colors and their meaning

Colors have a lot of meaning. The best graphic artists I know (including my current guy) know these meanings in their bones. They can look at a splotch of color, or wo colors next to eachother, and tell you exactly what sort of emotional reaction people are going to have to it.



The rest of us have a much harder time doing this, but this site helps.... A Lot. You can click around on a color pallete, and it searches through Flickr to show you images of predominantly that color. Not only do you get the color, but you get to put the color in context. Amazing



http://www.krazydad.com/colrpickr/

Good News for English unsigned bands

The BBC has a great article about sea change coming in the Music industry. From the article -





The English band Koopa is likely to be the first. From the article -

Chart rules were changed at the start of January to count all digital single sales, even if there is no CD version.

"It's fantastic that a band like us can have an
opportunity to put ourselves into the top 30 with Razorlight and U2,"
manager Gary Raymond told the BBC.

Until 1 January, an artist needed to release singles on
CD or another physical format - and therefore have a record deal - to
qualify for the chart.

But bands who sell songs themselves through approved download services are now eligible.

Open Moko

Lots of buzz today about the Apple Phone. It looks like quite a machine. I must say though that I'm more excited about this offereing from OpenMoko. Roughly the same form factor (probably not quite as sexy, though) and it runs Linux.



I spend about half my time on OSX, and the other half on Ubuntu. I really do prefer the Gnome interface. I know that I'm probably one in a group of about one who feels this way, but thats the way it is. Long live competition that dirves innovation.



One gadget from Apple that I may have a harder time saying no to is iTV. Are those shows on iTunes that you pay for commercial free? If so, I wonder how long they will stay that way.

good designers

There are a lot of great designers competing in the web space. Some of them have exceptional talent. I've been looking for the right designer to help with 4 gauge, and lots of great designers have sent me their portfolio.



This one in particular sticks out. He's got a knack for both page design, and stunning graphics. I like how much action there is in the layouts and graphics he uses. Even in designs of quieter moments, you get the feeling that its only a pause to reflect inbetween the action.



Great stuff



http://www.chado-design.com/

powered by performancing firefox

ZiYa from Rails

Nice looking graphs have always been a challenge to get up on a web page. There are things like Gruff, that use ImageMagic, and they work well. But I've always wanted somthing that looked better. Now, it looks like you can use ZiYa to get the power and prettyness of Flash. Nice!!

Do you do logos?

Its Amazing how much time you can waste with content vendors who want to get your project in and out the door as fast as they can so they can make a quick buck. I'm looking for someone to do some logo work for 4gauge, and some other sites. If you do this kind of thing, let me know.



I don't recommend sites like this one - http://www.elance.com/

Restful and ActiveResources

Rails 1.2 is going to be released within the next few days. Sadly, ActiveResources didn't make the cut and is not included. We've been working with it a bit at work, and I can understand why, but still I'm looking forward to seeing it in wider use.



I saw DHH talk about it at Rails Conf back in June, so I know that he is fired up on Rest/ActiveResources. I'm guessing that it will be a hot topic after 1.2 ships.



Rest/ActiveResources is an alternative to RPC/Soap. The basic concepts behind the two are fundamentally difference, with my preference being the Rest approach.



Rest is better because it is OO, while RPC is procedural. Active Resources actually allows the programmer to interact with remote objects natively in the current application.



If you want to bone up on Rest/ActiveResources, try these links -

Ryan's Scraps



And a couple of podcasts - sd.rb

powered by performancing firefox

Eventful is a great tool

Using Eventful.coms api is about the best tool I know of for bands to get show announcements across the internet. Its powerful because not only does your show get listed on Eventful's site, but other sites use the api to fill in content on their site too. I've even seen more creative uses of Eventful data like Podbop. When people talk about Web 2.0, they are talking about things like Eventful letting other sites access and contribute to its event database. A very cool thing.



I've just pushed an update to 4gauge that allows bands to submit new shows they create to Eventful. It brings a lot of power and usefulness to the site.

Nextcat

This is a good site for bands to get thier name out there, and hook up with other indie artists / producers / labels.

www.nextcat.com

From their site -
At Nextcat, we’re hoping to create the first global online networking community
for all things relating to the entertainment industry.

We’re 100% independent, and not beholden to any large corporation. With
Nextcat.com, we hope to provide a marketplace of ideas and opportunities for
both established and emerging talent, as well as a forum and meeting place for
fans and enthusiasts.

Puzzles

powered by performancing firefox

4Gauge Update

I've put up some new features on 4gauge.com. You can now add photos of shows you've done, and see pictures from other bands who've played the venues on your schedule.





Check it out, and bands should get an account if you don't already have one.

powered by performancing firefox

Podbop

This is soo cool. If you want to know what bands are playing in your town, get this podcast. If you are a band, make sure you're listed.



www.podbop.org

powered by performancing firefox

Good user facing CMS

Allowing users to do their own content management is difficult to get right from a usability standpoint. I've been working on a form that allows users of 4gauge.com to build custom email reminders that will go out to the venues they are scheduled to play.



The first goal is to make it clean and simple to understand. The challenge is to achieve the first goal while still giving the user enough wiggle room that they end up with a product they are happy with.



Here is what I came up with for the email -







I like the way this turned out. The system has control over most of the email, even the dynamic part like band name and show date. Then there is a text box right in the middle of the email. This gives the user a feel for what the final email will look like as they are creating it. I made the background of the email just a little off of white, so the white background of the text field gets pushed to the foreground. That makes it more obvious that there is an area for the user to edit.



What do you think?

powered by performancing firefox

Heckle Your Tests

Heckle is getting some well deserved attention. I think it is important for development team managers who want to make sure that the code being checked in each week has adequate test coverage.



Gluttonous : Tormenting Your Tests with Heckle

powered by performancing firefox

Trademark vs. Service Mark

We've just spent some time obtaining a Service Mark for the phrase "Like Dating For Jobs" on this site - Climber.com. It raised the question for me, what is the difference between a Trademark and a Service Mark. The answer is kind of subtle. Trademarks are for things you sell. Service Marks are for services you provide. Climber provides the service of finding people jobs in a way very similar to dating, thus its a Service Mark. If we were selling a "Super Duper Resume Spellchecker", that would be a TradeMark.



More here - Trademark vs Service Mark

powered by performancing firefox

Happy Holidays

powered by performancing firefox

Performancing for the new Blogger

The new Blogger breaks many of the old Firefox plugins that allowed posting to your blog from the page you are viewing. Thankfully, Performancing is the exception. It works nicely.

powered by performancing firefox

acts_as_solr

Acts_as_solr is a great plugin for all your rails apps that need search. It takes all of 10 minutes to install Solr AND the plugin.

http://acts-as-solr.rubyforge.org/

Simple Tools for Hardworking Bands

Yesterday 4Gauge went live. It is the beginning of a much larger project, and larger still ambitions. I'm very proud of it.4Gauge is a tool for bands out on tour to easily keep in communication with the venues they are scheduled to play. Bands can choose to send a 7 day reminder, 1 day reminder, or both.

Read more at 4gauge.com

techno weenie

Good things are coming to rails with ActiveResource

Read more at weblog.techno-weenie.ne...