Pixelfragment

Pandora Jam is a Mac application that enables you to listen to your Pandora radio stations in a stand alone app.

So why am I writing about this app? Features, my friends, features. Not only can you stream your radio station, there is also the option to record what you hear. Users of Last.fm’s listening service can have the best of both worlds as your radio steam will get scrobbled to your music profile. How sweet is that?

List of Features

• Pandora Streaming
• Recording, up to high quality
• Automatically import songs into iTunes
• Scrobbling
• Song Ratings
• Creating new stations
• Customizable Keystrokes

Cost: $15

What am I listening to?

Alright, I admit it, I LOVE junk food. As a vegan it can be a little challenge to sit with pure junk food and pig out. I am not talking about sunflower seeds or dried fruit, I want stuff that I am not supposed to have.

I recently took advantage of a trip back to Austin and bought me a whole lot of gluttonous goodies. After lunch at Veggie Heaven on Guadalupe and MLK, I swung up to Wheatsville Co-op and did a little grubbin. I got a great lemon bar, probably the best-tasting I have had, vegan or otherwise. I stocked up on something you can’t find in San Antonio (for some odd reason), meatless Jerky. They have an entire rack at the checkout for Jerky alone. I dropped a couple of Abraham’s just on jerky. My fav was Tofurkey Peppered jerky.

Later on that evening I stopped by Bouldin Creek Cafe again for a Soy Mocha and a "Brownie Cake Thingy" (if I am remembering the name right). The coffee was fine, but I should have added the third shot. The cake-thingy was tasty. I especially enjoyed the little morsels of chocolate mousse throughout the desert.

Fav Junk Food

What is on my top list? Let’s have a little look-see:

• Purely Decadent Soy Iced Cream
• Tofurky Meatless Jerky
• Chocolate: nearly any vegan option I can find, I eat. Among my fav’s are Whole Foods truffles (seasonal), and Newman’s Dark Orange Chocolate bar
• Chips, Julio’s brand corn tortilla chips
• Cake. anytime. anywhere.

So, what’s on your list?

It seems as though this design has received a little attention. A css gallery featured it back in May, CSS Anarchy. The feature was also picked up by a Czech online gallery CSS Galerie.

Heh, I guess I should check my web stats a little more often!

Designing for Mobile Devices

This was by far the most informative and useful panel I have attended so far this year at SXSWi. There is no possible way for me to go through all of what was covered as I am not a mobile guru. The basics discussed are that if you design your site to be semantically correct, using W3 standards and proper CSS markup, then you are about 90% of the way to having a mobile device friendly site.

Here are my notes from the panel presented by Brian Fling:

do not design for smart phones or pda’s

• 50 web browsers
• 500 different devices

Directional orientation.
think in vertical terms.

mobile web standards

• xhtml-mp
• a subset of xhtml basic
• part of wap 2.0
• virtually indistinguishable between the two
• predominant language of mobile web
• dreamweaver have mobile web extension
• default industry supported format

Wireless CSS

• supports basic css attributes
• keep css simple
• use document styles versus stylesheets
• as long as code and styles are simple, then you will do fine on most browsers.

One Web

the idea that there should use the same information for delivering content to the web.

Getting Started

• correct encoding and doctype
• use well formed code
• avoid tables for layout
• place the navigation in the content area of the site
• use access key as part of the primary navigation of the site( no more than 10 links)
• Use ordered lists rather than unordered lists for nav layout(will magically show magic keys)
• link phone numbers <a href="tel:=+1223883">number</a>
• input mask for forms and keep forms to a minimum

Mobile publishing

• SSR
• reformatting
• stylesheets
• mobile specific site

Focus on Five

• Nokia
• razr
• trio
• lg

force the user to manually

• detect the mobile device and redirect
• a SMS query that returns

simple device detection
advanced device detection - deliver the best possible code to a specific device.
-costly
start simple with a simple mobile site
-mobile stylesheet

Desktop Testing

• Opera has some tools for testing
• Firefox has User agent switcher
• emulators
• device testing
• usability testing

Resources

http://dev.mobi
http://mr.dev.mobi
http://mobiledesign.org

View the original presentation

1501 S First
Austin, Texas 78704
(512) 416-1601
http://www.bouldincreek.com
Vegetarian/Vegan freindly

Okay, I think I have a new fav. Bouldin Creek Coffeehouse is a cool little shack on 1st street in Austin that has a lot to offer. Their menu is pretty large and according to it "Almost everything can be made vegan." Sweet. Automatic bonus points in my book.

After perusing the menu for a while, I decided to get the Summer Sammich. I added hummus and tofu bacon, which brought my meal to @7.00. It was a good sign that the meal would be filling when the cashier couldn’t properly close the lid to my box because it was so full.

I couldn’t wait to dig in when I got to the hotel. And my anticipation was well placated by a great meal. The "sammich" was a good size, salsa and chips were plentiful. The sandwich had an amazing chipotle pesto, which I could have just eaten all by itself. The hummus was equally tasty.
Now, I have never had tofu bacon but I was glad that I added it to my meal. I don’t normally go for lemony salsa, but this salsa was well balanced with a smokey flavor. The salsa was very savory.

Bouldin Creek is definitely going to be a regular stop when I am in Austin. It is a very good find and I hope it stays around for a long time to come.
Now, if they could only update their website…

Casa de Luz
1701 Toomey Road
Austin, Texas 78704
http://casadeluz.org
completely vegan

The first thing I noticed about this beautifully simple restaurant is nothing. No salt on the tables, no ice in the iced tea, no sweetener for the beverages. Well, honestly that was the second thing I noticed. Walking into the area where the restaurant is, I couldn’t help but feel more relaxed and at a slower pace. The path to Casa was laden with mini Zen meditation areas. Bamboo lined the path and the hanging lights shown just bright enough to guide me to the front door.

Opening the door did not let me down either. The dining area was wide open with high ceilings and lit just as well as the path outside. I paid for myself, found a seat and went to serve myself some soup and salad. The soup was unlabeled, but my guess is that it was a potato curry soup. Turns out that it was Indian Butternut Squash soup. It was very light and the flavor was pleasant and mild.

My plate was brought to me as I ended my soup. I was served Garbanzo and pinto hummus, Leafy greens with black olive walnut* basil tapanade, Spelt crust pizza w/carrot cream, arugula and Walnut* pesto, w/saute’ed cremini mushrooms. The entire meal was good. The hummus had a little cumin which added a lot to the flavor. It wasn’t lemony like a lot of recipes I have had. The pizza was a little different, but I guess I’ll attribute it to my never having eaten spelt bread before.

I have to say that I was quite at ease with my experience. Everyone was laid back, and friendly. The restaurant itself made me feel like I needed more self reflection and quite time.

In the beginning, I missed the salt, but in the end I found that there is much more to food and eating if I just take a moment to pause.

How do we design for class? How do we design for people that are of a different class than yourself? The answer is user research.
How is the audience defined? Design for two audiences: your core audience and those who might become potential core users.

Websites that design for lower class demographics might rely more on statistical data than higher class that might ignore it. Higher class design might use analytics. There is real value in relying on your instinct.

Do you move towards your audience or does your audience move closer to you?
The public is more familiar with poor design. Is there an inherent goodness to bad design? Is a lower rate design more appropriate for the right audience?

Well, my personal belief is that if a design is simplified in a way that makes it easy to use, all classes ought to be comfortable with it. does it really have to be that a beautifully designed site automatically put off those of lower social standing? It design really bad if it is ugly and still usable? One thing that can be apprehensive for some if it looks too rich? Yes, I have heard that remark from some. Where does the line cross?

The question is "How to engage your users attention?"

The question is about how to deliver the content in a progressive manner. Has education come out of the twentieth century?

I brought up how closed minded institutions can be when it comes to web support and coding for different platforms. The answer was that many schools are simply struggling to add a video projector to a room, let alone deploy and integrate various systems. Schools always have to take into mind the three S’s: Security, Support, Stability.
Schools are going to have to begin integrating curriculum with their technology departments as they move forwrard. Progression is needed.

Another major issue is that many instructors are being expected to teach using new systems that they have no experience using. How can instructors be expected to use new technology when they are not comfortable using it? The paradigm shift begins when those who are familiar begin to enter the workforce as instructors.

What is the relation between social trends and technological advances?

The discussion about how we are opening our day to day lives to the world via web apps and blogs. Data collection was discussed as an interesting point because people are giving up more and more data to the world.

Our data and privacy is a large driver to the products on the web. Giving people the ability to disclose their daily happenings to the world is a strong business model.

Where is the line drawn? What is acceptable when it comes to data mining?
Are private networks like Myspace going to be the next trend? What about close networks were you actually have to know someone?

Well. Being green in San Antonio is kind of an oxymoron. As large as this city is, it is years behind others in it’s progressive thinking and open minded culture.

This February a new (in fact the only) vegetarian and vegan restaurant opened here. I was totally excited and really upbeat about the whole thing. I have simply learned to cook and eat at home since there are very few options for me.
I was a little disappointed with my first go round at Green.

The atmosphere is very nice. Guests can sit in either of two sections, or in a larger patio. The weather was great so I chose to eat outdoors.

The food arrived very quickly. I was a little disappointed to see the serving was much smaller than the dish on display. I ordered "Sesame Chicken" from the daily special. The wheat chicken substitute was fine. The breading was good, though the flavor was a little on the salty side. The fresh green beans were overcooked and on the limp side. The bed of rice was more like a pillow of rice.
The dish was served with a sauce that looked like soy. It tasted horrid. There was an intense smoky flavor to it. It seemed more like it belonged as part of a marinade, but not as a main sauce.

I always feel hungry after eating at Green. The portions never seem to satisfy. Of course this is probably a ploy to get us wanting cake- the carrot cake is great and amazingly vegan.
I give Green San Antonio a favorable rating

Green San Antonio
1017 N. Flores
San Antonio, TX 78212
http://greensanantonio.com/
210-320-5865