It’s fair to say the site is really a beta, but that is pretty much the Web 2.0 SOP isn’t it? it took me a fair bit longer to build it out that what I was anticipating too. Besides the revisions of the design of the site, I ran into issues with the posts from the API not being featured in the search, so they weren’t showing up with the feed listing tools that I starting using. I wound up using a twitter class built by David Billingham, and it works great. It’s super easy to use, and I’m hoping to get back into the site soon and get some upgrades going too.

I’m pretty jazzed about getting the site up and running. There is a standard and a mobile version, so I hope to have everyone covered. being a designer by trade, I’m not completely happy with the design yet, and I really need to get a better logo going, but right now that’s a little out of the realm of what I have time to sit down and bang out. Soon though. Although, I will say, if anyone wants to design a logo for the site I would be happy to take submissions and of course credit would be given.

The other thing I thinking of building is an iPhone and Android app for the site. I have been dying to use Titanium Mobile ever since I learned about it at FITC Mobile the other week, and this would be a good, small project to jump into it with. And naturally, it would be a free app on both platforms. I know a couple of folks that have HTC phones, so if you read this and are interested in doing some beta testing on that platform let me know, and that may help get me going on those apps.

At any rate, time to get posting!

One that really sticks with is using panoramic images in video and animation projects, not because it’s such a revolutionary idea, but because of how somethings were explained and how it has reawakened the desire to do more of this type of work on my own. One thing that struck me, and I guess it’s sort of a duh moment, but you should always shoot in portrait mode to avoid the added distortion you get in landscape. Photoshop can correct for it, but why not just flip your camera 90 degrees and make life easier? Also time-lapse photography, I definitely want to get into this again, and I think the Nikon Coolpix P6000 might be just the little camera to do it.

Last night was a hilarious couple of hours with 200 loud, amped up and over tired fellow attendees who were all at Midnight Madness just to relax, not learn anything and of course, win free stuff! The thing on the right there is what I won, an autographed Photoshop World Football with Scott Kelby’s picture on it. What a blast. People were publicly taunted, shot with a Nerf gun, slapped, hosed off with a Super Soaker, hit in the head with Footballs, and beach balls – plus we got doughnuts!

Yesterday I got out for a couple hours and shot some with my new Lensbaby Composer, and it’s pretty cool, and I have really no idea what I’m doing with it yet – but I will post some stuff on my Flickr account when I get back home this weekend. Fortunately today is kind of a light day, although they are remodeling the Sheraton here, so right now I am being seranated by a jack hammer, and reciprocating saw……

More fun, just about time to get to it!

I am just about up with my week at Summerfest and getting ready to come on on this Tuesday and I have to say this is the coolest music festival I have ever had the pleasure of attending. So far over 200 bands have played on the various stages in the festival park, and a lot fo the bands are top-notch bands. I have seen Sevendust, The Old 97s, Katie Todd, Theory of a Deadman, and a boat-load more that are just on the Zippo stage which we are facing the 12 hours we are there every day. The days are long, and my dogs are barkin' by the end of it but it is a blast and I enjoy just about every minute of it.

As with any concert, part of the attraction is always people watching – and this is no exception. the crowd of folks ranges from young to old, yuppie to redneck, and often includes a variety of drunkards from every stage in between. The only thing that really tends to get meworked up is the selfish jack-witts who bring their 6 month old babies to a music festival where my ears are ringing when I leave evry day. I make the choice to go and endager my eardrums – a baby doesn't have that choice and these folks are screwing with the hearing of very small children and doing far worse damage to their ears than have been done to mine over the 2 decades and hundreds of concerts that have put the hurtin' on my ears. If it were my festival, I would make it so that kids would have to be a certain age – and be made to wear hearing protection – infants do not belong at a death-metal concert.

I have met a ton of cool people, rocked out to some cool bands (of course some not-so-cool bands too), and shot around 12 gb of images over the course of the last few days. It's going to take me a while to sort through them, but since I was posting – I put together this panaramic using DoubleTake. Milwaukee is a really cool town too – makes me miss the city as it reminds me quite a bit of Portland. There is a river running right through the middle of the city – the Root River in fact. As I was walking down to the park on Friday, I ran across a stray Catfish just sitting on the sidewalk. It looked like it could have just jumped right out of the river and landed on the sidewalk, except for the fact that it was 300 meters from the water…. Random. I wish I had more time to roam around and see the city, but alas I am here to work – and I only get 1 day off.

See ya when I get home….

Check out the Spyder website, which is also very cool. CycleWorld.com liks it, and really, what's not to like? It has almost as much horsepower as the Jetta I used to have – coming in at 160 hp.The list of features is impressive, and the styling is absolutely amazing. Unfortunately with a $15,000 price tag it's just as likely I will ever get one of these as a BMW 1200 GS. I have always like the idea of a 3 wheeler motorcycle, and I just saw today too that Piaggio makes a 3 wheeler, and it looks like it would be a kick in the pants.

So many toys, I really just need to win the lottery…..

Toronto is a great city too, the 3 or 4 times I have been there have all been awesome.

I have no idea what my schedule is going to be yet, I can't decide so I am just going to figure it out as I go. The best part about these conferences is all of the massively creative people that you get to interact with. I have always feel reenergized every time I come back from one of these. I went to the 2006 FITC, and FlashForward in 2004 – and I am hoping to go to Adobe MAX next year…. Although it is in November, so maybe I will get lucky and be able to do both? Probably not…..

Maybe I will see you there. 

Couple this with the 4 minifigs who are handless on both arms, or just one and you have widespread chaos and destruction the likes of which our ginormous bag of Lego’s has not seen before.

All of this mayhem not withstanding, he really does enjoy himself playing with trains and Legos, but now that he has trains that are Legos – he’s a happy camper. Naturally, being 4, his attention span lasts for about one trip around the fish bowl, so he moves on to the Brio trains or transformers quickly. Especially after he disembowels the helpless little Legos, and after they are no longer recognizable – I think he sorta just blows them off.

Speaking of the Brio trains too, they have a couple new bits to add to the regular wooden toys. The smart track, and the Network train toys are pretty sweet, and I think we might have to get some and give them a shot.

The Smart Track trains and track pieces can effect the play experience by adding bits to the tracks. You can control the speed, stop and make an engine blow its whistle by placing little signs next to the smart tracks. They have a station, repair shack and starter kit along with a few add-ons.

The Network series is based on the computers, this is what is says on their website:

BRIO Network is not your classic toy train set. It.s an original world of Rail Play featuring the imaginary creatures who live inside your computer. They drive super-cool vehicles around wooden train tracks. They can listen to their messages and interact in fun, new ways. Though the networkers are inspired by the computer world, you do not need a computer to play with them.

They have a good selection of accessories and kits for this series – which is pretty cool. With email, viruses, trash bins, firewall guy, and a few others. This is pretty well thought out and could be a cool way to get the oldest terror back in to playing trains again – hopefully in a nice way, with his younger brother…..

“Momma…come me… (come with me in kid speak)” his grand scheme, get mommy to go into the kitchen while he destroys the wrapping paper. When that failed he resorted to “momma…go way”. Hmmm, not sure what he had in mind there either. That’s my boy, subtle as a brick to the grape. So after that, no presents showed their face till he was asleep in his bed Christmas eve, then all of a sudden…WHAMMO! Santa exploded all over our living room.

So we figured he’d go noo-noo in the morning when he came down and saw all his loot. We set up the trusty DVcam, and waited.

He wakes.
He plods down the steps.
He stops.
He stares.
He’s still staring.

Yep. Wow. Exciting huh? He just stood there gape-mouthed and said nary a word. No excited kid-squeaks, no jumping up and down. Nada. Go figure. Well, we all had a great time anyway, we played until about 2pm, then we went and partook of our friends hospitality and company. We have some video and photos which will find their way here soon, for all you out-of-towners, hehehe…guess that’s pretty much everyone.

Cheers.