Blend Lab

You know you’re a dork when…

Ken — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 21:43:47 +0000

This is the conversation you have with your wife:

Ken: “Did you know there’s a Calagary wiki?”
Kerstin: “Wiki what?”

It’s no iPhone…

Ken — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 20:52:52 +0000

But I have to admit Motorola’s new E8 is pretty slick.

Using something they call ‘ModeShift’ the phone only presents the controls needed at the time the user needs them. So as you ’shift’ from phone to music player, the traditional keypad is replace with audio controls (similar logic applies to the other ‘modes’ as well).
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Super Mario Galaxy

Ken — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 21:12:03 +0000

I realize that I may be a little late getting jumping on this bandwagon, but I managed to snag a copy of Super Mario Galaxy over the holidays and thought I would bestow upon you all my humble thoughts. This won’t be an in-depth exploration of the game (that’s already been done elsewhere), I’ll just let you know my initial impressions:

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Excuse the multiple personalities.

Ken — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 16:08:50 +0000

Just thought you might like to know since things may be changing daily over the next little while… I’m debating on whether to revert to the old theme, use an existing theme, or create a new theme.

iTunes Authorization/Deauthorization

Ken — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 15:59:48 +0000

Whilst syncing my iPod today I was met with an alert that informed me that it couldn’t sync certain songs because my computer wasn’t authorized to play them. I was at work, so I figured that the reason they weren’t playing was because I hadn’t yet logged my iTunes account from my work machine… Sure enough I logged in and all was right in the world. Or so I thought.After the login process I was informed that I have 4 computers authorized (out of a possible 5). This struck me as odd, since I really only interact with 3 computers. I thought it would be prudent to deauthorize all my machines and reauthorize the ones that I use, since I recently got a new machine at home and at work.

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Hacked!

Ken — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 05:05:09 +0000

Hackers 1, Blendlab 0.

If you were one of the folks who stopped by in the recent past you may have thought that Blendlab was suddenly your one-stop-shop for Viagra, Cialis, and Levitra… Now, although I harbor no ill will against these drugs (indeed some of my friends can’t function without them), I’m not sure this is the correct forum to highlight their benefits.

Needless to say, I’ve taken down the old site since there was obviously a security hole somewhere. The next thing I’m hoping to get up and running is the portfolio. As always if you have any questions or concerns, just drop me an email.

Small, medium and large

Ken — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 05:10:54 +0000

Over the past year or so, I’ve managed to work with a fairly diverse lot – each providing me with very interesting and varied experiences. Part one of this post will endeavor to shed some light on my experiences with employers (large & small), and part two will touch on my dealings with various clients (again, large & small).

Rather than spell out what I thought to be the pros and cons of each arrangement, I’d rather just give you an overview of each of my experiences and let you judge the pros and cons for yourself. So, without further ado…

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Safari Beta 3 & SafariSource

Ken — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 15:15:23 +0000

Though I first wrote this off as a quirk of the Safari beta, I’ve since learned better…For those of you using the SIMBL plugin called SafariSource (a handy syntax coloring plugin for Safari), it should be noted this plugin no longer works correctly with the newest Safari beta. Rather than seeing your nicely colored source code, you won’t see a thing at all.

Since I had completely forgotten that I even had this plugin installed, it took me a while to figure things out, but it turns out there’s an update to the plugin which makes things as they should be.You can download the update here: http://www.tildesoft.com/Misc.html

Also of interest for those out of the loop like me is the Web Inspector… Enjoy!

MacBook vs. Flash

Ken — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 06:14:48 +0000

Since most of my time is spent designing and I leave the Flash mastery to those much better suited than I, I find myself spending very little time dealing with actionscript and keyframes - however this weekend a project slid across my plate that needed to be taken care of and I noticed with alarm that I was no longer able to hear sound either from my exported .swf files, nor within the Flash application itself.

After a bit of searching I found a workaround, and although I’m fairly certain this is old news, I thought a re-post of some handy information wouldn’t hurt anybody (especially since this issue doesn’t appear to have been resolved yet).

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Maintaining Sanity

Ken — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 18:46:32 +0000

For some, basking in the ethereal glow of a monitor hour after hour, day after day is a small taste of heaven. For me, it’s a different story.

Don’t get me wrong, the bond I share with our friend the interweb is strong. If unable to check email regularly, I have a nagging sense of being out of touch, or that I’ve forgotten something. Usually it only takes a few hours in the mountains or a glass of wine with some friends to shake this feeling, but I’d be lying if I said that my computer and the internet are simply tools for me, I’m the first to admit that I do rely on them.

That said, having just my computer, an assortment of blogs, and a handful of IM buddies to interact with on a daily basis forces me to the edge of reason every once in a while. As such, I thought I would take my first stab at a ‘Top Ten List.’ They seem to be all the rage these days and though I’m late to jump on the bandwagon, I thought I’d give ‘er a shot. So without further ado:

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