Sep 27 2009

Graphic Design – How to be Creative

Here are some thoughts on ways to find inspiration for design:

  1. Think about what your message will be – what do you want to accomplish
  2. Who will you audience be?
  3. Are there any traits, or anything specific which is appealing to them you can use?
  4. Come up with a few elements or icons which can be repeated
  5. Pick a color palette (or palettes)
  6. See what letters and words fit together.
  7. Think about negative space.
  8. Get some photos to use
  9. Pick one serif, and one sans-serif font to start working with
  10. Alternate serif and sans-serif between headings, body, etc as you move down the hierarchy
  11. Collect some stock photos / drawings / vectors
  12. Try some filters: negative, desaturate, pixelize (large pixels, too) – combine these with a shape, icon, symbol
  13. Zoom in on one area of something larger, emphasize it
  14. Don’t forget about contrast. Try making your small fonts smaller and your headlines bigger. Or make your hues more vibrant and your grays more subtle.
  15. See what others in your industry are doing.
  16. Come back to it later when your imagination runs dry.

Sep 25 2009

Segway x2

YouTube Preview Image

Sep 25 2009

2009 Honda U3-X Personal Mobility Concept

YouTube Preview Image

2009 Honda U3-X Personal Mobility Concept.


Sep 25 2009

ASIMO Serves First FCX Clarity Customers

YouTube Preview Image

Watch multiple ASIMOs serving the very first FCX Clarity customers at Honda’s Head Office in Aoyama, Tokyo.

American Honda Motor Co., Inc., recently announced five of the first customers for its advanced new FCX Clarity hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicle and also provided details of the world’s first fuel cell vehicle dealership network in the United States. The announcements were made during a ceremony for the start of FCX Clarity production at the world’s first dedicated fuel cell vehicle manufacturing facility in Japan on June 16, 2008.

Film producer Ron Yerxa will take delivery of the first FCX Clarity in July. The remaining four early adopters for Honda’s next-generation fuel cell vehicle are author and actress Jamie Lee Curtis and her filmmaker husband Christopher Guest; business owner and car enthusiast Jim Salomon; actress Laura Harris; and Jon Spallino, already the world’s first retail fuel cell vehicle customer, who has been leasing the current generation FCX since 2005. Yerxa, Harris and Spallino attended the event in Japan.

More about ASIMO at: http://www.asimo.honda.com


Sep 7 2009

Future By Design – Jacque Fresco

YouTube Preview Image

WORLD PREMIERE JUNE 10 ATLANTA FILM FESTIVAL Future by Design shares the life and far-reaching vision of Jacque Fresco, considered by many to be a modern day Da Vinci. Peer to Einstein and Buckmi…


Sep 7 2009

Related Things

queen’s under pressure = ice ice baby

SP32-13

Toys R Us and Rooms to Go Logos

toys_r_us_logo

Ray-Ban and Virgin Logos

ray_ban_logo

See more on this blog


Sep 5 2009

1.12.12 25.15.21.18 15 1.18.5 2.5.12.15.14.7 20.15 21.19

What does it mean?

Google’s code. This is a reference to the all your base are belong to us. However, on google’s homepage in the animation of the alien spaceship, the aliens are stealing the google “o” thus we have “all your O are belong to us”

Just convert the numbers to the alphabetical counterparts (a=1, b=2)

This is using something similar to the caesar cipher

What does “All your base are belong to us” mean?

Wikipedia says:

All your base are belong to us” (often shortened to “All Your Base“, “AYBABTU“, or simply “AYB“) is a broken English phrase that was central to an Internet phenomenon, or meme, in 2000-2002, with the spread of a Flash animation that depicted the slogan. The text is taken from the opening cut scene of the 1991 European Sega Mega Drive version of the Japanese video game Zero Wing,[1] by Toaplan which was poorly translated by Sega of Europe. It was popularized by the Something Awful message forums.[2] The lines For great justice and Somebody set up us the bomb are often replicated as a secondary memes, with the phrase for great justice applied to an ordinary or inappropriate action.

Watch the Video

YouTube Preview Image

Google’s Homepage

27758931-b34a13c749d9170e234b2c62e283658a.4aa1e767-scaled

Animated Gif

AllYourBaseAnimated

1.12.12 25.15.21.18 15 1.18.5 2.5.12.15.14.7 20.15 21.19


Sep 2 2009

Campus Kitchen gets new content

The Campus Kitchen at Wake Forest University gets an updated CMS. Visit the site to check it out.

campus_kitchen


Sep 1 2009

Increase Gmail search result count (from 20)

Are you frustrated that when you search g-mail there are only 20 results that show up at a time? It’s quite difficult to review, mark, and move messages when the search results are limited to 20 messages.

Does it make sense that a “search company” which offers GIGABYTES of storage in their e-mail system limits your result count to 20? No. Of course not.

Visit the GMAIL SUGGESTIONS PAGE and choose the second one from the bottom “Better message search functionality” – also, possibly choose the dropdown box at the bottom, select OTHER, and tell google you want more than 20 results! :)

gmail_limited_search_results


Sep 1 2009

Review: X10 Home Automation with Arduino

This is a re-post of  this blog posting since it appears to be a 404.
—-
My current project revolves around using the Arduino and the X10 home automation protocol and hardware. The gist of what I am doing with this project is using the Parallax RFID (found here) tag to identify me and then use X10 protocol/hardware (Part# 1134B from SmartHomes via Amazon) to automate my home. Below is the wiring diagram.
X10_wire

In this example, I control 1 device (on X10 circuit A, device 1). I initally turn the device off. When the RFID tag I am looking for is read, I turn the lights on. Next time that tag is read, I turn the lights off. I acknowledge various changes by providing feedback to the user via blinking LEDs and serial comms to the PC. I use the free SSH/telnet client PuTTY, found here.

Now, for the code…

——————————————–
#include x10.h
#include x10constants.h

// RFID reader variables
#define TAG_LEN 12
char tag[12] = {‘0′, ‘F’, ‘0′, ‘3′, ‘0′, ‘3′, ‘7′, ‘1′, ‘8′, ‘5′};
char code[12];
int bytesread = 0;
int ledPin = 13; // Connect LED to pin 13
int rfidPin = 2; // RFID enable pin connected to digital pin 2
int val=0;

// X10 Control unit variables
int zcPin = 9;
int dataPin = 8;
int repeat = 1;
boolean LightsOn = false;

// Declare and instance of an X10 control module
x10 myHouse = x10(zcPin, dataPin); // 9 is 0xing pin; 8 is data pin

void setup()
{

// Begin serial comms with the PC
Serial.begin(2400); // RFID reader SOUT pin connected to Serial RX pin at 2400bps

// X10 Module
myHouse.write(A, ALL_UNITS_OFF, repeat);
pinMode(zcPin,INPUT);
pinMode(dataPin,OUTPUT);

// RFID
pinMode(rfidPin,OUTPUT); // Set digital pin 2 as OUTPUT to connect it to the RFID /ENABLE pin
pinMode(ledPin,OUTPUT); // Set ledPin to output
digitalWrite(rfidPin, LOW); // Activate the RFID reader

blink(); // All variables are set, notify user ready to operate
Serial.println(“Setup complete, all lights OFF.”);
}

void loop()
{

if(Serial.available() > 0)
{ // if data available from reader

if((val = Serial.read()) == 10)
{ // check for header
bytesread = 0;

while(bytesread<10)
{ // read 10 digit code

if( Serial.available() > 0)
{
val = Serial.read();

if((val == 10)||(val == 13))
{ // if header or stop bytes before the 10 digit reading
break; // stop reading
}

code[bytesread] = val; // add the digit

bytesread++; // ready to read next digit
}
}

if(bytesread >= 10)
{ // if 10 digit read is complete
Serial.flush(); // clear “ghost” readings of the same RFID

if(strcmp(code, tag) == 0) // Does the tag read match the one we are looking for
{
Serial.print(“Tag matches: “); // Yes
Serial.println(code);

if (LightsOn == false) // If lights are off, turn them on.
{
blink();
myHouse.write(A, UNIT_1, repeat);
myHouse.write(A, ON, repeat);
LightsOn = true;
Serial.println(“Lights ON.”);
}

else // Lights are on, so turn them off
{
blink();
myHouse.write(A, UNIT_1, repeat);
myHouse.write(A, OFF, repeat);
LightsOn = false;
Serial.println(“Lights OFF.”);
}

digitalWrite(rfidPin, HIGH); // Pause the reader after a read cycle to reduce multiple
delay(3000); // readings from the same tag.
Serial.flush();
digitalWrite(rfidPin, LOW);
}

else // Tag read is not the one we’re looking for.
{
Serial.print(code);
Serial.println(” does not match”);
digitalWrite(rfidPin, HIGH); // Flush accidental multiple readings
delay(3000);
Serial.flush();
digitalWrite(rfidPin, LOW);
}
}

bytesread = 0; // clear system and prepare for next cycle
delay(500); // wait for a second
}
}
}

/***************************
* Function: blink
* Blink the LED to ack actions
****************************/
void blink()

{
digitalWrite(13,HIGH);
delay(1000);
digitalWrite(13,LOW);
}