I love Thinkgeek… There I’ve said it, again. Not only do they once again provide an outlet for the awesome geek cruft from all over the internet. But now they’re enabling the printer happy set to print their own valentines cards, for free. Or if you’d like to save a tree, sign the pdf and send it along. They have 4 different cards available to go along with their tons of other awesome stuff.

ThinkGeek

Kids toys need to be two things to pass muster, durable and quiet. These blocks look mighty quite unless there is a hidden compartment for batteries I’m missing, and they also fulfill the hidden third category of an educational plus. The only real question i would have is about durability. can the water compartments take a three year old with a good arm?

I love the simplicity of the design and the classic shapes. they hit all of the right buzz words of the day. Made from sustainable rubberwood, in Thailand. Its not so much that Thailand is an advantageous place t do business but its not china, which has a whole ton of bad press about kids toys and disregard for product safety.

I’m almost tempted to buy them for school as they perfectly illustrate additive color theory. However at $39.99 I think they will be a wonderful example from afar. 6 blocks for 40 dollars breaks down to just over $6.67 per block, and that’s might pricey.

Via OhGizmo!

Almost as ubiquitous as the What are you doing? from twitter, which recently changed into What’s Happening?. Facebook asks you what you are currently thinking, and hopes that your friends actually care. I care, I just want to see a bit more of the overall picture.

I’ve been doing quite a bit of sketching recently and I thought i’d share the fun. Think you suck as an artist try doing it  more frequently and you’ll get better. What’s on MY mind? take a look.

And I challenge you to do the same. Here is a PDF called woym, of the head outline with the what’s on YOUR mind left there to remind you of your mission. Sketch write, doodle, type, whatever upload them somewhere and link back, tag everything WOYM, What’s On Your Mind.

I’d like to SEE what other people are thinking. Think of it as show and tell for your nervous fingers.

One of the questions I am confronted with quite often is the practicality of the way I consume coffee. Recently I brought my 4th different way of making coffee into the house. Offset this with the act that I am the only one who consumes Coffee in my immediate family and you get a couple of different problems propping up. I constantly find my myself trying to balance between the two needs.

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If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook you have probably noticed a constant slew of posts referring to a “Kiosk” and attempting to beat Linux into submission for work. Fear not I’ll be putting a complete guide up after I get everything done to my liking.  The idea behind this was that our department wanted to put Internet and Email kiosks into the lobby to allow the students who want to check facebook, twitter, email, class scheduling, or any number of other non design related things. Basically its supposed to reduce the load on the design capable machine leaving them free for students to do High end work. Also the department has next to no budget to make this happen, so on the cheap was the order of business.

The Project thus far has been frustrating for several reasons, first off I’m using 7 year old machines, which are long out of warranty. So finding working machines to use was step one, getting to software installed and locked down was step two, three was transferring that one perfect image onto multiple machines at once, and lastly i had the create signage to let student know what they were using.

Honestly I thought the last part would be the least frustrating of all of the steps. The last step before i posted the signs was a quick spell check. I ran the documentation through Adobe Illustrator’s spell checker… and received this error message…

Now what am I supposed to do with THAT? You just have to laugh.

More will follow in this vein as i describe the setup one needs to bring to the table to create your very own Internet kiosk, suitable for young children, grandparents, students, teachers ect. Just wanted to share a laugh.

Have you ever been to a museum and managed to get tons of pictures of great looking art but you managed to miss what the art was, or you failed Art History and the painting just looked pretty? I’ve been there, often and recently. Luckily for me the Philadelphia Museum of Art has a decent amount of their collection online and tagged in a great gallery feature.

On a recent weekend our family went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art with some friends. Aside from terrorizing the entire quiet museum with my two year old wall of sound, which is a story for another blog. I was ecstatic to try the new camera out in real field conditions. The camera is a Canon PowerShot SD790IS.* I love to take pictures of everything, but I also annoy others by taking too long doing so. Read the rest of this entry »

Every once in a while its a real good thing to look back at what you are doing and how you do it to take in some of the lessons you might have missed.Basics never go out of style. And you might get something new out of the re-learning. So in that spirit I decided to ask…

What have I learned from Podcasting?

Workflow is king:

Even the most unorganized person in the world needs to have a battle plan when it comes to producing content and doing it consistently and well. You need to establish what the steps are to getting you show from idea to ear, break each step out into smaller parts. Then after you have your list look for ways to make the whole process more efficient. It used to take me 3-4 hours to do a 15 minute show from start to finish. Now it takes me 3 hours to do a 35 minute show. More time is spent on research, less on editing and more on finishing touches. Read the rest of this entry »

The area covered by those labeled as the Tech, Computer Guy, or Gal are vast. Some of us play with lights on a stage, others fiddle with audio behind a curtain. Still others of us fix machines. But more often than not its easier to say I’m the Computer guy to friends and family when they ask what you do. Below you will find the rolls I have seen Techs filling, feel free to add whatever you want at the bottom via comment, it might spark something.

These are all meant to be funny,m and shouldn’t be taken to heart, either by the people who are these techs, or those who call on them for help.

Scroll through the Tech Types see which one fits!

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This post is a summation of recent events and a close on the situation.

Zombies, or as they are called in more civilized circles, the undead, are a menace. The swarm an area, eat some brains and then shuffle on without so much as a by your leave. All kidding aside recent archaeological evidence found in Eygypt has brought to the forefront the idea that Zombies may not, in fact, be an entirely modern plague. In fact there is a great amount of evidence throughout history that they recurring problem and the time between the outbreaks seems to be shrinking. I may even be too late.

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I needed to share this one quick little blip for you then set you back about your business. I often speak about tech on this blog and mention coffee as an after thought. But this once I wanted top address the Tea and Coffee acolytes of the CaffiNation. I personally love that coffee and tea are a mystical pair of beverages. They seem to have this otherworldly quality about them. They have the power to bring family and friends together under a common banner, they have the ability to calm and sooth the roughest morning and calm the stormy nights.

It is counterintuitive that caffeinated beverages seem to calm us all down, and at the same time rev us all up in the morning.  I had a great morning here in the CaffiNation Headquarters sharing family time with my son, and my wife. I wanted to share a happy thought and Hope your having a good weekend as wel. Enjoy the rest of your time with your family and have a mug for me.