Realized I haven’t posted in awhile, and while there aren’t that many actual followers, it’s nice to show I still use the site time and again. I’ve been extremely busy with not only a couple of freelance projects and trying to have a life, but I’ve been looking for a new full-time job. I have a couple of prospects going down this week and I’m pretty excited. When all that dust settles, I’ll then be looking into relocating to brooklyn, which is an even bigger prospect. So don’t expect too many posts between now and then.
I’ve also realized, during my interview time, that I need to revamp my website (again, haha). The portfolio section needs major updating. Similarly, I don’t post to my blog as much anymore, so that needs to be secondary, and have my portfolio up front. Then a separate link to my blog. As well, I’ve been feverishly getting into photography. I’ve been way lazy updating Flickr, and currently I’m torn between using my Flickr account and having a photo-blog. I feel that Flickr images are too small, and I’m also too lazy to write the proper tags for EVERY image. I’m leaning towards photoblog… (I’m not even that good yet haha)
So ya, just that quick update. Stay tuned for a new site come September? I’ll shoot for there. I should be at a new job and living in a new place. I should also have a new site with an updated portfolio, then links to my personal blog, photo-blog, and possibly new city-blog-thing? I don’t know, but I’m pretty excited for new things this 2009.
So I stumbled across something cool on my computer. About 2 years ago during design class I started futzing about with a scanner, and childishly scanning my face at ridiculous DPIs. And then messing around with the result in Photoshop. One thing led to another and soon I had a ton of friends in class taking their scans and printing posters of them. It was probably my first design ‘collection’…if you’d like to call it that.
Anyway I ran into those files while spring cleaning my harddrive and wanted to show you guys. Here’s my two favorite, but click the small one to see them all.
April’s a big month for me. And by big I mean relaxing and awesome and filled with beaches. Tomorrow I’m leaving on a roadtrip down to Miami with a few friends for their Spring Break. Someone lives down there so we got a place to stay, and roadtrips are almost always fun. I’ve never been to Miami and just want to see if women really do rollarblade down the boardwalks in bikinis. I’m curious if the stereotypes are true, ya know?
UPDATE: Back from Miami! If you want to see the pictures see my flickr. First real adventure with a DSLR and I think they came out really cool (some of em). Barbados is next week =)
Then on April 20th I’m flying down to Barbados to stay at the Crystal Cove Resort. That’s the trip I won from a Holiday Raffle! Should be a nice relaxing week after a (hopefully) hectic/fun week in Miami. And its All-Inclusive, so I don’t have to leave the resort!
Expect many pictures from my travels, and few updates. Especially to my twitter, which I will be neglecting. I don’t set-up twitter via my phone…I don’t like having the phone out while I’m with others.
Notice anything different? For those that have been here before, welcome back! For newcomers, completely ignore this post! But anyway, yah I finally decided on a design that I enjoy and feel represents me pretty well. It’s also a pretty blue, isn’t it? I’m more familiar and comfortable with Wordpress now and was able to finally get a proper portfolio page together.
I’m way past due on some obvious updates. I’ve created The Heavy Edition, as well as a few portfolio sites. Look for quick posts on those soon. On top of those and my usual updates, I want to start writing tutorials. Of course, they will be at what I’m good at: front-end design/development. They’ll be some ‘from photoshop to css’ tutorials, css tips and tricks, ‘how to write semantic html and css markup,’ … etc etc. The world could always use more, considering I’m often asked how to do these anyway.
So this sites not completely finished, so to close I’ll leave a short checklist:
- Finish Portfolio page
- Add form to Contact page
- Start writing some Tutorial posts
- Take more photos and post to Flickr more
I don’t read as often as I should. When I do get around to reading, I rather enjoy it. I have such a pile-up list of books I “need” to read, according to everybody. A couple of the last few I’ve read were from Chuck Klosterman, a column editorial writer that has worked for Spin, Esquire, The NY Times, and more. He mostly writes about Music, Culture/Life, and Basketball. (My favorite things!) I read Sex, Drugs, and Cocoapuffs last winter, and most recently I read his latest work IV, whose title is a throwback to the Zeppelin album (both books I read on planes…seems to be only time I read. I should travel more.) He may use the words retrospectively and in and of itself a little too often, but that doesn’t take away from the clever (and witty) commentary he provides on modern culture and rock music. What I like about his insights, though, are the way they borderline on philosophical and political arguments about the state of modern life today (in and of itself).
His new work IV is merely a collection of many of his columns and interviews throughout his career, so he divides the book between things that are true (fact), things that might be true (speculation), and something that isn’t true (which feels more like speculation to me). The most intriguing section to me was things that might be true…this is where his real insight is realized, in his speculation. However, unique to this book are small hypothetical questions he adds before each Chapter. They aren’t really commentaries on culture or music, but they provide some interesting questions to ponder. Some of these hypotheticals are extremely well-posed, and I’d like to share a few of them with you, hopefully without getting in trouble for posting them. Read them all after the break…
Continue Reading…
I am going to get more into photography and I’m getting a good beginner camera for Christmas, but… I’m not sure which one to get!! I’ve check a million sites and reviews. It’s come down to Portability vs Functionality. The Canon G10 I would be able to take with me everywhere in a coat/sweatshirt pocket, for when I head into the city with friends or go to parties, and attempt to take quality photography rather than the usual people-hanging-out photos. It’s one of the best cameras just underneath DSLR quality. I would use it probably 5x more than the EOS because of this, what I would call, feature - size. 14mp on a great sensor that isn’t quite DSLR once again, but from the reviews I hear it takes real quality photos in bright light. It is quite grainy at low-ISOs and not the best for low-light however. Also the depth-of-field in point-n-shoot cameras is too large for a nice bokeh effect, and I’m a fan of portrait photography.
Now the Canon EOS XT(i) Digital Rebel will give me much more functionality, being an entry level DSLR and having an actual lens. The quality of the photos will be better and I’d be able to use it in low-light and high ISOs, and have a nice bokeh effect if thats what I want. However, like all DSLRs, it’s not even jacket-pocketable, so taking it with me is a bigger hassle. I can’t just have it when going to hang with friends in the city, or bring it to a concert where I’m in the crowd. It would mainly be used when I took the time of day to go out and shoot, or bring it with me to hang with friends and try not to annoy them as I take pictures all night long. However the quality would most likely be far superior to that of the G10.
So…is the amount I would use the G10 out-weigh the quality of the EOS XT? I’m not sure, and I need to figure it out by Saturday! (camera sales end)
Update: So I decided to go with the DSLR. If I really want to get into photography I should get a decent beginners camera that can only make me better and allow me to upgrade. Store deal also got me an extra telephoto lens! Unfortunately I must wait till Christmas day to have it, but expect a new Flickr to emerge when I do have it. Also a photo section on my site here.
This is always something that bugged me. Regardless of what you think of Youtube, it’s the most widely used video sharing site and it’s here to stay. I personally like other video sites for their nicer visual player, but many people enjoy Youtube’s. I personally think it’s a little bulky, but it is easy to use. However, the design leaves something to be desired, so I tried my hand at updating it.
I kept the same size and overall look. I merely updated it to be more consistent, cleaner and crisper. It provides a nicer overall design that most people won’t find agitating to have within their clear websites. Most notable are the toned-down background and simpler slider. Here is a side-by-side comparison, with my updated bar on top:
This could be accomplished by Youtube easily with some small updates to their glyphs. A little bit goes a long way.
This weekend I played D&D for the second time, except this time was a lot more fun. My friend Elvis and his gang play pretty much once a week, and I tried playing a few months ago but had no idea what I was doing. Plus I created an awful character (a monk). This time though I pretty much killed it. I was a Gnome Wizard (Evoker) named Delorean. I won’t go into too much more because it’s really a game you have to experience with other people who are really into it. No, we don’t dress up. But I did burn alive at least 6 guys with 3rd lvl Fireball spells, then proceeded to fall down a shaft and have my brain sucked out by a Mind Flayer. A testament to don’t knock it before you try it.
PS - I still hate WoW
Lately I’ve been getting annoyed at my iPod and I thought I’d look into the Zune…but in my research I found that it’s seriously lacking some effort. It has a lot of pluses that I won’t get into, but here’s a list of what it needs if it were to seriously take me away from the iPod:
- Mac OSX functionality…c’mon Microsoft
- Harddrive functionality sans hack
- Smart playlists & editing playlists on the fly
- Custom EQ & Better ratings system per track
- Alarm clock & Countdown timer
- More codec support (.aiff & .wav especially)
- The price needs to be lower than the ipod if it ever wants to compete
- Also somebody suggested that it have a simple RSS-reader. That would be amazing.
If these came true I might actually get one…but as it is already the same price as an iPod with half the functionality, it will never take a bigger piece of that pmp marketshare.
A month or so ago I made a post about Favtape and discussed other music websites, like its ancestor Muxtape. Well I’m pleased to announce my new favorite music site: Grooveshark. Grooveshark is a flash-based web application that works very much like an ipod…someone elses ipod that has 5 million songs uploaded. It has a similar look and feel as an itunes/ipod mashup, with it’s own unique styling. And as an interface designer/developer I have to say I’m in love with the design. Very sleek, smooth, and crisp design that is easy to navigate and use. The best part about it? It’s extremely fast for a Flash site. I’m not sure how they managed that but the animations and everything are very smooth.
Grooveshark also has an Autoplay feature, which makes it basically a new (more stylish) Pandora. And unlike Pandora, Grooveshark allows you to add (via drag&drop no less) songs into the playlist wherever you’d like. You can vote yay or nay on whatever song you want to come out with a good playlist. They also have a social network of sorts where you can favorite tracks and see others playlists and save and share playlists and songs…etc. I’m not sure if I’ll use this feature but I’m sure plenty of others will. Also, the advertising is out of your way and unobtrusive…awesome.
Something I think they need to add is more links for artists. There should be a link to the artist’s homepage, their amazon page (maybe a buy this cd button), maybe a link to their itunes, and also their last.fm page. Also the lyrics of the song would be a fun tool. And speaking of last.fm, it would be great (read: probably won’t happen) if the tracks you listen to could be scrobbled to your last.fm.
Grooveshark is still in ‘beta’ but instead they call themselves Grooveshark ‘lite.’ I like it, I think it works. There is a flood of beta apps around and I think it helps establish them better. But even still, the app works perfectly and I highly recommend it. Maybe autoplay your next party?
