David Herrold

Wordpress 2.5

Posted by Dave | Filed under Uncategorized

I upgraded this blog to Wordpress 2.5 today. So far, I like the redesign of the administrative interface. Those folks at Happy Cog know what they’re doing.

So far, I love the way it handles comments in the dashboard as well as the publishing status.

Very nice.

Adobe launches web-based Photoshop Express

Posted by Dave | Filed under Design, Photography, Software, Web design

Adobe launched the web-based Photoshop Express recently and I’m trying to figure out if it’s any better or worse than Flickr’s  (picnik.com) web-based image editing tool.  Adobe offers 2GB of storage, which is better storage than the free Flickr account, however, Express isn’t meant to be a photo sharing site like Flickr.

The functionality isn’t terribly interesting yet, but image editing is Adobe’s bread and butter, so I would expect the functionality to grow in the coming months.

The one immediate limitation I noticed is the requirement of Flash Player 9 to run the Express.  I tried visiting the site with my current version of FireFox  and got a blank screen.  I suspected it was a problem with my version of Flash player.  When I upgraded my Flash Player to the current version (9), it worked fine.

I hope Adobe continues to build on this platform.  It’s an interesting idea and this space could use some decent competition.

Photoshop Express (via Bittbox)

Tags: adobe, express, image editing, photoshop, Software, web-based

Google goes goth

Posted by Dave | Filed under Google

Is Google going goth or perhaps making an homage to heavy metal concert t-shirts (ROCK-N-ROLL…where’s the stage)?

No, my fellow creatures of the night, they are not. According to Google:

Google users in the United States will notice today that we “turned the lights out” on the Google.com homepage as a gesture to raise awareness of a worldwide energy conservation effort called Earth Hour. As to why we don’t do this permanently - it saves no energy; modern displays use the same amount of power regardless of what they display. However, you can do something to reduce the energy consumption of your home PC by joining the Climate Savers Computing Initiative.

On Saturday, March 29, 2008, Earth Hour invites people around the world to turn off their lights for one hour – from 8:00pm to 9:00pm in their local time zone. On this day, cities around the world, including Copenhagen, Chicago, Melbourne, Dubai, and Tel Aviv, will hold events to acknowledge their commitment to energy conservation.

I thought I hit an odd key combination this morning that inversed my screen colors (command+option+control+8 on a Mac). I stopped for a minute, cocked my head in a a befuddled way and clicked on the Earth Hour link.

Ah, it all makes sense now. It was simply Google giving us a dose of environmental awareness at 72 DPI.

Thanks Google…I need more coffee.

Tags: earth hour, energy, environment, Google

LinkedIn launches company profiles

Posted by Dave | Filed under Communication, Networking, Social Networking

LinkedIn recently launched Company Profile pages that display detailed information on companies like the Houston Chronicle. I must have forgotten the shear volume of data LinkedIn has from all of its members diligently entering all their connections, past jobs, associations and groups.

I thought it was pretty interesting to include information on popular career paths (jobs before and after) and other companies most connected to (see screenshot to the left).

This is a nice addition to LinkedIn, however, it looks like they plan on adding even more functionality to the profiles eventually:

Coming soon, companies will be able to do the following to their LinkedIn company profile:

* post targeted jobs, recruitment videos, and other promotional material for recruitment
* post information about products and services
* upload company images
* and more…

This sounds great, but I’m betting LinkedIn charges for some of these new services…especially job posting. They’d be crazy not to.

The age, sex, title and school breakdown of employees within the company are also very interesting data to consider. I think you could learn a lot about a company by giving these stats a quick glance.

The stats will likely be skewed to younger and more technically savvy employees because the data comes from only registered LinkedIn users (not every employee in the company). But, hey I could be wrong.

It would be more accurate if it came from the HR departments of each company, but that would fairly labor intensive for LinkedIn to pull together.

The last feature I think is interesting is the “Popular Profiles.” Not sure why I showed up in that list, but it gets me one step closer to becoming the most popular David Herrold on the internet.

At which point I will retire and dispense wisdom from a mountain top.

Here is the link to the Houston Chronicle’s company profile on LinkedIn.

Enjoy.

Tags: linkedin, Networking, Social Networking

The walking hazards of text messaging

Posted by Dave | Filed under Communication, Mobile, Productivity

The instances of people doing bodily harm to themselves while walking the streets of London and sending text messages with their phones has increased to the point that the city of London has installed padding around lamp posts in certain parts of town.

The Daily Express says:

Six million Britons were injured last year bumping into lamp posts, bollards and litter bins while trying to walk and text on mobile phones at the same time.

New figures reveal that more than one in ten needed treatment for injuries including broken noses, cheekbones and even in one case a fractured skull.

Research among 1,055 adults discovered that 63 per cent concentrate so hard when they are texting that they become “blind” to objects around them.

Mobile phone users are now being advised to use template messages to speed up texting and look up every five seconds to avoid hazards.

I find this both funny and serious at the same time. This is very thoughtful of London politicians. It is also useful during the weekends for bar patrons who have a few too many to walk straight. I can appreciate that.

I would love to see the statistics for driving accidents caused by text messaging while driving. I suspect it happens more than we’d care to admit (I’m guilty of it, myself).

Isn’t this a bit like padding the highways with giant pillows so drunk drivers don’t hurt themselves?

Can’t we simply invest in hats and t-shirts warning our fellow pedestrians to “Stop texting and just walk!?”

Photo by mindshare

Tags: Mobile, sms, text messaging

Arthur C. Clarke: RIP 1917 - 2008

Posted by Dave | Filed under Communication, Science, Writing

Award-winning science fiction author, Arthur C. Clarke, passed away in his home in Sri Lanka today.

From Bloomberg

The author, scientist, space expert and underwater diver was one of the most prolific and renowned science-fiction writers, publishing more than 30 novels, at least 13 short-story collections and 28 works of non-fiction. He was honored with a British knighthood in 2000, and his work inspired the names of some spacecraft, an asteroid and even a species of dinosaur. “2001: A Space Odyssey” was adapted in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film of the same name.

Clarke’s visions of the future took form in geostationary satellites, which some credit as a blueprint for modern-day communication methods. In 1945, he set out his ideas in an article, “Extra-Terrestrial Relays,” published in the Wireless World magazine.

The next time you hear Also sprach Zarathustra, by Richard Strauss, think of Sir Arthur looking down on us and saying “My God, it’s full of stars.”

Sir Arthur’s last public comments on his 90th birthday (Youtube video).

- Dave

New Orleans - St Charles Ave trolley

Posted by Dave | Filed under Photography

Link to photo set on FLickr.

Justine and I are in New Orleans for a wedding this weekend and took a ride on the St Charles Ave trolley. I took some photos of things we saw along the way. St Charles Ave is filled with the aroma of flowers (very different than the aroma of the French Quarter, I might add). It was a beautiful afternoon in New Orleans, with temperatures in the 70’s and breezy.

I suspect there are beignets and some chicory coffee in my future tomorrow morning.

I hope everyone else is having as much fun as I am.

Tags: beignet, cafe du monde, chicory, garden district, new orleans, nola, st charles ave, trolley

Some SXSW 2008 high points

Posted by Dave | Filed under Networking, Technology

1. Talking with Junyu Wang, an interaction designer from Google China, over dinner at a Mongolian BBQ restaurant.  We talked about the prodigious use of TOR, Google translate and other proxy services that allow the people of China to surf the web uncensored.  He also spoke about how the majority of the population doesn’t really care about the censorship. More importantly, he enjoyed Harry Potter and his cat doesn’t have a name.

2. Hearing Jason Fried & Jim Coudal speak frankly about their businesses and the creative process.  These guys are bright.  I took notes.

3. Frog Design party.  Fire dancers from Sangre del Sol Fire Troupe.  Neato.

4. Meeting a ridiculous number of fascinating technology professionals in various stages of inebriation.

I’ll be posting some of the things I learned after I decompress and read my feverishly-scratched notes.

It’s good to be home.

Tags: SXSW, sxsw2008

Trainwreck 2008: Mark Zuckerberg & Sarah Lacy SXSW interview

Posted by Dave | Filed under Communication

If hair-twirling and vapid questions qualified one to interview internet superstars, Sarah Lacy executed a 360 slam-dunk today. Between shameless self promotion of her upcoming book (pre-orders on Amazon *giggle*), name-dropping of her past Silicon Valley interviews (Kevin Rose *twirl hair*), bragging about her journalistic credentials throughout the interview, Sarah Lacy managed to drive the interview so far into the ground the crowd reached the boiling point in the last 15 minutes of the 60 minute epic torturous interview.

After verbally battling with the crowd for several minutes (bad move for any interviewer) Lacy turns to the audience and asks if someone would tell her what she did wrong.

A young man shouts “Give me your email address!”

Another one shouts “Check Twitter!”

(The Twitterverse was filled with angry and puzzled tweets from the audience, yours truly included).

I was really looking forward to hearing Mark speak at the keynote. He is possibly one of the most interesting self-made men on the internet, with 60+ million users on Facebook in 2008 and some amazing ideas for where Facebook is headed.

The audience was extremely interested in what he had to say. Some of their jobs depend on Facebook as a platform for development. Unfortunately, what the audience got was a pretty shallow interview from a hair-twirling, name-dropping, Silicon Valley groupie. We didn’t get any insight into who Mark Zuckerberg is as a person. What does he do on a daily basis? How much influence does he have in the development, design process of Facebook? What’s the last good book he read?

Note to Sarah Lacy - the next time you are in a room filled with thousands of nerds, don’t try acting coy or cute.

Try acting smart.

We’ll love you for it. Honest, we will.

Tags: mark zuckerberg, sarah lacy, sxsw2008

More SXSW2008 Fire Dancers

Posted by Dave | Filed under Personal

Video link

Tags: fire dancers, fire dancing, frog design, south by southwest interactive, sxsw2008, sxswi