As instructed, I packed up my photos, all 32 lbs of them, and shipped them to the New Jersey location.

Within a few days, I received confirmation that my pictures were received and that the scanning would commence. About two weeks later I received back all the original pictures and a DVD, with a nice hand written note.

Superb. =)

The whole layout felt different and amazingly better. Easier to navigate, so far everything just worked, etc. I was so psyched with the fresh version, I figured I might as well look into all the side ideas that I had been meaning to get around to, i.e. google analytics, google webmasters and some SEO. (Thanks Jansen and Rob for your help)

I am really starting to enjoy this blogging / living hooked to my computer lifestyle. =)

• Styling a website so that the markup is more mobile friendly and quicker to load.
• Optimizing the UI for the device being used.
• Focusing on content and it’s readability on a mobile device.
• Watching the iPhone as this is were the mobile environment is going.

The Saturday key note speaker was Henry Jenkins. This portion of the conference was by far the best segment I saw at SXSW! He addressed technology and pop culture, of which some of the takeaways included:

• The interviewer, Steven Johnson, asked if Jenkins sometimes saw new technology and just thought, “that is stupid!” (Come on… who hasn’t thought that at some point?) Jenkins response was that even though that might be his first response he believes that people are not stupid and create things for a reason. The first approach should be to contemplate why someone would take the time to create a certain tool and why it is interesting to others.
• Johnson commented on the amazing things people have created online and how these folks seem to have an unlimited amount of time in their lives. Jenkins responded around the idea of what is wrong with America that so many people are so under utilized at work that they show their intelligence elsewhere. He posed the questions of how we should go about capturing this intelligence and putting it to work for in this collective intelligence society.
• An audience member asked how literal he meant the term “collective intelligence”. I loved Jenkin’s response on this question as he answered that it can mean that everyone still has experience and knowledge, but the collection of all this knowledge creates something that couldn’t have been created otherwise.
• Another inquiry from the audience was the question about society and how we all now have these online friendships and identities. Jenkins emphasized that this isn’t part of a problem but rather part of the solution as people are able to maintain friendships and social investments, augmenting their social encounters.

After the Jenkin’s key note speech I headed to the ARG’s panel. ARG is the acronym for Alternate Reality Game. Supposedly this is a big thing in the marketing and film promotion realm, but I had never heard of it and it was very intriguing. These no rules games encompass many different forms of media (online and offline) and are a new way of telling a story or figuring out a puzzle, combining reality and game. They can be based around a story or movie or just solving a puzzle, and the time fame can be from a couple days to years. Whew. Seriously, this is all so new to me. One such game was Majestic that was shut down after 9/11 due to terrorist themes and another one created by Microsoft, The Beast, was tied into the promotion of a Steven Spielberg movie and was essentially a marketing campaign for the movie. The panel was extremely interesting…. but … probably not an idea my firm would be looking to invest. =)

Line for the Google party.  This was taken after we had moved up in line about 1/2 a block.

That evening I went to the Google Party with the Louisville crew, Charlie, Robb and Lucas. I met the the MyBlog / Yahoo guys, Eric and Todd, who were hilarious and smiling every time I saw them. I chatted briefly with Blaine from Twitter and had a great conversation with Charlie. Best of all, I sat in the most comfortable massage chair ever.

Robb and I hanging out on the best massage chairs.

After the Google party I snagged some dinner with Lucas, Robb and Josh and then called it an early night around 11′ish, heading back to my hotel. No 16-bit party for me. By the way, why didn’t they advertise it as the 0000000000010000 party? I personally would have thought that was cooler…

I thought that for fun I would post one of my beginning java programs and then post one of my last ones at the end of the semester to see if I actually was able to pick anything up. =D

Here is one of my very first programs. Ahh… so cute.

public class Question47
{
   public static void main (String []args)
   {
      System.out.println ("*   *");
      System.out.println (" * *");
      System.out.println ("  * ");
      System.out.println (" * *");
      System.out.println ("*   *");
   }
}

Apple has established a reputation for an integrated hardware and software resulting in high quality machine with few operating errors. Its performance and reliability are what make the computers so great… and (I believe) have increased the sales. I think there probably is some correlation (though slight) with iPod sales and Macs as the iPod helped to break down the consumer’s viewpoints of Apple being hard to use (I mean how can you operate a computer without a right mouse button?). Yet, the main increase most likely resulted from consumers wanting a reliable computer with in-store service rather than having to call India to wait on hold for hours. Why would Apple want to mess this reputation by installing Windows rather than the OSX? If the user really wanted Windows, why not just invest in the upcoming Bootcamp?

I believe the increase of Apple sales are due to consumers becoming more comfortable with the Apple products and Apple slowing reeling each consumer in with each new gadget release.

What are your thoughts? Will the bootcamp be too techy for the normal consumer to use?

The built-in tool is called the Automator and is esentially a list of macros that can be ran on a file without having to open the file. There are 212 actions available for all built-in application.

Since Microsoft Word was installed there are no actions available to turn a doc into a PDF, meaning that the doc will need to be opened in Microsoft word and saved as a PDF. Unlike Windows where a driver is necessary, the Mac version has the option already available in the print box as a button on the left corner.

Once all the files are saved as PDF’s, highlight them in the finder, ctrl+click, and choose Automator and Create Workflow. The Automator box pulls up and shows you all actions available. Find ‘Combine PDF Pages’ in the list of actions (easier to find by using the search box) and double click so that it is added to the workflow. Make sure that appending pages is marked. Then find the action ‘Open Finder Items’ and choose Default Application. This will open the combined file and allow you to save it.

From there, save the file with the name and in the directory of choice.

I love Apple!

First is Powercast, a startup based in Pennsylvania and founded in 2003 that is using radio frequency waves to charge devices. The radio frequency technology has been around for years, but Powercast has derived a technology that actually captures 50-70% of the energy (whereas traditional methods only capture around 10%). The company is designing and manufacture devices with their main partner Phillips by placing chips in both the product and the transceiver so that the product can charge at all times. The market is obviously huge as these chips can be placed in any type of electronic device.

Powercast will be soon be releasing a lighting device product through Phillips.

Second is G-Sky, a Annacis Island based company that not only provides green roofs for buildings, but also green walls. The idea is aesthetically pleasing, plus helps the fight against global warming. The Business2.0 article shows an example of how a normal building with an annual electricity bill of $221,0oo extracts 0 tons of carbon from the air. Whereas if the same building with the G-Sky walls and roof uses less electricity ($141,000) and extracts 40 tons of carbon from the air.

Pretty cool!