While there are probably a good number of apps that I use on a daily basis, there are only a few dvelopement companies behind these tools that I actually have a strong admiration/nerd-crush for. One of these companies is Panic, creator of my all-time favorite FTP client and Web Development tools Transmit & Coda. On their blog they typically show-off upcoming features, status updates on various projects and just all-around random shit that they find interesting online. Trust me, while it’s definitely a company blog they’ve got a loyal following thanks to the interesting posts that pepper the typical product/marketing dev. updates. This is a prime example. They just posted a pic/feature-list on a new project that they’ve been working on that’s an easy-to-digest project status-board, or as they’ve called it “the panic board.” Primarily using AJAX this status board will give any team member privy to their internal network a one-screen update on where in the development cycles any number of projects might be in. Not only that but according to the blog it also incorporates streaming twitter updates, email announcements, the company calendar and even the local Tri-Met Bus Arrival calendar for employees who rely on the bus to get to and from work (hey, they’ve got an API, why not use it?!). The blog post then goes on to make any data nerd squeal with the admission that they’re using a 46″ Samsung LCD Video Wall Display to keep the team within eyeshot of the status board. Very cool.

Now by no means is this the first or even one of the first examples of global ‘status board’ type pages that have been setup for both internal and external use. One of my favorite examples of a public project status page is the one featured on the right in the header image, found over on the Culture Code company website. These are the guys behind the OSX & iPhone to-do application called “Things.” They’ve created a project status page in the form of an airport arrival/departure screen. What’s cool about this is as the user you’re able to see not only the status on various product updates, but also see who in the company is working on that particular issue and when they last updated the sheet.

Other notable one-page project update tools is one recently put in place by the Boulder office of ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky, shown below.

It’s a quick way of seeing how far along any given project is in the office, sorting by account, due date, job-type, Creative Director or Producer assigned to the piece. It’s also got a status bar so if you’re across the room you can see at a glance whether or not something has already started (or is about to be finished). They apparently have this sucker projected on the main wall in the inner-depths of the office. Having been forced to deal with so many archiac ways of managing projects at advertising agencies, this is definitely a step in the right direction (if you’re a project manager/producer/in the traffic dept.). I’m sure the creatives will hate this visual reminder of what work they haven’t done yet….so bonus points are awarded there. What it needs though is some color, maybe even little avatars/graphics to help people find specific types of projects without having to scan the entire board…just a thought.

Glossy eCommerce icons

Shopping Cart Icons

css Globe Icons

Shopping Basket Icon

Milky – A ‘green’ themed vector set.

Credit Card Logos

Credit Card 3D Icon Set

Chalkwork Payments

Weby Icon Set

e-Shop Icons

Sienna Icons

The Politico has just reported that New York Democratic Representative Charles Rangel has paid his son nearly $80,000 for two horrible looking campaign websites. While it is technically not illegal, if I was paying taxes in the state of New York I probably wouldn’t have appreciated paying for that.

Here’s the only one that they listed, www.nationalleadershippac.com , but judging from the design & execution, I can’t imagine the other being any better.
This is so bad that I think it might resemble those old MS Frontpage templates. Not only that but images are blurry, improperly cropped and there are spelling/grammatical errors throughout the site!

And to think that this is what a $40,000 website looks like! My favorite part is in the left sidebar, I’ve taken the liberty of taking a screen shot of it for you. What kind of professional would ever go live with the following still on the site:

$40,000 and he couldn’t even out-source it for $200 to any number of the cheap freelance sites that are available? Thats amazing!

According to The Politico,

“Steven Rangel’s firm was paid roughly $2,500 on a monthly basis—less than the firm that had previously managed Congressman Rangel’s Web and on-line operation (Network Politics)—and the firm’s fees included money for Web advertising designed to promote traffic to the Web site.”

Ouch!

I just came across a pretty cool new site called Cyclops – http://cyclo.ps. It lets you search through six different stock photography sites, all with only one search!
Included in the search so far (and you can select/deselect any of them for each query) are Photos.com, Shutterstock, iStockphoto, Fotolia and BigStockPhoto. The website combines the search results into one cohesive list of images for you to go through. Very convenient and they claim to be working on adding more sites. They’ve also got a blog if you want to see what they’re up to. Check ‘em out!