No, I don't think I am going to post on the new iPhone because most likely you guys have already heard/read about it and don't need my ramblings on it.

Would you hang the above graphic on your wall? Maybe blow it up to nice size and hang it above your couch. When people asked about you could make up an insightful story and how it represents some random thing. Or you could tell them the truth, that you used IOGraph to track your computer mouse's movement for the day.

Yes, that is what it is! The software will track your mouse's movement and create a graphical representation of it. The circle represent the points at where your mouse was at rest.

I am definitely going to try this out because of a few reasons. 1. That is pretty cool. 2. I would like to see what my patterns look like (if you check out their Flickr page you can see someone's photoshop session and what we do over and over again, like go to the layers palette). 3. I am curious at the files it outputs and if it would really be able to blow it up to a giant size (raster vs vector) From the look at a photo on a Flickr Page it looks entirely possible.

[via Unplggd]

By copycats I mean Identity Thieves... yes your copier (or anyone else's) can help steal your identity!

I came across this article the other day from CBS News and it blew my mind. If you used a copier to copy personal info or even a company that has some form of your information used a copier then did not properly wipe it's hard-drive when it was either sold or trashed then you have a chance to have your identity stolen.

Copiers store an image of almost everything that is ran through it and it can be retrieved with free software quite easily. Insurance companies, payroll, police departments, everybody that you might have a connection with could be a victim to this.

With my wife, myself, my parents, my mom again, and many others having their identity stolen (and we take precautions) this is just crazy. It is really sad that nowadays if you ask people who have had at least a portion of their identity stolen there are many more with their hands up now...

Read the full article to have your mind opened and your rage button double clicked.

I am in search of a new sound system for our office. Any readers have any good suggestions?

Wish list:

• good sound
• internet radio
• pandora
• remote
• ipod hookup
• sexy and svelte
• does design for me when I am not in the mood (yeah I know, even if it existed it would cost too much, or it would replace me).

Usually when it is getting close to new iPhone time there are leaked photos of the possible new models. These are usually fuzzy photos that you can barely tell that is it a phone. Sometimes they are real and most of the time they are fake.

However, it is pretty hard to fake this. This phone was found in a bar in Redwood City. It was inside a special case to make it look like an iPhone 3GS. They can't get it to boot correctly but they did take it apart and it has Apple hardware inside of it.

Basically somebody is in big trouble for losing this...

check out the rest over at gizmodo. If I had found it, I would hope for a pretty big reward, as well as free apple stuff for life...

There are a few skins for your laptop out there that I would actually put on a laptop, and this is one of them. The Chocolate Pine skin from Karvt. To me it seems just like an elegant modern kitchen combining dark woods and stainless steel, a great combination in my book. It also looks slightly textured from this photo which might give it a more high end look instead of a kid putting stickers on their trapper keeper (remember those!).

Only parts I am not a fan of? Their logo on the bottom corner, no thanks, and the price is a little steep at $35.

They come in a variety of woods: Bamboo, Pine, Walnut, and Cherry with a very options of "stain" colors.

[via unplggd]

An Aperture 3 update. If anyone actually picked up Aperture 3 after I posted about it, and then their computer basically ran like crap. I'm sorry. Mine did too. The program was slow, it was hard to do anything. I was about ready to downgrade, which wouldn't have been an easy process.

However, their update 3.0.2 came out and my Aperture is back up and running properly. So if you have it, and it's running bad, go for the update and see if it will cure what ails you.

Now I just gotta get back to take a lot of photos. I have been slacking.

I was listening to the news as I made dinner tonight and there was a really cool story on it. It was about how there was a study going on at The Cleveland Clinic about how biking can actually help Parkinson's Disease. There was a video of a man having trouble controlling his hand, he then was able to get on a bike, rode it around a parking lot, and afterwards had a steady hand. He even said that he could feel the effects weeks later not having a lot of tremors.

That to me is amazing. So amazing. Hopefully the studies go further with it and they find a way to cure/prevent/decrease it.

[bike t-shirt on etsy]

I wanted to share with you what I was randomly thinking about today. With all kinds of advancements in computers it seems like someday we may be able to control them with our minds. Who knows? I really don't think I would wan to totally control a computer with my mind though. As I was working on a layout today I just kind of wished I could think "pen tool" and BAM I have the pen, or "select arrow" and be on my merry way. I really don't want to have to think the exact spot where I want the mouse to be to then draw a rectangle. Maybe it would be easy, but on the other hand it seems like it would be hard, and take a long time to perfect. However using your mind to select things or activate commands would be cool.

I know that is totally random, but I thought about it for quite awhile today (it might have partially to do that my mouse will not scroll up, and it is driving me crazy).

So, readers? Yay or nay? Control computers with our minds? Partially? Fully? What?

I saw this website the other day, Simple Desktops, and loved it. They feature really simple backgrounds that won't clutter up your screen so it can look great and still function. I picked a few out that I really liked above but they have a ton more.

Now the only thing I need to do is not have a desktop that looks like a bomb went off. I honestly don't use it, except for a dumping ground. I always have something open so I hardly ever see it and it is just completely full of files and folders. Maybe one day it will be night and tidy...

[via How About Orange]

I know I am a couple days late on this, but I am glad I caught it at all since I was out of town. On Feb 9th apple introduced the newest version of Aperture, Aperture 3 .

I currently use Aperture 2 and I really like it. There are a few things I liked slightly better about iPhoto (and i had v8 not v9 when I switched, I think) but not enough to stick with it. I switched and am very happy. Best thing is a non destructive workflow, make an adjustment here, brighten this, fix that, crop this, and if you hate it all in a few weeks, just turn them off and you are back to ground zero. Unlike photoshop where once you close the file you are done or iphoto where you could only revert back to the original (never used Lightroom, so who knows)

There are a still a fews thing I didn't love so hopefully it will be fixed in a the new version, I'll have to find out for myself. Mostly a few quirks on importing, not making it easy to name a project on import (you have to have it created beforehand with the name, or it gets named Untitled and you can fix it later). Apparently, you are also able to sort your items in any order you want now, which would have been nice, except I adopted a date system that lets me just sort chronologically (so my folders all start like "2010-02-11 Name" but I would have preferred iPhoto's system where I would just put "Name" and it would use the date on the files to sort).

In addition to many upgrade you also get facial recognition, geo tagging, better brushing, better tagging and who knows what else yet. They say they have 200+ new features.

Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A

(Insert joke about unlocking her secret world or her hidden treasures here)

Great dress created by Liz Tan for a Halloween costume. I don't see why it is limited to Halloween though, looks like proper attire for any day.

I really need to get my wife one of these for one I go as Mario. Yes, Peach is a more obvious costume choice, but this is just awesome!

[via Unplggd ]

Color me unimpressed...

So there is a big apple going on tomorrow if you haven't heard. A lot of people think apple might unveil a new tablet style computer and others think that the iphone might be released onto other US carriers.

Me? I could care less about those things. What I really would like is something that seems so simple...

How about a way to login into different users on one iPod. My wife and I share an iPod, my other one is at the office permanently and it is honestly dying (the center button barely works, too bad, you need it to select things...). So we share one classic 80gb ipod. Not a problem, but  we don't have exactly the same musical tastes and she doesn't like having to scroll through all of my stuff (and the Ipod is actually hers, she is nice enough to share with me).

This just seems like too easy of a fix? My iMac can have multiple users, why can't my iPod. Just make a little login screen, no need for password protection. You could even have it so that could be disabled if you only have one user, just like regular OSX.

And a side thought on that, why can't they make it easier to have multiple people on iTunes? Same problem, it would be cool to separate it, and make a login. Yes, you can do this with multiple libraries, but honestly it is a pain. Come on Apple, you're APPLE! Make it easy.

What if you could use your macbook's trackpad as a drawing tablet? With the Inklet app for your mac you can! You're not going to get the same pressure sensitivity as a Wacom tablet, but you're also not going to want to take your Wacom with you everywhere. This is kind of a more "on the go" option.

Anyone want to buy me a macbook so I can try this?

When you are working on a project are you constantly looking for a few things to make your life easier and your designing faster? It could be anything from web safe areas in cross platform browsers in a PSD file, the actual elements to create different web mockups (all in PSD if you would like), document templates, or information on binding styles. If you are, and I am one of them, Designers Toolbox is for you.

I have known about this site for awhile and finally decided to let you in on my little secret. As I was browsing their site, looking for a few things to show as images, I got extremely mad at myself. A little while ago I was designing a CD cover for a friend. They are one of those things, that if I measure an actual one, somehow, the size still is not right. So I wanted a template. I looked ALL over, finally found one, had to change a bunch of crap, etc. I should have just went to my trusty Designers Toolbox. Because they have one, along with other common DVD booklet styles etc. So mad.

So the lesson learned here, is if you have a great resource, like this one, go to it first and use it. It'll save you a lot of time, effort, and frustration.

Each year the New Oxford American Dictionary makes a big announcement as the year comes to close, the new WOTY (Word of the Year). So, our 2009 WOTY is

unfriend

"unfriend – verb – To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook."


I find it pretty amazing that social network is so ingrained as a part of our lives now that not only can a term created in Facebook be added to the dictionary, but it can be their word of the year. Here is a bit they had to say on why they made their choice:

“It has both currency and potential longevity,” notes Christine Lindberg, Senior Lexicographer for Oxford’s US dictionary program. “In the online social networking context, its meaning is understood, so its adoption as a modern verb form makes this an interesting choice for Word of the Year. Most “un-” prefixed words are adjectives (unacceptable, unpleasant), and there are certainly some familiar “un-” verbs (uncap, unpack), but “unfriend” is different from the norm. It assumes a verb sense of “friend” that is really not used (at least not since maybe the 17th century!). Unfriend has real lex-appeal.”

So here's to you 2009 WOTY, good job at making your way to the top. Hopefully now we don't do something to make you mad and you unfriend us.

[via OUP Blog]

I came across this great keyboard from Chris Delorenzo today. Love the illustrations and then concept of using some updated images to teaching the ABC's (we can only learn A is for Apple so many times). Here is a bit of information from their website:

We used to learn our alphabets by reading those classroom banners that associated each letter with an animal or object. These days as kids become increasingly computer dependent at an early age I thought it was about time to adapt an old method to a new medium. 

From cultural icons to greek mythology, this keyboard sticker set will advance the alphabetical knowledge of any child, or adult.

So I do have a few problems with this though. I studied a lot of information on child development and reading for my senior thesis, and if this is intended to help kids and not just be fun stickers for your adult keyboard it seems like you would need the letters there as some reinforcement. This wouldn't be as bad with "F is for Fox" since kids know what foxes look like. But when you start running into "B is for Bowie" a kid is not going to know Bowie and may forget that that IS Bowie, and then not able to find the B key.

Also, I know I said I really like these illustrations, but they felt really familiar to me. After staring at it for a few minutes, I realized why. They are in the same style and color palette as the "Things I like" Poster from Richard Perez. Then as I looked closer I noticed V is for Vampire, and that IS Richard's drawing from his poster. I didn't see on the website that they collaborated on this, but I'll send them a message and see what's up.


I got a hold of Chris and some of his inspiration did come from Richard's work. His idea was to take different influences from designers to have it a bit of a multi generational compilation with the ladybug referencing Charlie Harper etc.

Anyone know what Q is? I can't figure that one out.

[via AT]

This has been around the block a few times, but I recently pulled up the link for a friend of mine.

What would you say to Adobe if you could tell them what you didn't like about their software?

Well you can, you can go to Dear Adobe and type in your gripe. As people view random ones, they can give agree and disagree with the problems you have. The best part is Adobe does actually look at this, and sometimes fixes the problems.

I know I have entered a few, and could probably spend all day putting new ones in.

So I was reading a photography magazine today and thought about this image that I saw awhile back. So here is the question for you:

There is an image hidden within this image (watermark included), can you figure out what it is?

I'll post the answer below in white so that it doesn't spoil it. As well as the link that will explain it a bit more. If anyone can get it right, they might get a special prize.

Also, I worked on a print this weekend, photos coming soon.

Answer: The NYC skyline. It is hidden in the histogram for the image, open it in photoshop and see.

[via ironic sans ]

Ok, so most of you have external hard drives out there, and the thing is, most of the time we are trying to hide them. Why? Because they don't really need to be on your desk, and most of the time they don't look that great. Plus, if you have an eternally messy desk like mine, you don't even have room for them.

Enter the Twelve South Backpack. It is made of heavy gauge steel and fits on the back of your imac and cinema displays. Gravity is it's best friend, which it uses to attach itself to the back of your setup, and support your favorite backup drive.

The only problem I foresee is having extra cable since it will be so close to the port. It says the perforated base can be used to tie them up with. I would probably wrap it around the part of the stand above the shelf

However that perforation can help you out too, it is probably to cut it's own weight down but that should help with heat distribution too.

You could stick a couple of them back there and hide a literal treasure drove of low profile drives.

Gp pick one up for $30, with free shipping for a limited time.

Oh! How about that logo too! Fantastic job on an icon.