Break out the champagne and party hats, today was a DOUBLE LAUNCH day. We have just launched two new projects, TheForks.com and DestinationWinnipeg.ca/fun.
The first one, TheForks.com was done with our good friends over at guppy design. Craig and Nicole worked tirelessly to provide design elements and organization to the project.
The second one, DestinationWinnipeg.ca/fun is a complete realignment and new design for the Travel Manitoba / Destination Winnipeg summer tour packages.
Oddly enough, launching two sites in one day doesn't seem as gratifying as it should... oh wait... maybe the other three that all have to go live by the end of the week are on our minds.
Ah well, it still feels darn good to get those two up and live. Look for a detailed write up on these sites in the projects section (when we get a spare minute or two).
Ok, after harrassment from everybody here about not keeping the "BLOG" current here is my post.
I'm too frickin busy to worry about this right now so quit harrassing me!
(The guys here are just jealous that my blog gets more hits than the rest of the site....hey I even made the Jet Set Satelite message board).....speaking of which read the above post!
New Superman Returns trailer available in Quicktime. Not much else to say but... holy spit, this film looks freaking awesome! Kevin Spacey looks like he kicks ass in this film! I can’t wait!
After several years of research, Japanese geneticists have discovered the reason for the increase in human DNA mutations over the last few decades. The full article is over here at cNet, but in a nutshell, human DNA is mutating due to environmental factors. As a parent, and an expecting father, I'm hoping my upcoming kid can fly, and maybe control objects via thoughts, and perhaps regenerate fast enough to be virtually immune to physical ailments. Oh, and hopefully like me too.
I've been asked a few times in the last little while about where I find my new music. My answer is always a little muddy, as I have several sources that I follow in hopes of finding a new gem to put into rotation on the iPod. So, for your listening pleasure, here is a small list of the places I go when looking for new music:
Radioparadise.com - without a doubt, a fantastic listening experience. Bill is one of the last great DJs in my opinion. He is able to link together sets of songs that just seem made for listening to back to back. If you have never listened, check it out. You won't be disappointed.
Paste Magazine - I used to get Tracks magazine, but they merged with Paste. Boy am I glad they did. Not only does Paste cover music, but they also seem to dig pop culture in the same way I do. Each issue comes with a CD full of the best tracks from their album reviews. Every Paste CD has been churned through my iPod for a week or two after arriving and without fail, from each CD I have ended up buying at least one new full CD.
CBC Radio 3 Podcast - One of the best Podcasts you can get - and free! With over 1,000,000 subscribers at the start of 2006, Grant does a great job of bringing new Canadian music to the world. There was a little time there that CBC axed radio 3, and what a dark few months that was. Happily, everything is back and things are right in the music world.
Pitch Fork Media - My brother turned my on to Pitch Fork awhile back. Great reviews of music you may or may not have heard of, along with news and other interesting pop culture happenings. Start with their Best of List and go from there.
MetaCritic - If you only bookmark one site from this small list, this is likely the one. They pull reviews from around the planet together and use those scores to create a complete score for the albums they review. Of course, they link back to all the reviews they rank and you can spend days sifting through the reviews on just one album. They also have a complete listing for DVDs, Games, Books and more ... best of all, they have a really comprehensive up coming releases calendar in the music section.
There you have it. A small list of online music resources I spend way too much time at. So where to do you track down your new music? am always looking for new veins of music to tap so leave a comment and let me know.
I found this one at Treehugger. Everyone has at one time or another seen footage of derelict airplanes stored in the western deserts of the United States. The planes are scavenged for their more valuable electronic parts but leaving the airplane fuselages to clutter the desert.
Well it appears that some green minded architects in New York have thought of an interesting new function for these abandoned tubes of aluminum and steel. They want to use them as the primary structural component of a new library in Guadalajara Mexico.
I've been using a 17" Powerbook for almost 4 years now. I can honestly say it has, without a doubt, replaced any need I have for a desktop machine over the last 3 years. I am able to take all my work with me to client meetings. I have my laptop rigged up as complete development server for testing - see Dave Shea's excellent article on virtual domains within apache on a Mac. We can demo any of our applications in a controlled environment for clients and prospective partners. So now, whenever I am on the road, short of an internet connection, I'm actually still in the office.
Granted we still have an office full of desktop PCs for various applications, testing platforms and at home we have a PC for web/email/work for my wife, but given the line of work we are in, a laptop makes just makes more sense.
When I first got it, people would stare in awe as a would open it up a meetings to take notes on. They would ask me what I was doing, and I would say, taking notes. Everyone would then look at their boring old pen and paper and back to my laptop with envy.
This is now the first time I am actually thinking of upgrading my trusty 17" G4 Powerbook for real. Behold the new 17" MacBookPro. Commence drooling.
As you may have noticed, we have a keen interest in music around here. It likely goes with the territory of living online, programming and design. There are long stretches of very productive work time during the week were the right music can make your productivity increase significantly.
Along with music, we also appreciate good art. Art that speaks to you is one thing, but when done the way the guys over at Heads of State do it, it becomes a thing of beauty worth framing and putting on your office wall. Check out their site. Well worth the visit.
Manitoba Audio Recording Industry Association (MARIA), working with Visual Lizard and Guppy, relaunched their web site, www.manitobamusic.com, on Friday, April 21st, 2006. Originally launched in 2002, the site garnered thousands of unique visitors a month, millions of hits a year, and has been a shining example to music industry associations nationwide.
The redesigned site includes an online poll, a steaming radio, forums, and downloadable video and audio clips of local Manitoba artists. It also sports a web forum, a live music calendar of current and upcoming music events, and a searchable directory of Manitoba talent. Finally, MARIA members can log into the website, and administrate their own profiles online!
On the same date, MARIA, Visual Lizard, and Guppy launched www.aboriginalmusic.ca, a brand new website focusing on Manitoba’s growing Aboriginal music scene!
I am proud, as are all of us at Visual Lizard, to have helped bring the music industry together! To find out more about the launch of both site’s read the official MARIA announcement.
I have noticed recently that if I have had the Firefox browser open for a long period of time (as happens quite often while working) my computer’s efficiency starts to really suffer as Firefox draws more and more of my system resources to maintain itself. It takes a long time for programs to open or close, or for open program’s windows to appear or minimize. This is rather annoying and a big waste of time while working. I’ve had enough!
So to fix the problem, I went looking on the net for a solution. I found one (I hope) which I will be testing over the next little while. This solution is relatively simple and can be found at www.freerepublic.com among other places. It is as simple as accessing the Firefox configuration and setting a limit on memory capacity for Firefox.
The place I initially found this was a blog entry at LifeHacker.
We’ve put up a couple of posts about Hybrid cars coming to the public conscience and the fact that for those who can afford it, it would be a pretty impressive step toward putting a dent in our environmental footprint. Well now there may be a way for those of us who can’t afford a car might be able to do the same. Vespa it seems is putting out 2 new lines of Hybrid Scooters. The first having the standard Vespa look in a 50cc gas-electric hybrid called the Vespa LX 50. The second has a more impressive modern look with a 125cc gas-electric hybrid called the Piaggio X8 125.
Have a look at Retro Thing to see all the details.
I found this one at 