A little under a year ago I was ‘oohing and ahhing’ over the official launch of Adobe AIR, and the amazing potential it opened up for blurring the lines between web and desktop applications. Lately – well, since Flashbelt 2008, I’ve been ‘oohing and ahhing’ over Processing …

(I’m honored that this piece was used in a Create Digital Motion article announcing Processing’s move from Beta to the official Processing 1.0!)

Adobe AIR and Processing?! Apples and oranges, I know. But I tend to obsess over things – whether it’s indenting my CSS properties, dropping my curly brackets to the next line, or exploring new software and languages to experiment with – like ActionScript 3, Processing, or NodeBox.

I think Processing has become more than just a fling…

Nick Longtin, colleague and teacher of many of my programming skills, once commented that Processing was right up my alley – and he was right. The creative potential has me quite addicted, and I think Processing has become more than just a fling. An area where my eye for design and my obsessive coding habits play nicely together. An area where stunning and inspiring work is easy to find. Where late nights of coding are rewarded with visual output, not some big query result to loop through…

Yeah, I Heart Processing.

Many of my experiments have been posted to my Flickr photostream – check ‘em out and let me know what you think!

More experiments with Processing and Particles. This one uses the wonderful Traer Physics library.

Rather than writing a custom Particle class and applying forces to them individually (as in my previous particle post), all I need to do is create a ParticleSystem instance, add forces as desired (none in this case), and Traer does the rest.

In this example, I continuously add particles in the center with random velocities, and continuously remove them when they’ve grown old. The particle.age() property also controls the size and transparency of each particle, which is simply an ellipse with a teal-ish fill. The moon is a PNG placed in the center. For a final touch, I use the built-in camera() function to zoom in an out, controlled by a Sine wave.

Actually, this one uses 10,000 particles, and the equation:

float force = planet.mass * particle.mass / distanceSquared;

(Thanks Keith Peters!)

Particles are regenerated if they begin shooting off into space. Near the end of the animation, I decrease the center planet’s mass until it becomes negative, changing gravity into repulsion…

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

These words, penned over 200 years ago in the Declaration of Independence are just as true now as they were then. As sales professionals we sometimes tend to trample on these unalienable rights of our prospects and customers without even knowing.

Ari Galper, a highly acclaimed International Sales Trainer and Coach, and an expert in human communication has discovered that sales professionals need a bold shift in their mindset from traditional sales thinking that creates undue pressure and discomfort for our prospects and clients. This led to the creation of Unlock the Game, a highly successful sales training program.  This new mindset also led Ari to create his own Declaration of Sales Independence.

I would encourage every sales professional out there to place a printed copy of this Declaration in their cubicle, desk area or office. Let’s make a personal promise to the world as sales professionals and demonstrate that Selling is indeed a noble profession.

The iphone has revolutionized mobile phone technology not only in the United States but also in the world. Now with the 3G available in 57 countries and coming soon to 23 countries, the iphone is increasingly becoming a mobile phone of international acclaim.  The benefits and advantages of the phone are available for your reading pleasure on the Apple website.

But the iphone is more than just a phone. It is a tool for effectively and efficiently managing the complex demands that span every facet of our hectic lives. It’s a way of life. That’s right, a culture – the iculture.

At ArcStone, we have embraced the iculture and bask in its glory on a daily basis. Almost half of the employees have iphones and they constantly rave about them.

Nick Longtin, a connoisseur of Indian cuisine once commented, “I love Tandori chicken. I bet you can even Tandori a shoe and it would taste great.” The idea Mr. Longtin is espousing here is that anything (edible or not) preceded by Tandori gives it major credibility. This same analogy carries over to the letter “i.” Placing i in front of mundane words like phone and culture give these words a whole new meaning. To illustrate this concept, let’s delve deeper into the linguistic significance of the letter i.

I  is the ninth letter of the greek alphabet, called iota. As we all know, the word iota in modern English is a noun meaning the smallest amount or part imaginable. It stands to reason that the idea behind the iphone was to enable users to achieve maximum efficiency with the smallest amount of effort.  It is no surprise that then that it combines three products in one: a phone, an ipod and a breakthrough internet device.

In the fast paced society and culture we live in, where time is of the essence, we expect everything microwaved and ready for consumption or use with minimal effort. The iphone helps to achieve this delicate balance between speed and accuracy which results in huge time savings.

The next time you hear the words iphone, iway or iculture remember that it’s an invitation to live life by design and not from crisis to crisis.