God Made Outer Space
By Heno Head
Explore outer space that God designed just for us!
Explore the world of Happy Day® Books—filled with fun-to-read stories that teach Christian values. Level 3 books are specifically designed for independent readers and use longer stories, greater vocabulary, paragraphs, and more complex subjects.

God Made Puppies
By Marian Bennett
Cute and cuddly, fluffy and funny—look at all the puppies God made for us to love!
Explore the world of Happy Day® Books—filled with fun-to-read stories that teach Christian values. Level 3 books are specifically designed for independent readers and use longer stories, greater vocabulary, paragraphs, and more complex subjects.

My Story of Jesus
By Jennifer Holder
Learn about who Jesus is and the things that he did!
Explore the world of Happy Day® Books—filled with fun-to-read stories that teach Christian values. Level 3 books are specifically designed for independent readers and use longer stories, greater vocabulary, paragraphs, and more complex subjects.

I Can Be a Good Sport
By Robin Stanley

Whether on a team of just playing games with your family, you can choose to be a good sport.
Explore the world of Happy Day® Books—filled with fun-to-read stories that teach Christian values. Level 3 books are specifically designed for independent readers and use longer stories, greater vocabulary, paragraphs, and more complex subjects.

Prickle Says I’m Sorry
By Lisa Wilkinson
Prickle is unkind to all of her friends. But when she says she’s sorry, everybody feels better—even Prickle!
Explore the world of Happy Day® Books—filled with fun-to-read stories that teach Christian values. Level 2 books are specifically designed for beginning readers and use harder words, longer sentences, simple stories, and dialogue.

My Bible Says
By Margie Redford
This book features 12 Bible verses every child can learn and grow from.
Explore the world of Happy Day® Books—filled with fun-to-read stories that teach Christian values. Level 1 books are specifically designed for pre-readers and use familiar words, simple sentences, large type, and repetition.

All God’s Bugs
Laura Derico
Butterflies and bees, beetles and fleas—join a boy and his grandpa as they discover all the bugs God created.
Explore the world of Happy Day® Books—filled with fun-to-read stories that teach Christian values. These books are specifically designed to help children honor God in every holiday and season.

Jesus Blesses the Children
By Karen Cooley
In the open arms of Jesus, children discover just how much he loves them and wants to bless them.

Explore the world of Happy Day® Books—filled with fun-to-read stories that teach Christian values. These books are specifically designed to teach Bible stories every child should know.

Fun on the Farm
By Robin Stanley
God made the animals on the farm, and he wants us to care for them.
Explore the world of Happy Day® Books—filled with fun-to-read stories that teach Christian values. These books are specifically designed to help children honor God in every holiday and season.

For more information, please visit The Happy Day Books iTunes page

Studio Symposium teamed up with White Gorilla Media to develop Lucent Lock for the Android Platform!  Beautiful, Simple, Fast and easy to use, Lucent Lock Screen allows you to access your weather, music, messages, power and volume settings from one easy lock screen!

Lucent Lock Screen gives you access to all of the most-used controls on Android devices:

Weather: Customizable weather updates available based on GPS or pre-determined location entered by you.

Music: Read the current playing track, control the volume and play, pause, and skip forward and back from one screen.

Messages: Don’t have time to unlock your phone? View your latest text messages and tap to open them in case they’re important!

Connectivity: Going on a flight? Toggle “Flight Mode”, or simply use the control widgets on-screen to toggle WiFi and GPS connections.

System Volumes: Control your notification, ring-tone and music volumes directly from one screen. Don’t want to drag your finger all the way to volume down? Simply tap the red speaker to instantly mute that particular volume!

The Lock Ring: Our fast-acting lock ring gives you access to the most used functions on Android devices. It’s easy! Swipe up for that quick text message, left to capture that moment you can’t afford to miss, down for your full music controls, and of course right to unlock!

*Coming Soon*

- Full Tablet / Honeycomb Support
- Ice Cream Sandwich Support
- Improved Graphics

For Download Information, please visit the Lucent Lock Screen Page

The recent political climate here in the United States would have some believe that large corporations need to be protected from high tax rates; if they aren’t, then they’ll simply move more jobs oversees.  The idea of tax protection also comes from what’s called the “Trickle Down” effect; basically stating that if a company has more room to move with their taxes, that they’ll apply those savings in hiring more people.  The sad truth of the matter is that this is simply not the case.

I’m a founding member and owner of this company, and have been for over 2 years.  And while, in the grand scope of all things business, we’re still considered a zygote, I’ve learned a few things along the way.  One of which is that if I don’t have to pay taxes, I’ll try my best not to.  At the end of the year, if I can pay an accountant to make things disappear so I owe Uncle Sam a bit less, than I’m going to do that.  And while I won’t be able to get away with paying zero for long, I have a hunch that I’ll try to keep that momentum going as long as I can.

As we grow larger every day, I’m inclined to go against the grain on the corporate tax issue.  Last I had read, approximately 70% of Americans want corporations and wealthy individuals to pay a larger percentage in taxes vs. regular, middle and lower-class families.  The majority of people seem to now agree with the sentiment that if you’re making over $250k a year, you’ll get by if they take a few more percentage points.  Thirty percent would cripple you if you made $30,000 a year.  If you made $250,000, not so much.

If corporate taxes are not mandated and properly supported, then it’s human (corporate) nature to try and get away with whatever you can.  Don’t believe me? Try this one on for size: Due to loopholes in the tax code, along with a few accounting tricks, General Electric paid $0 in federal taxes during 2010. On $14 billion in income.  If you give an inch, they will take a mile.

I’m writing this as a plea to our elected officials; listen to the American people.  Close corporate tax loopholes, and raise the taxes on those who are most able to afford it.  As a business owner, if I can get away with GE levels of scamming the tax code, I realize that something is very, very wrong.

I want to pay my fair share.  Please take my money.

Position: iOS Developer
Responsibilities

- Develop applications in a most optimal & cost effective manner.
- Participate in writing software specification documents with the coordination of his/her team leader or independently, as required.
- Implement Development Tasks:
- Cost (Level of Effort) development tasks
- Perform code analyses
- Perform unit testing
- Refactor / optimize code
- Review code
- Integrate code changes
- Participate in Peer-To-Peer code reviews.
- Troubleshoot and debug software.
- Conduct research & complete proofs of concept.
- Participate in database design (CoreData).
- Participate in software design (architecture).

Qualifications

- Bachelors Degree in Computer Science or Software Engineering.
- 2 years experience writing applications for the iOS Platform.

Skills

- Ability to work independently and in a team setting.
- Proficiency in Xcode 4 or higher, Interface Builder and Instruments.
- Solid understanding of iOS Application development process.
- Solid understanding of CoreData.
- Solid understanding of UIKit frameworks and the iOS SDK.
- Solid understanding of the StoreKit framework.
- Solid understanding of Apple development guidelines and best practices.
- Solid understanding of Object Oriented Programing and Design.
- Experience with using version control repositories such as Subversion and Git.
- Familiarity with OpenGL es and 3D graphics is a plus.
- Knowledge of the C language a plus.
- Having applications posted on the App Store is a huge plus.

Interested parties can contact:
Chris Culos
Business Director
Studio Symposium, LLC
(732) 604-2403
Chris.Culos@Studio-Symposium.com

After about 3 weeks settled into the office, the members of the team at the office took a lunch with me, drove to my house, and uncovered my old fish tank.  We brought it to the office, and spent a while setting it up after I bought BBQ for everyone who helped.  We ended up solving a few problems that we couldn’t have foreseen, and after about an hour or so it was filled with salt water and ready to go.  A day later, I went to the local fish store and stocked the tank with rock from Fiji called “Live Rock”, the benefits of which will become apparent in time.  Next week, we have a few fish that will be going in the tank, then a few corals, and so on.

The tank in the office could be used as a metaphor for owning a business.  You start small, with an idea that a few people can rally behind, and you build it slowly.  As the time passes, you add things, or subtract them, based on whether or not they work well in the environment you’ve created.  If all goes well (and you keep things fresh), it begins to flourish as a result of the hard work you have put into it.  And, finally, if you see it every day, the changes aren’t immediately apparent.  If you take a step back and look at it as a time-lapse, the amount of growth in your effort may surprise you.

Studio Symposium was founded in March, 2009 by myself and Alex Karpodinis, with the goal largely in line with what we have managed to accomplish.  We have an office, an excellent team, and plenty of work coming in.  However, sometimes in business, just as with the fish tank, you need to shuffle things around a bit to make them work more efficiently.  On July 1, 2011, Alex sadly submitted his resignation.  Moving forward without Alex’s input will prove a challenge, but not one that can’t be overcome.  His contributions to the company helped make Studio Symposium what it is today, and I’m truly sad to see him go.  Perhaps if the environment were different, things would be more conducive to his continual contributions to the company.  However, as Studio Symposium grows moving forward, it will have to do so with one less fish in the tank.

Personally, I look forward to the positive things that this challenge represents, and am excited to see what the Studio Symposium ecosystem is able to accommodate moving forward.

Salut

It’s hard for me to say that I’m anyone’s boss.

The atmosphere of the night club was energetic, and the people were packed in like so many sardines in a can.  As I pulled up, I had thought about the implications that I was about to meet my employee and his girlfriend for a few drinks after a long day at work.  At a dance club.  To say that I have to walk the balance of defining “appropriate behavior” is an understatement.

But, as promised, I walk into the night club and immediately find my coworker and his girlfriend hanging out with a few of their friends.  And then, the phrase finally hit:

“This is my boss, Chris.”

I stumble a bit with figuring out how carry myself in this situation, and confirm that yes, I am indeed the boss in this situation.  As the night goes on, jokes are made at my expense as well as that of my employee (threats to fire him if he didn’t buy me a beer happened at least twice), but I eventually overcame the idea that I was someone’s boss for the night, and had a great time meeting some truly great people.  It inspired a confidence level that likely wouldn’t have been reached otherwise through standard operating procedure at the office.

By all standard definitions, I am a boss to a growing number of software engineers and designers alike, but whenever I am introduced to someone by one of my employees, the word “Boss” makes me cringe slightly.  For me, I suppose, it conjures up images of a stuffy office building, wandering around from cubicle to cubicle and standing over people’s shoulders.  Or, perhaps, calling people into my office to make them sit uncomfortably across from me as I ramble on about maximizing ROI, squeezing peak efficiency out of the employees or, god forbid, hosting a motivational speaker.

But what makes a good boss in the first place?  Does my displeasure in the idea of being a boss stem from the idea that a small team is more manageable?  Certainly, things may be a bit different if I had, say, 150 employees to preside over.  Surely I can’t give individual attention to each of them.  My developers have a philosophy that everyone on a project should have an equal voice over it’s production, and as of yet there haven’t been any problems with this approach; in fact I rather prefer it.  Though at times it’s good to remember that there is a difference between the people who started a company vs the people who help run it.

If it comes down to being the strict type and squeezing a little more work per hour out of my employees, or taking a more relaxed approach and having happier employees, I’ll take the road that leads to the bar at the end of the work day.

Software Engineers are a lot of things.

They can be night-owls, they’re intelligent, usually well prepared for most situations, and can be the modern-day equivalent of factory workers; working long hours through the day to get something finished by a deadline.  As much respect as I may have for our development team (and trust me, it’s plenty), there are a few things that I know they are not.

Even though any good technology is virtually indistinguishable from magic, they are not magicians.  They are also not mind readers, invincible, or infallible.  They’re human.  Readers of this blog may be inclined to ask “why are you mentioning this?  Everyone knows that software engineers are just human like you or I”.  To that extent, you may actually be surprised to find out that people often seem to forget the simple notion that communication is key.

I’ve been in this business for over 2 years now.  The one thing that consistently comes up as a point of contention between client and vendor is the requirements game.  Sometimes it seems that if we give an inch, people take a mile, and that’s not fair to anyone involved; neither client nor vendor.  At Studio Symposium, we take each project and break it down into very specific chunks, which each serving it’s own very important purpose.

The first phase of software development can, at times, be the most difficult.  Obtaining the requirements from a client in order to produce an application or website that represents their vision as closely as possible.  For example, if someone says “this is pretty much everything” when giving a run-through of an application idea or concept, a word of advice: it’s usually not, and the things that are left out of that “pretty much” can make a very, very big difference, and can make or break the process.  We recently had a project carry on for an unprecedented amount of time simply because the requirements were never nailed down the way they needed to be.  This can be viewed as a mistake from both sides of the deal, but the percentage of time that was spent by my team to discover the requirements (something they had to largely accomplish by reverse-engineering the clients existing software without so much as a PDF of the processes the app follows) amounted to a whopping 75% of the total time put into the project, which had gone, when all was said and done, about 400% over the original scope in terms of hours.

Having a project go over by 400% because of requirements deficiencies is an extreme case, I’ll admit, but it serves a purpose: get everything you can written in paper, drawn out, sketched on a cocktail napkin, signed, approved, sealed and delivered before you even start the user interface construction.  If you can do that, you’re in a much more advantageous position to make everyone happy, including your team.

As an extension of the requirements game, you also have to make sure that any estimate, contract, proposal, or quote that you may write up serves to protect both the vendor and the client in a manner that both can agree on.  Make sure you take the requirements game very, very seriously in proposals, and let the client sign off on the document knowing full well that any extra work not specifically outlined within the proposal will result in an extra fee.  Else it’ll be a case of the goal post being continuously moved, and that’s not fun for anyone.

It can be a zoo out there, just know that your development team can be the ones who are able to navigate it the best.  Consider taking care of them and what they need before anything else.

- Chris

Studio Symposium’s journey with Standard Publishing

In August 2010, Studio Symposium was contacted by Standard Publishing to develop an updated version of their application for 365 Devotions.  The original version had grown to acquire a large audience, and the team at Standard Publishing was looking into new ways to derive a return on their investment.

Our team worked tirelessly with them to produce a list of upgrades and improvements to the application that were applicable in a timely fashion without being overly costly.  After a few delays in the brainstorming cycle, finally, in May 2010, Studio Symposium was able to green light the project.  Taking a bit of a different approach to client management, we invited them to view the progress on their own project by bringing them on board our web-based project management tool “Basecamp”.  The transparency was a welcome change to previous development efforts, and enabled Standard Publishing to get an in-depth, hands on experience with software development.

The hands-on interaction with Standard Publishing, coupled with Studio Symposium’s professional development cycle, enabled Studio Symposium to deliver an application that was fast, comprehensive, and feature-complete in the exact time frame and budget allotted.  One the application was released, the managing member of the project, Nick Pitzer, had this to say about our development team:

“The Studio Symposium team has helped take our mobile apps to the next level!  The great service and professionalism that was given to us is rare to find without breaking the bank, these guys are honest and will fight to be the best at what they do.  I can’t wait to see the innovative projects they come up with in the future!”

We, too, look forward to working with Nick Pitzer and Standard Publishing as a partner of Studio Symposium’s in the future!

The app, currently available for download from the iTunes App Store, is a representation of an insurance calculator available on their website, located here:

http://www.myguaranteetitle.com

After the user interface was designed and approved, the Studio Symposium team set to work on creating a unique application for their target market.  When the iOS version of the application launched, Doug Avdellas, member of the GTI team, said:

“Studio Symposium did an amazing job producing my title app.  They did a great job with a very complicated industry and remained very patient.”

Stay tuned for the deployment of the Android and Blackberry versions of the application as Studio Symposium continues to work with My Guarantee Title to bring you more great apps for whatever you need!

“The user interface here is clean and zippy”

“Where this app does excel is that it provides users the ability to instantly search the Hot 100 along with nine other Billboard charts with the greatest of ease. Once you’ve accessed a chart, tapping the search button let’s you browse the hits as far back as 1955 in the case of the Hot 100. Having handheld access to that kind of archival music data is definitely a badass feature…”

“…If you’re a charting artist, DJ or music industry professional, there’s no question you’ll find this Billboard.com app to be a friend with benefits.”