Design for Babies, (enough rubber duckies and puppies)
September 30th, 2007 : Jess Louwagie

Its been about a year in the making, but my wife and I finally have something to show for our ‘creative collaboration’ that we decided to pursue together. She has the retail experience, an eye for merchandising and a love for babies, I guess I bring the graphic abilities and Adobe Illustrator know-how. Together we’re trying to dress babies better.

The official web site is still in progress at orangerhinokids.com, but you can get a glimpse of the first official releases at our Etsy: http://orangerhinokids.etsy.com/ and our official site is coming www.orangerhinokids.com

If you’re in Minneapolis, Patina stores will be carrying some designs very soon.

The first line is all animals combined with contemporary and/or vintage-esque patterns. You’ll find some onesies (organic and color variations), t-shirts an hoodies for babies and toddlers.

*UPDATE*
We have just been accepted as vendors at “Craftstravaganza”! Excited to be a part of such a great local outlet for local artsists, designers and musicians. We attended last year (as shoppers) and there was a very impressive mix of work. Come down to the Minnesota State Fairgrounds Fine Arts Building on Saturday April 26, 2008 and say hello.

So, full of anxiety but pumped about iTunes on the iPhone, I ran the iPhone update 1.1.1. I was anxious because I had hacked my phone to allow me to install third party applications. It worked fine, but it removed all my previously installed stuff.

I’m not going to hack it again. I realized, as it was reloading (and I was nervously waiting) that I didn’t use hardly any of the crap I had installed. Yeah, some of the stuff is neat in premise… but just not as useful as I had hoped. Peer to peer GPS? It’s nice, but it doesn’t work. Etch a sketch? Also very cool… but after the “oohh that’s neat” feeling of drawing on an iPhone with your finger, it loses its luster too. Even “useful” apps like terminal and Python saw no use. The things I use on the iPhone are the things that Apple sold me. Safari, Mail, Phone, iPod. That’s what I use. That’s why I have an iPhone. I wish there were more things I could do with it–REAL GPS for instance would be cool, but won’t happen. Document editing, though, would be even better.

I’m just happy not to own a new iBrick.

I have a theory.

A web application will be at least 100% better if the developers who create it also actively use it.

It is akin to a meal prepared by an expert chef. The best chefs constantly sample their creations as they prepare a meal. When it is ready, they’ll serve it to their patrons and then sit down themselves to enjoy what they have lovingly created.

Like a chef, expert developers need to actively sample (test and use) their software while working on it, then sit down and consume their own code as a user would.

QA provided by testing experts definitely has its place - but I fear that sometimes developers (even good ones) miss significant opportunities to write better applications because they rely too heavily on testers / users to catch bugs and provide interface feedback. This reliance costs time - but even more significantly, we lose opportunities to improve the user experience because those who know how to change the code don’t take the time to actively engage and use the application. This lost opportunity for creative improvement could be avoided if developers spent an hour actively using the application for every 10 hours spent coding.

When I say using - I don’t mean quick tests, scripted testing, a little demo or anything like that - I mean actively using the application like their users will have to. I’m talking really, really use it and engage. A good chef will sit down and eat the meals he prepares - from that he draws inspiration for improvement. Programmers who consume the applications they write will create better software - hands down.

I spent a good hour or so yesterday battling a particularly nasty bug. Well, it wasn’t really a bug, just a curiosity that took me on a wild goose chase through several hundred lines of source code. I found a comment in my source from a couple months ago that said “trivial” and nothing more, between an if block and an else block. I thought it meant that the following code (the else block) was trivial, and seriously wondered why, since the code in the else block was actually not trivial at all.

Well, it finally dawned on me–I put “trivial” in the source code to force subversion to recognize a new version of the file I was working on. Trivial meant that the commit was trivial, not the code. Very very frustrating. (more…)

In a short break in the midst of a lot of programming I have to do right now, I visited Slate, which I don’t do that often, but I came across a post about killing your avatar in various video games, especially a new one called “Pain”, a silly looking, cartoonish game which involves nothing more than flinging your character out of a slingshot to kill him. They put together a fascinating slideshow about video game death which is well worth watching–the Roller Coaster Tycoon video in particular is highly captivating. (more…)

Do you think you can get a robot on the moon for under 20 mil? Then you might want to try for the Lunar X Prize for First Robot on the Moon. The project is spearheaded by the X Prize Foundation and the prize money — 20 million bucks to the 1st place team, 30 million in total awards — will come out of Google’s pocket.

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Finally. The New York Times Online will no longer require readers to subscribe to most of its content.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve googled for some news story and clicked on a promising result from the NYT Online, only to have to have my way barred by “you must be registered to view this article” or some such similar nonsense.

Under the old system, readers had to pay roughly 50 bucks a year to get their dose of the NYT online. Now they will only charge for a selection of archives between 1923 and 1986.

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Over the weekend, I did a couple of things with big enterprisey companies which have big enterprisey applications for consumers to, er, use. I purchased a computer from the online Dell outlet, sought support from Microsoft, slogged through insurance forms on State Farm’s site, and, oh right–paid my iPhone bill. Warning: I rarely sound so whiny as when I’m criticizing the interfaces of companies who should know better. (more…)

I bought a wired keyboard (very sleek, very thin) and a wired Mighty Mouse. $105 with tax, and I really wanted one of those keyboards anyways, and frankly, I’m very tired of 1) replacing the batteries and 2) dealing with annoying wireless latency issues that only bother people who type really fast. I hope it works out. Now if I could just get a Mac monitor on my desk, there will be no doubt which side I’m on.

I will say I’m a little ticked that I couldn’t use that $100 on iTunes. I guess that by selling us hardware, Apple’s only really giving back $70 or so since its margin is certainly better there than iTunes.

I use a tablet PC - an IBM X41 for most of my computing. I was running Windows XP for Tablets, but recently upgraded to Vista mainly because I had heard that the handwriting recognition was really good.

It is eerily accurate - with no training, out of the box it converts my scrawls to perfect type face 99.99% of the time. I haven’t had to correct it at all this week. For kicks I wrote this sentence with a pen. Pretty good, huh? I bet you can’t even tell the difference….

On a side note but not entirely unrelated - I like the upgrade to Office 2007 mainly for the improvements made to Outlook - 1. It syncs with my iPhone (Office XP did not work). 2. The task / calendar / email integration is really tight - if you’re a fan of David Allen - you’ll definitely dig the new sidebar views and calendar / task integration in the weekly calendar view.

So as the hardcore Mac and Open Source users within ArcStone hang their heads in shame as I publicly talk about liking Vista. Do not give up all hope - as I am a fickle computer user and a big fan of using the best tool for the job.