September 21, 2010 – T-machine.org

LinkedIn is running a promotion right now to get more people using their advertising platform.

It’s nicely conceived – two clicks (the first to login), and I was straight into writing an advert. Brilliant!

The advert-writing was simple, easy to understand, and fit within the top 500 pixels of the screen – really welcoming. Not at all complicated.

“And then you go and spoil it all / By saying something stupid…”

…like “your email address is dis-allowed”.

My startup doesn’t have a profile page on LinkedIn, so I can’t direct people to it. This hugely undermines the value of running and advert.

I try to create a profile. Takes a few false starts, and then:

“You cannot create a profile for a company unless you can receive an email at the same domain address as the company website”

Oh.

(this is, apparently, non-negotiable)

We don’t even run a mailserver, let alone have an MX record for our domain.

SO … after lots of effort trying to convert me into a paying advertiser, LinkedIn once again shoots itself in the foot. There isn’t even an OPTION for me to sort this out – it’s just a big “fuck off!”.

Sigh.

A couple of years ago, someone setup this neat, handy, site:

http://www.flavorstudios.com/iphone-icon-generator (DON’T USE THIS)

…but their web skills were poor, and their script kept crashing, and they couldn’t be bothered either to fix it or to document the bugs. Or even to just … you know … release it as open-source and let someone else fix it.

I wouldn’t mind, except I’d contacted the authors multiple times, and simply been ignored.

I run a local non-profit group that hosts monthly iPhone events for designers, programmers, clients, freelancers, etc, and I was stuck with this tool as the only free icon mangler that made decent icons at minimal effort.

Finally, I’ve found an alternative. It’s not quite so quick-and-easy (and it requires flash), but it does the job:

http://www.iconj.com/iphone_style_icon_generator.php

Notes to self:

Set the output size to 64×64 or it will destroy the icon quality
Set the “icon shadow” to “normal” (bizarrely, it always defaults to “not normal”)
Resize to 60×60 afterwards to get an icon that’s ALMOST exactly 57×57 (iPhone size) with applied shadow