Although our core business is web design and SEO I do spend some evenings and weekends working on personal projects, one of these being Montgomery Moon, a children’s storybook that this month was approved by Apple as an iPad book for kids… Yippee!!!

When Rosie (my wife and partner in the business) fell pregnant last year with our first, the knitting needles came out… It was at this point when I thought I should also do something for our baby boy, maybe build something he can keep and show his children… Anyway, Montgomery Moon was crafted in the summer of 2011, the spec to write and illustrate a kid’s book for him to enjoy.

With Tidy Design being primarily a service-based business, I’ve wanted for some time now to focus more on developing sellable products. I believe a mix of both services and products is better than one or the other; I also really enjoy creating new brands / products such as this iPad book for kids… Its what I enjoy, so helping others to do this through our core business Tidy Design makes my day job pretty awesome!

As a business we are lucky to have the tools, creativity and knowledge to create new products and take them to market… Ok, we also work very hard at this! This year I aim to write and illustrate another two Montgomery Moon books; this totaling three iPad books for kids in the App Store ready for Christmas 2012.

So, how will this new venture pan out, lots of people write kids books and develop amazing apps, can Montgomery Moon really compete? To be honest I am not sure, feedback so far from family and friends has been amazing so I am pretty excited to see how my iPad book for kids sells in the App Store… The thing to remember here is why I wrote the book, it was not for sales, merchandising contracts or to reach a million downloads in the App Store… This story is for my boy, and writing / illustrating books for kids will be great fun!

If you own an iPad and have a young child in your family looking for a fun new storybook to read and enjoy then please check out my book in the App Store… Thank you!

Just a quick blog post to comment on how awesome the Magic Trackpad is to use! Ok, it uses the same multi-touch technology as the MacBook Pro however it is slighter bigger. And if like me you are used to having a mouse positioned to the right of you most days, then a Magic Trackpad is the ideal replacement!

With nearly 80% more surface area, it’s the largest Multi-Touch trackpad made by Apple, well worth the investment if you enjoy clicking, scrolling and swiping away the day!

A Magic Trackpad supports a full set of finger tip gestures including two-finger scrolling, pinching to zoom, rotating with your fingertips, three-finger swipes, switching between applications with four fingers… It is just so cool, ideal for people who need to work fast and efficiently.

Ok, rant over its time to get back to some web design and graphics work… Until next time, have a great week and enjoy the arrival of Spring 2011.

This month Tidy Design built / ordered the stunning new MacBook Pro released at the end of Feb 2011… One word to describe this portable, state-of-the-art, high-speed machine is AWESOME!

The new MacBook Pro offers us web / graphic design folk portable performance… The battery life is a massive 7 hours; it has built in Thunderbolt technology, the fastest, most versatile I/O ever in a notebook… In a nutshell this will allow you to connect to the next generation of computers and transfer data up to 20 times faster than USB 2.0!

The new MacBook Pro will also perform up to twice as fast as the previous generation; this is ideal for editing large files and working on those BIG projects! Ok, this machine may not be ideal for everyone, however if you are looking for a portable computer that simply works and can handle whatever you throw at it then the new MacBook Pro is worth considering! The investment may be a bigger one, however the boosted productivity, results and performance worth every penny!

Yesterday I spent a good few hours watching iOS and Xcode videos, looking over blog tutorial and more in an attempt to get my head around the development and publishing of mobile applications. To be honest this has been on my to-do list for many months now however other projects both personal and those linked to Tidy Design have given me little time for this DIY self educating!

One thing I love about the web is that if you have a question, new interest or idea then the World Wide Web can give you access to pretty much everything you need in terms of resources!

I really feel that good progress was made yesterday, not only did I create my first VERY basic mobile app; I also registered Tidy Design for its own iOS developer account! Once registered with Apple you can download Xcode and iOS SDK, which includes the Xcode IDE, iOS Simulator, and many other tidy tools for developing apps for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

All we need now at Tidy Design is more time to research and develop the many ideas we have; some of these we feel will really benefit our clients, so watch this space!