Exciting Changes

Yello all! I have not been around too much lately and it is mainly due to my crazy schedule that just got a lot less hectic. Moreover, I have been doing a ton of research on the blogging software in the world and have come up with a great design for a new blog through Wordpress. This new blog will be a much more focused effort to keep people in the loop of design and mainly web freelancers and the lives that we live. However, this blog will still remain around mainly due to the fact we just went through a redesign a month ago as well as a great opportunity to play with Blogger's amazing and fun technology.

As per usual I will keep you all in a daunting and an imaginative loop of of darkness about our location and simply say it is snowing. Lots of snow actually and none of which is at all appreciated. So God, listen here friend, how about we sacrifice the ski season (another hint) and just say we leave it to pot and lets have some blessed sun. Worth a try right? Besides the snow the other humongous fail of the week goes to loosing another job to what could have been the fault of this blogger or the general stupidity of the user...who knows (or cares). What this does mean is there will be WAY more time spent caressing the huge user base on Tkubed.

Returning is an old favorite on this blog is the weird "what Braden is into this week" reviews. Follow after the drop



MailPlane: This app has an amazing amount of integration with Gmail right on your dock. Most designers out there have a pretty long number of Gmail accounts and this app makes it a trifle effort to control them all. In addition, it gives you some robust controls over gTalk, some nifty, still in gLabs functions, growl notifications, and iPhoto integration for sending great pics. Not too sure about the price they are asking but well worth the download and try period. Maybe the folks over there will throw me some promo codes for you all.

Mint iPhone App: Who knew anyone out there could really live without an iPhone. I hounded it for a long time (check some posts from last year) but now it is completely natural to check stocks, play games, find directions, or be depressed with the weather forecast all within the reach of your pocket. Moreover, Mint is a wonderful "webby" way of managing money and now they have an app to watch your little assets over your phone. It is not the most secure thing in the world but if you really are having a hernia about this niggly issue simply log out of your account. Props peeps at Mint, keep it up you all are amazing.

WoW Miniatures: Anyone who is a geek remembers the pain that came with Warhammer minis. You had to have a steady hand like a crack whore with trimmed fingernails just to be able to pain the little things. Blizzard and Upper Deck have solve this problem with pre painted minis that actually look amazing and an interesting game that goes along with it. The game, just like the card game appears to have a great amount of promise and should be a staple to any nerds stocking this Christmas. Check them out here.

A Rant

What year is it folks? Last time I checked it was almost banging on a new decade. Not to seem mean but if you have a computer that you bought in say 2002 (especially a laptop), yeah go a head and throw it away. Treat yourself to a new and shineyer netbook or just save some money and pick up a very nice macbook. You probably do not know it but that old, slow, molasses running clunker is doing two really bad things to your life.

1) It is sucking a lot of energy and unlike the laptops and desktops of today it does not care how much it sucks, it just keeps on going and going and so does your electric bill.

2) It decreases productivity by slowing down what you do during the day. It also breaks frequently and requires you to pay someone who charges 100+ dollars an hour to fix it.

What I am trying to get across to you folks is, pack it up, sell it or simply be a good citizen and recycle your old and bogged down computer. You, of course could throw a version of Linux on the slow juice drinker like puppy Linux or my favorite being OpenGeu. If you do not want to use the Linux desktop then by all means go out and buy yourself a new computer. Quit hanging on to stuff you know slows your life down, aight? Peace. Sorry for the rant all but it is getting rediculous.

A Teetering Divingboard

We all know that we are heading strait into the red with an imminent recession. However, most of you only know this because of what you hear on Fox News day in and day out. This is not a shot at your intellect but simply a huge shot at how much this word is thrown around the newsroom and into everyone's willing ears. So with the, so called troubling times ahead people are worried about the longevity of certain .com business.

Cnet has recently posted an interesting article on several web 2.0'ers that are bound to close their doors when the real recession floats their way. On the very top of the list is everyone's favored Twitter which has actually been in the news lately for it's unknown business model along with its CEO founder swap. I will come to the forefront and say that I simply adore Twitter and everything the little micro blog who could has done for connecting people in the internet's community. Without Twitter on this list I would have simply looked over it as another pot shot on what will disapear in the iCommunity. So how do you all think we can help Twitter and the other folks in the web 2.0 world that we love?

Well I am going to put it out there that we off load some of the server space onto our own homes. There has been plenty of talk about taking the business away from the office and saving the world through telecomuting with your peers. So why not help these companies out by telecomuting their server space? What would happen if a bunch of us got together, asked for static IP's, opened up some ports, and put some big hard drives in a Ubuntu LAMP box? Let Twitter or whatever have remote access to it and simply let them offload some of their problems onto the people who love them. Open it up to a true community (of course it would take a lot more work then what is described but is very doable). The economy might beheading south for a bit but that does not mean we need to sit idly by and watch our most beloved web 2.0 die in our face.

Are We Males a Little Tepid?

Being one myself I must admit that us 20 something males have a thing or two to learn about being proactive in our community and lives.  This might be so true that it has grabbed the attention of attention seeking whore newsweek.com (article).  The article itself is actually a long read which is uncharacteristic for this topic...aka it was written by a women.  Tony is a hard name to decipher but through some clever googling I think it actually is a male...which is a good thing.

Taking a few looks through the article we see some very key elements of why this article has reached the top of digg today.  

"In almost 400 interviews with mainly white, college-educated twentysomethings, he found that the lockstep march to manhood is often interrupted by a debauched and decadelong odyssey, in which youths buddy together in search of new ways to feel like men. Actually, it's more like all the old ways—drinking, smoking, kidding, carousing—turned up a notch in a world where adolescent demonstrations of manhood have replaced the real thing: responsibility. "

-BINGO.  These two sentences pretty much sum up a good amount of men who find this type of life a nessesity.  We all think that being more drunk then the next person or bragging about who they did last night is more manly than simply taking on the responsibilites of life.  This is of course not 100 percent of the 20 something population but it is growing daily.

"Meanwhile, saddled with an average of $20,000 in student debt and reared with a sense of entitlement that stops them from taking any old job, the percentage of 26-year-olds living with their parents has nearly doubled since 1970"

-Aw yes, living with your parents because you are too proud to take a job that will pay the bills.  Sure, this survey is pointing at american youth which means that most of us are scared to do manual labor or simply get a little dirty but why should you be picky when you are 24...money is money and any skill learned at any job is valueable for the rest of your life, not to mention the stuff you learn from your co-workers.  I know I sometimes feel this, but I love to get dirty, let me pull wires through a crawl space, work for a landscaper on the weekends, be a valet when the job is available.  Our problem is that we hate to serve other people...it makes us feel all..human which is clearly wrong...right.

"If the domestic man does appear, the study finds, the guy who pants in Lamaze class rather than a stranger's bedroom is portrayed as freakish, fuddy-duddy and frequently religious: an uptight Boy Scout in a Peter Pan culture"

-Oh to true...and very well put.

"almost 20 percent of college guys said they would commit rape if they knew they wouldn't be caught"

-WTF Mates.  Although 20 percent is not tremendously high but anything over 0 percent in this catagory is simply wrong.

-Everyone should read the complete article.  It is not powerful enough to make someone change their mind about their attitudes but maybe just maybe, it will make you think...just a little.  Baby steps for the adolescent.