Programming Blog &#187; City

Boston Arcology Building Concept Is a City of Its Own [Boa Floating Concept Ready for the Future?]

Facebook-Web-Design — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 08:53:22 +0000

Every now and then we find some curious concepts that are only possible thanks to our up to date technology. Sure the Pyramids, and many other impressive buildings have been raised in a time in which technology and gadgets were not as advanced as today, or so we’d like to think. But the Boston Arcology building in the picture above will only be made possible by our modern skills.
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Read the rest of Boston Arcology Building Concept Is a City of Its Own [Boa Floating Concept Ready for the Future?]

Foursquare Changes the Game … Literally

Facebook-Web-Design — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 04:46:04 +0000

Earlier this week the much-anticipated Foursquare everywhere release came to fruition, making the location-based mobile game available to all regardless of their physical location. Details behind the everywhere launch and how it affected the overall game experience, however, were sparse. Until now.

Foursquare everywhere changes the check-in game as we know it. So take what you know and throw it out the window. This just got more interesting.

The City Shake Up

The whole Foursquare experience used to be centered around your city, so badges and check-ins were city-specific, and anytime you’d find yourself in another city you’d essentially need to start over from scratch. Foursquare everywhere turns that model upside down, so now you can place yourself anywhere in the world (instead of Foursquare locking you down in the nearest city).

You’ll also notice that adding new venues is now address-optional. Instead, Foursquare finally got smart: If you opt to skip the physical address entry step when you check in at a new venue, they’ll automatically attach your GPS location — as pinpointed by your mobile device — to define the venue’s location. Given how tedious it is to manually enter the address of a new place, especially with the knowledge that your GPS-enabled phone knows where you are, we find this to be the most welcome development of all.

Badges of Honor

Duplicate badges are donzo, which means gone are the days when you could earn the Newbie badge for each new city you traveled to. When it comes to badges, think of them as no longer constrained to a particular city, but worldwide badges of honor you carry with you. In fact, you can earn badges anywhere in the world and take them with you as travel. So, if you’ve unlocked the School Night badge in San Diego, there’s no need to try to stay out all night in New York (on a week night) to repeat your previous coup.

For those of you who love a challenge, Foursquare everywhere now includes a whole new set of badges for you to try to unlock. There are a total of 10 new ones (three pictured above), but we also know that even more are on the way. Since there is such an allure around unlocking mystery badges, we won’t spoil the fun, but we know that some of you at CES have managed to unlock a few of these new treasures.

Who’s on Top?

I personally play the Foursquare check-in game for the mayorships, badges and tips from friends, but some of you take rising to the top of your city’s leaderboard very seriously. If that’s you, pay close attention, because the rules have changed slightly.

With the city-lockdown lifted, Foursquare now organizes local leaderboards by your proximity to other Foursquare users. Now you’ll be ranked against everyone who has accrued points within 25 miles (40 km) of your current location. You probably won’t notice the change too much, but we think it’s a smart play and opens up the competition elements to Foursquare users on the fringe of larger playing fields.

Coming Soon

With money in the bank, Foursquare is pushing out improvements at lightning speed. In the coming weeks you can expect a spiffy new version of the iPhone app — version 1.5 — to be released in the App Store. While there won’t be tons of cosmetic changes to this update, you can expect 1.5 to be more sophisticated when it comes to locating and serving up more accurate places nearby. Eventually the iPhone app will also support more “Trending Nearby” functionality to call out hot places. We also know that the team is working on drastic UX improvements to the iPhone app, so you can expect a major redesign in the coming months.

When it comes to other mobile devices, the beta BlackBerry app is being tested by 5,000 users and Foursquare plans to push this to the public in about a week. And of course, Palm Pre users can already get their hands on that app now.

[img credit: MariShelbley]

Reviews: App Store, Foursquare, iPhone

Tags: foursquare, Mobile 2.0, social media, trending

Architect Day: Frank Gehry

Web-Design — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 02:20:55 +0000

Frank O. Gehry is a world-renowned architect. His long career has many works from homes to the great museums that have become postcard towns.

Frank Owen Gehry was born in Toronto, Canada, February 28, 1929. He was a creative child who played with wooden sticks building small towns with his grandmother. He spent time drawing with his father, and his mother was the one who introduced him to the world of art.

“So the creative genes were there … But my father thought I was a dreamer, I wasn’t gonna amount to anything. It was my mother who thought I was just reticent to do things. She would push me.”

In 1947 he moved to California and attended Los Angeles City College, eventually graduating from the University of Southern California’s School of Architecture in 1954. He took a break from the practice of architecture, working in various sectors, but went back to school for one year to study City Planning at the Harvard Graduate School of Design

Influences

Gehry worked for the office, Wdton Becket & Associates, for Victor Gruen in Los Angeles, and for Remondet in Paris.

In 1962, he started his own office designing a wide variety of residential, commercial and institutional sites. And it was with his own house that he best gained notoriety for his work.

Works

Frank Gehry receives frequent criticism for his work because its architecture is very controversial and has unusual shapes and movements. But looking at his works, we can notice the trend and direction of his projects, as well as the concepts of his architecture. In purer forms, through the famous icons such as binoculars, to the organic volumes.

In some works, deconstructive provisions are clear, but when released to the organic shapes these features go beyond. Like it or not, the architecture of Frank Gehry is recognized and visited throughout the world, with postcard towns that were forgotten by tourism.

“Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness.”

Easy Edges Furniture series

Loyola Law School, California, USA

Edgemar Retail Complex, California, USA

Frances Howard Goldwyn Hollywood Regional Library, California, USA

Chiat/Day Building, California, USA

Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany

Frederick Weisman Museum of Art, Minnesota, USA

Iowa Advanced Technology Laboratories, Iowa, USA

Center for the Visual Arts, Ohio, USA

American Center, Paris, France

Dancing House, Prague, Czech Republic

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain

Der Neue Zollhof, Dusseldorf, Germany

DZ Bank Building, Berlin, Germany

Experience Music Project, Washington, USA

Gehry Tower, Hanover, Germany

Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, Bard College, New York, USA

Maggie’s Dundee, Dundee, Scotland

Walt Disney Concert Hall, California, USA

Ray and Maria Stata Center, Massachusetts, USA

Jay Pritzker Pavillion, Illinois, USA

MARTa Museum, Herford, Germany

IAC/InterActiveCorp Headquarters, USA

Marqués de Riscal, Elciego, Spain

Art Gallery Of Ontario renovation, Ontario, Canada

Gehry House, California, USA

About the author

My name is Marcelo Seferin, I’m an architect from Porto Alegre, Brazil and I’m the chief architect at Seferin Arquitetura, an office that works with architecture, interior design and sustainability projects. You can check our work at http://www.seferinarquitetura.com.br and you can follow me at twiiter http://www.twitter.com/mseferin.

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Mashable’s Social Media Marketing & Web Event Guide

Facebook-Web-Design — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 06:38:02 +0000

It’s a brand new week, which means it’s time for Mashable’s guide to upcoming social media and web events, parties, and conferences. For more upcoming event listings, check out Mashable’s Events section.

Is your event not on this list? Contact us at least one month before your event and let’s establish a media partnership.

Mashable’s Weekly Social Media and Marketing Event Guide is proudly supported by Eventbrite, the Web’s Event Marketplace.

January 11, 2010, Nashville, TN: The Social Media conference that comes to you. Social Fresh is a one day, case study rich conference targeted for marketers. Social Fresh Nashville will have 30+ speakers including Jason Falls of Social Media Explorer, Gavin Baker of Ruby Tuesday, and John Andrews of Collective Bias (formerly of Walmart). Save 15% when using code mashable.

January 12, 2010, New York, NY: PluggedIn is an exclusive deal making gathering, bringing together handpicked digital media founders, gatekeepers and investors to candidly interact in a laid back setting and unlock the full value of doing business together. PluggedIn is a polar opposite to your typical overcrowded, loud and ineffective conference. We keep it to a closed circle of in-the-know executives and offer a casual, off the record environment. Our objective is to cultivate substantive and concrete dialogue between a select group of decision makers and help make things happen. Use registration code mashable to get 25% off.

January 13, 2010, New York, NY: Social Integration – Harmonizing Social Channels into the Marketing, Communications, & Service Platform – Case Studies & Roundtables is a conference that will demonstrate case studies of how leading brands are integrating social media and social networking into and across the enterprise. We will approach the topic from the communicator/marketer’s perspective but technology, customer service, and operations professionals are welcome to participate. Use promo code MASH for a discounted rate of $155 at www.bdionline.com/socialintegration.html.

January 14, 2010, Century City, CA: The first-ever Schmoozd event, a new Social Media Mixer event in Los Angeles, will be held at the Xbar. X bar’s environment is the perfect place to network – a lounge designed with spots for hanging out as well as socializing and action. Whether closing the deal or sharing ideas, X bar’s renowned design, cuisine and location means X marks the spot. For more information, please visit www.schmoozd.com. Mashable readers get 50% off when registering via this link.

January 14-16, 2010, Sedona, AZ: Join us at #SMML for a Social Media Mastermind Conference. We are going to get personal. As you seek to glean more information about social media, how it works and how you can use it to gain more customers. You’ll see more results in 2 days than you will have in six months working alone! If you are ready to be energized, engage with your audience, work with the best and take home real solutions in developing your own social media strategy, then join us. Speakers include: Robin Harris, Raliegh Pinskey, Frances Flynn Thorsen, Shannon Evans and more. Use event code SMMLBiz to save 15% on your registration fee.

January 20-22, 2010, Washington DC: Social Media for Defense and Government is a unique forum on the embracement, implementation and utilization of new media platforms that meet the Governments goals of transparency that allow for more efficient internal and external communication. As the public develops their use of online tools for their personal, career and business development goals, DoD & Gov’t have made it their mission to reach the public via these new forms of media. The forum will provide insight into technologies including Twitter and Facebook as well as advanced elements such as the Governments general information page, blogs, and closed social media suite. Mashable readers get an exclusive 20% discount off the standard pricing with special code IUS_MASH_SMTM_#1 when registering!

January 23, 2010, Virginia Beach, VA: Social Media @ The Beach is a place for anyone looking to “get their feet wet” and explore social media. It’s an interactive conference with the laid-back atmosphere of a meet-up. The January event will focus on two main goals: boosting personal social networking skills and developing professional social media marketing strategies. The event is open to everyone, drawing community members of all ages, backgrounds and levels of social media experience. Enter mashable for the discount code to receive 15% off ticket price.

January 26, 2010, San Francisco, CA: Vator.tv, a leading platform for entrepreneurs and innovators to broadcast themselves, and provider of news and information through VatorNews, and Girls in Tech, a social network enterprise focused on education and empowerment of influential women in technology, are hosting the Catalyst Competition to find five women-led startups across any stage to present at the Catalyst Conference. Ten finalists will be selected by their peers through an online competition. Join the competition today and get the vote out.

January 27-28, 2010, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Enterprise Social 2.0: RIP or ROI? This senior executive event will bring together decision makers from the top Fortune companies to discuss innovative strategies on how to maximize business performance through social media engagement. The event will include keynote speeches, best-practice presentations as well as interactive discussion sessions. Use promo-code MASH14 for a €100 (Euros) discount for the 2 day conference registration fee.

January 28, 2010, San Francisco, CA: The ARF Industry Leader Forum — Putting Listening to Work is an interactive event to help advertisers, agencies, media and research companies determine how to use social media and digital behavior for their listening strategies. Learn how to use listening, evaluate listening applications, develop a listening strategy, integrate it into your existing research program, create an action plan and apply insights garnered. Attendees will receive The ARF Foundations Series – Listening tool, an $895 value, featuring 25 case studies and 30+ company reviews how listening is used for consumer insight, customer service, new product development, reputation management, competitive benchmarking, and breaking into new applications like media planning, targeting and predictive modeling. Speakers include: Jeremiah Owyang, digital media strategy superstar and blogger and Partner, Customer Strategy, Altimeter Group, Toyota Motor Sales, Saatchi and Saatchi Wellness and LinkedIn. Mashable readers can use promo code ARFMASH to save $100.

January 28-29, 2010, Bilbao, Spain: The biggest Search Engines: Search Marketing and Online Marketing Event starts the new year in the north of Spain: Bilbao the TIC city! SC Bilbao will offer 9 professionals workshops, 8 Conferences and the glorious Closed Party! 2 days of learning and networking at “Palacio Euskalduna” . Come and share with Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, SEMPO and the best Internet experts. There’s a special 30% discount on Conferences for all Mashable readers using the promotional code: ILOVESEARCH.

February 1-5, 2010, New York, London, Berlin, Toronto, San Francisco, São Paulo: Social Media Week’s second annual conference will take place between February 1st – 5th, 2010 simultaneously in New York City, Berlin, London, San Francisco, Toronto and São Paulo. The five day conference will explore the profound impact that social media has on culture, business communications and society at large. The week-long conference is designed as a series of localized events, which city partners are responsible for organizing. Over the course of the week and in each city, programs will span a variety of formats, ranging from talks, presentations and panel discussions, to interactive workshops, seminars, networking events and drinks receptions. RSVP here.

February 4, 2010, San Francisco, CA: Vator, a leading platform for innovators and entrepreneurs to broadcast themselves, is holding its inaugural Vator Splash competition to find 10 promising early-stage startups to present at the Vator Splash event. Enter the competition today and join other onstage presenters, such as Zynga CEO Mark Pincus, Smule CEO Jeff Smith, August Capital VC Howard Hartenbaum and Google Ventures VC Bill Maris. Buy your 25% discount ticket today using the code: VatorMashable

February 8, 2010, Tampa, FL: The Social Media conference that comes to you. Social Fresh is a one day, case study rich conference targeted for marketers. Social Fresh Tampa will have 30+ speakers including Chris Barger of GM, Maggie Fox of Social Media Group, and John Andrews of Collective Bias (formerly of Walmart). Get 15% off if using code mashable.

February 8-10, 2010, Philadelphia, PA: The 9th Annual ePharma Summit is the most innovative digital marketing event for pharma. Year after year, hundreds of marketing professionals from leading pharmaceutical companies attend ePharma for incomparable access to insider information for optimizing their brand strategy and perfecting consumer relationships. Join us next February to collaborate with industry leading industry minds and perfect your digital strategy by pursuing true e-marketing innovation. The 2010 event is packed with fresh case studies, hands-on workshops, hot topic debates, facilitated roundtable discussions, and live audience polling sessions. Register with Priority Code XP1506MASH to save 15% off standard registration!

February 8-11, 2010, Washington, DC: Attend the Advanced Learning Institute’s Forum on Social Media for Government: How To Engage Your Employees And Citizens By Using The Latest Web 2.0 Technologies To Drive Communication Results, to learn how to capture the power of social media in your organization, along with helpful tools, tips and techniques to get started. Hear practical advice, firsthand, from leading government agencies and organizations such as: CIA; IRS; U.S. Army Public Affairs; National Wildlife Federation; U.S. Department of Agriculture; City of Raleigh, NC; U.S. Navy; Morris County, NJ; U.S. Department of State Roanoke Public Libraries, VA; Court Services & Offender Supervision Agency; Department for International Development, Government of the United Kingdom; NOAA; National Institutes of Health; U.S. Department of Health & Human Services; National Defense University; City of Richmond, VA; Porter Novelli; Booz Allen Hamilton, and more. Mention Mashable when registering to save $200.

February 9-13, 2010, San Francisco, CA: Macworld 2010 is a five-day event that educates, entertains and immerses attendees in the Apple products community. A comprehensive expo hall offers access to hundreds of Mac products and services, paired with expert advice, demonstrations and instruction. Macworld conference programs feature industry leading minds, presenting cutting edge product training on the topics attendees most want to see. From Mac Power Users to creative professionals to first-time users to Enterprise computing professionals, Macworld has the conference content, special presentations and exhibit hall attractions that create what has been called “Mecca for Mac Users”. Get 15% off as a Mashable reader.

February 10, 2010, New York City: The Online Community Unconference East is a gathering of online community professionals – managers, developers, business people, tool providers, investors – to discuss experience and strategies in the development and growth of online communities. As we have found with our past events, the best source of information on all of these challenges is other knowledgeable practitioners. Mashable readers are entitled to a discount by registering here with code mashable.

February 15, 2010, Barcelona, Spain: The Mobile Premier Awards recognize the year’s best in Mobile Startup Innovation and are the largest open, global startup competition in the mobile industry. The awards are the point of reference in startup premiers during the Mobile World Congress and are organized in collaboration with some of the main networks in the industry. Participation to the awards is free and open to any startup with a mobile angle. Sign up at www.mobilepremierawards.com and take your chance to walk the red carpet in Barcelona!

February 17, 2010, Atlanta, GA: Startup Riot is an annual event that focuses on giving fifty startups an opportunity to present, in three minutes, to a large audience of investors, corporate business development and M&A representatives, and other interested parties. Attendees are pre-screened so the room is never filled with service providers, job hunters, or others who are not the target audience. Selected presenting entrepreneurs pay nothing to attend. In 2010 we will move to a bigger venue for the event and the always popular after-party. Also new in 2010 are prizes for presenters and attendees. We are currently accepting applications to attend and present.

February 19-21, 2010, Los Angeles, CA: SCALE 8X is the 8th Annual Southern California Linux Expo. As the premier community run Linux / Open Source conference, it will feature tutorial sessions designed to show users of all skill levels what Open Source can do and how to do it. Whatever your interest is in Open Source, SCALE 8x will have something for you. Mashable’s readers can receive 40% off registration with the promo code MASH8.

February 22-24, 2010, New York City: From authoring, editing, and layout to distribution and consumption, new technologies are changing all aspects of publishing. TOC will help you navigate these changes and understand how to apply them to your business or organization for a more profitable future in publishing. You’ll also have the opportunity to participate in conversations that are shaping that future as often as they are describing it. The fourth annual O’Reilly TOC Conference is your opportunity to join those inventing the future of publishing. Register now and save at: en.oreilly.com/toc2010/public/register. Save an additional 15% when you use the Discount Code: toc10mas.

February 22–25, 2010 San Diego, CA: Online Marketing Summit, the premier educational event for marketing professionals, is coming to San Diego this February. Join your marketing peers as they share ideas, hear from expert practitioners, and learn best practices in the areas of: Social Media, Search, Email, Analytics, and more – in a completely vendor free environment! Register now and receive 25% off using discount code MASHABLE.

February 23-26, 2010, San Jose, CA: At FAST ‘10, explore new directions in the design, implementation, evaluation, and deployment of storage systems. Learn from leaders in the storage industry, beginning Tuesday, February 23, with ground-breaking file and storage tutorials by industry leaders such as Brent Welch, Marc Unangst, Michael Condict, and more. This year’s innovative 3-day technical program includes 21 technical papers, as well as two keynote addresses, Work-in-Progress Reports (WiPs), and a Poster Session. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to meet with premier storage system researchers and industry practitioners from around the globe. Register by February 8 and save! Mashable readers get $100 off using code FASTMASH10.

March 1-4, 2010, Ottawa, ON: Attend the Advanced Learning Institute’s Forum on Social Media for Government: How To Engage Your Employees And Citizens By Using The Latest Web 2.0 Technologies To Drive Communication Results, to learn how to capture the power of social media in your organization, along with helpful tools, tips and techniques to get started. Hear practical advice, firsthand, from leading government agencies and organizations such as: ON Ministry of Health & Long-Term Care; Parks Canada; Communications Community Office; City of Ottawa, ON; Public Safety Canada; Indian & Northern Affairs Canada; Toronto Police Service, ON; Canadian Forces Aerospace Warfare Centre; Human Resources & Skills Development Canada; Northern Lights Canada; Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency; Canada Mortgage & Housing Corporation; Royal Bank of Canada; Genome Alberta; Business Development Bank of Canada; Thornley Fallis Communications; Centre of Excellence for Public Sector Marketing, & more. Mention Mashable when registering to save $200.

March 2-4, 2010, Santa Clara, CA: Search Marketing Expo – SMX West content is so compelling, you’ll want to implement what you’ve learned before leaving the conference. Over 50 super-charged sessions on PPC, SEO, local search, search-friendly design, and social media marketing will help you flourish today, tomorrow and in the future. Whether you’re new to search or have years of experience, employed at a Fortune 500 company or run your own business or agency, you’ll be a more effective, innovative and inspired internet marketer after attending SMX East. Featured keynote – Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Get 3 jam-packed days of content for only $1145 if you register by January 30th and use discount code smx100mashable. For more info visit smxwest.com

March 4-5, 2010, Chicago, IL: At SOHO’s 2-Day, “The Co-Alignment of the Corporate and Personal Brand,” a Strategy Framework, develop your exclusive copy of “The Draft,” SOHO’s 16-page social communications policy workbook for businesses and corporations. The focus in 2010 is co-aligning the corporate brand with internal and external communications. SOHO brings to you presentations, case studies and Town Hall meetings with Chris Brogan and Dan Schawbel, and other experienced practitioners. For more information and to register, please visit Sohobiztube.com. Use discount code MashableChi for a 20% discount on a 2-day “The Draft” ticket.

March 15-16, 2010, London, UK: At Social Media World Forum, learn from social networks, brands, advertisers and analysts. Hear from leading social networks on their strategy, revenue models and how they are approaching the future. Worldwide case studies from global brands and corporations on their use of social media. Examine the current market conditions, future forecasts and predictions from leading analysts. Mention you are a Mashable reader to receive 15% discount.

March 19, 2010, London, UK: Justmeans’ Social Media and Stakeholder Engagement Conference will bring together the top minds in sustainability, marketing, innovation and technology. This executive forum will explore how technology can enable sustainable business by involving stakeholders in the value creation process and will showcase examples of success and failure in this rapidly evolving market. Use this link for a 10% registration discount.

March 23-24, 2010, Berlin, Germany: Learn, discuss and explore the challenges and commercial opportunities that exist within the mobile internet ecosystem and make the most of best-practice perspectives over a two day period offering a programme packed with case studies, roundtable discussions, industry snapshots, masterclasses and fishbowl sessions. Significant discount for Mobile Operators, Online/Mobile Communities, and Content providers! Go to www.iir-mobileinternet.com/mashable for more information.

March 24-25, 2010, San Francisco, CA: EyeforTravel’s Social Media Strategies for Travel conference goes beyond the ‘what is social media?’ debates (that were so 2008!) and examines the strategic importance of social media to travel brands. The 2 day conference will share leading case studies, hits, tips and advice from top travel companies including JetBlue, Hilton, Virgin America and more. Use the discount MASHABLE to save $100 on the registration fee!

March 30-April 1, 2010, San Jose, CA: Become Location Enabled at Where 2.0. Now in its sixth year, Where 2.0 is one of the world’s foremost events dedicated to exploring the emerging technologies in the geospatial industry. At Where 2.0, we expose the tools pushing the boundaries of the location frontier. Join us and meet the people behind the mashups, the people behind the platforms, and the people looking ahead to the future of geospatial. Find out what’s viable now, what’s lurking just below the radar and how to gain a competitive edge. Register now and save 15% at en.oreilly.com/where2010. Use code whr10mash.

May 17-19, 2010, Charlotte, NC: Search Exchange is a 3-day action packed internet marketing conference offering insights into social media marketing, search engine optimization, online reputation management, and pay per click advertising. Learn and network with industry professionals and business owners from around the world. Mashable readers save 10% using code mash10 during registration.

May 25-27, 2010, The Sage Gateshead, UK: Thinking Digital is overtly inspired by the TED and PopTech conferences in America. We attract more than 30 of the world’s most innovative, creative, insightful and/or accomplished people to come to Hall Two of the Sage Gateshead, United Kingdom annually and talk about their work, inspirations, insights and ideas. Our venue and speakers thereby attract a wonderfully eclectic mix of people from around Northern England, Europe and the world. Mashable readers save 25% using code tdc_mashable here.

June 29-30, 2010, London, UK: The 2nd annual Cloud Computing and Enterprise 2.0 World Forum is the perfect event to learn and discuss the future development and integration of cloud and enterprise 2.0 services and products. Building on the success of the 2009 show, this two day conference and exhibition will provide a focused platform for the global cloud computing and enterprise social media industry. The 2010 show will include a free-to-attend exhibition with scenario based workshop area and key service providers demonstrating their products.

The Mashable Weekly Social Media and Marketing Event Guide is proudly supported by Eventbrite, the Web’s Event Marketplace.

Eventbrite is an online events marketplace where tens of thousands of individuals, businesses and organizations of all sizes manage, promote and sell tickets to their events. Make your event a success on Eventbrite.

Reviews: Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Mashable, Twitter, linux

Google City Tours Adds Walking Directions, Custom Maps [Travel]

Facebook-Web-Design — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 11:43:36 +0000

Six months after launching City Tours in Labs, Google’s Maps team has tweaked the interface and made it more friendly to how people actually vacation: head to a city, pick places to go, and get precise directions to them.

At launch, City Tours did a decent job of knowing neat places to go inside a city, and even knew (sometimes) when they were open and what they cost. All it did for the traveler, though, was tell you how far apart those destinations were. Now City Tours includes detailed walking directions in your itinerary. And if you’re a My Maps nerd who’s picked out spots to visit on your own, you can import it and lay those map points over the cities that Google has picked out, so you get a mix of suggestions and pre-picked favorites.

There’s more to the latest upgrade, detailed at the blog post below. Have you used City Tours for a real, honest-to-goodness vacation? Tell us what works, and what you needed to DIY, in the comments.

Plan a trip in one click [Google LatLong via Download Squad]

Google’s 2009: A Glimpse of the Web’s Next Decade

Facebook-Web-Design — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 00:09:36 +0000

In 2009 the web as we knew it changed dramatically. Twitter graduated to become a media darling and a mainstream communication staple. Facebook became the most significant social network of this day and age. And Google changed the way we search.

When historians look back on 2009, they’ll be forced to acknowledge Google’s role in shaping the future of how we search, how we browse, how we communicate, how enterprises store information, and how the population at large has adapted to a web-rich mobile environment centered around applications.

Here’s a look back at Google’s big releases, major accomplishments, and a few faux pas in 2009.

Google in 2009: The Timeline

The Evolution of Search

Google started the year with 63.5% market share in the search space (source: comScore January 2009 data), with a commanding lead over its closest competitors Yahoo (20.5%) and Microsoft (8.3%). Facing competition from Microsoft’s overly-promoted new search entity, Bing, and the recently finalized acquisition of Yahoo! Search, Google spent 2009 modifying and enhancing the search experience like never before.

We first saw slight tweaks made to the search experience in March, with support for longer queries and related searches getting a semantic makeover. Then in April, Google search became more intelligent in relation to local search results, using your IP address to display multiple results to simple queries like “food” on a map. Of course, the bigger play here is to highlight local businesses, as Google would later make a not-so-subtle move to replicate Yelp with Place Pages and encourage vendors to display decals with QR codes.

Google also made efforts to improve search filtering options with the addition of time-based search options. They also experimented with the look of their iconic homepage, extending the search box, testing a permanent search sidebar, and switching to a fade-in homepage.

The social possibilities of search results became apparent when Google Profiles were added to search results for people queries. While insignificant when compared against the future release of Google Social Search, this was a carefully crafted maneuver to encourage Googlers to complete their profiles for more search relevance. Identity in search came full circle when the Google Labs experiment, Social Search, added relevant results based on content shared by friends associated with the social networks in your Google Profile.

Google Music Search made its debut late in October and offered up yet another new addition to the search experience: streaming audio previews for artist, album, song, and lyric searches powered by MySpace and Lala. The deal has major implications and could disrupt iTunes digital music market share, position Google as this generation’s billboard, and even make MySpace relevant again.

Of course, the search experience has forever been altered with the addition of real-time search. The initial announcement was made immediately after Bing touted their Twitter integration in October, but the rollout didn’t arrive until early December. We were all blown away by the fact that search results automatically update with fresh content from Twitter, Facebook Pages, MySpace, Yahoo! Answers and news articles in a real-time box on standard search results pages.

Though Google only made marginal gains in the search sector this year, finishing November with 65.6% share to Yahoo’s 17.5% and Microsoft’s 10.3, what’s important is that they continue to have a commanding lead and are clearly focused on improving the search experience into 2010, especially as it pertains to speed.

The Maturation of Gmail

After five years bearing the “Beta” tag, Gmail has finally shed its adolescent label. The move, though mostly symbolic, was accompanied by big improvements to the web-based e-mail service throughout the year. New additions worthy of mention include send and archive, offline support, undo, Google translate, and duplicate contact merging.

Unfortunately removing the Beta tag did not guarantee up-time, as Gmail suffered several debilitating outages over the course of the year, casting doubt on the notion that cloud-based apps have become more reliable.

Going Google for Business

Google spent much of 2009 attempting to attract enterprise customers for the Google Apps suite of products. The company even went so far as to place billboards in New York, Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco, targeting IT professionals and encouraging them to make the switch.

The campaign ultimately proved successful with two notable new customers: the City of Los Angeles and the US Government. The LA deal was announced in October, completed in December, and included a $7.2 million price tag. As for the US Government, they officially started pushing agencies to switch to Google Apps in September, with the White House launching Apps.gov to serve as a directory of cloud-based IT services.

Google Goes on a Spending Spree

To say that Google whipped out their credit card this year is quite the understatement. The search giant focused on acquisitions and investments to not only enhance their bread-and-butter search offering but to also solidify themselves as leaders in other territories.

The spending spree didn’t start until August of 2009, but once Google purchased On2 Technologies, a video compression company, for $106.5 million, they just kept on spending. The following month they acquired reCAPTCHA to apply the technology to improve Google Books. That purchase was followed by the yet-to-be-finalized AdMob acquisition for $750 million. The mobile ad network represents a huge opportunity for Google in the mobile advertising arena, but the deal is facing scrutiny from the FTC and consumer advocate groups who see the deal as anti-competitive in nature.

Most recently we’ve seen Google snatch up Teracent and AppJet. The later was primarily a talent acquisition, with plans to transition the engineers of EtherPad, a collaborative word processor, to Google’s Wave product development team. The former was motivated by Teracent’s impressive technology around targeted display advertising. Teracent can optimize ads in real-time to match a visitor’s location, language, and even adapt to the content on a website.

Despite rumors to the contrary, Google did not acquire Twitter this year. The two companies have developed a synergy around real-time search, with Bloomberg speculating that that the Twitter deal cost Google $15 million.

Chrome Blossoms

September was the one year anniversary of Google’s Chrome browser. Introduced in 2008, the browser began with a big name but lackluster feature set. All that changed in 2009, as incremental updates helped make Chrome competitive with Firefox and Safari.

Chrome version 3 introduced support for HTML5, promised a much faster experience, themes, and an enhanced Chrome Tab page. In December, Mac and Linux users were finally gifted with their own version of Chrome, though the newly released Chrome Extensions Beta is still Windows-only.

Perhaps even more significant than the improvements to Chrome, the browser, was the announcement that Google had also turned Chrome into an operating system.

Google Chrome OS is based off of the browser, open source, and slated to run on netbooks in 2010. In November, we were able to get up close and personal — thanks to new photos and video provided by Google — with Chrome, the 100% web-based operating system. We also learned that the browser is the OS, security is a priority, all apps are web apps, Chrome only works on netbooks, and it boots in seconds.

Mobile Maneuvers

Android skyrocketed to mobile operating system fame this year, with dozens of devices toting Google on the inside in the hopes of competing with Apple’s iPhone. While the OS currently only accounts for 3.5% of the whole market, it’s fast gaining ground and becoming a recognizable platform among consumers.

The king of all Android phones was none other than the heavily advertised — and TIME’s gadget of the year — Motorola Droid. And while sales have been impressive, rumors of Google’s own phone, the Nexus One, surfaced just a few weeks later.

The HTC device most certainly exists, and reports assert it will be sold by Google, with support from T-Mobile, as soon as January 5th. A real Google phone is bound to resonate with consumers, but the device could also splinter the Android market, creating angst between Google and manufactures and carriers selling Android-powered devices.

Wave Goodbye to 2009, Hello to the Future

A post on Google in 2009 would not be complete without paying proper attention to Google’s newest game-changing product: Google Wave. The May announcement brought instant fanfare from the entire blogosphere, creating an immediate demand for a product that only a small group of individuals had ever seen. As the September rollout date fast-approached, hype and anticipation hit an all time high. But as more and more individuals started receiving their invitations (that number is now upwards of one million), anticipation was met with confusion.

While we’ve already seen the platform used for spectacular and inspiring real-time collaboration purposes, the average person still struggles with how best to leverage the new communication medium. Of course it didn’t help that Wave was — and still is — every bit a preview version not ready for prime time. Some initial flaws, like the absence of undo, have since been corrected, but as it stands, Google Wave is a product with potential that is only being realized by a small minority.

Tags: 2009, Google, Google Android, google chrome, Google Wave, Mobile 2.0, nexus one, Search

Mashable’s Weekly Guide to Social Media Events

Facebook-Web-Design — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:06:22 +0000

Is your event not on this list? Contact us at least one month before your event and let’s establish a media partnership.

Mashable’s Weekly Social Media and Marketing Event Guide is proudly supported by Eventbrite, the Web’s Event Marketplace.

January 28, 2010, San Francisco, CA: The ARF Industry Leader Forum — Putting Listening to Work is an interactive event to help advertisers, agencies, media and research companies determine how to use social media and digital behavior for their listening strategies. Learn how to use listening, evaluate listening applications, develop a listening strategy, integrate it into your existing research program, create an action plan and apply insights garnered. Attendees will receive The ARF Foundations Series – Listening tool, an $895 value, featuring 25 case studies and 30+ company reviews how listening is used for consumer insight, customer service, new product development, reputation management, competitive benchmarking, and breaking into new applications like media planning, targeting and predictive modeling. Speakers include: Jeremiah Owyang, digital media strategy superstar and blogger and Partner, Customer Strategy, Altimeter Group, Toyota Motor Sales, Saatchi and Saatchi Wellness and LinkedIn. Mashable readers can use promo code ARFMASH to save $100.

March 24-25, San Francisco, CA: EyeforTravel’s Social Media Strategies for Travel conference goes beyond the ‘what is social media?’ debates (that were so 2008!) and examines the strategic importance of social media to travel brands. The 2 day conference will share leading case studies, hits, tips and advice from top travel companies including JetBlue, Hilton, Virgin America and more. Use the discount MASHABLE to save $100 on the registration fee!

The Mashable Weekly Social Media and Marketing Event Guide is proudly supported by Eventbrite, the Web’s Event Marketplace.

Winter Photography: A White Escape

Facebook-Web-Design — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 17:38:43 +0000

Snow, ice, and the crispness that comes with freezing temperatures can add a new dimension to your photos. And with winter just around the corner for much of the northern hemisphere, it’s a great time to find some inspiration in winter photos.

From the first snowflakes in late fall to the dripping icicles that come with a spring thaw, winter photography can provide you with ideas for any kind of design. A muted color palette peppered with bright accents made even more striking by their backdrop can be adapted to your web and graphic designs.

Below are 70 excellent winter photos to help inspire you, everything from snow-filled landscapes to macro photos and close-ups.

#20 Winter Chickedee
by JMitaStudios

A Winter Bokeh
by Kuddlyteddybear2004

A Winter Tale..
by Nilgunkara

Barn in Winter
by James Jordan

Blue Winter ….
by Alf07

Cardinal in Winter
by LittleREDelf

Chase Winter Deer
by Johnmuk

Crater Lake, Winter
by MarcAdamus

Classical Russian Winter
by Doberman4ik

Field Mint in Winter
by Yksin

Farmstand in Winter
by Muffet

Grand Canyon in Winter
by Creativity+ Timothy K Hamilton

Happy Winter Solstice Day
by Kuddlyteddybear2004

Horse In Winter Field
by Darwin70

Holga Winter
by Rakastajatar

Law Library (Winter)
by Dgermony

The Lone Boatman in Japan’s Winter Light
by Okinawa Soba

On Winter…
by Matt McGee

Onset of Winter
by Ssilence

Winter Textures
by Grant MacDonald

Struma River in Winter
by Klearchos Kapoutsis

Tail End of Winter
by Melissa Maples

The Tree That Refused to Believe It Was Winter
by EJP Photo

Winter
by 6Artificial6

Winter
by Valyeszter

Winter 8
by Aniabeata

Winter Apple
by Rabasz

Winter
by Behindmyblueeyes

Winter
by Dinarakey

Winter
by Fragoline

Winter
by Voorikvergeet

Winter Flight
by IgorLaptev

Winter Freight on Salt Creek Trestle
by Ahockley

Winter Fur
by Orvaratli

Winter Field
by James Jordan

Winter Morning
by Leenik

Winter Night
by Orvaratli

Winter
by Amymillerphotos

Winter on the City 3
by Aniabeata

Winter Puffball
by Thrumyeye

Winter Scenery III
by Steffe

Winter Star
by Randihausken

Winter Surprise II
by Joffo1

Winter Theme
by Dobrych

Winter Thrush
by Gavatron

Winter Wonder Land 2
by Art Rock (Hennie)

Winter Wonderland
by Pieter Musterd

Wisconsin Winter Wonderland
by WisDoc

Winter at the River
by Lanier67

Winter
by 1g4

Winter
by Latimeria

Winter
by Trifoto

Winter Day!
by Marcos Vasconcelos Photography

Winter Grasses
by Shazz Mack

Winter Komm
by Igloolita

Winter Memorie
by Valyeszter

Snow
by Babakch2

In the Snow
by Kuru93

Snow
by Palnk

Winter Wonderland
by AnnMe

Winter Will Come
by Inside-my-ART

Blizzard Ballet
by Intao

Winter Dream
by James Jordan

Blizzard
by Kelen-olga

Early Snow
by Tidesend

Winter Willow
by FigoTheCat

Winter
by Jjuuhhaa

Winter in Bloom
by TheEducatedFool

Winter Wonderland
by Deadstarx

Early in Winter II
by Blessedchild

About Author – Cameron Chapman is a professional Web and graphic designer with over 7 years of experience. She writes for a number of blogs, including her own, Cameron Chapman On Writing. She’s also the author of Internet Famous: A Practical Guide to Becoming an Online Celebrity.

Bangadelphia

Facebook-Web-Design — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:55:14 +0000

Philadelphia is a happening little city, the cradle of liberty, and the site of Happy Cog East. It’s also a city that gets unfairly overlooked—like a beauty whose sisters are supermodels. But I have a plan.

I want to rebrand Philadelphia as !adelphia.

I can see the logo. I can see half a dozen ad campaigns, some of them even good. I see a decent theme-line and sense that a much better one is out there. I see commercials and bus posters, I hear tourist board tie-ins and radio spots. I see Kottke, Joe Clarke, and Design Observer trashing the campaign on various intellectual and typographic grounds. I see contests where designers submit how they would have done the logo.

Maybe it’s the meds talking, but I think we’re on to something. Viva !adelphia!

http://www.everyblock.com/

EveryBlock – A news feed for your block

Facebook-Web-Design — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:14:19 +0000

EveryBlock filters an assortment of local news by location so you can keep track of what’s happening on your block, in your neighborhood and all over your city.

“What’s happening in my neighborhood?”

The easiest way to keep track of what’s happening on your block, in your neighborhood and all over your city — like restaurant inspections in Chinatown, crimes in the Loop or everything around 473 Kent Ave.

EveryBlock is currently available in these cities:

Chicago
New York
San Francisco

> Google Apps Gets Google Groups

Google Apps Goes Live In L.A.

Facebook-Web-Design — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:10:41 +0000

The Los Angeles city government is moving ahead with its plan to embrace Google Apps. Today, 34,000 city employees are supposed to switch to it from an old system, and the mood appears to be much more "excited" than "nervous" at this point in time.

The L.A. City Council approved a $7.25 million Google Apps contract in late October, but not everyone was enthusiastic about the move. Councilman Paul Koretz displayed a bit of doubt, for example, by referring to both "cutting edge" and "the edge of a cliff."

Now, Randi Levin, CTO for the City of Los Angeles and general manager of the city’s Information Technology Agency, has written a post on the Official Google Enterprise Blog, and she’s looking forward to improved collaboration, easier remote access, and expanded storage.

Plus, it looks like L.A. will save about $5.5 million over the next five years (including $750,000 in electricity costs alone).

This is a huge development for Google, considering how many other cities may feel comfortable trying Google Apps if all goes well in Los Angeles (the second-largest city in America). It’s a big moment for cloud computing in general, too.

Related Articles:

> L.A. Approves $7.25 Million Google Apps Contract

> Google Gets Serious About Marketing Apps

City of Los Angeles Is Now in Google’s Cloud

Facebook-Web-Design — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:05:25 +0000

Back in October, the Los Angeles city council approved a $7.2 million deal to switch to hosted Google e-mail and application services.

Now, according to a blog post from Google, the deal is done, and the city of L.A. is now officially in the cloud, with 34,000 of the city’s employees switching to Google’s online services for e-mail and collaboration.

In the post, Google highlights the upsides of cloud computing:

“The cloud computing system will improve the security and reliability of city email, transitioning from servers in the City Hall basement to hosted, secure data centers. Employees will also have a new avenue for collaboration with Google Apps in the cloud: sharing docs, sites and videos and editing them together in realtime as they work on making the city run more smoothly and efficiently and thus better serving Angelenos city-wide. Furthermore, (…) moving to Apps would mean less taxpayer money spent on IT – valuable budget that can be rededicated to other city efforts over the next few years.”

Be that as it may, cloud computing carries certain perils; one only needs to remember the recent T-Mobile/Microsoft Sidekick fiasco, where customer data residing in the cloud was almost lost forever. As large corporate and government-related entities switch to cloud computing, mistakes like that will be greeted with very little tolerance.

In the video below, L.A.’s Chief Technology Officer Randi Levin talks about the details of the deal.

Image from Peter Kaminski on Flickr.

Reviews: Flickr, Google

Tags: Google, Los Angeles

30+ Amazing Examples of Famous Caricatures

Facebook-Web-Design — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 10:33:05 +0000

One of the great things about Montreal (the city I am from) is all the activities that go on here all year long. If you have ever visited Montreal in the summertime and have gone down by the river to the part of the city called Old Montreal you would have seen that there are [...]

Ron Livingston Sues Wikipedia Detractor for Saying He’s Gay

Facebook-Web-Design — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 00:20:22 +0000

Search Google for Ron Livingston, the man of Office Space (and Sex and the City) fame, and you’ll find IMDB links for information on his acting career. You’ll also come across a Wikipedia page on the movie and TV star, with inaccurate details on his personal life. And that’s the problem.

Since May, Livingston has continually fallen victim to an anonymous Wikipedia detractor who continually edits the entry to read that the actor is in a gay relationship.

Livingston, who is married to Rosemarie DeWitt, calls the rumor that he is in a relationship with Lee Dennison “malicious,” and to make the behavior stop he’s filed a lawsuit. The suit, filed yesterday with the Los Angeles County Superior Court, seeks unspecified damages for libel, invasion of privacy, and for using his name and likeness without permission.

According to TMZ, “Ron believes the perp also created fake Facebook profiles for himself and Lee, and both pages claim the two are “In a relationship” with each other.”

Details of the suit are minimal, but given that the online detractor is anonymous, the case would likely require Wikipedia to reveal the poster’s identity to move forward. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Reviews: Facebook, Wikipedia

Tags: ron livingston, wikipedia

Impressive and Elegant Work of Jason Little

Facebook-Web-Design — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 05:11:00 +0000

Jason Little is a talented self-taught young Creative Directorof Corporate Brands of Landor Associates in the Sydney, Australia. He has won 48 awards from the likes of D&AD, The NY Type Directors Club, Graphis, and Wolda. He’s also one of the most appreciated members of the Behance Network for projects like his stunning, shape-shifting rebrand of the City of Melbourne or the elegantly simple integrated campaign for 1 Degree. To know more about him you can read his interview on 99Percent and visit his Blog or Portfolio.

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AWESOME: Ancient Pompeii Ruins Now on Google Street View

Facebook-Web-Design — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:23:09 +0000

Google’s Street View service, which lets you zoom into Google Maps and stroll through the city streets in a 3D environment, is amazing in its own right, but it just got twice as amazing with the addition of the ancient ruins of Pompeii.

Pompeii — the ruined and partially buried Roman city near Naples, Italy — is one of the most amazing sights one can see in one’s lifetime. The city was destroyed during an eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D., but after it was rediscovered in 1738 and excavated in the late 19th century, it became one of the most important archaeological finds (and tourist attractions) of all time.

Now, you can explore it in 3D via Google’s Street View, and the results are truly impressive. Of course, the experience is not as good as actually visiting Pompeii in person, but it’s definitely the next best thing. Check it out here.

Tags: Pompeii, street view, trending

Sites of the Week #80

Web-Design — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:20:33 +0000

For this Sites of the Week we have selected some great sites such as the Giraffe and the new Adhemas portfolio. Also we’re featuring a special mention to The CSS Awards, and much, much more! As usual we would love to hear from you, keep sending your suggestions to us and we will be more than happy to feature your site.

You can send me your suggestions via Twitter twitter.com/FabianoMe or twitter.com/abduzeedo, and include #abdz_sites in the message.

SPECIAL MENTION

The CSS Awards – thecssawards.com

You can submit your site with and use this discount code: abduzecode (This code give 50% of discount till 30th december).

The gallery of the most prestigious websites in the world created with CSS. An international jury of the top designers, agencies, and bloggers will award prizes to the best CSS websites.

DESIGN / CSS

Giraffe – giraffe.net

It’s about exploring the wonderful foods from around the globe and opening our ears to music from around the world. Giraffes are so tall they see a different view of the world. we LOVE fresh ideas.

Less – lesscss.org

LESS was inspired by its predecessors—especially Sass, a ruby project which provides an ingenious solution to a lot of the common problems CSS designers and web developers face when developping large websites.

APP / WEB APP

Thumbtack – thumbtack.com

Why can you go online right now and buy any product you want but you can’t do the same for tutors, handymen, dog walkers, or other local services? Thumbtack is changing that.

Tweetwally – tweetwally.com

Clockwork’s Tweetwally is a Twitter power tool, a way to save and customize search results and present them in different formats—at a specific URL (your own, or at tweetwally.com), on a projector (at a conference, party or other gathering), or on an iPhone.

COMMUNITY / STORE

Chocri – chocri.de

The idea for the individual Chocri came in early 2008. Francis and Micah were already working before even with “The Shocoladen” the chocolate fountain business. Access to liquid chocolate was also present. When searching for a suitable birthday present for his girlfriend, is Franz got more and more under time pressure. (via Google Translate)

Urban Roots – urbanroots.org

Urban Roots Community Garden Center is a consumer cooperative business whose mission is to provide quality products for gardening in the City of Buffalo and be an active and enriching member of the community.

FLASH SITE

Christmas Tweets – christmastweets.co.uk

We’re using twitter to determine what the meaning of Christmas is in 2009 – Is it Commercialism, Religion, Credit Crunch or good old Christmas Spirit?

Adhemas Batista – adhemas.com/

Adhemas Batista – I’m Selling Colors

BLOG / PORTFOLIO

Eighty8Four – eighty8four.com

Eighty8Four is a small creative agency based out of Wellington, FL focused on delivering hand-crafted motion & static design. We believe that design is the most important investment that a business will ever make. So lets do it right (the first time).

Åh – ah-studio.com

ÅH is a multi-disciplinary creative studio based in East London, established in 2008 by Elin Svensson and Johanna Lundberg.

TEMPLATES

Kabatubun – themeforest.com

A perfetct template for business or portfolio. Template of 5 Pages – 4 Color Options – 2 Headers Styles – 25 PSD Files included. Easy to modify, changecolors, add or remove content.

SophisticatedFolio – woothemes.com

BSophisticatedFolio is a great theme for web/graphic designers to showcase their portfolio and blog, but can be used for many other purposes if you just put your imagination to work.

About the author

I’m from Brazil, co-founder of Zee with Fabio. Nowadays I like to play with Fireworks, Photoshop and improve my skills in CSS. If you wanna request some posts, please feel free to contact me or follow on Twitter.

Sponsored Links:

Adhemas Batista – I’m Selling Colors

Web-Design — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 11:20:33 +0000

Adhemar Batista launched a new portfolio website this month along with a blog and a lot of colors and great works. You about to read the an Illustrated biography of one of the most creative and talented Illustrator of all times. Sit tight and enjoy the ride!

Visit his new website & new blog

Adhemas Batista has been in the business of selling colors since the age of fifteen. Born in Sao Paulo City, Brazil, Batista is a self-taught digital artist that is world-renowned for his colorful and distinctive illustrative style that he brings to his projects. Batista has worked for advertising agencies, design studios and interactive shops around the world and has developed skills in creative and art direction, illustration, interactive, photography and photo manipulation.

Most widely known for his creative work for the Havaianas brand, Batista has been sought out by some of the world’s biggest brands looking to embrace his unique style including Absolut Vodka, Adobe, Basf, Blender Magazine, Coca-Cola, Danone, Future Publishing, General Electric, General Motors, Havaianas, Hellmans, Honda, Microsoft, Myspace, NBC Network, Nike, Nokia, Nordstrom, Paypal, Pepsi, Philip Morris, Renault, Sony, Symantec, Toyota, Tylenol, Unilever, Volkswagen, ZaOza, Zune and many more.

Batista’s creative vision has earned him many advertising and design accolades that include a Golden Lion in Cannes Festival 2009, two Gold Statues in the London International Awards, One Show Interactive, FWA, and was named Brazilian Young Creative in the Cannes Advertising Festival. His work has been featured in numerous publications including Computer Arts, Advanced Photoshop Magazine and a number of international design books. Batista has been invited to participate in a number of world-wide creative projects representing Brazil as well, he was selected as the only artist from Brazil to participate in the Coca-Cola Remix project and most recently, was one of 12 international illustrators invited by Microsoft to contribute to the Windows 7 personalization project by contributing a custom wallpaper for users to select as their desktop.

Batista moved to the United States in 2006 with his family to continue his creative career and now works out of Magenta (http://www.magenta.la) his own design studio based in Los Angeles, CA.

Story

Adhemas Batista began selling colors at an early age. He was born in the south of Brazil in Sao Paulo City. Inspired by the vibrancy and color of his homeland, Adhemas got his hands on a computer at the age of fifteen during an office internship and proceeded to teach himself design and programming skills. Fascinated by the interactive realm, Adhemas worked with a number of local advertising and marketing agencies, and eventually opened his own web design agency with his brother when he was only 20 years old and helped to grow their agency to 20 employees in two years time.

As Adhemas began to explore his own design style and sought out new opportunities to take on larger projects, he was offered a position he could not refuse as Art Director at AlmapBBDO, one of Brazil’s most creative advertising agencies. During his time there, Adhemas would work on the project that would put his name on the map…the Havaianas website. Given the open and creative nature of the client, Adhemas was given free reign to explore his vibrant and colorful style through concepts, designs and illustrations. When the site launched in 2005, it received worldwide exposure and resulted in a number of prestigious advertising and design awards. At the age of 25, Adhemas was sought after for his unique style and saw his career take off.

In 2006, Adhemas decided to move to the United States with his family in hopes of finding new opportunities to grow his career. Since then, Adhemas has spent time perfecting his craft while working with some of the best advertising agencies, design studios and interactive shops around the world. Always staying true to his colorful design and illustration style, Adhemas began to take on larger projects and was able to offer additional services in art direction, interactive, photography and even photo manipulation.

When he is not working on client projects, Adhemas can be found toiling on his latest personal project, “Colorful Land” a picture book filled with Adhemas’s own photography mixed with illustration and design. The book features colorful photos inspired by Adhemas’s homeland and a full showcase of his vibrant design style. Stay tuned, more to come later this year….

About the author

Hi! I’m Paulo Canabarro and I’m here to post some really cool stuff for you, if you have any ideas or any requests please get @ me – pvpcanabarro@gmail.com you can also Follow me on twitter!

Sponsored Links:

Architect Day: Antoine Predock

Web-Design — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 08:51:37 +0000

His projects have impressive moves, the volume and the materials of the buildings make it seem part of the landscape with fascinating inserts. The architecture of Antoine Predock is a unique experience for its users.

Antoine Predock was born in 1936 in Lebanon, Missouri. He studied at the School of Architecture at the University of New Mexico and graduated from Columbia University. But it was in New Mexico where he cultivated his early concepts, learning to respect the cultural roots of the site, which serves as a principle for all his works.

Learn more at predock.com

“ New Mexico has formed my experience in an all-pervasive sense. I don’t think of New Mexico as a region. I think of it as a force that has entered my system, a force that is composed of many things … Lessons learned in the American Southwest apply anywhere in the world – my “regionalism” is portable.”

In addition to the natural conditions of the site, such as prevailing winds and movement of the sun that are basic to any project, Predock believes in the existing aura of the space, a transcendental power that emanates from the earth. Too philosophical? Looking at his work not so much.

Influences

During his period at Columbia University, Predock got involved with dance and body in space through the work of Jennifer Masley, Merce Cunningham, Yvonne Rainier, and then Anna Halprin.

“This influenced my work profoundly. I think of my buildings as processional events, as choreographic events; they are an accumulation of vantage points both perceptual and experiential.”

His early education was based on modernism and considers the influence of of a young Louis Kahn, very important for his career. The intensity and attention to Frank Lloyd Wright’s details were also important for him.

Projects

Some of his projects seem more to be acts of nature, as if the ground shifted for a moment and stopped again. However, other projects seem to be in constant motion, telling a story in each detail of the building. All these elements added up to a line of simple raw materials, makes a mere look at his work become an indescribable experience.

In 2006, Predock was awarded the AIA Gold Medal, joining a select group of award-winning architects. The office Antoine Predock Architect PC now has 3 studios: Taipei, California and identified as its base, New Mexico.

School of Architecture and Planning, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

Trinity River Audubon Center, Dallas, Texas, USA

Highlands Pond House, Colorado, USA

Rice University South Plant, Houston, Texas, USA

San Diego Padres Ballpark, San Diego, California, USA

Cornerstone Arts Center, Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA

Mesa del Sol Town Center, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

Robert Hoag Rawlings Public Library, Pueblo, USA

Student Activity and Recreation Center, Columbus, Ohio, USA

Austin City Hall and Public Plaza, Austin, Texas, USA

Flint RiverQuarium, Albany, Georgia

Logjam House, Rio Blanco, USA

Gateway Center and Plaza, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

Arizona Science Center, Phoenix, Arizona, USA

“Critical to the spirit in my work is the enigmatic quality of the desert. You think you’ve got it, you think you understand; then you turn
over a rock or crawl under a larger rock and you discover other worlds, other realms within.”

Venice House, Venice, California, USA

West Mesa House, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

Dance Studio, San Diego, California, USA

Social Sciences and Humanities Building, Davis, California, USA

Mesa Public Library, Los Alamos, USA

Rosenthal House, Manhattan Beach, California, USA

“I personally retain a hands-on connection to my design process working with clay, ink, pastel and collage, but I feel deeply connected to
the digital realm at the same time. Computer technologies and the expansive internet only make my studio’s process richer, more complex and more complete
than ever before. I have extraordinarily talented, young colleagues who have grown up in cyberspace.”

Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Winnipeg, Canada

National Palace Museum Southern Branch, Chiayi County, Taiwan

National Archive of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark

About the author

Sponsored Links:

Get Your Fix of Hyper-Local News With Fwix

Facebook-Web-Design — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 02:50:02 +0000

Readers jonesing for local news on the web now have one more place to turn.

News website Fwix has emerged a strong contender in the quickly growing field of hyper-local news aggregators, sites which filter local and area news stories for you, showing you the hottest links in your ZIP code.

The site aggregates stories and videos from about 100 cities worldwide, mostly in North America. Each city has its own home page, and each city’s page has different sections for politics, crime, sports and other topics.

Local news headlines are presented with the newest stories at the top, so you get a constantly-updating river of news about topics you care about in the area where you live. New stories flow in as they become hot, appearing dynamically without a page refresh.

It’s a design of the times. Twitter and Facebook have turned us into breaking news junkies. Of all the hottest stories being passed around on the real-time web, few are more interesting than the ones happening closest to us, whether in our city or in our immediate neighborhood. And geoloaction tools in our computers, phones and even in our web browsers are making local content easier to find. To that end, we’ve seen a number of hyper-local news aggregators come down the pike. Sites like EveryBlock and Outside.in offer hyper-local experiences complete with maps, and larger sites like Google News give us the ability to filter results to state, county or city level.

Much like other aggregators, Fwix pulls content from a handful of mainstream news sources, like major area newspapers and local TV network affiliates, as well as social media sites and dozens of local blogs. Check out its long list of sources for the San Francisco bay area.

According to Fwix founder and CEO Darian Shiraz, who gave us a hands-on tour of the site, news sources are hand-picked by Fwix’s small editorial team. Users can also request the addition of a news source by submitting a URL on the Fwix website.

The free Fwix iPhone app, pictured at the top, adds another way in. It has a “Report News” button — click it and you can submit a photo of something happening in your city. So if you’re walking around and you see a building on fire or a gnarly car crash, take a photo with your iPhone and post it (after you call 911, of course).

For all of its depth, the year-old service isn’t yet perfect.

News headlines on the Fwix front page are chosen based on popularity, which is determined by algorithms written by Fwix (using disco project code). Popularity is largely measured by how many clicks a story has gotten and how many sources are reporting an event.

The results can get wonky. When San Francisco Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum was busted for pot possession, there were three headlines about it at the top of the SF bay area page. All were from different sources, but since most news outlets just ran a wire story, each link had the same headline, the same summary and the same information. Likewise when Lincecum won the Cy Young award — everyone had the story, so the first three links on Fwix were all of the same.

Other hyper-local services have the same problem, but Google News deals with the issue rather elegantly by nesting headlines for related stories.

Also, Fwix isn’t yet a reliable source of breaking news. The day the Bay Bridge was shut down due to structural damage — a huge news event in San Francisco — there was nothing about it on the Fwix homepage even hours after it happened. Also, the bridge closure presented a perfect opportunity for users to submit relevant photos and tweets, but I didn’t see any show up on the website.

Still, while its method of presenting aggregated news may be more chaotic than what Google News offers, Fwix does surface a wider range of stories. Every time I’ve visited the Fwix home page or fired up the iPhone app since I began regularly using both a month ago, I’ve found at least one or two interesting headlines I never would have encountered had I been left to my own devices. Several times, it was something in my neighborhood that one of my favorite go-to local blogs had overlooked. By regularly visiting the site, I’ve discovered some great local blogs I hadn’t heard about.

Also, interesting videos show up often — something few other hyper-local news sites can claim.

While content providers and the large-scale aggregators continue to butt heads over who has the right to profit from news content, Fwix, relatively speaking, takes the high road.

The company has recently launched its AdWire service, an ad network that splits revenue with the site owners running the ads and the publishers of the stories they’re linking to, many of whom are hobbyists, citizen journalists or freelance bloggers.

Along the same lines, Fwix only posts very short, one or two-sentence summaries of news stories, then offers a clearly-labeled link to the original source, much like an RSS reader. The original story’s page is wrapped in a frame with buttons to share the link on social sites using Fwix’s own URL-shortening service. Click-through content frames are a no-no in our book, but at least this one is easy enough to dismiss. Just click the giant “X” button.

See also:

40 Beautiful Grunge Style Wallpapers for Your Desktop

Facebook-Web-Design — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 23:17:57 +0000

Grunge style is a theme that features crooked, irregular, worn-and-torn visual elements. In this collection, you’ll find extremely grungy and high-quality wallpapers that you can use to beautify your desktop. We hope that you will find a handful that you will absolutely love.

1. A fun retro background for you!

Resolution: 1280 x 800

By Risentwice

2. SKULL

Resolution: 1280 x 1024

By Human born on mars

3. CMYK

Resolution: 1680 x 1050

By Gueffel

4. Firebird

Resolution: 1280 x 800

By joegibes

5. Design Is Grunge

Resolution: 1600 x 1200

By Stuart Thursby

6. grunge snow

Resolution: 1680 x 1280

By Drew

7. Skull Breaker

Resolution: 1600 x 1200

By bmgreatness

8. Wallpaper-Grunge

Resolution: 1280 x 960

By Heldrik

9. Grunge

Resolution: 1440 × 900

By Conor Whitley

10. New Student Ministries Logo Wallpaper

Resolution: 1440 x 900

By Josh

11. Free November 2009 Calendar Wallpaper

Resolutions: 1920 x 1200 | 1600 x 1200 | 1280 x 1024

By Franz Jeitz

12. Create – Wallpaper

Resolution: 1920 x 1200

By Jacob White

13. Hungry Desktop Wallpaper

Resolutions: 1280 x 800 | 1280 x 1024 | 1440 x 900 | 1680 x 1050 | 1920 x 1200

By Nick Sigler

14. Rebel! Wallpaper

Resolution: 1680 x 1050

By Felipe Tofani

15. Grunge Wallpaper – Mk 1

Resolution: 1280 x 1024

By Seb Bristow

16. Grunge/retro wallpaper

Resolution: 1920 x 1080

By Tony Bombardo

17. Grunge Love Wallpaper

Resolution: 1280 x 960

By Cristy

18. Grunge Garden

Resolution: 1680 x 1050

By Gulfsprite

19. Grunge

Resolution: 1280 x 1024

By Sabrina

20. Tree Island

Resolution: 1280 x 800

By Lukasz W.

21. Romans 1:16 wallpaper

Resolution: 1024 x 640

By Slavik Gurmeza

22. Trompeur

Resolution: 1920 x 1200

By Jason Krieger

23. XXII Black Block Serifa

Resolution: 1920 x 1200

By ArnoKath

24. Steampunk Wallpaper

Resolution: 1800 × 1234

By MyScarredHeart

25. Grunge Vector Hearts Wallpaper

Resolution: 1280 x 1024

By hello-123456

26. Fade Away – Wallpaper Pack

Resolution: 1680 x 1050

By Hasnain Raza

27. Sing A Little Prayer

Resolution: 1440 x 900

By Belynda

28. Old is Gold

Resolution: 1280 x 1024

By Ankilien

29. Grunge Silhouette Wallpaper

Resolution: 1680 x 1050

By Vahron

30. Sleepy Hollow

Resolution: 1280 x 854

By Jesse Gardner

31. Super Mario Wallpaper

Resolution: 1920 x 1200

By Steve

32. I miss the Voices

Resolution: 1280 x 800

By Alex Bautista

33. City

Resolution: 1600 x 1200

By Ivan Csorgo

34. Chicago Grunge

Resolution: 1280 x 1024

By Mateusz

35. Linkin Park grunge

Resolution: 1600 x 1200

By Jöns

36. Grunge walker

Resolution: 1440 x 900

By A-Ireson

37. Desktop Wallpaper

Resolution: 1280 x 1024

By Massimo Calabro

38. I want to believe

Resolution: 2048 x 1532

By Jovan Klopocan

39. Vectors and grunge wallpaper

Resolution: 1680 x 1050

By Denise

40. Grunge

Resolution: 1280 x 1024

By Rudy

About the Author

Tomas Laurinavičius is interested in web design, graphic design and web development, based in Lithuania. He’s also the founder of Iniwoo, a site about photoshop, web design, wordpress and inspiration. If you’d like to connect with him, you can follow him on Twitter.

What Are You Thankful For?

Facebook-Web-Design — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:33:40 +0000

Thanksgiving is fast approaching in the United States, but thanks to the internet, we live in a social media world that is not defined by borders. There are no limits to the people we come in contact with and the different cultures they each represent.

So, as I was deciding to write this article, I wanted to get a diverse group of people to answer the simple, yet powerful question: “What are you thankful for?” I apologize for the length, but I guarantee you that reading through these inspiring messages from people around the world is well worth your time.

When I asked the question, no background was given, only the question. I chose random people from different backgrounds to include in this article to show that while we are all unique, we are all very much the same.

If you are not celebrating Thanksgiving this week, please at least take a few moments to appreciate and cherish what means most to you, and celebrate what you are thankful for in life.

What Are You Thankful For?

@TrendyDC from Washington, DC

“Just returned from Peru helping out orphan boys & grateful to be blessed with a family, job, food, comfortable shelter and healthcare.”

@Alyssa_Milano from Los Angeles, California

“This year, I’m thankful for my husband, who every day inspires me to be a better woman.”

@StaciJShelton from Cleveland, Ohio

“I’m so very thankful for love, family, friendship and the power of connection. Pure love for people changes lives.”

@Minervity from Stockholm, Sweden

” I am thankful for my wonderful & beautiful daughter. Thankful for all the creative inspiration my friends share and project. I am thankful for all the wonderful friends I’ve made this year.”

@BenParr from San Francisco, California

“I’m thankful that our society has love and friendship, for they are the most fulfilling part of our lives.”

@SusanLorelei from Pittsburgh, PA

“I suffered a horrible loss this year & am truly thankful for people God has brought into my life to provide cheer & strength.”

@GaryVee from New York City, NY

“Easy answer: The health of my loved ones!”

@ChrisTuff from Atlanta, Georgia

“I’m thankful for my friends and family who make me fired up to wake up every morning and excited for the next day.”

@PrayForAidan from Concord, North Carolina

“My oldest son surviving and thriving…” http://prayforaidan.com

@ItStartsWithUs from Milwaukee, WI

“I’m thankful for the surprising number of people who are willing to give of themselves to help others, with no expectation of reward.”

@ButtercupD from Los Angeles, California

“Thankful for my family, friends and relatively good health!”

@fjfonseca from Barcelona, Spain

“For life, the biggest gift of all, with its good and bad things, ups and downs I am thankful for life itself.”

@ShellyKramer from Kansas City, Missouri

“I am thankful that my family is well & healthy, for the great friends I have, for a roof over my head, food on my table, family in my arms & love in my heart.”

@Msaleem from Chicago, Illinois

“What am I thankful for… a lot of things, my health, friends, great jobs and colleagues, what’s not to be thankful for?”

@ClementYeung from North-East UK

“I am grateful for love, for without it our actions would hold no meaning. I am grateful for my life, for without it I would not be here to experience that love.”

@AdamsConsulting from Atlanta, Georgia

“I’m thankful for my son,my Twitter friends & that I’m able to help others during this season. It’s a blessing to be a blessing.”

@Toad_Mario from Atlanta, Georgia

“I’m thankful for my family, my dog named Sunny and my Nintendo DS.”

@BelindaAng from Singapore

“I am thankful for…. waking each day to see the sun, blue skies, white clouds and knowing that I am loved.”

@Zee from London, UK

“For meeting the most wonderful person in the world and getting to spend the rest of my days with her.”

@ChrisBrogan from Boston, MA

“Thankful for a supportive family who knows there’s a method to my madness.”

@RayBeckerman from New York, NY

“I’m thankful for the privilege of being part of a social media revolution which makes it much easier for all people to be citizen journalists.”

@MarySarahMusic from Texas, USA

“I am SO thankful for life! I have the greatest, most supportive parents ever! And mostly just for the life I get to lead and hopefully can help others in return.”

@Jaycbee from Atlanta, Georgia

“I am thankful for the many blessings I have received in life. For my family and friends, old and new, near and far. thankful for my Faith.”

@soulboykirk from Nova Scotia, Canada

“Thankful to be gifted in different disciplines; for great music, the arts in general; for the net/Twitter/FB giving me helpful global friends.”

@AbsolutelyTrue from South Carolina

“I’m thankful for those who truly care about me and carry me in their hearts.”

@Milagro88 from Vietnam

“I’m thankful for my amazing family, our health, freedom from financial worry, intelligence, spirituality & peace at home and for friendships!”

@Ruth_Z from Tel Aviv, Israel

“I’m grateful that I have a job that causes me to create something new every day and to be the wheel that drives the wheel.”

@Iconic88 from Sydney, Australia

“I am thankful for my family, friends, culture and every experience I’ve had in my life to share the lessons with others.”

@ModelSupplies from Detroit, MI

“So grateful for the chance to connect with all of my Twitter & FB follow-friends whose love and support shows in each and every character!”

@AdNys from Los Angeles, CA

“Thankful for: Family (2 young sons). Life (love). Love (purity). Wilderness (keeps humans sane). Journalism (long live the 4th estate).”

@Lotay from Los Angeles, California

“I’m most thankful for God.”

@HeyKim from USA

“I am thankful for family… friends and NBA basketball.”

@Ostrick from Los Angeles, California

“I am thankful for my health, loving family and sharing stories and ideas.”

@StefanieWood from Bristol, UK

“I’m thankful for my friends and family, my job and car, and generally the quality of my life.”

@Cheth from Manipal, Bangalore, India

“Thankful to all the people who didn’t help me, so that I could learn it myself. Thankful to all those people who criticized me! And to all who supported me.”

@TrendTracker from New Jersey, USA

“I’m thankful for my family and friends – and for the freedoms and blessings I enjoy from so many who have sacrificed so much.”

@JeffRago from Studio City, California

“I am thankful for the people in my life and the experiences that bring us together.”

@DelWilliams from Los Angeles, California

“I’m thankful for the friends I have made on Twitter, and the opportunities this platform has brought me.”

@KrystynChong from California, USA

“I’m thankful for my health. Hard to enjoy anything when your body isn’t functioning as usual.”

@ChiniehDiaz from Manila, Philippines

“I’m thankful for my awesome family & my sense of humor. Life can never get you down when you have those.”

@HappySoul from London, UK and Asia

“I’m thankful for my blessed family & friends, my life & love experiences & choices, bad & good, that have made who I am today”

@Daniel_Barta from Örményes, Hungary

“I am thankful for this wonderful world and for this wonderful life to God. And things like having wonderful friends is amazing.”

@AdventureGirl from LosAngeles, California

“I am thankful for Twitter. Without it, we would not be able to help change the world along with those less fortunate who hopefully now will have a voice.”

@KyNamDoan from San Francisco, California

“I’m thankful for family, good luck, and San Francisco.”

@IgorBuhovec from Riga, Latvia

“I’m thankful that… I didn’t spend a minute in fear. It’s about wars and terror. I live in quiet EU country and that’s great.”

@ColourOfAir from Cluj-Napoca, Romania

“I am thankful for the gift of life, my wife, music, art, friends, being healthy. God bless!”

@WTFJAY from Toronto, Canada

“I am thankful for the time I get to spend with my family.The last few years have been difficult, and they have helped me through it.”

@Cupcakes5 from Pittsburgh, PA

“I am thankful for freedom and all that entails.”

@Virtuosoblogger from India

“I am thankful for all the love and support shown by my friends and family.”

@binoyxj from Bangalore, India

“I am thankful for friends..the ones i manage to keep up with….both online and offline.”

@jmdc88 from Washington, DC

“Thankful to wake up each day to have a chance to do whatever I can to make the world a better place. Being alive, and being loved by family & friends.”

@phaoloo from Taipie, Taiwan

“I am thankful for living on this earth.”

@Dublins98Dave from Dublin, Ireland

“I’m thankful for finding my best friend Tracy, marrying her and starting a family. She makes my life utterly amazing.”

@ProjectKpaz from Boston, MA and Brazil

“I am thankful for having found relatively early in my life what it is that I really can’t live without, music.”

@LarisaBelliveau from Rochester, NY

“I am thankful for my “learning experiences” because they polish my soul.”

@BerniePiekarski from Orlando, Florida

“To be alive. Had heart attack & triple bypass 4/6/09 Health is good today. For my family & friends. Without them I really have nothing else.”

@Blogomomma from Chicago, Illinois

“God’s intercession of grace. Thru my good, bad, and ugly – epic failures,biggest regrets,worst heartbreaks-He NEVER left me!”

@Sloane from New Orleans. Louisiana

“Thankful for trusting in myself, willingness to open my heart to friends, faith and love of my family and ability to give back to others.”

@PrintedProof from Massachusetts, USA

“I am thankful for my freedom more than anything. I love the ability to raise my children my way, work a job I love, and sleep in peace & comfort next to the woman of my dreams.”

@ChrisPirillo from Seattle, Washington

“I’m thankful for my friends. I’m thankful for the internet and I’m thankful for the opportunity to say Happy Thanksgiving.” (More from Chris in this video.)

For those who wonder why I chose Chris Pirillo for the bottom of this list, he responded with a video. And while it did not quite fit with this article, it was lots of fun to watch.

And finally, I am thankful that I was able to bring so many wonderful and amazing people together for this article. Thankful for family, friends and associates. Thankful for yet another day on this Earth. Thankful that peace is always a possibility.

And now…What are you thankful for?

17 Cheeky Fashion Blog Designs

Facebook-Web-Design — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:25:48 +0000

Here is a collection of fashion blogs that I think will give you some design inspiration. Some are full of life, and very splashy, where as others have a nice simplistic design that is very easy to see where everything is. Let me know what one you think is your favorite and why.

If you know of any other fashion blogs that you think have a good design, please feel free to let us know by dropping in a comment.

Smart Geezer

* * * * *

Sally Jane Vintage

* * * * *

Diary Of A Vintage Girl

* * * * *

Le Blog De Betty

* * * * *

Indigo Clothing

* * * * *

Bryan Boy

* * * * *

Liebe Marlene

* * * * *

Jak & Jil

* * * * *

Red Carpet

* * * * *

Style Bubble

* * * * *

The Moment

* * * * *

What Is James Wearing

* * * * *

Couture In The City

* * * * *

Fashionising

* * * * *

Fashionista

* * * * *

Omiru

* * * * *

The Cherry Blossom Girl

See: Cryptic Gives Away Another Free Champions Weekend [MMORPG Champions Online to Bring New Player Ccostumes and Quests]

Cryptic Gives Away Another Free Champions Weekend [MMORPG Champions Online to Bring New Player Ccostumes and Quests]

Facebook-Web-Design — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:48:20 +0000

Super hero-themed MMORPG Champions Online is having its second free-play weekend, after only being released two months ago and having its first free-play weekend one month ago. The upcoming free-play weekend, which will be based around Thanksgiving, will coincide with an in-game content update called ‘Nemesis Confrontation’, and will feature new player costumes and quests.

The developers of the game hope that it will lure new players in, as the new quest kidnaps the player to an intergalactic prison where you have to fight your way out to freedom. However, as good as it may sound and despite a lukewarm launch reception,the folks from Cryptic Studios had several adverting campaigns, like reduced subscription deals, price drops and free-play weekends, which leads one to wonder if the game is actually struggling for subscriptions. But since exact numbers of active subscriptions are rarely released publicly by a MMO developer, and usually only when the game is doing well, all these are only speculation.

Champions Online faces competition from City of Heroes, Cryptic’s first super hero-themed MMO that is now being run by NCSoft, and a pending DC Universe Online, a game with the popular DC Comics license.

The ‘executive producer’ of Cryptic is Bill Roper, formerly of Blizzard Software and Flagship Studios, who worked on such critically acclaimed games like Diablo 2 and Warcraft 3, but also worked on MMO bust, Hellgate: London.

Posted in Computer/Console Gaming on 2009/11/20

TFTS – Technology, Gadgets & Curiosities

Attitude Twitter update for the week (2009-11-20)

Facebook-Web-Design — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:10:03 +0000

Attitude Twitter update for the week (2009-11-13):
Attitude Twitter update for the week (2009-11-06):
Attitude.. http://bit.ly/1BdtYp #
Attitude Twitter update for the week (2009-11-13):
Attitude Twitter update for the week (2009-11-06):
Attitude.. http://bit.ly/2CgTg #
City under water – great image!:
http://bit.ly/E8JG7 #

Foursquare Goes Global With Launch in 50 New Cities

Facebook-Web-Design — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:25:09 +0000

Right on the heels of Foursquare’s API release, the location-based mobile application and game is announcing another big rollout to cities across the world.

Just one month after releasing Foursquare to 15 new cities in the US and Canada, Foursquare is ready to bring their highly addictive game and business-friendly service to 50 more cities. That’s actually twice as many cities as the service was in before today, bringing the total to 100 different cities worldwide.

We’ve included the full list of cities below, but perhaps the most significant part of today’s push is that it brings the application to a multitude of cities across the world in the places like South America, Australia, Asia, Africa, all over Europe, and even the Middle East.

Founder Dennis Crowley tells us that the company is still preparing for a “Foursquare everywhere” launch, but that they really wanted to incorporate the most requested cities as soon as possible. So the cities included in this list are what the company saw people talking about and/or requesting the most on Twitter and through their other feedback channels.

Diehard Foursquare fans may be wondering when/if the company will release new updates to the game. The good news is that Crowley tells us that new features are right around the corner. In an email to Mashable, Crowley writes:

“We’ve been working on this code re-write forever – which is why we haven’t been pushing new features recently. We’ve been hustling to get everything re-worked by Thanksgiving so we can come back from the break and start rolling out all the scoring fixes and cheater fixes, reworked UX, new website, etc.”

See Also: Next year’s Twitter? It’s Foursquare (Pete Cashmore for CNN)

New Foursquare Cities

NORTH AMERICA
Charlotte, NC
Columbus, OH
Honolulu, HI
Louisville, KY
Memphis, TN
Nashville, TN
New Haven, CT
Oklahoma City, OK
Orlando, FL
Park City, UT
Providence, RI
Sacramento, CA
Tampa, FL
Tucson, AZ

Calgary, Canada
Edmonton, Canada
Ottawa, Canada

Mexico City, Mexico

SOUTH AMERICA
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
São Paulo, Brazil

EUROPE
Birmingham, UK
Bristol, UK
Brighton, UK
Cologne, Germany
Edinburgh, UK
Frankfurt, Germany
Hamburg, Germany
Lisbon, Portugal
Milan, Italy
Oslo, Norway
Reykjavik, Iceland
Vienna, Austria
Zurich, Switzerland

AFRICA
Johannesburg, South Africa

MIDDLE EAST
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Mumbai, India
Tel Aviv, Israel

ASIA
Beijing, China
Bangkok, Thailand
Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Seoul, Korea
Shanghai, China
Singapore, Singapore
Tokyo, Japan

AUSTRALIA
Brisbane, Australia
Melbourne, Australia
Sydney, Australia

NEW ZEALAND
Wellington, New Zealand

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, zoomstudio.

Reviews: Australia, Foursquare, Mashable, Twitter, iStockphoto

Tags: foursquare

Mashable’s Guide to Social Media Events & Conferences

BlogPoster — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:14:46 +0000

Is your event not on this list? Contact us at least one month before your event and let’s establish a media partnership.

Mashable’s Weekly Social Media and Marketing Event Guide is proudly supported by Eventbrite, the Web’s Event Marketplace.

November 16, 2009, New York City: The upcoming Gravity Summit NYC event will provide richer-level and best practice insights on how businesses are using social media to give relevance and meaning to their marketing. Bing is the Title Sponsor and will join speakers from Current TV, the SyFy Channel, VML, Adweek, Columbia Records, Business Week, and Deep Focus. The event will also feature case studies from TurboTax, Domino’s, Operation Smile, The Roger Smith Hotel, and LA’s Roxy Theater on Sunset. Following the event will be a TweetUp to benefit Operation Smile. Mashable readers: get a discount by clicking here.

November 16-19, 2009, New York City: Web 2.0 Expo New York brings together the designers, developers, entrepreneurs, VCs, marketing professionals, product managers, and business strategists – from start-ups to enterprises – that are building the next-generation web. Along with a dynamic Expo Hall and plenty of networking opportunities, ten main topic areas discussing a spectrum of Web 2.0 topics from business strategy to web design, user experience, developer hacks, community building, security, mobile, web ops, user-generated content, and more. Register today and save 25% (code: webny09bd5) or get a free Expo Pass (code: webny09bde) at web2expo.com/ny.

November 18, 2009, London, UK: Now in its 4th Year the GREEN AWARDS™ are firmly fixed on the global eco calendar as the leading industry awards for sustainability in marketing and communications. The GREEN AWARDS™ recognises excellence in 16 categories in 2009 from Best Green International Campaign open to global entrants to Best Green Campaigner for individuals and small groups championing sustainability. The winner will be announced at a reception in London on 18th November with guest speaker Jonathon Porritt CBE. For further details on categories visit greenawards.co.uk.

November 18, 2009, Dubai, United Arab Emirates: Cool Twitter Conferences will be holding its eighteenth event in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on November 18th, 2009 at the Media Rotana Hotel –Barsha, Dubai. The Cool Twitter Conference provides an environment for developers, people in business, and enthusiasts from multiple disciplines, who seek to understand and maximize the power of Twitter, the chance to contribute to the discussion and tap into this real-time use of the web. This forum is ideal for advertising, marketing professionals and business owners looking to increase visibility and improve customer experience. Use the code: mashable to save 25% on registration.

November 18, 2009, New York City: Wine 2.0 Expo New York is the place for all Web 2.0 Expo attendees to connect with hundreds of wine and technology lovers in one exciting evening. Wine lovers can taste hundreds of wines and interact and learn about the latest in wine focused social media and digital sales strategies for the wine industry. Wine 2.0 Expo New York coincides with O’Reilly / Tech Web’s Web 2.0 New York Expo an incredible night of the best in wine and tech. Mashable readers get 10% off our already low “recession buster” ticketing by using promo code: mashable.

November 19, 2009, Mountain View, CA: Featuring 30 of the most cutting edge mobile startups from around the globe, Under the Radar will get you dialed in to what the 2010 mobile innovation marketplace will look like. It’s a must-attend event for dealmakers from global carriers, brands, media companies, and handset manufacturers responsible for helping their companies leverage new mobile technology and innovation in the fast-evolving digital landscape.

November 20, 2009, New York City: Join a select number of PR, marketing and communications professionals at PR Camp™ New York for a full day of highly interactive discussions on social media — complete with marshmallows and a virtual campfire. It will explore how to market, measure and manage the opportunities and challenges that social media presents. Our “unconference” format avoids panels or PowerPoint demonstrations. Top agency and brand executives serve as moderators to help participants find solutions to their social media questions. Mashable readers get a ten percent discount with promo code MASHPRCAMPNYC.

November 23-25, 2009, Berlin, Germany: IIR’s Mobile 2.0 – Content & Services Conference provides a dynamic networking and information-sharing business environment, bringing together key stakeholders within the mobile web 2.0 value chain to discuss current trends and revenue generation possibilities, successful business strategies and the future opportunities that exist within this space. Receive a 10% discount by quoting I08LFMASH when registering. Significant price cuts also available to Operators, online communities, and content providers

November 30-December 1, 2009, Toronto, Ontario: nextMEDIA Toronto is an intensive two day event of networking, learning and strategizing with the top minds in the fields of broadcasting, digital media and advertising. nextMEDIA is an unparalleled opportunity for our community to understand and interpret the evolution of digital media and how cross-platform content is funded and produced. Also, the event boasts the CNMAs, Canada’s only national new media awards. Tap into the digital economy and navigate your way to new revenue sources, network with a multi-disciplinary audience reflective of the emerging new world of media. Use this link for a 20% registration discount.

December 1-3, 2009, Boston, MA: The 6th Annual Gilbane Boston Conference will offer sessions tied to competitive business and productivity issues surrounding a company’s content, collaboration & customers. You will learn about content solutions that are ready to be implemented today! The conference tracks have been organized around the four major areas of how enterprises use web and content technologies and where they are most likely to invest, including: Web Business & Engagement, Managing Collaboration & Social Media: Internal & External, Enterprise Content: Searching, Integrating & Publishing, and Content Infrastructure. Session topics focus on managing enterprise social & mobile content; SharePoint & Office 2010; E-government & transparency. Save an additional $200 by using the discount code Mashable.

December 1-3, 2009, London, UK: Online Information & IMS 2009 Exhibitions will host more than 200 international exhibitors, covering Web 2.0 Technologies, Content Management, Search Solutions, Online Content Resources; ePublishing Solutions and Library Management Systems. There is also a wide range of free seminars looking at, among others, Marketing Through Social Media, Content Management and Enterprise Search. Free to attend if you pre-register, it is the perfect place for marketing professionals to equip themselves with the information, skills and knowledge to succeed in the digital world.

December 2, 2009, Toronto, Ontario: The Canadian Innovation Exchange (CIX) is a must-attend conference for participants in the innovation economy. CIX is a gathering of key players in the innovation economy which will showcase and accelerate the development of the great technology-based innovation emanating from Canada and will be attended by entrepreneurs, inventors, investors, corporations, service providers, government and media. Participants can expect an International who’s who of investors, innovative corporations and entrepreneurs and a nexus of multiple meeting and networking opportunities enabling discovery of Canada’s next great innovations and the people behind them. Use this link for a 20% registration discount.

December 2-7, 2009, New York City: The iPhone Boot Camp offers six and three day workshops on iPhone development, a full 24-48 hours of training in Obj-C and the iPhone SDK 2.0, from basic to pro iPhone application development. The workshops are part seminar, part training, part hack-a-thon, fueled by vast quantities of pizza, the best New York Deli and Red Bull, all in the quest for the next killer iPhone app. The workshops are limited to fifteen developers and taught by bestselling iPhone authors Jeff LaMarche (Beginning iPhone Development) and Steve Kochan (Programming Objective C – 2.0. The training is a great way to jump start your iPhone app development and save weeks of effort trying to figure out the iPhone SDK on you own. A 10% discount to Mashable readers using discount code mashable.

December 4, 2009, London: At Social PR Forum, learn from global PR companies who have successfully embraced social media. Understand what products and services you should be using, and how to use them well. Learn how to seamlessly introduce social media into your way of thinking and into your employees. Mention you are a Mashable reader to receive 15% discount.

December 7, 2009, San Francisco, CA: The SF MusicTech Summit brings together more than 600 of the best and brightest developers in the Music/Technology space, along with the musicians, entrepreneurial business people, press, investors, service providers, and organizations who work with them at this exciting convergence of culture and commerce. We’ll discuss the evolving music/business/technology ecosystem in a proactive environment, conducive to deal making, and connect with friends and business partners old and new. Get your Mashable 15% Discount tickets at sfmts5.eventbrite.com/?discount=15Mashable

December 7-10, 2009, Washington DC: Attend the Advanced Learning Institute’s Forum on Social Media for Government: How To Engage Your Employees And Citizens By Using The Latest Web 2.0 Technologies To Drive Communication Results to learn how to capture the power of social media in your organization, along with helpful tools, tips and techniques to get started. Hear from DoD; Forest Service; U.S. Department of the Interior; City of Chesapeake, VA; IBM Center for the Business of Government; U.S. Department of Energy; Charlotte Fire Department, NC; U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and more, on how to engage your employees and citizens by using social media. Mention “Mashable” when registering to save $200.

December 9, 2009, San Francisco, CA: Tech professionals by day, rockers by night, they’ll pick up their instruments and venture onto the big stage to let their alter egos shine… for a good cause and the love of music. Silicon Valley Rocks 2009 will bring together the Valley’s tech community – from VCs and entrepreneurs to bloggers and software developers – to raise money for Music in Schools Today (MuST), a Bay Area non-profit that seeks to rescue music programs from budget cuts. The second annual showcase will once again feature Silicon Valley bands and original rockers who will entertain and amuse your entire social graph. Mashable readers can get a special discounted ticket rate by clicking here.

December 11, 2009, Mountain View, CA: Add-on-Con is a single day conference focused on the future of the browser and its emergence as a platform. Developer sessions will cover best practices, cross-browser development and mash-ups. Marketing sessions will focus on monetization opportunities, distribution strategies, and stats. Join 200+ individuals involved with add-on development to help define an emerging new market in the web’s ecosystem. Register using addoncon09mashable and save $50.

December 11-17, 2009, Chicago, IL: The iPhone Boot Camp offers six and three day workshops on iPhone Development, a full 24-48 hours of training in Obj-C and the iPhone SDK 2.0, from basic to pro iPhone application development. The workshops are part seminar, part training, part hack-a-thon, fueled by vast quantities of pizza, the best New York Deli and Red Bull, all in the quest for the next killer iPhone app. The workshops are limited to fifteen developers and taught by bestselling iPhone authors Jeff LaMarche (Beginning iPhone Development) and Steve Kochan (Programming Objective C – 2.0. The training is a great way to jump start your iPhone app development and save weeks of effort trying to figure out the iPhone SDK on you own. A 10% discount to Mashable readers using discount code mashable

December 14-15, 2009, Washington, DC: The Government 2.5 conference aims to bring various participants and stakeholders within all aspects of government at the local, state and federal levels together to learn how best to apply social media toward improving government services and allowing the public to participant in policy debate and the spending of tax dollars. If you have an interest in making government more efficient through applied information technology and social media, then this conference is for you. Use the code: mashable to save 25% on registration.

December 15, 2009, Santa Clara, CA: The 5th annual Digital Media Summit at Sun Microsystems Auditorium features the definitive voices in the digital home. CBS.com GM Bill Binenstock, Intel Digital Home GM Bill Leszinske, Playstation Network Sr. Director Susan Panico, to name just a few. This year’s theme is the connected living room: the network of TVs, broadband Internet, settop boxes, consoles, portable and mobile devices and now 3D technology that’s transforming the home. Mashable readers enjoy a 15% discount on the ticket price, follow the link here and click Apply Discount button next to the keyword ‘mashable’.

January 14-16th, 2010, Sedona, AZ: Join us at #SMML for a Social Media Mastermind Conference. We are going to get personal. As you seek to glean more information about social media, how it works and how you can use it to gain more customers. You’ll see more results in 2 days than you will have in six months working alone! If you are ready to be energized, engage with your audience, work with the best and take home real solutions in developing your own social media strategy, then join us. Speakers include: Robin Harris, Raliegh Pinskey, Frances Flynn Thorsen, Shannon Evans and more. Use event code SMMLBiz to save 15% on your registration fee.

February 22-24, 2010, New York City: From authoring, editing, and layout to distribution and consumption, new technologies are changing all aspects of publishing. TOC will help you navigate these changes and understand how to apply them to your business or organization for a more profitable future in publishing. You’ll also have the opportunity to participate in conversations that are shaping that future as often as they are describing it. The fourth annual O’Reilly TOC Conference is your opportunity to join those inventing the future of publishing. Register now and save at: https://en.oreilly.com/toc2010/public/register. Save an additional 15% when you use the Discount Code: toc10mas.

March 4-5, 2010, Chicago, IL: At SOHO’s 2-Day, “The Co-Alignment of the Corporate and Personal Brand,” a Strategy Framework, develop your exclusive copy of “The Draft,” SOHO’s 16-page social communications policy workbook for businesses and corporations. The focus in 2010 is co-aligning the corporate brand with internal and external communications. SOHO brings to you presentations, case studies and Town Hall meetings with Chris Brogan and Dave Armano, and other experienced practitioners. For more information and to register, please visit http://www.Sohobiztube.com. Use discount code MashableChi for a 20% discount on a 2-day “The Draft” ticket.

March 30-April 1, 2010, San Jose, CA: We’re looking for people pushing the boundaries of location-enabled technology. If you are working on cutting-edge mobile projects, rich data, analysis tools, or augmented reality we want to hear from you. Geo programmers, researchers, early stage startups, garage hackers, social media mavens, CTOs, entrepreneurs, and product developers are invited to submit proposals to speak at Where 2.0. Proposals are due by October 13, 2009; registration opens December 2009. Be part of the Where 2.0 2010 program, submit your proposal now: en.oreilly.com/where2010/public/cfp/78

May 14-15, 2010, Milwaukee, WI: At SOHO’s 2-Day, “The Co-Alignment of the Corporate and Personal Brand,” a Strategy Framework, develop your exclusive copy of “The Draft,” SOHO’s 16-page social communications policy workbook for businesses and corporations. The focus in 2010 is co-aligning the corporate brand with internal and external communications. SOHO brings to you presentations, case studies and Town Hall meetings with Chris Brogan and Dave Armano, and other experienced practitioners. For more information and to register, please visit Sohobiztube.com. Use discount code MashableMke for a 20% discount on a 2-day “The Draft” ticket.

The Mashable Weekly Social Media and Marketing Event Guide is proudly supported by Eventbrite, the Web’s Event Marketplace.

Reviews: Bing, Facebook, Google, Mashable, Twitter

30+ High Quality HDR Architecture Wallpapers

BlogPoster — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:37:37 +0000

HDR technology is not a new concept; it is based on the theory of the eyes’ ability to see high range of light degrees and depth. The improved computer render technology and photography supports this concept with the ability to produce images with High Dynamic Range of depth or contrast.

Before enjoying our today’s amazing HDR wallpapers, let understand a little what is the HDR images and brief about the HDR technology.

What Are HDR Images?

The human eye has a very high range of sense to images’ light perspective and depth. This range varies from seeing image details in the star light at night or in bright sun light, this is what is known as the human eye dynamic range.

The HDR (High Dynamic Range) images use this concept to provide images experience that includes high depth and contrast between the image elements to give it more artistic effect.

How to produce HDR images?

There are two main concepts to produce HDR images, the computer rendering process which help creating full High Dynamic Range images and using multiple shots of the image and merge those images into HDR image.

The camera shots are known as Low Dynamic Range images as it does not provide that wide range of light and contrast. Thus, to be able to produce HDR images, multiple shots of the object with different settings are arranged together or laminated through applications such as Photoshop to produce the HDR images with high range of contrast and light that produces an artistic dramatic effect.

Generally, the images that are used to produce the HDR images are taken as Camera RAW extension to provide the highest quality available to create the image depth.

Let’s Enjoy It!!

HDR images are real artistic and having HDR wallpapers on your desktop is real fun and good experience for your eyes to experience wider range of light and contrast in images. However, here are some of the most amazing HDR wallpapers with different dimensions.

The Towers of Angkor Thom

Munich MarienPlatz

Paris – River side

Brooklyn’s Doomsday HDR

The Dark Temple Corridor in Morning Mist

Butrón castle

The Blood-Colored Walls of the Tomb

Stone Henge Wallpaper 2

Little Red Lighthouse on a dark day

Downtown Dallas from the Flower Market

Palace of Westminster

The Art Museum

Anyone care for a dance?

Relaxing in Dresden

Mighty Heading West

Paris – Eiffel Tower

5 – wallpaper

Paris – Louvre

Stille nacht, ruchlose nacht.

My City Screams

zapallar

Trackmania riviera

Water Barrier

Waag Nijmegen

Grunwald HDR Wallpaper

DDesigN – Hdr Cathedral

HDR Unreal Palace Desktop Wallpaper

HDR Greek Architecture Desktop Wallpaper

HDR City Desktop Wallpaper

HDR Hollywood Tower Hotel Desktop Wallpaper

HDR From My Window Desktop Wallpaper

I hope you enjoyed this collection and it can provide you with real examples of the HDR images and how to produce them, lets start creating your on HDR amazing shots and share it.

Reader Tutorial: Cartoon Character in Photoshop

BlogPoster — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:10:09 +0000

I have been thinking of doing a cartoon version of one of my favorite characters, Agatha Christies’ Detective Hercule Poirot, I’ve always portrayed him as a strong willed and serious man. Doing such an intellectual and grumpy looking character in a cartoon fashion sounded like a funny idea to me. So I got my pencil and drew and colored it entirely on Photoshop CS3.

Hercule Poirot is a fictional Belgian detective created by Agatha Christie. Along with Miss Marple, Poirot is one of Christie’s most famous and long-lived characters, appearing in 33 novels and 51 short stories that were published between 1920 and 1975 and set in the same era. – Wikipedia

Step 1

First off, I drew him walking on the streets of London, I chose that city because of the mysterious atmosphere that it has and all the history. So I drew him looking for our generic psychopath, who was just around the corner.

Step 2

Then I separated all of the colors. I was going to build from dark colors to bright, setting from the beginning what would be the light sources in the painting. That would be his Oil Lighter, the moon and another unseen source of light, to light up the killer.

Step 3

I began spreading “paint” so I could begin to study the way light would fill up Poirot’s face and clothing. Pay attention that before heading for “full bright oil lamp yellow” I used some strong, saturating orange. It’s creates a neat skin effect. Began as well as shading up a little, creating darker, purple areas around his face.

Step 4

Here I defined a little more of his facial lightning.

Step 5

Here I lighted up his hand, according to his two light sources, including the Moon. For the light, notice that I used blue instead of orange. Behind his ear you can notice it better. Also I created his suspicious looking eyes.

Step 6

Play more with the moonlight both on his head and hand.

Step 7

Now I begin to play with the rest of his body, shading his clothing.

Step 8

The idea here is to refine the lights and shadows, the contrast is really important to create depth.

Step 9

Now I added some light, this is the moonlight over the composition.

Step 10

Here I intensified the coloring of the inner shadows of his jacket.

Step 11

Let’s work on the hat, refine the form, taking care to give the tridimensional feeling of the light from the lamp and the shadows it creates.

Step 12

Now let’s play with the Killer. Let’s start by doing the same thing I did with Poirot, imagining a second oil lamp outside my frame, illuminating him. Here you can notice the layer of Orange I used before the yellow, in his hand. Also I did a quick sketch of how his shadow on the wall should look like.

Step 13

Let’s define his face better, I added his eyes and began building his coat lightning.

Step 14

Here the rest of him is completely done, and now I can begin to turn my attention to the city.

Step 15

I used a stone texture I found online and apply to the main wall. The stone bricks that make the wall’s limit were done by changing the type and intensity of my brush. I also lightened up the detail from the street sign.

Step 16

Here I added the Street Name. Just for the lulz.

Step 17

Here is an important part of any kind of artistic creation. Trying. Trying and failing are great ways of learning. I started trying to paint the floor. First I lightened it, knowing that the main light source would be the Lamp. Then I started trying to draw the stones in the ground. When I saw it was going to take an awful lot of time that wouldn’t pay off, as the floor was not looking the way I wanted, I attempted to put on a texture. I decided to leave it there and work on other parts for now, as the painting of the rest of the city. I liked that chimney very much.

Step 18

After looking at Googled pictures of the Big Ben for a long time, and trying to place it in the city, I decided that it would look more realistic if it were smaller, appearing to be farther from our main characters, due to the moonlight.

Step 19

I Added some big part of the rest of the city.

Step 20

More detailing in the city.

Step 21

Here, I created a little stars brush on Photoshop and used it to star up the sky. Also did some clouds, and the moon ring.

Step 22

Here I finally defined the final shadows of the characters, as well as a better distorted and suited stone floor.

Step 23

Here I did my best to light up the killer’s hair and mustache. I did this hole thing without a tablet pen, witch makes it a little difficult to draw details like hair.

Finished Painting

And finally here I got to detail a little bit of the Moon, and that’s it for Monsieur Poirot and his knife wielding killer. Hope you enjoyed this simple tutorial, and I hope it really can help you!

About the Author

Silas Chosen is an illustrator from São Paulo, Brazil. His favorite style of artworks is those with pencil and Photoshop. You can see more of his works at his DeviantArt page or follow his blog (only in portuguese) at http://silaschosen.blogspot.com/

TownHog – Connects fantastic deals to people and their friends!

BlogPoster — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:41:10 +0000

Everyday in every city we feature a deal that is almost too good to be true.

Power is in numbers. Enough people gather together to make the purchase, and you get an amazing deal.

That’s it! You print your voucher, show it to your merchant, and enjoy your guilt-free treat.

Get started! Visit the city of your preference and tell us where to send you our incredible deals!

http://townhog.com/

Mashable’s Weekly Conference and Event Guide

BlogPoster — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:24:29 +0000

Is your event not on this list? Contact us at least one month before your event and let’s establish a media partnership.

Mashable’s Weekly Social Media and Marketing Event Guide is proudly supported by Eventbrite, the Web’s Event Marketplace.

November 9-10, 2009, Santa Clara, CA: At Social Media World Forum California, learn from social networks, brands, advertisers and analysts. Hear from leading social networks on their strategy, revenue models and how they are approaching the future. Worldwide case studies from global brands and corporations on their use of social media. Examine the current market conditions, future forecasts and predictions from leading analysts. Mention you are a Mashable reader to receive 15% discount.

November 10-13, 2009, Las Vegas, NV: PubCon is a multi-track educational conference hosted by SearchEngineWorld & WebmasterWorld. PubCon events are for thought leaders and professionals in search engine and Internet marketing and advertising to gather and to share best practices in the design, development, promotion and marketing of their Internet businesses and brands. Mashable readers can take off a 15% discount with code ma-77815.

November 12, 2009, Phoenix, AZ: If you think there isn’t a vibrant entrepreneurial community in Phoenix, guess again. We bring Silicon Valley to Phoenix to share best practices. The theme for this year’s conference is “Bright Spots in the Recession: four entrepreneurial growth segments you need to know about” and showcases Digital Media Entrepreneurship, Health 2.0, Cloud Computing, and Sustainability. Use code AZEC09 for a discount!

November 12, 2009, New York City: This conference will showcase the best case studies that demonstrate how leading brands use social communications to achieve tangible business goals. Case Studies will be presented by McDonald’s, JetBlue, Intuit, Allstate Insurance, Roger Smith Hotel & more. 2 interactive roundtable sessions will follow the case studies. Register at bdionline.com/socialconsumer.html using promo code MASH for a discounted rate of $155.

November 12-13, 2009, San Francisco, CA: The CMO Club is bringing together the preeminent CMOs in business today for the CMO Thought Leadership Summit, a two day event that will be a platform for the world’s best CMO conversations. A coterie of the country’s leading Chief Marketing Officers have been assembled to lead workshops at the event, including Michael Mendenhall of HP, Porter Gale of Virgin America, Guy Kawasaki of Garage Technology Ventures, Scott Lutz of SAP, Susan Linton Smith of Red Robin Restaurants, Evan Greene of The Recording Academy (Grammys), Joe Rooney of Cox Communications, Randall Beard of UBS, Terri Graham of Jack in the Box, and more. 75-100 CMOs expected to address industry issues, share ideas, and help each other be better CMOs. Heads of marketing interested in attending the Summit visit thecmoclubsummit.com. Get a $100 discount by using code mashablecmo.

November 14-15, Tempe, AZ: Explore the world of new and relevant media at PodCamp AZ, the southwest’s premier destination for bloggers, podcasters, social media butterflies, photographers, video pros and more! It’s a chance to enhance your skills while learning from those in the trenches every day. This is the third year of the event and promises to bring in over 1,000 people hungry to learn — and to share! It’s an unconference, so everyone is encouraged to lead a session. The event is always free, and you can’t beat the weather in Phoenix in November. So get registered, and we’ll see you then!

November 15-17, 2009, Las Vegas, NV: At the Social Media Summit: Social Media & Billionaire Boardroom Experience. Join Peter Shankman (@skydiver) and Nick Nanton (@nicknanton), along with Tony Hsieh (@zappos), David Bullock (@davidbullock) and Andrew Lock (@andrewlock) for this unique event that will take you inside the minds of entrepreneurs who have built million dollar businesses on the back of social media. As a bonus, go inside Zappos corporate headquarters to learn why Zappos has become such a phenomenon (recently sold for nearly a BILLION dollars to Amazon.com) and pick the brain of CEO, Tony Hsieh to learn how he has used social media to create a culture that led to a $900 million sale. Register today at www.TheSummitOfTheYear.com and save $250 using code mashable.

November 18, 2009, London, UK: The 4th Annual GREEN AWARDS™ for Excellence In Communicating Sustainability Calls for Entries. Now in its 4th Year the GREEN AWARDS™ are firmly fixed on the global eco calendar as the leading industry awards for sustainability in marketing and communications. The GREEN AWARDS™ recognises excellence in 16 categories in 2009 from Best Green International Campaign open to global entrants to Best Green Campaigner for individuals and small groups championing sustainability. The winner will be announced at a reception in London on 18th November with guest speaker Jonathon Porritt CBE. The deadline for GREEN AWARDSTM 2009 entries is 18th September. For further details on categories and submission guidelines visit greenawards.co.uk.

December 11-17, 2009, Chicago, IL: The iPhone Boot Camp offers six and three day workshops on iPhone Development, a full 24-48 hours of training in Obj-C and the iPhone SDK 2.0, from basic to pro iPhone application development. The workshops are part seminar, part training, part hack-a-thon, fueled by vast quantities of pizza, the best New York Deli and Red Bull, all in the quest for the next killer iPhone app. The workshops are limited to fifteen developers and taught by bestselling iPhone authors Jeff LaMarche (Beginning iPhone Development) and Steve Kochan (Programming Objective C – 2.0.The training is a great way to jump start your iPhone app development and save weeks of effort trying to figure out the iPhone SDK on you own. A 10% discount to Mashable readers using discount code mashable

February 22-24, 2010, New York City: From authoring, editing, and layout to distribution and consumption, new technologies are changing all aspects of publishing. TOC will help you navigate these changes and understand how to apply them to your business or organization for a more profitable future in publishing. You’ll also have the opportunity to participate in conversations that are shaping that future as often as they are describing it. The fourth annual O’Reilly TOC Conference is your opportunity to join those inventing the future of publishing. Register now and save at: https://en.oreilly.com/toc2010/public/register. Save an additional 15% when you use the Discount Code: toc10mas.

March 4-5, 2010, Chicago, IL: At SOHO’s 2-Day, “The Co-Alignment of the Corporate and Personal Brand,” a Strategy Framework, develop your exclusive copy of “The Draft,” SOHO’s 16-page social communications policy workbook for businesses and corporations. The focus in 2010 is co-aligning the corporate brand with internal and external communications. SOHO brings to you presentations, case studies and Town Hall meetings with Chris Brogan and Dave Armano, and other experienced practitioners. For more information and to register, please visit http://www.Sohobiztube.com. Use discount code MashableChi for a 20% discount on a 2-day “The Draft” ticket.

May 4-5, 2010, New York City: The Internet Show is a series of seminars and a showcase. It is the only event that brings together Big, Medium and Small business, all eager to find new ways of doing internet business. It is a business, not a technology, show. The Internet Show is a place where innovation is showcased, solutions are found and learning is done. Identify and evaluate new technologies, Understand new business methods, Learn to deliver ROI. Create new business and revenue streams. Learn how to generate cost savings. Learn how to risk and project manage. Purchase the latest solutions. There will be 72 seminars running over the two days of the show, themed around the following: Digital advertising and marketing; Web 2.0 and social networking; e-commerce and payments; Content management and streaming; Hosting and infrastructure. Find out more and register to attend for FREE at theinternetshows.com/2010/ny.

The Mashable Weekly Social Media and Marketing Event Guide is proudly supported by Eventbrite, the Web’s Event Marketplace.

Reviews: Bing, Facebook, Mashable, Twitter

Showcase Of Popular TV Show Website Designs

BlogPoster — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:15:12 +0000

With tens of thousands of TV shows on air today, major network have started to recognize the value of a online websites for communicating with viewers. However, TV show websites is far different than the other industries traditional websites that most of us encounter on a daily basis.

It can be an interesting experience looking around at websites in particular industries to identify trends and see how they differ from those in other industries. The design, style and content of a TV show websites is generally meant to meet visitors’ expectations of that website.

In this showcase below you’ll find a Collection of Popular TV Show website Designs Around for your inspiration. So this design showcase is worth seeing whether you are in a creative search or just looking for some entertainment.

You may be interested in the following design inspiration related articles as well.

Please feel free to join us and you are always welcome to share your thoughts even if you have more reference links related to design inspiration that our readers may like.

Don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS-feed and follow us on Twitter — for recent updates.

Showcase Of Popular TV Show Website Designs

When we talking about designs of a typical TV show website then the target audience is very specific. Visitors expect to find websites that are graphically rich, with audio and video as well. They expect something special, and entertainment value is often more important than the website being very accessible or fast-loading. We took a look at some of the popular TV show websites that we could find, analyzing the design trends and how they trying to interact with their audience.

Classic TV Shows Website Design

That ’70s Show

Friends

Scrubs

Las Vegas

The Sopranos

Rome

Sex and the City

The Wire

Find Something Missing?

While compiling this list, it’s always a possibility that we missed some other populat TV show website designs. Feel free to share it with us.

Berlin Wall Orignal Paintings Restoration

BlogPoster — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:12:26 +0000

It has been 20 years now since the fall of the Berlin Wall and therefore the city of Berlin decided to restore the paintings of the wall asking the original artists. I went out there and got really inspired by those amazing abstract paintings and to took some photos to share with you.

The East Side Gallery is a special place, where art has become the expression for a unique point in time of the history of a separated Germany. It is a meeting point that talks about an old Berlin and a new Berlin, a separated and a unified Germany.

Original Paintings: 1990 Restoration: 2009 | If you have the chance to visit it you should definitely do that, not just because of these images I’ve selected, but there are awesome things you could check out in Berlin as well. Enjoy.

By the way you can make a search on Google to see the old paintings..a huge difference.

About the author

My name is Sanid, I’m a 17 years old student and Design-freak from Berlin.
Feel free to contact,would be really happy:
Site: http://www.ikab-mag.com
Twitter : @ikab
Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/ikab1

Sponsored Links:

http://usa.streetmavens.com/

StreetMavens – What’s Happening In Your City

BlogPoster — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:21:28 +0000

Local. Social. Real-time. Streetmavens is your go to source for what’s happening in your city! See StreetTalk from around town, browse and interact with local businesses, and share pictures with family and friends!

10 Ways You Can Use Twitter Lists

BlogPoster — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 23:31:14 +0000

Sarah Evans is a public relations and new media consultant and speaker at Sevans Strategy. She also authors a PR and social media blog and is the founder of #journchat.

Twitter’s new Lists feature is all the rage right now. There are probably already millions of lists, and that number is growing by the minute (or second). So what are people using all these lists for? Are people creating lists just for the sake of creating lists? Savvy individuals are looking for ways to use lists to further their personal/professional agendas, and while we are all still learning how to harness the power of this new feature, here are a few ideas to get the creative juices flowing.

Let us know in the comments what other ways you’re using Twitter Lists.

1. Industry Peers and Professionals Lists

One way to use Twitter Lists is to keep your finger on the pulse of your industry. Tim O’Reilly (@timoreilly), founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media, for example, created the Gov 2.0 list to accomplish this goal for government tweeters. Once you create your “experts” list, share the link with your peers. (If you’re in a generous mood.) If you have a Twitter network largely made up of industry peers, you’ll save them from reinventing the wheel by creating a public list that everyone can use.

Lists are still new enough that you can be the first to develop an “it” list. In other words, for many industries and topics you could create the de facto list of peers that others follow and reference. A list that garners a large followership means more attention for you and may increase your Twitter followers. Once you create the list, you’ll need to promote it. Add it to a list directory like Listorious for additional opportunities for people to view and follow.

2. Experts Lists

If you’re an expert, recognize other experts. Technology blogger Robert Scoble (@scobleizer) did this with his recent lists like, “most influential in tech,” and “web innovators,” for example. It’s a win both for Robert and for those he recommends. He continues to establish his credibility as a technology thought leader and others benefit from the recognition and online visibility. Many of his lists already have hundreds of followers.

You can also use Twitter Lists to highlight individuals that routinely offer insight, tips, tools, etc. about a particular topic. Do you have certain people you keep on mobile alerts or have a special column for in Tweetdeck? It’s most likely a list in the making. If nothing else, lists like these let people you admire and/or listen to know that you appreciate the content they’re putting out.

3. Recognize and Reward Customers Lists

Lists can be used to promote your clients and/or customers. Depending on your industry, it’s an opportunity for your customers to connect with other like-minded people. You may decide sharing all of your customers on Twitter isn’t right for your business, but you can still take advantage of Twitter Lists to recognize your customers. You could, perhaps, implement a “valued clients of the week” list or run a contest that rewards a certain number of customers with a spot on a special list.

Another way to reward customers is to create a list of your company’s Twitter accounts that offer special deals, discounts, or exclusive announcements.

4. Niche Lists

The New York Times’ City Room crew created the “NYC Street Food Trucks” list for all things street food in New York City. Creating niche category lists can be very helpful for others, so think outside the box. Maybe there’s an audience who would love a list of all celebrities who have graced the cover of Vogue and tweet. Or, perhaps, a list of viral video stars (e.g., @daviddentist) would be useful for some. What niche can you identify that needs a list?

Lists can also be humorous. @daphnebegonia, who happens to be a dog, curates a list of “people I have licked.” It’s a funny idea that offers potential, and a concept that can work for other animal-related entities. I’m hoping for a Sea World, “I met Shamu,” list.

5. Employee Directory Lists

You might have a link to your Twitter account on your website, but don’t forget to make an official employee Twitter List. You should include all official company accounts, along with employees who tweet on behalf of the organization (or if you have a more open culture, you could include any employee that tweets). Mashable has an employee list, as does Twitter.

Share the list internally, too. Not only is this a way to aggregate accounts, it also makes monitoring easier. Think about creative ways you can promote your company’s Twitter list (for example, from the signature line of emails, or on your business cards).

6. Political Campaign Lists

Running for office? Aggregate your supporters or “friends of” the campaign for increased visibility. It’s important to stay connected to constituents, especially during election time (every vote counts!). In fact, go beyond campaign supporters and create an “official” party list, or a list of all the newspapers that have endorsed a candidate.

If you’re a political reporter or blogger, create a private list of all candidates you’re tracking to keep tabs on their tweets more easily. (This same principal could be applied by journalists or bloggers to any beat, not just politics.)

7. Location-Based Lists

Create a list of everyone in your city/town who tweets. Or create a list of city and/or state employees who tweet. If your mayor, village manager, school district board members and others are on Twitter, group them together to create a resource for others in your area.

This idea can work in an official capacity as well. If you’re in charge of a municipality’s website, aggregate the feeds from these lists for your official website to offer real-time updates to your citizens.

8. Event Attendees and Live-Tweeters Lists

Hosting an upcoming event? Encourage people to submit their Twitter IDs when they register. Share the list pre-conference and encourage people to connect. Don’t forget to update the list during the conference. You could also create a list of all speakers or sponsors for a conference to share with attendees, who can then familiarize themselves with the conference lineup and supporters before they get there.

Creating a special list of those live-tweeting events can make it easier for people not able to attend to follow the action without worrying about the noise created by extraneous hashtag conversations or spammers.

9. Self-Serving Lists

Lists can help you out, too. If you’re out of work, for example, you could create a list of company or recruiter accounts to monitor for job postings. Or if you need to stay current on a topic for work, you could create a list of companies or bloggers active on that subject.

Just the act of taking the time to research a comprehensive (and accurate) list will help you as much as the information that will come through from tweets. And if you decide to share your list, it could have the potential to garner a large following, which can boost your online credibility.

10. Promote Your Affiliation Lists

Twitter Lists may also be good for promoting or listing your affiliations. Collegiate alumni associations, for example, are constantly looking for ways to keep people engaged, enter the “University XYZ Alumni List.” This concept works for any group, organization, association, etc.

Journalists, bloggers, promoters, and others could also create a list of affiliations as a way to disclose potential conflicts of interest. A public relations professional, for example, could create a list of their clients as a way to let followers know which of their tweets may exhibit a conflict of interest.

How do you creatively harness the power of public Twitter Lists? Please share in the comments.

More Twitter Lists resources from Mashable:

- HOW TO: Use Twitter Lists
- Twitter Lists: Frequently Asked Questions and Strategies
- 4 Ways News Organizations are Using Twitter Lists
- Twitter Lists: Journalism Becomes a Real-Time Job

Reviews: Mashable, TweetDeck, Twitter

Tags: List, Lists, twitter, Twitter Lists

105 People Photo Manipulation Works You Will Really Marvel

BlogPoster — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:48:35 +0000

Oh, I am really marveling those photo manipulation works with people and countless amazing, colorful effects! Somehow I don’t think I have seen many tutorials out there teaching really how to come up with something so beautiful like that. Right, but that’s understandable, you will find many separate effect tutorials, but you really should learn to put it all together – but don’t worry effect and photo manipulation tutorial roundup will be featured in next article!

You must be thinking – man..105 artworks, is this guy completely crazy? Well, I must admit I went crazy, but I couldn’t not feature those works here, you must see how amazing this art is if you haven’t seen something like that before! At least I have crazy inspiration now to put something like this together myself – how about you?

One more thing, if you want to see even more of these kind photo manipulation artworks, check out my Deviantart profile favorites #photomanipulation folder, I’ll be updating this one regularly! The same is about web and wordpress theme layouts – I am putting the best works in my favorites daily and sometimes creating new works myself as well! Check out my DeviantArt profile if you are interested, guys and enjoy this article!

1. Drangue by barrena

2. Photo manipulation by GerCasey

3. Young Rocker by kybel

4. Cosmos. by TOYBOX-plaza

5. Right Round by Saibz

6. Volumize by GrungeTV

7. Pouring Paint by Dean-Site

8. You Forget it in People by RobShields

9. Saint by poisonvectors

10. Good day by poisonvectors

11. Lady Di by svpermchine

12. Lustre.v2 by sk8terpunk10

13. Silent Movie by Saibz

14. Ma Babe Vol. 2 by hicky2

15. Glow Dancer by iluud

16. My Heart Still Burns by AimhaDesign

17. Kick Up by Resetblue

18. Antimatter by zocafx

19. Juste la Dance by zocafx

20. Cartoonoportation by myaki-ru

21. Mr. Skeched Pants by MethMan

22. ShineOn by craZy18gurl

23. B A L L E T by nheonheo

24. Yeah by szc

25. Butterfly by poisonvectors

26. cutHERE. by Espador

27. Fresh by h2ogd

28. Muse by kuschelirmel

29. Displacement study by rosalindharrison

30. Karate lessons by anthony-g

31. .chill. by chadsharpe

32. Sensation by AirDesign06

33. After School Special by Espador

34. 30. by Espador

35. Pulsar by poisonvectors

36. FERVOUR by videa

37. MECHANICS by mkore

38. Like A Star by Phektion

39. Lost in colour by anthony-g

40. Ma Babe Vol. 4 by hicky2

41. Candy by poisonvectors

42. Design collage by wilson-naraku

43. Dancing Lotus by d4m

44. SOUL of the CITY by FreshIsrael

45. Dancehall Queen by BLACC360

46. Break.IT by Espador

47. Forever Heavy by RobShields

48. Growing Oil by kaethor

49. GHOST.88 by Espador

50. Incredible v2.0 by Script0s

51. Illusion by Frelon

52. Present yourself vol.2 by queedo

53. Liquify by mnmlst

54. United Colors by kaneda99

55. It’s My Own Cheating Heart by RobShields

56. Mecano by poisonvectors

57. Francis by poisonvectors

58. KARLA by poisonvectors

59. A new start by poisonvectors

60. Blue and Pink by sunsE

61. Stay alive by inphi

62. Passio by videa

63. Of the room by kaethor

64. Natural Growth by motive8

65. To Heaven by DouglasEltz

66. Move It by craZy18gurl

67. Colour Me Brightly by ryman

68. My.Chaos. by Espador

69. Dragon Within by inphi

70. Programata Magazine by JaxeNL

71. Hummingbird by D-e-v-i

72. Ev2ke by starfantazy

73. Tony Jaa by MomentumGFX

74. Blink. by Espador

75. Rapture by craZy18gurl

76. Fantasy boy by rosalindharrison

77. Behind Verdis Thoughts by Mantrastic

78. Lisa by moonmomma

79. Cenetric Jerene by Mantrastic

80. Colorful nature sounds by Cimoetz

81. Believe by suprsonic

82. Krump It by craZy18gurl

83. Bitch by d4m

84. Twinkle by starfantazy

85. Contra Band by starfantazy

86. Rainbow Goddess by ih8m0r0nz

87. Come Alive by d4m

88. Vibe by inphi

89. Fear the Music by wirestyle

90. Fired Up by FrozenStarRo

91. Splash by atmosphair3

92. Granny Delicious by wirestyle

93. Burst by wirestyle

94. Overdose Art by JaxeNL

95. Feel the music by wirestyle

96. Hang Em High by FreshIsrael

97. Heart Of A Dragon by videa

98. Flower Power by m4gik

99. Purple Lighting by barrena

100. bb by poisonvectors

101. Sounds fake by poisonvectors

102. FMGT II by svpermchine

103. FMGT III - by svpermchine

104. iPod-Play Your Music by svpermchine

105. Hammer by poisonvectors

Yahoo planning Santa Clara campus

BlogPoster — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:09:07 +0000

Yahoo's current headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif.

(Credit:
Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Yahoo is apparently thinking about making a run for the border: the Sunnyvale border, that is.

Marketwatch reports that Yahoo is finally preparing plans for a parcel of land it acquired three years ago in Santa Clara, Calif., a few exits south on U.S. 101 of its current headquarters in Sunnyvale. The land has apparently sat vacant ever since Yahoo bought it in 2006 in hopes of expanding, which, of course, didn’t exactly work out given Yahoo’s financial performance over that time and the economic downturn.

It’s not clear whether Yahoo wants to move the executive offices or just expand into that location. But the proposal submitted to Santa Clara officials involves a 13-building complex covering 3 million square feet, which means it’s probably not going to be used as a satellite office for obscure divisions of the company.

It seems Yahoo is feeling confident enough about its business prospects to consider taking on a building project. The company released a statement about its plans for Santa Clara.

“Yahoo purchased 42.5 acres of land in Santa Clara in July 2006. We submitted initial plans to the City of Santa Clara to redevelop the property in August 2008 and plans are currently with the City to procure entitlements for developing the land. We are taking the proper steps to secure approval for the development of the land. We continue to evaluate our real estate portfolio on a worldwide basis to ensure it best supports our business.”

Originally posted at Relevant Results

> Twitter Lines Up New Office Space

Plan For Impressive "Yahooplex" In Motion

BlogPoster — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:12:12 +0000

Either Yahoo learned nothing from the real estate bubble, or the company’s got something pretty fantastic up its sleeve. Or it’s just sending out feelers, not preparing to pour concrete. Anyway, a fresh report indicates that Yahoo’s taken a step towards building a large, new campus.

John Letzing wrote earlier today about a campus plan that involves 13 structures and 3 million square feet. "Yahoo’s proposed campus is made up of sleek, six-story buildings set amid landscaped grounds and expansive plazas. It bears a resemblance to Google’s Mountain View headquarters, dubbed the ‘Googleplex,’ which is situated less than 10 miles to the northwest," he reported.

Then here’s another important detail: Santa Clara City Planner Carol Anne Painter told Letzing that the Santa Clara City Council could approve the development early next year.

Just don’t go submitting your application to Yahoo (if you feel this is a sign of success and an expansion) – or betting on its bankruptcy (if you feel otherwise) – quite yet.

The company told Tom Krazit, "Yahoo purchased 42.5 acres of land in Santa Clara in July 2006. We submitted initial plans to the City of Santa Clara to redevelop the property in August 2008 and plans are currently with the City to procure entitlements for developing the land. We are taking the proper steps to secure approval for the development of the land. We continue to evaluate our real estate portfolio on a worldwide basis to ensure it best supports our business."

Related Articles:

> Microsoft, Yahoo Miss Deadline Agreement

> Yahoo Provides Homepage Overhaul Stats

How Is Your Reputation Holding Up In Google’s Search Results?

How Is Your Reputation Holding Up In Google’s Search Results?

BlogPoster — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:27:12 +0000

You know, if there are listings in Google’s search results that are hurting your business, you might think that there is nothing you can do about that. But let me assure you that given the will and the desire, there is plenty you can do about those search engine results that may be hurting your business.

So many people look at Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as a game of influencing the keywords that are important to their business, but they don’t realize that SEO can also be used to diminish the negatives in the search results.

Are You Losing Business As Result Of A Bad Review In Google?

Remember that guy who bought your product 3 years ago, and he did not follow the instructions for use, and then complained about how your product let him down? He could be hurting your business right now.

How do you measure the sales that your business is losing, because some guy complained on some website about how your product or service is “crap”.

A Real World Example

Ah… I remember when I was selling TV’s for a living.

There was this fellow who came into the store and bought a 52-inch projection screen TV. We had a bonded delivery crew on hand to help people get their purchases home, but although this guy had just spent $2400 on a television set, he decided that he did not want to pay $40 for delivery of his new TV set. I bet you can see where this story is going…

So, we loaded his new TV in the back of his pickup, and he proceeded to tie down his TV in the back of his pickup truck.

He thanked us for his TV and started the drive home.

45 minutes later, our most recent happy customer pulled into the parking lot, toting a big-screen TV box.

As we went to meet him at the door, we could hear the glass falling as the box moved across the floor.

He was pissed! And to our surprise, we were at fault!

You might be asking yourself why we were at fault. That is a good question, one I even posed at the time.

We were at fault, because we did not offer free delivery!

A gust of wind had caught his box, snapping the twine that he had used to tie it down, blowing his $2400 Phillips Big-Screen TV onto the highway.

He said it was our fault, because we should have given him free delivery. Never mind that we had already given him a $300 discount on the purchase of his TV.

We had offered him bonded delivery, but he refused, and now it was our fault that his TV was broken.

The store where we worked was one of those chains that keep all of the power to make things right at the home office. We could not simply exchange his TV, without permission from our superiors. If we had authorized the exchange with the guy, without the District Manager’s permission, the company would have taken the cost of the Television out of the salesperson’s and the manager’s paycheck.

I was the assistant manager, and I was NOT going to pay for this guy’s broken television. The company did not pay me enough to fix this problem for them, out of my own pocket.

We called the DM. Of course, even though we worked until 10 at night, the DM went home at 6pm. So, we kept dialing his cell phone number, until he answered the phone.

He was pissed, but that was okay. We were already dealing with “pissed”, so we did not mind two people pissed at the same time.

Thank God I was not the manager in charge that night. Thank God for small favors…

Our District Manager said the guy was tough out of luck. I am glad I don’t work for those clowns anymore.

I agree that it should not have been our responsibility, but surely we could find a solution for this guy. After all, he just spent $2400 with us.

Nope. The District Manager said No, then he said No, and he said No again.

So, the DM hung up telling us not to call him again that evening. And we were left with the poor guy who had just signed a two-year finance contract on a TV that was busted to hell.

Yes, I bet the guy pays for delivery next time. But the story does not end here…

It Wasn’t Your Fault, But It Is Your Problem…

The story now moves online. It moves into the newspaper. It moves onto our sales floor for more than a week. It goes ballistic…

The customer went home that night, and turned to the power of the Internet with his complaint. A few days later, he followed his Internet complaints with a paid advert in the local newspaper. Our store was getting skewered.

The guy was in the store every day, throwing a tantrum. And he was spending his money and his time to skewer us for letting him make a foolish decision.

It just worked out well for him. On about his tenth trip to the store, throwing his daily tantrum in front of people who were looking to buy a TV, he just happened to arrive on a day that the DM was in the building. Ah… A new face behind the counter. The customer picked out the new face in the building as being someone over us. And wham, he let the District Manager have it, with both barrels…

Persistence paid off in this case.

He overwhelmed the District Manager with his complaints.

The District Manager broke down and did only what the District Manager could do for our customer. He used his privileged status to type in the appropriate commands into the computer and make things right for this guy.

In the end, we got him a new television for the price of delivery to his house.

The store ate the cost of the new television. (I ended up paying a portion of the TV anyway, because the bookkeeping department deducted the price of the television from the sales sheets for the month, so some of my monthly bonus was lost when that man’s television was cut from the store’s profits.)

The victory that we received was that the guy was not in the store every day scaring away our customers.

But that victory came only after we took a serious hit in our Reputation Management. Every person that guy talked to for the ten days after his purchase, up until he got his replacement, knew that he had a bad experience with us. What is more, everyone who read his paid advert in the newspaper knew that he had a problem with our store. Even more, who knows how long his complaint survived online…

You know what they say, “What is posted online, stays online.”

I left my job at that store in 2005. That store closed in 2008.

I am not going to say that the store closed on account of that guy’s complaints. But I am willing to say that the store was hurt by the guy’s complaints. He did manage to drive a lot of prospective customers out of our store, during his daily rants. (I just checked and could not find his complaints online anymore.)

I am willing to bet that the store closed due to the recession. It closed about the same time that Circuit City bit the dust.

I think this story clearly illustrates that a problem does not have to be your fault, in order for your business to pay a high price, as a result of the problem.

Does Applebee’s Really Suck?

To help illustrate the extent of this problem, I just typed into Google the name of my favorite restaurant, Applebee’s, the name of my town, and the word “sucks”.

I saw dozens of Google search results that were in effect saying that my favorite restaurant “sucks”. Many of them went to describe this restaurant as having the “worst food ever.”

Wow!

Now to be sure, restaurants everywhere suffer from this treatment. And the big name brand restaurants can survive, because their large customer base has a different opinion.

But what if you are a local restaurant or an obscure Internet company?

As an permanent online fixture, I tend to be jaded about the complaints I read about others. But I have to admit, while one or two complaints will not sway me, several complaints in the search results will even cause “me” to hesitate.

Can you afford for jaded internet marketers like myself to hesitate?

You can bet that if we “jaded internet marketers” are hesitating to purchase what you sell, those “who are not internet marketers by profession” are running away from you!

Fixing The Problem…

You are already aware that by utilizing SEO techniques that you can help your website rank better for some keywords in Google and the other search engines.

But did you know that you can also create a wealth of positive reviews for your business on a variety of web pages, and to get those positive reviews to rank higher in the search engines than the negative reviews?

This is how we help our customers.

We use our SEO expertise to get the positive reviews of our client’s website to outrank the negative reviews of our client’s website.

If we get enough positive reviews to occupy the top of the search results for the target keywords, then those negative reviews of our client’s website will be buried on page two, three, four, five or six of Google’s search results.

If people will NEVER SEE the negative reviews of your website, product or service, then as far as most people are aware, there ARE NOT ANY negative reviews. If there are no negatives about your business, then everything must be positive.

You are in control of your business’ reputation online, if only you are willing take the reins and force the negatives down in Google’s search results.

We know that not everything in the search results is true or honest. After all, the guy with the broken TV was blaming us for his bad judgment. We know that you may not deserve what is in Google’s search results that is affecting your online reputation in a negative way.

If you don’t let us help you get the negatives out of the sight of your prospective customers, then do it yourself or hire another company to do it for you. Because as long as those negative reviews exist in Google’s search results, there is a good chance that someone is going to let those negative comments prevent them from buying from you!

About The Author:

Bill Platt has provided SEO services since 2004. In 2009, he transformed his SEO service, into one that helps people defeat negative search results in Google. By improving the rank of positive website reviews in the search results, negative search listings begin to disappear from the public eye. If you would like to learn more about how Bill’s Reputation Management SEO service can help your business, visit: http://911reputation.com/ Bill has also owned http://thePhantomWriters.com/ since 2001.

Read more articles written by: Bill Platt

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Graffiti Brazil: Mundano

BlogPoster — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:45:39 +0000

From Brooklyn – Sao Paulo to Brooklyn – New York, Mundano has spread his art all over the place. His graffiti art is full of meanings and colors and can be seen in every corner of one of the largest concrete jungles of the world which is Sao Paulo, check out this great graffiti artist that speaks the truth.

Visit mundano at flickr and contact him at artetude@gmail.com and follow him on twitter http://twitter.com/mundano_sp

Mundano l is an artist that has been coloring the gray walls of Sao Paulo Brazil. This graffiti artist of only 23 years old make interventions that take away the attention in the middle of the chaos of one of the biggest cities in the world.

Using graffiti as a social revolution, his characters are followed by messages sent so the people can see and think about the problems he mentions. The messages are chosen according to the reality of the local spot where the people walk and drive by. His graffitis can be seen in the favelas, big avenues, as well as art galleries. This really shows what a true artist is made of.

“My art express the feeling of every Mundano in the city, whether you not happy with the politics or you want to scream out your mind, that’s what my art is made for, to represent the voice of the Mundano.”

The word Mundano means Mundo + Humano (the world + the humans) The people of the city that interact with the urban life and it’s attached to it’s roots.

Graffiti on the streets of Sao Paulo

The city of Sao Paulo has a project called “Clean City” which is not only meant to clean the city it self but the walls full of rich and original Brazilian graffiti art. What happen is they paint over the graffiti pieces with plain gray paint taking away the beauty of colors made by these great artists.

Mundano shows that the city should care more about cleaning criminals, corrupt politicians and the actual trash on the streets instead of the paintings on the wall.

“They erased everything and painted it gray, the only thing left is sadness and fresh paint. Kindness generate kindness” the words of Mundando after painting the same spot for the 13th time.

Carroceiros Projects

I started this because everyone looks different to these guys that work hard pushing a wooden made cars to collect and make money out of recycled trash. Nobody actually realized the work they doing is totally hard and honest and they are the ones that are cleaning the streets.

The work I do on their cars is guarantee to stay, the city can’t paint it gray and I can’t get in any trouble for it. Each car I do is to send out a message where talking the owner of the car we come up with ideas to speak their mind and show the people what a really true honest worker are.

“My goal is that the ‘carroceiros” (people that push these cars recycling papers) get more respect from the society for the hard work they do, I see a lot of guys wearing ties and looking at then like they are from another world, calling them names, and beeping at them to get out of the way. While they recycle trash that they don’t even produce.”

Mundano painting

Peace is Never Enough

I recycle what about you?

My Car Does Not Pollute

If I could I would recycle the politicians

Mundano In Action

“Before I started painting I didn’t pay attention to anybody, I didn’t interact with the city, I didn’t express my feelings.”

Spray Paint, Marker, and House Paint on a found piece of wood

“If one person looks at my work and stop to think about what’s going on in the city, and think about the message I send, I feel like the job was done.”

Lichen Exhibition at Factory Fresh – Brooklyn, New York.

Acrylic on orange plastic paint tray with spray cans and beer bottle shelved on top.

Connection Brooklyn-SP with Brooklyn-NY
photo: Mikeion

Metal door painted with spray paint, the first cactus of a lot to come.

This painting is near the Morumbi Stadium where Sao Paulo plays, soccer brings a lot of happiness and sadness to our people so “Enjoy the game with peace”

I express my self according to the place and the people that pass by it

What you think about Mundano art and the graffiti movement in Sao Paulo Brazil?
Leave a comment and express your thoughts

About the author

Hi! I’m Paulo Canabarro and I’m here to post some really cool stuff for you, if you have any ideas or any requests please get @ me – paul0v2@abduzeedo.com you can also Follow me on twitter!

Sponsored Links:

City of Los Angeles Goes Google for $7.2 Million

BlogPoster — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 04:09:09 +0000

It looks like those Going Google billboards are actually good for something, as the Los Angeles’ city council has just unanimously approved a Google Apps deal worth $7.2 million.

According to CNET, LA would become one of the largest government agencies, outside the District of Columbia, to make the switch to using hosted Google email and application services.

However, security concerns over storing information in the cloud did factor into the process and have yet to be 100% aleviated. Apparently the deal hinges around an agreement with Computer Sciences Corp, a contractor who would need to agree to pay a penalty should there be a security breach.

If the deal does go through it would be quite the coup for Google and their Going Google campaign. With both the US Government supporting the initiative and the city of Los Angeles joining the Google team, Google is building up an arsenal of large and impressive customers that should make it easier to attract more top dollar enterprise clients.

Image from Peter Kaminski on Flickr

Reviews: Flickr, Google

Tags: going google, Los Angeles

San Francisco Government and Technology: How We’re Innovating

BlogPoster — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:31:16 +0000

This guest post was written by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who was elected to the position in 2003 and reelected in 2007. In this guest post, Mayor Newsom announces a new open data policy for San Francisco and challenges city departments to use open source software.

Hundreds of technology leaders and companies have gathered this week in San Francisco for the annual Web 2.0 Summit. This year’s conference is exploring how businesses have used the web to weather the global financial crisis.

Government, like other sectors, has been forced to do more with less because of the economy. Necessity has created a great opportunity for innovation. To improve transparency and engage our tech community, earlier this year I announced an Open Gov Initiative for San Francisco, which focuses on open data, open participation and open source.

The new strategy has seen early successes. Our first of its kind Twitter-311 service is solving San Franciscans’ problems with a tweet or text. Last week, we announced plans to build on this by opening 311 to developers. City agencies are embracing social media to interact with residents and share information. Our one stop clearinghouse for government data, DataSF.org is providing more than 100 datasets from a range of city departments.

Our effort to improve access to city data has led to the creation of new services that are now featured in the DataSF App Showcase.

There is an interactive crime map with San Francisco Crimespotting, EcoFinder, an iPhone app that helps residents recycle, and a new section of EveryBlock that gives a detailed break down of what people are asking government for by block, neighborhood, zip code and day.

Turning government into a platform for innovation

This is just the beginning. There is much more that we can and should be doing to turn government into a platform for innovation. That’s why today, with Tim O’Reilly I am announcing a fundamental change and a challenge to every city department. Watch live at 4PM PST.

I am issuing an Open Data Executive Directive (PDF) that asks City departments to make all datasets under their authority that are not considered confidential available on DataSF.org.

This Directive will enhance open government, transparency, and accountability by improving access to City data. By providing more government data, San Francisco’s world class technology community will be able to create even more useful civic tools, all at no cost to City government. This new ease of access will lead to innovation in how residents interact with government, resulting in social and economic benefits for San Francisco.

Second, I am challenging City departments to use open source software when they look to update or purchase new software. In recognition of how far open source has come today, I am also pleased to announce the launch of my new city web site in open source powered by WordPress. Open source software has been able to deliver shorter implementation times and lower costs. We have seen this with DataSF.org, RecoverySF.org and our 311 integration with Twitter.

The Open Data Executive Directive and Open Source challenge will take time to implement, but they will improve access to government data, lower software costs and create new jobs.

Join Mayor Newsom on Facebook or follow him on Twitter.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, alengo

Reviews: Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, iStockphoto

Tags: government, open source, San Francisco-San Jose

How to Create an Image Gallery Powered by Picasa

BlogPoster — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:18:15 +0000

In this tutorial we are going to create a simple image gallery powered by Google’s Picasa Web Albums. In order to enhance the user’s experience, we’ll throw some jQuery into the mix and create a scrollable album carousel.

Overview

We are going to use PHP’s SimpleXML extension to sort and access the data inside the XML feed provided by Picasa Web Albums. jQuery will be responsible for the DOM manipulation and AJAX request. We are also going to use the Scrollable library, which is part of jQuery Tools to create the carousel. Next, we’ll use jQuery’s MouseWheel plug-in to allow for cross-browser mouse wheel support. Finally, we’ll use the Fancybox plug-in to each image in a “lightbox.”

What We Need

Picasa Web Album ID (usually the same as your Gmail or Google account ID)
PHP with SimpleXML (it is enabled by default with new PHP install)
Latest jQuery
Recently Discovered jQuery Tools from flowplayer.org
Fancybox plug-in for jQuery
960 Grid CSS (it is not required but I’m using it in this tutorial)

Getting Started

We’ll begin by downloading the files and putting them into the same folder. I also combined all of the Fancybox images with jQuery Tools ones, and placed them inside the img folder.

PHP files

For our project, we are going to use following PHP files:

index.php
_ajax.php
_conf.php

index.php will be responsible for displaying albums, images, and sending requests to _ajax.php.
_ajax.php will be handling dynamic request and returning formatted thumbnails
_conf.php, as you may have guessed, will contain some configuration information that will be used by both files.

_code.php

This file is very simple and short.

// First we need to set some defaults
$gTitle=""; // title of your gallary, if empty it will show: "your nickname' Photo Gallary"
$uName= "kozlov.m.a"; // your picasaweb user name
$tSize="72c"; // thumbnail size can be 32, 48, 64, 72, 144, 160. cropt (c) and uncropt (u)
$maxSize="720u"; // max image size can be 200, 288, 320, 400, 512, 576, 640, 720, 800. These images are available as only uncropped(u) sizes.

Basically, in this file we set the username (Picasa Web Album ID), thumbnail size, and max image size that we are going to show in our gallery.

index.php

This file requires a bit more to make the gallery work. We begin with referencing our configuration file (_conf.php):



	Next we need to load the album feed. We are only retrieving publicly available albums, so our request will look something like: “http://picasaweb.google.com/data/feed/api/user/user_name?kind=album&access=public”.


$file = file_get_contents("http://picasaweb.google.com/data/feed/api/user/".$uName."?kind=album&access=public&thumbsize=".$tSize);


	file_get_contents will load content from the XML feed into $file variable. As you can see, we used the $uName variable defined in _conf.php to get the right feed. We also passed the additional parameter “thumbsize;” so that the returned feed will contain thumbnails of our chosen size.


	Now, let’s convert the contents of the feed into a SimpleXml object and define the namespaces we are going to use:

$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($file);
$xml->registerXPathNamespace('gphoto', 'http://schemas.google.com/photos/2007');
$xml->registerXPathNamespace('media', 'http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/');


	You can find all namespaces used in the API feeds by visiting http://code.google.com/apis/…, but we’ll only be using “media” and “gphoto” in our tutorial; you do not have to worry about the rest of them.


	Next, we’ll get the web album’s name in case we did not already set one in __conf.php file:

if($gTitle == null){ // if empty Gallery title will be "user id's  Photo Gallery"
$nickname = $xml->xpath('//gphoto:nickname'); // Mikhail
$gTitle =$nickname[0]."'s Photo Gallery";
}
?>


	Finally, it is time for some simple HTML. We’ll set our header and reference a few CSS files.




<?php echo $gTitle; ?>








". $gTitle ."";?>


	As you can see, we’ve set the page title to $gTitle and have added some CSS to make things pretty.

Style Files

	I do not think that reset.css needs any additional explanation, so let’s skip over it and take a closer look at the other stylesheet.


960.css allows for a more grid-like layout. 
style.css comes from the provided stylesheet from jQuery Tools. 
And fancybox.css is part of the FancyBox plug-in. 


Note: Please make sure that you change image path in both fancybox.css and style.css, so all background images point to img folder. 


Album Holder and Navigational Elements

  It is time to create our album holder and navigational elements. This is where jQuery Tools is a huge help. For the album navigation, we’ll be using the Scrollable library. If you visit the Scrollable reference page and take a look at some of the examples, you’ll see that we’re using it almost without any modifications.


  







 

 
 
 


	We’ll also need a holder for the album picture thumbnails, and the album title that will be loaded via AJAX:







JavaScript

	Let’s finish our page by referencing the JavaScripts we’ll be using.








PHP


	Now it is time to go through the XML file and sift the album thumbnails out. Place the following PHP code inside the  element.

entry as $feed){
$group = $feed->xpath('./media:group/media:thumbnail');
$a = $group[0]->attributes(); // we need thumbnail path
$id = $feed->xpath('./gphoto:id'); // and album id for our thumbnail
echo 'title.'" title="'.$feed->title.'" ref="'.$id[0].'" />';
?>
}



	Our plan was to load album pictures once visitors click on a specific thumbnail, therefore we have to create some kind of reference to connect the two. For this purpose, we are putting a ref attribute into each album’s img tag; so it will look something like this when compiled:

	

AJAX

	Finally, we’ll spice it all up with some jQuery. Firstly, we need to initialize the jQuery Tools plug-in with some additional parameters:

$("div.scrollable").scrollable({
	size: 10, // number of pictures per "page"
	next: '#next', // id of next control element
	prev: '#prev', // id of prev control element
	navi:'#navi' // id of navigation control holder
});

The code above will automatically add scrollable controls.


Note: It is better to set the scrollable size to an odd number. This way, selected images will appear right in the middle. 


	Next we’ll create on click event for the album thumbnail:

$("#albums img").bind("click", function(){
	$("#a_title").text($(this).attr('title'));
	$("#pic_holder").html('').load("_ajax.php",{"aID":$(this).attr("ref")},function(){
	$("#pic_holder").find("a").fancybox();
	});
});

	Let’s take close look at what we are doing here. First we define our click event trigger:

$("#albums img").bind("click", function(){


	We use bind instead of the simple click because we do not want to interrupt the work of the scrollable plug-in that we just initiated above.


	Next, we’ll apply the album title into the h2 tag with id “a_title” from the title attribute of the anchor tag:

	$("#a_title").text($(this).attr('title'));


	Finally, we send an AJAX request to _ajax.php and let Fancybox re-index the freshly loaded images:

$("#pic_holder").html('').load("_ajax.php",{"aID":$(this).attr("ref")},function(){
 	$("#pic_holder").find("a").fancybox();
});


	As you probably noticed, we are inserting a “loading image” inside “pic_holder” before sending the AJAX request.  This will provide the user with some feedback to let them know that their request is currently being processed. Once we receive a response from the server, jQuery will replace the contents of the “pic_holder” with data that came from _ajax.php.

_ajax.php

	Now it is time to serve the contents of the album to our visitors. Our plan is to show thumbnails linked to originals on the Picasa server. Once a thumbnail is clicked, Fancybox will take over and create a lightbox-like image gallery. We’ll start with the entire contents of the file, and then go over each line:

registerXPathNamespace('media', 'http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/'); // define namespace media
		foreach($xml->entry as $feed){ // go over the pictures
		$group = $feed->xpath('./media:group/media:thumbnail'); // let's find thumbnail tag
		$description = $feed->xpath('./media:group/media:description'); // file name appended by image captioning
		if(str_word_count($description[0]) > 0){ // if picture has description, we'll use it as title
			$description = $feed->title. ": ". $description[0];
		}else{
			$description =$feed->title; // if not will use file name as title
		}
		$a = $group[0]->attributes(); // now we need to get attributes of thumbnail tag, so we can extract the thumb link
		$b = $feed->content->attributes(); // now we convert "content" attributes into array
		echo 'title.'" width="'.$a['width'].'" height="'.$a['height'].'"/>';
		}
	}else{
		echo 'Error! Please provide album id.';
	}
?>


	First, we are going to reference our configuration file, so we can have access to the constant parameters: Picasa ID and thumbnail size.

include './_conf.php'; // getting constants


	Then we’ll check if the album ID was sent via POST request:

if(isset($_POST['aID'])){


	If we did not find an album ID, we’re simply going to print an error message:

}else{
   echo 'Error! Please provide album ID.';
}


	If _ajax.php received the album ID, we’ll get an XML feed and start working on it, so let’s create a link to the correct XML feed:

 $aID = $_POST['aID']; // let's put the album id here so it is easier to use later
 $file = file_get_contents('http://picasaweb.google.com/data/feed/api/user/'.$uName.'/albumid/'.$aID.'?kind=photo&access=public&thumbsize=72c&imgmax='.$maxSize); // get the contents of the album


	As you can see, we use the album ID that came via the POST request as well as constants from _conf.php file. Again, we are using file_get_contents to load the XML feed and store it in the $file variable. Next we convert it to a SimpleXMLElement object cycle through each entry nodes that contain information about each picture. To do so, we’ll use a simple foreach() loop. 
foreach($xml->entry as $feed){ // go over the pictures


	Next, we are ready to extract data needed for our link and thumbnail. I’ve commented every line and hopefully it is enough to understand what is going on:

$group = $feed->xpath('./media:group/media:thumbnail'); // let's find the thumbnail tag
$description = $feed->xpath('./media:group/media:description');  // let's find the description tag
if(str_word_count($description[0]) > 0){ // if the picture has description, we'll use it as the title
	$description = $feed->title. ": ". $description[0]; // file name appended by image captioning
}else{
	$description =$feed->title; // if not, will use file name as title
}
$a = $group[0]->attributes(); // now we need to get attributes of thumbnail tag, so we can extract the thumb link
$b = $feed->content->attributes(); // now we convert "content" attributes into array


	Finally, we are putting it all into HTML context. We’ll echo a link to the original image and thumbnail image:

echo 'title.'" width="'.$a['width'].'" height="'.$a['height'].'"/>';



	To force Fancybox to organize all of the images into a gallery, we are adding the rel attribute to each link. You can simply put same number or string as value, but I’m going to use the album ID.

Styling

	As I mentioned before, most of the styling was taken straight from examples at the jQuery Tools website. All you must do here is simply adjust the height and width to suit the design of your website.

Mouse Wheel Scroll

	Mouse Wheel Scroll is another beauty that you can easily use. As some may have noticed, we never initiated this plug-in; yet, if you hover over the album carousel and try to scroll with your mouse wheel, it will work thanks to jQuery Tools.

Conclusion

We’ve learned how to combine PHP’s SimpleXML extension with a handful of plugins and Picasa to create a beautiful and dynamic image gallery. I hope you enjoyed and learned from it!

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Go to Source

LA City Council delays Google Apps decision

BlogPoster — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:22:16 +0000

(Credit:

City of Los Angeles)

The city of Los Angeles has decided to delay making a decision about whether or not to adopt Google Apps across its network, citing cost concerns.

The City Council’s Budget and Finance Committee did not take any action regarding the proposed contract, which has been debated for months as one of the more high-profile public sector Google Apps deals. That means the matter will pass to the full City Council for a vote later this month, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Security concerns had been prominent during earlier discussions of the proposal, which would see the city move off a Novell system and use Google’s hosting service for e-mail and office applications. But the council was more pragmatic, noting that implementing the system would cost $1.5 million more than continuing on with the current system and asking for further details before voting. “The urgency case hasn’t been made,” said Councilman Bernard Parks, chairman of the Budget and Finance committee, according to the Times.

Google’s argument is that the cost of adopting Google Apps would be far less than the cost of upgrading to a different type of modern system, estimating that the city could save $13.8 million over the contract.

Originally posted at Relevant Results

How Local Politicians Are Using Social Media

BlogPoster — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:41:06 +0000

Josh Sternberg is the founder of Sternberg Strategic Communications and authors The Sternberg Effect. You can follow him on Twitter.

Former Speaker of the House of Representative Thomas “Tip” O’Neill famously said that “All politics is local;” and social media is making that more true than ever before. It used to be that most of us couldn’t point out our local representative, councilman, alderman, or public advocate if we tripped over him or her, but that’s starting to change, thanks to social media helping us raise our civic literacy levels and altering the way politics are done. We now expect our local representative for our state or town Assembly or Senate or Council to connect with us on a more personal level. And it’s happening.

Local and state offices, from the governor down to the alderman are taking note and there has been a huge increase in the number of local and state politicians getting involved in social media; and not just in a cursory manner, but in ways that have opened the lines of communication to an audience clamoring for transparency. Here are some of the ways that local politicians are putting social media to work for them.

Creating a Conversation

Just like in the corporate world, social media has created a two-way conversation between politician and electorate. One of the biggest adopters on the state level has been Massachusetts (D) Governor Deval Patrick. Brad Blake is the Governor’s Director of New Media and Online Strategy, and holds the reins when it comes to any news/social media efforts coming out of the Governor’s office.

So when there’s an update to the Governor’s Twitter feed, YouTube channel, Flickr stream, a new blog post, an update to the web site, or even a media package that goes out with a major press release, he’s involved. He said that he’s “constantly learning and listening to our users and those in both government and web 2.0 to tweak what we do and do it better.”

(Note: Governor Patrick has both a Facebook profile and a Fan Page, but because they were started during the Governor’s campaign, they are both maintained by the Deval Patrick Campaign Committee, due campaign finance laws.)

Kentucky’s Secretary of State, (R) Trey Grayson also has found higher engagement from Kentuckians through his Facebook Page, Twitter profile, and YouTube channel. He has been paying attention to the online space since dabbling with social media in 2006 and upped his online presence in 2008 because he saw this as a new way to reach citizens.

“We primarily use it (social media) as a tool to reach citizens and then interact with them,” said Secretary Grayson.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom (D) has found that social media can be an integral part of the conversation between a government and the people it serves. His administration has launched a number of innovative programs in their city, such as DataSF, which opens up city data on everything from public safety and transportation, to health, housing, and elections for people to mashup and utilize in interesting and helpful ways. The DataSF project has already led to a number of interesting web applications that make use of city data.

“In San Francisco we are trying to turn government into an organizing platform for civic engagement by giving our residents the tools to build the kind of government that works for them,” said Mayor Newsom.

Melissa Zamora (Unaffiliated), City Commissioner of District 3 in Brownsville, Texas, has similarly found that social media tools have led to increased engagement with constituents. She noted that since it’s easy for the residents of Brownsville to “voice support or opposition through a few keystrokes, there is more feedback.”

And elected officials are not the only ones using social media tools to reach constituents; those running for office are making tremendous strides in adapting to the new avenues of communication. Gone are the days when the only way to find information about a local election or politician was through lawn signs, public access TV, or local newspapers. Now, if a candidate doesn’t have a social media presence, they are at a disadvantage.

NJ Assembly candidate Bill Harvey (R) believes that one of the major advantages to politicians using social media is that it’s free for voters to use. Social media, he says, “also allows voters the opportunity to hear directly from elected officials and candidates that might not otherwise been seen in the newspapers or on television.”

Part of a Broader Strategy

Besides creating a translucent, if not necessarily transparent, dialogue with their constituents via social media, local politicians are using these communications tools as important pieces of their complete communications strategies.

Blake believes that a social media communications strategy should be custom made depending on the type of communication that needs to be done. “What I try to do, both internally and when working with others on using social media,” he said, “is to talk about the need or communication gap first, then figure out which tools best fill that need or gap.”

For example, he said that, “Twitter is great for getting quick reactions to information coming out of the office and to understand what people need help with. YouTube has been great to both disseminate important information in a bit more personal/conversational way than a press release and to respond to constituent questions in a way that others can also benefit from.”

NY State Assemblyman Micah Kellner (D), who uses multiple social media vehicles to engage with his constituents in New York’s 65th Assembly District, agrees. He finds that his blog and Facebook Page “have been the most effective social media tools, but all of these tools work best when they’re integrated – when we use each of them in a way that’s complimentary to the others. Rather than focus on them primarily as separate pieces, I prefer to think of them as parts of our overall communications strategy.”

The activist world on the left and the right have taken to using social media as part of a broader communications strategy as well. For example, rather than just using online points of contact, activists have taken to using social media to empower and educate people on how to contact their elected representatives using traditional methods as well.

Julie Blitzer, a strategist at Advomatic, a web technology firm, said, “These tools (social media) are just one more mechanism to direct activists to traditional elected official contact methods: writing letters and calling.”

Steve Pearson, the Chief Technologist of conservative political action committee ProjectVirginia, similarly feels that social media is an important part of any modern campaign strategy. His organization advises activists and candidates through its web site on how to use social media tools, such a Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Digg, to spread their political message and mobilize voters at the local level.

“Activists are using social media to engage in politics around the clock, opening up opportunities for people who want to be involved but whose commitments to job and family don’t always fit within the typical late evening and weekend campaign schedule,” he said recently in a press release. “Delivering a candidate’s message with the click of a mouse doesn’t diminish the importance of also delivering that message door-to-door, but it does help a campaign to cover a lot more ground with greater detail and frequency. Campaigns who provide social media tools to their online activist base are engaging a whole new political asset.”

Bringing About Change

Local politicians are also finding that social media is quickly becoming a place where change can actually happen. It’s not uncommon for local residents to post their feelings on many issues that affect their community.

Cristina Castro, (D) Commissioner of Kane County Board 20th District in Elgin, Illinois, said that she gets a lot of feedback from her constituents on her Twitter and Facebook pages, She has also found that when she posts news articles, upcoming meeting notices and agendas, or even asks for feedback on hot button issues, that she’s able to speak directly with the electorate.

Commissioner Castro believes that “government needs to be transparent and by utilizing social media, it allows me to actively provide them (her constituents) with information they need in a timely (manner) and real-time fashion.”

Secretary Grayson noticed that within a few days of launching his office’s Facebook Page, they received their first unsolicited office interaction. He says, “it’s not unusual to have someone write something political on the page, but to have someone actually use that page to contact the office about a business filing issue was something that really demonstrated the power of these mediums.”

Blake noted that at an online community forum held last Spring, there were members representing 146 cities and towns in Massachusetts. “To bring those people together to work in a public space without using social media would have been extremely difficult and resource-intensive. And we had very little media attention for that forum – it was mostly through social media that people found out about it.” And looking at statistics of the event, Mr. Blake says, “not to turn it into a contest… but compared to President Obama’s Open Government Brainstorm web site that was launched one week earlier than ours and active for 15 more days, Governor Patrick’s Forum had 29% more members per capita and 99% more comments per capita.”

These politicians are realizing that the Internet is a mass medium that pushes the notions of community more than any other mass communication tool.

The Most Important Part is People

Ultimately, the strongest aspect of social media is the human element. Social media doesn’t exist without people acting on their inherent need to be social, to interact, and to see each other as human beings. Indeed, as Secretary Grayson says, “They (his constituents) have the opportunity to see that I am not just some figurehead sitting behind a desk at the Capitol. They get to see the personal me and understand why I make certain decisions.”

Assemblyman Kellner agrees. “Politics is about conversation, and personal, face-to-face interaction is still the foundation of that, especially at the local level.“ He looks at social media as a way of expanding that conversation, by “broadening my overall efforts to engage with the community I represent.”

As we come up on the one year anniversary of the 2008 general election, where social media took center stage, the notion of a two-way conversation between politician and electorate is starting to realistically take shape. With many local and state elections right around the corner, those candidates using social media to engage with their constituents and spread their message will hold an advantage over those politicians who haven’t yet discovered the power of social media.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, mevans

Reviews: Digg, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blog, iStockphoto

Tags: local politics, politics, social media

Square One Coffee

BlogPoster — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:14:09 +0000

“Square One Coffee is a small roaster and coffee retailer in Lancaster City, Pennsylvania. They currently operate a single establishment in the downtown business district where they only roast 100% organic and 100% Fair Trade Certified™ beans, making them one of the few roasters in the region to do so.

New ownership took over Square One in 2007 and saw an opportunity to grow the brand and compete on a larger level. They believed in the excellence of their product but realized they needed to elevate the aesthetic of their presentation in order to attract more wholesale customers and the ever fickle retail buyer.

After reviewing their existing brand and core values, it was agreed to pursue communication geared around the ideas of a “passion for coffee” and a “belief that people matter”. Also important to communicate was the unique nature of their operation (100% organic, Fair Trade and roasted on location). Their first goals were to refresh the current logo and completely overhaul the packaging, in hopes to increase sales and drive a new awareness of the brand’s professionalism.

A refreshed logo and packaging were developed that communicated the key sales messages and created a raw aesthetic that was instantly embraced by their customers. Packaging experienced a 50% sales increase in the first week of launch and sales remain strong. Additionally, the packaging is in the process of being sold in Whole Foods stores in the Philadelphia market, potentially one of the biggest wholesale opportunities the company has ever experienced.”

Make The Girl Dance – Baby, Baby, Baby

BlogPoster — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 17:12:39 +0000

Note: Viewer Discretion is Advised

French electro group Make The Girl Dance releases their new video for the hit single, Baby, Baby, Baby. The video was filmed on the City of Paris. Full video below.

The player will show in this paragraph

Seen at HypeBeast

App the Big Apple & Win Money

BlogPoster — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 16:49:11 +0000

DO you think you could improve the way New York City opperates? If you develop a web or moble app that improves the transparency, accesibility, or accountability of the city you could score yourself $20,000!

New York recently launched NYC Apps, a public calling for entries (Web and mobile apps) that tap into the massive amounts of public data that are nearly hidden from most. Everything from business inspections, traffic updates and even city budgets.

The $20k in prizes will be awarded to individuals with the best app in various categories. Grand prize gets a check for $5000 bucks and dinner with Mayor Bloomberg himself.

I think we will see a number of other major cities follow suit. Mobile applications have exploded in the past year with the success of Apple’s iPhone making just about everything easier and more accessible from the palm of your own hand.

So developers, rush on over to NYC BIG APPS and get going! Dont forget if you win, tell Mr Bloomberg how much you like BitRebels.com…

DO you think you could improve the way New York City operates? If you develop a web or mobile app that improves the transparency, accessibility, or accountability of the city you could score yourself $20,000!

The $20k in prizes will be awarded to individuals with the best app in various categories. Grand prize gets a check for $5000 bucks and dinner with Mayor Bloomberg himself.

So developers, rush on over to NYC BIG APPS and get going! Don’t forget if you win, tell Mr. Bloomberg how much you like BitRebels.com…

The most incredibles Museums around the world – Part 1

BlogPoster — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:53:21 +0000

One of the things that I like the most when visiting a new city is to check out the museums, not exactly because of the expositions or arts that they hold inside but to appreciate the architecture of the buildings, that for me is a truly masterpiece. Usually these constructions are the must see spots of their towns. Emblematic because of their forms these buildings bring with them the very own and unique characteristics of their architects.

In this post I will pay homage to these fantastic buildings and start a series of posts about Museums, the most famous and created by the most important architects in the history. We’re sure that you will love them.

“A museum is a building or institution which houses a collection of artifacts. Museums collect and care for objects of scientific, artistic, or historical importance and make them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities throughout the world and more local ones exist in smaller cities, towns and even the countryside. (via Wikipedia)”

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

1959, by Frank Lloyd Wright – guggenheim.org

“Somebody said the museum out here on Fifth Avenue looked like a washing machine,” Wright said. “Well, I’ve heard a lot of that type of reaction, and I’ve always discounted it as worthless, and I think it is.”

The Jewish Museum in Berlin, Germany

2001, by Daniel Libeskind – juedisches-museum-berlin.de

The two-story, three-winged house is built around a square courtyard to which a glass roof designed by Daniel Libeskind was added in 2007. The façade of the Old Building has a central projection; the triangular gable over the portal is decorated with the Prussian national coat of arms flanked by the allegorical figures for wisdom and justice – a lasting trace of the function the building originally served. Visitors to the Jewish Museum Berlin pass through this main portal.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA)

1995, by Mario Botta – sfmoma.org

The situation of the museum building on a plot surrounded by a three high-rise blocks encouraged the adoption of a particularly powerful image, while at the same time avoiding and direct-and inevitably disadvantageous – comparison with its surroundings.

Centre Pompidou, Paris

1971-1977: Centre Pompidou by Richard Rogers & Renzo Piano – centrepompidou.fr

The supporting structure and movement and flow systems, such as the escalators, were relegated to the outside of the building, thereby freeing up interior space for museum and activity areas. Colour-coded ducts are attached to the building’s west façade, as a kind of wrapping for the structure: blue for air, green for fluids, yellow for electricity cables and red for movement and flow.

Museu de Arte Contemporânea (MAC), Niterói – Rio de Janeiro

1996, by Oscar Niemeyer – macniteroi.com.br

“How to explain this project! I remember when I went to see the site. The sea, the mountains of Rio, a beautiful landscape that I should preserve. And I went with the building, taking the shape of which, in my view, the space required . The study was done, and a ramp leading visitors to the museum completed my project. (via Google Translate)”

The Louvre, Paris

1546-1878, by Pierre Lescot | 1989, by Ieoh Ming Pei – louvre.fr

The Louvre, in its successive architectural metamorphoses, has dominated central Paris since the late 12th century. Built on the city’s western edge, the original structure was gradually engulfed as the city grew. The dark fortress of the early days was transformed into the modernized dwelling of François I and, later, the sumptuous palace of the Sun King, Louis XIV.

Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, UK

1977,by Sir Norman Foster – scva.org.uk

The Sainsbury Centre brought a new level of refinement to the practice’s early explorations into lightweight, flexible structures. Much more than a traditional gallery, it integrates spaces for viewing art, and facilities for recreation, teaching and research, within a single, light-filled space that opens up to views of the surrounding landscape.

East Wing, National Gallery in Washington DC

1978, by Ieoh Ming Pei – nga.gov

The skylit atrium at the heart of the East Wing is a hub of circulation and orientation. Organized around it are three flexible towers designed to permit the exhibition of one large or multiple small shows with the viewing intimacy of a small house museum. The new and old buildings are functionally united into an integrated whole by an underground tunnel animated by prismatic skylights, a chadar waterwall, and by a wide range of dining and other services.

The Tate Modern, London Bankside, UK

1998-2000: By Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron – tate.org.uk/modern/

Tate Modern has transformed a previously underdeveloped area of London and has helped give the city a new image as a leading centre of contemporary culture. It has become a key landmark for London, while its programme and architecture have won international acclaim.

Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain

1997: By Frank Gehry – guggenheim-bilbao.es

Volumes and perspectives, sinuous titanium curves, dazzling light and colour … An combination of elements that create a unique exhibition space for each gallery. Art and architecture join hands in a truly unique museum experience.

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