Olive Juice

At times I do over-prepare and plan, yes, however the camp-out ended up being our surefire ticket to getting the new iPhone on release day. Which I *needed* as I’ve been phone-less for a week, and without mobile e-mail for 3 months. Our friend Matt Emmi from One Button set up Rock Band in a smart car, so entertainment throughout the night was provided, along with sugary goodies and mini-kegs. A Zero-Gravity chair served as my bed, donuts served in the early morn by Krista Paul of The Trip Door, and by 2pm the iPhone was in my hands.  

Mid-April I said my goodbyes to CPB and moved on to co-found DandyId with Arron Kallenberg and Anthony Dimitre. We’ve since launched an open beta and are communicating with third-parties for partner integration with our repository and widget. While partnerships form, users can sign up and fill out their identities - then grab a widget containing those ‘chicklets’ and respective links, for their blog. I have the widget, in badge form, on this blog.

I’ll also be moving my home base back to Rhode Island  later this month, and setting up Dandy headquarters in the Providence area. We’re hiring two developers, PHP/MySql/Mashup ninjas, and possibly an intern. Arron will remain in Boulder for 2 more months or so, heading our business development. If you’re a developer in the RI area (or in Boulder through July/August) please contact us for more information! 

DandyId is launching on a more official note this August at Gnomedex.  Check out the DandyId blog for future information, and DandyId.org to signup!

SocialThing guys were experimenting at FOWA with long-exposure photographs of iPhone air-traced images.

Found this link I Twittered some months back - http://tochka.jp/pikapika/ - PIKA PIKA uses Flashlights, and series of images as pseudo-animations. Also have presented internationally at conferences.

Super cool.

Ben and Joel - post your photos when they’re up!

Although FOWA has hardly come to an end (double-days of Nikki Beach parties beginning tonight!), and tomorrow I’ll be winning the MacBook Air… however, some notes on todays happenings.

Kathy Sierra opened with a keynote “Creating Passionate Users” and cognitive seduction, stating the seemingly obvious but so often overlooked methods for relating to people and engaging users in exceptional experiences. Kathy spoke of our duty towards humanizing technology, getting people to meet - offline, while making more usable/human software. Develop easy-to-master-FAST apps, leaping to the “passion threshold”, where users are able to be great at what they *do* with the tool. It’s not about the tool. It’s about what the tool allows them to do. Get through to feelings and legacy brain. And place a “WTF” button nearby for your site’s users.

Blaine Cook, Twitter Engineer, held together his whimsical panel throughout audience notifications that Twitter was, no surprise, down. Cook warned of feature creep and the importance of adding what users *strongly* request, keep it clean, open APIs, and “use and love” the app you are creating. If you don’t love the service, others won’t either.Leah Culver, Pownce, followed, also pressing “opening code” as a top priority for any web service. 

Microsoft showcased the ever-awesome Photosynth, and a rad 3D maps application, which I didn’t catch the link to.

A panel pointing “what makes the next great startup”: Brilliance, team, confidence/ambition, depth of knowledge/research/ capital structure/right vw/legal issues, open!, distribution, extremism, and of course serendipity.

Remember the Milk’s Emily Boyd presented a quite enjoyable panel on FTM’s birth and lifespan, $0.19 budget, and various interface options (including the iPhone, yet available to the Aussies) (and a hacked GMAIL! love it). 

Off to the party, hosted by Scrapblog!  

Browsing the Internet at Denver Airport, within an iFrame, but access is free. 

Drove past the new Blue Horse sculpture and was informed that it’s creator was crushed to death during the build, its torso slipped. The son had to step in and finish the $300,000 piece.

I feel sorry for the bird flying frantically around the airport right now.

And am pretty sure I’m sitting in front of the wrote Gate for MIA flight. 

Looking forward to FOWA next week. I’m planning to attend the BarCamp, located in FOWA venue, Thursday instead of the workshops. 

Do check out the Crowdvine page, pre-conference: sign-up for the social events, as well as filter through attendees with whom to meet in the Sunshine state.

Well it’s been quite some time that I’ve submitted a blog entry …. I’ve found another love, Twitter, works well with my random thoughts and lifestyle.

However, just signing up for SocialThing this morning which aggregates my online social space, realized how lame my “blog” is. Maybe this is my new years resolution. Alongside my site’s redesign.

This guy knows whats up…in Maine too! Outlandish, but impressive. 

http://www.sheagunther.org/photos/

So I’m an official Boulder CO residence as of Aug 3.

It’s increadibly awkward how outdoorsy everyone is. Lives revolve around it. I have yet to been acquainted with one not involved with biking, hiking, and rock climbing. 

I did a 4 hour hike Sunday witih two co-workers, and there was a group 6 insane mountain enthusiasts making the climb using… unicycles. Unicycles. I could barely make do with my 2 legs. Unicycles!

So I bought a Trek bike and a yoga membership. Sometimes dancing (hip hop class) (ok went once but will again). Snowboarding pass is next. Have been partying far less than my Miami nights. Clubbing is limited in these parts.

It was chilly enough to sport sweaters the past two days. And yes, that’s an enjoyable aspect for me. Seasonal withdrawals accompanied my south florida residence. I love the brisk air; and my hair can air-dry. 

Low maintance country.

www.flickr.com/saraolive

Considering that Jobs started as a hacker himself fudging AT&T systems, why ‘o why doth they make it such a daunting task to develop 3rd party apps for iPhone. I’m losing sleep tonight setting up the SDK. I will prevail.