Having not updated this blog in a regular fashion, I’ve decided to re-think and re-align its direction more so with what I am doing professionally, namely software interface and usability design, with a sub-section paying special attention to UI design in relation to console, pc and mobile gaming. Other subjects getting partial coverage are sustainability [for design, products and life], web programming [slightly] and illustration [fantastical, comic book style]. I hope you enjoy it.

Current posts may or may not be archived and made available, this is still under some debate. Expect the changes to take effect some time in the next month or so.

So the latest Smallville episode “Hero” aired last night (Thursday, March 13, 2008) and all I can say about this is.. WTF?

Ads for the episode leading up to Thursday hyped it as some kind of big reveal or a life-changing event for the show’s characters. To quote Lex in the ad “Whatever Clark is hiding has something to do with these symbols.” This directly alludes to Lex learning about who Clark really is, the big inevitability of the story. This would change the world of Smallville.

So what happened?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

The big event was Pete Ross returning to the show, getting super powers, thinking he’s a hero then losing them and leaving the show again, all in one episode. Oh, did I forget to mention how the ENTIRE episode is a 45 minute Stride gum commercial or repeated plugs for some lame band called “One Republic”?

Conversations between Lex and Kara then Kara and Lana then Clark hiding Kara’s bracelet in the floor cements the fact that this entire show is built around deceit, lies and keeping secrets. Smallville has gone from a decent, low budget take on the early years of Clark Kent struggling to accept his destiny to a primetime, 20-somethings soap opera. What the hell happened to the story?

It seems this show went downhill after two events occurred. 1: Clark’s father, Jonathan died. 2: Comic guy Jeff Loeb left the show to go work on some other awesome superhero show called, Heroes.

Sure, I could accept that maybe Smallville is struggling financially but it’s just gotten the green light for a 8th season. I’m happy to see at least one lame character getting the ax,.. Lana. She and Lex will be relegated to occassional guest appearances in the 8th season.

Good, I’m glad to see them both go. Lana’s character sucks. Her (and practically the entire rest of the cast’s) dialogue is a joke. In one breath she will accuse Clark (or anyone else in proximity) of betraying her or lying or looking the wrong way then later in the episode, beg forgiveness for ever doubting them, only to unload this diatribe on someone else in the next episode when she, once again, gets her ass in a wringer and needs help.

Lex is beyond the point of ridiculous. His character is a joke because he has no direction. What’s Clark’s big secret? Who cares? He’s a billionaire living in a po dunk town obsessing over some farm boy. This is the writers’ payback for a three month strike? Fire the whole writing staff and beg Loeb to return and clean up this trainwreck of a show.

If the next new episode is as poorly written and corporately sponsored as Thursday’s “Hero” my only interest in watching this show will be to see how long it takes to get cancelled.

Hey CW.. hire some good writers for Smallville or can it. Get a good show like “Supernatural” back on the air and kick your new upstart show “Reaper” into Smallville’s timeslot.

After seeing an article on digg.com this morning regarding statements made by Presidential hopeful Mike Hukabee (R) the need to vote in your state’s presidential primary election is even more important.

According to the article, Mike Hukabee, while being interviewed Monday morning on the MSNBC show “Morning Joe”, stated:

“I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that’s what we need to do — to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.”

Read the whole article on rawstory: Huckabee: Amend Constitution to be in ‘God’s standards’ and the responses on digg.

No thank you, Mr. Hukabee. Leave my Constitution alone, it’s been disrespected enough by our current failure of a president, George W. Bush.

Personally, I support Congressman Kucinich to be our next president. However, should Kucinich not make it to the general election in November, I will use Dennis Kucinich’s support of run-off voting and support my #2 candidate, Barack Obama.

Voting in your state’s (and party’s) presidential primary election has a direct impact on which candidates become the last to choose from in the November general election. If you don’t vote in the primary and help choose the best candidates you may be left with only choosing the lesser of two evils come general election day.

Whoever you support, get out there and vote in your primary election and the later general election. We, the people, can’t do this without you.

When is my state’s primary election?

I live in Indiana now after moving from Pennsylvania. My state’s presidential primary isn’t until May. A few have passed already but it’s not too late to be a part of change.
I have provided a PDF below that lists the date of each state’s primary election.

Primary Election Dates - All States [zipped pdf]
Link to original site: http://www.fec.gov
Link to original pdf: http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/2008pdates.pdf

Mark you state’s primary date on your calendar, add it to your phone or pda or write it on your hand but don’t forget.

Vote on that day.

Don’t make any excuses, it’s your duty to vote.
This country can’t function properly without you.

Use your vote and voice to tell our government you want undone, the wrongs inflicted on this country and its Constitution by the Bush Administration. Help bring America back to the proud, respected nation it once was.

Vote. America needs you now more than ever.

I was going to post the following as a comment to the article “The Most Dangerous Appliance in Your Home: The Television” but their captcha anti-spam thing doesn’t work (I f**king HATE captchas) so I’m posting it here in an extended form.

* * * * *
I also agree with all of these statements. The best step you can take in fighting the constant feed of manipulation is to TURN IT OFF or better yet, cancel your cable subscription. I do watch some tv, mostly on dvd of downloaded episodes of currently running shows I actually enjoy.

Many Americans are in a habitual state of behavior by which the tv is turned on immediately after coming home from work, school or whatever fills their day. Often, the tv stays on through dinner and remains on until bedtime. Many of these people then watch more tv in their bedroom prior to sleep. Some fall asleep with the tv on, set to a sleep timer. “I can’t fall asleep without the tv” is one argument. The tv delivering some feeling of comfort and security is frightening to me. In these kinds of all too common cases, the bombardment of messages, suggestions and advertising is constant.

Try, for one week, to not turn on the tv when you walk into your home. The desire to watch will seem, at first, almost unbearable. After that week, you may just realize how little tv contributes to your life and, in fact, how much it takes away.
* * * * *

Sure, I’ve gotten annoyed by the eyesore of Leopard’s new Stacks feature. Looks like a jumbled mess and since the icons change based on the contents, it’s hard to tell the Stacks apart if you have multiple Stacks without constant icons. I briefly read over the modified date hack to keep a constant icon and it seems like a hassle. I wanted something quick and easy to implement so I figured out a better way. Here’s an easy tip for creating a static icon (or custom icon) at the front of the Stack.
Myself, I have four Stacks in the Dock: /Applications, Utilities, Documents and Downloads (pic 1).

When clicking on the Stack, I think the trick becomes pretty clear, as seen here
(pic 2).

This trick is simply achieved by creating a folder within the folder you intend to use as a Stack and change its name to a space character. After that, just do a Cmd+I (Get Info) on the icon you’d like to use, select the icon, copy it (cmd+c) then Get Info again on the new folder and paste the icon onto the existing folder icon. Voila! new constant icon (pic 3).

The only drawback here is you can’t sort the Stack by anything except “Name” because it will obviously sort to whatever matches that criteria. I prefer sorting by name anyway so this works out great for me and I hope it works for you too.

Every damn post or review I read states something about the iPhone’s non-removable battery. I have had my LG Chocolate phone for over a year and I have NEVER replaced the battery. I don’t know anyone who carries a spare battery with them. My girlfriend (who just bought the iPhone yesterday) and I have wall and car chargers for our phones. If you charge the battery you won’t need a spare. If there’s a problem with the iPhone’s battery it’s COVERED UNDER WARRANTY. Take it in and have it repaired or replaced. Apple is fantastic about hardware repair and support. The battery thing isn’t an issue and should not be used as a “competitive feature” other phones have over the iPhone. Seriously.

I keep seeing it on the internets, this is Verizon’s “iPhone killer”. Please, not even close.
I am currently a VZW customer who’s stuck with the original LG Chocolate (vx8500) and dissatisfied more every day. It’s not a bad phone, it just doesn’t suit my needs anymore. I have grown to need a full (qwerty) keyboard, a bigger screen, full HTML web browsing and a better camera. I am willing to pay for these features. Since I am locked into a contract for another year, I am looking at paying full retail price for ANY device I want. When the phone’s price becomes a non-issue, the playing field levels out considerably when comparing devices, regardless of carrier.
This is my personal review and partial rant about the new LG Voyager (vx10000) and Verizon. Weighing in at $469 retail, it doesn’t offer much outside of looks that other, less attractive devices like the Samsung i760 do for slightly more money without being crippled by the always disappointing Verizon interface.

The Voyager does a good job in the looks department, it’s not a bad looking phone overall with gloss black and chrome trim, large front screen and a big keyboard. The branding is muted, small and stamped in chrome, similar to the original chocolate. Most LG devices are nice to look at, which is what initially roped me into the Chocolate, my first non-pay as you go phone. It stole enough look from the iPod to make it alluring. Same deal with the Voyager, steals enough of the iPhone’s simple visual design to warrant an immediate comparison. However, the front screen is smaller than it could have been, same with the second screen once flipped open. The front screen could have stretched farther, north and south, gaining about another inch of screen real estate. Inner screen could have been a tad wider also. Both screens are low res. I’m supposed to watch video and surf the net on this thing? Hey Verizon, bump up the number of pixels!
The overall size is smaller than I expected. It looked much bigger in photos I had seen. Then there’s the weight, it’s extremely light, which to me, makes it feel cheaply made. My chocolate phone weighs more than the Voyager and it’s tiny! The Voyager is strong on looks but skimps on quality of build parts.

The Voyager could have been all that without treading into smartphone territory, big touch screen, 2 MP auto-focus camera, html web browsing, full keyboard, mobile tv, music & movie playback and function as a mass storage device but no Verizon drops the ball again.

The touch screen is nice but it’s a gimmick. Same tired VZW UI, menus, and options. There is a virtual keyboard but you only see it when using the web browser, you can’t use it to write text messages. I have this giant screen and I have to use an alphanumeric keypad unless I open the phone? At least make using it an option.
The HTML web browser is decent but sluggish and I can live without Flash. No java since the phone runs on BREW, which sucks. Pages render s-l-o-w-l-y and navigating by dragging your finger is a joke since the phone takes at least a second to move the page after dragging. Drag, wait, drag wait. No thanks. After adding a full HTML browser seems like a waste when you have to switch to “optimized web” in order for it to perform reasonably well. Oh, and it’s EVDO is the slower Rev.0. Why no Rev.A? I have a side business selling online so more and more, internet access becomes important but I’m not ready for a (usually ugly) PDA with a slew of features I’ll never use.
Adding VCast for unlimited data is a must to get the full functionality out of this phone but it adds MobileTV. I haven’t tried this but it seems interesting. The camera is a mediocre 2 MP with slow auto-focus. For being a flagship phone, this thing should have had 3MP minimum AND a flash. The physical keyboard is similar to the enV but I like the rubber coating present on the Samsung i760 keyboard.

Expandable memory up to 8 GB microSD is nice but means I have to spend MORE money for moderate storage (internal 184 MB doesn’t cut it for a media-centric device). A better Mobile Email app is nice but I would prefer to install Mobile Gmail. Oh, Verizon phones don’t do Java, guess I’m out of luck.

In conclusion, the LG Voyager may be on a decent network and look nice but it’s a half-hearted attempt at capturing a burgeoning US market that wants more out of their phone without jumping into PDA/smartphone territory. LG needs to stop buckling to Verizon and crippling their phone to the point where they are practically useless for anything except making phone calls.

After seeing earlier today that Samsung’s recent F700 is coming to VZW under the model number U940 (it’s crippled too with a 2 MP camera instead of the original 5 MP or even later 3 MP, probably VZW’s awful UI instead of the slick Croix interface.. WTF?!?!) I will probably hold out for that phone and see if it improves in any of the areas where the Voyager has failed.

People like(d) to complain about the iPhone’s price but when you’re in a spot like me and forced to pay full retail so you don’t have to get another contract, the iPhone doesn’t seem so expensive anymore. Add to the fact that and SDK will be out for the iPhone in February 2008, this is just the beginning of what the iPhone is capable of offering customers. More and more it seems the iPhone is a platform and not just a phone/iPod. It would be nice if the big carriers (I’m looking at you, Verizon!) would learn to get out of the phone makers’ way so we could see some truly innovative devices hit the US market.

So my hosting just came back up last night after being down for over 5 DAYS. I had to contact my host’s tech support TWICE before I got an explanation of the down time. “We’re moving all the accounts on server X to a new machine”. And this takes 5 days? Only after the second reply to the acknowledgement email from their tech support do they tell me “all accounts on server X were moved, used this as your new IP address”. Why wasn’t I notified of this change and given the new IP address? I am a paying customer, that’s all, I thought I should know. This isn’t the first time my host went down for an extended time. Only after I contacted tech support did I get resolution to the problem. This is the second server switch in the year I’ve been hosted here and it makes me question the quality of the servers they are using. Did a guy you know get them from his friend or buy them off-lease? Whatever the answer, quality hosting and service wouldn’t be getting the transition done quickly; getting it done right means I would never notice the change happened.

I just attended the Pittsburgh stop of the Adobe onAIR Bus Tour on August 17 and in my goody bag was a card for 3 FREE months of Media Temple hosting. After the shenanigans of my current host, eMax Hosting, I’m seriously tempted to jump ship. It’s 3x what I’m paying now ($5.95/mo.) which is pretty sweet but I guess you get what your pay for sometimes. (mt) supports Ruby on Rails, which I’m learning (Ruby mostly). Emax claims Rails isn’t proven on a security level to deploy. Is there any truth to this or could it just be a lack of skilled tech people on their site to maintain it? Probably the latter.

The ‘ol site’s a little empty at the moment. I recently moved to a WordPress cms to take the maintenance bits off so I can add content without worrying about breaking the site. More recently, I’ve been busy with my family as my father is fighting a losing battle with colon cancer. Due to this tragic turn of events coupled with working full-time I haven’t exactly had the extra time to devote to finishing the migration to a new site. Added to the fact that I’m scrapping my portfolio and starting a new one. It’s taking a little longer to fill the site again since the diagnosis and recent decline in his health.

However, I did start a project initially intended for my dad and his scale model ship building hobby.
He has been working on a 1:300? scale (5′ long) replica of the U.S.S. Missouri he served on during his stint in the Navy. He needed scale replicas of the maritime flags used on all ships, more affectionately known as the International Code of Symbols flags. Well, I collected them, drew them up and started laying them out with cut marks for easy trimming. The way things are going, he won’t be able to use these.
I’ve decided to finish them anyway, divide them into sets and post them for sale since, while searching for sheets to buy I couldn’t find any. I will be donating 50% of the total sales per month to cancer research. Every form of cancer is awful and should be eradicated. This can’t be done without more research and research costs money. I want to help that search and this is one of the ways I plan on doing so. In the future, it may help others who are stricken with this terrible disease of the cells. This will be one of the ways I will tell my father I love him as I live on without his advice, sense of humor, good ethics and friendship.

On March 10th, Amandine and I went to the Hundred Acre Manor in South Park outside Pittsburgh to meet up with Midian, Skippy and the other people from Deviant Pictures [http://www.deviantpictures.com/] for the first day of principal shooting on “I Spit on Eli Roth” where I play Eli, even though you can’t see my face completely. I thought it was going to suck but when I was done for the day it had turned out to be really fun. We shot indoors but it was pretty chilly all day and rained in the late afternoon. They were able to wrap up all the my scenes today so I didn’t have to come back tomorrow. Kind of sucks, everyone was really nice. I’m hoping to possibly do something else with them in the future. Amandine had a good time too, which I’m glad about since she spent the day on set with me. I was worried she’d be bored.
Devi’s production company is based in Indiana state so it’s within a 3 hour drive from Indy. Now I’m looking forward to seeing the final film. I don’t expect an amazing movie but it was cool to be a part of it and the experience really re-kindled the desire to make films or movies. That means I have to get cracking on “Shimmer” and get that out there, whether it’s a comic book or live action narrative filmy series thing.