technology

near miss communication

nirvan — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 12:37:59 -0400

So yesterday, I ran into our drupal project manager, Michal Minecki, at the LA Drupal Camp. So far I am really happy with the work Michal and our Ciplex team has been doing. After the Drupal sessions, Mike and I went to a coffee shop to review the designs and technical spec, and discovered a near miscommunication. I don't think this would have been caught quite so quickly- if at all - had we not met in person. bonus points for the real world.

Testing movie

FormulaX — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 04:54:08 -0400

We have just started to make all kind testing movies.

Web Development Contracts Pending

nirvan — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 03:55:58 -0400

Hey everyone, exciting news- tonight I had a great follow up conversation with the lead drupal developer at Ciplex, the web design firm we've been in talks with, and it looks like we will be moving forward shortly!

We spent a few hours going through our functionality spec document, and making sure we were on the same page. And it's looking like all is well. I'm really excited to be finally taking this step! This has been a good 7 months of planning, designing, fundraising, and then searching for the best team for our budget.

DIY Days

nirvan — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 19:08:41 -0400

Woke up at 6am for some reason. That means the blood in the brain isn't sleeping. Started workin on the puter. emailing ideablob links and coding. Day passed. kept forgetting to eat, lost in pixel dust. Checked twitter, and saw a tweet from Mickipedia about DIY Days. I'd completely forgot! Grabbed some Ideablob flier strips, hopped on bike, and peddled to the cornfield gallery. Wandered into a large garage space full of steamy air and filmmakers dripping with ideas. This free event was put together by a bunch of really smart filmmakers who have explored the new nooks and crannies of self distribution, self- funding, and just getting things done. every story was unique, organic to their films personaliy, and their own. i missed most of the day, workin away in my cave. but really enjoyed what i saw. one of the organizers, Lance Weiller really was amazing. i had not heard of or seen his films, but his ideas (and execution of) for getting his work out there was absolutely brilliant. Head Trauma. I need to watch and explore it when i get time. Watch for video of his talk on DIY Days.

How to Embed High Res YouTube Clips

nirvan — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:58:09 -0400

YouTube recently added the ability to view videos in high res, and I recently learned how to link to and embed to the high res videos directly (thanks mikeb!).

For posting/linking to a YouTube URL, add to the end of the URL:

&fmt=18

For embedding to a high res YouTube video add the following code onto the end of both URLs in the embed code:
&ap=%2526fmt%3D18

The hack links directly to the MP4 version instead of

High Res Embed:

Web Development Update w/ Designs!

nirvan — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 18:21:12 -0400

Hey everyone,

So, this is a big update regarding our web development.

A few days ago I put the finishing touches on our site specs, and reached out to Drupal developers to put a bid on our job. The response so far has been great, and we have a lot of interested developers.

I posted the job on the Drupal forums here: http://drupal.org/node/275024

There are links in the job posting to several of the design mock-ups i've been working on.

Here is a little preview...(click for larger images)

new home page:

Drupal vs Facebook?

nirvan — Tue, 27 May 2008 19:38:34 -0400

Tonight I'm headed to a Drupal meetup for LA developers. I'm exploring options for deploying the next generation of our site. Looking for reliable developers to get bids.

The whole tech scene is changing so fast. Today I read that Facebook might be going Open Source to keep up with Open Social. I'm not sure what all this will mean in the long term.

As our site moves more toward a social-platform in anticipation of the needs of the Collaboration Foundation, we have been looking to Drupal to give us an open and affordable way to provide many common social features. Drupal has always been one or two steps behind in terms of meeting these needs, although it has been getting better- hence one of the motivations for upgrading our site to a newer version of Drupal.

Thanks For the Videos!

nirvan — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:05:25 -0400

Wanted to thank our Swedish Producer William Johansson for making this cool video promo. (William made the music too!)

Video of iJustine and Brookers Visit

nirvan — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 16:19:01 -0500

Hey everyone, we put together a little video from iJustine and Brooke's visit, who came by our office a few weeks ago with Evan. Check it out:

big thanks to Marcin who has been volunteering and helped edit this.

before posting this video, i joined a really awesome (free) video publishing service called TubeMogul.com which allowed us to upload this video once and then distribute it to multiple video sharing sites like YouTube, blip.tv, myspae, yahoo, revver, etc. this is a HUGE timesaver, and motivated me to sign up to many different video sites that i haven't tried before. it will be interesting to experiment with web traffic.

TED talk: Howard Reinghold's Way New Collaboration

nirvan — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 17:02:15 -0500

Watched this TED Talk video last night. Really enjoyed it: Howard Reinghold discusses down the evolution of collective action, as new forms of working together encroach on competitive survival of the fittest models.