed the 2.0 software upgrade on my iPhone. I have been an iPhone owner since it was first made available about this time last year and since then I have been extremely satisfied with the experience. Installing the iPhone 2.0 upgrade and adding some free applications have taken the experience to the next level. Before now I have been pretty forgiving of some shortcomings because the fact that I could do so much with with a device I can carry in my pocket from making phone calls, listening to music and podcasts, looking up information on the Internet, getting driving directions, sharing photos with friends and family and keeping track of my schedule. Great stuff and the thing that makes the iPhone and as well as the “phoneless” iPod Touch is the easy to use interface.

Even before upgrading the iPhone software I mentioned in a previous post of how easy it was for me to log into Amazon.com and comparison shop and save money on I book I needed. Now I have been able to do things that to put it bluntly, make more sense when one is mobile and not tied down to desktop or laptop computer.

What has really gotten me excited beyond what I already enjoy are the following applications;

• Facebook iPhone app - Great and unclutter way to keep up with your facebook friends
• Bible by YouVersion - Many versions and easy to navigate - needs an Internet connection to use
• NetNewsWire - An RSS reader that can sync with an online site
• Exposure - a great way to connect with your flickr photo sharing account
• Evernote - love the concept - still has a few bugs that need to be addressed but great for text, photo and voice note taking
• AIM - iPhone version of the AOL Instant Messaging program
• YPmobile - More than a “yellow pages” for your phone. Also shows locations of business based on your current location and upcoming events in your area using the iPhone location services.
• Remote - An application that let’s you access and control the media on your computer (running iTunes) or Apple TV over a local wireless network
• Pandora - listen to streaming music based on your music tastes. Now that this is mobile it’s going to be a serious threat to terrestrial radio.
• AOL Radio - similar to Pandora but a different mindset for finding music and other radio stations online

I still have quite a few other applications I have heard about and intend to test and these are only the free one. One application we are really excited about for our business is Outpost. Outpost will allow us to manage out projects in the online service called Basecamp which I highly recommend for small business owners managing projects for multiple clients. Another application that I am looking forward to getting is 1Password. I have a different password for everything and most are complex to say the least. This will be welcome and in my opinion should have been an iPhone feature from the beginning. I still hope to see a cut and paste feature in the near future. Apple is supposed to be working on that but other things have been higher on their “to-do list.”

Because most of these are third party application my iPhone has “crashed” or frozen up more. That’s always a risk when third party solutions are added to the mix no matter what the platform is but so far those glitches have been minor and the benefits have far outweighed any problems.

The thing that stands out to me more than anything with these iPhone applications or web site optimized for the iPhone is they are extremely easy to use and not cluttered. That inspires me to consider how we design sites for our clients and options we can provide for mobile users. Are you an iPhone or iTouch user? Are you using the new software and have downloaded new applications? What gets you excited and feel has solved some problems by giving you these tools to use in the mobile space?

In the past 10 or so years the term “web design” has gone from describing an almost mystical trade to an over saturated term often misunderstood among those not in the “industry.” I go to networking meetings and often that have one to three types of businesses represented more than any others, real estate agents, insurance agents and web designers to the point a guy stood up at a recent event in Greenville,SC and said, “We should rename this group as the insurance-real estate-web designer network.” While it’s true that getting into those lines of work may involve a very minimal cost to enter in terms of equipment or office space their is still a lot of issues in regards to constant education that you don’t see.

I think however both real estate and insurance agents can agree with me in that they are a lot of myths and misconceptions in regards to their work. I’m sure a real estate agent does more that give tours of houses a few times a week, insurance agents do more than sit in an office waiting on someone to buy a policy. In the very same way those who provide web design services should be doing the following’

• Keeping up with changes in technology
• Being aware of and adhering to legal issues, especially in regards to communication law
• Studying usability methods that make a web site easier to understand by site visitors
• Optimizing a web site for search engines
• Working with the client to have the best content in terms of images, text, audio and video on the site
• Making security a top concern from good passwords, secure servers, secure back-end code
• Knowing the difference between proprietary software that get a site up quickly vs. a full-featured site the adheres to Internet standards
• Giving clients the ability to make site changes via an easy to use content management system (CMS)
• In addition to knowing good design principles know good development principles

Those just a few of the things you may not thing about when hear some says the are a “web designer.” I’m sure others could chime in with things clients were surprised that needed to be done. For all practical purposes the “design” is the easy part. Yes, we can get something up relatively fast to start with but if you want to sell items online or integrate a secure content management system be prepared for the process to take longer. A web designer doesn’t just draw up a pretty picture you can see on the web, a good web designer is also draws out a process. What have you been surprised by? As a company that provides these services what would you like to learn more of less obvious services?

It might not be completely obvious but SpinningSilk Multimedia is a division of a larger company, SpinningSilk, LLC. We devote the greatest amount of time to SpinningSilk Multimedia, the division this web site is based on but we do provide products and services which have a connection to our multimedia services but we chose not to advertise those on this site. We have been working on setting up SpinningSilk I.T. (I.T. as in Information Technology) as a place I we will blog about various networking, security, storage and the technical issues behind internet communication technologies like e-mail.

We also are partnering with companies like MXLogic, ITC Deltacom and are looking for other vendors who provide services we can resell and offer to our clients. While we currently won’t be offering onsite service such as computer repair, setting up or trouble shooting networks, etc. We will work to recommend partners we believe can provide you with the best service based on our research.

We will seek to provide non-biased platform information based on your needs. We will discuss our products from Apple, Microsoft, various PC vendors, networking providers can benefit you or your company based on your unique situations.

I get the feeling that when I tell people our company provides “web design” services they are thinking we may only be creating several pages with some links, a contact form, etc. It’s true that a lot of companies only ask or are aware of the basic services it’s important to know we can provide many more solutions that take advantage of technologies hosted on the web. Some of these include;

• Business Blogging
• Product photography optimized for the web
• Podcasting (audio or video)
• Business blogging
• Community building/Social Networking Features
• File hosting
• Secured Sites
• Virtual office solutions
• Calendaring and Event Planning
• E-commerce
• E-mail filtering
• Backups
• Video and Audio Conferencing
• RSS enabled news feeds

A lot of these features can be incorporated into a companies web site under their own domain but what you may not know is we can also work with you to develop your companies presence on other sites optimized for things like video, social networking and virtual offices. We are knowledgeable about a lot of these solutions and can provide our clients with innovative ways to have an optimized web presence.  What other services or products can companies that are known for basic web design provide that are innovative and makes you more productive?

This is the last official article in this series unless I decide to crank it up to 11. The current mission statement of my company is organizing and securing your information with the most up-to-date portable media and web technologies. (I may change that slightly in the near future to say compelling content instead of the generic term, “information.”) One of the most overlooked or last things that come to mind in regards to design is preservation or in a broader term, security. Is the first thing that comes into your mind when you hear security someone stealing your assets? That is certainly a consideration but it’s important to remember all of the following;

• Preserving original files
• Backups
• Protection from theft
• Legal Precautions

Before you even consider official backups you need to consider if you are deleting or throwing away assets that should be saved. It’s tempting to throw away original material once a project is done in order to save space or even get rid of things you think are not worthy of being saved.

Backup media is cheap. If possible, save original files and even if you think something is junk it may have a use down the road. This goes beyond digital assets. If you are restoring an old photo that is scratched, yellowed, torn, etc. hold on to it! Yes, You may be able to restore it nicely in Photoshop but who knows what kind of technology advances in the future might be able to do an even better job? Scott Kelby has a great book out called the 7 Point System for Photoshop CS3.  It’s amazing what can be done with seemingly mediocre files however a lot of the tips in the book require using the original file in the original RAW or at least the original image size.  Look the the 7-Point Flickr group to see what people have done with images that otherwise may have been deleted.

How does one go about preserving and securing your designs or the creative assets of others? As far as digital assets go the most important thing you should be doing on a regular basis is creating frequent and dependable backups. I tell people over and over that insurance can cover and replace equipment but no amount of money will ever bring back data lost through natural disasters or more frequently, accidental over writes and deletions. While it’s important to have a good local backup to quickly retrieve data it’s even more crucial to store your backups “off-site.” This can be done by manually taking backups to another location or better yet using an online backup service.

Finally, theft can take many forms. The first thing that comes to mind is a sneaky individual coming into your home or office and running off with valuables like televisions, stereos, laptops, jewelry, wallet, etc. Of course the worst of those things to be stolen, in my personal opinion, is computers like laptops or wallets, because they contain valuable information that can lead it identity or intellectual property theft.

Yes, it’s important to protect yourself and company in such instances but the greatest danger doesn’t come from your typical crook. That sad and scary thing is most intellectual property that is stolen is actually “given away,”  maybe not given away on purpose but it’s really easy to put things on the Internet without thinking of how it will be used.

I’ve told clients if they are concerned about someone accessing their creative works and using them then don’t put them on the Internet in the first place. Even by putting things in a password protected area is not a 100% guarantee your assets will be safe. A lot of people think that by just converting a document to the PDF format will make it non-editable. That’s not exactly true. Converting a document to PDF makes it harder to edit unless you take extra security procedures.

Are you taking the legal precautions by registering copyrights and trademarks, etc?

Look at your practices.  Are you preserving assets for potential future work?  Are you backing up to secure location, not only away from your computer but also away from your home or office. Are you taking legal precautions? and finally are you keeping thinks you don’t want people to access away from the Internet?