A while back, I ranted about developers, PC writers, bloggers, Microsoft and Mac users in general. Today, I want to chit-chat about the iPhone.

The iPhone, it's the 2nd-coming of Christ. It'll make your stupid kids smarter, your fat-ass smaller, your husband's beer-belly smaller, and your ugly wife hotter! The iPhone makes your e-penis huge like no amount of Viagra can. It'll deposit $100,000 into your bank account today, and it'll eradicate every douchebag in Washington D.C. and replace them with hard-working, honest Americans with the touch of a button.

With all that up-side, it's no wonder that every Web site I visit, I get a heaping helping of iPhone B.S. shoved down my grocery pipe. My RSS reader of choice actually puked on my keyboard this morning, and I'm pretty sure I saw an iPhone Mail icon mixed in the puddle of mush.

Sites I used to love reading are gagging like a cat with a furball in its throat with iPhone articles. Enough already!

Based in Cornelius, NC, The Moore Creative Company opened its doors in August of 1997 as a graphic design shop owned by Ran Moore and his wife, Jennifer. When the company was born, it was 100-percent devoted to graphic design for print intentions — an eclectic mix of jobs, from brochures and letterhead, to billboards and vehicle graphics. The company primarily targeted the local commercial and residential real-estate industries.

As the years unfurled behind it, the company evolved and grew beyond the geographical boundaries of North Carolina and its initially narrow Clientele focus. Today, The Moore Creative Company employs a staff of three designers, four developers, and a search engine marketer. Its clients represent a diverse roster of companies that vary in size, as well as industry. And what was once a print-centric workflow now is unevenly split, with 20 percent representing print output, and the 80-percent balance devoted to electronic and online media.

"We transitioned to more Web-site design and interactive Flash [and] animation work online, and later, to more e-mail marketing design," Ryan Moore recalls "We probably hit the 50-50 split between print and online around 2001 or so, and now we do more jobs that start with electronic items, and that we're suggesting print items to support or complement them — versus the other way around."

It was a few years ago when The Moore Creative Company underwent a transition of another kind; it switched layout platforms, from QuarkXPress to Adobe InDesign. Moore says the revamp of the workflow went quite smoothly, overall, and the design team appreciated the synergies between Adobe InDesign and the rest of the Adobe Creative Suite — Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. — they'd already been using.

The only "glitch" in the workflow was so minor it may not even be properly categorized as a "glitch," and that was how to handle legacy content that needed to be reused or creative content submitted by clients that came in the form of native-application QuarkXPress files. Moore began a quest for a tool that would allow his creative team to reincarnate QuarkXPress files in Adobe InDesign, without having to essentially rebuild the layout, element by element.

Several months back, I signed up to be notified of a spectacular new image editor built especially for OSX. This app called Iris, was to be fast, sleek and easy to use. It was a long time ago, and I hadn't heard anything about it since, so I figured it was yet another one of those vaporware apps.

I received an email yesterday refreshing my memory, and quickly downloaded Iris 1.0 and fired it up. Iris runs on Mac OSX Leopard Intel and PowerPC-based Macs. My test machine is a MacPro with 3GB RAM running 10.5.3.

I was distracted by the fact that it has a cool icon, so I didn't really pay attention to the fact that upon launching Iris, you're forced to either create a new document or open an existing one. There's no way to close the New Document dialog window - because if you try, the program quits. No matter. I was ready to open my 35MB test image anyway.

Iris opened the image rather quickly, and the single window GUI I was presented with was very pleasing to the eye.

That's where the good stuff ends.

Doing ANYTHING in Iris was painfully slow. I mean really slow. So much so that I actually closed the document and checked the size of the image to make sure it wasn't really 135MB instead of only 35MB.

One of the first things I usually check with any application is the type capability. Iris allows you to set type in your document, but apparently you must set your font and size BEFORE you enter your text, because once I entered the text, there was no way I could find to go back and edit it. Heck, I couldn't even select it. I hope 128 points is large enough for your type, because that's as large as the slider will allow you to make text. You can manually enter a number like 250 points, but then when I went to actually set the text in the document, the text was "constrained" inside some invisible box - placing around 4 characters on each line. And again, I couldn't select the text once I left the text editing mode (or hitting Enter) to go back and fix it.

All the required color adjustment tools are there, I just had a really difficult time using them - mostly because it took so long to do it. For instance; I tried adjusting the levels on my test image, but upon clicking the slider, Iris seemed to go into a deep sleep. About 6 to 8 seconds passed by before it mistakenly moved the wrong end of the slider to begin with. Rather than wait to fix it, I force quit the app.

At this point I restarted my Mac, thinking maybe I just had a whole bunch of junk in my trunk, so to speak. After restarting, I fired up Iris again. Unfortunately, it was simply more of the same.

At this point, I had already lost interest, so I decided to go back to the Web site and just check out what some of the features were supposed to be. I was expecting a smattering of lists a mile long such as I was used to seeing on the Pixelmator site. Unfortunately, the sparse single page dedicated to Iris offers little in the way of a feature list beyond three useless screenshots.

If you're looking for a single-window, affordable and fast image editor, I suggest you skip Iris and look at a more mature app like Acorn. Perhaps with age, Iris will improve to be a useable app.

"A designer should not have to invest time and resources with no guarantee of payment..."

Jacob over at Just Creative Design has an opinion piece in which he discusses his thoughts on Spec work, design contests and more.

While logo design contests that pay $35 to $200 are somewhat demoralizing, and ultimately produce mediocre work, I don't entirely agree that they're bad and should be avoided at all costs.

The fact is that your work is only worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it. In today's economy, companies don't place a great value on great design. This is a poor business decision, but out of our control. If you need the money, and you can bang-out some quick (and I do mean QUICK) logo designs, why not make $200 for your two hours of work?

The key to dealing with design contests such as 99designs and other sites offering these contests is to accept that the clients they bring to the table are not "prime" clients. They're "filler." Don't spend a lot of time and effort on them because no matter how many you win, you aren't going to make a living, and ultimately you aren't going to produce your best work. I'm not advocating these design contests, I just don't believe they're all the evil that some designers believe. They can even serve to stimulate your creativity, or at the very least provide you with some work for your portfolio.

I'll tell you right up front, this is a long-winded, foul-mouthed, inconsiderate rant. I've been storing some of these comments up for weeks, and in some cases months, just waiting to explode. Below is my abbreviated list of people who can just shut the hell up:

MacHeist, developers, and participants:
To all of you "other" developers who cry and complain that MacHeist (and similar promotions) are hurting all developers by de-valuating applications and the work it takes to create them. Please, do us a favor and shut your yap.

I'm fairly certain that nobody from the MacHeist crew held a gun to the head of the participating developers and forced them to jump on-board. They did it to make money - the same reason you make your products. If they sell their apps for cheap, then they'll have to deal with the consequences of making less money but still provide the updates and support required. Worst-case scenario is that they made a little extra money that they probably wouldn't have made otherwise. It's their call, So just shut up.

And for all the cry-babies and whiners who complain about the quality or selection of the applications made available for MacHeist (and other similar promotions). Please do the rest of us a favor and shut the hell up.

MacHeist gave away nearly a dozen apps for FREE! As in, it didn't cost you a stinking dime. So shut up. The bundle of applications at the end cost less than half what it would cost you to buy separately, so it's a smokin' deal. We're all terribly sorry that you expected Adobe Photoshop to be included in the $49 bundle, but you're an idiot and we're all tired of seeing that sewer beneath your nose spewing silly requests and comments like that.

If these bundles don't include the application you desperately wanted, and you can't believe the entire planet doesn't use, I have a suggestion. Shut up and go buy that app directly from the developer. They could use the money. But please stop trying to convince reasonable people out there that the bundle would be so much better and you would actually buy it if it only included your favorite sticky-note app. Nobody is forcing you to buy the bundle, and nobody cares if you don't.

Wow, that felt good to get that off my chest. Here's some more:

A recent post on Creative Bits (and the subsequent commentary underneath) got me thinking about what might be required to refer to oneself as a 'graphic designer'. Is it a college degree, a kick-ass portfolio, or is it simply because you've printed the flyer for the local church's fish dinner on your home inkjet for the last 10 years running...?

There's a commercial that appears on TV in my neck of the woods for a local trade school called Gibbs College, and it manages to make my blood boil most every time. Not only because of the deafening audio levels at which all cable ads seem to run at, but because it also seems to cheapen what I do for a living.

The creator of the iPod and iPhone sets a dazzling new standard for innovation and mass appeal, driven by an obsessive CEO who wants his products to be practically perfect in every way. Betsy Morris over at Fortune explains what makes Apple the gold standard of corporate America in What makes Apple Golden.

In yet another article at Fortune, Steve Jobs speaks out as to why Apple is one of America's most admired companies.

The iPhone will challenge the Blackberry in corporate America, so says Fortune. As anticipated, Apple announced a series of software developments Thursday to make the iPhone more useful to business customers while venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers said it is starting a $100 million "iFund" to finance startups developing applications for the iPhone.

Ya think CNN Money/Fortune like Apple?

YouTheDesigner has a great article on 10 Easy ways to increase productivity that's definitely worth checking out if you find that there just aren't enough hours in the work day.

They include:

• Organize your files
• Organize your email
• Organize your paperwork
• Clean your computer
• Clean your workspace
• Keep a to-do list
• Keep a note pad at all times
• Get on a good sleep schedule
• Master keyboard shortcuts
• Install browser add-ons

While I'm not sure how some of the items will increase productivity for myself, I do think that the writer makes a good argument for all of them.

In the last few months, we've had the "big three" RSS news readers for the Mac switch from paid to free. First it was endo by Infinite-sushi, maker of the popular blog editing application ecto. Then NetNewsWire, the king of the hill news reader on the Mac for years recently acquired by NewsGator, decided to make the leap to free. Though with NetNewsWire, at least NewsGator still has a revenue stream available to support the app.

Which Mac should I buy? It’s a question I see constantly in forum discussions across the Web. If you’re an average consumer who needs Web, email, word processing and little more, the choices are easy. You can go with what your pocketbook allows and be satisfied.

Deciding which new Mac to get if you’re in the content creation business, however, is like trying to decide what milk to buy at the grocery store when you don’t normally do the shopping in the household. You’ve got the choice between 1%, 2%, whole milk, low-fat, skim, no freakin fat whatsoever, the list goes on and on. It’s enough to drive you crazy just looking at the options.

Here is my (very opinionated) advice to those who find themselves faced with such an expensive dilemma as to which Mac to buy. You’re on your own with the milk though.

For those of you who've managed your font library with some earlier version of the program already, FAP4 doesn't necessarily reinvent the wheel - it does, however, tack on some spiffy new features and makes auto-activation that much more reliable. Let's run down the new stuff as Inside Software displays it on their web site, shall we? (my comments & screenshots following):

When I look at a lot of Web sites these days, two things jumps out at me. First, many sites look absolutely stunning. Beautiful mastheads, delicious AJAX everywhere, blinky, swooshing Flash and Web 2.0-style graphics adorn tons of Web sites. Competing with these gorgeous Web sites requires not only great graphic design skills, but you’ve got to be a coding genius as well.

The second thing that I notice right away is that many of these sites contain little if any useful, informative content. Opinion blogs are everywhere, virtually anyone who can type has a blog, but finding great content is just getting harder and harder. It almost appears that many of these sites’ purpose is simply to show off the fact that they know how to code.

Now I’m not trying to stand on my high-horse and look down on anyone’s efforts...

Sucked is about the only word I can think of to describe the biggest day for television advertisers. A poor effort to say the least. If you didn't get a chance to see them all during the game, you can check the commercials out here.

I can honestly say that there wasn't a single commercial worth seeing the entire evening. Thank goodness it was at least a great game. What do you think?

Well with whetted appetite, I ventured to AT&T and dropped my $399 usda approved genuine all American cash on a new iPhone.

I see what all the hype was about and must confess that I am infatuated with this lovely device.

It makes calls just fine, manages, after the 1.1.3 update to find me albeit not in close proximity to my physical location, and it does most everything else as advertised.

Now, about the issue of SMS texting...

When Eric sent me a link to his latest blog post at Ideasonideas, I swung by for a quick read and was astonished to see him blog about a situation that I also recently encountered. The value of the creative process and how the client can be sold on it.

"We spoke to our clients about our progress since our last meeting. But our guests seemed restless. Suddenly, the new partner asked, “Why are we paying so much for this?"

If you've ever been put in the position to suddenly have to justify your worth to a client, then you should read Eric's excellent article The Heart of the Matter.