ScrnShots: Share your inspiration.

Chris Coyier runs a “little” blog called CSS-Tricks. Chris recently wrote a tutorial on how to Build Your Own Social Home, which aggregates social networks including ScrnShots.

Chris is also the “web guy” for a small design company out of Madison, WI.

When asked a few questions, here’s what Chris had to say:

Derek: What does a day at work look like for you?

Chris: I think of myself mostly as a web designer, but things are never cut-and-dry like that these days. Since I’m the only one at the business with any web experience, my daily activities have a wide range. Sometimes I get to do “fun stuff” like creating mockups in Photoshop and converting designs into markup and playing with new cool technologies to make the sites better. Other times I am doing maintenance type work like updating content on sites, installing/upgrading software, creating reports and the like. Some days I am doing hair-pulling work like attempting to pacify angry clients and troubleshooting problems like “why is my website down?” which are way over my head. Those latter days, I could go without =)

That’s all day-job stuff. By night, I try to work on projects that don’t directly involve clients. I find those projects much more relaxing and rewarding to work on. I work on my my blog CSS-Tricks and always have a few other new projects I’m tinkering with.

Chris: Like I mentioned, I do consider myself primarily a web designer. But I do sometimes fantasize about being a real developer one day. It would be nice to make the sites I work on DO the things I want them to do instead of always dancing around functionality built by other people. Lately this journey has taken me toward learning to use Javascript and the jQuery library to do some neat stuff I was previously unable to do.  For example, I just finished up a little idea I had that uses the APIs from a few different social sites (including ScrnShots!) to build a “social home” for myself. Probably pretty simple stuff for a lot of developers, but I’m just learning this stuff so it’s still amazing to me. As I learn new things, I tend to write it up into a tutorial for CSS-Tricks. It helps me learn it better when I need to turn around and teach it, and my audience of web designers seem to appreciate it as well.

Chris: I am fairly new to ScrnShots, so I’m not sure that is has found a steady place in my workflow yet. The concept of it really gels well with me though. If I am looking at something inspiring on my screen, it is too painful just to close it away without doing anything with it. ScrnShots is a visual diary of those things, so that I can close them but know that I have given them a home that I can come back to and look at anytime. Plus ScrnShots gives me away to annotate and describe those things if I choose.

Chris: If del.icio.us is (Title + Notes + Link), ScrnShots is (Image + Notes + Link). Since they are both equally easy to use, it just comes down to how you want to browse your own diary. As a designer, images are much more meaningful. I am thinking ScrnShots to me will become my own personal go-to spot for inspiring ideas I want to come back to.

Chris: Just thanks for the interview! Take care Derek and good luck with ScrnShots.

Tags: Chris Coyier, CSS, CSS Tricks, featured, ScrnShots, User
Posted in Featured ScrnShots User | 4 Comments » | June 24th, 2008 by Derek Kehler

Fellow ScrnShots user Chris Coyier wrote a nice tutorial on how to build your own social homepage by using  JSON APIs from a few social web applications including ScrnShots. He uses the ScrnShots API and jQuery to pull in thumbnails of his latest screenshots. Very slick simple implementation.

If your interested in web 2.0 and APIs, check out his post over at CSS-Tricks: Build Your Own Social Home.

Tags: API, web2.0
Posted in Around the Web | 1 Comment » | June 23rd, 2008 by Greg Bell

This week’s featured ScrnShots’ user is Ross Howard-Jones, ScrnShots alias: rosshj. Ross lives here in Vancouver, and we had the pleasure of meeting him at Launch Party Vancouver a few weeks back.

Greg and I (we’re the people who run ScrnShots) have an extremely involved game of foosball every lunch hour, and I found out that Ross is also an avid foosball player. This really got me thinking, it would be a lot of fun to slaughter Ross in a game of foosball! Just kidding, Ross… I’m sure you’d score at least one goal

I got the chance to ask Ross a few work-related questions, and here’s what he had to say:

Derek: What is your job title?

Ross: I am a User Interface Designer for Donat Group Enterprises. My day to day role however, encompasses everything from information architecture, usability studies and prototyping to art direction and front end development. That’s actually one of the great things about my job. I wear multiple hats, which keeps me connected to every aspect of our projects and our team. I have been working in the web industry for about 10 years now, and have enjoyed the evolution that has taken place online in terms of what people are doing from a design and functionality standpoint.

Derek: What does a day at work look like for you?

Ross: I usually start my day by making myself a monster americano. We have a great espresso machine at work, so I usually wind up as the morning barista for my fellow comrades in the office who are also in need of a serious morning wake-me-up. My job is great because in addition to UI Design, I get to be the hub to everyone in the office. I check in with our junior team, brainstorm with the development team, and jump into project management with the other senior management staff. I also work directly with our clients to make sure their vision is being translated in the work we are doing. I’m lucky in the sense that I get to work with some pretty amazing people. I think sharing ideas and collaborating with different people throughout the process is what ultimately leads to a better end product. It also helps keep things interesting and enjoyable along the way. Another thing I appreciate is the fact that we work really hard, but we also remember to keep it in perspective. We deliver some pretty big projects, but we also have regular intervals throughout the day where we kick back, mix it up with a foosball session or a time out to play some Wii.

Derek: What are some things that you are working on right now?

Ross: At Donat Group we are doing a fair bit of work for MTV Networks and other entertainment companies at the moment. We specialize in social networks, so it’s been a total blast taking what we do to an entirely new level with companies that come to us creatively inspired and looking to push the envelope. It’s been a great relationship, which at the end of the day is what really matters. The same can be said of working with companies like Virtue and Electric Sheep in the areas of brand development, art direction and information architecture. The great thing about feeling inspired at work is that it ripples over to so many other areas. There’s work, and then there’s life and being able to carry that feeling from one to the other and vice versa is a very cool thing. I have been really inspired over the last few months and have started working on more of my own projects as well. My friends and I have a small company where we get together and collaborate on things we are passionate about. We developed a social network that revolves around fitness a little while back, which was a great experience.

Derek: How does ScrnShots fit into your workflow?

Ross: I’m all for things that make life easier, and ScrnShots definitely makes having everything I collect for reference in one spot a lot smoother. I have always tracked and bookmarked the things I find interesting on the web, but using ScrnShots allows me an easy way to build and manage my library from a single spot, which is a far more efficient way of doing things. I don’t have to try and remember where I saw this certain UI or design, or where I might have filed it, I can just go to ScrnShots and click on one of my tags and bring up a whole bunch of examples. I like capturing different ways of presenting data, interesting user interface elements and anything that I find creatively inspiring. ScrnShots is a perfect site to use when trying to explain these types of things to someone such as a team member or client. It helps me reinforce what I’m trying to explain by having pointed visual examples of what others have done or what I have done in the past. Demonstrating what I am talking about in this way helps me not only further explain what I am referring to, it also helps manage expectations on both sides of a project.

Derek: What do you use ScrnShots for?

Ross: Since I discovered ScrnShots I’ve used it primarily as a tool to capture the things I’m working on and what’s going on around the web. I used to bookmark a site because I found a certain part of it interesting, only for them to change their design and have that piece disappear. Now I can keep them in one central area where I can trust it will be there without changing. I also use it to capture my own work. It has been great tool to save the state of one my sites. It captures a moment in time on a dynamic site and I like the idea around that. I also like the fact that with little effort I can stay connected to what fellow designers are doing and find inspiring. It’s really interesting finding things in common and having that act as an introduction to something totally different that you might not have otherwise encountered. Sometimes when you’ve got a block happening it’s great to jump on ScrnShots and go through your library or someone else’s to help you get it in gear again.

Derek: This is your time to shine, what else would you like to say?

Ross: I want to say thanks. I appreciate what you guys are doing and the opportunity to be involved this way. I am always looking for new places in which to draw inspiration from, and this is one that really works for me. So, keep up the good work, and thanks!

Tags: featured, foosball, Ross, Ross Howard-Jones, ScrnShots
Posted in Featured ScrnShots User, In Person, Uncategorized | 4 Comments » | June 17th, 2008 by Derek Kehler

We thought that some of you might be interested to see some of the more popular source URLs on ScrnShots to date. So without further adieu, here are the top 15 URLs on ScrnShots:

1. (96) apple.com
2. (50) scrnshots.com
3. (48) flickr.com
4. (36) blog.jimmyoliger.com
5. (28) twitter.com
6. (24) facebook.com
7. (20) vimeo.com
8. (18) versionsapp.com
9. (18) squarespace.com
10. (18) blog.ikubon.com
11. (18) plurk.com
12. (16) last.fm
13. (16) sessions.collectiveidea.com
14. (16) google.com
15. (16) behance.net

Tags: popular, ScrnShots, URL
Posted in Of Interest | No Comments » | June 11th, 2008 by Derek Kehler

We have another Featured User on ScrnShots: Imran Ali.

Imran is a founding partner of Carbon Imagineering, a UK-based emerging technologies think-tank,  incubating a number of startup projects and providing strategies on emerging technology issues for clients.

Imran has also written two very flattering reviews of ScrnShots, which have appeared on Web Worker Daily. I had the opportunity to talk to Imran last week about what he does, and how ScrnShots is CHANGING HIS LIFE!

Derek: What does a day at work look like for you?

Imran: Um, generally a lotta reading (papers, journals & around 200 RSS posts every day!), some writing, doodling with design concepts for new ideas and invariably board meetings with clients and our partners. Sometimes I work from home, sometimes from my office in Leeds, UK.

Derek: What are some things that you are working on right now?

Imran: We helped to launch a coworking space - the Old Broadcasting House last year and are working on some mechanisms to help grow a technology ecosphere across the five major cities of the North of England…the area that was the Silicon Valley of the Victorian era! We have a couple pet startup projects of our own involving social TV and Islamic web services. I’m also a board director of two startups - ensembli and bmedi@ as well as the advisory board of a number of startups and conferences - including Emerging Communications and Going Solo. I’m also a regular contributor to Mobile Messaging 2.0, O’Reilly Media and Web Worker Daily.

Derek: How does ScrnShots fit into your workflow?

Imran: As I spot designs that I like, online and the in real world, I keep a folder of these inspirations on my MacBook’s desktop. I dip into this resource when I need to kickstart a new idea or design concept. Scrnshots is gradually replacing that folder largely by helping me to organise those resources for longevity and discoverability, but also helping me to discover designs that’re inspiring others. It’s also satisfying to get a thumbs up for the designs I’ve shared, from other users!

Derek: What do you use ScrnShots for?

Imran: A large part of my job is to synthesise the hundreds of technologies and innovations I read about each day into design concepts that make sense for clients. For example, what’s the user experience of data portability? As a designer at heart, producing these concepts is also a chance to experiement with new styles and metaphors...to do that I need tools for inspiration and Scrnshots is helping me to mechanise my inspiration much better!

Derek: This is your time to shine, what else would you like to say?

Imran: I Heart Vancouver! It’s given me Flickr, Snrnshots and Battlestar Galactica

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments » | June 9th, 2008 by Derek Kehler

Desktop Integration: these two words have been floating around our office a lot in the last few weeks, and now that we have officially released ScrnShots Desktop, they have finally become a reality!

Our hope is that ScrnShots Desktop will eliminate the barriers to uploading and sharing your screenshots, making the process of taking and uploading screenshots much easier and faster.

Here are the features:

• Application lives in the menu bar, which means that it’s out of the way, but always there when you need to snap a quick screenshot
• Take screenshots of a section or an entire window
• Upload screenshots from existing files on your computer
• Auto-completion of tags based on your existing ScrnShots tags (Mac version)

This is a beta release, so please post any feedback or bugs to our Forums. We have lots more functionality in the works for both desktop apps and look forward to getting them up to a 1.0 release with your help!

Search ScrnShots

For all you inspiration hunter and gatherers out there, you can now search ScrnShots for inspiration!

You can search according to the following criteria:

• All screenshots
• Your screenshots
• Your favorites
• Your contacts’ screenshots
• Users

Public API

This one’s for the developers. We have released the beta version of our Public API.

If you want to create your own tool to integrate with ScrnShots, this documentation contains the info that you will need.

Currently, we are still working on the full API for ScrnShots.com. However, any API methods that are documented within this document will be considered to be stable and will be supported by ScrnShots.

Firefox Plugin Coming Soon!

We are going to be releasing a Firefox Plugin in the very near future!

Check back religiously for the most recent news and features.

Tags: desktop, integration, new, Release, screenshots, ScrnShots Desktop, search, share, software, upload
Posted in Announcements | 1 Comment » | June 4th, 2008 by Derek Kehler