why didn't i see this before

Liquid inside! Squeeze it!

2011-12-08T17:50:00.001-08:00

12/8/2011 Just a short post today. I stumbled on this fun sign and had to post it. This is from a hole-in-the-wall pharmacy in San Jose. enjoy!

Gadget Evolution Over Time

2011-10-07T00:46:00.000-07:00

Gadget Evolution Over Time By Denis Sweeney 6 Oct 2011 I have been thinking lately how we're in an interesting time as far as technology goes. An amazing amount of change has happened in the past 10-15 years. Give it some thought. Remember how households would have the same stereo and TV for decades? Remember That? The older among us probably remember how it was a big deal to have 2 TVs

Evernote Will Organize the Crap Outta Your Life

2011-09-11T12:07:00.000-07:00

By Denis408 10 Sept 2011 Ten years ago, I used to carry a digital audio recorder. A dork? Yes, proudly! It was handy to have for recording meetings, notes, ideas, and my (then) babies' first sounds. Scan forward ten years to the present day, and the device I carry is mostly is a cell phone or two. Now with the advent of connected devices and cloud storage, Evernote is more relevant than

Chili Peppers Concert in the Redwoods

2011-08-31T15:25:00.000-07:00

By Denis Sweeney 8/30/2011 I was lucky enough to attend a secret show where the Red Hot Chili Peppers performed at Henry Miller Library in Big Sur, California. The show was on July 27, 2011 at the very small (and beautiful) Henry Miller Memorial Library. It was a great show and was the first show of their tour supporting the new album I'm With You, their first album in 4 years. Photo of the

Denis408 Shirt Design --Selected Favorites

2011-08-29T22:11:00.000-07:00

By Denis Sweeney 8/29/2011 Check out a couple of new, original shirt designs that I created under my Denis408 label (http://www.zazzle.com/denis408): The Chi Whiz, and the Piping Hot Wifi shirts are my new designs available now on Zazzle. Zazzle allows you to get any of these designs on any size and many different styles of clothes and other printed products. Chi Whiz

Why I like the Android Nexus One better than the iPhone4

2011-08-21T22:42:00.000-07:00

Why I like the Android Nexus One Better Than the iPhone4By Denis Sweeney 21 August 2011 I use both the Nexus One Android and the iPhone4 phones regularly. The iPhone is my work phone, and the Nexus One is my personal phone. I like both phones, but someone recently recently asked me which I liked better. My friend got me thinking... Through the past year I have regularly used both phones, and I

Way Too Many Vertical Gardening Posts

2011-08-07T20:44:00.000-07:00

Way Too Many Vertical Gardening Posts by Denis M. Sweeney, Usability Designer, Graphic Artist, and Gardener-wanna-be 7 August 2011 I've been on this gardening jag all summer, since about Father's Day. I built a second vertical garden this weekend. And the second one was much faster to put together than the first one. Partly because I wasn't constantly stopping to take step-by-step photos,

Vertical Gardening 3: Ways to Improve the Design

2011-07-25T23:49:00.000-07:00

Vertical Gardening part 3: Ways to Improve the DesignBy Denis M. Sweeney 25 July, 2011 Some time has passed since I built the Vertical Garden outlined in my last posting. The plants have really established themselves and filled in the empty spaces. I'm quite pleased with the project overall. The plants have really taken to it, and I haven't lost many, if any at all. Time will tell if I am

Vertical Gardening 2: Hands On

2011-06-27T01:11:00.000-07:00

Vertical Gardening 2: Hands OnBy Denis M. Sweeney | 6/27/2011 Project: Vertical Garden From A Shipping Pallet**variation of an original design from Life On The BalconyToday I'm describing a DIY project that turns a shipping pallet into a vertical garden (as seen above.)First off, let me explain how my project differs from the fine design at Life on the Balcony. My design alters the pallet a bit,

Quick Response (QR) Codes, discuss

2011-06-14T16:22:00.000-07:00

Quick Response (QR) Codes, discussby Denis M. Sweeney | 6/14/2011 QR Code for this Blog Post QR Codes aren't terribly new. --They were created in Japan in 1994 (according to Wikipedia), but since they are used more and more, I thought I'd post some scenarios for use, as well as some helpful links to help you create your own QR links. Quick Response codes are basically two-dimensional bar codes

Compilation of Vertical Gardening Information

2011-06-14T14:17:00.000-07:00

A Compilation of Vertical Gardening Informationby Denis M. Sweeney | June 14, 2011 Gardening? -What the What?!I feel the need for a little preamble here, to explain how I got here, from my usual tech focus. This spring, I started gardening a lot (well, for me), and I live in an urban area with a small back yard. Also relevant here; I rent, so anything I do, needs to be non-permanent/ movable. I

Fun With Facebook Groups --Avoiding FB Group Archiving!

2011-05-26T22:48:00.000-07:00

by Denis M. Sweeney 26 May, 2011 Facebook Groups A while back, I created several Facebook Groups, just for fun, to see what it was about, and a couple of the groups grew pretty large. I grew up in Northeast Pennsylvania, and a local station, WNEP-TV, Channel 16 had a popular self-produced children's program called The Land of Hatchy Milatchy, so one of my groups honored that show. This week I

PDF Tips, Apps, and Music

2011-04-28T17:28:00.000-07:00

PDF Tips, Apps, and Music by Denis Sweeney. 4/27/2011 PDF Tips I deal with Adobe Acrobat files a lot and recently found some tricks that I consider to be game changers. I haven't researched these features, but I do know they were new to me. search multiple PDF files at once:from: Decoding the Web http://decoding.wordpress.com/2009/04/07/how-to-search-multiple-pdf-files-at-once/ In Acrobat

Get an Eye/Earful of Tom Waits

2011-04-08T17:03:00.000-07:00

Too Much is Never Enough -Especially When Tom Waits is On the Hi-fiby Denis Sweeney | 8 April, 2010 IntroIt's an overcast, cold Tom Waits kinda day here in California so I was inspired to put together a playlist of Tom Waits tunes (and a couple of interviews in there too). These span a period of 40 years Tom's been performing. Anyway, this playlist is actual moving pictures with audio. I am just

Exploring the Limitations of Google TV

2011-04-04T23:57:00.000-07:00

Exploring the Limitations of Google TVby Denis Sweeney | 4 April, 2011 A huge problem facing Google TV is that a growing number of sites are blocking the content to Google TV.Rumor has it that Google will release the source code to the community and I suspect when that happens, modifications to it, and information about modifications will be much easier to find, and also more prevalent.In

Rocking the Visio/Picassa Fantastic -or- Back that Thing Up

2011-03-25T11:31:00.000-07:00

I've recently been focused on creating lots of Visio diagrams. Visio is one of those apps where you use it on a surface level, but there is a lot more to it for the power user. I've been digging a bit deeper into Visio 2010, and trying to learn things like: effective use of stencils, adding and searching on meta-data for the files, and using ShapeSheets. If you're in the same boat, check out the

1996 Cross-Country Road Trip

2010-10-24T00:25:00.000-07:00

[Preamble: To set the context a bit: in 1995, at a family function, Denis' cousin Paul asked him to come out west to pursue a career in Silicon Valley ("It is amazing here! You have experience, you've taught it, you can get get paid to get trained while you work in the field", rather than the previous plan of going to grad school in Savanna, Georgia (at a price tag of potentially $100,000.) Paul

The Chicken Or The Egg: Musical and Scientific News

2010-08-07T09:54:00.000-07:00

The Chicken Or The Egg: Musical and Scientific News By Denis M. SweeneyAugust 7, 2010 The age old question: Which Came First, The Chicken Or The Egg, is recently in the news quite a lot. To review the question, lets start by reviewing this video:"Which Came First?" by Chicken vs. Egg A 2006 study totally favored... the EGG!"Whether chicken eggs preceded chickens hinges on the nature of chicken

Featured Designs from Denis408: 'Zilla!

2010-08-03T16:42:00.000-07:00

Featured Designs from Denis408By Denis M. Sweeney 2010, Aug 3 This is the first in a periodic series of blog posts. This new feature will highlight some of the illustrations I have produced over the last couple of years. This expanded format allows me to go into a little more detail than I can/do on my store. 'Zilla Destroying City (illustration) ShirtDescription‘Zilla is pissed! He’s

crAbbey road figure study, with apologies

2010-07-21T00:38:00.000-07:00

First draft of Abbey Road Illustration CrAbbey Road figure study, no apologies. By Denis Sweeney 2010, 21 July I have been studying the scene in the famous Beatles image. There is a lot going on in the image, from the tree and cars, to the guy in the suit on the sideline, to the architecture. And the classic vanishing point perspective really works in focusing the viewers attention on the

Visual and UX Designer Looking for FT Bay Area Positions

2010-07-15T13:16:00.000-07:00

July 15, 2010By Denis Sweeney I am just finishing up a project for a tech company in Santa Clara, and starting to look for exciting opportunities.My favorite positions to date have been at startup and medium-sized companies.You can find my profile, resume and portfolio at my site: www.Denis408.comI'd love to hear about opportunities.Thanks for reading! --> I promise we'll return to real topics

Essential Summer Camp Packing List

2010-06-24T22:36:00.000-07:00

Essential Summer Camp Packing Listby Denis M. Sweeney, camper, blogger, and Artist who now calls California his home. 6/24/2010 My parents were teachers when I was growing up so we had summers off. At a minimum we would go camping locally, but many years we would go on long, out of state trips with nightly camping, for weeks at a time. I should also mention that I have 4 siblings, so, for you

Analog to Digital, Episode II

2010-04-12T15:44:00.000-07:00

Analog to Digital, Episode II By Denis Sweeney, April 12, 1020 In the previous blog posting of Analog to Digital, I discussed the two centuries worth of printing progress and technical evolution I have seen in my less-than-2-centuries of living on Earth. This time, I'd like to focus on the immense evolution of telephone service I have seen in my lifetime. The Time Before LandWhen I was five

Analog to Digital, Episode 1

2010-03-03T13:16:00.000-08:00

I have lived and worked in Silicon Valley for many years now and I was reminded tonight of a memory that rightfully should be from someone much older than myself. I was reading about a startup called NewsLabs, They're looking for Journalists, stating that newspapers are dead and they are building a community of some sort. Anyway, it really got me thinking about the printing press my dad used when

Obopay writeup

2010-02-10T20:55:00.000-08:00

I recently completed a contract with Financial site Obopay, in Redwood Shores, CA and am looking for my next project. Obopay is an interesting company with great people working there. I don't know that it was always this way, but I was impressed with their ability to talk about some pretty major changes to their front end web application and move toward implementation. Without revealing too much,