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Creativity is just connecting things.
— Steve Jobs

Tag Archives: fun

I <3 Glitch Paintings

·October 26, 2010 ·My Life & Thoughts

One of the fun nerd things about live QuickTime streams has to be the pixellated renderings of frames when the video is buffering. This recent post from Kottke about glitch paintings reminded me of the post I wrote a while back about the Sal Saghoian images I captured during one of his AppleScript webcasts:

I love how this one had the words “control freak” ghost in over his face:

Andy Denzler’s glitch paintings are really really cool:

I’d totally have one in my house. Maybe I’ll take one of my screenshots during a webcast and blow it up to a big frameable size!

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Been a Long Time, Been a Long Time

·February 26, 2009 ·My Life & Thoughts

I don’t normally post about my career but kinda feel compelled to. I was laid off last week and it’s weird. I’m shocked because I really thought Digital was a strategic advantage and direction for my company, especially in the Detroit market, where clients just refuse to pay for anything that could be misconstrued as an elaborate production. Digital is theoretically cheaper but that’s only true for so long. Once you get deeper into creative and integration with other platforms, costs typically go up.

Regardless, I’ve been away from the blog for a while now because I’m searching for a new job. My net is cast over the whole U.S. right now and while I prefer Silicon Valley, Chicago and the East Coast, I’m entertaining all offers that could lead to a bright and stable future.

I just spent hours rewriting my resume into the early morning and really think it paints a clear picture of who I am, what I’m interested in producing, and how I think. I hope an employer sees it the same way. ;-)

In the meantime, I’ve put my house up for sale . It’s really bizarre to see it listed but I have to. The Detroit market is devastated and frankly, everyone here thinks they’re next to be laid off.

For now, I’m spending time with my family by taking Elise to ballet classes, rocking Miles to sleep and rubbing Melissa’s feet/letting her sleep in/keeping the house neat to help relieve her stress. I so hated to give her the news of my layoff after the year she’s had in the hospital with a high-risk pregnancy and premature delivery.

When Melissa and I decided to move back to Michigan in 2000, we knew it was a risk. There just aren’t as many places to work here as other markets. We’ve had fun in Michigan, met tons of great neighbors, and worked with some fabulous people along the way. But by far, the best thing has been having our kids with our families around to share in that experience.

I will post any updates to the search here. I wish everyone in Michigan and all connected to the auto industry all the best. It’s unnecessarily brutal out there due to circumstances that were really beyond any of our control.

Time to get back to making Miles smile.

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Busted Wide Open

·March 18, 2008 ·All Things Apple

I couldn’t resist. With all the talk about the SDK and how the 2.0 iPhone firmware had been hacked, I’m back in the fold of the hackers by jailbreaking my iPhone. Everything works perfectly and I’m back with my fun 3rd party apps like Sketches, Voice Notes, Screenshots, etc. YAY!

I used iPlus 2.0, their suggested 1.1.4 firmware, and Fugu to SFTP into the phone afterward.

Follow the directions very carefully and you’ll be ready in no time. I’m also doing this all on my Intel iMac and synced the phone prior to doing this. Beware. You could easily screw up your phone if you don’t follow the directions carefully.

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The Back of Steve’s Mind

·October 22, 2007 ·All Things Apple

From a NYTimes article:

The Apple development team worried constantly that the approach might fail during the years they were creating the iPhone, he said.

“We all had that Garry Trudeau cartoon that poked fun at the Newton in the back of our minds,” he said, citing Doonesbury comic strips that mocked an Apple handwriting-recognition system in 1993. “This thing had to work.”

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I Bought an iPhone

·July 3, 2007 ·All Things Apple

I know, it’s nutty. I’ve never had a personal cell phone before this. There’s no point in me writing up a review since there are literally hundreds if you search Google News or do virtually any blog.

I went to the Twelve Oaks Apple store in Novi, walked to the back display unit, futzed around with it for about 2 minutes then walked over to the register and bought it. No waiting in line. No camping. All the hype around this device made me think I’d have a poor store experience but it was great.

What I will say about the device is this. I think it’s Insanely Great™ and wouldn’t trade it for anything. I’m anxiously awaiting news of someone finding a way to install 3rd party apps on it. Even a way to just move data back and forth without having to use iTunes.

The Google Maps feature is something I desperately need because I ALWAYS get lost when traveling. I have no sense of direction and am tired of being late or lost whenever I leave the house. The new UI gestures like pinching and flinging really make sense with this app.

I do wish the built-in Mail app was a little more sophisticated by having a built-in spam filter, ability to mass delete messages, and faster navigation between accounts. I don’t like having to climb all the way back to the main menu to jump to another account that has new messages. I think the bottom nav bar could be an easy place to provide these functions since now they’re kinda bare and static except for the “checking for messages” text.

The iPod is really really fun to use as are many of the other things that involve flinging or flipping or throwing. The extra steps it takes to accomplish tasks seems offset due to the fun factor of the UI.

I would also like to see AOL’s IM built in as well as a Keynote Player and a way to connect the device to a projector via the dock/usb cable. Maybe an adapter is in the works. If Leopard had been introduced on time, I bet the Keynote app would have been included as part of the refreshed iWork suite. If Apple can find a way for users to upload or sync Keynote presentations to the iPhone and allow it to power a projector, I’d be really blown away.

Finally, I would love to see Apple publish at least, a developer guide for creating Safari webapps and post it somewhere around here.

Next on the agenda is a case for the iPhone. I will DIE if it gets wrecked. This one looks to be quite durable and even makes the iPhone resemble a Newton.

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