Rise of the PHX http://riseofthephx.com Web musings in the Valley of the Sun. Thu, 24 Apr 2008 20:07:04 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.2 en Video that almost made me switch back to Vista. http://riseofthephx.com/2008/04/24/video-that-almost-made-me-switch-back-to-microsoft/ http://riseofthephx.com/2008/04/24/video-that-almost-made-me-switch-back-to-microsoft/#comments Thu, 24 Apr 2008 20:06:47 +0000 Gregg http://riseofthephx.com/2008/04/24/video-that-almost-made-me-switch-back-to-microsoft/ SHARETHIS.addEntry( { title: "Video that almost made me switch back to Vista.", url: "http://riseofthephx.com/2008/04/24/video-that-almost-made-me-switch-back-to-microsoft/" } ); ]]>

Actually, I almost had to uninstall my all Microsoft Parallels off my system to get the bad taste out of my mouth after watching this.

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]]> http://riseofthephx.com/2008/04/24/video-that-almost-made-me-switch-back-to-microsoft/feed/ Hey this is my first… http://riseofthephx.com/2008/04/23/hey-this-is-my-first/ http://riseofthephx.com/2008/04/23/hey-this-is-my-first/#comments Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:00:29 +0000 Gregg http://riseofthephx.com/2008/04/23/hey-this-is-my-first/ SHARETHIS.addEntry( { title: "Hey this is my first…", url: "http://riseofthephx.com/2008/04/23/hey-this-is-my-first/" } ); ]]> Hey this is my first blog post via Jott, the new tool Jott.com, I guess you check it out. It suppose to gonna be text based post using this tool I suppose as I’m not sure how to implement any image or video into the post but enjoy. Bye. listen

Powered by Jott

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]]> http://riseofthephx.com/2008/04/23/hey-this-is-my-first/feed/ Blessed Day.. My .Net subscription has finally arrived http://riseofthephx.com/2008/04/07/blessed-day-my-net-subscription-has-finally-arrived/ http://riseofthephx.com/2008/04/07/blessed-day-my-net-subscription-has-finally-arrived/#comments Mon, 07 Apr 2008 20:23:49 +0000 Gregg http://riseofthephx.com/2008/04/07/blessed-day-my-net-subscription-has-finally-arrived/ SHARETHIS.addEntry( { title: "Blessed Day.. My .Net subscription has finally arrived", url: "http://riseofthephx.com/2008/04/07/blessed-day-my-net-subscription-has-finally-arrived/" } ); ]]> gregg_dotnet

Ordered mid January, I was starting to panic. But today all is well.

.net is an excellent reference for anyone that works in the web development/design profession. Shipped from the UK and the subscription is a bit pricey but well worth the cost(once you figure out what that is as the prices are in £’s). So I am off to drink some pints, eat some fish and chips and peruse May 2008 issue.

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]]> http://riseofthephx.com/2008/04/07/blessed-day-my-net-subscription-has-finally-arrived/feed/ Let’s get Naked! April 9th, 2008 http://riseofthephx.com/2008/04/04/lets-get-naked-april-9th-2008/ http://riseofthephx.com/2008/04/04/lets-get-naked-april-9th-2008/#comments Fri, 04 Apr 2008 17:36:24 +0000 Gregg http://riseofthephx.com/2008/04/04/lets-get-naked-april-9th-2008/ SHARETHIS.addEntry( { title: "Let’s get Naked! April 9th, 2008", url: "http://riseofthephx.com/2008/04/04/lets-get-naked-april-9th-2008/" } ); ]]> CSSDay2008For the past two years I’ve missed the opportunity to be naked in public, at leas at the socially acceptable time. This year will be different as I have put everything in place to join many other web standards minded folk in celebrating CSS Naked Day.

This event was started two years ago by Dustin Diaz, and for one reason or another I would miss it. This year I am embracing my nudity(with ease thanks to the CSS Naked Wordpress plugin by Aja Lorenzo Lapus.)

Included in this post is a little graphic I came up with to celebrate this prestigious event. Any one interested is free to lift it from my site and display it at will. (PS. Naked Juice I love your product and would have no money with which to by it if I had to pay your lawyers)

If you are of the web standards persuasion or are just interested in seeing what happens when your site is stripped of its CSS head over to the CSS Naked Day Site, sign up and prepare to disrobe on the 9th.

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]]> http://riseofthephx.com/2008/04/04/lets-get-naked-april-9th-2008/feed/ Sociable Timeline via Dipity http://riseofthephx.com/2008/04/02/sociable-timeline-via-dipity/ http://riseofthephx.com/2008/04/02/sociable-timeline-via-dipity/#comments Wed, 02 Apr 2008 17:00:17 +0000 Gregg http://riseofthephx.com/2008/04/02/sociable-timeline-via-dipity/ SHARETHIS.addEntry( { title: "Sociable Timeline via Dipity", url: "http://riseofthephx.com/2008/04/02/sociable-timeline-via-dipity/" } ); ]]> DipityIt was one of those moments I am often faced with. An idea creeps into my head that causes an immediate rifle for the laptop to search for said idea to see if another had hatched it at an earlier date. My search term, ’social timeline web 2.0′. The second hit was an article from Information Week by Fritz Nelson from March 4th entitled Dipity Do Social Timelines. Usually I do these searches and the tool has been online for well over year but this time the baked goods were still fresh, according to their own company timline they announced the alpha at SXSW 2008, on March 8th. In perusing the site I found it was exactly what I had in mind and immediately attempted to embed my social time line in The Rise. At first I only got a blank time line, but after reporting a bug Zack with dipity had the embed feature working beautifully. Also of note, I had a great back and forth with BJ Heinley on Dipity’s Get Satisfaction page. (On a side note, if you are a startup or a mega corp, Get Satisfaction is an excellent tool for customer support and feedback no matter what industry in which you call home).

The result is my newly added Sociable Time Line section of the site. My plan is to migrate much of my web wander logs into this section and Dipity has an excellent interface to bring meaning to those wanderings. Example: say I write and post a really jaded, disenfranchised entry on the site you can correlate it to a last.fm scrobble of Rage Against the Machine on the time line. I also noticed the Dipity folk are already working on integrating with facebook, which is awesome.

Overall awesome tool. If you get stuck with some app weirdness, first remember this is the alpha release and take two breathes. As a pioneer you will lose a wagon wheel or two. Second use the feedback forms or jump on Get Satisfaction as BJ and crew will be there for ya.

Some tips:

Micro vs Macro:You may want to craft timelines as either macro or micro level. What I mean here is if you bunch all you sites together chances are you will be like me where one social network will track your birthday, so unless you have been blogging/twittering since you were 3 there will be a vast amount of empty space. So my plan is to create a macro_Me_timeline and a micro_Me_timeline, and spread my feeds between the two.

Think about your audience: you may not want to post all you delicious links if you incessantly bookmark NSFW content. For my current employer I set up a feed that outputs every news release ever posted on the site, then routed that to a private time line. The result is The Biodesign Institute time line.

Moving forward:

A couple of things I would like I have on my wish list for Dipity:

  1. Be able to see the feed details after I add them. Example: Deli.cio.us(http://del.icio.us/rss/riseofthephx)
  2. Be able to sort feed priority, so those with greater weights are shown higher up on the time line, it looks as though the blog entries are positioned high now which is nice.
  3. Dipity time lines have their own RSS feed that can feed additional time lines. A few examples: One family member’s time line could feed the time line for the entire family, a subsidary group can feed a corporate parents timeline, etc.

I am new to the tool so if this functionality is in place please be kind in your RTFM rants please.

Big bonus to Dipity creating the tool sans(w/o) Flash as the end user can easily modify look and feel via CSS and the information is much more accessible.

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]]> http://riseofthephx.com/2008/04/02/sociable-timeline-via-dipity/feed/ movin on up (movin on up), to a deluxe apartment in the sky http://riseofthephx.com/2008/03/27/movin-on-up-movin-on-up-to-a-deluxe-apartment-apartment-in-the-sky/ http://riseofthephx.com/2008/03/27/movin-on-up-movin-on-up-to-a-deluxe-apartment-apartment-in-the-sky/#comments Thu, 27 Mar 2008 15:31:46 +0000 Gregg http://riseofthephx.com/2008/03/27/for-anyone-looking-for-some-45th-floor-rental-space-in-phx/ SHARETHIS.addEntry( { title: "movin on up (movin on up), to a deluxe apartment in the sky", url: "http://riseofthephx.com/2008/03/27/movin-on-up-movin-on-up-to-a-deluxe-apartment-apartment-in-the-sky/" } ); ]]> Came across a very cool graphic representation of rental availability on 37 signals, and since it was for the Phoenix area it makes it especially cool.phxskyline

One could use this tool to find a new place to park their water cooler, or keg if you are a young start up.

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]]> http://riseofthephx.com/2008/03/27/movin-on-up-movin-on-up-to-a-deluxe-apartment-apartment-in-the-sky/feed/ It’s Dr. Jones to you, Lady! http://riseofthephx.com/2008/03/27/its-dr-jones-to-you-lady/ http://riseofthephx.com/2008/03/27/its-dr-jones-to-you-lady/#comments Thu, 27 Mar 2008 14:23:17 +0000 Gregg http://riseofthephx.com/2008/03/27/its-dr-jones-to-you-lady/ SHARETHIS.addEntry( { title: "It’s Dr. Jones to you, Lady!", url: "http://riseofthephx.com/2008/03/27/its-dr-jones-to-you-lady/" } ); ]]> How many of  you out there grew up thinking all archaeologists carried a whip and revolver, had ever present 5 o’clock shadow, an were just plain bad asses. So with the up coming Indiana Jones film set to hit the theaters this summer it is with great pleasure to find that Topps is releasing trading cards that depict classic scenes from the previous 3 installments.

Very cool indeed, ‘chilled monkey brains’ worthy of two cards.

Indy_Cards

http://patrickschoenmaker.blogspot.com/2008/03/topps-indiana-jones-heritage-sketch.html 

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]]> http://riseofthephx.com/2008/03/27/its-dr-jones-to-you-lady/feed/ Take the ‘Rise’ on the go http://riseofthephx.com/2008/03/22/take-the-rise-on-the-go/ http://riseofthephx.com/2008/03/22/take-the-rise-on-the-go/#comments Sat, 22 Mar 2008 06:53:54 +0000 Gregg http://riseofthephx.com/2008/03/22/take-the-rise-on-the-go/ SHARETHIS.addEntry( { title: "Take the ‘Rise’ on the go", url: "http://riseofthephx.com/2008/03/22/take-the-rise-on-the-go/" } ); ]]> Announcing m.riseofthephx.com, or really my use of mofuse.mobi.  If you ever need one of my bad puns or one liners and are away from the traditional pc, just direct your browser to m.riseofthephx.com to see all my posts formated for your device.  Very crafty indeed.

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]]> http://riseofthephx.com/2008/03/22/take-the-rise-on-the-go/feed/ Take this test… I failed http://riseofthephx.com/2008/03/18/take-this-test-i-failed/ http://riseofthephx.com/2008/03/18/take-this-test-i-failed/#comments Tue, 18 Mar 2008 17:34:32 +0000 Gregg http://riseofthephx.com/2008/03/18/take-this-test-i-failed/ SHARETHIS.addEntry( { title: "Take this test… I failed", url: "http://riseofthephx.com/2008/03/18/take-this-test-i-failed/" } ); ]]>

Found in Adactio’s del.icio.us feed

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]]> http://riseofthephx.com/2008/03/18/take-this-test-i-failed/feed/ Creating a music video to make friends and family envious of your mad skills http://riseofthephx.com/2008/03/13/creating-a-music-video-ot-make-friends-and-family-envious/ http://riseofthephx.com/2008/03/13/creating-a-music-video-ot-make-friends-and-family-envious/#comments Thu, 13 Mar 2008 16:32:36 +0000 Gregg http://riseofthephx.com/2008/03/13/creating-a-music-video-ot-make-friends-and-family-envious/ SHARETHIS.addEntry( { title: "Creating a music video to make friends and family envious of your mad skills", url: "http://riseofthephx.com/2008/03/13/creating-a-music-video-ot-make-friends-and-family-envious/" } ); ]]> Ran across a very cool tool on Techcrunch yesterday and wanted to show you what I came up with in 24 hours.

Janelle, my wife, and I celebrate our 6th wedding anniversary this Saturday so I put together a video of our kids (and a few of the parents) using a tool called, Animoto. You upload videos off your system or grab them off your preferred photo sharing site (mine was Flickr). Then you select from the music they provide, which is actually really good, or select and upload an mp3. Two options emerge, 30 second free video creations or for $3 one time fee $30 dollars a year the video will match the song or number of pics.

So best practice I found is to choose the mp3 you want to act as and then upload and organize the correct amount of pictures to meet the right time allotment (the estimate video length calculated on picture count is displayed on the left). One other suggestion is to size the videos before upload(for best quality use roughly 1024pxX768px as that is what the image is sized to by Animoto. After the video is finished you can download it or post directly to Youtube.

Highly recommended tool.

Here is the result:

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