Mellowbeing

Day 1 was dedicated to migrating my blog to the Wordpress platform from Blogger. I just wanted to have my content neatly stored on a database I have access to and not to mention using a preset template I won’t have to worry about. The focus will from here on out be more on the content of this site and not the design.

Sometimes, you just plan and plan and not get to actually make something, ya know?

What do you guys think of the new look?

I’ve been dabbling with the idea of making more crochet phone pouches for the new shop.. then I started to think, why not iPhone cozies? Would these be useful? This is the first prototype mockup – call it v 1.0. It’s still up for improvements.. any feedback?

And as I said earlier to BananaBoy since this is still under wraps, “Don’t go leaking this to Gizmodo.” ;)

I mentioned in an earlier post that I’d do a quick podcast review. This ties into “spending less time online”.

Really, what does it come down to? Being efficient.

And nothing’s more efficient than a podcast that will catch you up with the latest industry news in a few minutes to an hour.

The podcasts mentioned below are my current favorites. They range from general news to tech news to randomness to craftiness
(listed counterclockwise):

Sticks & Strings
a knitting podcast by an Australian bloke

You Look Nice Today
Journal of Emotional Hygiene with Merlin Mann as one of the 3 main guests

Knitters Uncensored
Hilarious trio based in Germany. Definitely uncensored.

This American Life
There’s a theme to each episode, and a variety of stories on that theme. It’s mostly true stories of everyday people, though not always.

Craft.Rock.Live.
Vickie Howell’s podcast which lasted for one season. She has an interview with Greenday’s lead singer’s wife as well as other crafty divas.

NYTimes Podcast
News on the go: Front page news, NYT Tech Talk, Political Points: On The Presidential Campaign, Science Times, Only in New York

This Week in Tech: TWiT
Join Leo Laporte, Patrick Norton, John C. Dvorak, and other tech luminaries in a roundtable discussion of the latest trends in high tech

That is all folks! Check out these podcasts when you have a chance. Let me know if you’ve converted to any of them :)

I attended this talk last month. Below is the description. The questions are what I jotted down. This is just food for thought. Enjoy!

Sponsored by the NYU Information Law Institute, Free Culture @ NYU, and ISOC-NY

What will come of the next decade on the Internet? We often take for granted the state of the net today, but there’s no guarantee that it will remain this way. Will the digital future be dystopian, or is there a brighter outlook ahead than some may believe? Our panelists – thinkers and net visionaries, with backgrounds ranging from art, law, technology, politics, media, culture, and entrepreneurship – provided their perspectives on the future of the net, and engaged with members of the audience to further the exploration of what lies ahead.

Panelists:
Lauren Cornell, Executive Director, Rhizome
Clay Shirky, Adjunct Professor, NYU ITP
Jimmy Wales, Founder, Wikipedia and Wikia
Tim Wu, Professor, Columbia Law School
Jonathan Zittrain, Professor, Oxford University, Visiting Professor, NYU Law

Questions Discussed:
Is it a bright or bleak future for the Internet?
With the advent of user generated content, how do we manage to bring out the best information?
Is Wikipedia just a happy accident?
Does mob rule lead to a productive and useful knowledge base?

View the video archive here.

A lot of classmates of mine have customized their Mac laptops to hide the Apple logo. This is primarily due to the fact that 98% of my department uses all of 2 laptop models so there needs to be a way to differentiate amongst the sea of Mac Books and Mac Book Pros.

I have an XPS laptop from Dell which is pretty rare considering the Apple fan kids surrounding me. I figured I’d give the logo hiding a try for kicks. A few pieces of felt, lots of white glue and scissors and about half an hour later:

Upclose shot:
Crafts and technology collide!

A couple of months ago, I downloaded the PHPList installation files. A few weeks ago, I noticed I still had the folder with said files on my desktop. I had been avoiding installing the mailing list software for no particular reason. I kept telling myself it was just procrastination but in fact – fear. Do you ever not do something because you’re afraid of screwing it up? But then you think to yourself, really – what’s the worst that can happen? In this case, sure I could screw up a database and mess up the installation but would that bring down the Internet? Would the tubes be compromised?! No.. I just needed to dedicate an hour or two to reading the instructions, following through and if it did go terribly wrong..well, I could just delete the mailing list directory and start all over.

All in all, I can say my site is still well and alive as you can tell :) And if you haven’t noticed already, there’s a link on the left hand column so you can join my mailing list. If you want to stay up to date and would like to find out when I’ll be reopening the shop, sign up. I’ll probably send out an introductory coupon of sorts for the new shop so it won’t hurt.

And the moral of the story kids is – don’t be afraid of screwing up. You can’t get anywhere if you don’t start and try. You just need to DO IT.

Panel: Browser Wars: Representatives from Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera discuss why the hell they can’t get along and figure out a standard.. or something like that
- IE8 will have Javascript debugging
- The Firefox founder created Javascript
- Javascript 2.0 will be coming out soon!
- There is no word if there will ever be a standard for having padding and margins be the same across browsers.. hopefully, it’ll happen someday (IE8? maybe?)

Panel: Your Mom 2.0: Discussing how to make mom friendly websites
- Their generation asks “how?” We ask “why?”
- Basically, make your site understandable by anyone. This should hold true if you’re a good designer to begin with. No one wants to go through several layers of links to get to the information they’re looking for. And there’s no need to “dumb it down” for a prior generation.

Went to the trade show and got lots of goodies. Talked to a few reps. Went to get dinner on the outskirts of Austin and saw the sunset while eating good ole Tex Mex. Afterwards saw the comedy show. Went to sleep far too late and had the most drowsy Tuesday..
All in all, visit Austin if you get the chance!! If you do, you *must* visit Magnolia Cafe. Ask for the breakfast burritos.

This is the conclusion of the SXSW reviews. Whew! That was quite a bit to catch up on.. if you want to read a highly distinguished review, go over to the Banana Boy Productions blog to get the other side of the story :)