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The iPhone SDK is one of the most highly anticipated new platforms in years. Our developers are *very* excited about iPhone development, and have been eagerly learning the details of this new environment through our partnership with Apple. Fortunately, iPhone programming isn't a very big stretch from Mac OS X programming, and we've been developing Mac apps for more than 17 years. That may help to explain why our developers are so excited about this platform, and why we have already been hired to develop our first iPhone/iPod Touch SDK application!

We're not a hosting company, but many of our projects have hosting requirements of some kind. We currently manage more than 80 servers, including 25 physical machines. Until recently, all of these machines were located at the Art & Logic headquarters in Pasadena. With the company continuing to grow, we decided it was time for a better solution.

On December 27, we began working with a co-location facility located two miles from downtown Los Angeles. The new data center is equipped with two 10 gigabit connections, redundant HVAC cooling systems, inline UPS, a diesel backup generator, and 24/7 on-site staff. Preliminary testing shows ping times about 10ms faster than before. We're very happy with the new facility, and plan to move most of our servers over the next several months.

Art & Logic was hired by SRS Labs to develop an iTunes plug-in so they could bring their WowHd audio processing technology to Mac users. The plug-in (including a free trial version) is available here.

Today marks the 2nd anniversary of iTrain.com. In the two years that Art & Logic and iTrain have worked together on this site, it has grown to become the most popular website in the world for downloadable music for workouts. Art & Logic was responsible for all aspects of the project, including user interface design, layout, and construction; administrative tools, setting up e-commerce, testing, and project management. Most of the user interface is done in Flash. The server-side code is PHP/MySQL. There are multiple servers, with load balancing. Note that you’ll need to register to get a password to log into the site. Registering is quick, simple, and free at www.itrain.com.

Maretron is shipping N2KView, a boat engine (and more) monitoring program. Of course it handles most any raw NMEA 2000 data in a boat’s backbone, including J1939 engines via Maretron’s gateway. But an extra neat feature is that N2KView is actually a server, able to deliver the goods to all sorts of Flash clients, including that WiFi enabled phone.

Check out the N2KView screenshots (and maybe even buy one, if you’re a boat enthusiast!) at:
http://www.defender.com/product.jsp?path=-1|344|302025|750989&id=808159

Art & Logic is currently developing a retail sales application for mobile web users. One of the targeted devices is Apple’s industry-changing iPhone.

Art & Logic is growing. We now have more than 50 developers in our virtual office, throughout the United States and Canada, in addition to a small support staff in our Pasadena office.

If you’ve bought a widescreen plasma TV, you know that installation is more complicated than it seems. No one wants a bunch of cables hanging down the wall. You can drill holes and run them inside the wall, but what happens when you buy a new component? And what if the new component increases the total load to beyond the capacity of your mount? You have to take everything down and start over. Getting that Blu-Ray player is supposed to make your day, not ruin it!

Fortunately, one of our clients, Vantage Point, has developed a high end solution to all of these problems. The Evo System is a modular, flexible, patent pending system for wall mounting home entertainment systems. You can add and re-arrange modules as your entertainment system grows. Check out our Flash application, The Evo Designer, that lets you build and configure your own Evo system before you buy. Go to www.theevosystem.com and click on the Designer link.

Johnson-McCormick Technologies hired Art & Logic to develop the user interface and consult on the architecture of their rVibe music social networking/eCommerce system. The rVibe system brings together the best attributes of social networking systems (users can browse though the music collections of other users on the system, recommend tracks, albums, artists, or playlists to other users, and create groups with common interests). All content available digitally on the system is fully licensed; content that is not licensed for digital sale may be purchased on CD.

JMT wanted the user experience and rapid development that was possible using a web-based interface, but also wanted the ability for the client application to operate when not connected to the internet. Art & Logic developed a hybrid desktop/web application architecture, using an embedded web browser to display the user interface, but driving that browser directly from an application written in C++.

Art & Logic has hired John Palinski, an Oracle/SQL Server expert, to assist in tuning and optimizing database applications. John has an MBA, is an Oracle trainer, and is the author of Oracle9i Developer: Developing Web Applications with Forms Builder. He has also authored numerous articles available here.

PublishASAP hired Art & Logic to create an Illustrator CS3 plugin that will automate processing of “jobs”, each of which consists of a series of Illustrator files. The plugin manages the job workflow and calls JavaScript to do the actual processing.

Having just returned from vacation in Italy, I felt inspired to write about the parallels between cathedrals and software. Who knows; perhaps in the future people will look back on today’s custom software applications with the same admiration that I had for the Duomo in Florence. Here was a project that lasted hundreds of years, give or take a few dozen years if you count the gaps when funding ran out (sound familiar?). For a project of that duration, turnover was of course an issue; each time, the new project manager had their own ideas, often meaning that some of the previous team’s work had to be redone. But what struck me most of all was that the original design for the building called for an impossibly large dome; it was assumed that when it came time to add the dome, the necessary technology would have been developed. Talk about a risk item!

Art & Logic is expanding its development team: We’re looking for software testers. But in typical A&L style, we’re not just looking for people with experience in QA or test engineering; in fact, we’re mostly focusing on musicians and other creative types who are already using some of the world’s most complex commercial software as they produce music and video in their home studios. We believe that this experience combined with the right kind of “dogged approach” to finding and reporting problems could be just the right fit for our team.

One of our clients, SP Controls, just shipped a new version of their PixiePro Networked Room Controller. The NRC is a web-enabled device that controls A/V equipment (screens, projectors, DVD players, etc.) over RS-232 and IR. We were hired to create the web interface, which required AJAX, Java, and some tricky cross-platform JavaScript.

It’s always exciting to see a client’s product released to the market. Thanks to all the A&L’ers who worked on this!

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