haroblr

Will This Save Publishing? Time Inc. Tablet Mockup

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 14:51:16 -0600

Clearly produced in flash with what looks nearly like a cardboard cutout of a hand, this mockup of a tablet and interaction version of of Sports Illustrated is “Coming in 2010”.
My normal distrust of “design prototypes” is tempered by the many rumors of Apple’s tablet, it’s release next year, and the fact that nothing you see in this mockup is beyond the technical capability of an iPod Touch with a 10” screen. Add to that that Time Inc. boldly claims it is coming next year.
I’m particularly interested in the form factor. I read a surprising amount of junk on my iPhone and it does that quite well, but a full color reader at this size would satisfy all but one of ‘e-reading’ needs (tech books, full color, etc). That last thing is to let me keep my reader powered ON during takeoff and landing.

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Need a B-roll For My Blahg Infomercial

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:09:54 -0600

via boingboing.net

I called 1-800-BBB-ROLL as asked for a B-roll of a man weeping at his keyboard for an Infomercial I want to create to generate traffic to my Blahg. I hope they can come through.

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The Case of the Disappearing Meeting (Exchange and the iPhone)

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:11:57 -0600

This may come as a surprise to none of you, but I’m a Mac and an iPhone user. Unfortunately I have to use Entourage on Mac for scheduling meetings, inviting people, and rejecting meetings that i can’t attend. Thanks to iPhones exchange support, the iPhone has become a very workable ‘bidnez’ phone. There has been one mystery that has nagged me, that is: The Case of the Disappearing Meeting.
Every so often I would miss or be very late for a meeting (conveniently set by my boss or some peer I want to impress with my punctuality) and I would say “UGH, its not in my calendar!”. And then i would promptly blame Microsoft Entourage. Entourage has become the digital “dog ate my homework” when I don’t show up to meetings.
So just now with the help of a friend I tested a suspicion and. Here is what has been happening. If someone invites you to a recurring meeting (like a status meeting with the CTO) and you cant make a particular occurrence, when you delete it or reject it Entourage will kindly ask you “Do you want to delete ALL occurrences or just this one”.
But say you are on the iPhone and you can’t make that 11:00 am meeting with your boss because you are drunk. You see the meeting request and you reject it. Your intention is to just reject this one meeting. When you do that, the iPhone (without letting you know) rejects ALL occurrences and POOF they disappear from the Exchange server, Entourage, and your phone.
Now that I’ve tested and confirmed this, until (and if) the iPhone’s interaction changes. I’ll just ignore the meeting i can’t attend and send a friendly email and/or set it to tentative.
So, all of you people out there that are mad at me for not showing up: It’s not because I’m forgetful, it’s because I’m drunk.
Case Closed.

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It's like twitter. Except we charge people to use it. -27bslash6.com

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 01:18:47 -0600

via 27bslash6.com

clicke the via link- brilliant

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D20-studded soap - Boing Boing

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:25:20 -0600

via boingboing.net

Your THACO is WACO!

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WTF Google, Windows Media and Real?

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:50:14 -0600

In 1996 I swore I’d never install a Real product again and Windows Media?? Doesn’t someone over there have a friend at YouTube? I want to watch the announcement!

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Working On the Interwebs

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:47:04 -0600

Great photo of me working on a series of tubes. Photo by Tim http://www.intempusphotography.com/. Thanks Tim

John Haro

johnharo@gmail.com

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Picard and Twilight Sleep

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:46:03 -0600

Don’t know if it was something i ate or the bourbon I drank, but i woke up at about 3am with stomach pains and a strong desire to throw up. I drank a bunch of water and watched an entire episode of Star Trek the next generation where Picard falls rapidly in love with a science officer, plays beautiful musical duets with her, and then is forced to break up with her to keep his objectivity intact. The entire theme seemed to be “Don’t dip your pen in the starship’s ink”.

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FLAX Commercials :: Motion Graphics Served

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:42:43 -0600

via motionserved.com

From: Thorbjørn Ruud, Thomas Bråten, Petter Bryde

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"Objectified" - Jonathan Ive talks about Mac design & Unibody MacBook manufacture

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:22:26 -0600

via youtube.com

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iPhone Tilt Shift Photography

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:15:24 -0500

Finally got around to purchasing the quite awesome TiltShift Generator for the iPhone, one of a few great photography apps around these days. Here is a great blog post from photographer Phil Coffman that discusses many of those at length.

*thanks Reid for the links

Below is the very first shot I’ve taken, from my roof deck. Maybe a bit heavy on the saturation adjustment

Here are some shots of the Application itself

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Apple to Refurbish Subway Station Adjacent to Future Chicago Store

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 23:21:25 -0500

Apple will reportedly spend up to $1,789,000 on its own refurbishment of the exterior of the station building, while it will pay the CTA up to $2,108,000 to perform upgrades on the station’s interior. The timeline calls for the work to be completed by September 30, 2010, suggesting an approximate opening date for the store, for which structural steel has already been erected.

via macrumors.com

Just drove by the spot tonight. Looks like Apple is building something big and its cool that they are helping out the beleaguered and perpetually broke CTA.

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iPhoto Faces Works 99% of the Time

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:58:11 -0500

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What Is Your IDE Coding Font of Choice?

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 09:40:47 -0500

These days I’ve been spending a chunk of my spare time in XCODE, which offerers a lot more configuration options than most IDE’s I’ve used before. I’ve been able to make it look just like my favorite TextMate theme, more or less. When I used to spend most waking hours a day actually coding, I never had the opportunity to use an IDE with a black background (except VI and a terminal), and now I find that I need the contrast so I can stare blankly at the screen trying to remember a fraction of what I’ve forgotten without going snow blind.

I’m curious, what is your current font of choice? I’ll thoughtfully consider the value of all comments except for anyone that says Times New Roman, which is the devil’s font.

Below

Here are the details… everything is Monaco 11 but i use Courier New for comments to make them stand out a bit more…

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Petulance and the Prize - Garrison Keillor

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:19:14 -0500

Conservatism is a powerful strain in American life that ordinarily passes as common sense. Save for a rainy day. Don’t foul the nest. Don’t burn your bridges. Don’t sacrifice the future for short-term profit. But when it contradicts itself and becomes weighted down with bigotry and cynicism, then it doesn’t hold water any more.

via nytimes.com

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photo: City and Fog

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 01:01:15 -0500

via flickr.com

I took this shot years ago from an office building off of Michigan Av. Crazy fog had rolled in and just in the distance there you see the wrigley building, which they light up with powerful spotlights from across the river. With the fog it seemed like the whole sky was lit up.

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Google Wave Is Crap

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 20:01:44 -0500

Shortly after getting my invite to Google’s new fangled “replacement” for email, i found the trick where you can search all public waves. After clicking a few i realized they were all infested with scripts (‘bots”) and other interweb-nasties. I was so unimpressed that I didn’t race back to check on my wave account but on the handful of occasions that I did, i found any public wave that i clicked on was still there, filling up with more crap.
There is NO delete button in Wave, but there is a Spam and an Archive button. Sadly you have to click on the wave to be able to click any of these buttons, and as soon as you click your browser will likely go nuts, doing who knows what (have not tried to track all javascript/cookies etc)

So I’ve archived and marked as spam several of these trash waves and when i come back the next day, they are back.

Look, google does some extremely cool stuff and they have already changed the world (with Search). I love that they support and encourage open source software and they still have that ‘cool factor’ as a place for geeks to go and work, just like the way i wanted to work at Microsoft in the early 90’s. I’m picking on Wave because this is the first time Google put anything in the wild that I didn’t think was impressive or at least useful.
So I’m saying that I’m done with Wave for now, but I’m also not saying that i don’t think it can’t be fixed or become useful for collaboration or as a sort of groupware system. Maybe. What I do feel pretty confident about, is that Wave as a re-invention of email is a failure.

Oh, also, its complicated, as this awesome website illustrates http://easiertounderstandthanwave.com/

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Hiphoprisy and Ironicleness pt. 2

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:40:41 -0500

via zanypickle.com

thanks Ken for the post

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Programming an Exercise in Being Wrong

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 23:45:23 -0500

Programming is an exercise in overcoming how wrong you’ve been in the past. At first you’ll overcome the syntax errors, then you’ll overcome the structural errors, and then you’ll come to align your code with the standards of a greater community and you’ll feel safe and like you’ve made it. You haven’t – you’re still wrong because you’re always wrong. You are playing a game you cannot win. And let’s face it – if it was a game you could win you’d not be playing at all.

via kickingbear.com

Like this quote - and he is right.

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How to Talk To Weirdos on Google Wave

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 01:32:36 -0500

For those of you lucky few (like me) who received an invite to Google’s Wave but are unlucky (like me) and have no friends on Wave, i just found this little feature that lets you open up and chat/wave with the world in real time. Its a great way to search for crazy conversations and energetically insert yourself into them.

All you need to do is add with:public In the search area like so:

So, any minimalist barefoot runners out there?

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