What is open on your computer right now?

Image by Getty Images via DaylifeSo I have my work e-mail(Lotus Notes blah),Firefox and Tweetdeck. In Firefox I have 6 tabs open, Gmail, Facebook, NetVibes, my companies website that I work on, Mashable and of course Blogger.com.

What do you have open?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Netvibes increases presence on Facebook

GraphExpo

I am pretty happy with the way this GraphExpo page turned out.

Great post on Alex, we will miss you: http://ping.fm/jhQdL

Try this for some creative inspiration: http://ping.fm/NpWpk

Just found out that a colleague died over the weekend, R.I.P. Alex Elyjiw we will miss you.

Threw a surprise party yesterday, its always nice to put a smile on a friends face.

had an interesting meeting on Kodak and blogging yesterday, today I try to recruit more Kodak people to blog, wish me luck.

Just started the Kodak network on Yammer.com

What to do with 4 trillion photos: http://ping.fm/Z102B

It is definitely a challenge to get a plan together for a corporate twitter account. Maybe we just start simple and see where it goes...

In a meeting talking about how to use Twitter for Kodak GCG :)

Researching website builders and e-commerce solutions for a friend

Jenny Cisney talks about her experience at the Olympics: http://ping.fm/Tqi55

3 websites to make u look super creative: http://ping.fm/udLJJ

The best take on the American racial divide I've seen in a while: http://ping.fm/OQiPO

Running Digitally Scared? http://ping.fm/qobb1

Not that I would wear this but this shirt makes me laugh: http://ping.fm/8Mo3j

Foam monster wants his hand back: http://ping.fm/oQNrQ

Here is why I hated grammar lessons: http://ping.fm/gzQq6

Some people have too much time & money - the Simpson's house in real life: http://ping.fm/5U8Cx

Home Alone remixed as I am Legend: http://ping.fm/t5etD

I am thinking of a way to teach the wonders of social networking for business to my co-workers.

Working with Awareness as a blogging platform is frustrating, they are down often.

More and more people from my high school are joining facebook, I haven't seen these people in almost 20 years.

Guess how many pages Kodak printed at the Olympics? http://ping.fm/g3Xd6

I find myself hoping for a good outcome from an MRI on Osi's knee this Sunday morning.

Such a nice day outside, why am I sitting on the computer? Oh right I am a geek.

Some of the most incredible photos from the Olympics: http://ping.fm/zc0Jd

Trying to sell an old TV/VCR combo on Craigslist, I wish people would respond faster. http://ping.fm/bO1DF

I like telling my co-workers to get on the social networking grid

For those of u who "have nothing to hide" read this: http://ping.fm/FYrg6

All together now: Budget meetings are fun fun fun!

This is a cheap laugh but worth 1.2 seconds of your time: http://ping.fm/DzXAF

Actually this site made me really laugh this morning: http://ping.fm/xqUxv

This cheered me up this morning: http://ping.fm/jkJju

working from home this morning, with the kids, god help me :)

Google wants me to sign a petition about freeing the airwaves, I comply, now you should too: http://ping.fm/DT6AA

working on a competitive analysis doc that will help decide the future of the GCG site.

The (optically) illusive graphic arts: http://ping.fm/FWBF0

Sometimes I just want to will a design to work, I find that staring at the screen does no good.

Are all budget meetings this fun?

This is just an incredible display, I so want one: http://ping.fm/lJqbl

I am finding a bunch of Kodak co-workers who have opened up a twitter account and never updated. Get cracking!

How long does it take Twitter to delete an account?(not mine of course ;)

Some fun on a Friday...

While I am not personally a passionate fan of typography I understand that many designers(both online and print) are fanatical about it. The font can make or break a creative even in very subtle ways. This video should appeal to all those graphics people who have debated endlessly over the benefits of using a certain font, or not using it.

Actually this is funny even if you are not a designer at all. Enjoy.

In a creative slump, try Mutapic

If you are anything like me(and I hope that you are ;) you know what its like to be in a total creative funk. Its the times that you could not think of a bright idea if your life depended on it. Your mind is a total blank and you need something that can help spin the gears in your head a bit faster.

I recently found a site called Mutapic that is an online image generator that lets you choose from a wide variety of icons, combine them in numerous ways, and create something entirely unique. A gentle warning before you go to the site, clear some time on your calender. This is one of those sites that if you are a geek like me, you waste a ton of time on.

Lets take a look at some exciting stuff that Mutapic and I created:

I imagine if I were to ever open my own restaurant and had to create Men's and Ladies bathroom signs, this is the way I would go. Combining the well known symbol for "Ladies Only" and a icon for a toilet, I have achieved communication nirvana. When someone sees this they will a)know the room is for ladies, b)it contains a floating toilet and c)is likely to induce seizures.










Not quite sure how the icon of "boy with pen through head" got into the rotation. Would you be that happy with a pen through your head?
















At this point I decided to choose 32 random icons and select every possible effect and push generate and hold my breath. I think I actually heard the internet hum while it was creating this masterpiece. It almost seems like a window into another dimension. It makes me question reality. Am I looking at the cracked window into the void or is it looking at me?

Great tool for a "virtual" tour

SO you are on vacation and you are furiously snapping away picture after picture of all the fantastic building and scenery. You get every angle, wide view, close up, with flash, without flash, and because you are an artist you get down on the ground and get that unique shot you are sure no one else has ever thought of.

Then you download all these wonderful shots and queue the slide show and soon discover that for all that effort you basically have a few usable shots that together would make a great tour of your subject. But how to get a bunch of 2D photos together in a seemless way to offer up an exciting 3D view of that quaint farmhouse by the lake with the picket fence and lone stallion standing in front?

Behold OpenPhotoVR.org. It's a new site that lets you experiment with a bunch of pictures taken of the same subject at different angles and distances. You can then weave them together to form an(almost) 3D tour of that subject. You can read more details here.

My subject was Kodak worldwide headquarters right here in Rochester, NY. I took a few photos at different angles and distances and then uploaded them to the site. Now I thought, how hard can it be to designate my angles and next pictures? Turns out its tricker than I thought. Compaired to the already done tours, mine feels lacking. What do you think?

Reaction to Real People Don't Have Time for Social Media.

Real People Don't Have Time for Social Media.

I remember when the concept of a blog first started. A co-worker of mine had one along with 2 other female friends. They posted about various life events(think Sex and the City without the sex or Mr. Big) and I read it and was bored out of my mind. I showed it to my wife and her reaction was why would someone want to broadcast their life like that?

We are at an interesting crossroads when it comes to "social media." There are generations behind us(I am 33) that think nothing of having their entire life's online. That level of transparency is still an alien concept to most people. What happens when these generations make up more of the majority of the population?

Oh and including writing this post, I spend about 2 hours a day with social media

This will change the way you view images online.

Its not often that I come across something that has a bunch of breathless reviews about it that I can actually agree with but I have recently. Its an add on for FireFox or IE called PicLens and it can change the way you view pictures on websites.

Normally you are at the whim of the designer of a particular website when it comes to seeing the images posted there. Sometimes thats a good thing and often times its a bad one. After installing PicLens, go to a site like Flickr and mouse over an image. You will see a little play button, click it and the window will change into a gallery view like this:
















This particular screenshot is a search for the term "Kodak" on deviantArt.com. At this point you could click on an image to get a larger view, or move the entire gallery to the left or right to see more images. Its a beautiful way to explore an RSS feed of images and I find myself wasting precious time using it. There are other sites you can search on like Google Images and PhotoBucket.

Have you seen any other plug ins for either FireFox or IE that you find useful?

How to find the "buzziest" images online

Since the beginning of the internet (around 342 B.C.), images have been passed around from person to person like a bad YouTube video. These images usually got sent via e-mail from one person's distribution list to another. These were the days before sites like digg and del.icio.us that provide "social bookmarking" for the masses.

With these types of sites, it's much easier to find out what pictures are out there creating a buzz (and you would likely find sitting in your inbox from your annoying uncle who just got online last Tuesday).

The best site I found that will aggregate only the pics from the top social bookmarking and sharing site is Picurls. This site takes the top pics as voted by users from various sites like Digg, Reddit, Wired etc and presents thumbnails of them as well as links to the original. One of the best features of the site is the special RSS feeds they provide so that you can just isolate the images from the other content that's posted there.

This site is like holding up a mirror to society and having society say "Does this make me look fat?"

There are things like this that make you just wonder how that even came to be. Or this that makes me think there are people with way too much time on their hands.

And to think before we had the internet we had to either photocopy an interesting image (which rendered it dark and un-interesting) or *shudder* actually talk to someone in person and describe it.

This made me want to look through my extensive collection of photos for something "buzzy." I came upon something interesting on a recent trip to the Buffalo Botanical Gardens in Buffalo, NY. They had an exhibit of garden railroads and here is a pretty typical scene from the trip:

How cute, a train! And look it goes through the indoor gardens! Well then I zoomed in on one of the stations on this particular railroad.
















Now take a look at this scene of Americana. Looks innocent enough? Makes you want to start humming "Small Town" by Melloncamp right?











Well here is a closeup. What exactly are those ladies doing? What makes it even more disturbing is the obviously uncomfortable old woman sitting between them. She is probably thinking "gosh where did I go wrong with the twins to push them into this life of moral decay and sexual debauchery and where the hell is the 4:15?"






If you like the idea of finding conversation starting images don't forget to check out the Kodak Picture of the Day. I am pretty sure those ladies of the garden railroad will not make an appearance there.

Post a comment with your favorite sites for finding images.