Just relaxing… More posts coming soon. (I promise)

So, I’ve been fairly inactive here. Sure I’ve had time to tweet a bit, but by and large, I’ve been head down on a couple major projects. One, we just launched (I’ll provide much more info on that project coming soon. The other project is just starting to get fully underway, with wireframes and most of the definition docs created. Now, time for prototyping. We’re pulling out all the stops for that one… using robotics, arcade controllers, integrating augmented reality and leveraging some kick butt APIs like Google Earth! That doesn’t launch until March of next year, at a major Chicago area museum.

Beyond that, I am scheduled to participate in an upcoming exhibit featuring work by the poet laureate of Illinois, Kevin Stein. That should be a great time and allow for some real creativity!

I hope you are all enjoying a brief respite in your work right now for the dog days of summer and relaxing with a nice beer or iced coffee. I know I am. I just brewed an Imperial IPA, currently carbonating in the dark of my cool basement… first tasting, this week! Don’t know Imperial IPA as a style of beer… take a look at these beauties. My garden is coming in nicely, too, despite the Japanese beetles best attempts to eat it all!

How are you staying busy? What are you doing to blow off some steam this summer?

links for 2009-08-04

• 50 Free Social Media Icon Sets for Your Blog | Directory for Designers
  Social Media Icons for ust about any style site.
  (tags: social icons)

Fostering Innovation with Brad Bird

Brad Bird speaks on Fostering Innovation and stimulating creativity.

I said, “Give us the black sheep. I want artists who are frustrated. I want the ones who have another way of doing things that nobody’s listening to. Give us all the guys who are probably headed out the door.”

What are you still doing here? Go read it now!

I created a couple URL Shorteners, check ‘em out…

This past weekend, I spent a little time getting my own URL shortening services up and running. I launched http://fnla.me and http://fnaweso.me on Saturday, August 15th, 2009. Crazy, huh? With so many services out there already, why would anyone waste their time on such a project? Does the world really need more shorteners? What do these two shorteners provide that wasn’t already available in the myriad other services out there like TinyURL, Bit.Ly and the rest? Good questions.

At last estimate there are something like 90+ publicly known URL shorteners out there. There is most likely a lot more than those in the wild, though. With this many out there, it’s difficult to know which one to use. With the high profile blowout of Tr.im, and the subsequent rebirth as an Open Source toolkit it’s even muddier. How do you know you links will be safe? How can you protect your self against Social Media Link Rot? This will assist me in making sure my shared links are indeed safe!

There are a lot of opinions on URL shorteners out there, ranging from condemnation, to simple quiet acceptance. I was vehemently against them until relatively recently, as I saw them as yet another creaky layer of redirection and pointers in the web ready to break down at any moment due to another server going down or a service running out of $.

For now, the services are pretty spartan, they simply take a URL and shorten it using a base 36 algorithm. Custom URLs are also possible. I do indeed have a number of features planned like stats, import/export and others, but it all takes time. I do hope that the service will prove to be useful to others, but making money on it or getting millions of shortened URLs isn’t my main goal. I’m building this because it seemed like a fun project to take on over a weekend.

One thing I really like about the domains I have chosen for my shorteners is that the URLs allow for some personality to come through. Is the link lame content? Politically devisive? Something you can’t believe? Than you can use http://fnla.me. On the other hand, if the content is something you can get behind and highly recommend, use http://fnaweso.me

Both sites are powered by the open source URLShortProject currently.

So what do you think? Do you have a URL shortener you have created? Care to share it?

Latest News from Annabelle’s Bistro

It has been a long while since I have posted about Annabelle’s Bistro. I do apoligise for that. I can tell you that it is now complete and I am very excited for that! All I need at this point is to work out licensing for the music and then decide on how and where to show it. It has been a very fun project for me and I am very glad I had the oppertunity to do it and to bring so many talented students into the project as well.

In addition to the film, I have three final podcasts to edit and post, along with a bunch of great activities put together by Jenna Gadgen. (Coloring Book, Word Puzzles, Paper Puppets, etc.) All of this should be going up on the official site very soon.

More on Annabelle’s Bistro shortly! I promise!

links for 2009-08-24

• Typedia: A Shared Encyclopedia of Typefaces
  Like wikipedia, but for typography. A great resource, sure to get even better over time.
  (tags: typography fonts reference font)

links for 2009-08-26

• FlashCanon » Flex
  If you want your Flash to talk to Flex and your Flex to talk to Flash, this lays it out for you.
  (tags: flash flex)