Broom's Blogs

Designing your Portfolio

noreply@blogger.com (Broom) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 23:54:00 +0000

testing my trackbacks ;)

Designing your Portfolio

New Blog and Portfolio Site

noreply@blogger.com (Broom) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 06:30:00 +0000

After about 3 weeks of work, i've finished my new blog. I designed, and built the wordpress theme from scratch (which is kind of impressive for me!). its not perfect, but its done enough to show.

enjoy!

jonbroom.com

Fixed!

noreply@blogger.com (Broom) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:43:00 +0000

fixed my image problem and my theme looks like it should again....

at some point within the next month or so i hope to have a new blog site designed and built on my own url jonbroom.com. if you would like to temporarily subscribe to this blog i'll post up when the new one is ready.

thanks!

Racing

noreply@blogger.com (Broom) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 22:32:00 +0000

I started a new blog for our 2009 racing effort, so if you're interested it that stuff then be sure to check it out.
Las Escobas

our new bike is hot

Coffee

noreply@blogger.com (Broom) — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 21:39:00 +0000

I dedicate this post to Anthony

Things I'm Grateful For

noreply@blogger.com (Broom) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:55:00 +0000

in no particular order:

Family
my family is great, and the time we spend together is something i look forward to. We have a bond and common interests that most families don't have.

Career
I have a pretty good job. I enjoy what i do, and who i do it with. I think i have a bright future to look forward to and a little more job security than a lot of other american's have at the moment.

Ayden
He's a kick ass little dude and i look forward to us growing up together. I hope that i can provide him with everything he needs to become a successful young man.

Friends
I have some great friends that i know i can count on. sometimes I forget that some people don't have the support system and bond that i have with the people close to my life.

Racing
its a great outlet and an amazing way for me to spend time with my family, be active, meet new friends and have something to strive for and look forward to.

USofA
Its obvious that we all take what we have for granted in the US. just a look through some of the photo sets on the big picture make it quite obvious that we're very lucky to have what we have and live where we live. check out these pictures from the gaza strip, the Congo or Mumbai to see what i mean. I'm also amazed and greatful that someone like Obama has come around and brought new life and a sense of unity to the US and the world as a whole. His face is probably on every newspaper in the world today. that doesn't happen often.

Health
I'm very thankful that as of now, I have my health and so do most of the people closest to me. I know how easy it is to fall ill or have something tragic happen to you or someone you're close to. I can only hope this continues to be the case and that my own body holds up to the abuse i put it through. For my friends that haven't been so lucky, stay tough and let me know how i can help.

theres plenty more to be thankful for in my life, but these are the things that have been sticking out in my mind over the past couple of weeks. my family and i had a pretty good 2008 (especialy compared to the average), and we're looking forward to 2009.

Peru

noreply@blogger.com (Broom) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 17:41:00 +0000

I've been back from peru for a good month now, and i finally got through the 1,800 pictures that i took and finished uploading them all to flickr. The trip was amazing. We saw lots of beautiful country, met some amazing people and got to push ourselves mentally and physically.

we began our trip in Arequipa. This is a beautiful city situated at the base of several snow capped volcanoes in a high altitude desert type of climate. We really enjoyed our time here. We took a two day trip into the Colca Canyon region as well. i wasn't real impressed with this trip, but it was still nice. we did a bus tour. i think i might have enjoyed it more if we had hiked it, but thats ok.

we then took an overnight bus to Cusco and quickly fell in love with this city. you get harrassed a lot more in the streets to buy and eat stuff due to its higher level of tourism, but if you get away from the plaza de armes then its not so bad. while in cusco we went horseback riding, and generally explored the city. this is where we started our real adventure: the Inca Jungle Trek.

The Inca Jungle Trek was amazing. it was much harder than i expected it to be, but thats partially due to me getting a stomach bug the morning the trek began. hiking through the rainforest with low energy levels due to not eating and worrying about crapping your pants will definety put a damper on your good time, but i still loved it. i can't wait to do more trekking and backpacking in the near future. we rode mountain bikes for one day, hiked the 2nd, then took a train to aguas calientes before making our way up to Machu Picchu to explore.

one of the highlights of the trip for me was climbing Wayna Picchu. i'm not sure what it was about it that i enjoyed so much, but i really felt a sense of adventure and accomplishment. it wasn't particularly hard, but the view was amazing.

Overall it was a great trip and penny and i had a good time. I'm really looking forward to more adventures to other countries. I've got my eye on china, and anywhere south of there, as well as alaska, canada, mexico, and other more local adventures.

Personal vs. Professional Personas

noreply@blogger.com (Broom) — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 17:51:00 +0000

Should our online personal and professional personas be separated?

Online Social Media and Networking isn't really all that new anymore, but it's relationship to your professional life is. If you're like me, you've got accounts on sites like myspace, facebook, flickr, delicious, twitter, brightkite, a personal blog and professional blog that are all recording and broadcasting your life to your friends, family and co-workers. I share lots of personal experiences on these sites, as do a lot of other people, that may or may not represent myself as a reliable and professional person. There wouldn't be much of a problem with this except that my professional life has taken over just as much a share in my online identity as my personal life has. The fact that I'm an interactive art director specializing in social media applications plays a big role in my professional identity growing, but i think this is a phenomenon that is spreading to other fields as well.

So, how do you manage this? I don't want my employer, future employer or client to find those drunken picts from last new years, or discovering my odd collection of "dickbirds", but i do enjoy sharing these things with my friends. On the other hand, I think its valuable to show that you have a strong online presence as well as an active and creative lifestyle. These are all important to keeping a creative mind healthy, and the fact that you have a life, online or off, is a very positive attribute. Showing that you have a sense of humor, that you're sincere about who and what you are, and not afraid to express yourself can do wonders for how you're perceived in the workplace. No one likes a fake, and its almost always obvious when you're persona totally changes at work (especially if your facebook page shows otherwise), but where and how do you draw the line?

The only answer is restraint. I know, its not fun. Its muffling the real you, its censorship, its whatever.... but face it, thats the way life is. you can't show every part of yourself to everyone in the world and not expect to be judged by it. A few years ago you could post up anything you wanted to your social applications and only expect your "friends" to see it, but now most of my online buddies are professional contacts. The good thing about my industry is that most of them are in the same boat as I am. We're all trying to figure out the balance while combining their personal and professional online presence into one. Everyone has to evaluate their own career path and their lifestyle and decide how much they can be publicly intertwine in a productive fashion.

Times are changing and i can't wait to see how this evolves social media and the workplace.

Peru

noreply@blogger.com (Broom) — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 17:21:00 +0000

In two weeks i will be exploring and aclimating myself to the 7,000-12,000 feet elevation of Peru. to be exact, i'll be in Arequipa (pictured). I can't wait. I was totally expecting this month to drag by at an unbelievably slow pace, but so far its been going by pretty quickly. I've been really busy at work and preparing for the trip. being busy helps.

we've got our hiking shoes, packs, travel alarm clock, typhoid and hepatitis A shots, spanish dictionary, and a rough itinerary that involves at least two flights within peru and 4 cities including Lima, Arequipa, Puno and Cusco and the surrounding areas. Recent talks have thrown in the idea of a quick trip over to Bolivia for a stay at La Paz.

Some of the key sights and activities on the list include:

watching the sun rise over machu picchu and hiking to the top of the accompanying mountain to enjoy the view.

visiting Colca Canyon which is more than twice as deep as the grand canyon

a boat ride on lake titicaca (heh heh)

rafting

horse back riding

parasailing

train rides through the andes

whatever we feel like

Update

noreply@blogger.com (Broom) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 18:10:00 +0000

A lot has happened in the past few months, and i haven't been blogging at all, so i'll try to give a little recap:

I started dating a girl that i use to work with, Penny. It's only been about 6 or 7 weeks i guess, but it feels like its been much longer... in a good way. All i can say is that she's amazing. Usually there are reservations, or things that make you nervous when you first start dating someone, but I don't have any of that with penny. I think we're both excited to be where we're at, and I look forward to things to come.

I have a new roommate. well, i guess technically i have 2 new roomates. Nadine (my baby's mamma) was having a hard time with roomates and all, which can make things difficult when it comes to paying the rent. So, we talked about it and decided that we'd give it a shot. She moved in 2 weeks ago along with our son, ayden. So far so good. We're more like brother and sister than anything, so that aspect of things isn't a problem. I think the biggest thing we have to worry about is being good roomates and working out the typical issues of parenting. this also opens up the possibility of getting a dog. i love dogs but am at the track too often to have one on my own, so we'll see what happens with that. at the moment american bulldogs are the topic of conversation.

Work is still going great. I just had site launch - Crysis Warhead - and I really feel like i'm gaining great experience for my career. Lots of big things are happening around here, and its pretty exciting. Not to mention the fun and games like bowling, cotton candy machines, pool tournaments, rock band rock offs and general goofing off.

Things I want to do on a Motorcycle

noreply@blogger.com (Broom) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 16:25:00 +0000

Sorry i haven't been blogging. i hope no one had any nervous breakdowns due to my sudden disinterest in blogging here... heh... I got a random idea last night though. a new blog should be in the works soon, and that always spawns new inspiration to write.

for now, i'll leave you with a list of adventures that i hope to complete on a motorcycle. this is something i've been thinking about a lot latley since picking up an old DR350 and making it street legal. as of now i have no official plans to make these things happen other than doing smaller weekend trips and getting more experience on the bike, but if you're interested let me know and we can actually make plans.

1. Ride Yellowstone National Park
2. Ride from the east coast to the west coast on nothing but dirt roads on the Trans-America Trail (or at least a decent section of it)
3. Ride from California or the Pacific North West to Alaska and back with my dad and brother.

thats it for now.

Valentines Day

noreply@blogger.com (Broom) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 19:15:00 +0000

Seriously... what has this holiday come to? before you even have a chance to send flowers to your valentine, you're getting not so subtle hints about it. what makes people think that being told/required to be romantic on a certain day makes it romantic? It's really hard to show you care when you don't get the chance to make it your idea. if someone asks you about sending them something for valentines day before you get a chance to even carry out plans you already made to do so, then that at least partially discounts the whole "this was my own initiative and i love you" idea. it turns into "I know you want and expect this on this day so i guess i'll buy these flowers, and this pre-printed card". It kills the idea that you did it all on your own... or at least shots it in the foot.

There is nothing romantic about this "holiday" to me. Its very hard to make something genuine and special when 1. Its required of you, 2. its expected (as in not a surprise), and 3. everybody else is doing the exact same thing at the exact same time. On top of that, if you want to go out to dinner you have to deal with the mass of people that are all trying to get a nice dinner at the same time.

On a much more lighter note: a buddy i know from riding motorcycles got fantastic news this week about his battle with cancer. quote: "there are undetectable levels of the cancer byproducts/components appearing in my blood. It means we can assume there is very little cancer in my body."

I've been following the whole process over the past 9 months or so through his blog. I've learned a lot about what it takes to get through something like this. I can only hope that if I find myself in the same situation i can hold it together as well as he seems to be. Congrats Andre. well done.

Site Launch

noreply@blogger.com (Broom) — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 15:33:00 +0000

We've really been working hard on the development of this site over the past month. Its very complex with lots of AJAX and some tricky CSS performed by my awesome co-workers. Its still got a couple small bugs to work out, but it was a really great effort with a short dev timeline. I actually created this design at about 11 at night while i was in austin doing the Phizzpop challenge, and Ken did all of the mark-up in the middle of doing the mark-up for the red site that i mentioned in a previous post.

The client said this upon delivery yesterday:

We just spent the morning going through the site & it looks great. In my experience, this is one of the best development efforts I’ve ever seen in translating the creative comps into reality – and you’ve done so in just one month. Thank you for going the extra mile & working extraordinarily hard at making Port 25 a great experience. I’m very much looking forward to pushing this out the door and seeing customer reaction to the upgrade. We have a vocal audience and I expect no shortage of reactions

MyBabyOurBaby.com

noreply@blogger.com (Broom) — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:05:00 +0000

A good friend of mine, Ray, launched a really cool community site that he's been building with a friend over the past 4 months or so called MyBabyOurBaby.com. Its a community site built around creating "books" about your kids. The cool part is that you don't just invite people to see or follow the book (although you can do that too). You actually invite your family and friends to build and contribute to the book right along with you as your child progresses. Its a great way to keep a good record of your child.

Once you get other friends and family members on the site, they can then create books for their kids (or you can start it for them if they're not very savvy internet users), and their books get added to your home page where you can keep track of activity on all your books, and make your own contributions.

Props to Ray and his buddy, Beau. Nice job guys.

oh... i almost forgot my favorite part. When you write a new entry, called "stories" on this site, it automatically gets the date and time from any picture that you upload and orders your book accordingly. when i first started my book i thought i would have to start from the begining (4 years ago) and work my way up if i wanted things in the right order (like a normal blog works). Thanks to this feature, i can start where ever i want as build it out as i go... new stuff, old stuff... it doesn't matter!

Site Launch

noreply@blogger.com (Broom) — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 23:06:00 +0000

A site that we did for the mothership (mic ro soft) (avoiding the search engines) launched today. it is for a charity headed up by Bono, and actually had to be personally approved by him.

We only had about a day and a half to design the site, and about a week and a half after that for approval, changes from the mic ro soft team, and from bono's team, and for mark-up and development. it was very rushed, pretty hectic and involved a lot of hours by a variety of people to get the job done. the site design that got pushed through is actually more of a collaboration between myself and my creative director, Sean. You can see one of my other comps that i was hoping would get picked here.

The final product looks pretty good, and we're proud to have been a part of it. its also kind of fun that the whole project is getting a lot of press by various sources including the new york times web site.

Les Savy Fav

noreply@blogger.com (Broom) — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 19:07:00 +0000

Steve and I went to see Les Savy Fav on friday night at the Palladium Ballroom in downtown dallas. I've seen them twice at Rubber Gloves in Denton. The first time was amazing, and the second time was pretty good too, but a bit of a let down in comparison. They more than made up for it with this show though. What a fun, rockin' show. The picts i managed to get with my cell phone above only represent maybe a 10th of the antics.

Other than coming pretty close to duking it out with some kids up in front of the stage, it was a great night. It was kinda wierd though, I've always been the kind of guy that avoided confrontation. Its not my thing, but that night I was ready to go. I wasn't starting trouble, or looking for trouble, but these kids were being dicks and i wasn't going to put up with it.

Two Point O'ed

noreply@blogger.com (Broom) — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 16:54:00 +0000

I'm sure most of you reading this blog (assuming anyone is reading this blog) know what the term "Web 2.0" refers to. Basically it just refers to a breed of social networking and user driven sites, but it's also been associated with a trend of web design that we've all been submerged in for the past 2 years. I like to refer to these shiny, wet, reflective, star burst sites as being "Two Point O'ed", but we really should come up with a more deserving and appropriate name. Pictured here you can see a fine example of what i'm talking about. It's got most, if not all, of the key elements: plenty of shine, reflections, cyan, magenta, star burst emblem, networking badges, gradients, etc. Please, help me classify this trend in design so that we can engrave it into a shiny headstone and put it to rest.

Steve and I were introduced to a term while at FOWD that I love and quickly adopted: Flashterbation. It refers to the gratuitous use of flash animation that happened a few years back. It's so perfect, and fun. This shiny trend needs something just as suiting. Maybe it's already out there and I don't know about it, or maybe it just wasn't good enough for me to remember it... i dunno....

450 Singles

noreply@blogger.com (Broom) — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 18:11:00 +0000

At this point I'm a little unsure what my immediate future in racing is. I feel a little bored of racing the smaller bikes I guess. Mainly due to trying to attend too many races this year. I feel like i've reached a point where i'm getting pretty decent at it, and really want to move up to some bigger bikes, even if they're still minis. the issue i have with that is: 1. i don't want to spend the money on a new bike right now, and 2. I feel like i've reached a level in my abilities that is allowing me to push myself and the bikes i've been racing closer to the edge which has resulted in some wicked crashes compared years past. I feel like i'm riding a thin line between getting faster and knocking the shit out of myself. Thats why i'm thinking i might take a year off and do some enduro racing on the dirtbike for a while. Start a new challenge.

Anyways, that wasn't really the point of this post. the point is that i really want one of these 450 single bikes! It looks like several organizations across the US are building a class for this new bike, and if they're not making a specific class for it, then they'll squeeze you in with another class where you'll be competitive.

So, I think that most of you know what a motard is by now. basically it's a dirtbike fitted with 17inch wheels, slicks and suspention adjustments for roadracing. Now there is a new breed of "motard" and they're callling it the 450 Single. Its a 450 four stroke dirtbike chassis and motor with upgraded suspension parts, 17inch wheels and slicks, some sport bike style clipons and rearsets, and its fitted with a road racing style fairing. I think this would be the perfect bike for me to race if i was to move up to the bigger bikes. Its not crazy fast, it looks fun as hell, and if they build restrictions into the classes so that you can't dump 10 grand into the motor to win all the races, it'll be very competitive and maybe not crazy expensive.

Graffiti

noreply@blogger.com (Broom) — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 23:04:00 +0000

I've been telling a lot of people about Telligent's new product, Graffiti for a while now. Well, its finally out. A lot of people have been loading it up and seeing what its all about and i've heard a lot of good things about it. as soon as i get some free time I'll be redoing this site and building it on the Graffiti platform.

For those that don't know, Graffiti CMS is meant to be a really simple content publishing platform for individuals and small businesses. It's designed first and foremost to be simple. If you still don't know what I'm talking about, it's along the same lines as wordpress, but much more powerful.

Gotta give big props to Steve Ray for the design. I'm jealous that his first site to go live here at telligent/sound creative is so kick ass.

Phizzpop Design Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Broom) — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 17:27:00 +0000

Last week myself and two others from Telligent (Ken Hanson, markup master, and Kyle Beyer, backend genius and generally kick ass at attacking a challenging project with a good strategy) traveled to Austin to compete in Microsoft's Phizzpop Design Challenge.

The format of the competition makes for an interesting challenge. You get a day and a half of training on microsoft's new Expression Studio. at the end of the training on the second day (tuesday afternoon) they present the challenge that we have to design for and send you on your way for the next 2 and a half days to design and develop your solution and prepare a presentation to sell your idea to a panel of 3 judges. I think this format has potential, but there is one major flaw. The Expression Studio software is very new, and isn't even complete yet. I understand that this is a great way for microsoft to get some feedback and input on their new tools, but it makes for a very stressful, and sometimes disastrous 3 days of furiously paced work.

Microsoft had people on site to help us with the software through out the competition, but they could only help so much (big props go to Josh Holmes for his help and efforts). They were of great service to us and the other teams, but didn't seem to know much more than what we were able to figure out on our own. Adding to the software's downfalls were our own. We found out we were going to the competition about a week before hand, so we were looking at the expression studio software for the first time monday morning at the training. some of the teams obviously know quite a bit about the software already giving them a huge advantage, but obviously thats the nature of competition and its no ones fault but our own.

On the other hand, it has some really nice features as well. If Fireworks would adopt a few of the cool features and tools found in Blend i would be a happy man. They also have a very nice philosophy for work flow from designer to developer. I hope that this continues to evolve... adobe needs to take some notes.

Overall we had fun, created a really nice piece, and I got to work and get to know a couple of cool guys. We worked furiously with lots of heart and effort. Our 10am to 4am work days took a toll on us and by the time i got home on saturday i was basically sick from exhaustion. We didn't win (that honor went to thirteen23 and they deserved it), but I think we came up with a great, realistic solution. If we had been able to develop some more of our silverlight pieces and created a flashy presentation I think we would have had a real chance at winning. It was very dissapointing to not win, and i think it made it worse that they don't tell anyone what place you came in. There was no closure. No satisfaction. No tangible results to tell us how well we did.

I tried to keep a record of our design process, and you can see some of that in my flickr stream. The home page design is here and the interior pages along with some misc picts and things can be found here. If you have any feedback, positive or negative, feel free to post it up here or on my flickr account.

Oh, and did I mention that I had to present our project in front of a packed bar full of people? I haven't had to do anything like that in a loooong time. It went reasonably well though.

Things I want for Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Broom) — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 19:33:00 +0000

Corporate Zombies

MyCuppa Tea Mug

some funky shoes. these are the Freddy Kreuger dunks. they'd be cooler without the blood. size 11

Works Connection Radiator Braces -- MSR Radiator Guards -- MSR Enduro Skid Plate
for 03' KDX220

Fly Folding Ramp

NetFlix

a rad plant that'll survive in my office (no real light). saw some plants growing in glass "pots" filled with gravel that were cool. its called "forcing" i think.

I'll add more as i think of it. dunno know why. no one ever buys anything off my yearly list anyways...

NYC part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Broom) — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 21:19:00 +0000

It's been 2 full weeks since i went to NYC, so, lucky for you, the details are getting a little fuzzy. Back to where i left off...

Friday morning steve and I hit the town on a mission to get all our tourist sight seeing and shopping out of the way so we could do other stuff with anthony and crew on saturday. We get a slow start by going the wrong way on the subway. We figured it out before we got too far and eventually made it to the tip of Manhattan to get a look at the statue of liberty. after that we walked north to see Ground Zero where the twin towers use to stand. I didn't see any memorial or anything, just a big NYC block with no huge building occupying it. its kind of a weird sight. I thought by now they would have already been well under way constructing a new building, but it looked like they were still taking out the remaining structure of the original buildings.

We took the subway towards SOHO, walked a little bit of China Town, visited a few stores that we wanted to check out and killed time until it was time to meet up with Anthony, his co-worker Nick, and Greg Battle and Bill Robertson from Global Grind for lunch. They were on the top floor of a 45 story building off 7th and 38th street were a lot of Russell Simmons' companies are located. We briefly met him before heading up to the roof where they take their smoke breaks. The view up there was amazing.

Afterwards, steve and i were on our own again. We headed back down to SOHO to finish our shopping agenda and tried to stay dry in the 40º rain. Later that afternoon was when i found out that Bank of America canceled my ATM card. The banks were closed already, and most places in NYC don't take credit cards. I only had so much cash on me so i was screwed until the morning. I guess you could say that it worked out to my advantage to some extent since i was able to drink till 4am without spending a dime. We all hit the town (i have no idea where we were) for some bar hopping fun. After some food at a diner that our new NYC friend Nater took us to we were done for the night. We found our way onto the subway and dozed off till we found ourselves back in brooklyn.

Saturday we did some more running around, shopping, etc. We visited Saint Patricks Cathedral, a huge 3 story H&M, kid robot and ate street vendor hot dogs before we decided that Manhattan was just too intense and crowded to hang out in on a saturday afternoon. We took the train back to Smith Street in Brooklyn and checked out the little boutique stores before getting our last dinner in NY. Once again my bank card issue got me out of paying for dinner, even though steve and I had fully intended on paying for dinner with our credit cards. they only took american express. We were worn out by now and decided to just get some wine and head back to Anthony's place for a night of hanging out and playing Wii Sports.

Early Sunday morning we took a car up to LaGuardia and headed back to dallas. I was ready to go home and get some rest, but sad to leave.

Thanks to Anthony, Matt, Natalie and Anna for putting us up for the week. It was great seeing you guys.

NYC part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Broom) — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 20:57:00 +0000

Ok, i gotta get all this stuff out before i forget the trip entirely. Its been crazy at work so its been really hard to find the time to blog about anything. Of course i keep getting all these ideas and things that i want to write about when i can't find the time to write. Anyways, i'll try to keep this NYC recap short and sweet.

Steve and i made it to NYC without issue. we had separate flights separated by an hour or so. Steve was already in Manhattan with Anthony eating dinner, so i was on my own. My first ever NYC experience is a car service guy trying to hustle me. I manage to get away from him, grab a taxi and head to the nearest train station so i can ride it in to the city to meet up with everybody. It was pretty exciting to be on my own trying to figure out what i needed to do in this new place. I like traveling on my own sometimes. I found them without any problems, we ate, and headed to anthony's place in brooklyn to drink beer, play wii, and get some sleep.

The next day, wednesday, we headed out at about 7am to go to the Future of Web Design (FOWD) Conference in the city, and I got to experience a bit of NYC rush hour (pictured here). I love all that energy. The conference was pretty cool. Joshua Davis was interesting, and very entertaining, but i enjoyed Ryan Singer the most. He is part of the 37 Signals Team (best known for their online app, basecamp), and in general just a very smart, cool dude.

After a full day of speakers it was time for the afterparty at a club called Rebel hosted by Media Temple. It started at 7:30 and was open bar all night, so i'm sure you can guess how that evening went.

The next day I slept in until about 10, and rode the train back into Manhattan with anthony to check out his work. after that i was off on my own again since steve was in workshops all day and everyone else was working. I started off by eating an authentic street vendor lunch and taking the train to Times Square. I walked from the times square/42nd st stop all the way to central park before taking the train back down south to SOHO. I can't tell you enough how much i enjoyed being on my own for a day to explore... it was great. eventually i was glad to meet up with steve and the gang and head out to a pub called McSorley's. Its the oldest bar in New York, has the best cheeseburgers in town, and an awesome old school new york atmosphere. they brew their own beer and thats all the carry. we all ordered a beer and the dude comes back with 16 beer filled mugs and plops them down, giving the seemingly 100 year old table a nice coating of beer... it was great.

to be continued....

A Big No No

noreply@blogger.com (Broom) — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 22:01:00 +0000

Do Not Resize My Browser Window When I Go To Your Site!

nothing pisses me off faster than my browser window suddenly jumping to full screen. not only is it rude to just go and change the way a user wants to browse your site, but its also very annoying trying to grab that little resize handle on the bottom right of the screen with the mac doc down there and all.

It might have been cool when everyone first figured out the little piece of java script to make that happen 5 or 6 years ago, but its NOT COOL ANYMORE! Knock it off!

Work Updates

noreply@blogger.com (Broom) — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 16:40:00 +0000

We've been keeping pretty busy here at work, even though it seems i haven't had many exciting sites launch lately, but Telligent, our parent company, has had a lot of exciting things going on. We've been growing like crazy and picking up some really exciting accounts utilizing Community Server and we have some really exciting new products in the works that we're looking forward to getting our hands on.

One really big project that we landed recently was Myspace.com. Their forums are now powered by community server. The user base for the forums is over 70 million users and since they launched the new forums they've had 300,000 new posts by 20,000 unique users, and 9,000 threads have been "favorited". I think that really says something about the scalability and power that these guys have built into community server.

Another project that has recently launched is Global Grind. I did a lot of the initial user interface design, as well as the logo design for the site and the guys here did the behind the scenes wizardry to make it all possible. there is a lot of unique functionality in that site that is not apparent at first glance. Its hard to explain or imagine the amount of work that went into it.