i’m not going to be speaking about monitor or television resolutions, but rather, the more popular type of resolution at this time of year, new year’s resolutions.

now normally people discuss this the day of new years, january first, however i have decided that today, sunday january fourth, would be an appropriate date.

so without any further delay, here we go:

• make cash money: school is soon over, which means that student loans are going to become payable soon. also, life has it’s expenses, which are not always cheap. there’s only so much free stuff you can get online or at the grocery store on the weekends. so i want to make sure i set myself up for the next year or few with a good job, preferably within my field of study, web and interactive media. this means working for another design firm, or possibly creating and establishing my own. but also, i’d like to research google ad-words and see what it can do for me. small, achievable goals.
• create beautiful things: i’m a designer. this shouldn’t be a surprise. i want to recreate my portfolio, which needs a major facelift. i also want to create an application. whether it be for the web or for mobile interface. i want my mark to be felt and i want to have people use my creation. i’ve got ideas, more so for the web, but i’ll start jotting down notes for an iPhone application of sorts and then possibly read up on how to create iPhone apps.
• read/listen more: recently for Christmas I got the Artie Lange book, Too Fat To Fish. A few weeks ago I downloaded the audiobook from iTunes which was great up until Artie Lange himself stopped reading, which happened around chapter six, so it’s a good thing i have this book in hand now. not only this book, i think there’s a lot of other books out there that might be worth looking at. i’m focused more on the web and design type books, but i wouldn’t be opposed to a good biography or comedy book. as for fiction, forget about it. i love movies too much… too much to even consider reading a book. i’ll say this as well, i want to keep reading the newspaper on a more frequent basis and maybe subscribe to a few magazines while i’m at it.
• watch more flicks: this past year i canceled my netflix account. i don’t feel bad about, considering i had the same movie for months at a time that i ended up never watching. whatever i’m over it. but i’m not over my fixation with cinema. i love it. so in 2009, i want to access the movie theatre more. but under a few conditions… 1)AMC brings back student rates 2)better movies are made 3)michael bay never makes another film that i successful. ok maybe not that last one, but i want better films and i want them to be cheaper. AMC you really suck for taking away student rates.
• make a film: also for Christmas, i received a camcorder from my girlfriend. it’s awesome. i love it. i took it with up to wisconsin for new years. i pulled so much footage on that trip…i couldn’t turn it off. this was the perfect gift for me though. i really have been wanting to get back into my old hobbies. one of them being radio/podcasting which i was able to do earlier in the year. but now i want to start creating mini films again. i’m thinking a documentary/podcast. something that is reoccurring but contains a story/purpose.
• graduate: that’s it. i finally feel ready and want to finish this stage of my life. school is amazing. i love it, and maybe i’ll end up going to graduate school to advance in my field even more, who knows. but i do know that i want this to be my final year of under-grad. it’s been long enough, i realize this, and i’ve really enjoyed it, but i think it’s time to continue moving forward. 

that’s my list so far. i don’t know that i’ll add to it. maybe offline. but i want to revisit this next year and see where i’m at. have a good year everybody.

So there it is, the Google Phone, or more commonly known as the T-Mobile G1. And to be quite honest, I was hoping for a little bit more. Especially from a company like T-Mobile. Who seem to have a good grasp on the mobile service. They’ve got great plans, good service, a nice selection of phones, they do things right over there. 

But I guess my beef comes from Google. Great search engine, love the email service, YouTube is nice (but they bought it that way), Reader is good, but essentially everything else, just kinda lacks for me. Especially when it comes to interface. Google, including the services I just listed, always seems to lack in the interface aspect of their products. They all look like they were made by some high school student that hasn’t taken a design class in his life and kind of throws the basics in there and leaves it alone. I think as consumers we come to expect more. Especially with the capabilities that we have today to make such beautiful graphics and interfaces. 

I’m a huge advocate of the iPhone, not only cause I own one, but because Apple has paid very close attention to detail. It’s a very smooth and enjoyable experience using the iPhone. On top of that the functionality is there as well. So not only do you have this awesome phone that can do almost everything you’d like, but it’s all built on this system that works and also is very attractive to the user. 

Just as an example here, lets look at the photo above of the G1. What do we see? Ugly and bulky icons in the menu bar at the top which are reminiscent of of early nokia phones from the early 2000’s, you have a gray box on the right, a background image, a few icons to some applications and a big clock. Let me ask you something…is it really necessary to have two clocks on the home screen? Right above the one clock is the time in digital format…what’s the purpose of having these two clocks? They’re not even synced up properly. Maybe if it’s another time zone, fine, but that’s not the case because the minutes are off as well!

It’s these little details that get to me. I don’t quite understand who the genius was behind this one, but I’m thinking it might be this guy…

Google, T-Mobile, nice try. I don’t think this is going to do all that well. It’s 20 bucks cheaper than the iPhone, it’s open source, sure that’s nice, but at the end of the day, detail and quality will prevail. Let’s see what happens. 

update
Just two supporting blogs with similar points that i just found…

• Gizmodo
• Silicon Alley Insider

i know what you’re thinking…”another blog redesign bos?” kind of, I mean I just moved some things around. the general color scheme is relatively the same, the type is pretty much the same and so are the links, although i have added a link to my facebook. i won’t call this a redesign, i’ll call it a touch up. how bout that…

anyway, quick catch up. really just a crazy weekend. not in the party out of my mind sense, but rather a huge mix of emotional M&M’s. each color you pick represented a different emotion to be had this weekend. not all good or fun at times, but such is life. you grow and you move forward.

this week, look for some blogging, maybe some more photos and i hope to be working on some site designs that i’ve begun for a couple clients. 

so that’s me in a nutshell right now. i can’t seem to sleep. i’m really still getting adjusted here and it seems like i do all my best design work at 4 in the morning anyway, so…what.

cheers,
Bos 

so i’ve been bored with the design of hellobos. as usual i tend to want to make modifications or complete redesigns every couple of weeks. i’m surprised this one has lasted so long. anyway, i’m trying to think of how i will go about this site when i’m away in greece.

oh you didn’t hear? well in about six days i’ll be traveling to the homeland. my niece is being baptized and i’m becoming a citizen. pretty exciting stuff eh?

so of course there is going to be lots of time to take photos and upload them to tumblr via my new iPhone. so what is the best way to approach this? the current layout doesn’t really support or provide best viewing for multiple photos at a time. nor does it create a good layout for thumbnails. i’m trying to think of a better way.

it’ll come to me.

-bos