Last Friday, I exited my car and slipped my 3-week-old iPhone 4 into my sweatshirt pocket. I then proceeded to assist my daughter out of the car when I heard the sickening crash of iPhone meeting pavement. I looked down, and paused while my brain processed what had just happened, and then went pale and nearly threw up. I had cracked – no, shattered – the front glass on my iPhone.

For nearly 4 years I tossed my 1st-generation iPhone around like a potato and it had not so much as a scratch on the glass. But here, 3 weeks into new iPhone ownership and I have shards of glass falling out into my ear as I try to make calls.

After a few minutes of self-deprecation and verbal abuse, I regained my composure and started to look at my options. I put a piece of packing tape over the wound so I could at least staunch the flow of glass bits falling out. The phone was still functional, worst case I just use it this way.

I bought the iPhone at Best Buy, which is very uncharacteristic of me, since I prefer to buy all of my Apple technology straight from the mothership. But that’s another story involving a Roomba vacuum. Having declined the Geek Squad warranty (which carries a criminal $15/month premium — but DOES cover breakage from accidental dropping) I didn’t think I’d have much luck with Best Buy. Sure enough I called and asked if, being under 30 days, it was possible to add the warranty and immediately use it, she assured me it was not. Apparently the Squad likes to see the phone in pristine condition before covering it. Makes sense.

A quick search online afforded me a few options. It seems Apple charges $199 to replace an iPhone with cracked front glass. A local wireless shop would charge $150 for the service and sites like iResq.com could repair the iPhone overnight for $130.

I decided to set up an appointment at the local Apple Store Genius Bar to see what they said. I was greeted by the genius and I showed her my iPhone. She was sympathetic and asked how long I had owned it. I told her just a few weeks. She told me that unfortunately damage caused by dropping the iPhone was not covered under AppleCare warranty. Makes sense. However, she said Apple would be willing to make a one-time exception and replace it for free, with the understanding that if I break it again (a prospect that right now seems laughable) I would have to pay for it.

I was stunned and thrilled. What a spectacular turn of events. I walked out of the store minutes later with a new iPhone. Thank you Apple, for treating your customers like they matter to you.

Fears of such a scenario had been so strong, that Mozilla wasn’t even supporting the H.264 standard for HTML5 video, favoring an open standard instead. With this news, hopefully that will change. Managing multiple video types for each different browser is a total pain. Safari and Chrome already use H.264, and Microsoft has committed to it for IE9.

Now that a royalty-free standard has been established, hopefully more larger video sites will begin to migrate toward H.264 since it is now clear that the investment will be longstanding. Sites like YouTube and Vimeo have already embraced the standard.

So what does this new device mean for web designers?  Designing for mobile is certainly nothing new. But designing for iPad is not exactly like traditional mobile.  First off, the screen resolution is the same as many laptops.  So unlike with a Smartphone, you’re going to get a richer experience just by being able to consume an entire page at one time.

Apple changed the mobile browser world with the iPhone.  Mobile Safari was the first browser on a phone to really act like a desktop browser.  Sure it required a lot of pinching and zooming to fully take in a whole page, but it was there.  But there was still the perception that, because I’m viewing this page on a phone, I’m willing to give the site a little bit of leeway in how it renders.  That is, I feel lucky to be consuming this content at all from a phone, so if a banner or form here and there doesn’t work, I’ll just revisit when I’m back at my desk.

With the iPad, I think this forgiveness is greatly diminished.  Here we have a device that is truly caught between two worlds.  It bears the same mobile browser as it’s iPhone cousin, but renders it at a size and speed that rivals desktop browsers.  Now when iPad browsers encounter a site that is incompatible, the perception isn’t that “I’m on a mobile device and I’ll have to wait until I’m back at my desk” it’s that “The designer of this site hasn’t taken the time to make this content available to me.”

I know at SAS, we aren’t off the hook just because we aren’t B-to-C.  The iPad is getting considerable traction in the business and education world.  And more devices similar to the iPad are in the pipeline and will continue to gain popularity.  Taking small steps now will ensure that your site will be ready for these devices.  Steps like: try to opt for open standards over closed ones; makes sure your code is standards-compliant and not targeting only one specific browser, even if that browser has a significant lead among your visitors today; and test your site on multiple devices.

As technologies advance, perceptions will continue to shift about mobile browsing.  Web designers will be forced to replicate the same desktop browsing experience on all devices. It doesn’t mean  you have to redesign your site with fat-finger-sized buttons, but making sure that the browsing experience on mobile devices (especially those like the iPad) is a good one, could save you and your visitors a lot of trouble down the road.

I have for sometime been a huge fan of 1Password, the application that generates curiously strong passwords and then does the courtesy of remembering them for you.

I’ve also been using the iPad version of 1Password, which allows me to carry my impossible-to-remember passwords on the road with me, safe and secure in a password-protected vault. So I only have to remember (you guessed it) 1 password. The only problem is that the wi-fi sync required to keep my iPad’s database up-to-date is a little cumbersome, and I have to remember to sync it periodically when I’m at home.

Recently though, the developers of 1Password made some changes that allow it to fully embrace another of my favorite iPad apps, Dropbox. Dropbox is a cloud-based service that allows you to sync up the contents of your computers by connecting a dropbox folder to the dropbox server. Whenever a change is made locally, Dropbox syncs to the cloud to ensure that all connected devices receive the update.

Now, 1Password can be configured to store it’s database file on the Dropbox (encrypted of course) which means that each time you open the app on the iPad, it syncs to get the latest passwords.

Setup is simple. Launch 1Password, and under Preferences>General>Data file, select “Move…” For your location, select a folder in your Dropbox, and then let the magic happen. Then over on your iPad, under the sync preferences, switch to Dropbox, provide your login credentials, and 1Password literally takes it from there. It couldn’t be easier.

I love it when 2 apps I love and use come together to make my life a little bit easier.

Old man IE doesn't like the way things are now compared to the way they used to be.

Microsoft’s stalwart web browser turns fifteen today. Version one of the browser debuted on this day in 1995. Just as with Windows, Microsoft licensed the code rather than building from scratch. The Mosaic browser code that laid IE’s foundations was not fully removed until version 7 of the browser.

Of course it would be difficult to mention IE’s age without giving a not to one of its most difficult and long-lasting iterations, the dreaded version 6.  Version 6 of IE represents everything that is wrong with a company that gets so large that it feels it can dictate its own standards rather than bothering with those established by the industry.

I’m sticking to a previous prediction of mine, that 2010 is the year that IE6 finally goes away, though some prophecies have it sticking around a little longer.  At SAS, we monitor the traffic reports closely to determine what browsers our visitors are using, and IE6 still has a respectable presence.  It’s enough that I can’t yet ignore it. Though, if you are viewing this site in IE6, you’re on your own.

I love WordPress.  If you have ever done a fresh install of WordPress, you know that it does you the solid of populating your database with some sample items.  There’s a sample “About” page to show how a page works, and there’s a sample post called “Hello world!”.

There’s something special about a fresh install of WordPress.  A clean mysql database that hasn’t been peppered with random entries from rogue plug-ins gone bad.

While, I’m certainly not new to the world, I decided to leave the Hello world! entry title so I can always look back and remember that right-out-of-the-box freshness that this site once enjoyed, because it’s all downhill from here.

jefffoxx.com v.2

Any web designer will empathize with the simple fact that no matter how great your site or a client’s site looks, at some point in the not so distant future, you are going to look at it again with loathing.  I look back at the site that I’m replacing with this site (pictured left) and think, ugggh!  Design aside, the coding of it is atrocious by today’s standards. But then again, it’s been up there for nearly a decade. As I try to gather works to include in my portfolio, I find myself looking at sites that I was once proud of and think.. no way would I tell anyone I did this.

I welcome feedback. I think there is a lot of value in hearing how other designers, and just web-users in general, respond to a site.