Archive for October, 2007

Thunderbirds Are Go

Friday, October 26th, 2007

Okay, so maybe a blog-a-day won’t work out. But at least I’m posting on a regular basis to keep my knee-jerk writing skills up.

My office uses Microsoft Outlook, but I have been starving to use a lighter, faster program. My supervisors live and die by Outlook and its servers. One would think that using Mozilla’s Thunderbird app would do the trick, but it doesn’t send and recieve Outlook meetings and requests, sadly.

…or does it?

*dun dun DUN*

I’ve been using Thunderbird for three days now, and it seems to be working without a hitch. Pretty cool, if you ask me.

Simpsonization

Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007

Yeah, I know that craze is long gone, but now that their servers aren’t bogged down with too many users I actually tried it.

Good on them for marketing this tool. Nothing appeals to internet users more than themselves. ;)

By the way… does this look like me? I think it does.

simpsonico.png

Now, This is Viral

Friday, October 19th, 2007

Often at work our clients will have the idea that they can manufacture internet phenomena in the form of a “viral video”, when in reality what we are passing out is nothing more than a commercial. If the ad is clever, it will take. If it’s not, then it won’t. It’s that simple.

Of course, with a basic ad, we do what we can do but we can only get so many impressions without something awesome with which to work. This isn’t the fault of our clients – it is, however, the fault of their creative departments, who often forgo our advice about what does and doesn’t work on the internet.

If they had any moxie, they’d be making videos like Buffalax.

See here:

Genius Hour

Tuesday, October 16th, 2007

There’s an hour of the day that I have always called “genius hour” because I never had a better word for it, and very rarely do I get to explain it to people. Prospective listeners are too tired, preoccupied, or are already asleep. Or perhaps they’re just entirely uninterested… Ok, that is most likely the case. But blogging in public (sounds dirty, doesn’t it?) affords me the imaginary audience I always wish I had, so I guess now I get to indulge before I forget about this idea completely.

I mean, I started this thing so I’d have some notes, right?

Anyway, genius hour is the hour before sleep when the mind is close to moving towards activating its subconscious, which is during sleep. However, instead of spending that time in bed, the owner of this mind decides to push on with activities. This is how to get a hold of genius hour. It’s a perfect time to be creative! A great time to play with words, images, and sounds. It’s a special hour of the day where the brain experiences this kind of drunken playfulness without actually being waterlogged with alcohol (“alcohologged?”).

It kind of bugs me that I can’t even remember the accurate term for the phenomenon. A while back I remember reading about this condition somewhere (some kind of academic journal? an external link from a Wikipedia article?) and I sincerely regret not being able to remember the actual article–and for that matter, where I had read about this weird phenomena hour in the first place. I was not, however, a blogger during that point in my life. So that probably serves me right.

I can personally attest to the virtues of the genius hour. In my “genius hours”, I used to play with code. After all, this is how I got to knowing code in the first place. Of course, I’ve done the other things, like trying to write a song within the hour, trying to create prose or poetry, trying to draw something that I saw in my head. The results of those things are nice, at best, and that is being generous. With code, however, the old dog learns new tricks. The kid in me picks up a new toy. The reckless net surfer finds something worth bookmarking.

So now, in what I feel I am experiencing in the genius hour, I find myself blogging. And what have I found?

A nice little community that seems to be talking directly to me.

I wish I had more time to put into the look and feel of this blog so that I had something presentable for when I eventually try to establish some sort of presence in this community, but as of now it’s kind of… well, just a journal.

And I so badly want to write for it! I’ve spent less time finishing some books than on this blog, and I was a literature major. The issues that get articles are way up there on my priority-slash-curiosity list. But first, I must conjure up enough gusto to keep the blog of my own from going stale.

So, a blog a day it is. From this point forth. If not to better my writing skills, then to at least set forth in finding that damned “voice” my creative writing teachers were talking about.

We Are Generation-Y

Friday, October 12th, 2007

Lots of things have been happening lately, so I’ll get around to detailing that soon. Or, uh, later, I guess.

For now, I’m posting an IM conversation that I realize helps to define that which is my peer group, Generation-Y.

(10:26:22 AM) Nico: dude if google decided to write things in cocoa… oh, it’d be ON for sure
(10:36:16 AM) Lauren: that’s over my head, but apples and cocoa and google just sounds del.icio.us

(on LifeHacker)

(11:30:25 AM) Nico: oh! and googlepedia, which brings up the closest wiki article to a google search on the right side of the screen when you search
(11:30:49 AM) Lauren: isn’t a lot of that grease monkey stuff?
(11:30:54 AM) Nico: yeah, exactly that
(11:30:58 AM) Lauren: i have no idea what that is, but know lifehacker loves it
(11:31:09 AM) Nico: they do. gina trapani wrote “better gmail” app
(11:31:17 AM) Nico: and she’s good
(11:31:26 AM) Lauren: i would have sex with gina trapani
(11:31:43 AM) Nico: i would bear gina trapani’s children
(11:31:45 AM) Nico: it’s possible
(11:31:47 AM) Nico: …
(11:32:08 AM) Lauren: i know
(11:32:14 AM) Lauren: that’s a uterus hack

Down for Monkey Maintenance.

Monday, October 8th, 2007

In keeping with trying to enrich my blog media-wise, I wanted to share a server-down page that Ning.com recently put up. I was working with this site because I have a client who is using it and it was by and large a great decision. Sometimes, though, when you’re relying on 3rd party services, they have their own issues, and thus, sometimes have to go down for maintenance.

Note: For those of you who aren’t aware of Ning.com, they’re a social network generator. Yep, generator. As in, create your own social network. Pretty fun tool, if you ask me.

My point in posting this, though, is that web developers should take on the model that Ning exhibits in letting the network go down for a minute – to make it funny, because the last thing you want is a panic on your hands. Bravo, Ning. I even dig your errors, and I say this without sarcasm.

Here’s my screen shot, balloon is the zoomed in text:

Ning is Busy

Ragdoll Physics

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007

Aside from me thinking that is a good band name, ragdoll physics affords us some fun times.

Check out this video I just got linked to:

Mad Widget Skills

Monday, October 1st, 2007

Holy crap, I just saw this widget that ReverbNation is putting out that can almost make a band website obsolete.

(Check out what I’m talking about here)

I stumbled upon this because I use ReverbNation’s calendar for booking bands at The Cocaine, so I have some knowledge of RN’s capabilities and convenience… but this thing is incredible! Of course, it’s not necessarily small enough to fit on a lot of people’s internet real estate, but I still think it’s a brilliant idea. It’s a multipurpose widget that makes promotion of your own band substantially more portable than having a MySpace profile; but what I really like about this widget is that the music player is a cross-promotional tool. You can promote other bands that your band listens to with this tool, and that is way more conducive to encouraging music as a community than it is a competition to see who can fellate more label support out of the industry.

The header on that page I linked to calls it the “Ultimate Promotional Tool”, and I’m inclined to agree – well as far as the internet goes. The only thing I can think of that’s better than this idea is… well, playing a show.

Deadlines

Monday, October 1st, 2007

I met deadline! YES. Now to invoice this mofo and get my ass PAID.

In a good mood today, because I’m back to being able to get sleep. Awesome.