Planet PDX

Trouble paying your phone bill? The state offers help

2010-09-09T00:00:26+00:00

To qualify, Oregon residents must be receiving benefits for low-income households.

Strands for iPhone v3.2

2010-09-08T23:54:43+00:00

Strands for iPhone App version 3.2 introduces some exciting new features. We will be highlighting a different feature each week, so stay tuned!

New for 3.2:

Routes function – Find and select a nearby route using either Chrono or Geo
New, reconfigured Chrono screen – makes recording and uploading workouts easy
Invisibility button in Chrono – allows you to work out anonymously but still record and upload the workout in full detail
New privacy button – allows you to easily choose who you want to share workouts with
New sharing options for Strands and social networks – allows you to easily choose where you want to share workouts

Chrono – Finding and Joining a Route

Using Strands for iPhone App version 3.2 you can find and select nearby routes to use for your workout. There are two ways to do this– through Chrono and through Geo. For this week, we will focus on finding and joint a route using Chrono.

To find and join a route using Chrono, you can follow these easy steps:

1) Press the Join Event/Select Route button in the Chrono screen prior to the start of your workout

2) Press the Join Event/Select Route button. You will be prompted to either “Select Nearby Route” or “Join Event”. Pressing Select Nearby Route will bring up a listing of local routes. Select a route using checkboxes to the right of each route.

3) Once a route is selected and you return to the main Chrono screen from the route menu (using the X button), you will now notice that the name of the route appears on the Chrono screen. When you enable Chrono map view using the button on the bottom right of the Chrono screen, the route is loaded onto the map.

4.) Once you have completed the route and uploaded your workout to Strands.com using the save button, your username and time for the route will be added to the list of people who have used that route under the route posting on strands.com

Stay tuned for blog post two where we will be highlighting the route function using Geo.

Vote for us at the SheKnows website awards

2010-09-08T23:05:52+00:00

We were nominated in the best Fitness site category for the SheKnows Parenting Awards.

If you’re so inclined, we’d be honored if you placed a vote for us.

(It appears you need to register there to vote, then click on the Fitness category). If you use SheKnows, I’d be curious to hear your thoughts.

Thanks!

And thanks for the nomination, SheKnows

-Ben

Want an easy-to-use marketplace for eLearning? It could be as simple as OpenSesame

2010-09-08T21:01:20+00:00

For many folks, eLearning seems to be a realm only destined for those corporations with the wherewithal to develop, produce, sell, and distribute that content. That for individuals, getting that content in front of the intended audience—even in this day and age—is an insurmountable hurdle.

One Portland startup is looking to change that. Meet OpenSesame.

OpenSesame is taking their corporate experience with the eLearning market and learning management software and putting it to work for individuals. So that anyone, anywhere, can create, promote, sell, and distribute their coursework and knowledge.

As enterprise-level buyers and sellers of elearning software and courses, we understand the problem from the inside out. Corporate elearning initiatives tend to quickly lose their value. A large part of the problem is the expense and difficulty required to acquire and manage courses that are timely, applicable, engaging and cost effective. The traditional content model is out of step with today’s flexible and responsive social web.

At OpenSesame, we’ve taken a very non-traditional approach to solving these problems.

OpenSesame connects buyers and sellers directly in a demand-driven marketplace but most importantly, courses are easy to publish and consume in any LMS. Yep – that’s right: any LMS.

Sounds good, right? So how does one get started? Well, as luck would have it, OpenSesame is its early stages. And they’re looking for folks who are hoping to get the chance to try it out.

We are looking to partner with eLearning content developers.

We would prefer to work with local individuals and teams. I would appreciate any referrals that you can make. My email is tom.turnbull@opensesame.com.

(You may remember Tom from his days at SplashCast and his excellent post on that venture’s demise.)

So get on that. And start getting all that great content out there in front of people who need it.

For more information, visit OpenSesame. Or follow OpenSesame on Twitter.

WordCamp Portland 2010: Time is running out to see Matt Mullenweg, Mark Jaquith, Jane Wells, and more

2010-09-08T19:44:49+00:00

It’s almost that time, kids. Time for all the WordPress—the open source blogging and content management system popular in Portland and a great number of other places—types to gather and share and learn. Time for WordCamp Portland.

And true to form, WordCamp Portland is shaping up to be one of the best WordCamps of the year, with speakers like Matt Mullenweg, Mark Jaquith, and Jane Wells among others. But if you want to take part, you better hurry. Because ticket sales close this Friday.

What’s a WordCamp, you ask? Well, it’s about the best place for everyone—from never touched a blog newbie to WordPress plugin guru—to get the latest and greatest information on how people are using the WordPress platform. Or, to hear the WordPress folks tell it:

WordCamp is a conference that focuses on everything WordPress. WordCamps are informal, community-organized events that are put together by WordPress users like you. Everyone from casual users to core developers participate, share ideas, and get to know each other. WordCamps are open to WordPress.com and WordPress.org users alike.

But WordCamp Portland is a little special, you see. Because it pulls in people like the guy who created WordPress, one of the lead developers on WordPress, the user experience lead for the WordPress platform, and a number of local WordPress rock stars.

Don’t believe me? Would you believe a member of the core commit team?

Oh sure. Now you’re all interested. Well get to moving there tiger. Because you’ve only got a few hours left before ticket sales will be closed. Don’t stand there gawking. Scoot! Go buy your WordCamp Portland ticket. And then wait patiently for September 18 to roll around.

Want to get a little more involved than just attending? Well, step right up. There is still the opportunity to sponsor WordCamp Portland, this year.

Need more info? Head on over to WordCamp Portland.

Make Good Marketing Decisions with Google Analytics

2010-09-08T17:51:09+00:00

There’s a wealth of data available to website owners in Google Analytics. But where to start?

Hallie Janssen of Anvil Media tells you how to learn which online marketing efforts are most effective for your company. Want to know whether your email newsletter, your pay-per-click ads or your Twitter campaign are bringing the kinds of visitors you want? Hallie tells you how to gather the data.

Track Your Marketing in Google Analytics is just one of our growing library of articles for business owners on AboutUs.org. We’re gathering insights from online marketing professionals that will help you grow via the Internet, without breaking the bank.

Is there an online marketing topic you’d like us to cover? Would you like to author an article on AboutUs.org? Contact me by email: Aliza@AboutUs.org.

Just in time for Milan and Paris Fashion Weeks, Savoir Flair has...

2010-09-08T17:24:47+00:00

Just in time for Milan and Paris Fashion Weeks, Savoir Flair has launched their stunning new magazine. How else are you going to get your latest Runway Report?

Pending changes, & how it defines Wikipedia

2010-09-08T16:42:25+00:00

Well, the English language Wikipedia I mean.

For those of you who aren't that familiar with the latest conflicts at Wikipedia -- which has now come to include a large share of active Wikipedians -- probably the most important is the deadlock over whether or not to continue a test of the "pending changes" feature.

The proposed feature is simple enough. For certain groups of editors -- those editting anonymously or with a new account -- their contributions are sent to a queue where they must first be approved before being made visible to one and all -- such as people who are simply reading Wikipedia, who make up over 90% of its users. Otherwise, the edit is deleted.

This is something that Jimmy Wales has long advocated for (see here for one example), and as a result many Wikipedians consider it a good thing. And maybe it is; I'm undecided only because after a two month test, no one has presented any factual evidence that it solved any problems. I haven't seen any in the lengthy, at times bitter, and for the moment deadlocked discussion over its adoption. But what I have seen are examples of long-existing tensions that exist over the ideals of Wikipedia, but which have not been adequately discussed. (For all of his supposed experience with Wikipedia, I haven't seen Jimmy Wales even acknowledge their existence.)

One of these tensions is presented quite clearly on Wikipedia's front page: "the encyclopedia anyone can edit". This is both the strength and the weakness of Wikipedia -- that anyone can, and does, edit its articles. The fact that something useful has resulted -- let alone a reference work which is as useful as it is -- has been pointed out so many times to become banal. When critics pointed out that allowing "anyone" to edit, this included vandals and malicious individuals, the response was to point out that bad edits were almost always promptly reverted. And one could say it was part of the price for creating an otherwise invaluable resource; after all, when dealing with experts and powerful people, one must put up with their eccentricities to benefit from them.

However, the steady trend since its inception has been to limit the meaning of "anyone" with more and more exceptions in order to improve its quality and usefulness. Some of these exceptions are quite reasonable: vandals, kooks and cranks, people who simply can't play nice with others. Others fall into a more difficult category, such as those who want to advocate for a specific political agenda or for their own economic gain. One can't do the simple thing and exclude them all because in many cases, they are the exact experts Wikipedia needs in order to be a useful reference. So Wikipedians are forced to develop essays such as Tendentious Editting or Civil POV pushing to define the problem and help each other confront it.

And then there are some policies which came about in a quick, knee-jerk reflex whose rationale have never been adequately explained, such as denying anonymous and new editors from creating articles. This came about because of the Seigenthaler incident, where an anonymous editor made a libelous allegation about John Seigenthaler which remained undetected for four months. This denial has remained mostly out of inertia: denying anonymous editors all editting rights is a perennial proposal which, although always rejected, has strong support. And if one creates an account then waits a few days, one will be able to create articles -- so no one sees this as anything more than an inconvenience for new editors. On the other hand, it is not an effective security fix: determined troublemakers need to simply create an account and wait for it to age before abusing it to wreak havoc. This change is only a speed bump, which may discourage more new editors than it justifies in dissuading vandals; no one really knows.

Now keep in mind that I'm not criticizing putting limits on just who edits; all of us want Wikipedia to be as accurate and useful as possible. My point is that there is a tension here, between allowing anyone to edit and creating reliable content, which fails to be considered in these decisions. And when I tried to participate in the discussion on whether to continue this test, I was unpleasantly surprised to find that no one had provided the needed information to show whether this test actually improved content or not. Instead a lot of anecdotes, first impressions and opinions were being tossed around. I don't know whether to be discouraged or just sad at this.

Before I continue, I'd like to also point out that I'm not saying that these tensions are not a weakness; they are simply a fact of Wikipedia's nature. Further, by identifying the existence of these tensions I am not consciously forcing a Hegelian dialectic upon Wikipedian dynamics; rather, I am picturing a statics diagram with opposing forces in an equilibrium. In other words, this is a situation where modifying one force in the tension without sufficient care or information can destroy the existing equilibrium and lead to everything falling apart.

A second tension illustrated in this debate is an old one: the clued versuses the clueless. This tension has existed either explicitly or implicitly since practically the beginning of Wikipedia. Larry Sanger's notorious emphasis on credentials was simply one extreme version of this tendency. Most Wikipedians, whether they are professional experts, serious amateurs, or just individuals with a desire for learning, tend to be elitists; we spent our spare time reading or tinkering in order to understand something better, while everyone else was watching television, playing games, or otherwise frivolously occupied. And we often did this both at our own monetary expense, and at the derision of our peers. So, yes, Wikipedians can be elitist in how they respond to new editors; it's an assumption experienced editors often find themselves fighting against.

In this conflict, over whether to turn this experiment into a full-scale adoption, I see this tension playing out on several levels. One level is the change itself: that new and unregistered editors are somehow less clued than the established ones. While a reasonable assumption, it inadvertently insults those new editors who are knowledgeable, forcing them to run a gauntlet to make even trivial changes of spelling or punctuation. But another, and more serious, level can be seen in how the two camps are discussing this proposal: many of the participants seem from their tone to be one step away from responding to their opposite number with something along the lines of "well, if you were smart and actually knew what was going on, the solution would be obvious to you and you'd agree with me."

And, in my humble opinion, I believe that this elitism is more prevalent on the side which wants to adopt this change and make "Pending changes" permanent.

The problem for anyone not invested heavily in this discussion -- like me -- is that I don't see any proof that this will fix any of the problems it is supposed to fix. No one has provided the evidence showing not only that it will solve the problem of incorrect information being inserted into articles, but to what degree. (This feature can be subverted, some times rather simply. I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.) And then there is the trade-off of discouraging new editors from further contributions: one of the enticements that is often mentioned by new users is the thrill of seeing one's edit accepted for all to see.

There is the advantage that some articles no longer need to be indefinitely semi-protected or fully protected -- but no one has provided evidence whether applying "Pending changes" to certain contentious articles will work better in protecting content than protecting those articles. However, instead of providing a comparison between these two approaches, those for adopting "Pending changes" simply assert that it is the best approach, and that it should be adopted immediately.

I am all for any change which improves Wikipedia's content, but Wikipedia has grown so large and so complex that I doubt anyone understands how it works comprehensively any more. I used to criticize Jimmy Wales because in many of his responses to its problems it was clear he no longer understood either the community or its dynamics; only those in constant interaction with the community, with editting articles and debating policy would have any chance of knowing. He had been out of touch with the day-to-day activities of Wikipedia for years now. More recently, despite the fact I participate in some way daily on Wikipedia, I've realized that I have grown out of touch. And it is clear that many other core members are too, for people will assume the concensus around a given article or discussion page is identical to its state when they last viewed it, when it may have changed radically in a few months or even weeks.

And here is yet another tension present in Wikipedia: between its constant changing and the need to manage that evolution. Its increasing rate of change, most of the time but not always for the better, has left practically all of its members behind and out of touch. There are no more "clued" Wikipedians -- assuming they existed in the first place. Some may see this as a good thing because it is this uncontrolled evolution which is responsible for Wikipedia's success; but if this true, then why does Wales, a philosophical libertarian, feel compelled to intervene when there is a problem? Wikipedia needs some management, and for management to be successful one needs information.

I like to think that the dynamics of Wikipedia can be controlled, through the same approach which existed in the beginning, through open discussion and building consensuses. It through this discussion and consensus-building that information is shared. The problem is that often, to arrive at a timely decision shortcuts needed to be made. Yes, one last tension that exists in Wikipedia! (I guess now that I've seen a few structural tensions The old shortcuts, however, no longer work; we need to either find and create new ones, or accept the need to laboriously build consensuses at every new change. Because the one thing that will kill Wikipedia is have a single person who makes all of the decisions; Wikipedia has flourished because of its "out of control" nature, not despite it.

Geoff

Hotels Report Drop In In-Room Movies, Calls

2010-09-08T14:50:18+00:00

Do you remember traveling before cell phones and laptops? You used to have to actually read and otherwise be bored while in airports and on airplanes. Also, the hotel phone was a lifeline – enabling you to make and receive calls while on the go.

Also, the phone and in-room movies used to be a huge revenue producer for hotels and motels. According to LA Times, this isn’t so true any more. With virtually everyone in the US (especially amongst those who can afford hotel rooms) carrying cell phones now, charging for phone calls while in a hotel room is a thing of the past.

Also, in-room movies are not being used as much as well. These add-on services are being neglected as more and more travelers carry laptops and watch movies on them.

Hacking Netflix thinks that Netflix streaming is to blame, at least where in-room movies are concerned. I think this is likely true to some degree. However, hotel Wi-Fi is almost always a terrible experience for me and I don’t think Netflix streaming is an enjoyable experience.

I think most folks are just getting tight with their travel budgets and pinching their pennies. Once you travel to and get to your hotel room, the idea of spending $5-7 on a movie does not sound appealing. Also, I bet the availability of Redbox and $1 rentals are luring many travelers. Redboxes are available at all McDonald’s and in many other hotel-friendly location.

In my opinion, hotels would be better served to set up a Redbox inside their locales. The commission off these kiosks would make up for lost revenue. It would likely never happen!

(Image credit: Flickr user Joi)

Post from: Techcraver.com | Craving Tech, Craving Life!

Hotels Report Drop In In-Room Movies, Calls

Realities of a Low-Budget Wedding, Chapter #2: The Bride on a Beauty Budget

2010-09-08T14:35:00+00:00

This post is a part of the series, Realities of a Low-Budget Wedding. See Chapter #1: Locations if you would like to follow from the beginning or need a refresher (not necessary to read in order).

In the next few chapters I'm going to focus a bit on Clothing and Accessories. Stay tuned because we'll focus on the Bride & Groom, Bridesmaids & Groomsmen and even the Flower Girl(s) & Ring Bearer(s).

The BRIDE...

Obviously the point of the brides entire getup is to make her stand apart from virtually everyone at the wedding. Here we're focusing on what I'd like to refer to as a "Beauty Budget" - it's understandable that A) You want to look beautiful and have a stunning dress,and B) You want to keep it within expenses and not lose your look. We'd like to achieve a complete package overall.

Absolutely Stunning + Budget Worthy = Complete Package

Of course everyone's budget flexibilities are going to be completely different. For example, a $2,000 beach wedding (if you live near the beach), cuts out a lot of expense in decor if you're using the beauty of the sand and ocean, but on the flip side, a $2,000 budget for a Winter bride needing to decorate an indoor space, is completely a different matter. $2,000 maybe seem like a small budget, but to some, they've got less than even that to work with.
{START HERE} - Get educated with the basics before you get serious about a dress
First find out what body type you are {see resource links below} so that we can achieve the first part of the Beauty Budget - Absolutely Stunning. List and start looking at dresses within your body category before falling in love with a style - trust me, it will be less frustrating when you start looking and trying things on. The same goes if you fall in love with pieces from a style, for example, this Stephanie Allin, Anita dress [below] would be a better fit on a slimmer body whereas a curvier girl may look chunky or "stuffed" in to it - which would in most cases not be the goal right? You get my drift...

Resources for body type to dress type:

* How to Dress for Your Body Type by WikiHow users. I liked all the general information, illustration (body illustrations borrowed from this article shown in above graphic), and would allow you to create your own image if you haven't been able to find a particular wedding dress style. I also think with the variation of styles from ornate to simple, not actually using an official wedding dress for your dress, you may be able to grab ideas to accent your body type along with your personal style (i.e. making your own unique dress, discussing a custom make dress with a seamstress or just looking at aspects in certain styles).
* Your Wedding Dress: Find the Right Fit for You from TheKnot.com by Hollee Actman Becker. Specifically wedding dress related, touches on all sorts of body type for dress types. Doesn't include any illustrations, but the information is good. I would recommend reading these article in the order here so that you can understand your body type in regards to style before moving to wedding dress styles.
* Your Gown: An Anatomy Lesson [again] from TheKnot.com by by Hollee Actman Becker. A basic look at 12 gown elements to be more informed when you go shopping.
* Your Gown: Neckline Glossary from TheKnot.com by Hollee Actman Becker. A little more in-depth information on dress neckline styles.

TIP: Whether your motivation comes from the "something old, something new..." tradition, or the "I'm-going-to-do-this-MY-way" credo, accessories are the easiest way to add a few unexpected touches of personal style to your look. - Hollee Actman Becker (TheKnot.com)

I would basically refer to this entire list by Hollee from TheKnot.com for some great tips, must know's and tricks. She writes a lot on this topic from fabric type, best length for you, make-up tips, Seasonal tips and tricks down to ironing your own dress.

Let's Make it Affordable!

Now that you're a little more educated on how to find a dress that will suite your body. Let's cover how to obtain a dress you are going to love by making it more affordable which gives us the second part of the Beauty Budget - making it Budget Worthy.

DESIGNER LABEL. Why do you want a designer label? Maybe you like pieces of the look and design elements that designer uses? If that's the case then you're in luck. Note specific things you like about the style and make sure it fits in to your body-type [see above on body type]. MAGAZINE DREAMER & WINDOW SHOPPER. For the rest of you who don't care about designers specifically - start flipping through a few magazines, perusing online or use pictures from your own camera from real stores.

{My two page layout/inspiration notes to take shopping for a dress }

TAKING NOTES. Another small step that will keep you sane and more focused on what you want/like. This is similar to doing an inspiration board - I touched on this back in February 2010 { Your Wedding Starts with the Right Colour Coordinates }. Our version here is something portable that you can take shopping or to a seamstress.

These are visual notes along with written comments for clarity - I liked using sticky notes rather than writing directly on the page because it made it easier to move them around as I found additional snippets I wanted to tape down. I would include at LEAST 3-6 different dress types with notes on elements that you like for each. Focus on things like the dress shape-type, neckline, bodice, embellishments, lace, bows and material type. Even if you aren't familiar with material type or specific things like that - use adjectives to describe elements like,"I like the flowy-see-through fabric" or "I like the shiny lightweight look of this." or "I like these fabric flowers". If you're out shopping or reading online, and someone tells you what things are called, write it in your notes.

MY NOTE TAKING PROCESS. I started with a main inspiration piece, which was the full dress on the LEFT magazine photo. I mainly liked the roses - a type of handmade rose referred to as Rosette {hah. I misspelled that on my sticky notes - oops}. I didn't particularly like style of the strappless top so I found other tops or bodices that I did like. I like the ruffle at the base of the skirt, but the mermaid skirt is probably not my shape, I should look for another style skirt. I'm not exactly thin, so I probably don't want rosettes all over the dress (might make me look bulkier) - notice how I morphed from LOVING the main inspiration piece with rosettes ALL OVER the dress to realizing that really I just liked some sort of incorporation of rosettes in general. The model is tall, small framed and well, skinny - the complete opposite of ME! Make sure you stay focused on what your body type is and what dresses might suite your frame best. It doesn't mean totally eliminating pieces you like about dresses totally out of your body type range - referring back to the rosettes I loved so much. The only reason I added the bridesmaid dress notes was because I happened to come across it and didn't want to forget about tying it in to the whole rosette clothing theme, maybe somehow I could incorporate it into my bouquet and/or grooms boutonniere? {notes I should add}.

AT THE SHOP. Take your pages shopping with you (in a binder or folder. I also organized mine into page protectors) to better describe what you want to clerks a seamstress or for your own comparison. If you aren't going to a completely professional place you don't want to have to rely on an unskilled clerk trying to pick something out for you - you can just show them your photos and notes and they can help you dig through racks.

Sewing Your Own Dress or Having it Custom Made...

SEWING. Personally, I wouldn't attempt this feat unless you are familiar with sewing. Do not forge in to this unless you are familiar with fabric types as well as how to sew with those fabric types. Wedding dress materials generally tend to be delicate and can be difficult to sew with not to mention expensive - so chancing the project and not being familiar with sewing could end up in a budget disaster, with wasted time and fabric only to end up buying something you aren't too happy with or over budget. Additionally, sewing a dress with the expense of materials (depending on style and quality) and time allotted may not actually be cheaper.

IF and only if you have the time, I would do a test run out of cheap linen (cheap sheets or yardage of lightweight linens) for fitting and general style, and if that's a success, then and ONLY THEN purchase fabrics to make the real deal.

Now that I've threatened you to death with weather or not you should be sewing your dress, I will note that there are a few things you can do to spruce up a plain dress with minimal sewing or even a hot glue gun. Might sound hoakey, but believe me, you could do a lot with embellishments and possibly applique. Be open minded about where you pick up a base design, check out prom dresses, evening dresses and thrift shops.

If you have a specific dress structure in mind, you might even consider meeting with a seamstress to see what kind of quote on them sewing up the base, then you could add embellishments if you're ok with simple straight-stitching, hand-stiching and maybe even some gluing. :)

Using a Seamstress to combine two dresses might also be an option. If you like the bodice of one, but the base/skirt of another, it might be doable for a pretty affordable price. Discuss price and options with the seamstress BEFORE buying anything and only AFTER taking your dress notes. They might also have additional suggestions and alternation options like it would be cheaper to choose such and such bodice rather than a more complicated bodice you might have in mind, etc. Find a seamstress you can build a good rapport with because a project like this is going to need clear communication.

Embellishments. If you have a crafty vision but maybe lack the impressive ability to accomplish dressmaking in time to make a gown, here are some things you could add to whatever sort of dress you picked up. These are some DIY ideas, but you can usually find most of these items pre-made on Etsy.com as well.

(rosettes & image from lollychops.com)

Rosettes. Generally used to create either a funky or sweet vintage look, depending on what type you make. If you Google "rosettes" you will notice many types - this is a slightly broad term to describe a variety of styles. Here's a list of DIY resources on making different types. you could essentially hot glue these to areas on the dress (neckline, off the shoulder, waist, bustle maybe even scattered on the skirt or down the train. You have control over size and colours and extra jewels if you so wish to add.

* Linen or Muslim Rosettes: Beautiful, threadbare look. You could vary the materials - you can make these out of anything - match the material your dress is made of to make some to match. Great tutorial video (part of a project video - so the rosette portion is about 3min in). By Dona Downey on her website donnadowney.typepad.com or on Vimeo directly.

* Yarn, Pearl Cotton or Thread Rosettes: Basically a stringy-wirey look. How to Make a Rosette from WonderHowTo.com (video tutorial).

* Ruffly style of doing the rossette that could be used in the bustle or neckline. This one is out of felt, test it out in different fabrics.How-Tuesday: Pillow With Rosette Clusters from Felt Furnishings by Michelle from Etsy.com

Lace, Beading, Swags, Ribbon & Ruffles. Most often if you're adding major lace overlays or extravagant additions, you will have needed to attach it to the dress pieces before it was all sewn together, but you might be able to again utilize a simple dress base and talk with a seamstress for a little help in adding some things. Here's a good photo and descriptive reference for lace types used on wedding dresses I had found a lot of written resources that sadly didn't include any photos, hopefully this helps when you are describing what you want to a seamstress. You can also ask for sample cuts of lace or fabrics (at a fabric store) that you may want to incorporate in to your dress too - this is probably the best way to discuss exact types with a seamstress.

Borrowing, Buying Pre-Owned and/ or Refurbishing Either Or...

Borrowing a dress is extremely convenient if a family or friend doesn't mind and you don't mind not keeping the memory around or having your own. If it comes to a very tight budget, that might be just what you're going to get. You could possibly borrow a dress for the ceremony, but spend a little on a cute dress for the reception which could be a keepsake dress. This allows you to have a fabulous ceremony dress, yet have a pretty little keeper that may not be as extravagant, but may also be a more useful item than a ceremony dress is anyway. Also, many brides from big and small budgets do a change from ceremony to reception, so it's not like you'd be doing something out of the norm to reflect your budget. Lastly, you are sure to keep clear of stains or accidents if you are only using the borrowed dress for photos and the ceremony...something to consider as you wouldn't want an mishap to make your free dress start costing you money (cleaners).

Pre-Owned & Used dresses don't always come from a thrift store. You can still get an extremely nice dress at a $1,000 discount or more (and still pay $2,000!) at places like PreOwnedWeddingDresses.com - they also have dresses in the $200 range. You can also check out Craigslist.com and Ebay.com. Other resources for Pre-Owned dresses include: BuySellDress.com, WoreItOnce.com (not the most usable site, but if you're really digging, take a gander), BravoBride.com [new and used], ReSellYourWedding.com, [very decently priced], WeddingDressMarket.com, IDoTakeTwo.com, RuffleSwap.com.

Shop Dress Discounts or optional variety: EncoreBridal.com, FormalDressShops.com (very inexpensive formal gowns that can be used for wedding dresses). WeddingGownsGalore.com (imitation designer dresses and discounted dresses)... this list could be endless.

Today I was at the thrift shop and took a cruise through their wedding dresses and although most of them were outdated or just not my taste to say it nicely, you could possibly use the pieces cheaply enough and have a seamstress add a bodice that would work or as discussed above in sewing, combine two different dresses - again, talk to a seamstress BEFORE heading out on this possible mission.

NEW. And of course, if you want a new dress, by all means shop designers and styles to see what's out there at what price range. TheKnot.com has an excellent starting point in there Wedding Dress Photo Search.

***NOTE OF CAUTION*** when buying a used dress online, make sure the seller sends you a photo of the actual dress. A lot of online ad's have stock images of the dress on model's from original dress ad's. Be sure to ask about any rips, stains, etc and expect the buyers beware on your final purchase. It's the pitfall of buying used over the internet. Not that you shouldn't, but communicate with the seller and get plenty of detailed photos of the dress as you can (that you can view large) before making a solid purchase. It's not always convenient to buy a used dress local if a better deal is at a distance, just be careful.

That wraps up the wedding dress. I hope this gives you plenty of ideas and resources to use and make a wonderful budget-friendly day. I'll address the brides accessories next time. :)

Frontier CEO pledges better service, stable pricing

2010-09-08T14:22:46+00:00

Maggie Wilderotter was in Beaverton on Tuesday to meet with employees and businesses.

Why I Love the Internet So Much

2010-09-08T08:47:38+00:00

So I’m editing OpenStreetMap tonight (for the first time) and I find a place a few miles from my house called the Vanport Wetlands. The map says there’s a radio tower there, that it belongs to the radio station KGW AM and that it was built in May of 1984. Very cool. Makes me wish I had an OpenStreetMap augmented reality app on my phone, or some way to easily see information about all the Points of Interest on OpenStreetMap within a given area around where I am.

But then I highlight the letters KGW AM in my browser and my browser plug-in from Apture pops up. Ok, first I searched the wetlands with Apture and learned about its history, saw some photos – awesome augmentation of OpenStreetMap. But then I searched KGW AM and I found a link to a website about the history of Portland’s radio stations. One of the entries was about the Vanport radio tower being decommissioned for wetlands restoration in the year 2000! The history page says that the local Port Authority built a multi-media website about the tower’s history as penance. But the website is no longer up- there’s a domain squatter on it now.

Enter Archive.org! I loaded the tower memorial site in Archive.org, read all about it, then went back and edited the OpenStreetMap entry for the tower in the wetlands to include a note saying it was decommissioned and the link to the memorial site via archive.org! Now future users of OpenStreetMap will be able to see that new historical note. Thanks internet!

How awesome is that?? I think it’s crazy awesome. So many different trends intersect in that experience: community edited content, location, contextual search ala Apture, blogging or at least easy publishing ala the local radio history site and do not forget content archiving thanks to the fabulous Archive.org!

The end result? Meaningful enrichment of my relationship with the place I live, and an opportunity for me to further enrich the relationships others have with this place.

I sure do love the internet. I’m sure those old radio shows broadcast through that tower were cool too – but media is changing radically, is it not?

Do Mobile Apps Create Lock-in?

2010-09-08T04:33:58+00:00

A core assumption that many have is that mobile apps create lock-in. I’m not sure.

The assumption is based on lessons from the platform battle in the PC market where the amount of software that someone had purchased was a barrier to switching platforms. TidBITs summarizes well how this idea applies to mobile, and the iPhone in particular:

Apple is applying lessons learned from the Macintosh world to the mobile phone industry, and using the App Store and its applications as a way of generating platform lock-in on top of AT&T’s contractual carrier lock-in.

Platform lock-in occurs when a customer becomes committed primarily to the phone’s software, as opposed to its carrier’s service. If you’ve bought $200 worth of applications for your smartphone, you’re much less likely to switch to a different model in the future. In short, high spending on smartphone apps ensures long-term platform loyalty.

This reasoning was absolutely true when it came to the PC market. If you had invested several hundred if not thousands of dollars into software like Photoshop and Office on one platform, you were unlikely to switch to another.

However, there are many ways the mobile market doesn’t resemble the PC market, and I believe this is one of them.

I recently asked the audience a Mobile Portland to raise their hands if they used more than one third-party application on their phone daily. Everyone raised their hand.

Then I gradually increased the number.

Two? Three? Five?

By the time I got to five, less than half the audience had their hands up. When I asked who used ten or more third party apps on a daily basis, only one person still had his hand up.

This was an audience of heavy mobile users and no one was using more than a handful of apps on a regular basis. My own list of apps I use daily looks like this:

App	Description

Cost Total $17.97 Twitter for iPhone Twitter client Free Reeder RSS Reader $2.99 Instapaper Offline reading $4.99 Facebook Facebook client Free 1Password Encrypted Password Storage $9.99

You could reasonably argue that there are a couple of other apps that I use occasionally plus whatever my game du jour is (currently Angry Birds), but even after adding those in, the total cost of the apps I regularly use is no more than $30.

My suspicion is that many people are in the same boat. Because the price of apps are so low, the switching costs are also lower.

There are some specialized apps that could make switching costs higher. For example, a doctor who had paid $299 for the Lexi-COMPLETE medical reference is probably going to think twice before switching smartphone platforms.

This is one of the reasons why enterprise application development is so important to every platform and why Blackberry will be more difficult to unseat than people think. Specialized software is the one area where higher prices and the amount of installed software can create lock-in.

Gone Markdown Crazy

2010-09-08T04:11:53+00:00

I’ve gone a bit Markdown crazy today. It’s an easy way to write for the web. As someone who writes for the web a lot, it’s the most useful thing I’ve learned in ages. What took me so long?

First, I grabbed the MarkdownMail iPhone app, started testing it with my Posterous, then enabled it here on TinyScreenfuls.com with the WordPress plugin. Now I’m looking for ways to use it other places – Mail.app on my Mac, on my iOS devices, etc. Share any cool tricks or tools you know, please.

You probably already write at least partly in Markdown, and just don’t know it. I did.

Update: I’ve switched to Steven Frank’s branch of Notational Velocity that supports the Markdown preview pane. I also discovered that Tumblr and MarsEdit support Markdown natively. I added Markdown and SmartyPants as Unix Filter to TextWrangler using these instructions. I also added Markdown and SmartyPants as Mac OS X system Services using Automator, so I can use them anywhere on my Mac (in TextEdit, etc.). I’m also going to install the Markdown Syntax MediaWiki extension on Intelpedia, our big internal wiki at work.

See? Markdown crazy.

Oregon Growth Account re-ups with Angel Fund; ambivalent on Portland Seed Fund

2010-09-08T00:08:43+00:00

SILICON FOREST BLOG: State backing for Oregon startups may be harder to come by in the years ahead.

SweetSpot hits the… Oh. Um. Well, it secures seed funding for diabetes data services

2010-09-07T20:30:59+00:00

When it comes to technology, health care, ironically, tends to fall closer to the rusting edge than the bleeding edge. But that shortcoming is a boon for startups that can figure out how to use today’s technology to solve health care’s problems—both for providers and patients.

One such company is Portland-based SweetSpot, a startup that seeks to help diabetics and their care givers better manage health information by providing a central resource for blood glucose tracking and reporting. And today, Sweetspot is one step closer that helping fix its own corner of health care, thanks to a round of seed funding.

While the terms and amounts were not released, the investors have impressive pedigrees. They include Dick Sass, Bill Trenchard, and Alan Lefkof.

“It’s gratifying to find investors who believe in what you are doing, especially in today’s environment. We ended up with a mix of Portland and Silicon Valley-based entrepreneurs I could not have more respect for,” said SweetSpot Diabetes CEO Christopher Logan, formerly of ccSync, in a press release.

SweetSpot Diabetes is a health data company focused on improving the use of data in the treatment of diabetes. SweetSpot specializes in turning raw output from patient devices into powerful information for researchers, health care providers and patients. In clinics or from home SweetSpot performs all data extraction and analysis, relieving frustration with multiple interfaces, drivers and data formats.

For more information, visit SweetSpot.

Daley's Dog Years

2010-09-07T18:00:07+00:00

We recently adopted a puppy from the Oregon Humane Society. While there, we met volunteer Chandra who has a passion for allowing senior dogs to live full lives. Her dedication and passion is instantly apparent. We worked with Chandra to create a simple micro-website that uses the latest semantic HTML features of WordPress 3.0 and is based on the brand new Twenty Ten theme. And, of course, includes plenty of snapshots of the tremendously photographical Daley.

Inspiration from Business Cards – The Most Colorful Part of Your Business

2010-09-07T16:58:41+00:00

Little things can make a big difference when it comes to first impressions... your business card is not only an opportunity to let potential clients, friends, squash partners, and recipe swap mates Know what your business is all about, but it is also an opportunity to let them in on a bit of your personality.

Below you will find some links that we hope will inspire you to be a little more colorful, or at least act as a reminder that it's time to reorder more business cards.

Find Your Inspiration

When it come to business cards no one does it quite like the Japanese. Take a look at the history and tradition of Meishi, and check out a few other links to see what that long tradition has come to look like in the contemporary world today: Japanese Business Cards | Meishi The Art of Introduction | Business Card for Tamiya | Printing Museum Tokyo

Maybe look back to the first widely used business cards also known as Trade Cards.

You could check out one of the the many businees card galleries right everywhere on the web: Card Observer |Cardonizer | Creattica | Card Gala

And blog roundups: One Man's Blog & creativebits

Try out some DIY ideas.

Or dive right in to flickr's business card sets & groups: Daily Poetic's Business Card Set | MOO Group | The Business Card | The Art of the Business Card

A Few Examples from the Aforementioned links

Find Your Printer

Once you're inspired just find yourself a printer. If you happen to be inspired by the palettes and patterns here on COLOURlovers, set yourself up with some MOO cards or one of the other many template & design-it-yourself business card sites that can easily be found with a "business cards" search. I recommend doing a local search for printers in your area before reaching out the the global community, unless you need them by tomorrow.

Business Card Colors from the Library

Have you designed or colored any business cards for yourself or a client lately? Share your images or palettes in the comments.

Header cards by Definitive Studio in The Business Card group.

Two looks at the plight of the Silicon Forest's jobless tech workers

2010-09-07T14:46:43+00:00

SILICON FOREST BLOG: The Oregonian and NYTimes both wrote about tech workers who lost their jobs.

Obama endorses one of Intel's top priorities

2010-09-07T13:46:49+00:00

SILICON FOREST BLOG: President Obama will propose making the corporate R&D tax credit permanent.

Food Network: Community Supported Agriculture

2010-09-07T11:00:31+00:00

Cooking Up a Story: Stories

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) offers a holistic approach to the production of sustainable food grown in urban areas. In this story, we learn of one urban farmer who successfully uses the CSA model to produce long-term sustainable crops that are fresh, cost efficient to produce, environmentally friendly, and that offers local members a stake in the harvest crops.

Have you gone to your local farmer’s market lately and tried to make your way through the bustle? Have you noticed at the grocery store they sometimes highlight items from a local grower? Ever notice in growing numbers the restaurants offering dishes made from ingredients grown locally? I have. And it seems to be a growing trend.

Laura Masterson, 47th Avenue Farm

I grew up in farm country (Iowa). Summers were great. I remember going to a nearby corner where a local farmer always sold grocery bags full of corn just picked that morning. I also remember the great taste of tomatoes in the summer. In fact, I only remember eating freshly sliced tomatoes in the summer. This was before food was imported from around the world or grown primarily in hothouses. Now it seems there never is a specific season for any certain fruit or vegetable. You can practically get anything any time of the year. But the flavor isn’t always quite the way I remember it. That’s part of the reason I became interested in buying locally, and buying by season.

It was a natural fit for me to meet Laura Masterson, who runs a small local farm. It was fascinating to watch her zoom from restaurant, to farm, and back home where members pick up the weekly harvest. And she is not alone. I know there are thousands of small farmers across the country (and many around the world) who are facing great odds day to day, producing and selling through a Community Supported Agriculture program. Laura brings up many important points to think about. Is there a future for the small farmer near urban areas? If Oregon leads the nation in slowing urban land development, how well are other areas handling these issues? How important is it to preserve a direct connection between the land, and the food that we eat?

Recipes from the show: Oven Roasted Tomatoes & Herbs; Spanish Eggplant Salad; and Caponata Pasta.

Share and Enjoy:

There’s a new way to approve requirements: Review Center is here.

2010-09-07T10:00:39+00:00

This morning we’re releasing Contour 2.9.8, which features the new Review Center module. We created the Review Center to combat today’s time-consuming, error-prone requirements approval process, where a project owner captures requirements in a static document and circulates it through email for feedback and approval. Within the Review Center, a member of the project team [...]

Labor Day

2010-09-07T00:20:48+00:00

It’s the end of a three day weekend, which I’ve spent reading, visiting family (including my brother whose birthday was on Friday), worrying about Mudshark, and playing with music software. I’ll probably have something more interesting to say next week, … Continue reading →

O’Reilly Webcast on Cyborg Anthropology

2010-09-06T23:39:49+00:00

On August 5, 2010 I gave an hour-long webcast called Cyborg Anthropology: A Short Introduction. The event was free and had roughly 500 signups. It was a really fun way to quickly share a lot of the concepts I’ve been thinking about for the past few years. A lot of it was condensing down a lot of what I’ve begun to explore on CyborgAnthropology.com. I’ll be giving a 20 minute version of this speech at a TED conference in December. You can also watch the webcast at O’Reilly.com. The webcast is 60 minutes long. Start 5 minutes in for best results (the first part is an audio check).

Webcast Summary

Cyborg Anthropology is a way of understanding how we live as technosocially connected citizens in the modern era. Our cell phones, cars and laptops have turned us into cyborgs. What does it mean to extend the body into hyperspace? What are the implications to privacy, information and the formation of identity? Now that we have a second self, how do we protect it? This presentation will cover aspects of time and space compression, communication in the mobile era, evaporating interfaces and how to approach a rapidly changing information spaces.

A Short History of Cyborg Anthropology

Haraway proposed what she termed a “cyborg anthropology” to study the relation between the machine and the human, and she adds that it should proceed by “provocatively” reconceiving “the border relations among specific humans, other organisms, and machines”

Based on this essay, and many other instances of needing a methodology to understand and describe rapidly changing sociocultural systems affected by technology, the idea of a “Cyborg Anthropology” was proposed at the Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) in 1993.

What is a Cyborg Anthropologist?

A cyborg anthropologist looks at how humans and non human objects interact with each other, and how that changes culture. So, for instance, we have these objects in our pockets that cry, and we have to pick them up and soothe them back to sleep, and then we have to feed them every night by plugging them into the wall. At no other time in history have we had these really strange non human devices that we take care of as if they are real, and we’re very dependent upon them. That’s one of the aspects that I’m studying; the idea of mobile technology and its effect on one’s relationships. Another aspect of cyborg anthropology is the idea of individuals extending themselves into a second self in the online space, through a Facebook page, avatar or profile. Studying how people interact with each other through these little technosocial interactions, versus just the analog interactions, is another aspect of cyborg anthropology.

Cyborg Anthropology vs. Traditional Anthropology

What happens in traditional, analog anthropology is this: You go to another culture, and you look at all the people. You see how they interact with each other, how knowledge is created and so on. You see kinship, you see rituals, you see all these different pastimes and hobbies. You see what people eat. And often the anthropologist goes over to another country and says, “Oh, look how fascinating these people are. They’re so strange. Look at all their weird customs. Look at how different they are from us!” There is this definite aspect of the other, of going out and studying something else. But the problem is that many people are not studying world that they live in right now, their own culture. There are a few anthropologists who have begun to really study the effects of technology on everyday life. It is the study of this everyday life that offers the most insight.

Call phones have become so ubiquitous that they no cause one to think about them. One does not think about having a cell phone or not having one – one’s time is spent choosing which external prosthetic device they are going to be using next. Facebook has become very normal. Twitter has become quite normal. Cell phones have become very normal. So my job as an anthropologist is of someone that comes in and says, “Oh my God, how fascinating. Look at all these strange things people do. They’re posting on each other’s Walls. They’re editing each other’s external online selves. Their identity is increasingly made up of text and points and technosocial interactions.” What I do as a Cyborg Anthropologist is take the traditional anthropological toolset and apply those tools and methodologies to the digital space. I’m always trying to take both the embodied and thousand foot view, because it allows me to ask questions such as “What is really going on?”, “What’s next in technological development?”, and “Has anything actually changed with the onset of technology, or are people just bringing offline behaviors to the online space?

More on Cyborgs and Anthropology

If you liked this webcast and want to learn more about cyborgs and Cyborg Anthropology, you might want to look at CyborgAnthropology.com, a site still very much in development as I stitch my research together from the past 7 years of study.

CyborgCamp Portland

If you happen to live in Portland (or need an excuse to visit) and like cyborgs, you should come to CyborgCamp Portland on Oct. 2nd, 2010. It’s a hybrid unconference on the future of humans and machines. We’ll be talking about cyborgs, interface design, government, transportation, science, anthropology and humanity from 9Am-6Pm. Tickets are exceedingly cheap ($10) and you can get one now if you’d like.

50th Anniversary of the term “Cyborg”

Also, September 2010 is the 50th Anniversary of the coining of the term ‘cyborg’. Over the next month, the site 50 Cyborgs, Curated by Tim Maly of Quiet Babylon (another site on Cyborgs that’s worth a good long look), will update 50 times with links to material celebrating 50 years of one of the 20th Century’s more enduring concepts. Then it’ll go dark. I highly suggest reading it before it disappears. But if you miss it, you can always check it out on Archive.org.

—-

About

Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist and UX Designer from Portland, Oregon. You can read more about her here, and you can follow her on Twitter @caseorganic.

Nike produces new iPhone running app

2010-09-06T20:35:36+00:00

The Washington County shoemaker released a new, $1.99 iPhone app over the weekend that tracks runners’ times and speeds with the device’s built-in GPS and accelerometer.

What's Crafty On Etsy This Week: Shades of Green

2010-09-06T15:19:58+00:00

This week on Etsy, we found many of our top picks just happened to feature shades of green. Maybe artists are looking forward to fall? While there's always something to be found in every color on Etsy from jewelry to clothing to art, it seemed like artists were in the mood to evoke the spirit of cooler temperatures on the eclectic site this past few days. And who are we to complain?

The easiest way to get your friends to keep coming over for dinner (well, other than cooking them spectacular food, that is) is to make your dinner table memorable. A quick splash of color in the form of dinnerware will do just that! This gorgeous green ceramic set from Etsy artist chutneyblakedesigns is hand-painted and kiln-fired and also comes in a variety of other colors (I love the dramatic look of the black set). Her shop has more in the same style, as well as picture frames, coaster sets, serving bowls and more.

Masks aren't just for Halloween anymore, you know. If you want to add a touch of light-hearted humor to that dinner party I mentioned above, you could always wear an owl mask to greet your guests. As you can imagine, Etsy artist PunchDrunkPrincess has more than just one type of mask available for sale through her eclectic shop -- she'll also make a custom mask of YOUR cat for you to wear, for instance. Now when my cat makes that same angry face at me (the only face he is capable of, to my knowledge), I can make the same face back. Would that open a wormhole in time?

Some people are kind of standard when it comes to shoe choices -- I'm kind of a Converse girl, myself, But I always envy people who boldly wear brightly colored shoes. This pair from Etsy seller LaLaShoes are simply the closest one can get to actually wearing the season of spring on your feet. Made from linen and flannel by hand, this lovely pair is the last in these colors, but the shop has many different styles and shades to choose from. And they are available for babies as well as adults!

It does seem like the world is full of particle board furniture these days, doesn't it? With a piece like this from Etsy seller jasondupin, you can stop your parents from going into that speech about how furniture was real wood when they were growing up -- this is 100 percent real wood! We were attracted to the vivid green, but he can create them in any color. He'll also paint designs on them if you request them, so if your little one wants a favorite character to greet his or her playspace every morning, it can be done!

I think most people come to Etsy looking for something they can wear ( I know I do). But how about something you can use, like soap? These gorgeous bars from SilverMaple Soaps are made from real goat's milk and vegetable oils, along with castor oil to moisturize, palm kernel oil and coconut oil. Just perfect for a guest bathroom to add an extra touch of class. And they come in so many delicious looking colors and scents -- look at how lovely the Summer Lilac soaps are.

I think one of my worst vices when it comes to Etsy is likely earrings, as I could spend the whole day looking through their plentiful selection. This pair comes from Polestar, who makes all pieces by hand and uses beautiful natural stones in all of them. Not an emerald fan? Sapphire, amethyst, citrine and more can be found in all sorts of designs through the PoleStar shop.

We hope we've helped you get into the spirit of fall this week! We'll bring you more selection from the best of Etsy next week.

Eclectic Color Roundup: Photography from Jerry Monkman & Jessica Eaton, Forms of Color Book, Colorful Lipbalm & Nobody Wants the White Crayon

2010-09-05T14:29:36+00:00

Photography

Jessica Eaton

Portfolio | via Golden Age

Jessica Eaton is a Canadian artist working in photography. She is based in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal.

The Colors of Fall by Jerry Monkman

Exhibition @ Kennedy Gallery | Photos by Jerry Monkman

"'The Colors of Fall,' chronicle his journeys through the fall foliage season in New England. From the hills and valleys of New Hampshire's White Mountains and Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, to Maine's rugged Acadian coast, Monkman captures the colorful scenes unique to our area in autumn." - seacoastonline.com

Monkman and wife Marcy live in Portsmouth and are known for conservation photography.

Must Read Color Books

The Forms of Colour by Karl Gerstner (1986)

Designer Books | via Jude Stewart

"The book begins with an analysis of existing graphical colour spaces and the advantages, as Gerstner sees them, of the ‘uniform colour space’ (UCS) developed by Günter Wyszecki. He then goes on to examine form systems, i.e., developments in geometry since Euclid, including perspective, topologies and fractals. Using geometric systems as generative devices for formal exploration leads Gerstner into an examination of the intricacies of Islamic art. Thanks to a simple pattern obtained from a Moroccan craftsman, Gerstner succeeds in taking the reader through a sequence of examples outlining the countless variations possible and the underlying structural components of the system..." Continue reading at Designer Books

Products

Bonbon Lip Balm

bonbonbalm.com | Jack Featherstone

The bold colours and geometric shapes reflect the juicy flavours inside. Designs by recent graduate, Jack Featherstone.

Header Comic: 'Nobody Wants the White Crayon'

by Natile Dee | via Jude Stewart

Interior Design Trends: Emerald

2010-09-04T22:26:50+00:00

Emerald is a rich, deep and enchanting. I feel like this shade of green is seen a lot during winter time, but of course it is just as great anytime of year. Here in New Jersey it has been scorching for most of the summer and rounding up items in the emerald family has been quiet refreshing, since it reminds me so much of winter and coolness. Does emerald remind you of winter as well?

bookmark | glass | pillow | tray | frog | pendant | wreath

room 1 & 2

Old Robot Learns to Dance

2010-09-04T18:19:30+00:00

I built this robot thirty some odd years ago out of scavenged materials. Its been variously computerized but never to the point of actually moving. Robot maestro Jim Larson changed that for me. Now you can watch it dance.

Configuring [Custom] Syslogs on a Cisco ASA 5550

2010-09-04T00:46:36+00:00

Configuring logging on a Cisco ASA 5550 isn’t too tricky, but I found the docs lacking in examples, so figured I’d post mine.

Using the Cisco ASDM, the parameters you need to modify are in the Configuration -> Device Management -> Logging hierarchy. (I’m sorry there aren’t any pictures to go with this; hopefully you can follow along via the breadcrumbs in the ASDM.)

1. First, enable logging:
Configuration -> Device Management -> Logging -> Logging Setup
Make sure the “Enable Logging” box is checked.

2. Specify parameters for the destination server:
Configuration -> Device Management -> Logging -> Syslog Servers
Click “Add”.
Select the source interface (probably “internal”).
Enter the IP address of the server.
Select an appropriate protocol & port (UDP and 514 are the defaults).

3. Configure your logging facility:
Configuration -> Device Management -> Logging -> Syslog Setup
Choose your facility (0-7). Because I have one central server that handles all my logging, I usually set this to something special to allow me to split out the messages into different log files. (This is a configuration parameter in /etc/syslog.conf and is covered in another post.)

4. Configure the severity level you want to log:
Configuration -> Device Management -> Logging -> Logging Filters
Select “Syslog Servers” and click “Edit”.
Filter on Server -> Notifications (logging level 5 – you’ll get every message between Emergency and Notification levels, inclusive.)

Verify that you are receiving messages on the syslog server. You can stop here if this is all you want.

We, however, decided that we wanted to include these messages:
%ASA-6-713228: Group = [group], Username = [user], IP = [external_ip], Assigned private IP address [internal_ip] to remote user
…but these are “informational” messages (note the “6″ in the second message field). So we tried bumping up our logging level, and were promptly overwhelmed with a lot of other stuff we didn’t want to read. (Informational level is chatty.) What we really want is to log at the Notification level, but also include messages with ID 713228.

Tip: don’t rely on the syslog message reference (or on this post, for that matter) to tell you which messages you might want to log – look at your own logs. The message texts in the logs won’t necessarily match those in the docs.

There are a couple of ways to configure custom logging of this type:

1. Simplest:
Configuration -> Device Management -> Logging -> Syslog Setup
Find the message ID (713228 in our case) in the “Syslog ID Setup” window.
Select the message ID, click “Edit” and change the level to “Notifications”.
Click “OK” to finish.

Apply and save your changes.

Here’s what Option #1 looks like from the cli:
vpn# sh run | include logging logging enable logging timestamp logging trap notifications logging asdm informational logging facility 22 logging host internal [ip] logging message 713228 level notifications

(I don’t know why the logging facility says 22… I have it set to 6, and that’s how it’s coming in to my syslog server. :shrug:)

2. More complex:
Configuration -> Device Management -> Logging -> Event Lists
Click “Add”.
Give it a name (no spaces), eg gabs_test.

Configure the base event class and/or severity:
Under “Event Class/Severity Filters”, click “Add”.
Leave “Event Class” set to “All”*; select “Notifications” under “Severity”; click “OK”.

*Apparently the first three numbers of the message are associated with the event class, but I was unable to find a reference doc that specified which were which. That doesn’t matter here because we want all Notifications, regardless of event class.

Then add the additional specific message ID we’re interested in:
Under “Message ID Filters”, click “Add”, then enter the message ID (again, 713228); click “OK”.

Click “OK” one more time to save your new Event List.

Now apply the Event List you just created to the appropriate destination (syslogs, in our case):
Configuration -> Device Management -> Logging -> Logging Filters
Select “Syslog Servers” and click “Edit”.
Check the “Use Event List” button, select your list, and click “OK”. Notice that the event list now appears in the “All Event Classes” field.

Apply and save your changes.

Here’s what Option #2 looks like from the cli:
vpn# sh run | include logging logging enable logging timestamp logging list gabs_test level notifications logging list gabs_test message 713228 logging trap gabs_test logging asdm informational logging facility 22 logging host internal [ip]

Why would you select one method over the other? Method #1 is certainly easier, but it does require you to remember that you’ve altered the default behavior. Method #2 is a bit more complicated to set up, but it’s more obvious that you’re doing something special due to the “Event list” keyword in the Logging Filters page, so that’s the method I ultimately chose.

Tip: You can’t rename or copy a filter (boo!) so choose your name carefully.

Tip: You also can’t edit a filter while it’s in use – you need to remove it from the destination under “Logging Filters”, apply/save, edit the filter, apply/save, re-enable it for the destination, and apply/save.

Obviously, there is a lot more you could do with this, by creating different custom filters and then applying them to different email destinations. I’ll save that for the next rainy weekend.

Reference: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/asa/asa83/asdm63/configuration_guide/monitor_syslog.html

PingGadget & microblogging.

2010-09-03T22:58:53+00:00

Everyone these days has heard of Twitter. Maybe they aren’t proficient users of the microblogging service, but they at least understand the premise of the 140 character updates and the potential business value in using the tool. But, who or what is the future of microblogging? No one can be sure, but a candidate on [...]

Labor Day weekend means jobs, gigs, and Portland people for hire

2010-09-03T19:36:25+00:00

It’s the eve of Labor Day weekend. So what better time to think about work? Work work work.

What? No wait! Don’ go running away. I’m not asking you to do work. I’m just taking an opportunity to tell you about the awesome jobs, gigs, and people available on the Silicon Florist Job and Gig board.

So let’s take a look at what’s what.

Want to get your jobs or gigs on this list? Have at it. You can post jobs and gigs to the Silicon Florist board at your convenience. The listings run about two weeks. Pricing starts at $21. Those willing to spend a little more for the premium listing get additional exposure through the Silicon Florist presence on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Tell you what. You need a little holiday cheer. Even if it’s just Labor Day holiday cheer. So why not use the code “labor” to save 20% on any posting throughout the weekend? See? Now you really want to post, don’t you?

Oh. And if you’re looking for work? You can post your ad for free.

(Image courtesy Rorris. Used under Creative Commons.)

Writing for SEO: Go with the Flow

2010-09-03T18:15:15+00:00

AboutUs.org community member and search engineer John Calday compares the creation of a search engine optimized (SEO) website to crafting a well-organized book in his article, Intuitive SEO by the Book.

Mr. Calday explains how title tags, header tags and meta descriptions can all help you organize content on your website to grab the attention of both people and search engines. Structuring one’s website like a book with chapters and sections leads naturally to a site that’s well optimized for search engines.

We’re building a library of articles written by experienced professionals at AboutUs.org. If you’d like to share your knowledge about an online marketing topic, send me an email at SuziZiegler@AboutUs.org with your suggestion.

We’d love to hear from you!

Name Your Color of the Year: Win a Goodie Box

2010-09-03T18:04:59+00:00

At the end of 2009 we launched a fun app to let you the people define and share what color you saw representing 2010. Well this year isn't over and we still want you to name the color you feel best embodies this year... and to sweeten the deal, we're going to give away a huge box of color goodies to 5 random color trendsetters that name their color.

See, we at COLOURlovers think the smartest and most talented people in the world really do set the color trends... they create the next great designs that shape our creative landscape and they vote with their dollars and purchase the colors they love... So we want their option, YOUR opinion. Name your color of 2010 and win awesome COLOURloving stuff.

Name Your Color of 2010. Click Here.

All you need to do is use ColoroftheYear.com - to name & describe your Color of 2010.
Your thoughtful entry will get you in the running for one of those 5 goodie boxes... and if you share your color via Facebook or Twitter, you'll double your chances and get a second entry in the drawing.

Win an Awesome Creative Goodie Box Worth $200+

We'll award 5 random trendsetters with a creative goodie box that includes:

				ColorSchemer Software ($49.99) The best professional color software from creative folks. The new ColorSchemer let's you browse palettes on COLOURlovers and a future update will let you start making and publishing palettes to COLOURlovers too.
				COLOURlovers Sponsorship (x2) ($40.00) We'll give you two sponsored memberships to COLOURlovers. Use one and give another to a friend. It lasts all year... and we're adding more and more great benefits for sponsors.
				COLOURlovers T-Shirt (x2) ($36.00) You share the color love all the time... Now you can wear the color love too! You'll get our logo shirt and our color love blind shirt.
				Spoonflower Gift Certificate ($50) Have you made some beautiful patterns with Seamless? Well, why not order that pattern on some fabric from our friends at Spoonflower?
				Action Method - Journal ($17.50) Take notes about all your wonderful ideas with an Action Journal. http://www.creativesoutfitter.com/Products/Action-Journal/19
				Moo Mini Card Pack($20) Moo prints mini cards with a selection of some great palettes from COLOURlovers... but you could also put something else beautiful on your cards... like your face. You decide!

Name a Color in 5 Easy Steps.

As you complete one step, the next will automatically give you suggestions to help you find your color.
1. Describe Your Color
2. Choose Your Hue
3. Set Your Mood
4. Select Your Color
5. Woohoo! You Found Your Color

Now all you need to do now is name your color. Share it with your friends and post the badge in the comments below too.

(Only 1 entry per person will count towards the drawing, but you're free to name more than 1 color of 2010. You have to name your color by September 9th... We'll announced the winners September 10th.
*And make sure you login somehow otherwise we won't know how to get your your goodie box.*)

Bootstrapping the A1200: Finally got my Amiga up and...

2010-09-03T17:36:19+00:00

Bootstrapping the A1200:

Finally got my Amiga up and running!

Note the sweet PC Card accessory that reads FAT formatted CompactFlash cards for 100% easy data transfer with my Mac.

In the screenshot, I’m writing an ADF disk image of a Workbench install disk back to a physical floppy. Hopefully this will prevent me from being completely boned if I trash the OS somehow.

This Amiga has also been upgraded with a large internal CompactFlash card on the IDE bus instead of a hard drive. Very cool!

Meet The Family: Three generations of Apple computers.

2010-09-03T17:36:19+00:00

Meet The Family:

Three generations of Apple computers.

Intel on a shopping spree, Oregon schools put iPad to the test: Silicon Forest week in review

2010-09-03T17:27:31+00:00

SILICON FOREST BLOG: A look back at the week in Oregon tech.

Background reading: Locking (1970)

2010-09-03T16:00:09+00:00

I’ve been reading some old papers about locking and MVCC in preparation for writing about MVCC in PostgreSQL, and for giving a talk at CouchCamp next week!

I just finished “Locking“, by Jim Gray. He discusses semaphores, and makes the argument for implementing a locking scheduler to handle errors and deadlocks (which he calls interlocks, or a “deadly embrace” – a term I’m sad we’ve stopped using).

An example from the start of the paper illustrates the power of MVCC:

The classic example is an accounting file. Processes reading the file may share it
concurrently. However, a process requesting write access to the file blocks until all processes currently reading have released the file.

A lovely thing about Postgres’ MVCC is that readers (SELECT) don’t require this type of lock, and most writers don’t block readers. For SELECT, the only statements that will block it are those that make changes to tables which move all rows physically around (VACUUM FULL, CLUSTER, REINDEX, TRUNCATE), or make changes to table structure (ALTER TABLE, DROP TABLE).

Have a look at the explicit locking docs for more detail on the lock modes automatically used by PostgreSQL.

Taking a Look at Tartan

2010-09-03T15:00:00+00:00

From Highlanders to hipsters, tartan--or, in a lot of cases outside of Scotland, plaid and check--has been one of fashion's favorite textiles for centuries.

"It's a cloth of duality," said Dr. Jonathan Faiers, author of Tartan: Textiles that Changed the World. "Its history is in the establishment--in clansmanship, the aristocracy and military forces, but because it's become the uniform of rugged masculinity it's also revisited in an ironic way--by subcultures such as grunge, punk and gay clones."

In that sociological sense, tartan is modern and traditional--a staple of Scottish clans and international fashion runways alike. From a color and pattern standpoint--important factors distinguishing one tartan from the next--it's a bold, eye-catching textile with the ability to declare one's family history as immediately as it can one's personal sense of style. It's certainly a favorite with pattern makers here at COLOURlovers.

Today, we're taking a look at how all of tartan's aspects come together.

[thardy1]

When most people think of tartan, they probably think of Scotland. And while the association isn't a false one, it isn't tartan's whole story. While the origin of the patterned cloth itself seems to spark a hot debate between textile historians, most seem to agree fabric woven with tartan-like designs first emerged in ancient Celtic populations between 400 BC and 100 BC--a lot earlier than the documentation of Britain's first tartan, the Falkirk Tartan, found in Stirlingshire, Scotland, and dating to the third century AD. Tartans of various colors and patterns associated with different Scottish regions didn't emerge until the 17th century, and it's thought most modern clan tartans--those associated with specific families--weren't designated until the 19th century.

[sarouchk]

Tartan itself is formed of colored thread woven so that the warp--the lengthwise threads--and the weft--a filler yarn--are at right angles. The weft is woven over and under the warp, creating the illusion of more colors than originally used. The blocks of color and lines formed and repeated throughout the fabric are called "setts." Tartan can be made with any material, though traditional Scottish tartan kilts are typically made of wool.

When it comes to color, Peter Eslea MacDonald reports, via the Scottish Tartans Authority, most 18th-century tartans were all a combination of black, blue, red and green. Today's tartans come in a range of colors--and many are classified by misnomers, MacDonald said. "Old" or "ancient" tartans feature mid- to light shades meant to represent colors produced with natural dyes--but these tartans weren't produced until the last half-century. "Modern" or "ordinary" tartans, produced since the early 19th century, have strong, dark shades. And "muted" tartans, produced since the 1970s, have colors that fall somewhere between old and modern hues. When speaking of a family tartan, the pattern is really what makes it--an old, modern and muted tartan, though they may look different, are all considered the same.

[dantraveling]

The pattern of all tartans are considered plaid, but plaid and check patterns are not all synonymous with tartan.

"A tartan plaid, first of all, is Scottish, as opposed to American or English. It's Scottish," said Doria De La Chappelle, co-author of Tartan: Romancing the Plaid, in a CBS report. The story explains: "... The instantly recognizable Burberry pattern on the company's coats and scarves may look like a tartan plaid, but is in fact officially just 'a check' because Burberry is actually English. In addition, a tartan pattern has to be made up of perfect squares. Technically, a tartan plaid can be turned 180 degrees and is exactly the same. ... A Plaid, on the other hand, can have stripes that clearly run in a specific direction."

[Women's clothing: Vivienne Westwood Anglomania at Net-a-Porter; men's clothing: Diesel at SSense]

A lot of us probably don't get that specific when we don our plaids, checks and tartans--we wear them because we like them, whether we're punk rockers (who adopted plaid as a symbolic rejection of the upper class in the 1970s), grunge fans (who made the plaid flannel shirt ubiquitous in the late1980s and first half of the 1990s--and who're seeing a comeback of their relaxed style on recent runways) or ladies who lunch.

"You could argue that in a recession climate, tartan signals a back-to-basics feel. You can put a sociological spin on it, and there aren't many fabrics you can do that with," Faiers said. And, he said, "People love tartan because it's beautiful."

Header photo by Dano.

Starbucks Adds BlackBerry App

2010-09-03T13:56:01+00:00

Starbucks has long had an iPhone application, but now the coffee company is branching out and embracing another mobile platform as well.

The Starbucks Card Mobile App for BlackBerry will allow BlackBerry users to do basic functions with their mobile phones. It is interesting to me that it has Starbucks this long to embrace BlackBerry, as RIM devices are the number 2 selling devices in North America (and strong in Europe as well). Many professional business types utilize Starbucks, so it seems the audience was there a long time ago.

In terms of features, the new Blackberry app for Starbucks will allow users to:

Check their Starbucks Card balance
Reload their card with a credit card. Alternatively, you can set up automatic reloads when your balance gets to a certain threshold.
Find nearby Starbucks stores
Check your rewards status.
Provide mobile payment in Starbucks stores in 1,000 Target locations and a few trial stores in Seattle and Northern California.

To get the new mobile app for BlackBerry, follow this link. The client is currently available for these more popular BlackBerry models: BlackBerry Bold, Curve, Storm, and Tour.

Post from: Techcraver.com | Craving Tech, Craving Life!

Starbucks Adds BlackBerry App

The Top 35 UX Blogs (According to Google) and How to Search Them All at Once

2010-09-03T08:29:49+00:00

In looking to write about the forthcoming Twitter push notifications tonight, I grabbed a list of the top 35 UX (user experience) blogs, according to Google’s new blog finder feature. (Didn’t know about that? ReadWriteWeb was the only leading blog that covered it.) The algorithm isn’t that great, in terms of ranking, but it took me from nothing to a whole lot of something in a hurry. It was more an experiment than anything else, to see how well Google’s new blog directory search worked. You know what else might prove useful? Googling for “top UX blogs” and finding human-compiled lists like this one from Whitney Hess.

I usually have much more extensive and rigorous processes for identifying the top blogs in a niche, but I needed something quick and dirty tonight. The real bummer? None of these blogs have ever written about the UX of push notifications! Amazing! I’m pinging some UX pros on Twitter though to see if they’ll comment for a write-up.

In the mean time, someone asked me on Twitter “what are the top 35 UX blogs online?” so I thought I’d share my work. Again, this is quick and dirty. But it’s better than nothing. My list so far is below and you can search the archives of all these blogs from this one URL. I even added 9 more from Hess and still nothing! Can you believe Bokardo, for example, has never blogged the phrase “push notifications”??

Identifying the top blogs in a niche is something I sometimes do for consulting clients and you’d better believe my deliverables are a lot prettier than this but it’s 1:30 AM and I’m trying to write a blog post. I made this list and the custom search engine to search years of UX blogging experience in about 10 minutes, in case you’re curious. Boom!

http://uie.com
http://uxbookclub.com
http://ux.artu.tv
http://dswillis.com/uxcrank
http://blogs.msdn.com/canu
http://uxdige.st
http://uxagile.com
http://www.uxunleashed.com
http://www.blogwithoutalibrary.net
http://instone.org
http://uxstorytellers.blogspot.com
http://www.everydayux.com
http://developingux.com
http://www.agile-ux.com
http://ux.raquedan.com
http://chrisshattuck.com
http://uxdesignedge.com
http://www.solidstateux.com
http://www.balsamiq.com/blogs
http://uxgroup.wordpress.com
http://blogs.sweux.com
http://uxuniversity.org
http://www.uxforgood.org
http://uxnerd.com
http://www.flyover18.com/christhi
http://uxpillow.blogspot.com
http://www.theuxcritic.com
http://www.uxbydesign.org
http://designingux.com
http://uxp.blogspot.com
http://www.uxmag.com
http://www.uxsuccess.com
http://www.sleepingdeer.com
http://www.epicuserexperience.com
http://www.mauronewmedia.com/blog

Then I added these ones from Whitney Hess, too, to the Custom Search Engine. They look great.

How One Advanced Search Operator Just Made Me Jump for Twitter Joy

2010-09-03T07:03:31+00:00

“-source:Twitterfeed” Those were the magic characters. My longtime RSS mentor Marjolein Hoekstra told me about it tonight. From now on, the Twitter search results page I keep bookmarked and camp on day will be results for the search “benbarden OR qthrul OR marshallk OR rwwmike OR RWW OR sarahintampa OR chcameron OR fredericl OR curthopkins OR alexwilliams OR audreywatters OR adrjeffries OR klintron -source:TwitterFeed” (Those are my co-workers.) Ohhh, yeah!

I like Twitterfeed, but there are SO many spammers who use it that search results get pretty messy. I can deal with weak signal to noise ratios (I do it for a living, in fact) but if there’s an easy way to improve it, I’m pretty excited.

HP 2510p laptop, 2 year review.

2010-09-03T04:21:45+00:00

I can’t believe I’ve had this laptop for two years & haven’t had to replace the keyboard yet :knock wood: despite my attempts to feed it some wine one evening.

I’ve dropped it once, from about 2 feet, onto pavement. The hinge cracked, but it still works.

The buttons on the touchpad are losing their oomph.

The fan is pretty noisy, and that has started to get to me over time.

Other than that, it’s still going strong.

I Wrote the Forward to A Really Good (Free) Book

2010-09-03T03:40:50+00:00

Last month I wrote the forward to a new book called The Shift: The Evolving Market, Players and Business Models in a 2.0 World and it’s now available – for free! It’s essentially a marketing vehicle for the very large telecommunication infrastructure provider Alcatel-Lucent, but it’s marketing 2.0 of the best kind: the book makes almost zero mention of the company at all. It just talks about how changes in society and mobile internet devices are combining in such a way that network service providers should offer application programming interfaces to a wider developer community. It’s a really good real, actually.

My forward isn’t my best writing, but I was proud to have been given the opportunity. I wrote a better article, one I’m quite proud of in fact, this week about an acquisition the company made: Acquisition Aims to Change History for Mobile Apps & Data.

I recommend reading the book if you’re into thinking about these kinds of topics. You can read selections online and if you want, the company will send you a free paper copy in exchange for your contact info. They may or may not call you, I’m guessing, to discuss whether you’d like to buy a big telephony infrastructure middleware software package. Or they may want to talk to you if you’re a developer. Either way, it’s no big whoop and it’s certainly worth it to do all the learning you’ll get from the book. It’s fun.

You can check out the book and its corresponding online community here.

Fire Drill During the Apple Event Broadcast – The Solution!

2010-09-02T15:49:27+00:00

As usual, my Apple nerd friends and I gathered around one of the big TVs in the “living room” area at work, so we could watch the Apple event and announcements live. Usually, it’s me flipping through all the liveblogs, seeing what tidbits we can glean as they dribble out. This time, since there was a live video stream for the first time since 2002, we were sitting pretty – we were watching and listening to Steve Jobs live on the TV. It was great.

Until, five minutes into the thing, the building sirens go off, and security comes over the PA and announces that the building is being evacuated. It was just a scheduled drill, but it was SO HARD to drag myself away from the new and exciting announcements we were just starting to hear!

As we filed out of the building, I brought up the stream on my iPhone (which worked beautifully – as a video streaming guy, I appreciate how difficult it is to get this right on such a large scale). We marched to the evacuation area in the parking lot, and by luck, my car was parked nearby. So I had an idea.

We all piled into my car (which also got us out of the rain), stuck my iPhone and the Apple stream into my car dock, and we continued to watch and listen to the event in my car during the fire drill evacuation. It was a nerd drive-in movie! Never underestimate the ingenuity of an unabashed fanboy.

Using Color for Web Wayfinding

2010-09-02T15:00:15+00:00

I was first introduced to the term wayfinding from an architectural firm that hired me to help them get on the web years ago. In architectural terms wayfinding encompasses all of the ways in which people orient themselves in physical space and navigate from place to place.

While it can be a holistic and even philosophical design approach it mostly boils down to effective signage. When it comes to vast spaces, such as arenas and airports, color systems are often the most effective means of conveying categories of direction.

In other words, all blue signs refer to the International terminal or club section while all green signs signal restrooms. Frequently these systems also include icons to help further delineate or deepen the association.

Help Me Navigate a Space

The real point of the exercise boils down to making it easy for people to navigate in areas that are usually foreign to them.

When you think about it, a website is much like a large public space frequented by visitors that may not be familiar with the lay of the land. A system of color wayfinding might be very effective way to help visitors navigate a web site more effectively.

Color Wayfinding

What if you developed a family of colors and icons that designated any content that was related to a specific product group or service. You could even create color pattern style sheets and assign them to specific blog post categories.

Colors could be used throughout a site to associate with a specific brand or to help segment the content created for specific target audiences.

The coordinated family of colors and icons is a commonly used branding technique offline that should be considered as a navigation and wayfinding tool online.

Of course there are many other issues to consider such as a universal navigation scheme, consistent placement, and site maps, but color as a wayfinding and branding tool just might be a great place to start.

No matter what system or approach your take, employing usability testing with tools like CrazyEgg, UserTesting.com or FeedbackArmy is also a great idea.

"I started working with Needmore two years ago when I started my clothing line, and I had for..."

2010-09-02T15:00:00+00:00

“I started working with Needmore two years ago when I started my clothing line, and I had for direction was an amorphous sense of how it should feel and the perception it should convey. Kandace and Ray took that fuzzy goal and came up with a brilliantly simple and elegant design that I’ve received many compliments on, including, “wow, you must be a large company with such a beautiful website”! I recently added new features to the site, and Needmore was able to keep the same streamlined feeling while adding more elements to the screen with ever so subtle tweaks. So not only did they create the original aesthetic, but they were able to accommodate the change in business needs without compromising the original design. Bravo!”

- Holli Harris, founder HadleyStilwell

P.S. We cannot wait until we can show you the updates!

First Thursday Portland: Forkfly, Tenfour, and 90210

2010-09-02T00:28:07+00:00

It’s getting be that time where summer is winding down, school is starting up, and work is—well—who am I kidding? Your work has been crazy the entire summer.

But what better reason to blow off a little steam? So why not take the chance to celebrate with a little First Thursday Portland foray? There are even a couple of tech types that are hosting gatherings for you to attend, Forkfly and Tenfour.

Forkfly

Need a good excuse to wander around the Pearl? Portland restaurant discount aficionados Forkfly may have just what you need.

Come celebrate the official kickoff of Forkfly’s new app, website, and our great relationship with the Pearl District Business Association!

Take part in our Forkfly Adventure Race, with prizes hidden around the Pearl District. The grand prize winner takes home a shiny new iPad!

So swing by Henry’s Tavern some time between 5:00 PM and 11:00 PM on Thursday and partake in a little celebrating.

(Disclaimer: Forkfly is a sponsor of Silicon Florist. Like, right over there. In the sidebar.)

Tenfour

Sometimes, tech startups aren’t the traditional sort of tech startups. Like Small Society. And like up-and-coming agency with a technical bent Tenfour, which is doing a little housewarming for its new Pearl District space by holding a First Thursday gathering with some awesome local artists.

We’re celebrating.

The gang at tenfour has had a great year so far. From a successful rebrand of our agency, our award winning work for Air New Zealand (plus recent nominations for the IAB MIXX Awards for brand awareness and the Sammy Awards) to our swank new space in Portland’s Pearl District, we’ve got a lot to be happy about. We’ve decided the best way to share our good fortune with the public was to open our doors for a First Thursday celebration on September 2nd at 6 pm.

The evening will include an interactive art show, a live DJ, refreshments and delicious eats from Koi Fusion.

But don’t just take my word for it. Take a look at the artists who will be presenting works.

So swing by Tenfour between 6:00 PM and 10:00 PM to get a little culture.

And what’s with the whole “90210″ in the headline?

Well. It’s not just First Thursday you know. It’s also 9/02/10. (Wait for it.)

So when you start to think that maybe you’re going to skip these little get togethers, just think “What Would Brenda Do?” Don’t think “What Would David Do?” because honestly that dude was always a little iffy. And Brandon and Dylan? Never you mind. Unless you can grow some sweet sideburns in time.

(Image courtesy of Alex Pears. Used under Creative Commons.)

Dorking around

2010-09-01T22:50:37+00:00

I went through the Arduino Cult Induction on Sunday and had a good time (once I got to the correct address). I was so happy, I went to Surplus Gizmos and bought another Dorkboard to play with. However, the microcontroller (Mega8) I bought didn't have the bootloader installed. So I tried to use my working Dorkboard to burn the bootloader onto the new Dorkboard. It didn't work. I got a verification error on the first byte.

I was adapting the instructions here: http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/ArduinoISP

Anybody have some helpful tips or suggestions?

A Startup I’ve Now Used Every Day for the Past Week: Nsyght

2010-09-01T21:36:57+00:00

Nsyght is a clever service with a terrible name (it’s hard to remember) and stock photo on its home page, but don’t be fooled – it’s really useful. I wrote about it on ReadWriteWeb last week under the title How to Search Inside Twitter Lists, and that’s just what it’s for. After a few minutes to index your stream, Nsyght will let you search inside tweets from your friends, inside particular lists or your own archive for months back in history. It’s awesome. I’ve been using it to filter for images shared by friends on Twitter (great for quick little posts) and to find old Tweets of mine that I can’t find nearly as quickly in any other way. And searching inside a Twitter list of topical experts for their opinions on a particular matter? So hot. It’s like a Custom Search Engine for twitter lists, which is incredibly powerful.

I think of things like this as curating my existing community resources, an all-too under utilized strategy I believe. That’s the kind of thing I’m likely to bring up as a guest tomorrow on Tummelvision.tv, which I cannot recommend highly enough that you check out.

The Wonderful World of Ed Emberley

2010-09-01T18:37:53+00:00

Much loved the world over, Ed Emberley has been inspiring illustrators, young and old, since the 1970s. Either with crayon and a coloring book, or a more formal artistic approach, his incredible influence is clear.

The schematic for doodling Ed's characters is so utterly basic you don't even need to be able to read to understand how, yet the it produces a character with so much style and heart you can't help but be captivated. As a kid, I remember sitting at the kitchen table with one of Emberly's drawing books checked out from the library and I drew every single one of the illustrations in the book. Paper everywhere in disarray filled with marker doodles, I practiced and practiced.

Ed's still quite active today, and if you're lucky enough to be near Culver City, CA you can see an exhibition dedicated to his work at the Scion Installation until Aug 7th. The show features Ed's original mock-ups as well as work from six artists who were influenced by his books as children too.

Here's a few more of my illustrators whose work echos that of the great Mr. Ed (person, not horse, that is.)

The wooooonderful Christopher David Ryan.

The work of Japanese illustrator Toru Fukuda feels familiar too, even channeling the Mr. Men series.

And finally Jim Datz'simmense body of work definitely rocks this vibe with equal parts stunning color and typography.

Images sourced from Google, Contrarymary and Grickily's photostreams, and My Love for You is a Stampede of Horses.

Tips for a Brand-wide Social Strategy, by Isobar's Bryan Maleszyk

2010-09-01T17:44:32+00:00

Most brands have by now dabbled in social media. They’ve most likely set up a blog, have a Facebook page and actively use Twitter. However, according to the June eMarketer edition, most of these brands focus on social media marketing and PR initiatives. While this makes me happy - I do work for a communications agency, after all - and while marketing and PR are obvious places for social media experimentation and incubation, to truly leverage the power of conversation brands need to move toward a fully-networked organization.

A networked organization allows everyone - from their customers and existing markets, to partners and employees - to participate in some aspect of their business. This can involve crowdsourced product development and new business initiatives to an integrated social recruiting strategy. Here are some key things to do to put a whole-organization social strategy in place.

Get C-Level Sponsorship.
Like any other cross-functional business strategy, a social strategy that spans the enterprise needs buy-in (and investment) from the people who pay the bills. Without it, there is no strategy - there is only a dream. If you’re about to ask for an investment, remember that the ultimate selling point is return on that investment. Be prepared to talk about it.
Open Doors, Break Down Walls.
Believe it or not, most corporations still function as a series of silos - HR, Marketing, R&D - with each more or less unaware of what the others are doing. Unfortunately for these organizations, markets don’t operate within these silos. In addition, it is increasingly likely that your company will have to act on multiple, coordinated fronts to be successful. By establish a cross-functional team to develop the overall social strategy - with each member representing a different group within the organization - you can start to overcome legacy organizational silos. It’s okay if the group is informal, but it should be recognized and legitimized by management. When choosing members of this team, think outside the box. A junior customer service representative that is passionate about serving customers and about being innovative will be a lot more effective than a senior manager that doesn't care about these things.
Include the Legal Department.
They’re going to get involved at some point anyway. Be proactive and keep them in the loop. Consider JetBlue’s recent situation. It took the company two days to react to the social groundswell, and you can bet that it had something to do with the legal department. When one of your employees goes Steven Slater, you’ll need to react on multiple fronts. It is best to know in advance how to approach it from a legal standpoint.
Actively Listen.
Listening is not just about how many times your brand has been mentioned on Twitter. What is your market - not just your existing customers - really saying, and how are you responding? One of the most common (and least talked about) mistake companies make when setting up a listening platform is the proper balance between biased listening - listening for only what you want to hear - and empathic listening - true understanding of what is being said and why.
Look Inward.
Part of being a networked organization is allowing your employees to actively engage and share across departments. Same thing goes for the customers. For some time now, companies like Best Buy and Zappos have been been succeeding in listening to their employees for great ideas, and empowering them to engage directly with customers across sales and support channels.
Start Small and Fail Small.
In my experience, the most successful social media strategies were first tested in a controlled (well, perhaps less controlled) environment, with a plan to learn on the fly, scale things that succeed, and scrap those that don’t.

Many businesses cite “maintaining relevancy” as a main goal of their social media strategy. Relevancy isn’t a goal - it’s an outcome achieved only by realizing a holistic strategy of recognizing and fostering conversation in the brand’s entire ecosystem. If you’re aiming for relevancy, than you’re aiming too low.

-----

is a senior interactive designer focusing on social and mobile design at Isobar North America, a premiere Jive Partner. Follow him at @bryanfromboston.

WEPAN Shares Its Knowledge Center With You

2010-09-01T17:02:07+00:00

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Women In Engineering organization hosted a webinar last week featuring the Women in Engineering ProActive Network. The two organizations are similar in scope - both want to increase the number of women in technical fields - but IEEE WIE is clearly focused on engineers while WEPAN and its Knowledge Center have a broader reach touching many STEM-related disciplines in addition to engineering.

WEPAN started in 1990 and is a national (U.S.) not-for-profit organization with over 600 members across various industries and academia. Its stated goal is to “help members develop a more prepared and diverse engineering workforce,” which more clearly worded means that they’re working to facilitate the development of programs and activities that promote the entry and retention of women in engineering programs.

During the webinar, Diane Matt (WEPAN’s Executive Director) and Jenna Carpenter (IEEE Senior Member, Associate Dean at Louisiana Tech University and WEPAN’s Director of Professional Development) walked attendees through a tour of the WEPAN site and its associated Knowledge Center. Nearly forty percent of the webinar’s participants were academics.

The WEPAN Knowledge Center is an online resource for “research, best practices and professional communities dedicated to advancing all women in engineering.” It began with five hundred resources in June of 2009, and has since doubled its listings. Want statistics on the number of American college graduates with STEM-degrees who happen to be women? Curious about gender gaps and bias in various fields? Looking for organizations or institutions with diversity, outreach and research programs? All of that - and much, much more - can be found in the WEPAN Knowledge Center, and the information is completely open to the public; membership is not required for viewing, a deliberate action to make this information accessible to anyone. (Email registration is required if you want to add resource or access online community content.)

WEPAN also has a large professional community for members, which features a global calendar of events, as well as a the usual selection of social networking options – discussion groups, people and skills search, blogs, in-group email, etc. as well as the ability to track specific groups of professional interest. If you’re interested in mentoring or professional development, this community seems a great place to build your resources. Be sure to visit their main website as well as the Knowledge Center, and check out the FAQ.

Note that membership in the professional community and membership in WEPAN are different animals: only email registration is required to participate in the professional community, but individual membership in the organization is $100 (reduced rates available for student, etc.). WEPAN membership appears to be specifically aimed at academics of various levels, though it’s open to “anyone interested in promoting and achieving improved representation of women in engineering.” WEPAN also has an online store that boasts its own conference proceedings and presentation guides.

The WEPAN Annual Conference, aimed at addressing “recurring and emerging issues”, will be heald in June 2011 in Seattle, Washington. (This year’s conference included tracks on Diversity, Policy, How to Get Funding, Cultivating Tomorrow’s Talent and Effective Messaging.)

Look for announcements of future IEEE and IEEE WIE webinars on their website, or here on dotFiveOne.

Explaining MVCC in Postgres: system defined columns

2010-09-01T15:00:18+00:00

I’m playing around with some diagrams for explaining MVCC that I’ll be posting here over the next few days. Not sure if I’ll end up giving up on slides and just use a whiteboard for the talk. I made an illustrated shared buffers deck to go along with Greg Smith’s excellent talk on shared buffers a while back. This is the beginning of a talk that I hope will emulate that.

Here are my first few slides, showing the system-defined columns. The next few slides will describe optimizations PostgreSQL has for managing the side effects of our pessimistic rollback strategy, and reducing IO during vacuuming and index updates.

Defense by Darwin

2010-09-01T15:00:00+00:00

Defense by Darwin:

The latest Needmore Newseltter, including our newest team member and a stealthy updated defense plan.

Finding Creative Publishing & Distribution Outlets, and 5 Colorful Indie Mags Who've Already Found One.

2010-09-01T13:21:32+00:00

Traditional publishing methods might be going the way of the dodo (I really wish I could say junk mail or phone books by now) but since this gives way to a drastic increase in the number of creative projects finding there way into the screens, ears and hands of more and more people I wouldn't say that this is a bad thing at all. Sure, we might have to sort through a few bad apples to get to the juicy materials we crave, but i'll choose to sort through my own apples over a bunch of people who don't necessarily share my tastes any day.

With that digested, here are 5 colorful indie magazines (mags) that, with long list of others, have chosen the creative publishing route with MagCloud, one of the many developing platforms for just that. And below that you will find a few sites to help you publish your next project whether it's a magazine, photo book, craft, or music.

wlwl

We Like We Love is a magazine about sharing the things you like & love.

Longshot

Over a 48 hour period from noon August 27, 2010, through noon August 29, 2010, hundreds of writers, editors, artists, photographers, programmers, videographers, and other creatives from all around the world came together via the Internet, and in offices in Los Angeles, Portland, and San Francisco to make a magazine from start to finish.

RAW

An amateur photography and art magazine featuring contributors from flickr.com.

RAW Magazine is a photography magazine for those who love taking and looking at photographs. We feature one up-and-coming photographer in each issue, and one more prominent photographer. We hope to inspire people who are looking for something more and to help introduce people who aren't familiar with photography to how rewarding it can be.

Rust + Moth

A Journal of Poetry and The Arts

Rust+Moth is a literary journal featuring poetry, photography, and the arts. Since our inception in 2008, we have been dedicated to showcasing exciting and fresh new artists and writers. Our goal is to bring innovative and meaningful work to the public’s eye.

While our regular quarterly issues primarily feature poetry accompanied by striking design, we also release a series of special issues which broaden our content to include photography, short fiction, and the visual arts. In addition, our Spotlight series presents individual artists and writers of special merit, each in his or her own special issue.

Edie

Edie is the love child of two very good friends who enjoy the same sorts of things you do: good music, pretty clothes, fantastic photographs, thought-provoking books, and other fantastically random odds and ends.

Creative Publishing & Distribution

Here are a few of those creative publishing outlets worth exploring for your next project. Do you currently publish through one of them and do you know of any others?

Etsy for Crafts

Our mission is to enable people to make a living making things, and to reconnect makers with buyers.

Our vision is to build a new economy and present a better choice:

Buy, Sell, and Live Handmade.

Bandcamp for Music

Bandcamp isn’t Yet Another Place to Put Your Music. Rather, we power a site that’s yours. So instead of ads for Sexy Singles Chat, your fans see your design, your music, your URL. You retain all ownership rights, and we just hang out in the background handling the tech stuff.

Choice. We offer your tracks in mp3, AAC, FLAC, Ogg...all the formats your überfans demand. Choose between giving away your music, setting a price, letting folks name their price – it’s up to you.

Blurb for Photo Books

Blurb is a company and a community that believes passionately in the joy of books – reading them, making them, sharing them, and selling them... So we put our minds together, and developed a creative publishing service simple and smart enough to make anyone an author – every blogger, cook, photographer, parent, traveler, poet, pet owner, marketer, everyone. (This means you.)

MagCloud for Magazines

Magazine Publishing Reinvented

MagCloud, the revolutionary new self-publishing web service from HP, is changing the way ideas, stories, and images find their way into peoples’ hands in a printed magazine format. Whether you are a novice or experienced publisher, MagCloud offers you a way to create commercial quality magazines, printed on demand with no upfront costs or minimum print runs. MagCloud is creating new ways to bring consumers and publishers together in a web-based marketplace where choice, flexibility and print on demand are the cornerstones of the community.

Social network Quintesocial goes dark, six months after Portland launch

2010-08-31T21:00:30+00:00

SILICON FOREST BLOG: The site was online yesterday, but offline today.

Hello from Eleana

2010-08-31T20:13:00+00:00

I am so thrilled to be joining the Needmore team. Not only does Needmore share the same aesthetics as I do, but I am happy to be at a place that values great design and such a staunch commitment to helping their clients. Because for me, design is about communication, but it is also about helping people convey that information—their vision—in the best way possible.

While I came to design a little bit later in life than some, my desire to communicate with image and words has been with me forever. I used to make silly websites back when the internet was young and GeoCities was still around and cool. I made a zine in high school, literally cutting and pasting the design. So, I have always have had a hand in design in both web and print worlds, and I’d like to keep it that way. I studied design here in Portland at PNCA, where I learned that design isn’t about gimmicks or decoration, but should be purposeful and with meaning. Design is a process and good design isn’t built overnight.

As a huge typography nerd, I could—and have!—stare at fonts for hours. Whether it’s picking paper stock, or picking hex color values, I love to obsess over the details in design.

I am looking forward to bringing all these things to Needmore and, of course, more. Not only am I excited to be working with two people who obviously love what they do, but two great people to be around, too.

Developer Color Picker 1.5

2010-08-31T19:06:38+00:00

Wade here, which means it’s time to get all Cocoa-programmer-y.

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have noticed I released Developer Color Picker 1.5 a few weeks back. I thought I’d take a moment to make an official blog post to mark its release.

The big new feature in this version is the ability to modify colors within the color picker itself, instead of having to switch to a different mode first. I also added hsl(a) mode for CSS-style declarations.

Hopefully these improvements will make the Developer Color Picker even more useful in your development process.

Update 1.5.1: Changed the HSB mode to HSL, which CSS actually uses. Can you tell I’m not a web developer?

Download Developer Color Picker 1.5.1

204k .zip

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