distortion, the blog archive • for 2008 • avalonstar:distortion

Below you'll be able to see a listing of the entries I wrote in 2008.

If you still feel like browsing, you can keep clicking the filters below.

Year: 2008; 2007; 2006; 2005

Month: March; April; May; June; July

Type: Commentary; Mediacast; Tutorial

Topic: Code; Experiential; Timelines; Photoshop; Rants; Standards; Humor; Blogging; Design; The Namesake; Sidenotes; Conferences; History; Django; Gaming; Theory

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Can Haz Assimilation?

July.2nd.2008 • 11:14AM 9 Comments

This is the story of a guy and his process. His process? Well, while there isn’t much of one, it’s really hard for things to become part of the process. As a little break from Revyver week, he’s wondering how you’re able to

While I’m spending my first night in Park City, Utah, I had a thought at the front of my mind. Since I’ve been doing quite well with posting, why stop? :) Don’t worry, this’ll be short. You’ll be doing the talking this time!

Bryan’s got problems. Don’t say anything.

To start, I’ll just say it’s deathly hard to get anything to assimilate into my daily life. Web applications, software, anything. At best, I’ll use a program or about 2 weeks and then all of a sudden forget about it. Let ...

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Birthdays and Test Tubes

July.1st.2008 • 12:33AM 8 Comments

This is the story of a guy and his company. After taking the level of seriousness to an all time high, he felt it was time to lighten up the mood a little bit and announce what he’s been meaning to all week. Might not be that special, but it could very well help a lot of people.

After a night of spilling my guts out for all to see, I felt it was high time to perk up the mood and talk about the announcement I alluded to a few nights ago.

Long time readers will remember that some time ago, I released archives of hand-picked Photoshop documents for all to see and play with. The response was very positive and I eventually released a total of three archives, one for 2004, 2005 and 2006. However, since I have a tendency of nuking the domain and starting fresh with each release, not to mention the numerous ...

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The Story and State of Revyver

June.30th.2008 • 2:33AM No Comments

This is the story of a guy and the history of his company. While noticing that he never really explained the background behind the company, he decided to take care of that as well as talk about the change from one dream to another. It’s a pseudo-long and personal story that stresses one of the company’s adjectives—transparency.

As the little firm that could turns two tomorrow, I wanted to be able to take a step back and take a look at what got it where it was today. If nothing else, this is a moment of self-reflection for me. As I’ve told those closest to me since turning 25 almost three months ago, I’ve learned to be a lot more honest with myself about what I can and cannot do. The direction that Revyver’s taken even in that time span has been greatly affected by my state of mind. With that said, this ...

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Revyver Week

June.29th.2008 • 2:47AM 3 Comments

This is the story of a guy and his little company. Said guy only realized last week that the company was turning two years old, so he got off his ass and got some things ready to help celebrate the occasion. This is just a heads up. :)

Two years ago. When I think about it, it’s a bit hard to believe I revealed Revyver to the world two years ago this week. Maybe it’s because I haven’t really done much with it? Seriously, it doesn’t feel like two years but the calendar begs to differ. I only noticed last week that birthday week was coming so, as usual, my focus completely shifted to coming up with things to go along with this seemingly special occasion.

I’ve alluded to many times the shift that Revyver has taken, one that I’m sure ...

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R20

June.25th.2008 • 10:51PM No Comments

This is the story of a guy and a game series. The series turned 20 last December and it seems that said guy just got with the picture. He takes relatively quick stroll down memory lane, remembering all the time he spent with the one known as the “Blue Bomber.”

I don’t talk gaming much even though it’s such a large part of my being. Why? I don’t quite know. Maybe it’s because of the fact that I’ve felt like people would look down on the fact that I geek out over stuff like this and hence, don’t want to post about it. Maybe I should look a little more professional. Well, screw that and attribute it to unnecessary paranoia. Anyway, if you’re one of those people, skip this, because this is a total geek out.

So, today we headed to Kinokuniya ...

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The Drafting Hand

June.20th.2008 • 12:52PM 6 Comments

This is the story of a guy and his friend. Said friend shows off a product to the guy that he initially doesn’t want to buy and then buys out of peer pressure. This contains a series of videos demonstrating how the former drafter wannabe uses Behance’s Dot Grid Book.

A few weeks ago, the honorable Dan Rubin got himself a Dot Grid Book from the people at Behance. He promptly showed me and I passed it off as… well… fluff, since I already had a normal grid book. Fast forward to WebVisions and he brings the same Dot Grid Book with him to show off to me. Untouched by lead with velum cover and all. Seeing (and feeling) the notebook made me immediately want to get one for myself. Note that this is usually the way to sell me on things I would otherwise push off as being ...

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Weather Center Live

June.17th.2008 • 1:17PM 11 Comments

This is the story of a guy looking back into his past, where he used to be his high school’s meteorologist. It’s a short and disjointed story with video footage of an 18-year-old version of said guy, which isn’t that much different from the present day version.

In what seems to be a long time ago, I used to be a high schooler.

As many of you already know, I attended Bridgewater-Raritan High School which resided in the typical upscale township of Bridgewater, New Jersey. No, my family wasn’t what you would call upscale. The typical New Jersey township is split into two sections, the valley and the hills. If you lived on the hills, you were rich. If you didn’t, you were not. I say this because every New Jersey town I ever visited fit that mold. For every magnitude of elevation, you ...

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Spring Cleaning

May.28th.2008 • 9:15PM 12 Comments

This is the story of a guy and a broom. One’s virtual, and he hopes to use that to sweep up some of the messes he’s left behind over the past few weeks. The other is physical, since he actually has some cleaning to do around the “office.”

While Seattle is finally noticing that spring has arrived, albeit a month before summer starts, it’s time for some spring cleaning. As for me, I just got back from a 14-day, 3-city travel stint that has completely stolen the energy out of me. Thankfully, June will be a month of no travel and one of “hopefully” a lot more activity here at Avalonstar. Still so many things I need to do, and the recent WebVisions conference in Portland was a welcome wake-up call to the things I still need to get to!

So things I’ll be doing ...

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Blogging Visually

May.6th.2008 • 2:16AM 13 Comments

This is the story about a guy and confidence. Said guy lacks said confidence so he tries to go about ways to circumvent it. Honestly the post doesn’t make that much sense, but there’s no use in telling you the ending in the summary.

Confidence. I lack it.

In this case it’s confidence in my ability to write. My lack of confidence in everything else can be equated the metaphorical elephant in the room.

It’s quite the double-edged sword, blogging is. On one hand, I can talk in ways here that would get me slapped across the face. Not that I do, but I could. On the other hand, I seem to suck at the only language I know how to speak in. I have habits of writing really long run-on sentences and overuse commas, so much so that it starts ...

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Django Plugables

April.29th.2008 • 4:36PM 5 Comments

This is the story of a guy and his company’s first application, Django Plugables. Well, actually it’s more of a utility but that’s besides the point. Said guy takes you on an overview of what went into the creation of said application.

For those of you who haven’t heard or have been living under the proverbial rock, Revyver released its first “application” about three weeks ago. And yes, only now am I getting around to writing about Django Plugables. I put application in quotes mainly because it’s more of a utility than a ~~social network~~ application¹.

So here it is, “The story of Django Plugables” or “How I built something in 5 days.”

Day 1: Find what’s pissing me off

This story starts with a problem. Every story has to start out with a problem, right? “Boy ...

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With One Wish

April.20th.2008 • 3:18AM 26 Comments

This is the story of a guy and his brain. While sitting in bed one early Sunday morning, a geeky thought strikes him. He wonders what properties or attributes designers would pick if they could have one implemented from HTML5 or CSS3 today. The comments should be where all the action happens, hopefully.

If you’ve read (and hopefully got a giggle out of) my browser manifesto, you would have seen that I truly consider this to be a great time to be a designer. And after seeing the awesome commentary of the last entry, I wanted to pose a question that i hope spawns some more discussion.

If you could have one HTML5/CSS3 property or attribute added into every modern browser today, what would it be?

Usually at this point I’d make an excuse to post two things, but I’ll play it clean and only state one. The ...

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Pixel Prostitution

April.17th.2008 • 12:33PM 24 Comments

This is the story of a guy who saw a good friend of his post about clients on Twitter. The messages hit a chord with him, but didn’t think his answer (or subsequent “advice”) would fit within 140 characters. We now commence with the ranting.

My good friend Croftie posted this this morning (links to individual tweets are in the footnotes):

Ever had a client take your design, “rework it” and send it back to you so you can do the rest of the site their way? How did you handle it?¹ I don’t want to be someone’s pixel prostitute. If they want to push my pixels around, they can do it themselves, after I’m done.² My job is to give them the best possible solution I can come up with. They don’t have to use it if ...

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Obsessive OS Rearranging

April.13th.2008 • 12:16PM 13 Comments

This is the story of a guy and an operating system. Said guy loves to reformat his computer and reinstall said operating system, but whenever he does it, he seems to change his routine around. He asks the audience to validate his claims, hoping that he’s not the only one with this “problem.”

While I attempt to write one or two more update posts (one on the recent Revyver release, Django Plugables, and one on the state of Revyver), I thought I’d pose a question that has been in the back of my mind for quite a while.

When you reformat or reinstall your operating system, does the way you use it change?

What I mean by that is quite simple, but I think I can best explain it by answering it. It seems like every time I reinstall OS X, it’s never for a concrete reason that would say ...

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Sidebar Creative: Year Two

April.9th.2008 • 9:29PM 10 Comments

This is a story about a guy and his three friends. A year ago, the four guys started a collective with the name Sidebar Creative. Since then, they’ve had lots of fun and have built wonderful things. This is the story of what has happened, as well as what’s to come.

You’re probably going, “what in the hell is going on?”

Well, when you see the four of us update at the exact same time (especially Dan ;P), you know there’s something coming. Sidebar Creative—the little dream that one Skype call turned into a reality turned one this past January. One year of a lot of talking, a lot of laughing, a lot of thinking and a lot of creating.

Working with Dan, Steve and Jon has not only been tremendously fun, but quite the learning experience as well. So have we proved that you could take ...

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Dynamic Javascript In Django

April.4th.2008 • 12:15AM 6 Comments

This is the story of a guy, Google and Django. After a hard fought battle with jQuery, the guy takes on Google Maps. After conquering them, he doesn’t feel right leaving all of the Javascript embedded in his templates. This is his journey to liberate them.

Work has started and is continuing on what I’m labeling 25.1. Yes I’m treating this as an app, but more on that later. ;) Part of 25.1 involves Google Maps, which like jQuery is something that would usually lead to me wanting to decapitate myself. Thankfully, Google helped and sample code is the shit.

But first, a little history. Like Jeff, I’ve been going on a geocoding spree. I’ve made it a habit to accurately geocode all of my Flickr photos and then bring them to Django using django-syncr. Unfortunately, django-syncr isn’t working ...

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BASH-ing My Birthday

April.2nd.2008 • 11:17AM 15 Comments

This is the story of a guy who usually writes birthday posts on this birthday. This year calls for something completely different. Why? He feels that the posts could be perceived as boring and he agrees completely.

Usually, I’d write a post related to adding one year onto my age and stuff like that. Twenty-five. Well, now I don’t have to pay the underage fee to rent a car anymore! And my insurance should go down right? RIGHT?

Anyway, I’m sure those posts were boring to everybody else but me, so here’s something completely different:


extract () {
    if [ -f $1 ] ; then
        case $1 in
            *.tar.bz2)  tar xjf $1      ;;
            *.tar.gz)   tar xzf $1      ;;
            *.bz2)      bunzip2 $1      ;;
            *.rar)      rar x $1        ;;
            *.gz)       gunzip $1       ;;
            *.tar)      tar xf $1       ;;
            *.tbz2)     tar xjf $1      ;;
            *.tgz ...

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The Future Browser Manifesto

April.1st.2008 • 12:00AM 18 Comments

This is the story of a guy who wants a better web, a guy that wants a web where the only limits are people’s creativity. It is time to move on. It is time to believe in the future¹. Maybe… it’s time to laugh? Look at the date silly people.

My fellow designers, developers and general web aficionados; we are embarking on an incredible journey, one that in the future will be looked at as a necessary step towards the growth of our industry as a whole. We are seeing new strides in design, new experiments in bringing rich interactivity to our world and new minds joining the fight on a daily basis. It is truly a wonderful time to be working in this industry and it’s only going to get better.

Two-thousand, four-hundred and ten (2410) days ago, Internet Explorer 6 was placed into our collective lap ...

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The Design Distortion

March.30th.2008 • 6:26PM 23 Comments

This is the story about a guy, a guy who could be seen as not wanting to write a post about how his recent redesign. It could also be seen as a way to vary the type of posts said guy does write. Either way, this is a behind-the-scenes walkthrough of Distortion.

For once in my career, I’m actually going to talk about the a design I did. I don’t think I’ve ever done that. I usually just say I will and then forget after realizing how much work it would take to gather all the screenshots. But no more! With the power of ScreenFlow I shall finally bring to you a very casual walkthrough of the design behind Distortion.

It’s 30 minutes of me talking, Jen typing and the kitties even hiss! I think you can hear sirens as well, but just ignore that, my headset ...

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The Message is Distorted

March.26th.2008 • 12:00AM 65 Comments

This is the story of a guy, a design and a domain. After almost a year of nothing substantial, the domain decided to take matters into its own hands and promptly beat the guy into submission; telling him to put the damn sniper rifle down and finish the design he started.

It’s been 7 years, 5 months and 23 days. Never have I felt so drained after preparing a website for this domain before, but this really brings light to the phrase, “you get what you put in.” I’ve had long hiatuses before. However, none have seemed as long or drawn out as this one, and with this post and this new design I am proud to put an end to it. So, let’s start at the top shall we? I’m sure you’d like to know a little more about the 25th version of Avalonstar ...

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