functional


16 Aug 10

Ringtones that scare my wife and kid

I know there’s pretty split camps on the custom ringtones issue. One group loves having them and thinks it’s the coolest thing ever. The other can’t stand the trend and gets nauseous every time they hear one in the grocery store, Starbucks or even better, quiet restaurant or movie theater. But if you’re like me, you have a foot in both camps. See, what usually drive people like me crazy about custom tones is when they’re poorly executed. It’s a hip hop song or classic rock jam that’s so distorted it’s painful.

The magic of iTunes, Garage Band, and the stripping of DRM from purchased music is that you can create great sounding ones with finesse. This also takes into consideration having an Apple and an iPhone which makes the process seamless.

I’ve made plenty, splitting them up across my address book so I can identify a caller by sound alone, which is often very helpful. For this reason, I generally choose tracks that will stand out in the white noise so I can hear it. This has resulted in some that will make my son stop in his tracks and look around in earnest. Not to mention catch my often-jumpy wife off guard as well.

Concrete Walls by Fever Ray



Ratatat

Bilar by Ratatat



Mum

Smell Memory by Mum



Modeselektor

The White Flash by Modeselektor



Dead Weather

Blue Blood Blues by The Dead Weather



Crystal Castles

Untrust Us by Crystal Castles



BT

The Rose of Jericho by BT



Trentemoller

Always Something Better by Trentemoller



The XX

Intro by The XX




14 Apr 10

Do It Yourself Camera Dolly

We decided to build our own heavy duty skater dolly for use with larger equipment like the RED (and the bulky tripod that goes with it). Our smaller slider works great for short distances and with lighter equipment like the Canon 5D. But if we need to go far, it’s going to require longer legs.

After a trip to the Orlando skate park for some wheels and bearings, I was able to hit up Lowe’s for the rest of the equipment. All things told, it cost around $250 for all the supplies (the wheels and bearings being the most expensive part).

While I cut, hacked and drilled, Ryan set up the 5D on the smaller dolly and got some fun footage of the building process. Then we switched at the end while he operated the RED camera on the completed dolly. Enjoy.


24 Mar 10

Nike Chalkbot

During the Tour de France, the team at DeepLocal was able to make a huge impact with their pneumatic spraypaint machine along the tour route. Together with Nike and Lance Armstrong’s LIVESTRONG campaign, the creation was aimed allowing people to put their messages in bright yellow paint for the racers and cameras to see. More than 36,000 people submitted messages to the cause via Twitter and text message which were then cued into the software program by DeepLocal.

This is how the tradition looked originally.

Tour de France chalk

You can see more pics of the Chalkbot project at DeepLocal’s site.

Nike Chalkbot

Programming at DeepLocal

Chalkbot R&D

Testing the Chalkbot

On the roads of France

Here’s a great little video summing up the project as well.


18 Mar 10

WHY Yacht – Why Not?

The famous Wally yachts have been outdone by their own developer, which is quite a task. Michael Bay used the 70m Wallypower in his film The Island where it looked so futuristic and geeked out that a lot of people thought it was CGI. Not sure if the power producer will be able to pull off getting one of these new creations into a future feature.

I kind of don’t even know how to preface the pictures and video. I’m still somewhat breathless. See the WHY site for more details and tech specs.

WHY Yacht - Front

WHY Yacht - living area

WHY Yacht - sun deckWHY Yacht - rear view


17 Mar 10

Amazing Work Spaces

This article from FastCompany’s design blog showcases some of the greatest creative office space I’ve seen. Thanks Alissa Walker for bringing these to our attention! Below are some of my favorites from the feature (where you can also see comments from architects/designers on the projects).


25 Feb 10

I Need To Borrow $3,994,000

And you can come over as much as you want.

This lakeside beauty in Baldwin Park is right around the corner from my wife’s office. I drive past it all the time and toy with the thought of sneaking in. I couldn’t find the photographer’s name to credit them for the great pics, but the listing can be found here.


19 Feb 10

Amazing Wordpress plugin for mobile browsers

My good friend and fellow tech geek Jason threw this my way earlier this morning and I am simply smitten with it. The WPtouch plugin for Wordpress basically comes to action when somebody with a mobile browser hits your blog page. When they do, the contents of your page are displayed in a super sexy layout very native to the phone. Everything is very easy to read and access. The settings you can control within your Wordpress admin panel are also very impressive.  I can’t recommend this highly enough if you have have installed Wordpress on your server for blogging.

Look at my blog (blog.justin-johnson.com) with your iPhone, iPod or Android to see for yourself (but probably not this particular post, because that would be like looking at a reflection of a mirror in a mirror).

Screenshots-


11 Feb 10

Urban Tree Salvage

This Ontario based company focuses on utilizing waste products to create some amazing functional furniture. Best of all, they specialize in made to order pieces where the customer is involved in the whole process.

Urban Tree Salvage - dresserUrban Tree Salvage - table, branding, wine standUrban Tree Salvage - conference table


11 Feb 10

Orla Kiely’s Target Line

a) Who doesn’t love Target? b) How do you walk past these housewares by Orla Kiely and not fill your cart?

Orla Kiely's Target Wares

Orla Kiely's Target Wares

Orla Kiely's Target Wares