Cool Color App - In the Mod
Posted by derekbender | Filed under Design, Technology
I’m a reader of the online blog Neu Black, so when they featured In The Mod, an application that helps to create brand new color palettes with the drag and drop of an image, I took notice. The application is based in Adobe Air and also needs Adobe Switchboard to work but once its up and running, its a great, minimalistic app that is extremely useful for designers.
Ever have an image that has great colors that you’d like to create a color palette from for your next project? The old way to make a palette would be to take it into Photoshop and manually sample colors. In The Mod makes this simple. Just drag the pic you would like to sample into the window, set the number of colors you’d like to pull from it and thats it. And by pressing a button you can export the full palette into Photoshop or Illustrator. I’m really excited to play with this more for upcoming projects. The app has a few different editions but the one I’m currently using is the Your Images Edition.
Note: Thanks to Meagan Fisher for the sweet ampersand desktop.
Interactive Expedition Launches
Posted by derekbender | Filed under News, Technology
Last week I finished work on the Wordpress site for Interactive Expeditions. It was my most complex design to date and it turned out great. Wordpress made this site buildout quicker than the typical website plus its a great CMS for that clients who need a simple CMS for easy updating.
Interactive Expeditions offers a revolutionary means of experiential teaching and learning through an immersive, real-time, interactive platform that links geographically remote expedition teams with any web-connected student/participant worldwide.
Simply it links teachers with students. But the cool part is that the teacher is is Bermuda… in a cave… 400 feet underground. The realtime video application that NFi Studios helped to create works to connect students with the experts while they are in the field.
To learn more about Interactive Expeditions and find out about their current trip to Bermuda, check out this Orlando Sentinel article. Also check out interactiveexpedition.com.
Tags: interactive expeditions, intx, Orlando Sentinel, website
BarCampOrlando Recap
Posted by derekbender | Filed under News, Technology, Web
Wow. What a weekend. Tech, geeks, alcohol and conversation mixed this weekend in an awesome event called BarCamp. If you don’t already know what its about, find out here.
The weekend started a lot earlier than normal for me. I usually roll out of bed about 1pm on Saturday so I had to get up a bit earlier than usually to get there but the registration time of 10am. And I had a talk so I wanted to get there even earlier. I headed to our (NFi’s) office to prep my note cards (which I didn’t even use) for my 11.30am talk time. I caught a couple talks then I was up. I thought it went well. Altogether, a good time. Here’s my presentation.
A lot of good talks. To mention just a few that stood out: Dan Kinchen on Creating a Central Florida Tech Association, Erik Hersman on Using Social Media in a Time of Crisis, Gregg Pollack’s Rant on the Community and Greg Rollett’s Music, Media, & Money.
The Izea after party on Dev Day was also a blast. Open bar, music and enough video games to keep someone busy for days. I met a lot of great people and had a great time.
Media Day was also just as fun as the first day, although it had a smaller turnout. Many of the presentations centered around social media, blogging and new media. I also did an impromptu talk on my blog, Helpmepaymyloans.com.
Big thanks to everyone of who helped put on BarCamp and all the sponsors (including NFi). It was a great time and I will definitely be attending the next.
Tags: BarCamp, barcamp orlando, event, orlando, tech
Safari 3.1
Posted by derekbender | Filed under Announcements, Technology, Web
I installed Safari 3.1 a few hours ago and didn’t really think much of it. Then I came upon an article that gave a rundown of the new features that Apple has packed into the new version. I went back to Safari and I’m very impressed at what Apple has done. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: downloadable web fonts, Firebug, Firefox, Safari, Safari 3.1, web browser
BarCamp and FOWA Miami Recap
Posted by derekbender | Filed under General, News, Technology
This past weekend I attended BarCamp and the Future of Web Apps conference, both in Miami. I had a blast to say the least. Here is a recap of the weekend. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: barcamp miami, carsonified, fowa maimi, Future of Web Apps, social graph
BarCamp and FOWA in Miami
Posted by derekbender | Filed under Announcements, General, Technology
Yes I’ll be attending BarCamp Miami and the Future of Web Apps Conference in Miami this weekend. I’m really excited to be going! I’ve never been to Miami before so I’m kinda expecting something along the lines of Vice City and Scarface. But since I’ll be at a tech conference, instead of Al Pacino holding a machine gun, he’ll be holding an iPhone or talking on a bluetooth headset. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: BarCamp, FOWA, Future of Web Apps, Miami, networking
Apple Announces MacBook Air
Posted by derekbender | Filed under Technology, Trends
Today in a keynote presentation, Steve Jobs annoucned the MacBook Air. Nice.
MacBook Air is ultrathin, ultraportable, and ultra unlike anything else. But you don’t lose inches and pounds overnight. It’s the result of rethinking conventions. Of multiple wireless innovations. And of breakthrough design. With MacBook Air, mobile computing suddenly has a new standard.
Now here’s what I think…
Tags: air, apple, hardware, laptop, macbook, tech
Mac OS X Leopard
Posted by derekbender | Filed under News, Technology
A couple days ago I received a spiffy little email from Apple (the computer company, not the fruit) notifying me of the upcoming release their brand spankin’ new version of OS X, named Leopard. Yes, on October 26, Apple will not only be releasing its update to arguably the best OS ever but also be raking in a massive amount of cash.
Tags: leopard, mac os x, mac os x leopard
Pixelmator Closed Beta
Posted by derekbender | Filed under News, Technology
The folks at Team Pixelmator finally got around to releasing a beta of Pixelmator, albeit a closed beta. But I just so happen to be one of the lucky few who has the privilege of testing it out. I have worked a few minutes with it and my first impression was “this is cool”. My second impression was “this is buggy”. But it’s in beta after all.
CSS3 - Oh Yeah
Posted by derekbender | Filed under Technology
Yes, I know. I’m a little behind the times with this post, but I cannot contain my excitement any longer. Web design is great and all but sometimes it just sucks when I design something that never looks the same after it’s built into an actual, working web page. Drop shadows, rounded corners and more just plain suck to execute in code, as my co-workers at NFi found out when my first design was ready for the assembly line. Ridiculousness is a vast understatement.
Already put on my desktop! Keep...