Category: Geek Love

In Houston? Get Refreshed!

Post author By Christine
Post date Friday, March 16, 2007
5 Comments on In Houston? Get Refreshed!

Refresh Houston is meeting on Monday night; a special meeting with H-Town’s very own Photomatt! (We still get to claim him even though he lives in California now, right?) What is Refresh Houston?

Refresh Houston is a community of designers and developers working to refresh the creative, technical and professional culture of new media and Web endeavors in the Houston area.

Check out the site for more details. For me, it is a chance to get back in touch with my geek side as I mentioned in my previous post. Also a chance to hang out with Happy Katie and Erica in Houston, after meeting them at SXSW earlier this week.

The event is at the Oak Room at Stag’s Head Pub; you can view all the details at Upcoming.org and RSVP if you will be coming!

Crafty Geeks!

I don’t normally cross-post between this site and Pointy Sticks, but I had to share my crafty goodness from SXSW. This is normally a geek festival, and I went in part for reasons related to the podcast and in part related to Fresh Photography. It ended up being so very, very much more. Not only were there geek things going on, but there were CRAFTY things to be had too! Crafty things which will be discussed in detail in the next podcast. Just a brief list, as much for me to remember:

– My biggest fangirl moment of SXSW was probably meeting Hugh of GapingVoid.com. If you have received a business card from me in the past year with a cartoon on the back, it is a design that Hugh shared on his site. For free. Gives them away. The Creative Commons is a BEAUTIFUL thing, people. Beautiful. So when I realized that it was his name on his nametag (that is a bit redundant, but I can’t think of a better way to explain it), I went all fangirl on him with giddy squealing. I had the very last of my cards with his design on the back in my wallet, and gave it to him. Meanwhile, he gave me a Stormhoek t-shirt and artwork that he signed for me. We don’t have Stormhoek here in Texas, but we plan to order some soon and try it out.

– Got computer files you need to move around when you are on the go? Want a super cute designer flash drive? Check out the Mimobots! Goodness, these are just the CUTEST piece of hardware EVER. Seriously. They made me giddy every time I saw them, and the owners of the company? Fabulous. Great people to share your fried pickles with late on a Tuesday night at Katz’s on 6th Street in Austin. The One Love sticker will be on my laptop by tonight, and I really want to get one to tote my files around. (You can pre-order the Star Wars series of Mimobots, which I have seen in person. Good things!)

– On Saturday, I got to meet (well, re-meet, since we met briefly in 2005) Cinnamon of Poise. Her bags, in one word? AMAZING. Beautiful, well constructed, fabulous. I must get one of her knitting bags. (I have my eye on the blue and brown one. Surprising, huh?) They are all so lovely, check them out! She sells much more than knitting bags, and bags for both men and women. So don’t let the fact that I mentioned knitting throw you off.

– I met up with a member of the team at Scrapblog and finally learned what it is all about. Let me tell you, it is COOL. I take a lot of photos, and I’ve always wanted to scrapbook with them. I just have never gotten around to it. Scrapblog might finally give me a way to scrapbook my photographs, with the ease of Flickr included. You can take your photos, make a layout, and then print them as a book. How cool is that? There are other cool things you can do – check out their site.

– Speaking of making books, after seeing Lulu and Blurb book samples in person, I now know for a fact that the publishing industry is about to be turned on its head. You can make your very own HIGH QUALITY books and much more. You can do it, without waiting for a publisher. This just makes my head swirl with the possibilities.

– More good stuff? Make and Craft magazine. I met them at their booth in the trade show, and learned about the upcoming Makers Faire that will be next fall in Austin, Texas. October 20 & 21, 2007 at the Travis County Fairgrounds. For those of you on the West Coast, there is one in the Bay Area on May 19 & 20, 2007.

Maker Faire is a newfangled fair that brings together science, art, craft and engineering in a fun, energized, and exciting public forum. The aim is to inspire people of all ages to roll up their sleeves and become makers. This family-friendly event showcases the amazing work of all kinds of makers–anyone who is embracing DIY and wants to share their accomplishments with an appreciative audience.

There will be a new podcast online in the next few days. My voice needs a chance to recover from 6 days of nearly non-stop talking. I learned so much and I have so much that I can not WAIT to share with you! (I was so focused on the panels and taking notes, I got absolutely no knitting done. Can you believe it? Sad, but true. More knitting this weekend.)

Geek Love

Geekfest Time!

In getting ready for the geekfest that is SXSW, I thought I would point out some fun sites that you might or might not know about that are handy, plus fun. And not at all geeky – they are much more for social networking.

– Upcoming.org – allows you to set up an event for people to attend. Add events you are interested in to your calendar.

– Twitter – a fun way to send a text message that goes out to your friends to update them on where you are or what you are thinking. Really, whatever you can fit in the text limit, actually. It has been fun watching what my friends are doing, seeing who is already in Austin, who is on their way to Austin, etc. It should be a handy way to answer the question, “where is everyone going tonight?” You know, if everyone uses it.

– Mozes.com – I think I first heard about this one through Houstonist (who featured another one of my photos the other day! Whee!) It is another way to send out information to a group of people.

– Grand Central – get a phone number anywhere in the US. Use it to then forward calls to any or all of your phones. For example, I got a number that I feel comfortable posting on the Fresh Photography site. Grand Central will basically “screen” calls for me if I want, which is quite handy. You can even listen in as someone leaves you a voicemail message and pick up the call if you want! Just like the old days with an answering machine! We have Vonage so we can call anyone in the US for free from our home phone, but this would be a handy way for Mike to have a Kentucky number for his family to use to call us for example. Hmm, I wonder if Kentucy is available?

– Conferenceer – a handy way to see what panels are offered and decide what you want to go and see. I’m not sure if this is just for SXSW (SXSW07 Panels) or if you can use it for other conferences too.

– 30 Boxes – a nice, free online calendar that plays well with others. I can see Mike’s calendar, and I can easily add events from Upcoming.org to my calendar. Sweet!

I think that is all of them, but if I think of more I will add them here. Check them out and see what they can add to your life!

Geek Love

It Works!

I’ve been working on this on my hard drive, so I was totally psyched to see that it works ON THE SERVER!

It is nowhere near its finished form, and by the time you look at it it might be rather different than it is right now (since every album has the exact same images in it, just so I could get the Flash file published), but you can still check it out!

I’m so psyched. Seriously, beyond excited. There has even been quiet yelling in my house to celebrate! Man. I made something in Flash. Wheeee! (That was a lot more fun than dealing with CSS, for the record. For anyone keeping score.)

Update! Now with flash goodness right on the home page! (It still needs some tweaking, and I need to continue adding images to it, but it WORKS!)

BlahBlahBabble Geek Love

While You Were Sleeping…

I drank my first caffienated cola last night in almost two weeks.

I always used to say that caffiene had NO effect on me, and that I could drink a cola and then go to bed. No effect at all.

I learned last night that if I drink cola at 10pm at night, I will still be WIDE AWAKE at 3am. Wide awake.

This is not a good thing.

However, it does mean that the Fresh Photography website is now LIVE. I even edited CSS code, which is a major feat for me. Try not to faint from the shock. Online ordering isn’t all the way there yet. It will happen, soon.

I am not drinking more cola to make it happen though. I am back to the Diet Sprite and I promise to avoid the sweet brown nectar and get some sleep instead.

(Please let me know what you think of the layout – if the colors are wonky on your monitor, if anything is breaking, etc. I really appreciate your help.)

UPDATE: Thanks to nubiancrafter’s suggestion, I put photos along the top of the site. I managed CSS *and* PHP this time! *gasp.* One problem. There is a mystery dot up there. I have no CLUE what is causing it or how to get rid of it. Anyone have any suggestions? I suspect it is an issue with a ul or li somewhere, but I can’t seem to make it go away.

Another update: Geeky gave me the code in the comments, but it needed a slight tweaking. An e-mail to Jenn, who will forever be the ScriptyGoddess, and she sent me code for the CSS to tweak the header, and now? NO DOT! SWEET!