Author: Tristan

How to post a slo-mo video to Instagram (iPhone, iOS 8)

In this tutorial we are going to learn how to shoot a slow motion movie and post it to Instagram without watermarks from using a third-party app like SloPro or others. This tutorial is meant for phones that: are capable of shooting slow motion video, and have iMovie app installed, and have Instagram installed. So,… Read more »

Know your software version numbers: 3.6.x and 3.6+ are not the same thing

You may have seen this while shopping for a WordPress theme, a new online game, or even an app for your phone: marketing materials using versions with an “x” or “+” in them, such as “3.6.x” or “3.6+”. These are not interchangeable and do not mean the same thing, especially when it comes to support…. Read more »

The hidden narrative in our Instagram photos

Most Instagram accounts tell a hidden story. On the surface you may see an aspiring actor documenting their busy life in LA. Or maybe a shop owner sharing each customer’s joy of a new purchase. And it can even be a worrisome amount of alcohol in a son’s first year at college. Below that easy-to-read… Read more »

Is the Yahoo! Weather app icon really that ugly?

Twitter is all a-buzz over the new Yahoo! weather app for iPhone. On one hand people are praising Marissa Mayer for a beautifully designed app (see one of the conversations on her Twitter post.) On the other hand, Twitter users (as well as comments on blogs) are lambasting Yahoo! over the design of the icon:… Read more »

How to Integrate Facebook’s Open Graph with Business Catalyst Tags

Mike Damian at symbiotiq.com helped me customize the Facebook Open Graph (OG) metatags for the Cruz Skate Shop website. It is currently on Adobe Business Catalyst (BC) platform, so we needed to use BC’s tags to keep the OG meta tags dynamic. (See my previous post covering Twitter Cards and BC.) Dynamic BC tags in… Read more »

How to Integrate Twitter Cards with Business Catalyst Tags

I recently worked with Mike Damian at symbiotiq.com to customize the Twitter Cards for the Cruz Skate Shop website which uses Adobe’s Business Catalyst (BC). While adding Twitter Cards to your website is pretty straightforward, Business Catalyst—like WordPress—requires we use dynamic tags to populate the content of the meta tags. Twitter Cards for products I… Read more »

How often should you backup your website?

With the ease of creating a self-hosted website, and the good advice of backing it up, this still leaves the question of how often you should do this? And is there such a thing as too often, or not often enough? In short, everyone should be backing up their website periodically. But, the frequency you… Read more »

Idea Bin 01: a viable model for monetized public transit wifi app

San Francisco’s Muni (light rail) does not have good wireless reception when underground. I know it’s obvious that 3G/4G signals don’t travel well under some 15-30 feet of dirt and cement. But when users are underground for 20-40 mins (on a good day) it could be useful to get some work done. And by ‘work’… Read more »

Idea Bin: sharing my hoarded ideas, licensed under Creative Commons

I have been writing down and grinding on my ideas for a very long time. Some go back a couple decades, yet still seem timely and useful. In virtually all cases, they will likely never see the light of day for one main reason: shortage of time and money. That is until now. I work… Read more »