avalonstar.com: the blog

Bryan and Jen in Japan

Bryan Veloso — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 03:17:22 PDT

This is the story of a guy, his future wife and a dream. The dream was to someday visit the country that serves as the source of a lot of happiness for the couple. This is the story of the beginning of their journey there, and how you can follow along — if you wish. :)

If you’ve been following along for a while, you’ll already know that I’m a big fan of Japan and Japanese culture. While I was a bit of a casual fan in years past, it wasn’t until I met Jen that my exposure to all things Japan suddenly spiked. The culmination of that happens today, as we wait at Vancouver Airport for Air Canada 001 bound for Tokyo.

We’ve been looking forward to this trip for a long time. For a while we weren’t even sure if it was going to happen, but a lot of hard work led to where we are now. For me, it’s my first non-family vacation ever. For Jen, it’s her first trip across the Pacific.

I’ve been a bit at a loss at what to feel, even now. It’s a sort of excitement, a feeling I equated to the moments passing as you’re getting lifted on a roller coaster. It’s a very real feeling, but it hasn’t hit me yet that our final destination is Japan. We were joking earlier that I’d all of a sudden come out of the plane at Narita Airport and proclaim, “Shit! This ain’t Austin!” (or something silly like that). Many things are going to be new to me this week, and the word “excited” can’t even begin to describe my anxiousness to get started.

But wait! There’s more!

We wanted to save and share our memories of this first trip, so with the help of Jen’s discerning eye, I took some time this week to skin a Tumblr for it. The domain it sits at, konokoi.com, is one I bought long ago when Jen and I first met. It’ll serves as a suitable spot for the blog before it gives way to our wedding site in the coming months. :)

If you’re interested in keeping up, by all means follow us through the Tumblr blog, RSS or my Flickr account. Other than updating the blog or Flickr, I’m going to (obviously) try and keep my Internetage to a minimum. With that said, see you on the other end! :D

Suit&tie

Bryan Veloso — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 16:25:18 PDT

This is the story of a guy and a theme. It’s been quite a while since said guy worked on a theme for a certain blogging system. But a few guys approached him to create a theme suited for the business world. Challenged and renewed, said guy “presses” on.

A few months ago, word found its way to me that Adriaan Pienaar was looking for me to create a theme for his premium WordPress theme shop, WooThemes. To make a potentially long story short, it wasn’t until a few weeks ago that our paths finally aligned and I felt I was ready to take on the project.

Adii gave me the task of creating a business-style theme, which was a bit of a surprise since, to be honest, it took me a little bit of time to wrap my head around creating a “business-style” theme for a piece of “blogging software.” Granted we could get into an argument about that fact but the bottom line was that I had to steer my mind away from that line of thinking in order to comfortably progress.

He took a look at my portfolio and pointed to the design I did for Django Plugables as something that would make a good candidate for the theme. I didn’t mind since *cough* that design is on its way out anyway *cough* and I welcomed the chance to remix it a little. Remember, I designed the site in a day and coded it in four, so I didn’t really put as much thought into it as I normally would. It just worked. :)

So here’s “Suit&tie.”

More and more lately I’ve been a lot more open to using touches of translucency in designs. As always, I lean on more colorful assets such as photos and screenshots to provide the “pop” for the design. The jQuery carousel in the middle is obviously inspired from the Springboard on the iPhone (and I can’t wait to actually see that effect coded). Although I designed this from scratch without the Django Plugables design to work from, you can obviously see the elements I pulled from it—examples being the navigation and the content area.

Why the striped sock? Well, the theme was originally called “Suit&tie” until I started playing with some stripes and the obvious name of “Striped” took over (you can still see that name on the screenshots in the footer, whoops). The stripes ultimately didn’t make the cut, but the sock is there to mourn it.

Working with Adii and the WooThemes team was an absolute pleasure. The amount of breathing room I was given was very welcome and they provided just enough guidance throughout the process to provide that extra bit of refinement. Now I leave the theme in their able hands as it will surely see the light of day in the coming months. The initial reaction has been awesome so far and I hope that people will enjoy it when it does get released.

Zoomed

Bryan Veloso — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 17:12:31 PST

This is the story of a guy and a shortcut key. Said shortcut key is supposed to be used for accessibility, but sometimes said guy actually likes working with the mode on. If you don’t easily get motion sick, take a look if you’re not keen on trying it yourself.

Now for something completely different.

I have an addiction to using ⌘ + 8.

For the non-Mac amongst you, command + 8 is used to zoom into the screen. It’s an accessibility feature, but on those “off” days of mine, I enjoy working with it. Any normal person would think that it’s a bit nuts, and I’d have to agree with them. But hell, it’s fun. :)

So a few months ago, I decided to record a session, I just never got around to blogging about it. So enjoy, if you’re not prone to motion sickness.

For those that are interested, the music is “Theme of Battle” from Motoi Sakuraba’s Tales of Series Battle Arrange Tracks.

“Geek” Motivation

Bryan Veloso — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 12:45:15 PST

This is the story of a guy and motivation. It’s hard for him to find any outside of working (and a good number of times while working). However, after finding the motivation to diet and keep dieting for almost three months, he’s found that a source of motivation can come from satisfying some basic designer geek urges.

We designers and developers are a special breed of person. Like artists, we’re creative, overly pensive, and our best work comes in spurts. On the other hand, we’re like factory workers, day in and day out, we have to work hard to generate a (semi-)constant output for long periods of time. It gets tiring, obviously. So when it comes to motivation outside of work, it’s a bit scarce, especially for somebody like me who ~~has no life~~ pours all of it into work¹.

So what does this have to do with anything?

Well, let me give you an example. I’ve been “dieting” since November and for the first time in recent memory, I’ve been able to stay on it for more than two weeks. Like others with the same goal, I’ve tried so many different things. Colin Devroe had “The Diet”, his weekly weight loss blog that inspired people to do the same. I loved the idea, but un/fortunately, I’m not very comfortable with taking pictures of myself topless, especially my belly. Not that you had to do that… well, nevermind. Then there were the “web 2.0” services like Traineo. Traineo had pretty graphics, spots for exercise routines, even a motivator system. Apparently, I suck at being a fitness motivator since Traineo has been scolding me for not checking up on Anton lately.

Then came Weightbot, the highly-lickable, super-awesome weight tracking iPhone application by Tapbots—programmed by Paul Haddad and lovingly designed by Mark Jardine. I could go on for hours about how beautiful the application is, and that’s exactly why it worked for me. Now, I’ve written about my success with GTD using Things in the past. Weightbot is an example of how I found the motivation to want to lose weight, just like Things gave me the motivation to get organized.

Here’s my point (and your mileage may vary).

In order for something like GTD or a diet to stick, it needs to require an action that’s not completely foreign to my daily routine. In other words, it needs to adapt to me and my personality. It’s pretty obvious when I say it like that, but the adaptation requirements get pretty specific.

Let’s take Traineo. Even though it had a nice interface and was feature-rich, it was simply another website I had to check. I have trouble remembering what sites I check on a daily basis as it is, which is why, for example, I’m really bad at staying active on forums. On the other hand, an iPhone application is easily spotted on the springboard, so it easily triggers my memory. With that said, I seem to quickly forget about programs I download for Leopard if I don’t launch them immediately after doing so.

In addition, since I wouldn’t be ashamed of calling myself an “app snob,” in order for me to start using an application constantly, it has to satisfy my eye. A program could cook my breakfast for me, but if its icon isn’t very tasty² (and no replacement icons exist for it), I won’t use it. Likewise for the UI, I tend to prefer applications that sport native appearances and consistency to the overall UI. Hence “app snob.”

In Weightbot’s case, it touches an even deeper addiction of mine, stats. If I had to name one feature about Weightbot that completely sold me on it, it was the graph. I’ll wake up, grab my iPhone, check my email, weigh myself, input it into Weightbot, turn the phone to see the graph and then proceed to sigh or smile.

It’s another testament to the power that mobile applications have over me. But since I didn’t want to completely rehash my Things entry, I felt it was important to show that using an application that satisfies your design or general geek urges will more than likely lead to you using that application consistently for a longer period of time. Find applications that will adapt to you, not you to it.

Although, maybe this has been an obvious fact for a long time, I just tend to be a late bloomer. :)

Or a good Call of Duty game. :D
To my defense, I’m not the only one that refrained using it because of its icon either.

2009 Design Predictions

Bryan Veloso — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 11:33:52 PST

This is the story of a guy and and the new year. The new year is treating said guy well, but he’d thought he’d take some time to give you some of his predictions on what the coming year might look like for design. Oh, and here take this sarcasm pill before you read it.

I don’t have any. Go figure. So, surprise me. I like leaving things open ended.

Well, we live in a world of speculators, people who love to try and beat the market before anything’s actually happened. My hope for this year is to be surprised, again and again. Surprise the speculators and send the rumor mills packing. Try something new, like Canvas. Break out of that shell. Thrown on some CSS3 with a sprinkle of HTML5. Leave IE6 behind for good.

Oh, I can make one prediction though, albeit personal. You’ll be seeing those eggrolls soon and a bunch more. I’m sure that’ll please certain eggroll addicts.

2009? Bring It.

Bryan Veloso — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 23:00:00 PST

This is the story of a guy. A guy whose last 365 days could be equated to riding X for the first time at Six Flags Magic Mountain. It’s been hard, it’s been crazy and somehow it’s been fun. Now with 2009 around the corner, said guy can’t wait to see what’s in store.

It’s been a comeback year. It’s been a life-changing year. It’s been a historic year. It’s been a crazy year. It’s been a scary year.

Dan and I, during one of our many talks in the past, discussed the importance of this year and how next year will be even better. In some ways, it’s hard to tell that anything could be much better given our current global environment. In other ways, it’s already going to be better than the last.

But for Dan and I, we agreed that 2008 was a year spent setting up for 2009. Now 2009’s here. Bring it on. :)

Now with the formalities out of the way, I’ll start off with this. From Jen and I and our 5 felines, have a safe, joyous and very prosperous New Year. 今年もよろしくお願いします! (I hope for your favour again in the coming year!)

Archive for the Holidays

Bryan Veloso — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 18:02:07 PST

This is the story of a guy and a tradition. Every year since 2004, said guy has released a few files from that year’s Photoshop archives for people to learn from. As 2008 starts coming to a close, it’s that time again to once again (albeit a little early) release an archive.

I was supposed to be on a plane today. That’ll mean I’ll miss spending Christmas with my family. But as one Elizabeth Gast said to me this morning,

[T]ime with family is always precious no matter what day you get there. Dec 25th is just a day - Christmas happens in the heart

There I sat after rescheduling my flight, stuck in the mindset that I should be on a plane. What usually happens when those moments occur is that I start working on things I wouldn’t normally work on. Too far removed to do any actual work, I thought, why not release the 2008 archive? Fortunately, that’s what you’re getting today. Think of it as my holiday present to you all (even though you were going to get it anyway. ;D).

What awaits you this year is 13 files containing over 425 megabytes of Photoshop goodness. Oddly enough, 13 isn’t as many as I’ve released in the past. This is mainly because I didn’t do as much side work this year as I have in the last few. Despite the low number, I’ve tried to focus on pieces that show off some of the techniques that I’ve tried to perfect. Another unused mockup from this version of Avalonstar awaits, as well as the first version of Django Plugables and a prototype of what was supposed to be the 3rd version of Revyver.

As usual, these files are released purely for educational purposes. But I’m sure after 4 of these you’d know that by now. :) I sincerely hope you enjoy it and please spread the word! You can find the 2008 archive alongside my other releases at Revyver Labs.

Happy holidays!

The First 30 Days

Bryan Veloso — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 11:43:56 PST

This is the story of a guy and a company. A month ago, (wow, really?) he announced the coming acquisition of his company. Since he thought it would be quite useless to open up a new blog for said company, he decided to write about things here.

I thought about starting a blog for Revyver for about, 5 minutes. After that I said “screw it,” it belongs here.

It’s been 30 days since the announcement I made about the future of Revyver. Congratulations have come and gone and it’s back to business as usual. Well, it’s a new business as usual. Even though I had already been working with Spectrum for a few months, it wasn’t until this past month that I felt that Revyver had truly gotten off the ground. Now for the news.

Let’s start with Spectrum.

On that end, I had been progressing towards a role that was a bit foreign to me, product development. Now sure, I’ve developed my own products, but they’re exactly that, my own. I had never done any serious product development outside of that. It was frightening for me to not only step out of my box, but to then step into another box that’s completely foreign and come up with compelling ideas. I’ll blame it on my relative inexperience. Well, actually, complete inexperience. But I’d like to think I learn quickly. The product is called PlanetTagger which will be a “geo-social-networking engine targeting specific interest groups.” Examples of said “interest groups” would be Seahawks fans (if they have any left) or your local Coworking group. There’s not much I can divulge at the moment, but that’ll be changing pretty soon.

The Addictionary has been gaining some traction as well. The Addictionary Proper has seen the front of a good number of startup sites and even some design blogs. Combine that with the new print-edition of the Addictionary, “Brave New Words”, and our recent deal with E!Online to create the Celebrity Addictionary, things are looking up for the dictionary that Silicon Slopes built.

Now for Revyver.

Our first project, Hello! Ranking has been progressing quite nicely. I’ve had a good amount of time in between the hours I do Spectrum work to hack on our little J-pop game. It’s been a lot of fun to see such a big idea of ours start to see the light and we’re hoping to invite a group of Jen’s peers to play around with it before the new year.

Probably the most exciting part of the process has been envisioning the potential popularity of the service. When we first came up with the idea earlier this year, we only saw maybe one or two blogs covering Hello! Project rank their favorite artists. Now we’re seeing many newer blogs post ranks as introductory posts and still others that keep their rankings up-to-date manually. The fact that we’ll be making all of this that much easier for them makes us extremely excited. For me, it’s been a validation of all the work we’ve already put into it.

Jen’s been hard at work on another project called J-ongaku, or literally “j-music.” It’s a wiki that is set out to appease the masses of Japanese, Korean and Chinese music fans who depended on a wiki called wiki.ThePPN. ThePPN recently suffered a DDoS attack and has been down for about a month because of database issues that they don’t wish to disclose. As an aside, I think it’s poppycock. It’s almost inexcusable for a site that a good number of people depend on (people have been literally “crying” about its absence) to be down for so long without any status other than, “it’s coming back.” I am by no means a system administrator, but I know enough about databases, MySQL and InnoDB to say that a month with that reasoning is a bit off.

If you or anybody you know is a J-music, K-music or C-music aficionado, she would graciously appreciate the help in either building out the wiki or spreading the word about its existence. It’s not much at the moment and it will be put on the back-burner if wiki.ThePPN ever does come back, but the odds of that now are pretty slim.

That’s a wrap folks.

The past few months have been a learning period for me. Playing a major role in two growing companies requires a lot of what I seemed to have trouble with in the past—balance. The hardest part about achieving balance is being able to switch gears on a dime; the ability to work on Hello! Ranking and then quickly turn to the Addictionary if there’s a problem there.

I’ve been struggling with what should have been one of the first lessons that came with being a freelancer. Apparently those pages had been ripped out of my used textbook. Unfortunately, with the economic climate, things are not about to get any easier on that front. But like I said, I’d like to think of myself as a quick learner. Overall, things are extremely exciting and even with the economic situation there’s little that could stop us now.

I’ve always wanted to use the word poppycock in sentence. Whether or not it actually fit in this sentence is up to you to decide. :D

Revyver to be Acquired

Bryan Veloso — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 12:09:01 PST

This is the story of a guy, his company and a dream. Since its inception, said guy’s company has always steered towards a path that would make dreams come true. Today’s dream was to be able to work on his own products. Today’s dream has come true.

You’re never prepared to write things like this. Today the announcement has finally hit the airwaves. SpectrumDNA, the company from Park City, Utah is acquiring Revyver.

Needless to say, both Jen and I are ecstatic. If you’ve been following the story thus far, you’ll have a good sense of what I was trying to mold Revyver into. For those that don’t, our goal was to create an environment where Jen and I could focus our energies on making products for people in markets close to our hearts. When I started Revyver two years ago, I never would have planned a path like this. I’m sure if everything stayed constant, I wouldn’t have failed at freelancing. But going through it all I’ve realized that the risks, the hard times, were worth it. Gotta love hindsight.

Revyver and Spectrum have already proven themselves to be an awesome pair through the Addictionary project. My role will continue with them as a creative director (not just in title this time :O). I’ve been working with them as they’ve cut deals with Comedy Central’s Indecision 2008 with their Political Addictionary and NBC’s The Office with their Office Addictionary. Beyond that, time can only tell.

What changes? Nothing. Although Revyver will become a “label” of SpectrumDNA—which speaks to Jim’s history in the entertainment industry—we will continue to operate and market ourselves as the same company you’ve come to know—and hopefully—love. Revyver will stay Revyver. Only now, we have quite a growing force behind us.

We hope you share in our excitement, even though it’ll be brief. Work be damned! That said, we have some awesome things in store on both the Revyver and Spectrum ends. I know I still lack a comment form, but if you’d like to ask us anything please send me an email at bryanatrevyverdotcom or you can leave us a note at our super hot Get Satisfaction hub. :)

I had little hand in writing that press release. Just so you know. :) I don’t think I could bring myself to use some of that language.

Change and Withdrawal

Bryan Veloso — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 21:58:28 PST

This is the story of a guy and the future president of the United States. While said guy is completely elated that his candidate for president has won, he can’t help but feel some emptiness at the fact that the campaign is now over. Said guy bids goodbye to one of his favorite identities, ever.

(I’m going to keep this short. I’m fading quickly. :D)

After 21 months, the people have spoken, the person I wanted for President of the Untied States has been elected. I’m clearly ecstatic. However, as a designer, I can’t help but feel a bit empty. If President-Elect Obama has done nothing else, his campaign has inspired countless designers, you and I alike. He has run one of the most beautiful campaigns in our country’s history with one of the strongest identities of any candidate in history.

Every site that has come out of the Obama campaign has been beautiful, from the main campaign site shown below to the “Fight the Smears” campaign. The level of detail and the amount of thought put into this has boggled my mind. Maybe my mind is easy to impress, but I’m sure most designers would tend to agree with me. :)

At least that’s what I think.

I will miss this. Wether or not you voted for Obama, the superiority of this identity will stand for years to come. I for one, really hope that the design team migrates to Washington and redesigns it. Start with the White House, then move on to say, the FBI and the FCC and beyond, they desperately need it. :)

Anyway, to those designers, you have my thanks and the thanks of designers all over the world.

PS: Does anybody know who they are? D:

“The Internet Revolution”

Bryan Veloso — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 16:24:24 PDT

This is the story of a guy and his past. Way back when, even before Avalonstar, he was a webmaster for the FBLA on the chapter and regional level. While looking through Google’s 10th anniversary index, he found an old article that he wrote about “the internet revolution,” and can’t keep himself from laughing at himself.

In honor of Google’s 10th birthday, Google released a mini-site containing their earliest index from 2001. Needless to say, it’s brought a lot of laughs and plenty of memories. I really encourage you to take a look at it if you haven’t.

Most of the results that came up for avalonstar were ones related to my stint with the Future Business Leaders of America, or FBLA. From 1999 to 2001, I held the “office” of “Eastern Region Webmaster” (giggle), which pretty much entailed that I had the duty of overseeing the the online presences of each state in the region. I (believe I) did pretty well in that position, making sure that each state chapter made a point of getting a certain percentage of their chapters online while in office. When I assumed the position, I wrote the article below for the national mailing list.

I can’t help but laugh at all the buzzwords I used and I think you’ll get a good laugh out of it as well.

FBLA-Y2K, THE INTERNET REVOLUTION

by Bryan Veloso, National Eastern Region Webmaster

When was the last time you checked your e-mail? The last time that you talked to friends on AOL Instant Messenger or ICQ? How about the last time you surfed for fun? Well, everywhere we go these days, people cannot seem to get away without the power of the Internet. The Future Business Leaders of America is no exception to the rule. As a business organization, we have to keep up with technology. Well, there are a few people that have the skills to build web sites as well as surf through them, the name given to these individuals are webmasters. They are the heart and soul of what you see before you in FBLA-PBL sites, and the entire Internet for that fact. My job as webmaster is to push along and oversee the development of chapter web pages throughout the nine states of the Eastern Region. This is not an easy task and requires a lot of time taken out of an already busy FBLA schedule. The first and foremost priority of the position is the Eastern Region Web Site, in which I call the “portal” to the region. My other priorities are to oversee the constant development and updates of the nine state web sites: New Jersey, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and finally the local chapters within.

Officers are not officers without plans and projects and Webmasters are no different. So I have two projects that I would like to see developed during my term, the first of which is the “75% Plan.” It’s not very self explanatory, however it refers to the number of web sites in the Eastern Region. I am trying to help restart and develop sites for chapters that do not have them yet. At the end of my term, I would like to see either 75% of the whole Eastern Region on the Internet or 75% of the chapters in each of the nine states online. It sounds hard but anything can be done in the FBLA. […]

The second of the two projects is code-named “FBLA-Y2K.” This is an extra piece of work on my behalf to further connect the chapters of the Eastern Region and the Nation. This will be a portal parallel to the Regional web sites and will serve as a new information source and interaction network for the FBLA. A fellow Webmaster from the Southern Region, Dave Johnson, will be helping me with this endeavor so expect a new FBLA site to be coming up later this year.

So if you are in one of those chapters who have not seen the light of the Internet yet, please contact www.highwired.com or get in contact with me at my email address and give me the name of chapter. It will be my pleasure to help you make a presence on the Internet and in turn helping me lead the Eastern Region through the Year 2000.

If you can find something humorous about your internet past, feel free to comment, or write a post and link it here! Hell, I’m telling you to link to yourself! I’m really interested in seeing what you were all like back then. ;)

Belated Eighth

Bryan Veloso — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:29:51 PDT

This is the story of a guy and his blog. Said blog turned eight a few days ago and said guy completely forgot. Well, this is making up for it, since said guy couldn’t just sit around and not write some odd thoughts about the event. At least the date still says September. :)

Would one consider the number eight important? Well, if this were China, I guess 8 would be pretty lucky. If that’s the case, then the year ahead holds a lot for this young child of a site.

Eight years. Besides say, DDR and Japanese RPGs, it’s one of the only things that I haven’t gotten tired of given the length of time I’ve been doing it. I’ve grown a lot and the site has grown just as much. Looking back, it really puts my cyclical nature into perspective. Rises and falls, peaks and troughs. Something I’m still trying to get back is the furor for blogging that I had back in 2006. It’s been getting there, but I’m not satisfied yet. Sure, one could say that blogging in our industry is rendered irrelevant by the use of Twitter and other micro-blogging services. I can’t let myself be happy with that.

I used to want Avalonstar to be like those great design blogs. I don’t anymore. As an aside, it’s sort of like how I’ve strayed the path of trying to be that great, intellectual speaker. Because I’ve realized not that. There are people in our industry who do that job exceptionally well. There are people who are masters of the written word and everybody will run to the well looking for more. That’s not me. But I digress. I’ve learned that Bryan Veloso doesn’t shine, Bryan Veloso’s work shines, the person’s just there to back it up. :)

If the 9th year ahead says anything, it’ll be quite the interesting one. Interesting—in the fact that I’ve come to a point where I can’t see the road ahead of me, but I know where I want to go; akin to me graduating from college. I think I’ve said every year for the last eight years that it’s been quite a journey and I’ve been thankful to have people that have wanted to take that journey with me. It’s been comforting to say the least. With all my insecurities, indecision and changes of path, I always know i have some place to come to.

So happy belated birthday Avalonstar. Hopefully you’ll forgive me for missing it. :)

A First Look at django-grappelli

Bryan Veloso — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:23:01 PDT

This is the story of a guy and a framework. Lots of things have been happening around said framework. One in particular is a new design for the three year old admin application. This is hopefully the first of many quick walkthroughs through design-related Django pluggables.

I found django-grappelli about a week ago by Patrick Kranzlmüller and Axel Swoboda of vonautomatisch and finally got the chance to try it out after running into some initial commits while updating Django Plugables.

If you’re looking for something fresh, I encourage you to try it out! All you have to do is reference the templates in your TEMPLATE_DIRS and point your ADMIN_MEDIA_PREFIX to the correct location. The actual media directory is a bit messy, but it works out of the box, no tweaking needed.

Although I embedded the video here, please have a look at the full sized one. You know, if actually want any detail. :)

Apologies if I mutilated any names. :X

Twenty Twenty Two

Bryan Veloso — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 14:21:06 PDT

This is the story of a guy and a spec. The spec is something we’ve all been looking forward to, maybe, for a long time now. But a “long time” doesn’t even hold a candle to the “long time” we’ll be waiting for said spec to actually come out. If you don’t see the humor in all of this, get the stick out of your ass.

The issue. HTML5. Well, honestly it’s not an issue-issue. If you’ve read anything this past week (or if you’re just catching up like I have, damn naps), you’ve seen something like this regarding the “space-travel map” to HTML5.

First W3C Working Draft in October 2007.
Last Call Working Draft in October 2009.
Call for contributions for the test suite in 2011.
Candidate Recommendation in 2012.
First draft of test suite in 2012.
Second draft of test suite in 2015.
Final version of test suite in 2019.
Reissued Last Call Working Draft in 2020.
Proposed Recommendation in 2022.

Two-thousand-twenty-two. That’s 14 years from now. Can any of us think that far? Wouldn’t our robot overlords, whether you welcome them or not, have taken over by then? Will the internet even matter then? I want to hear some raw thoughts on this, because honestly, I’m still laughing. Maybe we should start putting HTML5 into Little Einstein videos, so by the time our children are of age, they’ll be able to use this. :)

Let’s talk relevancy people, what do you see yourself doing in fourteen years?

PS: Now nobody has a reason to ever again complain about the length of time something takes to release, because fourteen years will always trump it.

The Web Framework for Ponies

Bryan Veloso — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 01:02:06 PDT

This is the story of a guy and a conference. At said conference, he saw a keynote by some guy at Flickr. The keynote was about how Django sucked. But one thing caught said guy’s eye, the fact that Django needed a mascot. Read on to experience the ensuing pony-fest.

As many of you know, DjangoCon came to a close yesterday. Long story short, one of my favorite conferences ever. The laughs, memories, connections and available knowledge — endless. Soon, there’ll be videos of all the talks for all to enjoy, but I couldn’t help acting on one of my favorite talks of the first night, Cal Henderson’s keynote on why he hates Django.

In it, amongst other things, he talked about how Django needed a mascot. One that was awesome and had magical powers. Well, somewhere inside my head, I agreed. Since the pony seems to have much historical significance within the Django project, I give you the logo for “the web framework for ponies with magical powers.” Django is now awesome.

Wilson, I expect the redesign tomorrow. ;)

Update: Now in green by popular demand!

Update 2: To my amazement there is now a website dedicated the lovable pony. Once I find out who made it, I’ll be sure to talk to them about what my plan was for shirts. :)

Update 3: I think I found him.

Update 4: So the pony’s magic didn’t stay unexplained for long as investigators found out what really powers our beloved Django pony.

Update 5: Updated the post with the video of Cal’s keynote. Watch it, now.

“Smashed” into Apathy

Bryan Veloso — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 13:06:05 PDT

This is the story about a guy and his psyche. Well, not really. While he has a lot of respect for what he calls, the “super blog,” he also is starting to feel his motivation “smashed” by the speed and power of said blogs. He’s wondering if anybody feels the same way or if it’s just him getting a bit apathetic.

This is just a quick thought I had to get out of my head. I have to admit my psyche has a bittersweet relationship with the design super blogs. Places like, Smashing Magazine, Design Reviver, the Envato Network and Web Designer Wall.

First of all, I have a lot of respect for places like this, because they dedicate their time to spreading awesome information through tutorials and articles. A lot of them are run by people who are immensely creative and run circles around me when it came to truly mastering Photoshop and the like.

But that’s the thing.

The other side of the coin shows the same issue, but when it concerns my motivation to write articles, tutorials, build themes and the like. The only thing I can compare it to at the moment is say, Walmart closing down the smaller mom-and-pop shops. It’s because these blogs have dedicated and creative staff. They’re also businesses running on that premise. They need to do this to make sure they stay afloat. In doing so, it gives me an odd feeling.

“What’s the use?” I’d say to myself, they’d probably be able to do it better. I’m sure this apathetic feeling is just me. While I’m bothered, I’m not. Because really, I can only offer so much. I only wonder if other people are finding it hard to want to write or create things because of the larger blogs doing the same. For example, Smashing Magazine and their numerous WordPress themes, seems like one a week these days.

To conclude, the only thing I do fear, is the spread of misinformation. Things like the second point of Smashing’s article on table designs shouldn’t be there. Because these destinations have such clout these days, they have to be extra careful. I fear they won’t be because it’s the nature and speed of the business, but for the sake of the people in our industry who have tirelessly taught standards, we can’t have the next generation of designers learning the wrong things.

Gotta Catch ‘Em All

Bryan Veloso — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:10:31 PDT

This is the story of a guy and a large company. It seems whenever this company puts out products, said guy has to poke at least some fun at them. But come on, you know they ask for it. Maybe you’ll see what he sees in this one.

So you’re going see a lot of posts today about Google’s new browser, Chrome. Apparently it’s not finished, and if you’re viewing this site in it, I suggest you don’t, since it appears that they’ve exchanged text-shadow for text-shitify.

But we’re not going to talk about that. No, you’re not going to hear me go off about how it doesn’t fit with the OS or how it fails at rendering rounded corners. No, we’re going to talk about something much more substantial in the sprit of talking about Google on Avalonstar. Exhibit A please.

Discuss.

I Failed at Freelancing

Bryan Veloso — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 22:27:35 PDT

This is the story of a guy and a part of his career. After hearing a talk by an up-and-coming freelancer about a “series of successful failures,” he comes to terms with the fact that his freelancing phase was less than successful. Freelancing is a state of mind, it just wasn’t right for said guy.

Freelance isn’t fun like cupcakes and farts. It’s fun like the Ironman.

That’s one of many phrases that I took to heart at tonight’s Refresh Seattle. Matt Brown from the aptly named, thingsthatarebrown, had a lot of great things to say tonight. Actually, I wondered to myself if those tips would have been useful after I had entered the world of freelancing. But you can only spend so much time wondering and only so much time thinking what could have been. I exchanged a few words with Matt Anderson after the talk.

I could see the gleam in his eyes, he wants to do this. He has the tenacity and the talent to make this work. I’d be very interested to see what he has to say in 14 months. Either way, I’m sure it’ll be different than what I had to say after my first 14.

We all enter freelance with around the same goals. But being a freelancer shows you who you really are. I don’t think you can say you’re right for freelancing until it has held nothing back. Then you have the people that have survived, the Keith Robinsons of the world—and the people who haven’t—people like me.

Just like how I joke that it took Facebook and Automattic to get me freelancing, it took freelancing to get where I am today. Obviously I have to take the hard way around every time until I’m slowly phased out of the internet for constantly missing the boat.

But seriously, just because one is good at something, doesn’t mean that they’re going to be good at selling it to others. I could make great Avalonstars, but I could never quite translate it to bring greatness to anything that I didn’t have a vested interest in. I didn’t have the basic discipline or the required patience to be a freelancer. Things that Matt was learning at 4 months in, I couldn’t learn. Or, maybe I was too stubborn to learn them. I wanted too much control. I didn’t want to be questioned. If a client couldn’t keep my interest, I could completely lose my motivation. The way I evolved my process over time was to look for projects that would allow me to bypass all of that.

That worked, for a time. But we all know the story. I couldn’t handle it anymore. I wasn’t made for this. That’s been my experience.

Obviously, freelancing is not for everybody and I’ve gained so much respect for people like Matt who have the strength, determination and perseverance to keep going. Just by looking at him speak tonight, I know he’ll do well. I can say without a doubt that people with the same attributes will do just as well if not better. But you either know this for a fact up front, or you find out after you try.

I did the latter and say that as I’m looking back at the door I’m about to close and look forward at the one I’m about to open. I failed at being a freelancer from the beginning because I jumped in blindly. I failed being a freelancer at the end because I didn’t have the will to go on. I couldn’t finish the Ironman.

In our world, we need those great examples and we need examples of what and what not to be. Well, I’ll happily take the place of the latter. I’m really beginning to subscribe to the fact that everything happens for a reason. It was great while it lasted and if I had another chance, I wouldn’t do it any differently.

Good luck to Matt and all the freelancers out there. You’re all so much stronger than I could have ever been.

The Addictionary

Bryan Veloso — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 15:11:43 PDT

This is the story of a guy and a client. Yea, he knows he said he wasn’t going to take anymore, but there was something about this group in Park City, UT that made him change his mind. The redesign of Addictionary and some insights into the process are discussed.

The last six weeks have been a roller-coaster ride, things have gone from up to down and up again and the path ahead of us is a lot brighter and a lot clearer than it has ever been. One of the reasons for that falls around a “studio incubator for social media enterprises and engines of engagement” that goes by the name of SpectrumDNA and their pet project, the Addictionary.

I felt a resonance and a chance to help a company who has had the worst luck with UI in the past when their COO, Kelly McCrystal, contacted me even though it was a few days after I had closed down that part of Revyver. “I didn’t care, I sent it anyway,” she said to me a few days ago in retrospect.

The Addictionary was a challenging project as was the process of finishing it. So rather than describe my mental state (and unintentionally skipping over the process) as I usually seem to do, I’m going to try and hit some of the highlights and downfalls that occurred over the past six weeks.

So what is the Addictionary?

To start, a few words about what the Addictionary is. The first product one would compare it to is the Urban Dictionary. They’re both social dictionaries with words submitted by users. The difference lies in the execution of the model. While Urban operates in a horizontal structure, being all things to all people and forever owned by the creators (or the companies who eventually buy them), the Addictionary is a platform or engine network, as CEO Jim Banister puts it, focused on vertical markets. These engines are then licensed out or sold for companies to include in their product offerings. A big example would be the Political Addictionary which is licensed by Comedy Central for their Indecision 08 campaign.

From a business standpoint, it’s a great model. Definitely something that you don’t see in the era of “me-too”s.

Another project, another challenge.

No matter what Spectrum did with the platform afterwards, my focus was on Addictionary proper. When I saw the site for the first time, my eyes cried without my brain having to tell them to. There was no continuity, no identity, nothing to pull it together. The first thought that came to mind was the fact that I couldn’t make this site graphically intensive. It was a dictionary, so the words and the typography around those words had to take precedence. Deciding that early on made my job that much harder, more mentally than anything else.

Now herein lies the problem. I don’t consider myself to have a great grasp at the fundementals of typography. The fact that I was drawn to Helvetica all the time didn’t help much either. If I was going to even come close to getting this right, then I had to do my research. I didn’t have to look far, with Jon Boardley’s iLoveTypography articles and Dan Rubin‘s typography relapse. That certainly isn’t an all-inclusive list by any means, as visits to places like Dictionary.com and the New York Magazine were frequent.

However, it was Dan that confided in to find the star of the show. He did just that.

The type stars. Capsa, Gotham and… Cambria.

The old Addictionary logo was “set” in Georgia, with no kerning of any kind. Georgia with kerning might have worked, but that wasn’t the look I wanted for them. They needed something that said, “you could put me in a book if you wanted to and it’d still work!” After about a day of looking, Dan came back to me with Capsa from TypeTrust. Capsa is a beautiful face that the guys at Spectrum automatically fell in love with. Capsa was also my introduction into what OpenType can really do. So much so that I want any font I purchase in the future to have the same type of flexibility. Seeing how many combinations you can make is also a great time waster.

Capsa’s co-star was my recently formed addiction, Gotham. My reasoning for this extends no farther than, “it’s beautiful and it just worked.” If anybody tries to cite the political undertones or mention that the use of this particular font is a fad, I’ll punch them in the face. Really now, if I needed a reason for all of my decisions, I’d probably be a corporate asshat by now. I shall now place Gotham alongside Helvetica Neue in my “overused, but I don’t give a crap,” box.

Finally, I needed body type. Most people would see Georgia. But what’s weird about this is the fact that for the first time Vista users would be able to receive an “intended” part of the design this part being the Vista-only (unless you download it yourself) font, Cambria. The only time I had used a Vista-only font as the first choice in the past was back when the first version of Revyver was designed using Calibri.

Hello monochrome.

To preface, I have to admit I’m kicking myself for making it so monochrome. Part of the reason that it ended up monochrome was the fact that I didn’t have enough time to go any further with it, the other part I’ll address below. However, it worked out as Spectrum liked the feel of it. Actually, I was so wrapped up in trying to make the typography work that I completely forgot about throwing any colors in, despite what I just said. Monochrome did allow me to use color selectively. I was able to form different paradigms for different functions around the site. A green arrow and a red arrow would always prompt the user to vote, for example. A green box, no matter what Chameleon icon (and there were a lot of those) was inside would signify an “add” action. Blue would signify an action that doesn’t add anything to the site, but rather carries them to another part of it, etc. This was honestly a product of laziness, but it was quite effective when the group started to test it.

The layout itself was once again created using 960.gs. While I always find myself using the Photoshop templates, I only used the system’s markup in the header and footer, since those would never change no matter what “silo,” a so-called child site of the Addictionary would be. This would allow partners to rearrange the site without having to touch the markup. Granted, I only noticed this after I coded the site the first time causing me to go back and do it all over again.

We don’t need no stinkin’ Trac.

This is more of an aside, but I was quite intrigued by the way Spectrum handled the final days before the launch. Since nearly technical person in the room (besides Jen and myself) was from the enterprise sector, it was interesting to watch them. It was their first time performing tasks that we take for granted; tasks that are a part of the agile development movement. They had done their homework too by inviting different leaders of the agile thinking world to Park City to educate the team.

Facebook and Automattic were inherently “agile.” So to think of development any other way was foreign to me. Spectrum did an awesome job, even with the environment and timeframe being less than ideal. The most interesting part of the process to me was how low-tech their issue management system was. Even though they had Crucible and Jira, which would be the equivalent of say GitHub and Lighthouse or Sifter respectively, minus the code reviewing features. They threw that all away and used—sticky notes. The funniest thing is that the sticky notes were surprisingly effective. While closing tickets in Trac is a great feeling, running from your computer chair to the validation wall and slamming said ticket onto said wall is an even greater feeling that never failed to put a smile on my face. Granted, the environment was right. Everybody working on the launch was in-house, so sticky notes took less time to write and triage.

IE6 gets its revenge.

This needs no introduction and I wish I could condemn this browser to the fiery pits of hell. But karma’s a bitch and it came back to kick my ass in the end. I’ve been working with IE6 for a long time, like many of us had, but if IE6 were to ever make a final stand against me, it did so this past week. The odd thing is, it wasn’t CSS related at all. It was with a problem that I could not find documented at all. After intense research the only post I had found was published this year.

I designed Addictionary with transparent PNGs, mainly to assist in future theming of the site for partners. Everything went well at first. We found a transparent PNG fix for IE6 which worked like a charm other than ruining the positioning of the fixed elements. This continued for about a 24-hour period. However, once the project started entering its final moments, IE6 decided to have a hissy fit. It suddenly didn’t want to load and we thought, at first, it was because of the transparent PNGs.

The article I found backed this claim, citing it was DirectX accompanied by IEs two-connection limit. So, I tried their solution first, changing all of the PNG24 images into PNG8. That didn’t work because the index transparency in IE6 made all the graphics look like complete crap. So I took out the transparency in the PNG8’s and tried again, it still didn’t work. This boggled me, IE never hung on regular PNGs as far as I remembered, but IE6 still refused to load. It wasn’t until I had converted all the images to GIFs that we started to see the site. vBulletin, which runs their authorization system, oddly, was letting people upload PNGs and those were choking IE6. So after banning all PNGs from the site in the 25th hour did IE6 finally let us in.

Needless to say, the entire company wants to drop IE6 support for all future products and for Addictionary once IE8 comes out.

Afterword.

Would I call this my best design? No.
But am I ever really happy? No.
Did Dan Cederholm’s icons help? Immensely.
Will I be going to Dan Rubin for more font advice? Definitely.
Will I have the urge to polish this site? The moment they drop IE6.

Beside the browser problems and the compressed timeline, I’m delighted with what I was able to focus on. I had the chance to not force, but fit a typography based design into a project. I spent more time making sure my baselines grids worked (in Safari at least) than on any other project I’ve done so far. I’ve never had so much fun playing with OpenType, and I hope to find even more awesome fonts like Capsa in the future.

Although I closed Revyver’s doors to the client world, something about the guys at SpectrumDNA spurred me to make an exception. Maybe it’s fate, maybe it’s something else. But things are looking up, and you’ll see why soon enough.

Mobile Assimilation

Bryan Veloso — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 18:00:35 PDT

This is the story of a guy and his process. He rehashes his process and begins to learn a little about how he uses applications or how applications grab hold of him. He later discovers that the mobile platform is a great way for him to actually “get” the whole GTD thing.

Recovery Update: Thanks to Dean Robinson, I was able to recover this post. Thanks Dean!

A week or so ago, I talked about assimilation, or rather, the ease of having anything fit into my workflow. Whether that was using iCal or going to the gym, it was like pulling teeth after about two weeks.

But this time we’re going to add another one to the list, GTD. GTD or “Getting Things Done,” has been the one thing that everybody else seem to get that has alluded me. To-do lists. Task management. Sorting emails. I couldn’t keep up with it. I wouldn’t necessarily say I was unproductive, because I survived fine without it, but I felt that I was missing something. I’d see people talk about achieving the super-amazing “Inbox Zero” and I’d just sit there, petting my failwhale, looking at my Inbox 268.

But the mailbox talk is for another day because I might have found my way to “get” task management.

Enter Things

Things, by CulturedCode, is a task manager that you’ve probably heard of. I was lucky to get invited to the alpha when they first put the word out, but after downloading it, I did the usual. I opened it, stared at it, inputted and deleted a task or two, closed it, and zapped it. Was it bad? No, not at all. I just didn’t get it. During the span of 3 or 4 months I gave it a few more tries, without any luck. Even if I told myself not to delete it, it would just sit there looking entropic. But it’s not just Things, it’s any life management application that requires semi-constant updating. Delicious Library 2 would be another example. I haven’t opened that since the day I bought Practical Django Projects. But I digress.

Then the lovely AppStore for the iPhone came out and I realized what my problem was. It wasn’t the program, it was the platform. Now, this could very well be an isolated case. Notebooks didn’t work, desktop applications didn’t work, but the mobile platform did.

Enter Things, for the iPhone

So last night, I buckled and got Things for the iPhone. Sure enough, I sat there typing at least 10 to-do items in the first 30 minutes of using it. The kicker is, I kept checking and inputting more tasks as they came out mind. Now, let’s back up a little bit.

Why did mobile work for me? There are three things I have with me at all times.

My wallet.
My keys.
My phone.

Sure, I’ll forget one every now and then when I’m rushing, but 90% of the time I’ll always have my oversized black leather wallet, my keys on a Media Temple lanyard and my iPhone. So it’s always on me. That’s a biggie. Whenever there’s any sort of downtime, such as waiting in line, I would always either update Brightkite or check Twitter using Hahlo, and now, Mobile Twitterific. Even when I’m home, sitting in front of my laptop, I’ll check stuff on it.

So we can conclude that I have the attention span of a doorknob. But that attention span has limited my ability to use applications I know I don’t need to use daily. However, since I’m always clicking around my iPhone during those dead moments, there’s always going to be a chance that I click on Things. The more I click it, the more I’m going to use it and obviously a lot of that you have to attribute to the lovely interface.

Could this work for other things?

Maybe. I’ll just have to wait for nice enough applications to come and fill those needs. Example, since I admit I’m a stats whore, when Nike+ comes out for the iPhone, I’ll probably be running more.

But I now know that mobile applications win me over, which will be very bad for my wallet.

Sidenote: Now, I realize that many people haven’t bought Things because of its lack of syncing. For me, I could go without it, Things for the desktop would probably have a backup of what I input into the iPhone app. So, when that comes, it comes. It also irks me that people expected so much out of such a short development period, but that’s another story for another day.

My 3G Day in Pictures

Bryan Veloso — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 22:50:55 PDT

This is the story of a guy and a device. You probably know what the said device is, hell, you probably have it. Well, this is the story, in pictures, of his 8 hour wait to get one. It’s definitely not five days, but it was definitely interesting.

Well, we all know what happened on yesterday. No need to reiterate, no need to explain. Some had good days, some had empty ones. My day started out pretty down, but the actual wait made it all better.

The great bacon lover Mark Bixby commented on my day’s set,

This whole set is so good! Really captures the weird excitement/frustration/melancholy of the day!

So rather than blog about it, why not just show you the pictures? :)

Sidenote: I tried to use Slideshow Pro for this, but, I couldn’t get it to work the way I wanted to without ripping my hair out. It’s not a bad product, it just didn’t work out this time. If it weren’t for that, this would have been out earlier. I should learn to quit when I’m frustrated sometimes. :)

A Widget Apart

Bryan Veloso — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 22:20:26 PDT

This is the story of a guy and a project. In that project he’s run into the widget. He’s never really had to accommodate distributable embed-able widgets so he needs a little help to understand them.

Widgets.

I’ve never really gotten them. I guess one could start out by trying to define widgets. But rather than going into that nonsense, the widgets I’ll be addressing are the little embed-able pieces of goo that seem to scour the web looking for a blog to infiltrate—the hows, the whys and the whats.

Good as they are, their function, design has always alluded me. When a client would ask me, “oh, can you do widgets,” I’d usually answer, “uh, not confident enough.” They come in Flash flavors, embedded HTML or Javascript. Hell, you could technically call the ad on Avalonstar’s post page a widget right? Stereotypes of said widgets would be the ones on say, iGoogle, Netvibes or Pageflakes.

As a project I’ve been working diligently on has progressed, I’ve had to come to terms with the widget. I can’t run away any longer but I’m going to come prepared. That’s where you come in. So with that said, I want to pose four questions:

What do you feel is the general consensus among designers and site owners on Flash vs. HTML widgets? How do you feel about Flash vs. HTML widgets?
Why are most widgets lacking in interactivity? Is it size limitations, lack of creativity, or something else?
How big is too big when it comes to embedded widgets?
If you are involved in HTML widget design, how do features like CSS customization play into the creation of those widgets?

Thanks for the help in advance. Said project and the widgets I’ll eventually start working with will be very appreciative. Feel free to state any examples of exceptional widgetry as well. :)

Can Haz Assimilation?

Bryan Veloso — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:14:28 PDT

This is the story of a guy and his process. His process? Well, while there isn’t much of one, it’s really hard for things to become part of the process. As a little break from Revyver week, he’s wondering how you’re able to.

While I’m spending my first night in Park City, Utah, I had a thought at the front of my mind. Since I’ve been doing quite well with posting, why stop? :) Don’t worry, this’ll be short. You’ll be doing the talking this time!

Bryan’s got problems. Don’t say anything.

To start, I’ll just say it’s deathly hard to get anything to assimilate into my daily life. Web applications, software, anything. At best, I’ll use a program or about 2 weeks and then all of a sudden forget about it. Let’s take Twitter for instance, the only reason I’ve been able to keep up with it is because of the social utility involved. Alright, bad example.

Oh here’s one. iCal. I love it, but I can’t seem to remember to use it whenever I have a date to take note of. I’ve tried on multiple occasions to just keep the it open while I work and I always find a way to command-Q it. Another example. See how “Site of the Moment” is missing? Even though it was right there, I was never able to keep up with it.

So, here’s the question.

How hard is it for you to incorporate new programs, services or processes into your daily life? How long did it take? If something eventually falls out of favor, why and how long does it take?

Maybe I can understand my own “problem,” by seeing your reasoning. :)

Birthdays and Test Tubes

Bryan Veloso — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:33:21 PDT

This is the story of a guy and his company. After taking the level of seriousness to an all time high, he felt it was time to lighten up the mood a little bit and announce what he’s been meaning to all week. Might not be that special, but it could very well help a lot of people.

After a night of spilling my guts out for all to see, I felt it was high time to perk up the mood and talk about the announcement I alluded to a few nights ago.

Long time readers will remember that some time ago, I released archives of hand-picked Photoshop documents for all to see and play with. The response was very positive and I eventually released a total of three archives, one for 2004, 2005 and 2006. However, since I have a tendency of nuking the domain and starting fresh with each release, not to mention the numerous server moves, files I host don’t usually survive. This is mostly because I forget. The same thing happened with ChaoticSoul, my beloved WordPress theme.

A few weeks ago, after getting an email asking about the archives, I said to myself, “I really got to get these back up.” With that motivation in tow, I was able to kick something out that I hope all of you will be able to enjoy to some degree.

With that, I’m very proud to introduce, Revyver Labs which you can find at labs.revyver.com. To make a potentially long story a lot shorter, this is where I will release all of my works for now on. It’s obviously on a domain, lovingly taken care of by Media Temple, that’s far far away from the reach of my nuking button.

Everything on the Labs is provided as a sort of donation ware, so buy us some boba milk tea if you want to say thanks. But you won’t only be helping us help you. Fifty-percent (50%) of all donations will go towards the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, or the ASPCA. So you’ll be helping animals, much like our own cats (2 of which are rescues) find loving homes. But in the end, it’s not about the money at all, it’s about me wanting to help people learn and grow in my own special way (read: I can’t teach for crap, I leave that to people like Andy and Dan).

Along with the launch of the Labs comes a refresh of Revyver, so I encourage you to check both out (and make sure to switch your tabs quickly between them). Well, the entry could technically end here, but for more, read on!

Batteries Included?

Let’s talk about what’s actually in the Labs. There’ll be a few things you recognize and a few things you won’t. At the current moment, the downloads are split up into three categories, WordPress themes, the Photoshop archives, and source code.

The WordPress Themes

But wait, you don’t use WordPress anymore.

That I don’t, well, not here at least. However, I have been keeping up with development and the releases. For months I’ve had the desire to release a few more themes like ChaoticSoul and Labs will provide me with the avenue to do so. So you’ll see ChaoticSoul as well as its future twin, AngelicSoul. You’ll be able to not only download the current releases, but also follow any work I do on the themes from their new home on GitHub.

The Photoshop Archives

The beloved archives have undergone a few changes. First, they’re now strictly Photoshop documents. I’ve removed all the markup, InDesign and Illustrator documents for placement in a future category. Second, I’ve thrown in the 2007 archive. Third, I’ve revised each of the archives to include documents I didn’t release in the past. Three of these files making their inaugural appearance in the archive are version 19 and the 4th prototype of this version of Avalonstar as well as the first version of Revyver. It was quite the inner battle—to release works so close to me—but I ultimately decided to include them as centerpieces of my work for each of the archives.

The Source Code

As of right now, the only project you’ll find there is Django Plugables, since that’s the only project that I’ve decided to release the source code for. More are in the pipeline, including planned releases of the backend that runs Avalonstar as well as a few other ideas up my sleeve. All of these projects, wether Django related or not, will be hosted on GitHub in case you’d like to follow along.

Need assistance? Get Satisfaction!

Finally, at the center of all these releases is the help system powered by Get Satisfaction. I’ve long wanted to redirect all the requests for support to one central location and the platform provided at Get Satisfaction will fulfill that need perfectly. So all requests for help or even ideas and comments should go there! I’ll be able to address issues a lot easier and a lot quicker. :)

All-in-all, I really hope you enjoy the Labs. I hope to keep them updated with new projects as often as I can. Also, do feel free to poke me if I haven’t. As I’ve said in the past, a swift kick in the ass does wonders sometimes.

Finally, happy birthday Revyver, this beer’s for you. :)

EDIT 1: Apparently Mint’s download pepper is giving me crap. I’m on it!
EDIT 2: And now Revyver’s down. Woohoo. D:
EDIT 3: Everything’s alright! Go eat my bandwidth! :D

The Story and State of Revyver

Bryan Veloso — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 02:33:03 PDT

This is the story of a guy and the history of his company. While noticing that he never really explained the background behind the company, he decided to take care of that as well as talk about the change from one dream to another. It’s a pseudo-long and personal story that stresses one of the company’s adjectives—transparency.

As the little firm that could turns two tomorrow, I wanted to be able to take a step back and take a look at what got it where it was today. If nothing else, this is a moment of self-reflection for me. As I’ve told those closest to me since turning 25 almost three months ago, I’ve learned to be a lot more honest with myself about what I can and cannot do. The direction that Revyver’s taken even in that time span has been greatly affected by my state of mind. With that said, this post could get quite lengthy.

The idea.

From the moment I discovered the possibility of going into business as a 13-year-old in high school, I’ve wanted to start my own firm. I started getting into design that same year and the dream to start a firm in general turned into the dream of starting a design firm. Said firm was supposed be named Avalonstar; we all know why that didn’t happen.

This continued through college, as I constantly tried to pull out the basic shreads of knowledge on how to start Avalonstar, even though I was being taught how to start a resturant. I remember being the only person in my Introduction to Entrepreneurship class my freshman year who presented a business plan that wasn’t related to food. But there was no getting me out of this mindset, no matter how many times I felt left out of the group or how many times certain professors would stress the importance of finding the right building.

My company’s going to be on the internet, do I really need to learn how to get insurance for my non-existant kitchen?

Granted the knoweldge is always good to have, but still.

By the time I left college, I was pretty convinced that I didn’t have what it would take to start Avalonstar right after graduation. With all the risks I had taken and the mistakes I had made, I didn’t want to risk screwing up from the getgo. So, I started looking for management trainee jobs in Savannah, Georgia. When that didn’t work, after some prodding from my father and the sheer kindness and assistance from one Evan Eckard, I was able to get the interviews at LinkedIn and Facebook.

A good number of you followed my journeys through Facebook, so there’s really no need to rehash that. While working there was one of the best experiences of my career, the causes of my immenent departure would become a recurring theme. So this is the first point in the narrative where I am going to respect one of Revyver’s five adjectives—transparency.

Passion, motivation and actuality.

I’m a person driven on two things, passion and motivation. My motivation to do something when working is directly related to the amount of passion I have for the said task or project. With any project of mine, there is a process of depreciation. While this term is usually used to describe tangible assets, the principle works in this situation. Depending on the circumstances that happen over the life of a relationship, motivation depreciation can either accelerate or decelerate.

This is what happened at Facebook right around the time that I entered the then two-person marketing department as Creative Director. The reason I made the change in the first place was an effect of a degredation in motivation. I was the guy who knew how to fix IE bugs, but I didn’t want to be doing that, and as my primary role was evolving into one of browser compatibility, I left. I don’t think Mark will ever really forgive me for that. The total demise of said motivation happened after a Director of Marketing was hired accompanied with the overall “corporate” feeling at the time.

So, what happens when you run out of motivation and don’t do anything about it? You get let go. That’s what happened to me. Although I was told that I couldn’t move at the pace of the rest of the company when I was called to the table on that fateful afternoon in May, I had lost my will to work at least a month prior. So I did leave Facebook, just not of my own accord.

I just was never the person to stand up for myself. I was weak and probably still am in that regard.

The execution.

About a month ago, after the Facebook fiasco, I said that I had a few things up my sleeve. […] Revyver stands for many things as it is derived from the word “revive”. The revival of my entrepreneurial spirit (caused by the events of late) and the will to revive things that have been lost in time.

So the design firm was brought back and on July 1st, I did show the world that I finally achieved my dream to start on my own. But that’s not the end of the story.

Welcome to the end of the beginning. :)

If I only knew what I really meant by that when I wrote it.

Problems with the priorities.

The first weeks of Revyver would have been nothing without Will Pate, as he was able to get me a meeting with Bart Decrem, and later, the task of redesigning Flock with Matt Downey. All-in-all, there was thankfully a bit spurt of work to keep us going, but there was quite a struggle after Flock was done and paid for.

So Revyver’s stay in the front of the pack was cut off as you know what happened next. A few weeks after Webvisions 2006, I was working for Automattic and many of you also followed my tenure with them. While working with WordPress and a truly talented team was a great pleasure, the effects started to happen again within 4 months of my entry. For the sake of not being redundant, I was let go for the same reasons as my departure from Facebook.

Revyver made a swift comeback after those events and once again had a big name to catapult it back to the front of the pack, Mashable. Working with Pete was a pleasure and a little painful at times, but what client project isn’t without its bumps?

2007 in general was Revyver’s time to shine with clients, doing some great work for Groovr (work I actually forgot to announce) and Coffee Cup Software. It was a great learning period for me, but something didn’t feel right. I didn’t feel right. I was done working for “the man,” but the same symptoms from the working world started to creep in on my freelance work. Thus, my state of mind began to change. Each of those relationships didn’t end as well as they could have and it was my fault.

My blessing and my curse.

My blessing of being free also came with a curse, I wanted to be free to work on my own projects. The fact that I had started to learn Django had aided in my push away from client work. It had given me the tools to accomplish my own ideas, Wii SportsStar being the first proof of concept. By the time I had added Jen to Revyver before its first birthday, we had begun to think of ideas for our own products, most of them stemming from Jen’s side of the web.

But client work was a way of life. I couldn’t just drop everything and start creating products all day, there were bills to pay. Also, I didn’t feel any of our ideas were “Web 2.0 enough” to garner any investments. Who would want to invest in a trading card game organizer or a ranking game? We were convinced that there weren’t any venture capitalists or angel investors that would “get” us, so we decided that client work was the only way and that I would have to find time in between projects to build our flagship products.

But the more and more I worked with clients, the more history kept repeating itself. The projects themselves were great, including more work for Coffee Cup and recently, the gaming social utility GameStrata, but the relationships quickly deteriorated because of my inability to stay passionate about the work, ultimately killing my motivation and the project.

As 2008 started to progress and I was getting closer to relaunching Avalonstar, it was clear that I had completely demolished the dream I had since adolescence. How could I have a fledging design firm when I just couldn’t made client relationships work? I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. I started to refuse clients who specifically wanted my style, because I knew what would happen. I couldn’t very well go back to work for a company, because we both knew what would happen. I no longer wanted people to have to deal with me and my crap.

So we made the change official in March, we were going to create products for niches that have yet to be benefited by great design and web applications. Could I make exceptions when it came to design services? Sure, but I would start those relationships citing the reasons why I stopped taking them in the first place. As long as that was clear, I would feel better about roaming free and that client would understand me better, otherwise, I would gladly point them to either Sidebar Creative or one of my freelance partners.

The follow-through and the future.

Since then, it has been nothing but excitement for the both of us as our ideas start to take shape. They’re coming together slowly, but surely. Mentally and emotionally, I’m a lot happier than I have been.

What I find funny about all this are the lengths we’ll go to be comfortable. Some people would call that selfish, and I feel that my changes and actions as of late have led to an unfavorable image amongst certain groups of my peers. But when it comes down to it, being comfortable with our situation leads to better things overall.

As part of Revyver, I’ve chosen my battles and I’ll do whatever needs to be done to keep this going. I’m no longer lying to myself to get where I need to go or acting fake to befriend specific people. I’ve made some very tough decisions and I know I’ll have to make many more in the future, both personally and otherwise. I feel I’m prepared for whatever comes our way and it’s because of Jen and the support of my friends that I feel that way.

The direction that Revyver’s taken has been greatly affected by my state of mind and I can finally stand up, be proud and say that Revyver’s here to stay. We’re going to create awesome products, hold awesome events above all make sure that Jen, myself and everybody involved are enjoying every minute at it. We only have one shot at this, there’s no reason we have to hold back anymore.

I have a new dream now and as Revyver turns two and the days go by, it’s starting to feel more and more like a reality.