Summer Mash LA


 

I’m heading to Summer Mash: Los Angeles tonight with my buddy Jason to see what they have in store for us Angelinos. If anything good comes about I’ll be broadcasting live, so you can check the live feed video player in the sidebar to the right, or just check out the clips on this page right here. You can also follow me on twitter and see when I start broadcasting.

Busy Thursday


 

Two meetings, three job offers, got my hair cut, walked the dog twice, took a walk to the coffee shop for a break, knocked 15 emails out of my “followup” folder, watched The Italian Job & Part1 and Part2 of my Band of Brothers Marathon, misc fixes on WO, billed a few hours (hooahh) and made some pizza. I think I’ll have a glass of Black Label and take a nice break for a few. Speaking of B.O.B., this makes, I think, the seventh time I’ve watched the entire 6disc set. However only the second time in High Definition, which brings it to a whole other level of amazing.

 

For no real reason, I figured I’d share that with you. Tomorrow, catch up on some paid work, and then off to Mashable SummerMash LA Meetup with Jason.

My Twin


 

I’m pretty frightened right about now.

WhatsOpen.com, Launched


After quite a bit of work, a few months of planning & and a lot of code, I’m excited to announce that yesterday we released the new version of whatsopen.com

 

 

Earlier in the year, my man Jason Schultz asked me to work with a fellow developer Brian Hall to release the first version, which became more of a proof-of-concept and PR site. It was fun and simple, we had a good time getting it running and listening to feedback, however we knew that it was only a step towards the final if we really wanted it to shine.

 

Shortly after that, Brian moved to Guadalajara, Mexico to do some amazing things which we’re all jealous and proud of him for. From that point Jason approached me with the concept that we could take our site to that next level, and I was in. We then started planning, building, designing and building our strategic plans out from scratch. In the end you can see we had a great time with design, and figured that form didn’t only have to follow function these days, they can be just as awesome and work together to break out of the web 2.0 trendy crap. That being said, we’re pretty happy about the final product.

 

To switch gears to the technical side for a minute, I want to explain some of what’s powering the experience which I built out.

 

  • The design is pretty intense with a lot of transparencies and web-blending modes, I guess you can call it. We did this for a reason. Rather than adhering to every strict standard and loosing the fun & and intention for 90% of our viewers, we decided to go for it.
  • When you first visit the site, it will find you, and give you a listing of open entertainment based locations near-by. Typically its accurate up to the closest metropolitan city away, but from my testing and tweaks it should be fairly accurate unless you’re on a corporate web line.
  • Based on your location or where you are searching, and what time of day/night it is, we customize the display. For example, search for Los Angeles, CA & then San Francisco, CA and watch the header. Additionally if you do this in day/night, you’ll see a nice change to make you feel at home. Right now we’re live for California and expanding around the country.
  • Additionally, based on location, I’m setting your local time. It still needs some refining, but it’s working well. Since our concept is that you’re a local anywhere you go, you should be living in the now. No one cares about looking up listings that are closed or gone because it’s the weekend, so why not enjoy just seeing whats happening, right now.

 

That’s only a portion of what I got running to really make the site work how we vision it. There’s a lot more we plan on enhancing, adding and refining down the road. Not to mention the API which powers the iPhone app we’re patiently twitting our thumbs for (Apple, where are you.)

 

Hope you enjoy finding whatsopen.com in your area, let me know what you think.

Struck By Lightning


 

Talk about amazing luck.  Not to mention the fact she was holding a metal railing. Im more surprised it didn’t fry the camera actually. 

 

Because you insisted, here’s the unedited screaming version. I also added video from a minute before the lightning struck so you can get an idea of how hard it was raining. From what i understand, it went through my left hand holding the camera, crossed my back and exited out of my right hand holding onto the metal railing. No entry or exit wounds, just a really good zap!

Seriously Disturbed


 

Most of you know I’ve been underground in the lab up to my neck in code for the past month (literally) in hopes for an amazing launch of our new venture, the re-release of What’s Open.  Planning since February, strategic dates and delivery since March, and production since I got back from China on a custom API, crazy robust Database, slick new look, iPhone App & the hopes for launch today.  Well, thanks to a lovley screwup from Apple our whole plan got thrown out like those leftovers from thanksgiving you couldn’t stand to smell after 3 weeks of turkey.

 

The whole plan for success relied around many things, but primarily it was hitting deadlines and sticking to them.  Based on one we were guarenteed (or at least as much of that as you can assume on the web) certain press, exclusives, etc.  However our game plan was screwed when Apple pretty much lost our App submission and has failed to respond to us after every attempt to contact them imaginable.  If i wasn’t so busy trying to work damage control, I would seriously drive up to Cupertino at this point and at least yell at an overpaid secretary. May not fix anything but at least I would feel a little better.

 

I finally caught up on some sleep last night, but up untill yesterday you could count the number of hours I’d had this week on your two hands.  It was fun towards the beginning of the week, but after the awesome supprise that our plan was shot due to the early app store wed night, thats when the breakdown started.

 

I’m not looking for sympathy, I just want Apple to fix the problem.  Now with them selling out everywhere, services down, phones breaking, and still no delivery platform, it’s really getting fun.  Luckily I upgraded yesterday and avoided the mass confusion today, but it’s still annoying, and the problem hasn’t fixed itself yet.

 

Apple, if you read this, please, stop kissing babies and posting amazing articles on your website about how awesome you are and reach out to the people that are making your stock go up and keep you in business, the developers.  However from the look of it,  down 5points since this morning should tell you something.  Ouch, too soon?

Street View: France


In the midst of this site re-development, I’ve been spending enough time with the google maps API where I feel like I should write a book on it.  Sadily I can’t find the time to make a photobook, so of course I’m kidding *cries*  In any case, I noticed that street view is finally coming to Europe. The google van toured the Tour de France and you can take a journey sitting infront of your computer down the route.  

 

A couple of my favorite images:

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