Monday, December 22, 2008
Monday, December 1, 2008
Cool Bedrooms
Real quick post. I am always looking for new ways to mod my bedroom and what not. I came across this site. http://www.ohdeedoh.com/ohdeedoh/beds-mattresses/tiramolla-loft-bedrooms-058652 it has some amazing designs.
Monday, October 20, 2008
The Best Birthday Gift For A Cancer Survivor
I recently received a tweet on twitter from Chris Brogan about Alicia Staley. Now you probably don't know who Alicia is, but she is one amazing woman. Just check out her blog and you will see! She is a 3 time cancer survivor - talk about some odds! Well, Alicia started a foundation - The Staley Foundation - to support cancer patients and their families undergoing treatment at Tufts Medical Center through education, advocacy, and immediate financial assistance.
Alicia is trying to raise $5.000 by December 31, 2008. If you have ever had a family member, or have known anyone who has battled cancer, you understand the challenges faced each and every day. Today is her birthday and she is unselfishly ask for your donation for the foundation. Won't you take me up on my challenge to donate just $5 to the Staley Foundation?!? You can do so by visiting her blog or right here from this entry.
Pod Camp Pittsburgh 3 - PCPGH3
WOW! I think that word sums up how I feel today. Pod Camp Pittsburgh 3 (PCPGH3) is now over and I am quite sad. It was a weekend of meeting new people, collaborating on ideas, making new friends, learning about social media and just having fun! Thank you to Jason Cable for the invite to PCPGH3. Prior to attending I thought it was going to just be people sitting around talking about their podcasts and teach those who attend how-to do the same. I could not have been more wrong!
Attending the Meet N' Greet Friday night at Alpha Lab was a bit intimidated at first, but I quickly realized I was in a room with some of the most talented in social media people. So many were sharing their successes with their blogs and podcasts. I was simply in awe over the number of people. After the meet n' greet some of us went over to the Double Wide Grille for a few more drinks and discussion.
Saturday morning, day 1, started off with a bang at 9am. It was very impressive to see the number of people at the opening. Never did I ever think there would be that many people attending. A few of my first new friends were met in the breakfast food line. The day continued on with meeting more people and learning so much about social media from all of the talented presenters.
Sunday started out a bit slower than Saturday. A lot of people had a few to many drinks Saturday night I suspect. The first session which I attended Sunday was impromptu and was led by Chris Brogan He challenged everyone to come up with a blog, but not just any blog. This blog was going to be about Pittsburgh and how to put a focus on what makes are neighborhoods unique and how to attract people to the area. After a great group discussion on what the name should be, it was decided to use OMG Pittsburgh - OMGPittsburgh.com I was challenged to design a logo and a layout for the site. We are still in the organizational area of development right now, but this will be taking off very quickly over the next few days.
PCPGH3 was a huge success for me. I am now full of ideas and slowly starting to decompress all of them. Due to the success, the organizers be meeting each month to discuss social media further. The first meet-up will be November 19th at 7PM at the Firehouse Lounge in the Strip District.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
$40 Wii Remote Hack - Save Thousands!!
Ok, so this isn't late breaking, but while in my Interactive Authoring class today my instructor went off on a tangent about 3D development within Adobe Director to talking about some colleagues of hers at Carnegie Mellon University. Her friend created a cheap version of the Star Trek Holodeck(a post I will add later)...but long story short she mentioned that she found some very interesting hardware hacks Youtube. One of these hacks is taking an ordinary, $40 Nintendo Wii remote, and creating a digital whiteboard. If you are not familiar with what a digital white board is, allow me to take a moment to give a brief explanation. We are all familar with dry erase boards...they are usually white and can be found in business, schools and many homes as well. They are convienet due to their resuablity...but what happens if you have filled your entire board up and don't have enother board to keep writing on? Well the obvious answer is you have to erase it...but let's suppose you need to reference that information still or better yet, you would like to make a copy of it for future use or to print off and have a hard copy of it. Short of taking a photograph you would be forced to erase it and start over.
Well, that is where the digital white board comes in. They allow you to write just like you would with a traditional whiteboard, but you are using a computer screen as your "canvas" instead of the whiteboard itself. I have seen them as cheap as $799 but most retail for around $1499. What's more is that you are limited to the size of the board. What if you want a whiteboard that is 12' x 12'? This is where I introduce you to a guy by the name of Johnny Lee.
Johnny Lee managed to take a $40 Wii remote and create a virtually unlimited in size whiteboard. He uses an LCD projector, connected to a PC as his canvas. The only limit to the size of the canvas is how far away you can get the projector from the wall to display a larger picture. There is an amazing video which you can view below:
To find out more information on projects by Johnny Lee, visit his website at Carnegie Mellon University - http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/ This is also the link where you can download the software to make the whiteboard work!
At The Beginning
I figured my first blog post should be a completion of my profile...so here it goes....
A life of solitude would be no fun. That is why I have so many friends. I could never have survived the last 19 months in Pittsburgh without them. I moved to Pittsburgh in February 2007 after some relationship issues in Erie, PA Its kinda funny actually. You see, I was always the person who said believe in faith and let it take you where it may...for once I was the one who needed to heed my own advice. I decided to make the trip down to Pittsburgh to visit my cousin Mike. Seemed like an innocent plan on the surface...little did I know that the weekend trip would turn out to be a life changing trip. I spent the weekend on his couch, only to find out on Sunday that I would not be leaving. I would find myself sleeping on that couch for the next 7 months. Prior to moving to Pittsburgh I was living a life full of confusion and self-doubt. Prior to moving to Pittsburgh, I lived a life as a straight guy. A guy who I thought was making everyone in his life happy...especially his family. It is something I did to keep my family happy. Its something you may not understand if you are not gay...not to stereotype or anything, but I think its the same as saying you understand how a mother feels after she looses her child, you can sympathize, but you can't fully understand. I believed that my family could only me proud and happy with me if I was straight. I am not about to go down the road of coming out in this blog, I will save it for its own...I feel it deserves it.
However, I ask you to draw your attention to the advertisement in this blog for The Trevor Project. This week is National Suicide Prevention week. Within the GLBT community, the youth are most targeted subjects of hate. I can't imagine the GLBT youth of today and the struggle for acceptance they must face. For some it leads them to feel they are backed into a corner with suicide being the only place to turn. I implore you to click on the ad and educate yourself about the signs. No money or any compensation for that matter is received by me for you doing so. So many lives could be saved by simply taking 5 minutes to read one site. If you are in crisis now and need immediate help please call 1-800-273-TALK(8255)
If you would like to reach me further you can check out the following link:
