Sonnd

The Art of the (Title) Smoke

Jose — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 11:08:36 +0000

One of my favo(u)rite movies on this site full of movie and tv series credit sequences. There is also the Donnie Brasco title sequence. I remember it being mentioned in Hillman Curtis’ book MTIV - Process, Inspiration and Practice for the New Media Designer that I read many years back.

This section of the book is based on the talk I gave that day. And
the talk itself grew out of a simple practice of sharing we have at the
studio.

It worked like this: If I was reading a great book - say, Making Movies by
Sidney Lurnet, (Vintage Books) - I would hand it to our creative
director, Ian Kovalik, as soon as I was done. He would then read it and
hand it to Homera. Or perhaps Grant would come in, and, as his computer
was starting up, turn and say to me, “Did you see the Viola show up on
57th Street? It’s amazing,” at which point I would shake my head in
disbelief, ashamed that I wasn’t aware that there was a new Bill Viola
show. I would recover quickly enough, though, to mention the
Phillip-Lorca diCorcia show at the Pace/MacGill Gallery in SoHo. And so
on.

The point is that, in our small shop, we’re always
collecting inspiration and sharing it with each other. We then use
those shared inspirations as starting points, like blueprints or maps,
for our own work. Sometimes we even find ourselves using them to
directly communicate our ideas, suggesting “a little Kyle Cooper”
(Donnie Brasco, not Seven…) here, and “a touch of Brockmann” there. And
always, always chanting the classic Hemmingway line, “Write the story,
take out all the good lines, and see if it still works” as we go.

What
I hope to make clear with this section is that we are all, as
creatives, tying to do the same thing. That regardless of our medium,
whether it be design, poetry, fiction, painting, filmmaking, or any
other form of creative expression, at the core of everything we do lies
the need to communicate.

Feel it is about time I gave it a second read.

Free our Bills!

Jose — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 10:21:45 +0000

Feel free to lend a hand. They need your help.

“The Nice Polite Campaign to Gently Encourage
Parliament to Publish Bills in a 21st Century Way, Please. Now.”

See if you can find a favicon

Jose — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 10:02:18 +0000

Check this favicon collection application running in Google’s App Engine service and see if you can find Broutek’s logo.

The Amazing Quicksilver

Jose — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:09:47 +0000

Just another quick reason to switch to macs.

Google’s Chart API

Jose — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 16:39:00 +0000

Look mum! No images!

This image was generated through the Google Charts API. Just copy and paste the following text

http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=p3&chd=t:10,10,20,30,30&chs=240x90&chl=Hello|World|How|Are|You

into your browser to see it in action.

The best part is that it supports sparklines as easily as this.

Antivirus Reloaded - Clamwin for Vista

Jose — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 13:25:43 +0000

It’s old news now, new for me, worth mentioning, though. Clamwin, the free Windows antivirus does work under Vista. The installation went smoothly, which was to be expected. The software still needs quite a bit of work in a number of areas relating to the user interface and OS integration (looks like Windows 2000).

There are a few minor bits that I picked up so far: being asked to integrate with Outlook on installation, choosing not to and finding after installation that in the preferences, email scanning of Outlook outgoing and incoming emails are both checked. It doesn’t seem to integrate with the Windows Security Center, which translates in Vista still complaining that “Virus protection” is off. This can be turned off by selecting manual monitoring of the antivirus under Windows Security Center, but it spoils the good feeling you get from an application that integrates fully with your OS. A really good antivirus, still.

Firefox 3 Easter Egg

Jose — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 08:50:33 +0000

If you are playing around with the beta versions of Firefox 3, try typing about:robots in the address bar.

It plays with the theme that has been used in the first-run pages of Firefox since beta2.

IT, CAD Management and Strategy

Jose — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 13:45:54 +0000

My first post in this blog, though it is not the first time I start a blog. I’m hoping this time around I will be able to keep it running indefinitely. My plan is on writing about all things that interest me one way or another with no specific focus. Hopefully there is always going to be something to say.

Right now I am fully immersed in Broutek.com , a company I helped found. It started a few years back, but it really came into gear about a year and a half ago, where on a trip to Las Vegas I pictured the business model that was going to be the basis for Broutek.

I enjoy my job there as the CTO, but more than anything else, I enjoy it because of the people working with me. The team is everything. I have been involved in IT for most of my life followed by CAD Drafting and from there to CAD Management. It’s been a fun ride. But I specially enjoy this last bit of my career as it allows me to leverage all previous knowledge against my own ideas and put them forward along the people I work with in a business setup.

So, I am likely to write more about Broutek in one way or another. Now I better get a few things sorted so I can keep this blog up to date with as little fuss as possible.