KBTribe Chat “Leveraging Technology”

Twitter is always alive with brilliant conversation if you know where to look. If you’re in the Kitchen & Bath Industry, it sometimes can be hard to find those great conversations on Twitter. Thankfully, instead of sorting through billions of tweets, Twitter users in the K&B space come together each week for lively, like minded conversations in the form of a Twitter chat.

You can see all the details on KBTribe chat here.

I was fortunate enough to be asked to host this week. My topic was “Leveraging Technology”

I feel that the kitchen & bath industry is really lagging behind in technology. In fact, I did an hour and a half talk about this to a buying group in Atlanta just last week. While this industry is lagging behind, designers are really interested in technology and want to use it! Here are the five questions that we discussed during the chat:

What’s your favorite “app” that you use for work on your smartphone or tablet?
If you could have any type of app invented for your smartphone or tablet, what would it be?
Do think your manufacturers are doing well in providing you with the tech you need? (Apps, good websites, spec books, etc)
Do you store anything on the “cloud”? If so, what and how?
What software are you using to create drawings? Do you like it?

There were some really interesting responses to these questions, and I learned some things that I didn’t know before.

One of the biggest opportunities for vendors and manufacturers is digitizing their data. People don’t want paper spec books anymore, they want instant access to data on all devices. There was certainly a lively discussion about that.

For the full transcript, click here.

Again I would like thank the folks over at KBTribe chat for generously offering me the hosting gig for a day!

iPhone recording studio

So do you need more proof that mobile devices are becoming more powerful by the minute?

I just learned of a band, One Like Son, that has recorded it’s entire album on an iPhone. You read that right, using adaptors for their instruments and a few apps on the iPhone, this band has skipped using a recording studio and produced an excellent sounding album on nothing more then an iPhone.

Being a wannabe rockstar myself, I have toyed around with Garage Band on my iPad, and even recorded a few things. I have never heard of an entire album being recorded this way though. If I hadn’t told you it was recorded on an iPhone you’d never know.

Listen here!

Android 5.0 Jelly Bean Rumor Explained

There have been some rumors going around about Google’s newest sugary software upgrade for mobile devices: Android 5.0 “Jelly Bean”. I’d like to address those here with a healthy dose of common sense.

The tech press loves a good rumor, and admittedly so do I, but I think this one is just off base. Allow me to explain with a little background:

When Android came out, it was meant just for phones, and it’s worked quite well for that. As time went on, Apple bestowed on us the iPad. Manufactures scrambled like Wal Mart shoppers for a $40 dollar DVD player on Black Friday to put out a tablet. One of the first Android tablets that made it market was the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7″. This tablet ran Android Gingerbread. Google cautioned that Gingerbread (Android 2.3) was not meant for tablets, but they were cooking up something that work.

Some time later they released Android 3.0, or more commonly known as Honeycomb. Honeycomb was meant only for tablets. Motorola came out with the first Honeycomb tablet, and lets just say it didn’t sell so well. Why? Because there were only a handful of apps for it, and a lot of the Android 2.0 apps didn’t look right on it, or didn’t work at all.

I am not going to even go into all the Android “fragmentation” talk that came up around this release. Let’s look at if from a developers standpoint: At this stage in the game, you’ve got Android phones which are very popular, so it makes sense to make an app for them. But why would you want to develop for a tablet OS that has near zero market penetration? This is why Android tablets don’t sell.

So how was Apple able to launch a tablet with a plethora
of apps? They made it easy for developers. First off, all iPhone apps could run on an iPad, albeit a little pixelated. But, Apple also made it easy for developers to convert their apps into “Universal binaries”. In other words, with very little modification, you could turn your iPhone app into a sweet iPad app.

Apps sell devices. Apple capitalized on this theory,
and in the process, took most of the market share.

Google got smart and released Android 4.0, or Ice Cream Sandwich. This is a unified operating system. In other words, you can write one app, and deploy it everywhere.

Google’s got a problem: They can’t upgrade every phone and device out there because they don’t control the hardware development. They rely on other manufacturers and operators to push updates. While they can make it as easy as possible to update, they have to sit and wait for ICS to get a big install base.

Do you remember how long it took Gingerbread to get a big install base? A lot longer then iOS 5.0 took to get out there.

So developers STILL have to develop for two, and now THREE OS’s to stay current on Android phones and tablets.

Now, to address the rumor about Android 5.0

Google’s not stupid. They know that developers and apps sell hardware. More hardware sold means more revenue for Google. They know of the fragmentation issue that faces developers and they are working hard to fix that with Android 4.0. They’d be stupid, just plain stupid to release, or even talk about Android 5.0 now when 4.0 still has about 1% penetration.

While it’s a tempting to dream about how awesome 5.0 is going to be, we just aren’t going to see it for a long time.

So tech press, unless you’ve got something substantial, like a leaked ROM or a screenshot, let’s just stop talking about it and focus on real news and getting more copies of Ice Cream Sandwich out there.

Rev A Shelf App Updated!

Rev A Shelf just updated their app for iOS devices with pricing!

Now you can look up all those great Rev A Shelf trash pull outs from your iDevice and Android.

I use this all the time to get pricing and specs while on the go. Best of all, this app is free!

Links here for iTunes and Android Maket:

http://www.rev-a-shelf.com/t-revashelf.apps.aspx

2011 Year End Review

It’s been a spectacular year for this blog. What started out as a humble blog for Sketchup related tips has expanded into a globally read resource read by thousands every month.

Not only is this post a review of some of the high points this year, for all of the new readers it will be a great way to get up to speed on what goes on here. Consider it a “Cliff notes” or a “Best of album” for 2011. Let’s jump right in!

First and foremost, there is a lot of Sketchup content from this year.

Draw Countertops with Components (Saves time!)
Save Those Components! (Learn to save components for reuse later)
Sketchup: Now with mind bending capabilities (Learn to use Shape Bender)
Shaderlight, my favorite render package for Sketchup
Jason Wu Brizo products now available in Sketchup
Apps for Sketchup? Steve Jobs is not amused (Learn to use Material Replacer for Sketchup)

There was a lot of coverage on mobile apps this year too:

Happy Trees with Sketchbook Pro for iPad (Learn to draw and paint on the iPad with this amazing app)
3DVia: View Sketchup models right on your iPad!
WebPad for iPad: Draw on someone else’s computer screen from your iPad over the Internet!
JoinMe: Hear an incredible store of how this screen sharing app took our design competition global with just a few clicks.
Measure Digitally: Learn to use your iPad, iPhone, or Droid to measure an interior space
I’m Eric, and I used to be addicted to flash drives. (Learn how I kicked my addiction to flash drives with Evernote)

And lastly, everything else!

Profitting in the New Digital Age: This was a presentation I did for the Kitchen & Bath Design News Leaders Conference in Chicago
Steve Jobs has passed away
Kitchen Technology: I was challenged by Design Kula to do a review on kitchen technology. It ended up being three parts, Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3
LetsBlogOff: This is a bi weekly blogging challenge that I participated in. The topic? Top Gear.

And most importantly, I want to thank everyone for reading this year!

Maide: MultiTouch for Sketchup via iPad

So just the other day I stumbled across this app for the iPad: Maide Control for Sketchup. Basically, what this does is turn your iPad into a giant multi touch controller for Sketchup. I have been playing around with it for a few days and so far it’s pretty handy. I have yet to really use it on a hardcore modeling project, I have just been toying around with it.

The app is very well done, and setup is really easy. As you may know, I am a big fan of the 3D Connexion Space Explorer. However, as great as the Space Explorer is, it’s not exactly portable. Maide allows you to make a great accessory for Sketchup out of something that you’re probably already carrying around. Check out this video to see what it’s all about. Maide works on both Mac and PC. If you end up trying it out for yourself, let us know how it goes in the comments.

Rev A Shelf app for iOS

In the past week, Rev A Shelf has released an app for iOS. This handy app has the entire Rev A Shelf catalog in it. It’s fast and easy to use. With a few taps you can have any of their products displayed right on the screen in high resolution color. I noticed to that their popular items have a lot more pictures then the paper catalog, great for giving a customer details right out on the show floor.

What’s even better is that all of the relevant specs are just a swipe away for every product.

Head on over to the Apple App store and get this app! It’s better then the Rev A Shelf catalog, and it fits in your pocket. All for the low low price of free!

Also, and Android version is said to be on the way very soon.

I’m Eric, and I used to be addicted…

…to USB flash drives.

That’s right. What you are seeing here is just the tip of the iceberg. I had lots of these drives in circulation. I have several different computers that I work on, all in different places. I was constantly transferring pictures, documents, and files between all of them. On my best days I could keep track of what was where. When the caffeine wore off, all bets were off.

I tend to stay ahead of the curve and keep up with the latest technology. I tried all kinds of ways to keep my files in sync. I used to email files to myself, remote desktop into my “base” PC, I even have used cloud file strorage service like DropBox. As brilliant as DropBox is, in the back of my mind I always wanted something that could do more.

I wanted something that I could clip websites to, write down notes, record sound, and take pictures with my smartphone. I wanted all of this on one place, accessible anywhere. I wanted to be able to search those notes, by text, location, and keywords. I wanted to be able to access these notes from anything that was connected to the internet. I wanted to be able to share those notes with anyone easily. Well, for a long time I didn’t think such a service existed until I discovered Evernote.

Evernote is the most brilliant app I have discovered this year. It has changed the way that I work. Evernote at it’s heart is a cloud based storage service. You can create typed notes, store documents, pictures, files, and even recorded audio to the cloud. What can you use to create these notes? Damn near anything. They support all kinds of mobile devices (even Blackberry!), Mac’s, PC’s, even the web browser. Let me walk you through a typical day with Evernote:

I start out my day reading the news. Since a lot of my blog posts I write are about things in the news, I can with just a click or two, clip new articles into my Evernote. I have a special notebook just for these articles.

Later on, I may head to a jobsite and measure out a space with my iPad. There, I take the measurements with a drawing app, and I take pictures of the space. When I get back to the office I send all the pictures and notes to Evernote to a notebook labeled for that job. As I start designing the space with Sketchup, I export all the pictures to Evernote in that same job notebook. Later, I clip all the websites for appliances into the same notebook. I can even walk around the showroom taking pictures of hardware with my smartphone to add to the notebook. Now I’ve got all of my notes for a job in Evernote, accessible instantly from any device I choose, anywhere on the planet. Say I end up talking to the client on the phone and I am away from my computer, I can just open the Evernote app and look up all the information for the job.

Evernote has one more ace up it’s sleeve: it can recognize text from pictures. Think about this, you can snap a picture of a business card and put it in Evernote. Evernote can read the text in the picture and make it searchable. I was over the moon when I discovered this. I started using it for business cards, but now I use it for spec books and all kinds of other text.

Boarding passes end up in there, parking tickets, handwritten notes, you name it! I could go on and on…

Here’s what I suggest, go to Evernote.com and get this app. It’s free unless you are a total upload glutton like me, and then it’s $5 per month, or $45 per year for an astronomical amount of storage space. This app has literally changed the way I work. (Nope, they didn’t pay me a dime to say that either)

Rerun: WebPad for iPad

If you’re reading this on Monday morning, I am on my way to Chicago for the Kitchen & Bath Design News “Leaders Conference” where I will be presenting “Profiting in the new Digital Age”.

Keep an eye on the Twitter for live updates, for now, here’s an older post that is still very relevant.

So to add even more awesomeness to the iPad, I have discovered a new app called WebPad. WebPad lets you draw on your iPad, live on someone else’s computer screen. Ok, I realize that doesn’t sound that exciting, so let me give you a real life scenario for this:

A customer called me a while back, I had been working on a design for them. There was a particular detail that I was describing to them. I had a picture in my head, and I was attempting to put it into words. Like a lot of customers, they aren’t telepathic, so they didn’t understand what I was talking about. If I was talking about this face to face, I would have fired up Adobe Ideas and draw out the sketch for them. In this case, I didn’t have that choice.

Enter WebPad: With WebPad, I can fire it up, instantly email my customer a link. Once they click on the link, they see my iPad screen live on their screen! As I draw, it shows up on their screen. AMAZING! Virtual paper. Watch my demo live below!

Measure: Digitally

As any regular reader of this blog knows, I love Sketchup, and I also love a good app for a smart phone. Lately, I have been mashing up a slick mobile app with Sketchup. The app, called MyMeasures (available to Android and iOS) allows you to measure right on a picture. Check out this video to see it in action:

Pretty awesome right? I am working on a kitchen with an old soapstone sink that the homeowners want to reuse. I needed to draw the sink in Sketchup so that I can design a custom cabinet to go beneath it. I used MyMeasures to get the dimensions.

From this picture, I modeled this:

So, using MyMeasures I was able to capture easily all the details I needed to create this sink in 3D. The modeling took just a few minutes. Once I had the 3D model, I was able to work with it as if I was right there on the jobsite in 3D. Try doing that with 2020!

Feel free to download this model and see it for yourself!