RustyBrick, Inc. - All News & Blogs

Pre Ordered the Apple iPad

Fri, 12 March 2010 10:50:53 EST

At 8:30am (EST), I went to the Apple Store online and ordered an iPad. I finished my order at about 8:32, so may have been one of the first to order the iPad. The iPad will be delivered on Saturday, April 3rd.

We ordered only one iPad, and we ordered the 16GB Wifi. Why?

AT&T barely works anyway
I have a Verizon Wireless Mifi which I can use for the data connection over Wifi for the iPad.
We primarily are using it for testing iPhone and iPad apps.

Anyway, we are very excited to build apps for the iPad. No hints on what we are working on, but there will be some apps coming out for the iPad.

If you have any iPad app requests, let us know in the comments area below.

Source: Pre Ordered the Apple iPad at RustyBrick.

Four Seasons Clearly Seen On Google Maps

Thu, 11 March 2010 11:51:45 EST

I was doing some programming with geocodes and I came up to this area on google maps. As you can see from this picture, you can clearly see Summer, Winter, Spring and Fall in one section of map! How beautiful is that?

Move around the map and the underlying technology of map tiles become evident. A lake is cut in half, snow covers part of a farm and not the other part, etc. If you zoom out, everything becomes green. This shows that Google uses different map tiles from different times for different zoom levels. I just had to share.

The link to this cool bean is here.

Source: Four Seasons Clearly Seen On Google Maps at RustyBrick.

A Successful SEO Conference in Israel

Wed, 10 March 2010 13:32:52 EST

This past Sunday, March 7th, I helped organize the second ever largish SEO event in Israel. The event is a small Search Marketing Expo event named SphinnCon and it is the second time we had it in Israel. I flew in to Israel to participate in my nephew's bar mitzvah and also help coordinate and run the SphinnCon show. Actually, the first time we held a SphinnCon in Israel was for my oldest nephew's bar mitzvah.

In any event, the SphinnCon show is now over and I am honestly happy to say that it was an extremely fun and educational event. We tried to balance enough time between networking and holding sessions, but with such a short time frame of only six hours and so much content - I am sure we didn't have enough of both. But at a price point of only $50 per attendee, I think we did an excellent job.

I have an extremely detailed review of the SphinnCon Israel 2010 event at my search blog, so read it there. I did want to share that we sold out two months before the event, and we had people waiting at the door on Sunday, hoping people would not show, so they can get a seat. People indeed did not show, so we were able to let some of the people at the door in at the event. Next year, I hope we can accommodate everyone. What number would be need to accommodate to have "everyone"? I am thinking 400 to 500 SEMs.

The best part of running the event is that it helped bring together SEMs and SEOs from across Israel. It also got some major press in one of the largest papers in Israel, the Jerusalem Post. This helps put SEOs and SEMs on the map in Israel. Here is a copy of that article at JPost.com and here is a picture from the printed version:

Source: A Successful SEO Conference in Israel at RustyBrick.

PayPal Trashes Helpful Developer Information

Fri, 05 March 2010 13:24:45 EST

When you have thousands of pages containing helpful information that are highly ranked in Google, there are two ways to move that information to a new domain: The right way, and the PayPal way. Actually, with the PayPal way, the answer is to simply scrap that information entirely and start a new domain name, leaving thousands of broken links in highly ranked Google queries. This is something that has really ticked me off when working with PayPal Services' APIs.

Around November 1, 2009, PayPal moved its developer community, www.pdncommunity.com to x.com. PDN Community had a web forum with thousands of topics involving solutions to common PayPal API problems, often involving the PayPal engineers themselves. And at some point after they moved to their new domain, the old domain started rejecting access with a 502 Bad Gateway error! Go ahead and try it for yourself here, you will get nothing: no redirect, no message, just an error page. To make matters worse, there was another domain that may have been related to this: http://paypal.lithium.com/ which is also now defunct, and which still holds high-ranked pages at Google.

Whenever I'm working with PayPal APIs and I want to find out more about something that might not be covered in documentation, I'll do a quick Google search for some specific terms, such as this: paypal subscr_eot. What I get is a slew of links that are going to pdncommunity.com, which is of course nothing more than a dead end. Why PayPal did not keep this information available, at the very least for read-only with an optional redirect message at the top, is completely beyond me.

Whoever managed this switch was completely careless and didn't think about their content. Practically overnight, they trashed years of solutions to common problems. The only hope is that eventually, their new x.com domain and new forum will begin to surpass their old domain in helpfulness but at this point, it is way behind.

Source: PayPal Trashes Helpful Developer Information at RustyBrick.

Is Google Wave Ready Yet?

Tue, 02 March 2010 10:15:05 EST

Ever since I read about and then tried Google Wave, regular e-mail just seems so cluttered and primitive. Recently, I was added in to a large e-mail thread about organizing a ski trip. What I got was a big mess of quoted e-mails, and over thirty vertical lines on the left side, representing a quote of a quote of a quote of a quote.... etc.

Here is a screen shot of the middle of the big e-mail. This was apparently a "new" e-mail thread, so there were even more previous messages relating to the topic!

Click for full size

This is a perfect use case for Google Wave. If this discussion was a wave instead of an e-mail, one of the participants could have just added me to the wave using a simple drag and drop, and I would have been able to simply playback the wave to see the progression of the discussion.

Instead of copying and updating the list of carpools and passengers in every new e-mail, there would just be one central list that would be updated whenever it needed to be, by anyone. Comments could simply be added to the bottom of the wave as needed, or tacked on to any other specific question/comment in the wave.

The only downside to Wave is that to use it, you have to use "Google Wave". While Wave is an open protocol that anyone can implement, there is no "Yahoo Wave" or "Microsoft Wave" (yet). Anyone can implement their own Wave style application, or embed a Wave on their website, but whether it could interact with Google's own Wave application is anyone's guess.

Source: Is Google Wave Ready Yet? at RustyBrick.

Email Zmanim, Sync Luach & More for iPhone Siddur 4.3

Thu, 18 February 2010 14:33:13 EST

Version 4.3 of the iPhone Siddur was recently approved. I wanted to share with you the key new features in this version. Before doing so, here is the summary:

Improved Luach Events & iPhone Calendar Integration
Export Luach Events to Email
Added Pronunciations to Luach Events
Export Zmanim to Email
Updated Minyanim Database
Updated Help Documents
Minor But Many Text Changes

Let's start with exporting the Zmanim data to email. To do so, go to Zmanim, scroll down the Zmanim to the end and click on the little icon on the bottom right. Then select "Export to Email" and the contents of that page will be put into an email. You can select any stored location for any day and it will export the data to email.

Here are screen shots of that:

You are probably thinking, why the extra click to "export to email." Well, we have plans for more options there.

Next, we improved the issues with the Luach Events iPhone Calendar integration, plus we added an export to email feature. To activate the features, at the bottom right of the Luach Events section, there is that arrow again, click it and you can Export to Email or Sync with Server. Syncing with Server will push the changes to the server and update the iPhone Calendar iCal subscription - if you have that set up. It will also help us restore lost data, if you lose your iPhone or something else. Export to email, just does that. Here is a picture:

Finally, we somewhat cleaned up and clarified the iPhone Calendar subscription feature that pushes this data to your iPhone Calendar. We added the RustyBrick design and made it a two step process to clarify things:

Unfortunately, we still have to keep the iCal feature outside the app. Apple will not let us code it directly into the app. We hope they change their minds, but until then, this works.

What's next? Lots of stuff, so stay tuned...

Source: Email Zmanim, Sync Luach & More for iPhone Siddur 4.3 at RustyBrick.

Purim Is Coming: Get Our Updated Megillah iPhone App

Thu, 18 February 2010 12:10:15 EST

Apple approved a semi-large update to our FREE iPhone App for Purim, the Megillas Esther iPhone App. We made some big improvements to this holiday app, just in time for Purim, which is just about a week away.

First change we made was to add the brachos (blessings) before and after the reading. Here is a picture of the bracha before:

We also bolded the sections the congregation repeats:

Also, we added the ability to add 6 more sounds for 99 cents. We wanted to play with in-app purchases, so for only 99 cents, you get 6 additional sounds. The additional sounds include a telephone ringing, a car crashing, guns, bombs, air raid horn and a whistle.

There are some other small changes we made to the app, so I hope you like it. You can download it for free by clicking here.

Also, we released a new Siddur update today, which I will talk more about when it goes live.

Source: Purim Is Coming: Get Our Updated Megillah iPhone App at RustyBrick.

Installing Security Cameras At The Office

Tue, 16 February 2010 10:46:00 EST

About a month ago, we had a security breach at our office. Well, at least we thought we did - it turned out not to be a security issue, but rather a disgruntled guy from the cleaning crew.

In any event, we decided to buy a do-it-yourself (DIY) security camera system, which records and can be watched remotely, over the internet. We purchased a $300 system, on sale from Tiger Direct, made by Q-See. Over the past week or so, I have been punching holes in sheet rock and tracing through wires in the drop ceilings.

I am just about done setting it up. It was fairly easy to set up. The thing is, we need to return the DVR box, because one of the channels is broken. But I wanted to set up the cameras before I send the box back, so that when the new box comes in, I can just flip it on and plug in the cameras.

As you can see from the pictures below, it lets you plug in monitors, watch it over your iPhone and even on your PC. The cameras are small and the DVR box is small. I still cannot find a good Mac or PC program to view the cameras. But yet the iPhone has several FREE apps that view it fine. I don't get that, but whatever.

Here are some pictures:

Our messy closet, DVR box at the top:

Two cameras on, on the PC monitor:

iPhone App viewer:

One mounted camera:

Image credit

Source: Installing Security Cameras At The Office at RustyBrick.

When Will The 10 Billionth iTunes Song Be Downloaded from Apple

Mon, 15 February 2010 11:53:12 EST

Remember the days when getting music meant leaving your chair and driving to a store? Remember having to buy a whole album of filler to get that one great song you heard on the radio? iTunes didn't only change the way music was distributed... it changed music. This is why the upcoming milestone is so momentus. In the next few days, iTunes will reach 10 billion song downloads. That's ten billion with a b. A one followed by TEN zeroes. That's a song for every person on the planet, plus an extra 3,300,000,000 songs left over. To mark the occasion, iTunes is giving a $10,000 iTunes giftcard to the lucky downloader of the 10 billionth track. Mike and I thought it'd be a fun challenge to try and come up with an accurate educated guess of when the download will happen to increase our chances of being the lucky winner.

To come up with a good estimation, we started by taking a look at Apple's "countdown" page. The 10 Billion Song Countdown page features a really awesome countdown effect without a lick of Flash; it's all done by moving a large background-image up and down with Javascript and CSS. By taking a look at the source code, we quickly discovered that the counter's starting amount and rate of change is being loaded from a text file off the Apple server seen here: http://www.apple.com/autopush/us/itunes/includes/countdown.inc?r=0.07180374805674761 (the number on the end is presumably a random number sent to prevent caching)

This file is updated every hour and is a simple one line string. The string contains the timestamp, the current count and the how many songs were downloaded in the last hour. In order to calculate our estimation, we set up a script that logs the newest data every hour from Apple and stores it into a database. With this data, we can analyze the rate of change per hour, every hour and convert Apple's countup counter into RustyBrick's countDOWN counter. We have created a few algorithms and crunched a lot of data and our prediction is below.

Songs to Go before 10 Billion: Loading...
Approx Date and Time for 10 Billionth: Loading...

Number of iTunes Song Downloads to Reach 10,000,000,000

10 Billionth iTunes Song Countdown!

00 days 00 hours
00 minutes 00 seconds

Would you like this widget on your website or blog? Copy/paste the following code:

With all this data at our disposal, we thought it would be fun to do some cool stuff with it. We're nerds for great data sources. For example, here's yesterday's rate of song downloads (in Eastern Standard Time).

Now, it's important to note two things. Our prediction will (hopefully!) get more and more accurate as time goes on as we collect more and more data from Apple. So, be sure to bookmark this page or use the widget for the latest info.

Also remember that the counter is purely for novelty purposes as it's impossible to tell EXACTLY when the ten billionth download will occur. Apple's counter is only using an hourly feed so we're left to make educated guesses at the end date. Also, even if we were able to get the exact second of the final download... at the time this blog page was loaded, Apple is averaging _ downloads every second.

However, we can tell you that if you use our estimator, you'll greatly increase your odds of winning the grand prize. Good luck and be sure to share the loot if you win! ;-)

Source: When Will The 10 Billionth iTunes Song Be Downloaded from Apple at RustyBrick.

Why Is Google Going Into The ISP Business?

Thu, 11 February 2010 10:55:50 EST

I often get quoted in publications by journalists on topics such as search engines, Google, search marketing and iPhone related topics - but I never get my headshot included in any of these write ups. That has changed with today's piece on USA Today, named Why Google's fiber network experiment could be disruptive.

Byron Acohido from the USA Today asked me several quick questions via email and also asked for my headshot. Today, the article was published and my picture was sitting ~~pretty~~ at the top of the article. You can see a scree capture below of the top of the article.

I basically said that there are alternative motives for Google getting into the ISP business. They include to learn more about Internet users, get more people to use Google, get more people to click on their search ads. It all comes back to getting people to click on Google's ads. I am sure Google can charge for the service, and they may, but they are likely not thinking about competing in the ISP business, but rather how they can get more clicks and views on their search ads, contextual ads and display ads.

Without further ado, my head shot on USA Today:

Yes, the caption reads, "Search expert Barry Schwartz says Google is after gold."

Source: Why Is Google Going Into The ISP Business? at RustyBrick.

Making More Office Space

Thu, 04 February 2010 14:14:29 EST

We are having a space issue here at RustyBrick. The office management people won't let us go into a new space, without keeping our current lease. This is even though we would like to give up this space, for more space with them - they would be making more money - go figure. In any event, we had to be creative with what we had until our lease ends.

The solution was to get rid of our conference room and use it for people, instead of meetings. At first, we had Joe move into the conference room to test it out. He sat at the big conference room desk and worked there. He liked it, no one else moved in there yet and he had some peace and quiet. However, I had no good place to have a meeting with four or so people. My office was just too small.

Since I am part of 90% of the RustyBrick related meetings, I decided it would make sense if I had meetings in my office. I decided to give up my office, give it to Joe and the team - and move into the conference room. We moved my desk yesterday and then I acquired a small meeting table, which can fit four of five people comfortably.

This morning, I was all discombobulated and confused. You see, my desk and orientation of that desk and stuff on the desk, was the way it was for about 8 years. Then yesterday, after about 8 years, we moved it. When I sat down at my desk in the morning, I caught myself reaching for the wrong drawers, looking at the wrong screens and my typing was off. In any event, this is a nice temporary solution to our space issue.

Here are pictures of my new office:

Source: Making More Office Space at RustyBrick.

English Translation for iPhone Siddur

Tue, 02 February 2010 13:45:49 EST

One question we get fairly often about our iPhone Siddur is if we will be adding English. Up until recently, I have always told people we have no plans on adding English. The issue was, for us at least, finding a quality English translation. We have partnered with someone to bring English to the Siddur. We are starting with Nusach Ashkenaz and adding the other Nusachs in the future.

So I am extremely excited to let you know that we are actively working on adding English to the Siddur. Here is an early screen shot of how it might look. Of course, we would love your feedback:

We are planning on giving users the ability to add English as an in-app upgrade (for a fee). When they buy it, they can either show English only, Hebrew only, or both English and Hebrew. If you select both, the Hebrew will be at the top and you will be able to adjust the size of the English window using the tab on the left hand corner. You can make the English window very tall or very short - up to you.

As you scroll through the Hebrew, the English will scroll in sync with the content. Obviously, English to Hebrew translation is not one-to-one (i.e. one Hebrew word can be one or more English words). Plus, you will see that this translation is pretty wordy, it is not raw translation, it is much more than that. I'll share more about the author of the translation as we get ready to launch this feature.

In summary, we are actively working on adding English translation. We have no estimated time for when it will be available, but I am hoping sooner than later. We have secured the content for Ashkenaz, and we are working on the other Nusachs now. We have programmed the interfaces for the dual screen scrolling reading mode. We are in the process of tagging the English content to the Hebrew content, so the scroll is both logical and useful.

This is a ton of work - but we think many of you will appreciate the upgrade. I do not have pricing information yet also.

So subscribe to our blog or follow @iSiddur on Twitter to know when this is available.

Source: English Translation for iPhone Siddur at RustyBrick.

Hey RockYou: 5 Minutes Could Have Saved 32 Million Headaches

Fri, 29 January 2010 09:44:30 EST

When it comes to security in web applications, just like with security in anything physical, you can never be totally and 100% sure that your data and application will be protected from malicious actions. But there is a lot you can do to reduce the likelihood of a breach, and more importantly, there are some simple practices that can greatly reduce the damages and repercussions of a breach -- should one occur.

In regards to the RockYou service, which is a glorified MySpace page crapifier, 5 minutes of programming work and thought could have potentially prevented 32 million headaches (as well as a class action lawsuit) when a hacker exploited a security hole on one of their web pages. Why 32 million? That's the approximate number of users on the site who should now be changing their passwords to their e-mail accounts if they happened to share the same password with their RockYou account.

Now I'm not going to criticize them for having the flaw, although it was a fairly fundamental SQL injection exploit that could have also been prevented. What I am going to criticize them for, as many others have done, is the storing of passwords in plain text.

While I don't know exactly how the RockYou code is structured, I can make an assumption about what they were doing for their login process:

When a user signs up, they enter their e-mail address and choose a password. The RockYou site then inserts the obtained data into a database like this:

insert a user "martha@smith.com" with password "mysecret123" into database

Now when the user logs into the site, she enters her e-mail and password. RockYou looks in their database to find if the user exists and has provided the correct, matching password:

find a user "martha@smith.com" with password "mysecret123" from database

If it finds the combination it will allow the user to log in and everything is fine. The problem here is that everyone's password is stored in the database in plain text and when the breach occurs, the hacker will be able to access to everyones' passwords simply by exporting the data table -- which is exactly what happened to RockYou in early December. Compounding the problem is how most people use the same password on other accounts. Now the hacker potentially has access to thousands if not millions of e-mail accounts -- which in turn can be used in even more identity theft all over the place (think about how password reset forms work: they send you an e-mail to reset your password).

You could say that it is the user's responsibility to use a different password for every single website you log in to, but honestly, I believe this is just unfeasible. Most people are not going to remember 50 different passwords and associate them with 50 different websites without additional software. Of course, the use of OpenID on RockYou could have bypassed the whole mess without even needing passwords at all.

To fix this, all that has to be done is what's called password hashing (assuming you don't want to use OpenID as I mentioned). This is a mathematical process that converts a password into a bunch of seemingly random letters and numbers that makes it nearly impossible (think: 100 years) to obtain the original password. Here is the process applied to our previous example:

// create a hash of the user's password sha1(mysecret123) insert a user "martha@smith.com" with password "f2b14f68eb995facb3a1c35287b778d5bd785511" into database

Now when the user logs into the site, she enters her e-mail and password.

// create a hash of the password that the user entered sha1(mysecret123) find a user "martha@smith.com" with password "f2b14f68eb995facb3a1c35287b778d5bd785511" from database

Even if a security breach occurs, and the tables fall into malicious hands, all they will have is the user's e-mail address and associated "password hash" -- which is essentially useless information for gaining access to accounts. Even the website's owners wouldn't know what their users' passwords are. This is why if you call some companies when you forget your password, they can't even tell you your password if you wanted them to, you have to reset it.

If you use hashing, please do not use MD5 as a function, since many flaws have been found in it. Use a stronger function like SHA1. You can read more about password hashing on Wikipedia's cryptography pages.

Source: Hey RockYou: 5 Minutes Could Have Saved 32 Million Headaches at RustyBrick.

Coder Hazing: Anthony Gets Punk'd On His First Day

Wed, 27 January 2010 16:29:48 EST

As everyone knows by now we work hard here at RustyBrick, but we also have a lot of fun. For example: Trip to see Avatar, Twitter fueled revolutions for more pretzels (sadly I have been to busy to blog about that, but it was funny and very viewable on our twitter list, do you follow us?), our video game obsessions, the list could go on and on.

However one of the most fun things we like to do around here only happens once and a while, and that's breaking in a new employee. This is a practice that has been going on for a little over 2 years (lucky for me it wasn't full blown when I started here back in 2007, but most of the pranks were tested out on me first, thanks Andy).

So for most of our PHP programmers the hazing would generally involve messing with the current site that they are working on. We would hide some code in the site that would do barely noticeable things, just noticeable enough to drive you crazy after a while. Like slowly increasing the opacity of the entire site, so it looks like your monitor is faded, or randomly play a sound in your headphones (Andy had me going for a week or two wondering what was wrong with my headphones on that one), or having images randomly disappear or fade. We would encode and bury the code somewhere on the site so it would take a while to figure it out.

Anthony however, was much luckier. He got a special prank that we haven't pulled on anyone. I would first like to preface this by saying in no way is this meant to be disrespectful to anyone, it is all done in good fun, and is not meant to mock anyone.

One of our programmers, Wesley, was a Resident Assistant at RIT which has a large deaf population, and he learned sign language for his job. So we decided to pull a little prank on Anthony and tell him that Wesley was deaf. We recorded the introduction of the two, and a few of the conversations that followed.

Below is the video, combined and titled for you so you can follow along. The entire prank lasted about 3 hours, we had to bring it to an end because we were all struggling with keeping a straight face. Prior to the final conversation I sent instant messages to 3 other people in our room that it was about to happen and make sure not to laugh... 2 out of the 3 got up and left the room.

So without further ado... Anthony's First Day

You may want to increase your volume to hear the audio. Sorry for the poor audio quality.

Source: Coder Hazing: Anthony Gets Punk'd On His First Day at RustyBrick.

Web Development Request for Proposal Scam?

Tue, 26 January 2010 10:14:51 EST

Yesterday, I received a request for proposal (RFP). This RFP was fairly detailed, with the exception of having the person's contact information. The person who requested the proposal had a very common name, and didn't leave a phone number, address or company name. I found that a bit unusual, but it sometimes happens.

I then decided to ask for this information prior to working up a proposal. The person replied that they prefer not to give this information to me until after the proposal is done. So now, I am getting a little suspicious. I replied that in order for me to give to prepare a proposal, I hope in exchange, I can at least get contact information. Proposals don't take a minute to write up and I'd like to know whom to formally make it out to.

He finally replied with contact information but even that contact information looked strange. The company name was no where to be found on Google. The address did not match a real address on Google Maps. And I found no real matches for the phone number in a Google web search. I replied to this person as follows:

Not trying to be difficult, but is the address below correct or is there a typo?

So either I insulted the guy and he doesn't want my proposal or he is hiding something?

I tweeted this morning the question, "Why would someone send me a request for proposal and give me fake contact info for the proposal?" I received a handful of responses:

@fairminder @rustybrick saboteurs

@JJC13 @rustybrick Hey How you doing? Maybe they are testing your patience hahaha

@digi_planner @rustybrick Thats just weird

@DBSEO @rustybrick sounds like a phishing scam

Maybe I was wrong to be so persistent on asking for contact information, but something seemed out of place here. My thoughts on what it might have been? Possibly someone trying to get me to write a proposal they can use and pitch to their prospects? Possibly someone looking for my proposal templates? Possibly someone really looking for a proposal for themselves? Again, I'll likely never know.

Would you give a proposal to someone for a major project without knowing their true contact information?

Source: Web Development Request for Proposal Scam? at RustyBrick.

Yad Eliezer Remastered Online With New Site & Backend Solution

Mon, 25 January 2010 00:00:00 EST

RustyBrick is proud to have been given the opportunity to not just revamp the Yad Eliezer web site, but help streamline their back office capabilities through web technologies.

Yad Eliezer's new design is a complete overhaul of the old design. The prime focus on the new web site is to convey how the non-profit organization makes a difference in the lives of so many people who live in Israel. The core focus is to help poor families in Israel live a normal life. By breaking down their various charitable programs, and making it easy, simple and even enjoyable for donors to give money or their time, we hope to help the very important organization raise capital in the future. As you can tell, conversion is key.

Some of the important programs Yad Eliezer offers includes:

Food Boxes to Israelis to feed poor families
Feeding Babies in Israel who are malnourished
Israel's Meals on Wheels to feed the homebound
Shabbat Kitchen program
Furniture & Appliances for Israelis in need
Israeli Big Brother & Sister programs
Supporting Widow & Orphans in Israel
Medical programs such as emergency medical funds, Israel dental clinics and many more
Celebration programs for Israeli Weddings, Kol Kallah Bridal Fund, sponsoring Bar Mitzvahs or Jewish Holiday Funds

You can see how these programs helped thousands of families in Israel by viewing the Yad Eliezer Multimedia section or Blog. Plus, you can learn how to volunteer your time to such an important cause.

In addition to all the front end features you see here. We have helped Yad Eliezer streamline their back office processes by creating a easy to use content management solution, robust billing and donor system, and so much more. Make sure to check out the new Yad Eliezer site today at www.yadeliezer.org/.

About Yad Eliezer:

Yad Eliezer is Israel's Largest Poverty Relief Agency. Yad Eliezer began in 1980 in the kitchen of the Weisel family of Jerusalem. They prepared a food basket for a neighbor who could not feed her children, and were soon delivering monthly food baskets to hungry families. Yad Eliezer has now grown to encompass nineteen primary economic and social service programs that impact tens of thousands of individuals.

Yad Eliezer's scrupulous management and cadre of over 12,000 volunteers enables the organization to maintain limited overhead and administrative expenses. Indeed, over 96% of funds raised go directly to needy families. This achievement has earned Yad Eliezer the coveted "4-Star Exceptional" rating from Charity Navigator, which rates organizations based on how effectively and responsibly they utilize donations, and to what extent the charity is growing in terms of programs and services.

Yad Eliezer's mandate is to help families cope with financial difficulties and to empower them to break through the cycle of poverty and achieve self-sufficiency. Thanks to job training and other assistance, many families who were recipients of Yad Eliezer's food programs are now donors to Yad Eliezer. All this is made possible through the donations of caring individuals around the world - individuals like you.

Source: Yad Eliezer Remastered Online With New Site & Backend Solution at RustyBrick.

Vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer Lead to German BSI Recommendation

Thu, 21 January 2010 13:37:02 EST

I'm back to continue beating the dead horse. I hate Internet Explorer... and not just IE6. I hate Internet Explorer 7 too. Internet Explorer 8 fixed some of the issues of its predecessors, but in my eyes, it's still subpar when there are so many alternatives available. Microsoft Internet Explorer has always been a buggy, bloated piece of junk with security holes. I've always recommended that people using any version of Internet Explorer should use a different browser instead. And I'm not alone, apparent Germany's government agrees with me!

Last Thursday, Microsoft put out a statement admitting that a "Vulnerability in Internet Explorer Could Allow Remote Code Execution" which, in lay terms, means that "our bad code means that hackers can use your computer if you run IE". And this time around, the bug isn't limited to just old IE6. This affects IE 5 and up, inlcuding IE8 and nearly every version of Windows ("Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, or Windows Server 2008 R2") So, for fun I've put up a little test. See below!

Well, this particular bug is so bad that the German BSI (Federal Department for Information Security) has issued a statement (english) stating that "the BSI recommends the temporary use of alternative browsers" and that "switching off ActiveX controls (running in "protected mode") may reduce the risk, but WILL NOT fully protect you... Please temporarily switch browsers." What does this mean to you? Well, if the German government is telling its citizens it may be good idea to switch browsers, maybe you should too. My recommendation is either Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome. Both are faster and safer than Internet Explorer. I commend the German BSI for stepping up and helping internet security by bringing attention to this serious bug. Recht schönen Dank! :-)

Source: Vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer Lead to German BSI Recommendation at RustyBrick.

Kippahs Designed for RustyBrick

Thu, 21 January 2010 11:43:40 EST

Today, we received a surprise package from rushIMPRINT, a promotional product company. The package included five RustyBrick embroidered Kippahs (see Wikipedia for what they are).

I have a lot history with branded Kippahs. It started back when I ordered an LED Kippah, which I never got. Then I got a McCippah during the Presidential elections and for Passover, I bought a Matzah Kippah. So this addition to my collection is really appreciated.

So Joe & I put them on and had a picture taken. What do you think?

Now, the big question is, will our wives let us wear them in public? Honestly, I don't see why not - but time will tell.

Thank you rushIMPRINT for the awesome skullcaps! rushIMPRINT is also on Twitter @rushimprint and on Facebook at facebook.com/rushIMPRINT.

Source: Kippahs Designed for RustyBrick at RustyBrick.

RustyBrick Laptop & iPhone Decals

Wed, 20 January 2010 11:42:14 EST

We just received our first shipment of computer decals for both laptops, computers, iPhones, or other devices - heck, even cars. The decals look simple and affix to mostly any computer.

If you want them for your computers or mobile devices, you got it! Just mail us a prepaid envelope to RustyBrick, 2 Executive Blvd., Suite 305, Suffern, NY 10901 and we will stuff a bunch in the envelope and mail it back to you.

Here are some pictures:

Again, if you want some of these, just send us an envelop with a stamp on it, with your address on it as well.

Source: RustyBrick Laptop & iPhone Decals at RustyBrick.

Woot.com "Bag of Crap" Revealed. Pictures of BOC Loot!

Tue, 19 January 2010 14:42:03 EST

Let me begin by saying, if you don't know what Woot.com is... you're missing out! Woot.com is the website that started the "One Day, One Deal" phenomenon seen on many sites now. Basically, their gimmick is that Woot.com sells one item per day (usually an electronics item) at a great price. Then, at 12am midnight Central Time, the item for sale switches to a different sale priced item. You can buy up to 3 of any one item and no matter the quantity or size of the item, shipping is $5.00. You can't tell how many of an item they have in stock until it sells out. If the item sells out before midnight, then there's simply nothing for sale until the next day. You missed an item that you really wanted? Too bad, you can't get it anymore.

The way Woot operates is by buying HUGE lots of stuff for cheap and then selling them off. Because of their business model, Woot is generally left with a mishmosh of their cheaper items. These generally come as part of the giant lots they purchase or come in as samples. Either way, it's either non-profitable or non-feasable to dedicate an entire day to selling these individually. So, a few years ago Woot introduced the legendary 'Bag of Crap'.

The Bag of Crap is put up during a holiday or special occasion and consists of a random "crappy" item from around the warehouse for $1 each (up to their 3 max limit). Then, it's put in a random "crappy" bag and shipped to your house for the normal $5 shipping fee. When it was first introduced, people had no idea what to expect. However, the brave were rewarded with awesome weird trinkets... and a few lucky recipients earned really cool expensive stuff like Roomba vacuums and big screen TV's.

Now that Woot.com has grown in popularity, the ability to purchase these infamous "Bags of Crap" has become increasingly difficult. Woot.com generally lists several thousand BOC's when they are available and they sell out in just a few seconds. The trick to grabbing one is know which holiday's Woot.com generally offers the BOC and frantically refreshing your page at 1:00 AM Eastern time. On Christmas Day, Woot put up their BOC and it sold out in 0.002 seconds. Needless to say, I was disappointed! However, after checking the stats I saw that they only listed that they sold "1" BOC! Sure enough, a second glance at the page showed a secret link on the page revealed the location of the REAL Bag of Crap! I ordered my bag and received it yesterday. Here's the loot I received. (click on images to view Flickr page and "All Sizes" button)

Here's a picture of the box with my RB bag on the outside to show the size. Pretty light, small box... meaning it's probably got nothing giant inside [no big screen TV's :-( ]

Opened up, I see a bunch of stuff and what looks like a Spock.

It is Spock! My generous gift for Mabe. Live long and prosper, Mabelyn!

Uhh, this looks like a handwarmer straight off the China Junk Boat.

Be sure to click on this one and go to View Large Size. There's some hysterically bad english translation going on.

This is the actual "bag" for the bag of crap. Doesn't quite hold any of the crap, but it is a container of some kind so I guess it still counts. This XM Radio case also fits the ihpone LIKE A GLOVE. I'll actually use this for travelling.

Two large stress reliver squishy things shaped like giant pills.

A really nice mechanical pencil for some reason... where did they get this in the first place?

A box inside the box! I wonder what crap lies within!!!

Six farting pens. That's right... when you push the button they make one of several farting noises. Why pay $0.99 for the iFart app when I now have a plethora of farting pens.

...and that's it! Here is all the crap received!

All in all, worth the $8.00 investment and would definitely try and buy one whenever I can. it's particularly crappy this time around though... I've been able to get one in the past on a few occasions and I generally get better crap. But, as Woot.com says on their BOC page "if you don't get the crap you want, want the crap you get"!!!

Source: Woot.com "Bag of Crap" Revealed. Pictures of BOC Loot! at RustyBrick.

RustyBrick Security Breach? Doubt It

Mon, 18 January 2010 13:43:42 EST

Sunday morning, like always, I come to the office to do some weekend work. This Sunday, I noticed that the door would not open. I then look again and I see that the door was pushed through and cracked. This is a bit hard to explain, but the front door is a pull to open, from the outside. The door some how was pushed through and jammed so that the deadbolt piece was on the opposite side of the door.

I took a picture on my iPhone of the front of the door. Here it is:

I showed the door to the office management people this morning and they were convinced someone tried to break in. I was not too convinced. Honestly, if someone wanted to break in, they could. They can kick in the door. The servers and computers are in other areas that are much more secure. Plus, nothing was taken from the office and it looked very clean.

I suspected that someone from the cleaning crew tried to slam the door close a bit too hard on Friday night.

We have an access control system at RustyBrick, mostly because I hate keys (not for security). So we looked up the logs. It appears that the cleaning crew's ID card tried to access the front door a dozen times within a minute or so. So, it appears (don't have complete evidence) that the cleaning crew tried to get into the office a few times but somehow was having problems. There is no reason to open the front door a dozen times within a single minute or so.

We work in a very safe area. In fact, it was rated the safest place in America in 2009. Plus, with the details I have and listed above, I doubt this was really a security issue. Also, who would want to harm us? Doesn't everyone love us?

I figured this would make a good topic to write about, given that now everyone is talking about security after the Google China incident. Of course, this security is more of physical in nature, as opposed to virtual in nature.

In any event, we might invest in a security camera system. They are fairly inexpensive these days and can come in handy in the future.

Source: RustyBrick Security Breach? Doubt It at RustyBrick.

2.5 Million RustyBrick iPhone App Downloads

Tue, 05 January 2010 00:00:00 EST

Today, Apple announced that over 3 billion apps were downloaded by iPhone and iPod Touch users. Wow, that is a lot of apps.

I decided to do some tallying of the number of downloads for iPhone apps RustyBrick has built and we have surpassed 2.5 million app downloads. This is inclusion of both RustyBrick iPhone apps, apps we built under the IntuApps brand and apps we built for our clients.

So that is 2.5 million RustyBrick built iPhone apps downloaded in less than 18 months. That is pretty huge! I also enjoy watching to see how many people are using our apps at the same time. Some of our paid apps, can spike to over 350 users using the app at exactly the same time - specifically our iPhone Siddur.

Many of our apps are localized to Hebrew now and can be used all over the world. We have built apps in pretty much all generes now and have grown our app development business tremendously over the past 18 months.

Overall, our favorite part of building apps is the community behind the apps. Thanks for all the support, ideas, encouragement and feedback (both negative and positive).

Source: 2.5 Million RustyBrick iPhone App Downloads at RustyBrick.

Aggregating Hip Hop Artists Tweets & News via the iPhone

Fri, 18 December 2009 00:00:00 EST

We are proud to announce that the iPhone app we built for WorldLive Mobile, which aggregates and helps share Hip Hop artist's tweets is now live in the iTunes App Store. You can download the app for free by clicking here.

The iPhone app helps Hip Hop music fans follow their favorite artists on Twitter. It also allows fans to review the artist's albums, share them and buy the album on iTunes. You can even listen to a live stream of Hip Hop music as you use the app.

The cover flow based artist filter lets you slide through your favorite artists tweets in style. You can add and remove artists and even enable push notifications to be immediately notified of your artists Tweets.

Here are some screen captures from the app. Again, download it for free over here.

Source: Aggregating Hip Hop Artists Tweets & News via the iPhone at RustyBrick.

Never Forget To Replace Your Home Air Filters

Wed, 02 December 2009 00:00:00 EST

If you are like me, you typically forget to replace the air filters in your house. I always hoped for an easy way to have this process somewhat automated. That is why we are proud to present On Time Air Filters. Once you tell On Time Air Filters about your house or condo, it will do the rest.

Setting this up is as easy as one, two and three. You go to the Air Filter Wizard and just answer three simple questions:

Pick Your Air Filter
Choose the Quality of the Air Filter
Specify How Often You Want It

Then you are done - On Time Air Filters will deliver the filters to your home or office on a set schedule. You are billed every time an air filter is delivered to your home. You can always change the frequency, quality or number of filters, at any time.

Don't know what to order? Use the air filter facts. Still unsure? Then ask MERV, the air filter specialist via email or on Twitter or Facebook.

For more about On Time Air Filters, visit www.ontimeairfilters.com.

For full disclosure, RustyBrick's owners have an equity stake in this business.

Source: Never Forget To Replace Your Home Air Filters at RustyBrick.

Introducing iPhone Bleeper by RustyBrick

Thu, 19 November 2009 00:00:00 EST

Last night, our latest crazy iPhone app was approved. It is named Bleeper and all it does is allow you to record yourself and click on the "bleep" icon to play that bleep sound. Yea, kind of funny and pointless - but perfect as an iPhone App, don't you think?

The neat part is you can share you "bleeps" on Twitter, Facebook or via email. That is where it can get fun. Let me take you through the app, step by step.

Here is the main screen. You basically click "record" start talking and then click the "bleep" icon in the middle to make the bleep sound where you want. When you are done, hit the "stop" icon (which is what the record button turns into after you hit record):

When you are done, you can hit "play" to listen to your most recent recording. If you are happy with it, hit "share" and you are given three options. Share on Twitter, Facebook or E-Mail.

Sharing on Twitter requires you to enter your username, password and a short message to be sent in your Tweet.

Then you hit share and it sends it:

You can then access all public Tweets from Bleeper by clicking on the Tweets icon:

Clicking on the arrow on the right of the shared Tweets plays the audio right in your phone using the movie app:

If you listen to the Tweet in the timeline on Twitter.com, such as displayed here:

If you play it from here, on your desktop, it takes you here:

How about Facebook? We use Facebook Connect to send a status update to your Facebook profile.

Type in a message:

Hit Publish:

It is then shown on your Facebook profile page:

With a little audio player:

Sharing it via E-Mail basically attaches the wav file to your outgoing email:

That is basically how Bleeper works. You can download it for free on iTunes now.

Source: Introducing iPhone Bleeper by RustyBrick at RustyBrick.

College Scholarships The Web 2.0 Way

Wed, 21 October 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Discus Awards changes the way college scholarships and high school awards work. Discus makes scholarships social and more 'web 2.0' by allowing you to submit more than just paper, you can submit videos, images and other multimedia - and be judged based on that. In a way, Discus takes the boredom out of the scholarship submission process and makes it fun and exciting.

The three step nomination process is clear, easy to use and enjoyable. High School students can nominate themselves, and parents, teachers, counselors and students can nominate a student they know. You select the areas where you think you excel in by dragging the categories to the applicable boxes. Then you describe in words, pictures, videos and so on why you rock at those areas. Then build a short profile about yourself, similar to how you would on Facebook and sit back and relax.

If you win a Discus Award, you are eligible for a $2,000 scholarship, one of which will be awarded every month of the school year starting January 10, 2010. Winners also get their picture and profile on the Discus winners gallery.

About Discus Awards:
The Discus Awards spring from a partnership between longtime educational services company Campus Direct and the internationally regarded awards company, Recognition Media.

Campus Direct has worked closely with colleges and universities for more than 20 years, providing industry-leading products and services to schools, students, and parents.

Recognition Media is an owner and producer of leading awards programs and events in Internet, media, and advertising, including the prestigious Webby Awards called the Internet's highest honor by the New York Times, and five other international awards programs.

For more information, visit www.discusawards.com.

Source: College Scholarships The Web 2.0 Way at RustyBrick.

The Canadian Appliance Store

Wed, 02 September 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Canadian Appliance Source features a custom web design, advanced custom e-commerce platform, fully featured content management system, and many useful features for Canadians to research and buy appliances for their homes.

Canadian Appliance sells ranges, cooktops, wall ovens, dishwashers, fridges, washers/dryers and so much more. The useful side-by-side comparison feature lets consumers research the perfect appliance for their home. The washer and dryer packages make it easy to buy the perfect combination for your home.

Best of all, you get the appliances in your local currency - Canadian dollars, and in your local voltage requirements. You can also use the web site to find a Canadian Appliance store and find hour their showroom times.

For more information about Canadian Appliance Source, visit www.canadianappliancesource.ca

Source: The Canadian Appliance Store at RustyBrick.

HealthMap iPhone App: User Contributed Disease Notifications

Tue, 01 September 2009 00:00:00 EDT

HealthMap contracted RustyBrick and our partner, IntuApps to build them an iPhone app that finds disease outbreaks near you or anywhere in the world. Plus, the application allows iPhone users to submit outbreaks in their area, directly to HealthMap. In addition to finding outbreaks in your area and submitting information to HealthMap, you can also search for outbreaks by disease type.

Wired has written up a detailed article on this application/ The article is named iPhone App Finds Disease Outbreaks Near You. So read that for an unbiased review and explanaiton of the application.

Yes, we were the ones who built the Swine Flu iPhone App, which is how HealthMap found us.

About HealthMap:
HealthMap brings together disparate data sources to achieve a unified and comprehensive view of the current global state of infectious diseases and their effect on human and animal health. This freely available Web site integrates outbreak data of varying reliability, ranging from news sources (such as Google News) to curated personal accounts (such as ProMED) to validated official alerts (such as World Health Organization). Through an automated text processing system, the data is aggregated by disease and displayed by location for user-friendly access to the original alert. HealthMap provides a jumping-off point for real-time information on emerging infectious diseases and has particular interest for public health officials and international travelers.

HealthMap is funded by Google.org.

The application can be downloaded for free in the iTunes Store.

Source: HealthMap iPhone App: User Contributed Disease Notifications at RustyBrick.

Bringing Children Books To Life With the iPhone

Fri, 21 August 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Today, our first "e-book" was published for the iPhone in the iTunes Store. The app is named Goldilocks and goes way beyond what a typical e-book is all about. Goldilocks is completely interactive, allowing you and your child to read with the book and play with the book - all on the iPhone. You can download the app for 99 cents in iTunes by clicking here.

The app have voice overs to read the book for you or with you. Tapping on each word, will allow you to hear that word over the iPhone's speakers or ear phones. You can flip between pages and even click on the hidden bear to hear the bear squeak.

It is an extremely fun book for children to use and the interactive components not only make kids want to keep your iPhone or iPod Touch, but also help them learn how to read.

This app was designed and developed by RustyBrick in partnership with IntuApps.

To learn more on how this app was developed and the inspiration behind it, read Ronnie's blog post named Creating iPhone Children's Books.

Source: Bringing Children Books To Life With the iPhone at RustyBrick.

RustyBrick's First Palm Pre App Now Available

Thu, 20 August 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Tonight, Palm has officially approved our first Palm Pre application. It is now available under the name Shabbat Shalom in the Palm App Catalog on your Pre device.

In fact, the official Palm Blog has announced the application as a great app to help you get ready for the weekend. In short, this application is a replica of the popular Shabbat Shalomg for the iPhone where you can find local Shabbos times for any location in the world. How is this helpful? If you want to call your friend who lives across the world, knowing when they start and end Shabbat and what the local time is, helps you know when they can answer the phone.

You can learn more information about our first approved Palm Pre app at the Shabbat Shalom Palm Pre page. Or you can download it by searching for Shabbat Shalom in the Pre App Catalog.

Here is a sample picture of the app:

Source: RustyBrick's First Palm Pre App Now Available at RustyBrick.

9 Years Coming, RustyBrick Launches New Web Site

Thu, 20 August 2009 00:00:00 EDT

I am very excited to announce that after nine years without updating the look of rustybrick.com, we have finally totally revamped our design. It was a long time coming and the day has finally come.

Why now? A few reasons, the most obvious was the old design was, well - very old. But more importantly, our business has expanded and our navigation needed to support that. We added a new "software" section to feature our iPhone Apps, our web based software that we sell direct and other applications we sell direct. Our core business is still on the consulting and service side, but we do sell software directly.

Also, we needed to revamp our site to support mobile devices. In fact, a ton of our traffic comes from iPhones, due to the popularity of some of our iPhone apps. So we have a template designed specifically for iPhone and devices like it. So if you have an iPhone, do check out this site on it and you'll see, all the content you see on the desktop will be displayed in a new iPhone friendly design on your device.

Finally, we added a blog so that the RustyBrick'ers can reach out to the community more. Expect several blog posts from the team each week. The topics will vary from coding tips and techniques to design frustration and down to the culture at our offices. In fact, I hope to have the team blog about designing this site and all the challenges they had on the design and tech front.

I hope you like the new look for RustyBrick and we welcome feedback and bug reports at our blog!

Source: 9 Years Coming, RustyBrick Launches New Web Site at RustyBrick.

Matisyahu Uses RustyBrick iPhone Apps

Mon, 03 August 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Matisyahu, the popular musician known for his Jewish reggae and for being a Chabad/Lubavitch Jew uses our iPhone Apps.

How do I know? Last night, he tweeted that he is looking for kosher food in Japan. A guy name Ross, replied to him, telling him to get our Kosher iPhone app. Matisyahu then replied to that saying:

wow I have the siddur but didn't know about kosher

So, Matisyahu, the famous musician, that has over 600,000 followers on Twitter and a huge following in the real world, uses our iPhone Siddur and probably now has our Kosher iPhone app. I bet he will be excited to learn that the next version will have an enhanced Chabad siddur. Update, it seems Matisyahu doesn't want to "box" himself into the Chabad sect, see more at Wikipedia, pretty interesting.

Source: Matisyahu Uses RustyBrick iPhone Apps at RustyBrick.

StepsAway App For AA Meetings

Sun, 12 July 2009 00:00:00 EDT

This app, designed for a RustyBrick client, was built to help AA members locate AA meetings in their area.

Looking for an AA meeting? Need to find the next meeting or closest meeting to your location? Need to contact the nearest intergroup, but have no clue where or how to reach them?

Steps Away is a must have app for anyone in the 12 Step community. Finally, an app that locates your current location, and directs you to the nearest meeting!

For those struggling with addiction to alcohol or drugs, 12 step fellowships such as Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, and numerous others, are critical safe havens for recovery.

When you're in a rush, and need to catch a meeting, bulky schedules aren't always on hand, and the info is often tedious and hard to follow. With Steps Away, you will easily locate the closest safe haven for recovery!

Steps Away also includes a "contacts" tab which allows you to store fellowship numbers, such as sponsors and/or sponsees, homegroup members, meeting chairs, etc. - all within this "anonymous" app (separate from your other contacts). And you can easily import these contacts from your existing contacts, so you won't have to rewrite all of your fellowship numbers from scratch!

There is even a "password-protection" option for this app which allows you to lock the app from outsiders, via your own personal pin # - in the spirit of "anonymity."

Source: StepsAway App For AA Meetings at RustyBrick.

Charity iPhone App for Pioneers for a Cure

Sun, 28 June 2009 00:00:00 EDT

RustyBrick is proud to announce an iPhone app designed for a wonderful organization named Pioneers for a Cure. The app is designed to help them raise money for cancer, through songs.

The application plays "Am Yisrael Chai," the most popular Hebrew song, featuring over 40 artists. "Am Yisrael Chai" is mixed by legendary engineer Bob Clearmountain, who is noted for mixing "Born in the USA" for Bruce Springsteen, "Start Me Up" for the Rolling Stones, and "Let's Dance" for David Bowie, among so many other top artists and songs which have shaped the musical landscape for years.

The real story is that each artist featured here has also recorded their own song to fight cancer. Each artist has chosen a cancer organization to receive the proceeds from their track. Press any of the artist photos on the mosaic artist screen to go to that artist's page. You can hear a preview, read their bio, see who played on their track, and "Tell a friend."

Links are included to the Pioneers For A Cure podcast "The Making of the Music," produced by NPR veteran reporter Jon Kalish for Joodayoh, inc. Our YouTube channel is accessed through a link to the video for "Am Yisrael Chai."

Hebrew support is provided through a dedicated page.

The Donate function allows you to become a pioneer in micro-philanthropy by supporting our efforts.

Screenshot:

To download the app, click here and iTunes will open up.

Source: Charity iPhone App for Pioneers for a Cure at RustyBrick.

iPhone Mizrach Compass App

Wed, 24 June 2009 00:00:00 EDT

One of the features we always wanted on the iPhone Siddur, but could not bring to until the release of the iPhone 3GS was a Mizrach compass.

Basically, Mizrach means east and that is the direction most Jews pray, depending on your current location. In America, you point eastward because that is the direction of Jerusalem or the Kodesh Hakodashim. When you are in Israel, you might not pray eastward, depending on your current location. So this compass plots the longitude and latitude of the Kodesh Hakodashim (the most widely accepted opinion) and then based on your current long/lat and direction (based on the digital compass in the 3GS), we point you in that direction.

Here is a preview of how it works on my iPhone 3GS. We hope to release it shortly.

Source: iPhone Mizrach Compass App at RustyBrick.

RB Apps Features In The Jewish Press

Thu, 18 June 2009 00:00:00 EDT

A couple weeks ago, Yoni Glatt, a writer from the Jewish Press spent about an hour interviewing us about our iPhone apps, specifically about our Jewish iPhone Apps.

That article is now live on both the web and print version. If you do get the Jewish Press or want to pick up a copy (only a $1), you can find the write up on page 27. If you have no way of buying a copy, you can see the web version titled How Apple Made Me A Better Jew. It is an extremely nice and positive article about our apps, as well as some of the other Jewish apps available in the iTunes store.

I personally love the introductory paragraph, which I actually hear often from our customers:

Over the past few weeks, I've become an improved Jew. I learn more, say more brachos, bench more, and didn't have a problem remembering the day in the Omer. I haven't been to Israel recently, didn't have a near death experience that reawakened my spiritual side, nor did I feel empty in my life and decided I needed to search for more meaning. So what caused this recent growth spurt in my Judaism? I got an iPod touch.

Thank you Yoni for the write up!

Source: RB Apps Features In The Jewish Press at RustyBrick.

Our iPhone App Makes #1 Free App in Apple iTunes Store

Fri, 22 May 2009 00:00:00 EDT

The iPhone application we built for the Man's Book, has made it to the number one slot in the Apple iTunes App store for free apps. Here is a screen capture:

For more details, see my blog post.

Source: Our iPhone App Makes #1 Free App in Apple iTunes Store at RustyBrick.

Stainless Steel Web Design For Aero Manufacturing

Mon, 18 May 2009 00:00:00 EDT

RustyBrick transformed the Aero Manufacturing (www.aeromfg.com) web site, by overhauling the look, feel and backend features of the site. The new site elegantly features some of the craftsmanship the company has been delivering for over 60 years.

The unique and custom products designed by Aero required a very unique and custom product management system. We designed a flexible, but yet robust content management system to help maintain the products on the site, as well as product an easy to use frontend for potential customers. Customers can find products is three ways, by product type, industry or application or use.

The site structure is currently broken out as:

Products:

Industry:

Application:

Garage Applications

The site features an education portion for caring for stainless steel and a coming soon stainless steel FAQ.

About Aero:
Since 1946, Aero has been one of the leading manufacturers of stainless steel sinks, tables, dishtables, cabinets, shelving, and custom fabrication. Aero is headquartered in a 150,000 square foot facility on a 5-� acre campus in Clifton, NJ. Aero also has 11 distribution centers located around the United States, to meet your immediate needs. Aero offers the fastest lead times at the most competitive rates in the industry due to the addition of the latest manufacturing technology.

Source: Stainless Steel Web Design For Aero Manufacturing at RustyBrick.

Swine Flu iPhone App

Thu, 30 April 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Under our IntuApps brand, we released a new iPhone app that has data on the Swine Flu outbreak. Let me take you through the app, which has yet to be approved by Apple. You can download it over here on iTunes.

Starter Page, something simple:

Threat Level Page, a web page that takes info from the WHO's threat level page:

Mapping Swine Flu cases through a Google Maps RSS feed:

Clickable Map details, by clicking on a pin, you can read more details:

Swine Flu Facts:

Swine Flu Alerts pulled from WHO, CDC and HealthMap Twitter accounts. We actually used Yahoo Pipes to consolidate the feeds and host the RSS, which you can see over here. Here is a picture:

Source: Swine Flu iPhone App at RustyBrick.

iPhone App For The Man's Book

Wed, 29 April 2009 00:00:00 EDT

We released a new app under the IntuApps brand today named the Urinal Test. It is basically a game that challenges men to pick the right urinal.

The decision on which urinal to use when in a public bathroom is not always clear. This game tells you if your first instinct is in fact correct or not. We place men in various urinals and you pick which urinal you would use, based on where the other men are standing.

Just click on the urinal you would use. There may be more than one correct answer. The test is 25 questions long and it is for Hachette's The Man's Book.

You can download it for free at iTunes. Hope you enjoy it.

Source: iPhone App For The Man's Book at RustyBrick.