October 2011 Archives

Sun 10.30.11 - All photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Regardless of how I personally feel about the Nokia-Windows alliance, the above photo is SO FULL OF WIN that it makes my whole day happy.

On the left in the slightly rumpled-it-is-the-end-of-a-long-day suit, smiling away is Stephen Elop, the CEO of Nokia.

In the center with his thumb up is everyone's fave happy, enthusiastic blogger, Mr. Clinton Jeff.

Why Full of Win?

1) How many CEO's of Fortune 100 companies run around towards the middle or end of the yearly company conference party rather than be in the extra special VIP area?

2) How many CEO's would pose towards the end of said party with happy, excited overly caffeinated bloggers?

3) How many humans on the planet would say to said CEO, "Hi, will take a photo with us?!?!?!?" Clinton would. This is why we love CJ, he has got cajones.

4) Rewind 15 months ago to 4 years ago, would OPK have posed for this photo and actually looked HAPPY? No.

Mr. Elop has now risen in my estimation. Now if he would resurrect Harmattan/Meego...

;o)

Thurs 10.27.11 - Yesterday and today, Erika and I made a whirlwind roadtrip from LA to Bishop to see the fall colors, get out of the big city, visit Rachel & Glenn's new baby, and see my Mom at her house. It was a good fun adventure, the baby is extra cute, the fall colors lovely, and as usual the Sierra Nevada mtns were majestic.

All photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Mon 10.24.11 - Two local tree flowers as seen fallen on the Ocean Ave sidewalk, photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Explanation here.

Flickr photoset here of images taken by the Space Traveling Nikon D300s.

The Launch video:

Cygnus Launch from Erich Leeth on Vimeo.

Traveling to Space is just not for governments any more...

Next Wednesday at 9am GMT, Nokia's CEO and various other humans will get on a stage at London's EXPO and make Big and Great Announcements concerning Nokia and its Future at the annual Nokia World. Big, Grand, CEO type announcements.

The kind of announcements that set the tone for the next year or two or more. Announcements that will either win the faithful and the masses back to Nokia or the kind that will fall of meh ears. Announcements that will either excite or horrify designers and developers who are so crucial to the success of the 'ecosystem'.

In the face of such high expectation, Al P and I, while sitting at Berlin cafe this morning, cooked up five probable or improbable but hopeful announcements that could come out of Nokia World next week:

1) Announcement of next Harmattan commercial release, preferably of the already existing Nokia N950 dev phone, as it is very desired.

2) Nokia N8 refresh with 12mp or higher, autofocus Carl Zeiss lens, Xenon flash, 2.2f stop, 4" screen, with green & red call buttons. We would prefer the OS be Belle, but due to current Windowsphilia conditions, most likely Mango.

3) High end phone with physical landscape qwerty keyboard with tilt screen. Too many danged slab touch only phones out on market with so little differentiation. This could also be combined with #1.

4) Meltemi gets announced and it is a stripped down core of Maemo that has S40's data sipping and battery longevity talents. Then all feature phones apps can be built on Qt.

5) A Metro (Windows 8) Tablet. 10", ARM dual core, ...[At this point Al and Jen disagree on screen resolution, price, etc.]

It should be interesting to see or hear about. Will any of Al and I's improbable predictions come true?

As a side note, Ms. Jen wants to know why the Nokia World Developer's track is only 1/4 of the event and is fairly weak in its offerings? Nokia, don't just send us to Microsoft, keep us on board with you and with contact & events from you.

.

Sun 10.09.11 - Photo of Belle and another dog at Huntington Beach's Dog Beach taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Fri 10.07.11 - Erika and I went to the Getty Center to see the Pacific Standard Time exhibit and we walked out to the Gardens to see the sculpture. I video'd George Rickey's "Three Squares Gyratory" as it looks unwieldy but the squares moved surprisingly well in little wind. It was lovely and peaceful.

Video taken by Jenifer Hanen with her Nokia N8.

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Fri 10.07.11 - This afternoon, Erika and I went to the Getty Center to see the Crosscurrents Paintings in the Pacific Standard Time exhibit and we walked out to the Getty's gardens to see the sculpture that was also a part of the PST exhibition and to wander around the maze area.

The afternoon was the perfect Los Angeles weather right after a rain storm has pulled out and the air is sparkly, the surfaces clean, and the view spectacular. The best time to go to the Getty.

I recommend if you live in SoCal or are visiting any time in the next six months to get out to one or more of the various Pacific Standard Time art exhibitions that are in museums and galleries in LA, Orange County, Palm Springs, San Diego, and Santa Barbara. The scope of modern and contemporary (1945 -1990) that was made in Southern California in so many different spaces is monumental.

Two weeks ago, Erika and I went to see the Sam Maloof PST show at the Huntington, the Crosscurrents Painting exhibition at the Getty today, and sometime within the next few weeks I will be going to MOCA to see "Under the Big Black Sun: California Art 1974 - 1981" as Kim Vollstedt has recommended it. Anyone want to join me?

Wed 10.05.11 - Southern California had a surprising early October Alaskan rain storm visit and just as the clouds broke, Gracie came over to show off her green wellies, then Scruffy and I went out on a walk along Seal Way to look at the ocean. It was lovely.

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Mobilism has announced a Call for Papers for their May 2012 conference in Amsterdam. I think this is very exciting.

As the xkcd comic above amusingly illustrates a problem that gets solved by an academic gets many years and much publicity generated out of one problem, and in business it is on to the next problem with nary a peep out of the problem solver.

Web design and development have evolved faster in the last 15 years than academia's ability or desire to keep up with it, in response the community has been largely self-educated with keen practitioners who have solved various problems rising up to write articles, blog posts, books and speak at conferences. In the last few years, a certain set of these practitioners have become the rockstars of the web publishing and speaking worlds.

Recently there has been a bit of a brouhaha about how conferences seem to have the same speakers, the prices are high, and charges of elitism have been leveled on the in crowd.

On one hand, as Andy does, one can argue that known speakers are needed for conferences to draw paying attendees so that the conference organizers can rent the venue, pay for all the attendant expenses, etc. On the other hand, known speakers and authors can state that they are feeding back into the community by getting the information on standards, new & best practices, as well as lighting an inspirational fire for other designers and developers.

Be that as it may, there are many other web and mobile designers and developers who by dint of introversion, fear of putting oneself out there, thinking the problem or solution is not good enough, busy-ness at work, family obligations, NDAs and other corporate contracts who are not being heard or even seen as they just move on to the next problem to be solved and keep quiet about the one they just solved. The rest of the community is much the poorer for their silence.

For this alone, the Mobilism Call for Papers is brilliant, as it will hopefully be the (structured) encouragement that many developers and designers who have solved really cool problems but never think to or have not yet published or spoken about them will come out of the woodwork and will submit their solutions as a paper for the 30 minute presentation slot.

Yes, you, don't be shy, share your ideas and solutions, go submit a paper to Mobilism 2012.

*****

Update: Wed 10.05.11 - Please read the comments below as Jeremy Keith asks a pertinent question about my language and link choices and I reply.

Also, Helen Keegan, FJ van Wingerde and I comment about this from an the academic v. practitioner point of view on Facebook.

Mon 10.03.11 - The best part of the last week is the lovely friends visiting LA that I got to hang out with, CJ over the weekend, and FJ today.

FJ and I met up for lunch at Bottega Louie in LA before he had to leave to catch his flight back to London. I am glad that we were able to find a time to meet up, as it was delightful to not just talk about the various bits of Mobile UX, the mobile web and design worlds, but also about life and hope. I truly appreciate FJ's insightful perspectives on various issues, as he can rapidly drill down to the essence of an idea or thing and present it from a completely different angle than I had seen it before.

Sat 10.01.11 - With Clinton Jeff visiting for the weekend between Intel's App up and AdobeMax, we decided to take Scruffy and Belle to Dog Beach. Belle had a bit too much fun.

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.