January 26th, 2010
Meet Romeo -Click For Larger-
Meet Romeo. He is the new cat in the house, and I have to admit that I am already smitten, having known him for less than four hours.
He’s a fairly standard male short haired black cat with white splotches on his chest, throat, chin, belly and each of his paws.
But its not his physical characteristics that draw me to him.
It’s his personality.
The moment I picked Romeo up, he embarked upon a non-stop program of rubbing, purring, making biscuits in my shirt, and general cutes-y-ness. It was like he was auditioning for a part he knew that he could nail.
After the first few times he bonked his head against my chin, I was sold.
Welcome Romeo.
Tags: cats, pets, romeo
Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »
January 24th, 2010
Wait, You Bought A Box of Communion Wafers, And WHAT!?
In an unusually funny collision of buying habits and technology, Amazon.com makes a social comment on some portion of the community. I’d like to think its was an error, or perhaps some snarky developer pulling a quick one over us while giggling and showing his friends. But what if it isn’t?
Take a look at this product in a screenshot from Amazon (click on the thumbnail to see the larger image).
Its a box of Communion Wafers. Not exactly bestseller material, granted, but it does have an unusual distinction that you probably wouldn’t expect from a box of Communion Wafers. Take a look at the section “Customer’s Who Bought This Item Also Bought”. 
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
January 23rd, 2010
People sometimes say to me “Look at that pretty sky”.
Inevitably, when I look, I’m not moved by what I see. I don’t know if its the fact that I have been seeing the sky for the past 37 or so years of my life, or that I have been spoiled by amazing graphics on computer games (eg. Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2) or the special effects in movies (eg: Avatar in IMAX 3D), or even, believe it or not, gorgeous scenery (too many to mention).
It’s kind of sad really. I feel like I might be missing out on something. That maybe I am not able to appreciate the subtlety of beauty that may be laying all around me, if I would only just look up with new eyes.
Recently, it happened again.
“Look at that pretty sky”
Like many of the times before, I looked.
And like many times before I didn’t really see anything that grabbed me. I tried looking harder, and maybe this is where my problem is – I look too hard.
Perhaps if I can just relax, maybe I will start seeing better.
I took a resigned sigh.
Turned to my right.
And I saw the pretty sky.
A shot of the sky heading out to Farmersville, TX, USA -click for larger version.
Tags: photography, photos, pics, pictures, sky
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
January 22nd, 2010
Especially because the odds are highly stacked against you ever seeing these in person, here are two different interfaces for a Business-2-Consumer website that I designed and developed. The website has an e-commerce presence (that I also designed and developed from the ground up), and in order to not have to the technical side of messing around with dealing with products on the site whenever the merchandising department wanted to make any changes – I put together these two interfaces:
Union Workers Credit Services Merchandising Interface Main Menu
This is the main menu for the Merchandising interface where the user can determine the function that they want to perform. The ‘planner’ design stems from the fact that the head of the Merchandising department always seems to be carrying around an overstuffed real life version, and it made for a good way to lay out a menu system. [View Larger]
Union Workers Credit Services Merchandising Interface Add A Product Menu
This interface is one of the functions and allows the user to add a new product. Unfortunately, what is half chopped out of this screenshot is the power button on the monitor – when moused over the power indicator changes from green to red, and when clicked it returns the user to the main menu (shown above). [View Larger]
Tags: interfaces, web design, web development, websites, work
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
January 21st, 2010
- Screenshot of the redesign for chapmandata.com
I’ve just released the re-design of the Chapman Data Services, Inc. website that I co-designed, and developed with Rob Busby. I am very happy with the end results – a huge improvement over the previous site that I inherited from the previous web developer. I would appreciate it if you took a moment to check it out, and if you have any feedback, I would be happy to read it.
Tags: Chapman Data Services, Rob Busby, web design, web development, websites
Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments »
January 21st, 2010
Last week, I was kindly invited out to lunch by the Brent Stephens (the Project Director over at EVXLabs), and was quickly and pleasantly surprised to discover that former Dallas Cowboy Offensive Lineman, Phil Pozderac, (whom is an Engineer at EVXLabs), would also be joining us.
I have known both of them through my work with EVXLabs (I co-designed, and developed their website) for some time. Brent I have known pretty well – being a foreigner (South African), like me (Australian), it was easy to bond over things such as language, cultural, and food differences (he is the only other person I know in the company besides me that will touch black licorice). Phil, however, I have only spoken to a handful of times – so I looked forward to getting to know more about the man over some lunch.
And he is quite an interesting character. At what must be nearly 300 feet tall, he is quite imposing, yet when you speak with him you quickly find out that he is friendly and open and has a lot of interesting stories and thoughts to share. I learned about some of his previous ventures, some of his outlook on life and about some of the adventures of his younger days. I was thrilled to find out that he had vacationed in Australia in the past and enjoyed discussing his experience with him.
I also got to know Brent better as well, learning more about him as a person (yes, he actually appears to be a real, nice, guy and not some corporate drone whose only purpose in life (when he is not snagging some of my licorice), is to hand me work requests with no supporting information and tight deadlines. 
He seems just like me, just a guy with a nice family, interesting background and outlook on life.
It was quite an enjoyable lunch. And the German food at Kuby’s didn’t hurt, either (I can recommend the Chicken Schnitzel Ceasar) . 
Tags: Brent Stephens, Dallas Cowboys, evxlabs, licorice, lunch, Phil Pozderac
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
January 16th, 2010
My deep and philosophical thoughts on vacuuming can be summed up thus: Vacuuming = Indoor Mowing.
As an aside, two out of three of my cats avoid me on general principals for a while after I have vacuumed.
Tags: cats, housework, indoor mowing, vacuuming
Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »
January 12th, 2010
Poses de M. Frog avec confiance sur l'oreiller
Tags: frog, images, M. Frog, pics, pictures
Posted in M. Frog | 2 Comments »
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