latent|design

1 Minute Interview: Tony Aguilar

2011-09-05T23:49:00.005-04:00

A one minute interview with Tony Aguilar, conducted via mobile phone and email. I wanted to keep it brief. Everybody's busy. Got a minute? Read on…

Question: What are three movies, three songs, and three words that mean something to you?

Here's Tony's Answers…

Movies:

the Godfather
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Autobiography of a Flea

Songs:

Machine Gun, Jimi Hendrix
Telephone Line, E.L.O.
In my Room, Beach Boys

Words:

think.
f@ck.
play.

…contact him directly if you need elaborations. xo

O'Briens Pub - Allston, MA 8/17/11

Listen here...

Totimoshi Avenger by Totimoshi

Totitmoshi links...

Lenticular Business Cards Are Awesome

2011-08-28T12:46:00.051-04:00

Yup, I'm totally blown away!

Wow, I just received my new lenticular business cards from The Mines Press (Visit MinesPress.com | follow @theminespress on Twitter) and they look fantastic! A few months ago, I was incredibly lucky and won a set of business cards after entering in a contest on one of my favorite blogs WebExpedition18. I strongly advise you to add their RSS feed, read their articles, and follow @colaja and the other writers and contributers to help you stay on top of all the latest and greatest webdesign trends.

Go on, follow those links in another tab right now... I'll wait here :)

Not "Just Another Surfin' Safari..."

I was doing my daily web surfing and regular reading a few months ago when I stumbled on the WebExpedition18 special giveaway post. I actually just commented and tweated the "Win Attractive Lenticular Business Cards from The Mines Press Inc." post because I thought the cards were super cool. Suffice to say that I was pleasantly surprised about winning the contest — and I am even more surprised at how cool the cards really are after they arrived at my door! Another plus is that he cards arrived more than two weeks before they were scheduled to ship. Extra nice... The cards are absolutely beautiful and the level of quality is stellar. They're double-sided, and incorporate multiple images which are revealed as you view the cards from different angles.

An American Dream Come True

The Mines Press is a family owned company located in New York and has been in business for more than 76 years. The company was started in 1933 during 'The Great Depression' and has grown to more than 130 employees. Yup, they are an example of 'The American Dream' come true and an inspiration in these difficult times... I followed the tips and recommendations on how to make use of the lenticular technology, and I think I was able to leverage it to get really nice results. Their customer service is fantastic, and the high quality of their work is outstanding. That said, if you're looking to stand out from the crowd, I encourage you to visit The Mines Press and have them handle all your future printing needs.

A bit about branding and Identity

These cards are a perfect fit for my brand. My design goals were to support and extend my web presence by matching the 'active', 'alive', and 'playful' nature of my current branding efforts and online identity. Yeah, the lenticular technology is incredibly cool and geeky but more importantly, it also adds a bit of sophistication and an active, lively and techy feel to my otherwise basic business cards.

LINKS:

· Lenticular business cards example & information »

· Read WebExpedition18 »

A few photos of my business cards

Here are a few photos of my new cards... It's tricky to photograph lenticular cards because they change depending on the angle at which you view them. I did my best to capture them in the photos, but it wasn't easy — you need to see and hold them to really appreciate 'em. They have a truly unique feel, and they're definitely unforgettable.

Infographic: I Am What I Tweet?!

2011-07-14T08:03:00.009-04:00

Fun stuff from the labs at @visually — why not make your own (it's free)?! Or, feel free to follow me @ptamaro 'cause I tweet good tweets :)

Twitterize yourself

The Twitter Visualizer generates a personalized infographic of your Twitter persona based on what you tweet. See how you compare to celebrities ranging from Web gurus like Guy Kawasaki and Kevin Rose to Hollywood’s digerati such as Snoop Dogg, Lady Gaga, Ashton Kutcher and dozens of other celebs...

Try it Out

[http://visual.ly/twitter]

FRESH: Get On The Good Foot!

2011-05-12T10:42:00.000-04:00

FRESH is more than a movie, it’s a gateway to action. Our aim is to help grow FRESH food, ideas, and become active participants in an exciting, vibrant, and fast-growing movement.

FRESH celebrates the farmers, thinkers and business people across America who are re-inventing our food system. Each has witnessed the rapid transformation of our agriculture into an industrial model, and confronted the consequences: food contamination, environmental pollution, depletion of natural resources, and morbid obesity. Forging healthier, sustainable alternatives, they offer a practical vision for a future of our food and our planet.

Among several main characters, FRESH features urban farmer and activist, Will Allen, the recipient of MacArthur’s 2008 Genius Award; sustainable farmer and entrepreneur, Joel Salatin, made famous by Michael Pollan’s book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma; and supermarket owner, David Ball, challenging our Wal-Mart dominated economy.

» FRESH the movie

FRESH Details
Total running time: 72 minutes
Production Year: 2009

Produced and Directed by: ana Sofia joanes

View A Trailer...

Will Allen, 6ft 7" former professional basketball player, is now one of the most influential leaders of the food security & urban farming movement. His farm and not-for-profit, Growing Power, have trained and inspired people in every corner of the US to start growing food sustainably.

This man and his organization go beyond growing food. They provide a platform for people to share knowledge and form relationships in order to develop alternatives to the industrial food system.

» Growing Power

April Fools 2011: Pranks Around The Web

2011-04-01T12:34:00.000-04:00

Brought to you by ZippyCart.com and Designed by Killer Infographics

Top April Fools 2011 Pranks Online

Google – Motion gaming has become extremely popular over the past few years with the Wii, Move, and Kinect. Now Google wants to make Gmail motion controlled, thus launching Gmail Motion. No keyboard or mouse needed, hand and body gestures will control everything for you. All of this is detailed on the custom site Google launched for April Fools day. The motion functionality even looks to extend to Google docs, for which Google also created a custom site experience. Another Google prank you will notice when typing in a search today is a job open for autocompleters, and you only need to type 32,000 words per minute to apply.

YouTube - In honor of April Fools, YouTube decided to go retro and give users a feel for what it would have been like for the business in 1911. They even have 1911 logos on all YouTube videos, and when you click it, the video will transform into a vintage, silent, motion picture. Everything will turn to a dirty and grainy yellow accompanied by old-school piano music, looking something like a Charlie Chaplin film.

ThinkGeek – A couple changes popped up on ThinkGeek today, with one being an X over the M in the word masses of their slogan: “stuff for smart masses.” Additionally they have a variety of new products that look to be fake, which is their traditional technique, however in years past some of these prank products have become the real deal. This year some of the fake products include an Apple Store playset, Angry Birds Pork Rinds, Star Wars Light Saber Popsicles, The Original Shirt Plate, and a USB Desktop Nether Portal.

CollegeHumor – When you arrive at the site it appears as if you are logged into their web admin as Intern22, and when you click the admin access it goes into what looks like a fully functional admin panel. However the joke is on you as it does not work, and when you go back to the homepage the folks at CollegeHumor.com confirm that you have been tricked by their April Fools 2011 prank.

GrooveShark – My favorite online music site looks a bit different today, as they decided to harness the power of HTML 5 to bring their users 3DS+. This new technology allows listeners to experience music in the third dimension. They have a link to their blog where you can print out the ridiculous accessories to help you hear the 3DS+ experience.

Mozilla (Firefox) – Many of you reading this may be using Mozilla Firefox, and if you do not want to deal with April Fools pranks online for the rest of the day, then you can get an add-on to fix that. The DNF (Do Not Fool) add-on will let you set the browser to opt-out of April Fools jokes, via a Do Not Fool HTTP header with every click or page view in Firefox.

FunnyorDie – Last year Justin Bieber took over, and now it looks like the recent web fame of Rebecca Black and her song Friday are taking over, with the site renamed FridayorDie. Since many view this as one of the worst songs ever, it is not surprising that FunnyorDie took a stab at it for April Fools. The entire site is now plastered with everything Rebecca Black, so it looks like her 15 minutes of fame will continue a bit longer.

Groupon – When you are a multi-billion dollar company, you better go big for April Fools. Groupon has been raising money and acquiring companies for the last year, and now they have a patent application for the phrase: “April Fools.” They even designed a full PDF patent application where you can see all the funny details.

Reddit – Over the last year Reddit has become increasingly popular, and is now a major part of the Conde Nast business. Reddit, not to be outdone this year for April Fools, decided to launch Reddit Mold, which seems to be almost as good as the real Reddit, but with a few disadvantages. Comments limits go from 500 to 490, but you get access to a secret members-only lounge. Apparently things can get worse, if more people give you Reddit Mold, so be careful.

ZippyCart will be updating this post throughout the day with any new and exciting April Fools’ Day pranks of 2011. Keep your eyes peeled and while you wait, checkout ZippyCart.com for more...

If You Printed My Entire Twitter Timeline...

2011-03-31T09:10:00.001-04:00

Created by Cartridge Save, suppliers of HP LaserJet cartridges

If you printed @ptamaro's entire twitter timeline...

This includes tweets from 1,790 friends, who collectively have around 5,880,338 tweets.

To print, it would cover
274,415
A4 pages
That would use 5.5 litres of ink!
That's nearly 457 ink cartridges!

That would cost about £8,004 ($13,007)
Using a single inkjet printer to print all that would take about
7 days, 12 hours, and 43 minutes

During that time, around 2,828,868 babies are born worldwide!

50 Fascinating Social Media Facts & Stats Of 2010

2011-02-02T13:19:00.004-05:00

[Source: Today I Found Out]

Today I Found Out...
All total, about 1.83 billion man-hours are spent per day on social networks and blog sites by all the internet surfers of the world combined. This is about 22% of all time spent online everyday... Why not share this post and do your part?

Infographic: The Environmental Impact Of Computing

2010-10-15T07:44:00.029-04:00

I LOVE infographics! They beautify and clarify raw data — they're very compelling, visually appealing, they clearly present complex information and make facts and statistics easy to share and understand. Are you into infographics too?

It's amazing how even small changes to your daily lifestyle can have a huge impact on our planet. If you are planning to buy a new computer any time soon, please recycle your old hardware or consider donating it to your local school or public library, or find a worthwhile cause or charity in your area.

I've been a strong supporter of an eco-friendly lifestyle for a long time, and I've been recycling and re-using stuff for years. I think the first time I learned about recycling was in 1971 when I was just a young kid, and now it's just the way I do things. It's a good habit to get into in my opinion. It's really not too difficult and has a huge impact on the environment. Do you recycle?

Recycle, re-use or re-purpose: it just makes good sense!

Here is the text contained in the infographic...

The Environmental Impact Of Computing

More than 285,000,000 new computers will be sold this year.

The manufacturing of these machines will require
→ 25 million tons of fossil fuels. More than the whole state of Iowa consumes in one year.
→ And 39 million gallons of water — enough to fill sixty-five Olympic swimming pools.

180,000,000 Old computers will be replaced...
→ 35 million will end up in landfills, along with their contents of lead, barium, chromium and other materials that disrupt the human central nervous system.

There are over 1 billion computers in use worldwide and that number is set to double by 2014.

Today, between the hours of 9:00 & 5:00 these computers will use 1.7 million megawatts of energy.
→ Enough to power Yankee Stadium for every home game until the 2596-2597 season.

An average PC monitor, when left on all the time consumes upwards of 1,100 kilowatt-hours each year. Over two times more energy than a new refrigerator.

The electricity used by the average desktop computer each day will produce roughly:
• 4-1/4 lbs. of CO² the equivalent of adding 2 miles to your commute each day... or a road trip from Seattle to New York over the course of your computer's lifetime. If the screen brightness was reduced, this trip could be cut as short as Chicago.

Tonight, if all computers were shut down instead of being put in sleep mode they will save enough energy to light up the Eiffel Tower 24 hours a day for another 720 years.

Sources:

» Reuters.com, EnergySavers.gov, NYTimes.com, EnergyStar.org, Slate.com

This I am Green Infographic is brought to you courtesy of the fine folks at InfographicWorld. They specialize in the creation of viral infographics — both for your enjoyment, and for companies to help drive traffic and exposure to your website. Check out more of their work on the web at www.InfographicWorld.com. You can get their updates if you follow them on Twitter at @InfographicWrld. I do ;)

Out With The Old, In With The New Twitter!

2010-09-17T02:42:00.026-04:00

I just logged into my @Peekr account to see what's new with Lil' Peekr and I was given the option to try the new Twitter... so I did, of course. I figured I'd grab a few screenshots for other folks that have not seen it yet and give folks a taste of what they might be missing (or think they're missing anyway). The screenshots below were taken while logged into Twitter using my @Peekr account via web as I was beginning to test the new UI with the @Peekr bookmarklet.

This Too Shall Pass, I Think?

Sadly, as I took a brief cursory look it seems like the new UI uses several different ID's which breaks the peekr bookmarklet version 2.0 — not the concept, just the current JavaScript. I'm thinking of possible fixes or a solution so stay tuned, but be forewarned I might not be able to fix it — and it's football and hockey season, so it may take a while if I even decide to bother with it.

Oddly enough, as I logged out and back in again with my other account it was actually comforting to use the old style Twitter web interface — which is still an option after you've tried the new one (at least for a while anyway). I've used so many Twitter clients over the years so it really doesn't matter much to me anyway.

Note that the full size screen captures are fairly large in terms of resolution and file size. Sorry. It's late, I'm tired, almost out of beer and I want to get this post done...

New Twitter Screenshots

Everything In One Place

Shortcuts

TweetBox

Profile

Messages

Mentions

Retweets

Search for: 'backgrounds' With Links

Search for: 'backgrounds' People

Search for: 'backgrounds' People » More Info

Doh! Nope, it ain't really workin'...

Google Voice In Your Gmail Inbox (Screenshots)

2010-08-26T00:17:00.010-04:00

If you haven't heard the news just yet, Google has rolled-out the ability to make Google Voice calls directly from your Gmail account (among other things). I gave it a try and it looks more than just promising. Why not get your geek on and check it out for yourself? Or, check out the links and some screenshots below to get a better idea of what it's all about...

The rates are posted for international calls and they're competitive, if not insanely low. Calls in the U.S. and Canada are free in 2010.

Get The Sauce From The Source

Get more info on the official Google Voice blog.

Watch videos on Google voice and video chat.

A Few Screen Scraps

Official Tweet Buttons In Action

2010-08-12T12:00:00.020-04:00

The Bell Curve Rings

I love to try new stuff and I'm definitely an early adopter in terms of new products and technology, art and design, and a host of other things. That said, I recently noticed a few posts on an "Official Tweet Button" which I initially thought was a rumor, then did a little surfing and found that — not only was it real, but it was already out in the wild!

Crazy.

It's tough to keep on top of things.

Surf, read... share.

Not Quite the Speed of Light, but...

The reason for my post on the topic is that I was amazed at how quickly things progressed. Yeah, rumors and blog posts about Twitter abound — it's ubiquitous — but this particular item struck me as unusually quick to come to life. I obviously understand that the typical web development cycle can and usually does take time, and I'm sure the process of designing and creating this new feature involved a team of people and plenty of thought, time and effort — but this one felt like it came to fruition at close to the speed of light.

Sharing is Sexy

I thought I'd add an example of the new Official Tweet Button in action because I think it'll really do well, I love to share stuff so I plan to use it a LOT and it's incredibly easy to implement (see the example at the bottom of this post). Adding it is cut-n-paste easy.

Here's an example of one super-simple method (there already are several ways to do it). Just add this to your code:

And you should get an Official Tweet Button like this:

...have fun sharing! Oh, and feel free to follow me on Twitter and tweet this post if you found it useful, why not? Sharing is caring ;-)

New Gmail enhancements

2010-06-20T11:23:00.013-04:00

I'm the type of guy who almost always checks my email before doing anything else in the morning when I first sit-down in front of my computer. The only thing I do before this, of course, is make a fresh pot of coffee and pour myself a mug...

It's a ritual.

Historically Geeky

I've used Gmail as my primary mail client since it was first available in 2004, and it just keeps getting better. I love it's simplicity, and the way Google has been rolling new features into it over time rather than a big "upgrade" or "redesign" as I've witnessed and experienced in other products.

I like the subtle changes and there's a feeling of 'delight' that this type of staggered (i.e.: Agile) feature roll out approach offers for the user. It also makes it possible for the developers to really focus on the implementation and get feedback early and often to squash any bugs and resolve any unforeseen front-end glitches more effectively as well. With this approach, everybody wins.

It's Delightful & Delicious

Today I had a pleasant surprise when I noticed some minor, yet really nice improvements in the way that Gmail presents their Tool-tip (a.k.a.: "HoverCard" information). These are admittedly not Earth-shattering changes, but they were a nice surprise nonetheless, so I thought I'd blog about it to see if other folks are also seeing these changes in their Gmail client.

Hover Info; Chat Column

The presentation of info is much better when you hover over a user's name in the chat column — much cleaner and more like a business card where the order of elements is better organized, and the buttons are placed on the bottom of the card. I really like this because the structure makes more sense, and it feels more natural to me.

Hover Over Sender Info

The other improvement I noticed isn't a huge change, but it is better in my opinion. When you hover over the sender's name you get the same presentation, treatment and structure as you do with the user's name. Same look, same feel, same structure: buttons on the bottom. I'm a big fan of consistency and this is also important in terms of usability.

If you're not using Gmail, I suggest you take a look at it and consider doing so. If you are using Gmail already, then I also think it's a good idea to check the Google Labs section every now and then or subscribe to the Official Gmail Blog RSS feed to find out if there's anything new you might want to try.

Cool: MouseGlove | Next-gen mouse

2010-06-16T15:30:00.002-04:00

Not your average input device; this interesting open source project aims to make human-computer interaction easier.

MouseGlove is an open source project for a new generation of mouse. The goal of this project is to provide an open source hardware and software stimulating new developers to improve the usability of computers through new interfaces.

MouseGlove is a new kind of interface born for helping people affected by disabilities who cannot use common interfaces such as mouse and keyboard. MouseGlobe offers a natural way to move the screen pointer, click and drag objects. Each action is natural as using your hands to keep, move and touch real objects on a desktop.

http://mouseglove.sourceforge.net/

Posted via web from ptamaro | posterous

Beyond Sight: An Experiment, Tribute and Celebration of the Inspiring Lives of the Visually Impaired.

2010-06-02T13:36:00.006-04:00

Summary

Beyond Sight is a documentary following the everyday lives of some incredible visually-impaired individuals.

The Purpose

Blindness and visual impairments in the media have often been portrayed as something negative, a handicap, something to be feared. This movie is going to be different - amazing accomplishments and incredible lives, which would be amazing whether or not the individuals are blind. So, we are portraying visual impairments in a positive light! These stories deserve to be told.

The Project

http://kck.st/bliYvz

Still Haven't Found What You're Lookin' For?

2010-03-29T16:27:00.059-04:00

Try these Social Media search engines, and if nothing else — I think you'll definitely find that you like 'em.

I surf a lot, and I do a fair amount of the Social Media stuff as well. Oftentimes, I find it difficult to get at specific bits of niche oriented information using the big engines — even with well crafted 'advanced search' criteria. This is especially true when trying to track real-time topics, unusual terms, odd trends and memes. Have you encountered this, or ever felt this way? Have you gone through multiple pages of search results on well-known search engines without finding what you were looking for — or even anything remotely close?

Recently, I've stumbled upon (or folks have shared with me on my Twitter account, @ptamaro) some really cool and powerful Social Media real-time search engines I thought I'd share with you. Below are some really cool social oriented search tools with features that go beyond what you'll see on the big engines. Although these tools are relatively new to me, I think I've seen enough to feel like they're going to help me to be more productive as I continue to use them and become more familiar with their specific features.

If you think I'm totally missing "a killer social search app" that you think should be included here, let me know. I'm always on the lookout for the next best thing...

I'll highlight three very cool and ultra powerful social media oriented search engines. I strongly encourage you try them all, and see what you think. This isn't intended to be an extensive analysis, but rather a somewhat cursory look at a few of the lesser known tools available to help you find the things you're looking for, and maybe some interesting little surprises along the way. The search terms I used were "backgrounds" and "fibonacci".

socialmention* Real-time social media search and analysis

@socialmention

This is an ultra cool and incredibly powerful social media search tool. The interface is beautiful, inviting, sophisticated and very slick. It's usability is fantastic and extremely intuitive. You can perform your search within more than eleven categories, and across more than 80 social networks and sources. It feels like a "social media über search" for lack of a better description — in their words, it's "a real time search platform" so it's a little bit more than an engine or tool.

It was tough to find anything that could be improved here. I guess it would be nice to have the source selection checkboxes grouped in a more logical way? For instance, the sources are listed in columns and alphabetized from left to right which seems awkward to me. Maybe it's just me. Nonetheless, it's hard to find any flaws which is unusual! This is how social search should be done. Period.

Comprehensive list of networks and services

Social Mention Alerts

Aggregated trend data

Single stream of real-time data available via API

A series of tools and widgets: Realtime Buzz Widget, Browser Search Plugin, iGoogle Gadget (coming soon)

Data-rich real-time results with analysis ratings and filters, hover tips, sorting, top keywords and hashtags

Export CSV/Excel, RSS feeds

Much, much more...

WhosTalkin? Social Media Search Tool

@whostalkin

This is a very unique engine with one of the most elegant and intuitive interfaces I've seen in a while. If I had only one word to describe it, that word would be: amazing. This engine allows you to run your search across more than 50+ sources within multiple categories.

The few shortcomings I noticed could easily be fixed. For example, there are way too many "back to top" links and that space could be replaced by something useful. Also, it's not entirely clear what source the results you're looking at are from — which can be a problem if you're quickly running searches across multiple social networks. This too can be easily fixed by displaying the category and network the results you're currently presented with are from. For instance, the content description at the top of the results could read, "Results for fibonacci' within: Blogs » Twitter" so the user would know exactly what they are looking at. A few more well thought out features may just be the icing this cake needs. That said, it's still awesome because of it's overall solid positive user experience.

Left navigation accordion allows you to quickly run searches through multiple categories and networks

Very intuitive user interface and it's really fun to use

They offer an iGoogle Gadget, and an API

Results are a bit basic in terms of the richness of data

Feels like it could use a few more features

IceRocket real-time search

@icerocket

This is a really powerful engine... and I think it's been around for a while. I've found some really juicy stuff using it. I really like it. I think the only downside of this engine is a slightly inconsistent user interface across screens which is a bit jarring.

This is a very cool data-rich engine with some unusually powerful features. A few tweaks to the layout consistency would go a long way — but these minor shortcomings are far outweighed by the overall value it provides.

Search by category; for example a social network (Twitter, MySpace), content type (video, images), blogs, news, the web, or the "big buzz"

Easily run the same search multiple times within each category with a simple click

Follow trends, submit your blog and use other tools like RSS Builder, Blog Tracker, or their API

When searching Twitter you have the opportunity to reply to or re-tweet directly from the search results, the results are updated real-time as more become available

You can easily save your search and run it again later, and alerts are in the works

Lots of information about the data you're looking at

I have a few more engines in the toolbox, but they take a slightly different approach and seem to be in another category altogether, so maybe I'll do another post since this one was a lot of fun. Comments and suggestions are welcome, and feel free to tweet me any time with your thoughts. What's your favorite social engine?

Social Media Addicts Association Meeting

2010-01-16T11:35:00.002-05:00

HootSuite for iPhone is available...

2009-12-10T10:06:00.002-05:00

Everybody dance now!

You’ll love the ability to customize tabs and columns, and easy-to-use column swiping to switch between streams. Did we mention you can upload pictures with HootSuite for iPhone? Indeed, you can. You can also view pending tweets, read explanations for why topics trend on Twitter, and save searches as permanent streams. There is so much to love about HootSuite for iPhone. But don’t take our word for it. Try it yourselves.hootsuite.com, HootSuite, Dec 2009

HootSuite for iPhone is the only Twitter app that lets you view statistics, and the only one that lets you schedule your tweets in advance. With HootSuite, you can send tweets to multiple accounts simultaneously whenever/wherever you are. But that's not all. You should read the whole article to get the skinny on all the juicy new features. If you have an iPhone and you tweet -- HootSuite rocks.

Follow me on Twitter to get your tweet on: @ptamaro

http://twitter.com/ptamaro

Facebook Rolls-Out New Privacy Controls

2009-12-09T11:28:00.006-05:00

Today, Facebook is launching their new tools to give you more control over the information you share on their service. If you're on Fb, you'll be asked to review and update your settings as you log in. The process is pretty straightforward and easy to do. All you will need to do is make any adjustments to who sees what and then save the new settings, or just keep your old privacy setting as is.

"Facebook's new, simplified privacy settings give you more control over the information you share. We've recommended settings below, but you can choose to apply your old settings to any of the fields."

Control Your Experience

Here are the main points for the new privacy features:

Helping You Choose Settings

Simpler Settings

Adding Control for Each Post

And more...

Here's the Facebook blog post with more information:
» New Tools to Control Your Experience

Read their blog post to get the low-down on all the new changes. It seems like they've really put a lot of work into these new features, and more importantly — this time it seems like they've listened to their users.

A few screenshots of what you'll see

Notification pop-in...

Update Privacy Settings Screen...

Easily share photo's > Flickr Uploadr

2009-10-19T08:53:00.003-04:00

Desktop Uploadr

The Flickr desktop uploader sits on your desktop for heftier uploading needs or offline photo management. Drag and drop single photos or videos, or select a whole folder. Even reorder how photos will be displayed in your photostream.

Flickr Uploadr

Version 3.2.1: Released June 11, 2009. This release is available in 8 languages.

Get the new desktop client via » flickr.com

The most recent flickr Uploader Desktop client is super powerful! It's definitely worth the download, and it's much easier to upload lots of photos with the new drag-n-drop functionality. I strongly recommend giving it a try if you're a flickr user. Flickr just keeps getting better and better...

Posted via web from ptamaro | posterous

Size Matters: Methodologie Web Canvas

2009-09-10T08:36:00.002-04:00

via methodologie.com

Methodologie is kind enough to share their 'Web Canvas' with all of us in the design community. Their Web Canvas is a grid that displays screen resolutions and the percentage of users that are capable of viewing the different screen resolutions. Their statistics are fresh (August, 2009) and based on numbers from http://thecounter.com and http://marketshare.hitslink.com

I've added this little gem to my delicious bookmarks... I think it'll be a helpful little tool when starting new projects or when I'm wrestling over what screen resolution to design for. All of this info and our own design experience seem to support the notion that in many cases size matters ;-)

Here's the link to the Methodologie Web Canvas...

http://www.methodologie.com/webcanvas/

Posted via web from ptamaro | posterous

Veer: Ideas: The Skinny - Super-Contest!

2009-09-08T23:44:00.005-04:00

Enter creative contests at Veer, win $50,000 in prizes

Starting today, Veer is giving away $50,000 in prizes to winners of daily and weekly creative contests. Why? Because they like you that much.

Monday through Thursday, you can enter daily contests announced on their Twitter account VeerUpdate. Fridays, you can enter week-long contests announced on The Skinny.

Every daily and weekly contest will have 5 winners (chosen by Veer’s creative team) who will receive one-month subscriptions to Veer Marketplace worth US$199 each. Each subscription gives you 60 credits per week, for 4 weeks, to spend on images.

That's $1000 in prizes every weekday, for almost two months!

Then, on October 30th, they'll post a final contest, for a grand prize package worth $8000:
Apple® 17" MacBook Pro
Adobe® Creative Suite® 4
1,000 Veer Marketplace credits
Jukebox type collection (122 fonts)
Type Tray laptop cushion
Kern Zip-up
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Posted via web from ptamaro | posterous

Mixero Is Reducing the Noise

2009-09-07T00:49:00.002-04:00

via mixero.com

I'm testing the beta of Mixero as I type this, and this app really delivers on it's promise of "reducing the noise." The interface is really nicely done and there are only a few things that a little less than intuitive but fairly easy to figure out as you use it. It's got a really nice feature set [see the list on http://mixero.com] that helps make your time spent on Twitter much more productive. Follow them at => http://twitter.com/mixero to get the scoop on their latest activities (hint: Facebook integration sounds cool) and bugfixes.

It feels different than other Twitter clients I've used -- feels more streamlined and the interaction is more directed towards productivity as opposed to "stream following" like other clients. I'm still not a huge fan of apps built on Adobe Air because this machine is old and just doesn't have the horsepower necessary to really handle "power-browsing" while running an Air app and a handful of others simultaneously (you can never have enough RAM). Because it's an Air app, it should work on any OS, and as I mentioned the look and feel is definitely silky.

As social media continues to converge and inter-operate -- it's getting increasingly more difficult to stay on top of it all. Although I've only been testing it a short while, I can see that it's definitely going to be an important tool in my social media tool chest.

Posted via web from ptamaro | posterous

Flutter: The New Twitter

2009-04-10T08:09:00.005-04:00

This "mock-umentary" is hilarious... it's so funny, I had to add it here so I can watch it over and over again. I think I would even wear those glasses they're talkin' about. I'm thinkin' that limiting messages to just 26 characters might actually be the answer to our problems with Global Warming? Think about all the energy it would save by not using the extra 114 characters for all those messages.

Really well done :-)

Microsoft Announces SuperPreview for IE Browser Testing

2009-03-18T22:14:00.002-04:00

SuperPreview is a new free standalone application from Microsoft (still in beta) which enables you to see how your websites will look across different versions of Internet Explorer making migration from IE6 to 7 and 8 much easier than before, without have to start up a Virtual Machine

=> read more | digg story

I used Digg's "post to blog" mechanism to post this story here to see how it worked. It seems like a neat way to help folks post more frequently, and at least get a post started quickly. Helpful if you want to blog about something you read but don't have much time, or you're busy doing other things. The original post was on WebDesignerDepot.com, which is an awesome web design blog I read regularly.

Here's a quick update
I tried to install "Microsoft Expression Web SuperPreview for Windows Internet Explorer" or whatever they're calling it (whew) on the laptop at work. As always, I was cautiously optimistic because it's a MSFT product. It required that I install some other stuff, and I didn't feel like bothering at the time. The install was going to take just a few minutes longer than "forever" so I canceled the install and created two new virtual machine's so I now have all three Internet Explorer browsers available for testing. I may install "Microsoft Expression Web SuperPreview for Windows Internet Explorer" someday, but for now I'll stick to a more typical testing approach... I think I now have 16 different browsers on that machine?

Cool Tool: SiteMeter - Free statistics tracker

2009-02-25T22:15:00.012-05:00

Site Meter is a really awesome free counter and statistics tracker you can use on your website or blog to monitor your traffic and get more details about your visitors.

It's a free "who, what, why, when and (from) where" tool to help you monitor who's visiting your stuff, where they came from, and what they like best. This info can give you some good insight into what kind of posts your visitors value the most based on time spent on a page or the information they're looking for, and how many pages they view in a visit. It can also give you some great technical information on the most popular Operating System, Browser, Screen Resolution and much more to help you make sure your interface design works for the folks that typically visit your website or blog.

Site Meter's comprehensive real time website tracking and counter tools give you instant access to vital information and data about your sites audience. With our detailed reporting you'll have a clear picture of who is visiting your site, how they found you, where they came from, what interests them and much more.

They've got two types of account packages. The Basic plan (free) gives you lots of data and statistics about your visitors, and it takes just seconds to sign-up and then get things working -- and you can't beat that price! The Premium plan (which starts at $6.95) offers additional stats, reporting, historical data, ad-free stats pages, and the ability to export your data.

I've been using it for just over a year, and it's great. Why not sign up with Site Meter now and give it a try?

Here are some example stats...

latent|design - blog.TamaroDesign.com
Feb 25 2009 21: 38: 55PM GMT: -5:00

Browser Share

Operating System

Monitor Resolution

Continent

Cool Tool: flickrSlider - Embed flickr Slideshows In Just Few Seconds...

2009-02-20T21:58:00.006-05:00

Do you have a flickr account yet? Want to easily share your flickr photos with the world from your website or blog? Well, now you can in just a few seconds using the flickrSlidr slideshow tool!

This free service couldn't be easier to use... all you need to do is enter a URL address for a user, photo set, or group -- and then add some tags, and set the slideshow dimensions and a few properties (height, width, preview and favorite's) and the slideshow will be created for you. You can even set create your flickr slideshow in "Standards Compliance Mode" which will make it more accessible. All you need to do next is copy-n-paste the code it generates into your website or blog post and enjoy... Cool, huh?

The tool is free and super-easy to use, so why not check it out?

Make your own flickrSlidr slideshow now!

Here's a flickrSlidr slideshow I just created of some of the desktop wallpaper I've made...

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Quick Tech Tip:If the flickrSlidr you just created doesn't fit well in your blog or you want to change the size of your flickrSlidr, all you need to do is edit the height and width attributes of the object (in pixels of course). It seems like the best aspect ratio is 1:1 so I set mine here to 410x410 pixels so it would fit nicely and not get cut off at the right edge.

Posted via email from ptamaro's posterous

FreePoverty.com - Knowing Helps...

2008-12-16T07:51:00.006-05:00

WATER, WATER, EVERYWHERE?

See how many cups of water you can donate by testing your knowledge about the world. Each correct answer means we will be donating 10 cups of water on your behalf. The number of cups of water donated on your behalf depends on how accurate your answer is. Once you have located one city or landmark, another location will be shown to you.

You may play the game however many times you wish. Of course, the more you play and the more you are correct, the greater difference you will make with your donation. If your answer is correct, 10 cups of water will be donated. The further away you are from the location, the number of cups will decrease. If your answer is nowhere near the exact location, no cups of water will be donated. Therefore by playing this game, not only are you doing a good deed for others, but you are also gaining knowledge for yourself. Good luck, and have some fun -- it feels good to help someone!

FACTS ON POVERTY

Every day, at least 30,000 people around the world die from poverty; most of whom are under five years of age. They die because they are undernourished, and do not have enough food or water to survive. More than 800 million people go hungry every day. This is 13% of the world population. How can you help? By playing this game on FreePoverty.com, each answer you get correct, 10 cups of water will be donated. Somewhere in the world, someone will receive it. And it will make a difference to their day.

WHY WATER?

70% of a human being is made up of water. Water is the second most essential element for survival, after oxygen. Over one billion people in the world do not have access to clean drinking water; hence, causing them to develop deadly diseases. Moreover, without water, the brain is not able to function properly. One cup of water can make difference to someone's day. FreePoverty allows you to donate as many cups of water as you can to save millions of people.

MORE INFORMATION ABOUT FreePoverty.com

FreePoverty intends to do the same, and they want you to contribute. By testing your basic knowledge on their map, each correct answer means you will be donating 10 cups of water. FreePoverty chose water as their primary source of donation, because it is something that all human beings need to survive. Around the world, there are too many people who don't have access to clean drinking water; thus causing various illnesses. With your contribution, FreePoverty may be one drop closer to ending poverty and making the world a better place.

Goin' Home Again

2008-12-06T00:13:00.002-05:00

When I Grow-up...

I just read a really nice post on Fuel Your Creativity about social networks by Andy Jacobson where he described the positive impact his online social life has on his design work and how it related to his "Home Town". Good stuff. I really like the metaphor. The somewhat short and simple post and some of the comments left by folks got me thinkin' about the topic, and I thought I'd tap-down some of my own thoughts on the subject.

For me, while growing-up the world got bigger as I did, and then I reached a tipping point -- and as I moved around a bunch it began to get smaller. I realized that there are many more things we all have in common than there are differences. Sometimes it's tough to remember this during the day-to-day hustle-bustle though.

I think everybody can appreciate it when folks put the "real" them out there... it's honest and heartfelt, you know? It's like a well-written short story. It's like a timeless photo. It's the stuff that gets into your core right down to the human element.

I've always felt we all unknowingly weave our brief and seemingly random, thread-like lives into a "Human fabric." It's old and worn, and it gets ripped and tattered but it won't ever tear apart. It's the metaphor I've always visualized to describe the Human condition.

Them Miles I've Traveled

I've been surfing the web since the early Nineties... Waaay back when there was only one browser: Mosaic, and a 300 baud modem was fast. I started trying to build web 'pages' around that time too. Heck, I had a Zenith 286 laptop with 1 Megabyte of RAM and I was doing "page layout" and brochure pages as a freelancer so it kinda made sense. Really basic stuff. Besides, I thought it just might be "the next big thing!" In retrospect, I've cobbled together a decent career over the years and rubbed elbows with some really fantastic people, built some great relationships and friendships because of computers, the web -- and now with Social Media.

I grew up in a small (one square mile) town just outside NYC. It had a town center, and everyone pretty much knew everyone else and it really had a sense of community. I have a busy offline "real" life and I'm slowly building a really nice, enjoyable and complimentary online virtual life as well. I now live in New England very close to Needham where Andy grew up. Small world.

Like Andy -- and probably a lot of other folks -- I love the cool factor that all the Web 2.0 technology presented. I always felt that the "you have to eat your own dog food" analogy made a lot of sense. You really have to use it to be able to design it well, right? I've been signing up for just about every service I run across to see what it does, and how it does it, and to soak-in that "virtual goodness" -- that cool factor that makes even the toughest geeks get all warm and fuzzy on the inside.

It's Good To Be Home

Maybe it's the time of year. Thanksgiving and some quality time spent with the family? Maybe it's my recent trip back home for a High School Reunion. It's nice to be a thread in the fabric, however torn and tattered it may be.

For me, it's nice to be a part of something bigger than the everyday stuff. The rough and tumble, "I just gotta get through this week" stressful kinda stuff. The virtual world doesn't seem to have the same challenges, nagging issues or problems that can build-up and stick-around in my "real" life. I like the energy and enthusiasm of the design community, and it's nice to be able to tap into a flow of consistent creative inspiration. I'm always inspired to try and continue to learn, challenge myself and try to hone my skills... feeling like I'm a prt of something bigger helps me to try to always keep an optimistic outlook on things, and "keep on keeping on" when things get tough.

I like the "connectedness" of my virtual social life, and I like the fact that it's always there, active and churning, rumbling with life. An endless virtual stream of something new and exciting just around the corner.

Posted via web from ptamaro's posterous

I am Now Publishing on AddsYou.com

2008-12-05T08:59:00.005-05:00

AddsYou is a social publishing network (still in Alpha) that pays authors for their written works. Not all the features are complete, but the core of AddsYou is up and running and can be extensively tested.

The AddsYou mission is to be the most visited and lucrative user-generated content site on the Internet contributing to the creation of a world-wide database of knowledge sharing as much revenue as possible with our best contributing users.

It’s a community full of fun and passionate authors that are hungry for writing, sharing, and interacting with other authors with similar interests. What do you know? Share your knowledge today!

Content on AddsYou is published by people like you from all around the world. AddsYou lets you publish just about anything you like online. Many authors publish their school papers, how-to's, news articles, journal entries, reviews, tips, poems, research reports, short stories, tech talk, e-books, ezines, etc… Be creative and more importantly, have fun!

Have fun publishing and make sure to send them feedback!

Find out more: www.addsyou.com
Get your FREE account now, it's super cool!
username=MjAwOC0xMi0wNSAwODo1MDowNQ==

Wow, I Got Smashed!

2008-12-01T00:34:00.005-05:00

Yes, we can...
Here's one from the "Stick to it, you can do it" Category... Way back in March of this year Smashing Mag started featuring stunning desktop wallpaper created by amazing artists and designers working on the web. I was hooked on Smashing since they rolled in the Fall of '06, and they really crank-out great articles, resources, how-to's, fonts, tools and all sorts of stuff that really does "make your life easier" if you work on the web (or if you geek-out just for fun, huh?).

In March I was so inspired by the amazing artwork that I took on a personal challenge to try and see if I could get Smashed too at some point — and I set out to try and make some decent desktop wallpapers whenever I had time. Finally, in November I submitted a wallpaper just to see if my stuff would rank, but that set wasn't chosen (the calendar was too difficult to see). No biggie I figured, and I churned-out another set for December just for chuckles, submitted them and went about my boring routine just as I always do and thought nothing of it...

Feelin' Pretty Good Now
I returned from a rare, and invigorating brief traveling jaunt and checked my email and deleted my typical SPAM messages (sorry: it's actually large enough, I don't need a mortgage or a mail-order bride, and I don't need an expensive watch, etc.) and then did my typical web surfing and feed reading. Then, I remembered I had submitted my wallpaper, and went to see if the fine folks at Smashing had posted for December with my fingers crossed and there I was, SLAM I got Smashed and it was a great feeling. Nice.

One Ant and One Giant Rubber Tree
Here's what made the grade, and I called it "Violet Night" because it sorta sounded good and seemed to make sense at the time. I dressed it up in some fancy phrases to make it seem like I actually had a concept when in fact I was really just messing around with Photoshop.

I think I can, I think I can!
I think I'll try to do something again next month since it's really kinda fun and I like rubbing pixels with some of the best on the web — makes me feel like I am somebody, really. Maybe I'll actually get some traffic and a few ad clicks on this stupid blog after all these years. That's another long-winded long-term goal, but I've stopped holding my breath waiting for a check from Google.

Check out all the fantastic stuff they've got at Smashing Magazine, and add them to your feeds — heck, why not try and submit your stuff? It's good for you and 100% natural without all the weird side effects, fast talk and fine print...
:-D

Blue Beanie Day 2008

2008-11-28T09:49:00.005-05:00

Standards make sense.
Get your blue toque or beanie on and support Web Standards — it's good for you, your browsers and surfers and it's good for the web... face it, Web Standards just make sense.

Huh, what's up with that?
Visit A List Apart to get more info on Web Standards or get the skinny right from Zeldman. ALA has lots of articles on Web Standards. You can also visit The Web Standards Project which is "a grassroots coalition fighting for standards which ensure simple, affordable access to web technologies for all."

Show solidarity with the Standardistas on Friday, November 28th, 2008.

Show your support for web standards and accessibility. Wear a blue beanie, or blue hat (but mostly blue beanies) snap a photo and join the bluebeanieday2008 Flickr group to show your support.

Also known as a Watchman's Cap. Some people call these head coverings a stocking cap, and in some parts of Canada they call it a tuuk, or tuque. In Detroit, a beanie is sometimes called skully, and if you are really a cool hip hop artist (or rap star), you wear a DooRag under your Blue Beanie.

:-D

Cool Tool: MeetInBetween.Us

2008-11-22T11:35:00.009-05:00

"Okay, I'll meet you half-way there..."
Simple problem, simple (yet sophisticated) solution. I was doing my morning surfing and reading tweets on my Twitter [Follow me @ptamaro] and I saw a tweet by @kyleplacy with the URL for MeetInBetween.Us and decided to check it out. I'm really glad I did because this is a really helpful app that takes two locations and finds a central location to meet, and presents you with places to meet by category.

How does it work?
For example, I want to meet my friend from Providence, RI for coffee next week so I type that location in and then type Boston, MA as my second location. I'm presented with Sharon, MA as the central location and categories like food, coffee, bar, hotel, mall, etc. and then it gives you places to meet based on the topic you choose. Simple, huh? It also gives you directions on how to get there from each starting location. In addition. it gives you a a nice short link to the map and location so you can share it with the other person.

Results, plain and simple.
How about coffee at the Starbucks at 5 Post Office Sq #5 in Sharon, MA on Wednesday evening around eight? Let me know if that works for you, either way... I'll have a Triple Espresso with one sugar please! :-D

Did he just say, "Flux Capacitor"?

2008-11-21T08:15:00.003-05:00

Posted by email from ptamaro's posterous

Substance with style -or- substance and style?

2008-10-31T08:17:00.002-04:00

Medium + message
Here's a quick and rambling post on the topic of style and substance. I just read a somewhat nasty comment on a blog that I frequent and it got me thinking about style. The flagrant comment focussed solely on the writers style, and in my opinion, missed much of the points the writer was trying to present.

Form, function? Whatever...
When I think of form vs. function issue (or is it function vs. form?), I tend to lean towards function as being the more important of the two for me. This is because so many things don't hold up to the test of time these days, and it bothers me when things just don't work or function well and do the very thing they are meant to do in the first place. If something looks great and is aesthetically pleasing and all that stuff but doesn't work, what's the point? I like dependable products and I don't mind fixing them when they fail to deliver because of normal use. When I'm constantly fixing things to just get 'em to work, it bothers me. It's about efficiency. It's about design.

Form = Style, delivery, medium

Function = Substance, purpose, message

So what's the 'dilly'?
Obviously, it's really nice when something functions well and has a great design in terms of it's look and feel, or aesthetic. I love the phrase, "we can deliver it with quality, on time, or on budget: but you can only pick two of the three." Like many people, I need to pay attention to the cost when buying things, but oftentimes I don't mind having to spend more for a better product. I like it when things last. I don't care for cheap products and many times I wait to buy an item when I can afford to pay for the superior product because it's more likely to do what it's designed to do and be dependable, and also stand the test of time with proper use.

Benefit of doubt
Folks are busy. It seems people are less willing to give others the "benefit of the doubt" these days. We live in a "heated" era where every word is often scrutinized and the point is frequently overlooked. This is an example of style over substance. The scrutiny is focused on the style rather than the substance – it's when you can't get past the delivery to see the underlying substance. Presentation and delivery (form) is important.

The concepts and ideas are what draw me to certain blogs, twitter tweets, and other web stuff on a regular basis. The writer's "voice" is much like adding some salt & pepper to a well made dish – it adds flavor. A writer's style helps distinguish the work from others. It can be playful and fun. It can draw the reader in to deeper aspects of the message. It makes things more memorable as well.

Mix it up
I like when a writer uses a colloquial or "tongue in cheek" style. It's even better when a command of language is demonstrated as well, and the two are mixed together, much like a good ballet. It's a sprinkling of style among the substance. I'm even willing to overlook a few typos and errors here and there... I try not to let the style get in the way of the purpose.

Maybe I'm getting older (or seasoned), but I prefer to take things in stride. I try to enjoy the ride, even when it's a bumpy one. I keep it "slow and steady" with the hope of going farther. I'd rather be a little forgiving than not. Go ahead, mix it in...

Posted by email from ptamaro's posterous

Smashing Magazine: Nov '08 Calendar

2008-10-30T00:13:00.007-04:00

I finally set aside some time to make an effort to submit something to Smashing Magazine for their monthly roundup of stunning desktop wallpapers. I haven't had a lot of spare time lately, but then who really has any idle time these days right? That said, I was able to churn this set out, and I hope they select it for inclusion in their November, 2008 collection. Earlier today they already had 53 submissions and I'm sure they're all really juicy and beautiful. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Anyway, the basic concept is:

Falling forward...
The cold North Wind blows
Remaining leaves of frozen bitter branches
Carry the old towards the new.

+ 1920x1200

+ 1680x1050

+ 1600x1200

+ 1280x960

All of the ones in this set have a calendar. I wanted the color palette to be monochromatic: dull, dark and dreary like a cold November night. I figured I'd start with something simple and see if they include it, then make more time next month and do it again if they do. I have a bunch of my other desktop wallpapers available on my flickr account if you are interested in some of my other stuff.

My First Posterous Post

2008-10-28T13:10:00.004-04:00

I don't have a lot of time at the moment (I'm actually eating my lunch), but I figured I should really give Posterous a post and get an idea of how it works since it's been a few days since I first signed-up. I got the link from Graham in a tweet (follow imjustcreative, you'll learn stuff).

Wow! Posterous is really awesome. What a brilliant idea...

Posterous — The place to post everything. Just email us. Dead simple blog by email.

The user interface is really simple yet sophisticated and intuitive — this app begs to be used, I just wish I had something worthwhile to post and more time to mess around with it. Post Videos, MP3s, photos, random ramblings you want to get out of your head — no setup or signup — whatever you send 'em they'll just gobble it up and post it for you.

I'm just minutes into it, and I love it already! This is a good example of a great User Experience. It's just that simple. :-)

» Get yours at www.posterous.com

Posted by email from ptamaro's posterous

Review: MeeID - An Online Business Card

2008-10-07T07:11:00.001-04:00

A few weeks ago, I stumbled across this neat little nugget web application called MeeID which is kinda like an online business card (for lack of a better description). It's so simple to use, it's free, and it's design is really lovable.

This is an extremely brief review because the application is just so simple and straightforward — and the design is very clean and intuitive. There's just not much to it, but it does what it does very well. All you need to do is sign-up for a free account, add your avatar or a photo, and then add some links... You can also add "favorites" or search for people and even get a random MeeID from the 1284 people who currently have a MeeID. It's cool...

There are lots of things that you can do with MeeID if you let your imagination flow. If you need some ideas to get your imagination going, the application's author Bronson Taylor has put a list of some ideas of what you can do with MeeID together for you.

Here's my MeeID in case you want to see another example.

Top 10 Benefits of an Online Life

2008-10-05T09:14:00.010-04:00

Squeezin' spare time into a busy life
With three very active kids, a full-time job and a few side projects, two cars and a house that are in constant need of repair and maintenance – my spare time is extremely limited, and lately it seems like it's even tougher than ever to find even a few minutes to do things I enjoy doing like blogging and reading blogs or trying to develop my artistic skills by doing purely creative stuff....

Enter the social space
Using online tools like Twitter, Flickr, Social|Median, FriendFeed, etc. etc. etc., and my favorite RSS feed reader is the only way for me to actually keep-up with the virtual onslaught of new and interesting products and services on the web. If you're a dog, you should be eating your own dog food AND the dog food others are cookin' up. That said, I've been using all sorts of services for years because I feel really strongly that:

"You need to use it to design it effectively..."

it's an easy and enjoyable way to stay on top of trends and try to become (or hopefully remain) hip...

it helps you develop, respect, and maintain a healthy "user-centered" design and development approach...

you meet some very interesting people, and learn a lot along the way...

it feels good to help others to learn, and spread the love...

create an online persona and personal brand to extend the "real you" and you might even learn things about yourself you may not have known before...

gain experience and grow your design & technical capabilities and stay competitive...

find yourself getting involved in really interesting projects...

eliminate any possibility of becoming bored...

it's a LOT of fun!

Props to some of "my peeps"
With these things in mind I want to just spread the love for some of the folks that have had a positive impact on my online experience(s). These folks are riding the latest waves and definitely on top of the latest trends. They've also got great insight, they're interesting people, have an active online life, and they will help you keep the creative juices flowing if you're stuck in a creative rut. I especially like the funny tweets, and interesting links. Twitter is and has always been lots of fun as well as one of my favorite services and sources of inspiration, so I'll start there. Here are some folks* you should really consider paying attention to and following:

Orli

imjustcreative

adellecharles

justcreative

socialmedian

chriscoyier

pglyman

beckychr007

fermion

Kitta

hellyeahdude

smashingmag

fubiz

Photoshop_GU

aaronv

cookbook

hoshposh

You?

*I do plan on adding to this list when I get more time — it's not everyone so sorry if I have not mentioned you yet. Also, If you want me to follow you just follow me and feed us some juicy tweets. If you are on this list and you'd rather not be, just let me know.

More to come soon I hope
Okay , that's all I have time for rite now, but I'll try to add to this soon... I'm off to the library to see if we can find some Babar books at the Library and drop the big girls off in the center.

Never Forget.

2008-09-11T08:09:00.002-04:00

09.11.01

09.11.07

Office Jargon v3.1

2008-09-08T22:42:00.005-04:00

I'm trying to make time to read blogs again. Here's a recent post from Lyndonology that really made me actually LOL, and got me thinking about how great it is to be "working in the interactive Web 2.0 space" these days. His post is a derivative from BBC News Magazine's Article, 50 office-speak phrases you love to hate.

I've heard a bunch of the office phrases he lists in the post, but I haven't heard all of them before... there's a few really juicy ones in there. These days, I try use phrases like this in meetings and stuff just to see if I can get others to use them, and because they're generally empty phrases that lack any real useful substance. It's kinda fun in a twisted sort of way. Give it a try, just make sure you use these phrases with conviction, and never ever back-down or break into laughter if you're pressed into a situation where you'll need to actually explain what you mean. Just think quickly and make up another one, look at your watch and let that person know you have a meeting to get to!

Perk up those dull meetings
I used to work with a guy (he's hilarious) who made the greatest sounding "tech phrases" up and then use 'em in meetings to see how long it took to have his own phony phrases come back to him. It's just great to hear a CEO talk about the "creamy goodness" of a "web product's UI" or functionality.

In the beginning...
What about the early days? Remember when people used to want to make their web sites "sticky"? Kinda like fly paper, or maybe something you might find in a public restroom stall? Yeah, right... great. That'll make me want to bookmark you. I'm not sure you're "grokking it" though.¹ And here's a great old-style umbrella phrase that was used to describe everything but your microwave oven, "multimedia" ...it still has a certain zest to it, doesn't it?

Here's a recent one I've been hearing more frequently: "socialize". This one is really kinda growing on me — it's so upbeat and snappy! Doesn't it sound just groovy? Like we might get to dance or have drinks, and possibly even snuggle-up?

I think these phrases are great if you're just getting into the "high tech industry" or have a tough time putting several consecutive substantive and meaningful sentences together. They're great for making that flashy first impression too. They're also great to whip out in interviews, parties and even holiday get-togethers with old friends or your extended family. Go ahead, give them a whirl. Cousin Jed will think you're a real "rocket surgeon" who works on that "internet thing." Folks will think you're, "on the ball."

Here are a few more gems coupled with the reason(s) I find them interesting:

Ah, let's revisit that again later"

No, let's have a visit with it right now -- isn't that the reason we're having this forever-long meeting in the first place?

[insert product or website name here] is getting a lot of buzz lately

Dude, we're in a boardroom, you can't smoke that in here!

Can you take that offline?

We're in the parking lot, so technically we're not really "online" per se. Which leads me to this one...

Technically speaking, blah, blah, blah...

This one's very popular with engineers, folks who your frinds jobs have been outsourced to, and consultants.

Let's continue to press on

Very lively and invigorating! Um, yeah that's gonna make me type faster.

...and here's a few I hope to start circulating soon: "Yeah, I'm clickin' it..." or "ok you've got my bookmark" but maybe they need a little more post-processing?

:-|

Google Shines On With Chrome

2008-09-03T08:26:00.014-04:00

Google just released their new "One box for everything" browser called Chrome. The name is a direct reference to the term used to describe a desktop software application's interface elements. The name also implies "shiny and new" which it definitely is. The current beta is only available for Windows users, and unfortunately the Mac and Linux versions are not out yet and it's not clear when they'll hit the street.

Do We Need Another Browser, But Why?
Google's goal and concept for Chrome was that, "spend much of our time working inside a browser" and the "web gets better with more options and innovation." They also wanted to "completely rethink the browser" and create "a modern platform for web pages and applications." Let's see what develops in the near future, but so far things are impressive.

It's Got That Creamy Goodness
All the code is open source, and they've "used components from Apple's WebKit and Mozilla's Firefox" and under the hood they built V8, a more powerful JavaScript engine which should keep even extremely complex web apps in control. That said, Chrome is blazing FAST! It's also CSS3 capable, so users will have a better overall experience. The interface is kinda Microsoft Vista looking and very simple which makes it easy to use since there are only a limited number of features so far. Some of the features are: DNS pre-fetching, gears, phishing & malware protection, dynamic tabs, and "incognito mode" (ala Safari?). There's also a cool little feature called "Task Manager" where you type about:memory in the location bar to see the current memory usage for your browsers... Looks like Firefox is a RAM hog with all my Add-ons, extensions and plugins installed. You can see the full list of features and video explanations on their features page.

Give Google Chrome a try...
Download Google Chrome »

Geeky Stuff &mdash Get Your Geek On
Here are some fun things you can do already, remember this is just an initial beta release! I'm sure the folks at Google have lots of cool stuff on the way.

Highlight some text or page elements and right-mouse-click and choose "Inspect element" to see a developer inspector (Firebug-like) which allows you to see the DOM and mess with it, and you can dock/un-dock to the window or view it in a tab, and do some other nifty things... [This is an awesome feature]

Type about:memory in the location bar to see your memory use.

Find more helpful info on GChrome here or get more GChrome developer info here.

Type about:version in the location to get your current installed version of GChrome.

Or, check the version "About Google Chrome" from the wrench menu, and it'll even tell you if your installed version is up to date.

Or make your Firefox new and shiny with this:
Chromifox 1.0rc2 Theme

...another blatant rip-off of another default theme from another great open source web browser! This time, the target is Google Chrome, or more specifically Chromium, the open source project behind it. The clean lines, slick layout, and compact style of Chromium were the points of inspiration for this theme. Chromifox offers a coat of Chrome for Firefox.

Free TV For Your High-Speed Connection

2008-08-26T23:01:00.011-04:00

Remember "Hawaii Five-O", "The Twilight Zone", "Adam 12", "The Addams Family", and "Lou Grant"? I've been a huge fan of Hawaii Five-O for years and I only have about 27 episodes taped on VHS (yes, they're less-than-optimal but still worthy of watching — no commercials). I remember staying-up late to catch the re-runs at 3-AM whenever I could. Well, with more TV and media being offered online and cheaper high-speed connections, it's getting easier to get your "TV Mojo on" and soak up that video-goodness whenever you want.

I was really pumped when I clicked a Google advertisement and found FanCast (owned by Comcast Interactive) which has lots of really juicy old TV gems available online for free. I'm a happy Verizon customer so the site is new to me....

It's really cool to be able to re-watch stuff from way back in my childhood, catch-up on shows I've never seen before, and save favorites and share 'em with others. The only downside so far is that you are forced to watch commercials before and during the shows.

It's like Hulu and they get some content from Hulu. Fancast's got lots of the old stuff all in one place, but Hulu's interface is slick and intuitive. Also, Hulu's got great features like subscriptions, a queue, and the privacy settings are really nice. Another cool thing about Hulu is that there's much more than just old TV shows. Hulu also has really nice HD content if you're got the hardware to support it. The Nature and Documentary content is really captivating if you have a large display.

Re-cast from the past
My all-time favorite broadcast from the past is Hawaii Five-O (1968-1980). I really love the twisted plot lines, strong character development and cast, visual style — everything about the show. I'm going to start watching the episodes I've never seen before first. Here's a little taste from one of the best television "Cop shows" of all time...

Hawaii Five-O
Some Day We Shall Be Strangers in Our Own Land

A native's love of his unspoiled homeland, a mysterious woman with a camera, a man with a briefcase, and a millionaire industrialist are pieces of the strange puzzle confronting McGarrett - 51:13 minutes

I took the Survey—did you?

2008-08-12T00:10:00.004-04:00

Last year, A List Apart created their Web Design Survey for people who work on and develop the web. When the results are in, they present their findings, analyze them and then publish the data (excluding personal information).

I took the survey last year, and I finally had a few minutes to take it again this year. Last year's 37 questions were reduced and refined into just 18, and it took me about five to 10 minutes to get through it this year. Last years Survey yielded responses from 33,000 web professionals from the United States, and all over the world.

If you work on the web building web sites, or web applications why not take a few minutes to take the survey? It's good for the profession, and good for you. Last year they even awarded some prizes to a lucky few who participated...

Boost traffic: Claim your blog in Technorati...

2008-08-05T22:56:00.013-04:00

Here's a simple tip if you're looking for something to do with a few idle minutes, and it can help you boost traffic and return readership.

Claiming your blog in Technorati is simple and very quick, just log into your Technorati account and follow these four easy steps...

Enter your blog's URL
Choose your claim method, I just chose the standard default method this time
Activate the claim (so their spiders can crawl your site or blog)
Customize the blog information

That's it — your done! You can also follow my posts using Technorati by clicking either one of the button links below...

Keep in mind that it takes a lot of traffic and bunch of fans to create a decent rank (mine is still a pathetic rank at: 1,940,128) so don't get disheartened and give it time to percolate and bubble-up. Organic traffic takes effort and time, but it's free and if you like to blog it's fun — and it's a lot better than chewing rocks...

Search better than Google?

2008-07-28T08:07:00.001-04:00

If you're looking for something cool on the internet these days, you'll probably use a search engine. You've also probably used all the big well-known search engines out there, but now there's another player in the space, cuil (pronounced "cool"). Developed by former Google engineers, and self described as "the world's biggest search engine", cuil boasts an index that spans over 120 Billion pages (Search 121,617,892,992 web pages).

Cuil's results are neatly presented in columns, very relevant to your search terms, and based on actual content not popularity. At the moment, there are no ads to get in your way either. If you value your privacy, cuil believes "that analyzing the Web rather than our users is a more useful approach" so they "don’t collect data about you and your habits" which is very refreshing.

Its features include relevant drill-down suggestions, roll-over definitions for additional information, tabbed choices, and logical search suggestions.

Its name is an old Irish word for knowledge, and if you still haven't found what you're looking for — then give cuil a try »

Quick Review: Adobe Photoshop Express

2008-04-11T14:15:00.023-04:00

Birth of The Cool, Again.
Adobe recently launched their Photoshop Express Beta [Px]. It's a Flash-based photo manipulation and online photo album application – and it definitely has the "wow" factor and several "cool tool" aspects to it. The best thing is, it's FREE, and you get 2Gb of free storage!

The interface is logical and intuitive and looks a lot like Lightroom, and in terms of interaction, things generally work the way you anticipate them to. Overall, it's a very impressive tool, but it certainly isn't "Photoshop on the web" as many rumors had purported. The rumors set our expectations way too high, even though we all knew it wouldn't be the case. In general, the user experience is reasonable-to-good but it falls short on a few points. Oh, and it's got that "Web 2.0" cool too...

Chicken or egg(s)?
I've used a good handful of the web-based photo tweaking tools that are out there, and things are definitely getting better with the latest stuff I've seen. I think that Picnik has been the best (and the only full featured one for a time) in my opinion, but now Express poses a bit of competition. I'm a HUGE fan of Picnik [http://picnik.com] and its extensive array of features make a lot of sense for most of the basic photo manipulation stuff I need and use regularly. I plan to do a posting on Picnik soon for comparison. Obviously, the thing that makes Picnik so awesome and one of the things that sets it apart from all of the other tools, is that it works seamlessly in conjunction with Flickr (and MySpace, FaceBook, PhotoBucket, and Picassa) or you can upload photos directly from your computer. This is one of the best things about Picnik.

The first thing I noticed about Express [Px] is that it won't save my login credentials so I have to type 'em in every time I log in (Firefox 2.x) and this just really gets to me. Unfortunately, this is more common than it should be. It's a Flash/Flex or Firefox thing I think, and Blogger used to do that too but it's since been fixed (EntreCard still doesn't work correctly, and this limits my drops because of the sheer "frustration factor").

This kinda bugs me because I have to add my photos to yet another service. Bummer. One thing that sets Express apart from other online photo editing tools is the capability to make a Photo Album from photos you've uploaded to your account, and then it's really easy to share them.
Example [Px] Albums:

Nature Album 1

Ice Hockey

Screen shots & Features...

Photoshop Express got some very cool editing features, and a bit of the "goofiness" as well. Simple stuff like rotate appear when you rollover an image, and you're brought into editing mode to do other tweaks.

Some of the obvious features are: crop, auto-correct, red-eye removal, exposure, touch-up, and saturation. You can tune the white balance, highlight, sharpen or add soft focus.

You can also use effects like "pop-color", hue, tint, black & white, or have some fun with "sketch" (this is very rudimentary compared to some Photoshop actions), or "distort" which is kinda goofy and I haven't found a real use for it just yet. It reminds me of the old Macromedia tool (I think it was "Goo", but I can't remember the name at the moment).

Overall, Adobe Photoshop Express is a very cool online tool, but there's room for improvement. It's definitely one to add to your arsenal, and I'm interested to see what they have planned next.

Give Photoshop Express [Px] a shot, and share an album or two and let us know what you think...

Your Flicks on Flickr

2008-04-10T23:53:00.001-04:00

If you haven't noticed yet, Flickr rolled out their video functionality on Monday and it's flickrliscious.

You can now upload and share your videos on Flickr in much the same way you share your photos. This makes total sense since "slices of life" aren't always captured in a single photo, and because just about everyone has a digital camera these days — and video is becoming far more ubiquitous than it was years ago.

Your videos can be an AVI, MPEG or MOV format and they are limited to 90 seconds and/or a maximum file size of 150 Mb. So far, you can add comments to the videos, captions, geotags, and set privacy restrictions. The Flickr blog also mentions the ability to add "video" as a content type and additional moderation "safety levels" to your pool contributions. Here's the Flickr video FAQ with all the basic info in case you still have questions.

But wait, there's more...

At the end of Heather's post, she mentions that "...we’re doubling the size of photos that can be uploaded — 20MB per photo for pro members and 10MB per photo for members with free accounts" which is great for those folks with mondo mega-pixel cameras. If you haven't "gone Pro" then you really ought to and I strongly recommend it (It's still just US$24 bucks per year)!

Here's more info...
» Flickr Help: Free Accounts, Upgrading & Gifts

MMA Fight Science on NatGeo, don't miss it!

2008-01-30T23:46:00.002-05:00

The technology and science behind the sport of Mixed Martial Arts is amazing and National Geographic has done an amazing job -- it's a "must see"... don't miss it. They discuss in detail all of the different types of martial arts and how it's all incorporated into MMA -- you'll dig the technology and science of it for sure.

+ More info and schedule on NatGeo »

+ More MMA can be found at MMA Mania »

+ And of course the UFC has a lot more on the sport

Here's a taste (trailer)...

First Impressions: AdWords is...

2008-01-25T22:31:00.000-05:00

We had an interesting challenge at work recently. We were asked to run a campaign using Google AdWords and generate as much traffic, and conversions as we could in two weeks. Most of this stuff was new to me, and there is definitely an art, and a lot of science to it. My first impression of Google AdWords is very good -- it's powerful, easy to use (after you get used to some of it's features), fun and cool like most Google Apps.

I took a fairly unscientific approach, and really just tried to absorb and learn what I could. My budget was next to nothing, and I wanted to see what I could do on a really tight budget. I got a reasonable amount of traffic but unfortunately, I don't think I got any product conversions (purchases). My completely unscientific approach and limited budget was a bit of a let-down -- and I really didn't spend as much time as I wanted on it. We were asked to spend about an hour a day on "the challenge" in between our regular stuff.

There's a tremendous amount of really good help and documentation, and a lot of time can be spent just reading -- which was one of my main goals -- there's a lot more to it than just knowing what the acronyms mean. It's probably a good idea to plan for that before starting a campaign.

I think the trick is to come up with a plan of action, and metrics to help you evaluate your success/failure and progress. An obviously critical aspect is to get the right keywords and creative that makes sense for the keyword sets you want or need to use. Then bid-up, burn-in, track, and quickly peel out the stuff that isn't working.

I ran two pretty basic campaigns:

1) Starter Campaign - Budget Optimizer enabled [ $20.00 / 30 days ]

2) Campaign #2 - Price focussed adverts [ $5.00 / day ]

Here are some numbers...

Clicks   Impr.   CTR    Avg. CPC   Cost
   11   24,627   0.04%   $0.24    $2.63
   63   99,620   0.06%   $0.79   $49.96
   74  124,247   0.05%   $0.71   $52.59 (Totals)

Writing really good creative is imperative. Ad position is also another key factor in terms of getting good results. In terms of generating traffic, you can judge for yourself. I was also able to get some purely organic traffic as well, but I don't have those numbers handy. That said, I was able to easily get more than double that traffic on my blog without spending a penny -- so I'm definitely still a strong believer in organic traffic generation.

I didn't get to spend much time on this area but the coolest feature for me was Google Analytics. Lots of data to look at -- graphs, maps, charts, and numbers galore -- and it helps you figure out what's going on and think about ways to handle your campaign.

Granted, there are puny numbers and it feels a little "Mickey Mouse" to me, but it was really interesting and I learned a bunch. I'm not sure of exactly how well others did, but there were a good handful of conversion purchases -- just not from my campaigns. I think my lack of conversions (and the same for other participants) is partly due to the nature of the product, and I think we could probably make some improvements to the product creation and the check-out process as well.

Ultimately, two conversions would have paid for my entire campaign, but as I mentioned before it was my first foray into AdWords and SEM, and there's definitely a LOT to it. I've had an AdSense account for a while (obviously), and I had an AdSense but never really used it until now, so I probably could have done the reading without spending anything but I think you really learn a lot more just by messing around with it.

I learned a lot for $52.59, why not give it a try? Hint: There's an AdWords link conveniently placed in the column on the right »

Seven Things you probably didn't know...

2008-01-07T01:24:00.000-05:00

Well, here goes nothing...

Lots of bloggers post their "Seven Things you probably didn't know about me" and other cool memes and lists, so I took a few minutes (about 27 minutes actually) and thought of a few of my own. After thinking of a few things about me, I realized that my life is a little more exciting than I originally thought it was, so I figured I'd share these little-known facts about me with all of you folks out there.

1) My avatar actually looks like me and I made it myself when I was supposed to be working (for a previous employer) but decided to do something "productive" instead.

2) I have two size 11 feet, but I can squeeze into a size 10-1/2 if I'm in a bind.

3) I used to read voraciously. I've read letters "B" through "S", and "U" through "Z" of Webster's Dictionary and much of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Yes, I have.

4) I have worn contact lenses for more than 30 years, rarely clean them or even take them out and I've only had a problem once.

5) I'm not great with math but I really love to count things, and I used to be a fantastic spellar.

6) There is a very high probability that I will be late for work tomorrow even though I value punctuality.

Hmmn. I could only think of six things about me, sorry.

UPDATE: Monday, January 7, 2008 - 7:13 AM
7) Ok, here is one more which makes seven: Elmo is my favorite Sesame Street character.

UPDATE: Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 7:31 AM
* Bonus Item: I just thought of another one... I can read upside-down and backwards! ;-)

Cool Site: FreeRice.com

2008-01-02T22:34:00.000-05:00

If you have a few minutes, point your browser to FreeRice.com but you'd better bring your brain! I just spent just a few minutes and helped them donate over 1000 grains -- and you can too, just give it a try.

You are given a vocabulary word, and all you need to do is, "click on the answer that best defines the word." For each word you get right, they will donate 20 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program.

This is really innovative and a brilliant idea: create a vocabulary game to help folks learn English vocabulary (and test their wits), and donate all the advertising proceeds to a worthy cause. Simple, huh? The site launched in October, 2007 and they have already donated more than 12,369,264,510 grains of rice. That seems like a lot of rice!

It's easy to play and it feels good to do something good for someone... Why not give it a try?

Here's my "good deed" for the day.

2007-12-16T16:08:00.000-05:00

With the blizzard-like conditions out side, I figured it was an easy day to do a "good deed" with so much sleet and snow out there. After making my way out to get coffee and breakfast for the kids, supplies at the store (in case we got snowed-in) and then a few errands around town, I slowly made my way home. The truck is just great in this weather, and I rarely have any trouble.

I made the left-turn onto our street and noticed a guy stuck -- even though it was a Subaru AWD. I saw his neighbor using his snow-blower to clean his own driveway for his McMansion with complete disregard for this guy who was stuck in a really bad way. These kinds of people really piss me off. Luckily I was driving slow enough to stop safely and ask if the older fellow with the Subaru needed help, and he immediately said YES! This was an opportunity for a "random act of kindness" on my part, so I pulled over...

I introduced myself, and he did as well. He's been there 10 years and we've been here for eight — so we both know that there are two basic types of people who live in town. Pierre and I seem to be similar enough for me to want to help him.

I had a shovel in the truck and in about 20 minutes, I had helped him clear a big four foot snow-bank of heavy wet packed snow so he might be able to get out of his driveway.

I didn't realize that before I stopped to help him he had wedged the front wheel of his Subaru about 8 inches deep into his lawn while also getting it precariously stuck on top of an icy snow-pack — his All Wheel Drive was useless because the wheels that could turn just spun and the others did nothing.

I suggested that we continue to dig as much as possible, and then let the engine idle and maybe the heat would melt some of the iceberg beneath his SUV. It was frustrating, but he's not getting out until the snow bank melts a bit in a day or so.

Anyway we shook hands and I was off to bring the coffee and breakfast, and all the other things in the house and then shovel my own driveway. What I didn't realize was I had missed most of the first half of the Patriots vs. Jets game by the time I had shoveled my walkway and as much as I could of the driveway. Bummer.

I made the kids brunch and some hot chocolate with the game in the background. The Patriots were winning but it wasn't the type of "blowout" that folks predicted. The weather definitely had something to do with the game's outcome. The Jets gave 'em a busy day, but the Pats won which makes them 14-0 for the season. They may go all the way this year, which is basically what I said in August.

*~<|:-)

Neither rain nor sleet nor... huh?

2007-12-15T22:16:00.000-05:00

Wow! I guess the old adage, "better late than never" really is true! I'm a big fan of the USPS, but check out this timely little nugget from Yahoo! News...

Christmas Card Arrives 93 Years Late.
Fri Dec 14, 4:13 PM ET
OBERLIN, Kan. - A postcard featuring a color drawing of Santa Claus and a young girl was mailed in 1914, but its journey was slower than Christmas. It just arrived in northwest Kansas.

The Christmas card was dated Dec. 23, 1914, and mailed to Ethel Martin of Oberlin, apparently from her cousins in Alma, Neb.

It's a mystery where it spent most of the last century, Oberlin Postmaster Steve Schultz said. "It's surprising that it never got thrown away," he said. "How someone found it, I don't know."

Ethel Martin is deceased, but Schultz said the post office wanted to get the card to a relative.

That's how the 93-year-old relic ended up with Bernice Martin, Ethel's sister-in-law. She said she believed the card had been found somewhere in Illinois.

Read the full story »

Cool Tool: VectorMagic

2007-12-09T06:30:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago, my co-worker DH sent me an IM "Have you seen this?" with the URL for Stanford's Vector Magic Online Bitmap to Vector Project. I was busy when he sent it and only just gave the site a quick visit, a bookmark and figured I'd visit again and blog it when I had more time.

Wow, this is an extremely cool tool! In a nutshell, The site converts bitmap images to vector art for you. It's an "online auto-tracer" built using Adobe's Flex2. To use it, just upload your image or photo, and the tool will create vectors for you. You can then save your vector art to EPS, SVG, or PNG format. You can use VectorMagic to process your image and then tweak the results as needed as well, this keeps all the heavy processing on their end, and you can focus on the fun stuff! Vectors are scalable because they are "geometric primitives" made-up of points, lines, curves and polygons — whereas raster graphics are a "map of pixels" (hence the name "Bit Map", or BMP). Vector files are also smaller in file size, and they can be scaled without a loss of quality. Find out more info on vector graphics on Wikipedia.

Here's an example of my first VectorMagic output. I took my avatar and ran it through their tool and got great results. Then I was able to play around with the SVG output to size my avatar as needed. I have the original Photoshop file so I can do that anyway, but this machine is getting old and slow, so it's nice to have a backup option. They also make it really easy to share your results to help spread the good word (you can play with my vectors made by VectorMagic, but my artwork is ©2006ptamaro so don't use it for your own purposes).

Also, if you don't have the original artwork in a vector format you won't be able to get good results if you need to change any of the elements, colors or size. In this case, you can vectorize the rastered artwork and then use the vectors to make the changes you need. Have fun, and let me know what you think of it!

» Visit VectorMagic

You Got Words? Play M-W's Online Crossword Puzzle!

2007-12-08T13:30:00.000-05:00

If you like puzzles, you should check out Merriam Webster's Online Daily Crossword Puzzle! It's really cool, and definitely challenging and fun. The interface is intuitive and it's interactive — you can reveal and/or check letters, words or even the entire puzzle as you work through it — and it has a timer (which you can pause when necessary).

It has the ability to save your progress as well. I started a puzzle earlier today, and before I began to write this post I went back and it brought me to the game I had already started. Really nice feature. Get your brain ready, the timer is ready to start ticking... Be forewarned, it can be addictive and it's easy to while away the hours playing.

You'll need Flash 6+ to play (it's ubiquitous these days, except on Linux).

» M-W.com Online Crossword Puzzle
Be sure to bring your brain!

» M-W.com Home Page
Dictionary and much more...

Cool Tool: Diagram Designer

2007-12-07T00:54:00.000-05:00

I recently needed a free “Visio-like tool” to do some diagrams for our latest project at work, but I don't have Visio, and I don't love using it either. Like most Microsoft tools, Visio's got way too many unnecessary bells and whistles which force you to learn the tool rather than get the task at hand done quickly. I like Graffle, but someone's "borrowing" the iMac I had on my desk so that wasn't an option either.

I did some quick searching and found this little gem, Diagram Designer 1.19 by MeeSoft, on TuCows.com (TuCows Diagram Designer product review/download).

Seek and find. This is a great freeware tool to "create flowcharts, diagrams and slide shows", and other vector stuff. It's light weight at 1.28 Mb, simple and easy to use -- and makes quick work of day-to-day grunt stuff.

The downside is it's Windows only (98 / NT / 2k / Me / XP / 2003 / Vista) no Mac or Linux. Also it saves the vectors in it's ".ddd" file format which I haven't seen before. But, you can import/export your work to other formats like: WMF, EMF, BMP, JPEG, PNG, MNG, ICO, GIF and PCX. It even has user submitted template palettes. Also, Mr. Vinther has released a previous version to Open Source.

» meesoft.logicnet.dk

I got great results -- and I got the job done quickly, so I figured it makes sense to share it. Let me know what you think.

Now if I could only remember where I left my cup of coffee...

:-|

Cool Tool: Ping-O-Matic!

2007-12-06T02:37:00.000-05:00

Got a blog? Want to let the community know when you've updated it? Problem solved in just a few clicks and you're done in seconds if you use Ping-O-Matic!

Just drop your blog title, URL, and RSS feed into their form, check the services you want to ping and off it goes. What are they up to and why is it free?

"Why go to all the trouble of setting up a free system that sends out over a hundred thousand pings a day? To play with all the data of course!"

Cool, huh? It's fast and FREE, so give it a try.

DIY: Instructables Makes "Making It" Fun!

2007-12-01T12:27:00.000-05:00

I'm finally getting around to blogging the instructables web site even though I've been visiting the site for some time now. It's an amazing resource of fun, interesting and resourceful projects you can do at home with your family. The DIY trend (Do It Yourself) is only going to become more popular as product prices and the overall cost of living continues to rise... Even the evening news has started to mention "inflation", so it's either on it's way for sure or it's already here.

At instructables you can delve into projects like making your own top-down blinds, or if you're courageous enough, you can even build a Mongolian Yurt! Categories include: Art, Craft, Food, Games, Home, Life, Ride, Offbeat, and Tech. They also have slideshows, videos, forums and groups so you can meet other "makers" as well. If you are looking to solve a problem or make something on the cheap -- or, if you need to find something productive to do on a rainy day, then this is the place to go!

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that they have a robot on staff...

"I am the Instructables Robot. My job is to alert you whenever someone leaves you a comment or sends you a private message. I spend most of my day sending email. I like sending email."

The instructables web site is community driven and it's completely free, so if you're into making stuff why not join up? I did! The site is one of the many successful projects by the fine folks at Fluffco.

Ponoko = Design, make, sell... smile.

2007-11-27T00:21:00.000-05:00

I stumbled across Ponoko, a very cool DIY/MIY/SIY (Design It Yourself, Make It Yourself, Sell It Yourself) site from New Zealand tonight during a very bashing mega-surf. Wow, it's an incredibly cool idea, that became a site, and got others involved in making stuff... and making some money -- and everyone gets happy. This is good all-around. Yup, it's becoming a trend out there, and these folks are really helping to make it happen.

You can create a Ponoko account for free, upload your design in EPS format, have it laser-cut in several different types of materials (e.g. MDF, Acrylic, Styrene, Plywood, etc.), and then sell what you've made. Very cool -- extreme cool in action!

I'm beginning to get inspired to actually "do some design" again, or at least think about doing some and that's good. Something tactile, useful... My brain is beginning to thaw just in time for the harsh bitter cold of a New England Winter! Odd how that works, huh?

When I get around to designing and making something, it'll wind-up here in my Ponoko Showroom.

Have a look-see for yourself if you like to MAKE Stuff at Ponoko.com

Make, sell... smile. It's contagious. ;-)

Happy Thanksgiving :-)

2007-11-22T10:10:00.000-05:00

Have a nice holiday, but remember all of the things to be thankful for. Take a moment to think of those less fortunate, and those who's days may not be as easy or rewarding as yours.

Think of folks you haven't seen in a while, and those who don't have the luxury of spending time with their family, or loved ones. Think about the friends and family members we have lost, and say a little prayer (if you pray).

Do something nice today -- it can be addictive and habit forming, and it feels good! Hold the door for someone, say some kind words, let that obnoxious driver go in front of you, or help someone carry their bags. Smile and be polite. Show some kindness.

Don't forget about the troops and other folks serving our democracy -- or those who dedicate their lives to our freedom, liberty and safety.

Thank you.

Boxes and Arrows gets even better

2007-11-11T10:50:00.000-05:00

It's new and improved! Are you a web designer? Then read give B&A a visit...
I guess it's been a little while since I've hit B&A, so I was psyched to see they've launched a new redesign. The new Boxes and Arrows UI is fresh, "clean", and compelling. I'm diggin' the orange and gray color scheme! Great job folks... I don't love the lack of link color or missing underlines for article titles in the "Previously" section on the Home Page, but that's not a big deal and really a minor detail. Give 'em a visit and see for yourself at www.boxesandarrows.com. I think they've always had really juicy topical, timely and poignant content as well. This new UI design reflects their level of quality content, depth of knowledge, and an earned leadership role in the industry. Top notch.

My only problem is that I just don't seem to have enough time to absorb and soak all the delicious goodness they've brought to the table, but here's one (or several) article that caught my eye...

Where's the "fold" you keep talkin' about?
Personally, I have felt for a long time that there is no fold in web design, period. Show me how to fold this CRT, or my panel and then I'll change my mind. Here's my point: Don't let misguided ideas about "folds" determine all of your design decisions. Compelling content eliminates scrolling problems. Don't force 'em, just persuade them! Let's leave the folding stuff to those who practice origami.

* Post abstract: is here
* Full article: Blasting the Myth of the Fold

Get RADIOHEAD in rainbows

2007-11-09T00:52:00.000-05:00

RA D IOHE_AD
IN RAINBOWS/
IN RAIN_BOWS
IN/RAINBOWS
ENTER

Saul Williams' "The Inevitable Rise and Liberation..." -- get it now

2007-11-09T00:01:00.000-05:00

There's a revolution going on, people. Be a part of it. Or you can choose to sit back and watch us roll right by you...

Take a special listen to a bunch of great jams, as well as an amazing cover of U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday. Really good stuff overall and I strongly recommend giving it a good loud listen.

Pay what you want, or pay nothing. But make sure you listen closely. Pump that volume and turn it way past eleven.

I got it, I did, and you should too. Go to SaulWilliams.com or to NIN and get it now, or you can fiddle with the widget above.

Browser Bruises Really Hurt...

2007-11-08T08:42:00.000-05:00

Wow, I have been using Opera 9.x more frequently for the last week or so -- it's an amazingly powerful browser -- but, goodness grief it's amazing how quickly the User Experience can degrade!

Yes, IE6 is broken, and Firefox 2.x can be a challenge but using Opera is a real eye-opener. Give Safari a whirl on Mac and it gets even better...

It's important to design with all of these issues in mind from the outset, and attempt to deliver a positive User Experience for all. It's far more important for the user to have a positive experience than for everyone to have an identical one.

Much of the creamy goodness of Web 2.0 just doesn't seem to work as it's supposed to in Opera. It's a real eye-opener indeed. These days, a small percentage of your customer base can actually be a large number of people, so it's hard to just write it off as "1 percent of our visitors" when that number can represent thousands or even millions of users or potential customers. I believe the term is "micro-niche" and folks have built very successful products and services just by attending to these 'small' niche markets.

The problem for developers is that customers tend to attribute a "less-than-optimal" user experience with the products, services, and companies that deliver them -- rather than technical limitations, or some other related factor. Budgets and deadlines don't necessarily account for this, and it quickly becomes a lose, lose, lose situation for all involved (i.e.: customer, designer/developer, product/service). Even worse, it's difficult to rectify or fix a bad User Experience after the fact.

Here are some examples... When I Drop a site into my Plum, I have to do it more than once -- even after logging in to my Plum account for that session. I also wind up with a bunch of windows that don't seem to relate to the Drop and things get messy quickly. Even worse, I could not even log in to my Blogger account to create this post in Opera because the login form didn't even show up!

What ever happened to the idea of graceful degradation for browsers that don't work the way things have been designed? Are we missing opportunities by just counting numbers when we segment off and alienate portions of our customer base because of technical limitations or design oversight? I think it's something like seven times more expensive to get a new customer than it is to keep an existing one happy.

Got thoughts? Got a pulse?

What Side Is The Gas Tank On?

2007-10-17T23:08:00.000-04:00

Well, is there any correlation between dashboard icons and your gas tank? NO! And why do we put up with this kind of poor design as consumers? Unfortunately, this kind of lackluster and "broken" design is commonplace and is frequently overlooked, and accepted — if it's even noticed...

I stumbled across this post on Core77 (a great design blog) the other day, and had to check my car just to be sure. As many of the comments show, this is just wrong.

The iconography on the dash has little or nothing to do with which side of your vehicle the gas tank is on. Unless it's a Ford. My Ford Explorer has an arrow to indicate which side you fill-up on which is really helpful.

At least on many computer systems, web sites, and software applications — the iconography is far more consistent, conventional, and helps the consumer use the product — and isn't that the point?

October 26, 2007: Now there's NO excuse.

2007-10-16T17:55:00.000-04:00

On October 26^th. Apple will release the long awaited "OS X Leopard" with more than 300+ new features. Now there will be no acceptable excuse for not getting a Mac. Or, at least I can't think of any that would be valid...

Find out more at Apple.

Vector logos galore (sort of)....

2007-10-10T09:56:00.000-04:00

Wish I knew about this site before starting my adidas desktop wallpapers! Check it out...

* http://www.allfreelogo.com

Ten Years After.

2007-09-30T08:33:00.000-04:00

After a recent camping trip, I was gathering some of the stuff that had accumulated in the truck, and adding it to a similar pile of stuff in the basement. I realized that I had two visitor guides from the same place--the White Mountains in New Hampshire--but they were from 1997, and 2007! It just struck me as kinda cool... I know we've been heading north for a while, but it was neat to have the same map from ten years ago. We'd been there before, and without intention, happened to go again exactly ten years after.

The designs are very similar and consistent, and not a lot has changed on the new one--take a look and see how many things you notice that are the same and how many improvements have been made.

It's really nice to take the family up north--especially in the fall to do some "leaf peepin'", or Apple picking. This area is really "family oriented" with so many things to do it would be hard to get bored. The prices are more reasonable than other New England states as well, not to mention the lack of sales tax (and lack of income tax) which gives you at least 5% more purchase power.

If you get a chance to visit New England, I strongly suggest a visit to the White Mountains! New Hampshire has so much to offer. It's definitely one of my favorite states for so many reasons. I like the color red, it's bold and upbeat. I really believe in freedom, liberty, and leadership by example. Add to all of this the most widely known and best state motto in the Union, "Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils." And then there's the New Hampshire state slogan which sums it all up, "You're Going to Love it Here."

My Favorite Color Is The Blues.

2007-09-28T22:34:00.000-04:00

Wow! Pandora does it again! They've rolled-out another stellar series of amazing musical moments with their Free Pandora Video Series.

Seems like they've got a rainbow of great stuff up their sleeves, and they've decided to start in the key of "C" for Chicago, and in my favorite color, the blues. Take a sneak-peek below at one of the first in the series from Buddy Guy's Legends.

A Box Becomes a Home.

2007-09-25T07:57:00.000-04:00

Finally catching-up and getting control over my "in-box onslaught" this morning. I love trees, and while reading this week's mailer from Team TreeHugger, I came across this really neat article post.

It's a cool renovation of a very small 40's "boxhouse" home. The materials used, overall design (John Pyatt, Pyatt Studio), and prefab implementation are extremely exciting and compelling. What a cool project... Seems like Colorado has got it's groove on lately.

Simplicity, complexity, John Maeda & design.

2007-09-24T07:24:00.000-04:00

Take a look and listen to this TED Talk by John Maeda. In it, he discusses daily life, technology, and design -- all mixed together with topical points of complexity and simplicity from the perspective of design and how it relates to daily life. His talk is engaging, and the examples are funny and well-worth the watch.

His new book Laws of Simplicity presents ten rules and three keys to working and living simply -- in the talk he brings it down to just one simple way to be...

Elegant Simplicity.

> Watch this talk on ted.com

Always remember and never forget.

2007-09-11T22:00:00.000-04:00

Remember where you've come from, where you've been, and where you're going. You can forgive, but never forget.

I loving memory of the ones we have lost.

Lucia B.

Euro Brokers Memorial

Boston University We Remember

National September 11 Memorial & Museum

World Trade Center Memorial Foundation

Flight 93 National Memorial

Pentagon Memorial Fund

One person at a time.

2007-09-06T23:28:00.000-04:00

I went to the Somerville Theatre this evening to join in on the Pandora Get-Together and it was a blast. Well over a hundred people were there for an engaging Q&A with Tim Westergren. Seemed like a wide range of folks in the bunch. Everyone had at least one thing in common. We all love music.

Music lovers, aficionados, connoisseurs, and musicians showed-up to discuss Pandora, technology, music in general, and the music industry. What a great night!

Music changes the world, one person at a time. I'm listening to Anthony Hamilton Sailin' Away as I write this. Check my Pandora profile to see and hear what I'm listening to when you read this.

Got a tune stuck in your head? What's your favorite band or musician? Who you listening to?

Today's UD-WOTD is just great!

2007-08-24T01:59:00.000-04:00

August 24

Remasculate

The opposite of emasculate. To grow one's balls back after they have been shrunken by an especially effeminate activity.

God, the girlfriend dragged me to go see License to Wed... it was terrible. I had to remasculate afterwards by watching Die Hard: The Bloody Retribution.

I'm waiting to see my submissions show up and I'll let you know if/when they do. Hang in there, "put your helmet on," and keep your eyes peeled! ;-)

> > > Urban Dictionary - Do your part to define your world...

Woof, Woof!

2007-08-15T14:30:00.000-04:00

The "HTML Dog" is probably the best reference site I've ever used over the years. Just what you need, and just enough to keep you coding along...

I strongly recommend his book "XHTML & CSS" as well. Why bother memorizing all this stuff -- just visit "The HTML Dog". Plenty of bark with just enough bite!

> > > Take the HTML Dog for a walk and see for yourself.

It's ALL about the USER, right?

2007-08-14T07:28:00.000-04:00

I just stumbled across an interesting article (Yahoo! News) that seems to focus on the issue of the importance of UX (User Experience) and customer satisfaction. Take a gander at the article and see what you think...

> > > Yahoo edges Google in user satisfaction survey

The article is proof-positive that these days attending to the user experience is critical to product success and user adoption. User satisfaction and a positive user experience can separate your product from it's competition, give you immediate as well as long-term advantages in the race towards success, and build a strong foundation for customer loyalty.

I use both Yahoo! and Google's products, and I feel there are benefits to both. I am loyal to, and use both both of them daily -- but for different reasons. Which is better? For me it depends on what you're trying to achieve. I think Google's better from the stand-point that they have a "suite of tools" that work together well. I can get a lot done in a short amount of time using my "Google apps". Whereas, I prefer the look and feel of Yahoo!'s email client, but the general process-flows are kludgey and tend to drag because of their onslaught of advertising. Both Yahoo! and Google tools tend to pop me into far too many windows. Google's got a far better account creation flow, and the process is simple, painless -- and it works. Yahoo!'s account creation can be painful. I recently tried to help my daughter set-up a Flickr account (owned by Yahoo!) so we could share photos, but we were left scratching our heads trying to figure out why we weren't able to do so (we kept getting errors), and we were left with a less-than-optimal user experience.

It's becoming increasingly clear that a positive user experience can be an obvious differentiator when traveling the road to product adoption and long-term success. Customer satisfaction can also have a direct effect on the bottom-line.

Ultimately, it's all about the user. What are your thoughts?

Why do I love Twitter?

2007-08-13T23:12:00.000-04:00

I love Twitter [twitter.com] first and foremost because I am a twit. Yes I am and that's okay.

I love twitter because it forces the writer to be clear, concise, and get to the point. I also love it's "stream of conscious", fragmented style of prose. I love it because it helps people communicate. I really like it's simplicity. It's non-judgmental, and friendly.

Most of all, I like it because it's priceless. It's also free, and that's good too.

Thanks for reading.

100% Natural Computing?

2007-04-30T21:59:00.000-04:00

Check out this... um, "earth friendly" computer stuff. Here's a really nice quiet wooden desk - Rusty's Quiet In-Desk PC, and A Real Beaver Case Mod for the hunter in you, or The Real Mouse, Mouse (this is just nasty). Who needs pets when you've got these nifty computer gadgets!

Here's one for folks on the go. This is my favorite find the Legnatile, by Zaverio. They make wooden desktop PC cases, handmade wooden laptops and other stuff in an ancient laboratory.

Photoshop World 2007: Guru's Gone Wild!

2007-04-09T09:09:00.000-04:00

Photoshop World 2007
Hyne's Convention Center
Boston, Ma. April 4-7th.
www.photoshopworld.com

Wow, what an intense bunch of goodness! I was incredibly pumped when I logged into my iStockphoto account last week and noticed a posting from Jokia for 5 FREE passes to Photoshop World 2007. I quickly fed my account with some points so I could send an iStockphoto email, just to give it the "Collegiate try" and see if I could get my greasy hands on a pass... I sent the email and went on to grab a few images for the mockup I was working on and didn't think much more of it.

A short time later I saw an email drop into my iStockphoto inbox -- it was Jokia and she had one pass left if I wanted it -- I replied with a resounding YES INDEED! Jokia is amazing, and I swung by their booth to meet her and thank her in person during the Tech Expo. She even had a t-shirt for me, and iStockphoto has earned a customer for life!

iStock Rocks
I give iStockphoto two thumbs-up and highly recommend their service over the competition. The user experience is the best I've encountered for even more expensive services (no need to list 'em here). They have a lot of really well done features that make sorting through thousands of stock photo, illustrations, composite images, icon sets, and even video clips really effortless and fast. I could go on, but you really should give it a whirl and see for yourself...

This is an example of 'being in it to win it', and I'm glad I try to stay on top of all the new services, cool offerings, and web sites popping-up out there on a regular basis. This time, I was in the right place at the right time...

I took as many photos of the event as I could, and I have to say I've been overwhelmed by just how much stuff was covered. I registered quickly and started delving-in to as many classes as possible. My brain was like an over saturated sponge in just a short time, and I could feel the weight of the tome they doled-out to each attendee filled with tutorials and notes of all of the Conference presentations.

Weighing-in at over 2 lbs. and comprised of more than 765 pages, it's big! The only unfortunate thing is that the book is printed in B&W... go figure. It's literally a cornucopia of goodies, tips, tricks and techniques. Jam-packed full of yummy photoshop, illustration, and digital photography inspiration with gurus galore.

Here are some photos from Wednesday...

And here's most of my day...

Morning sessions
Things got whipped-up into a frenzy quickly with Jack Davis, Wow! Then I Dave Cross add Finishing Touches

Tech Expo
Crowd shots, and booths. Feeling a little like the old days, but different just the same

Lunch time
I had lunch at the Pour House, and watched part of the Manchester United game

Afternoon
I was able to catch a Bert session on "Illustrator & Photoshop" after watching him make magic for just under an hour.

Bert Monroy is God!
"And on the eighth day, Bert made the universe as we now experience it today."
- Book of Palm, Genesis; 36:34:36

Wrap up
Feeling a bit rushed, and after , and then a good chunk of "Visual Effects" with Corey barker

If you're able to get to Photoshop World, you'll enjoy it for sure. Here's some stuff I was inspired to churn out in my Flickr, and I'm hoping to do more soon. Stay tuned...

Confessions of a Pandoraholic.

2007-04-01T23:11:00.000-04:00

It's spreadin' just like the flu, and it's an affliction everyone can and should have! Just visit Pandora if you don't believe me, or read on...

They say the first step to recovery is to acknowledge the problem. Here are my notes from the first Pandoraholics meeting I attended.

Let me know if these words help you. Feel free to share them, or tell your own story. We'll listen, and you'll feel better. ;-)

"Hello (tap, tap, tap), is this thing on? Uh, well...

[Brief pause, fumbling noises]

"Good evening everyone, my name is Paul, and I'm an admitted Pandoraholic.

My life was on a terrible downward spiral, until I stumbled on Pandora.

It was a gloomy day, and I was surfing the net when I found Pandora. In minutes my head-ache was gone, and I was able to face my Suicidal Tendencies head-on. The Cramps were back, but I knew it wasn't time for me to wave the Black Flag, not just yet at least... I could not believe how good it was to be able to listen to all my favorite Jam and a be a part of something big. I was addicted. It was full of G. Love & Special Sauce.

I had seen others succumb to their addiction to Pandora, and those folks were Grateful Dead, even though I think it was the Phish that did them in.

I had a friend 3 Doors Down who was also searching for The Cure, but he moved to Linkin' Park and I haven't seen him since -- he left the Doors wide open, and just could not control his Rage Against the Machine. He was living with Warren Zevon, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Angelique Kidjo and The Wu-Tang Clan. I guess we were just bunch of Circle Jerks like so many other Misfits, PIXIES (4AD Records) or Butthole Surfers, out of control and all hopped-up on REEF, and Seven Dust...

His problem was Bad Brains -- he was a real Audioslave, you know, a Radiohead. I think it even affected his Offspring. After awhile, it all became a Blur, and nothing more than Garbage. I felt like just another TOOL going around and around in A Perfect Circle. It was all a real System of a Down, I felt Rancid -- even my Hoobastank, and I'm sure it even would have affected U2.

All my clothes were Staind after falling in a Puddle of Mudd I felt like a Twisted Sister, but I was able to get my Motörhead above those Muddy Waters, but I had Faith No More. Yep, it was pure Fear alright, a Minor Threat, and even putting on a Helmet or an Agnostic Front wouldn't help for more than a Dag Nasty 7 Seconds.

I was still driving my old Chevelle, and stuck in Traffic. In those days, the Cars were the only way to get to the Soundgarden to Groovasaurus on that Collective Soul. For years I wished I could buy one of those Fabulous Thunderbirds or a Fabulosos Cadillacs like my friends Lil' Kim, Lou Reed or Jimi Hendrix had. I didn't have the 50-cent for The Subways and no Cash for a Placebo so I would just let out a Primal Scream to try and feel like I was part of the Human League...

I would be Ash long before getting to an Oasis, never mind trying to reach Nirvana. I was on my way to Jimmie's Chicken Shack to buy some Vanilla Fudge and since I couldn't sleep I just kept Counting Crows (not only Black Crowes).

Who and what was it that made Boyz 2 Men anyway, I Stevie Wonder? Was I going to have to climb the Mountain? Maybe it was just Pieces of a Dream, or just another one of The Temptations, No Doubt?

Maybe my Moody Blues had gone to a Deep Purple? I wasn't like the Allman Brothers, The Righteous Brothers, the Everly Brothers, or even The Chemical Brothers who only ate Red Hot Chili Peppers -- to me that was for The Birds.

I was surely in Dire Straits. Stuck in The Velvet Underground with no way to ever reach ZZ Top. I was once a Prince dating Queen Latifah and now just another one of The Drifters like Marilyn Manson and so many other Animals. I found myself at a Creedence Clearwater Revival eating Meat Loaf when it hit me, Wham! I said A-ha, I'll just have a bowl of Black Eyed Peas, a heaping plate of KoRn, and a mug of Hot Chocolate and join the Culture Club.

That was the Genesis. I was no longer a Foreigner. It was the Rites of Spring and I knew The Clash was coming to an end -- no more Three Dog Night's for me. I had The the answer -- no more Tears for Fears or The Germs, I wasn't just another Supertramp listening to a bunch of Talking Heads. I was on a Journey beyond Kansas Toto with a bad case of Flaming Lips... I couldn't get a ticket on the Jefferson Airplane so I got the Kinks out and used my Wings to get back to Boston.

Once there, I figured I'd plug a few computer wires into the AC/DC outlet and call The Police. The Doobie Brothers showed-up instead, and together we loaded-up up Pandora and knew it wasn't just another Cheap Trick.

I hope my story has helped some of you folks out there to realize we're not just a bunch of Monkees and Pandoraholism is real -- it just isn't common enough -- but you need to know you're not alone. You have a chance, not like all those old Weezer's who didn't live here in America.

I'm probably listening right now. Someday we'll all be Free. Thanks for letting me tell my story.

Peace & love."

- paul, loyal fan and self-proclaimed Pandoraholic
pandora.com/people/ptamaro

One People, Small Planet.

2007-03-23T00:34:00.000-04:00

One of the things I still love about computers and the internet, is the connections you can foster and maintain which transcend time, proximity, and all that stuff. I'll deal with a few errant pop-up ads, a crappy system, the maintenance, the waiting... wow, I could go on, and on about the negative aspects of these at once burdensome yet amazing tools. But I'll choose instead to focus on the "creamy goodness" (had to use that one JS).

I've been looking-up a bunch of jams lately, and tonight I meandered back to 1991. I had somethin' in my head that set me back to Pop's Cool Love in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Spent the evening with my "brother from another mother" Jason, the band, and Pop. He's a cool dude for sure. He's bridged more gaps than the Army Core of Engineers. They got that "James Brown kinda soul". Deep, heartfelt, and human.

I'm hoping I still have the Pop's Cool Love, A Man cassette tape in the center console of my ride, and crossin' my fingers that it still plays. I'll check tomorrow morning.

UPDATE 03/27/07: The cassette did not play, or the Bose tape deck is no longer working. Looking into the problem...

I actually realized the other day that the only time I remember to turn on the CD player is when Yo-Yo and I drive to Hockey or need to get somewhere. Scary. On Friday, she reminded me that the easiest way to "fix the muffler problem, is to play a little 'JB'." It didn't take me long to pick-up on what she was puttin' down. :-)

Anyway, I stumbled across some of Dimitri Ehrlich's writing -- he's an old friend from back in the day, in the neighborhood. He's a really talented guy whose written piles of words for rags like Rolling Stone, Interview Magazine, Spin Magazine (and lot's more, the list goes on), songs, books, and done a bunch of other stuff. He's rubbed elbows with all the biggity bigs for years. It was Dimitri's interview with James Brown in Pulse Magazine that prompted me to call Mr. Brown at the Correctional Facility in Aiken, South Carolina. It turned out to be the day he had been released on early parole, and I missed him by just a few minutes. I did speak to Mr. George A. Anderson, one of Mr. Brown's Attorneys for a good ten minutes. That was pretty cool...

Like the energy that crosses a synapse, I'm finding all sorts of little nuggets like these. Slices of my life. A life entwined with many others. One people, small planet. We are all infinitely interconnected.

Peace.

Your Future is Just Behind You

2007-03-23T00:08:00.000-04:00

Okay, things have been... well, tougher than usual as of late. But only the good stuff is worth the work. I've been reaching deeper than the regular stretch to grasp that goodness these last few days. No. Maybe it's actually been these last few months. No bother either way, and that's not the point.

Getting hit by a punch you see comin' is tough enough. But when you can't get outta the way from that one, and it's followed by several more you didn't see -- that's when you reach deeper.

Breathe deep. Try to catch your breath while you get up from the mat. Five... six... seven... You're standing upright, but you're not all there. Now it's a test of will-power, cunning, and heart.

These are troubled times. Not unlike the times that came before today. Such is the nature of the human condition. It's the manner in which you press-on, if you can -- that is what seeds the future.

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."

- Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love, 1963

Apollo has landed, again...

2007-03-21T01:02:00.000-04:00

Apollo - From Adobe Labs

"Apollo is a cross-OS runtime that allows developers to leverage their existing web development skills (Flash, Flex, HTML, Ajax) to build and deploy desktop RIA’s."

Apollo is the code name for a cross-operating system runtime being developed by Adobe that allows developers to leverage their existing web development skills (Flash, Flex, HTML, JavaScript, Ajax) to build and deploy rich Internet applications (RIAs) to the desktop.

Apollo enables developers to create applications that combine the benefits of web applications – network and user connectivity, rich media content, ease of development, and broad reach – with the strengths of desktop applications – application interactions, local resource access, personal settings, powerful functionality, and rich interactive experiences.

Apollo enables familiar application interaction models, including drag-and-drop support, rich clipboard access, and desktop and system shortcuts. Furthermore, Apollo applications run as regular applications, and do not have to run within another application or shell (as web applications do by running within the browser).

>> labs.adobe.com/technologies/apollo

>> labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Apollo

Bugatti Veyron at top speed

2007-03-16T23:18:00.000-04:00

Bugatti Veyron at top speed
Uploaded by Flabber

The Bugatti Veyron tested to see if it really can do 407 km/h.
Earlier today the F-Man sent me this link, and it's totally worth the watch. Give it a spin, but hang-on!

Duration: 07:42
Taken: 04 February 2007
Location: London, United Kingdom

More at http://www.flabber.nl

Hyundai QarmaQ’s Plastic Skin: Reduces Weight, Saves Gas

2007-03-08T23:12:00.000-05:00

By Jon Alain Guzik, Editor-at-Large, Yahoo! Autos

>> Read the full article

Think Green ?!?!

Any concept vehicle with a name derived from the word the Inuit’s use for their dwellings made of Earth, whalebone, and animal skins is bound to be interesting. Hyundai Europe's Design and Technical Center in Russelsheim, Germany partnered with GE Plastics in the Netherlands to create the QarmaQ – a quirky looking Crossover Coupé concept.

One of the QarmaQ’s key features is its innovative use of recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic bottles to create a large portion of the vehicle’s skin. GE says the use of plastics, instead of more traditional metal and glass, gives the vehicle a 130-pound weight savings. That weight loss equates to 20 gallons a year savings in gas, not to mention fewer plastic bottles clogging up the local landfill. These numbers are nothing to scoff when you think of all the cars on the road.

Editor's note: Not sure I want to be sitting in recycled soda bottles at speeds between say... ten to thirty-five miles an hour -- just imagine if something went wrong at fifty-five miles an hour?

Isn't your safety, health or even your life worth more than $20 in gas savings a year if you were in an accident? Hmmn, seems like an interesting idea but maybe it's just got the wrong angle. Anyway, it's just a concept -- with a beautifully sleek design.

U.S. Mint goof creates 'Godless dollars'

2007-03-08T08:50:00.001-05:00

By JOANN LOVIGLIO, AP Writer Wed Mar 7, 4:30 PM ET

PHILADELPHIA - An unknown number of new George Washington dollar coins were mistakenly struck without their edge inscriptions, including "In God We Trust," and are fetching around $50 apiece online.

>> Read the full story

The properly struck dollar coins, bearing the likeness of the nation's first president, are inscribed along the edge with "In God We Trust," "E Pluribus Unum" and the year and mint mark. They made it past inspectors and went into circulation Feb. 15.

The U.S. Mint struck 300 million of the coins, which are golden in color and slightly larger and thicker than a quarter.

About half were made in Philadelphia and the rest in Denver. So far the mint has only received reports of error coins coming from Philadelphia, mint spokeswoman Becky Bailey said.

Bailey said it was unknown how many coins lacked the inscriptions. Ron Guth, president of Professional Coin Grading Service, one of the world's largest coin authentication companies, said he believes that at least 50,000 error coins were put in circulation.

"The first one sold for $600 before everyone knew how common they actually were," he said. "They're going for around $40 to $60 on eBay now, and they'll probably settle in the $50 range."

>> Read the full story
___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

Related...

U.S. Mint: http://www.usmint.gov

Prof. Coin Grading Service: http://www.pcgs.com

Very Cool Site of the Day

2007-03-07T23:13:00.000-05:00

THE AD GENERATOR

The ad generator is a generative artwork that explores how advertising uses and manipulates language. Words and semantic structures from real corporate slogans are remixed and randomized to generate invented slogans. These slogans are then paired with related images from Flickr, thereby generating fake advertisements on the fly. By remixing corporate slogans, I intend to show how the language of advertising is both deeply meaningful, in that it represents real cultural values and desires, and yet utterly meaningless in that these ideas have no relationship to the products being sold. In using the Flickr images, the piece explores the relationship between language and image, and how meaning is constructed by the juxtaposition of the two.

The ad generator was created by Alexis Lloyd as a component of an MFA thesis project in the Design and Technology department at Parsons The New School for Design.

Adobe Creative Suite 3 is...

2007-03-07T09:13:00.000-05:00

...well, there have been lots of rumors and the hype-ball is rolling. Abobe has now made an announcement that they will be making an announcement on March 27th. Great. Did anyone actually think they did not have plans to upgrade this product line? Good PR I guess...

>>Creative Suite 2 Product Info

Read the announcement on the "Official" Adobe blog...

Adobe Creative Suite 3 To Be Announced March 27th
The wait is nearly over! We can now confirm that Adobe Creative Suite 3 will be announced March 27, 2007. The company is celebrating the launch at an event in New York City that will be webcast live at 3:30pm ET. During the webcast, Adobe will reveal the features and suite configurations that make this the largest software release in Adobe's 25 year history.

Details on how to view the webcast will be available on Adobe.com later this week.

EDITOR'S NOTE: We are announcing Creative Suite 3 on March 27th. However, the software will not ship until later in Spring 2007.

Item #76b: Random Interface elements.

2007-03-06T00:39:00.000-05:00

User Document and a Mockup for AspenCloud.com

2007-03-04T22:34:00.000-05:00

This one has a bit of a "dry and chalky" feel to it -- and it has a nice silky powdered look to it.

The inner-glow is too strong though, and the bevel is too sharp on top. It also needs a name/data area on the bottom to get to the next level.

The perspective of the bottom-right corner is a bit off too.

NEW UPDATE 03/06/07:

Mockup for AspenCloud (www.aspencloud.com)

i digg photoshop

2007-03-04T01:52:00.000-05:00

Cool Product Design Post #63

2007-03-01T22:20:00.000-05:00

Here's a great way to start the day...

Roll yourself out of bed (rub eyes, scratch stuff, yawn, etc.) and take a stroll to the bread-box, then the counter and feed a few slices to your Rollertoaster

"...2006 Red Dot Award-winning design not only toasts bread, but it also allows the user to watch the slice magically transform before their eyes—from cold and squishy to hot 'n crispy!"

More info: www.jarengoh.com

...add butter, jam to taste. Make coffee. Then, take a slow stroll to the dining room and open the Bloomframe balcony.

"With one push on a button the balcony opens smoothly within 15 seconds. On the few square meters which are generated two persons can enjoy breakfast in the open air."

More info: Hofman Dujardin

...grab a comfy chair, a table if necessary -- and enjoy! No hurries or worries.

Just a thought.

Yellow Submarine

2007-03-01T03:02:00.001-05:00

Yellow Submarine
Originally uploaded by
Jeff Kubina.

Ok, here's a yellow submarine photo. It's a photo by Jeff Kubina, and he has some really great shots and interesting categories...

Flickr

2007-03-01T02:58:00.001-05:00

This is a test post from flickr, a fancy photo sharing thing.

Sweet interface, sour functionality?

2007-03-01T02:30:00.000-05:00

What's up with Yahoo!'s video UI?

The new Yahoo! mail interface is sweet, but the news video interface leaves me with mixed feelings. The controls have a nice slick and sophisticated look (form is good), but it just doesn't work in Firefox 2. The picture is cropped on the bottom, the "pause" video control buttons do not function. It's slow and chunky-clunky... makes you not want to use it.

All that aside, here's a great video news clip of a great new product: A Personal Mini-Submarine. Can you get it in yellow?

>>> WATCH: Your Own Personal Mini-Submarine
(AP) Small enough to fit on a trailer, this mini-sub can dive 160 feet and packs 2 hours of battery life.

Fiddling with Photoshop

2007-02-28T01:14:00.000-05:00

I'm finally getting back on track and starting to do fun stuff again. I gave myself a challenge to do a quick exercise and create a Photoshop file that makes it easy for me to pump out sized icons and other artwork as "sets".

The idea was to make it easy to open the file, churn out some artwork based on a current need (someone needs a particular icon or whatever), and then create a set of similar stuff in a consistent style. I'm also working on getting faster with the process. Here's one example...

Divers compete in ice hockey world championship... underwater

2007-02-26T23:00:00.000-05:00

Sun Feb 25, 2:04 PM ET

VIENNA (AFP) - The lake of Weissensee in southern Austria hosted an unusual sporting event this weekend, with divers taking part in the first-ever ice-hockey world championship -- underwater ice-hockey, that is.

Read the full story >>

Eight international teams from Austria, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia, competed under 30 centimetres (12 inches) of ice in 2-degree Celsius (35 degrees Fahrenheit) water and without oxygen tanks.

Philly boutique gets two buckets of pot

2007-02-26T22:43:00.000-05:00

PHILADELPHIA - Workers at a downtown boutique called police after unexpectedly receiving two buckets of marijuana worth $90,000. Police were called to Fusion on Saturday after employees received the two packages of marijuana totaling about 20 pounds.

Read the full story >>

"It was obviously intended for someone in the Philadelphia area," Werner said. "We are trying to find out who."

They've got the Beef!

2007-02-26T22:34:00.000-05:00

Pa. restaurant creates 123-pound burger

2 hours, 35 minutes ago

CLEARFIELD, Pa. - The newest addition to the menu at Denny's Beer Barrel Pub is one whopper of a burger. The Beer Barrel Main Event Charity Burger weighs in at 123 pounds, a meaty monstrosity that its cooks maintain shatters the world record of 105 pounds shared by two restaurants in New Jersey and Thailand.

Read the full story >>

The sizable sandwich features an 80-pound beef patty, along with a pound each of lettuce, ketchup, relish, mustard and mayonnaise, 160 slices of cheese, up to five onions and 12 tomatoes.

It's topped with a couple of pounds of banana peppers, then sandwiched into a 30-pound bun. Don't forget the garnish of 33 pickles.

There's a pretty hefty price tag, too: $379.

Scumbags of The Week: Turner Broadcasting (Time Warner Inc., and Cartoon Network)?

2007-01-31T22:49:00.001-05:00

BOSTON - Ten blinking electronic devices planted at bridges and other spots in Boston threw a scare into the city Wednesday in what turned out to be a publicity campaign for a late-night cable cartoon. At least one of the devices depicts a character giving the finger.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070131/ap_on_re_us/suspicious_devices

Highways, bridges and a section of the Charles River were shut down and bomb squads were sent in before authorities declared the devices were harmless.

Turner Broadcasting, a division of Time Warner Inc. and parent of Cartoon Network, said the devices were part of a promotion for the TV show "Aqua Teen Hunger Force," a surreal series about a talking milkshake, a box of fries and a meatball.

"The packages in question are magnetic lights that pose no danger," Turner said in a statement. It said the devices have been in place for two to three weeks in 10 cities: Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Ore., Austin, Texas, San Francisco and Philadelphia.

"We regret that they were mistakenly thought to pose any danger," the company said.

The marketing company responsible for the campaign, Interference Inc., had no immediate comment. A woman who answered the phone at the New York-based firm's offices on Wednesday afternoon said the firm's CEO was out of town and would not be able to comment until Thursday.

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