Saturday, March 10 – 9:30AM -10:30AM
Brandon Satrom Developer Evangelist TelerikGarann Means JavaScript EngineerJoe Stagner Sr Program Manager Developer Technologies Mozilla CorporationMike Taylor Web Opener Opera Software
Paul Irish Chrome Developer Advocate Google Inc

Firebug was released in 2006 just viewing the DOM was a big thing at that time.

The Last Year of Developer Tools

Chrome

• Hit the little cog for development tools.
• You can view your JS files individually
• Customize the layout of the tools
• Spoof user agent
• Color picker available when adding/changing colors
• Revision history is created for all changes

Firefox

• You can see a 3D view of a site with web developer.

Opera

• Dragonfly (dev tools)
• Remote debugging allows you to debug your site on other devices. You can send your site to another device via ip address, or it will detect your device on the network.
• Color picker gives you a lot of detail when selecting colors from an image or screen. It will also give you related colors or workable palettes.
• CSS Profiling: It shows how the CSS loads on the page visually and allows you to go in and see where things get held up.

Internet Explorer

• Format Javascript will provide a more visually appealing script (no wall of text) to work with.
• Browser Mode can do full emulate older versions of the browser inside IE10.

Remote Debugging

Adobe Shadow sends stuff to your mobile device as well as open dev tools.
The new Chrome for Android also provides remote dev tools (connected via USB).

Opera Mobile Emulator will launch a profile for a number of phones to show you what your site/code looks like on that device.

Friday, March 9 – 3:30PM – 4:30PM
Deborah Maue Asst VP DePaul UniversityLiz Gross Dir of University Mktg & Comm University of Wisconsin-Waukesha

This session was a core conversation – a room full of peole in higher education talking about topics related to social media. These are a few of the take-away notes.

• The tendency in social networking is to try everything when new social networks come up – doing one thing really well is better than many things only partially.
  (my thoughts are to have at least a presence in the areas where your audience is, but to focus and prioritze the areas where most people are.)
• Engage existing groups to participate in official events and they will help to promote your information and be active in your ofiical things.
• UW Madison has a social media user group made of social media managers across campus (experts and beginners). They hold monthly meetins to talk about what is being done.
• Penn State started a national chapter of the PRSSA Social Media Club.
• Your number one goal with social is enagement.
• Social media style guide base on the media. This guide may be very very diferent from the official university style guide. Social media is much more conversational.
• Being geninune is very important

Friday, March 9 – 2:00PM – 3:00PM
Andrew Crow VP, Experience Design GEBen Fullerton Director, User Experience Method
Leah Buley Design Strategist IntuitNate Bolt Pres Bolt|PetersRyan Freitas Co-founder AOL/About.me

Slides: http://dforc.org/

Design for different locations, environments and relationships and product ecosystems. What problems exist in all of these areas, and design for those problems.

Examples of Crazy Design Context:
Astronauts in space. Design applications that could be used in the shuttle and on a space station. Zero gravity was a challenge for design.

Browser-based is typical, and moving that to mobile. Desktop/browser first is very different than mobile. Push the behaviors you want to represent first. Don’t just map the typical experience into the new context.

Important themes when designing-

Time
Designing interactions for different lengths or instances of time.
How are people using your design? They use it, go away, then come back to it. People live their lives outside of your app or design. Make sure that you design tasks based on the amount of time people have (surveys, etc.).

Ecosystem
What is the bigger picture? How does your product fit into the whole ecosystem? Be sure to take a look at how your product fits in with brand, or social, or other technologies. For many products, the majority of users are entering through mobile interfaces, so a good amount of people don’t even see the rest of the ecosystem. You need to make sure that you’ve created something that can stand on its own in just the mobile environment. You also have to look at the difference between a tablet environment and a mobile phone environment. They’re both mobile, but very different environments.

Location
How do we accommodate and embrace various locations? Provide different tools for your mobile phone that you always have with you. This was used in a Victoria Secret app on the phone that was not in a tablet version because people likely don’t have their tablet with them when they are in the store.
Tax Online Accountant app uses mobility in the workplace so that someone doesn’t have to stop what they are doing and run to a computer and look something up. This app allows someone to pull up information they need regularly quickly on their mobile device (e-file status). It doesn’t need to be out and about.

Form & Technology
What about screen size, input methods, technical constraints?

Brand & Relationships
One conversation… Make sure you are having the correct conversation that your brand represents.

What have we learned?

• Make sure your users can engage with your products that give them the most value and experience your product in the best way.
• Be sure that you are aware of your audience and how they are accessing your product and design for that audience and context and the environment they are accessing your stuff.
• Find quick easy ways to get on your users timeline.
• Design for the ideal intended experience. Be comfortable with the fact that you might miss something. Just be the best designer you can be for your users.

It is once again that time of year for my to Austin, TX to attend the South by Southwest Interactive conference. I’ll be collecting notes from the various sessions I attend right here on this blog (category sxsw) as well as on my SXSW sub-blog (http://sxsw.techory.com).

The 19th annual SXSW Interactive festival will take place March 9-13, 2012 in Austin, Texas. An incubator of cutting-edge technologies, the event features five days of compelling presentations from the brightest minds in emerging technology, scores of exciting networking events hosted by industry leaders and an unbeatable line up of special programs showcasing the best new websites, video games and startup ideas the community has to offer. From hands-on training to big-picture analysis of the future, SXSW Interactive has become the place to experience a preview of what is unfolding in the world of technology.

A few months back I acquired an update for our HTPC. In order to watch digital channels (anything that isn’t available as an over-the-air network), I needed either a cable box, which I didn’t want to rent, or a device capable of taking a CableCARD. When I first started looking, there were two on the market. The first one out was the Ceton InfiniTV, which is a PCI card device that wouldn’t likely fit into my smaller HTPC case. So, that lead me to a device sold by the company who made the other HD tuner I’m using. The tuner I purchased is the SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime. There are two models of the HDHomeRun Prime, one with three tuners and another with six. I opted for the one with just three tuners since I currently only have two tuners and didn’t figured I needed the extra three, or the extra expense of the larger box.

I preordered the tuner, and it arrived a bit later than the company had claimed, but I was happy to finally have it in my hands. My first task was to acquire a CableCARD from my cable company (Medicacom). For those not familiar with CableCARD, it basically provides the decryption for digital cable in your own box without having to use (pay for) one provided by the cable company. The FCC requires cable companies to provide them to their customers. I went down to the Mediacom office and picked up my card. The FCC recently required cable companies to provide a self-install option for CableCARDS instead of requiring a (paid) house call. Once I got the CableCARD home, plugged it into the HDHomeRun and plugged in the coax. I actually have the box in a different room of the house away from the TV. It isn’t necessary, but the way that the HDHomeRun works is it delivers the TV signal via a network connection, and I’ve got an empty network port in the bedroom. That way it also delivers signal through the entire house. If I wanted, I could fire up VLC and watch cable TV on a laptop anywhere. The device powered up and seemed to do what it was supposed to do. Now, on to Mediacom to try and get the CableCARD activated.

Currently, there are very few pieces of software that can legally be used with CableCARDs. The software has to be able to decrypt the digital signal from the cable companies. I use Windows 7 Media Center, and it’s capable of working with a CableCARD tuner via a special plugin provided by Microsoft. I installed the HDHomeRun software and then installed the plugin for Media Center. It quickly recognized the new tuner and gave me a message to with the unique ID for the CableCARD to provide to Mediacom. I called and had them activate my card. It can take as long as 24 hours for the CableCARD to be activated, so I let it sit overnight and got excited to watch more channels in HD the next day.

I’d read horror stories of cable providers not activating CableCARDs correctly. Fortunately that wasn’t the case for me. The next day, the CableCARD reported it was activated by the HDHomeRun control panel (accessed by a web interface), but I was having issues viewing my brand-spankin’ new HD channels. There were some funny things going on. I could get the new channels to play in the HDHomeRun software intermittently, but only in windowed mode (not full screen). I could also get the new channels to play intermittently in Media Center but with the same widows mode issue as well as there not being audio in some cases. I would also see odd messages about PlayReady, which is Microsoft’s DRM to make the CableCARD work. I kept getting messages that PlayReady wasn’t working, or that it needed to be updated. No matter what I did, I could not get PlayReady to reinstall or remove correctly. After banging my head against the HTPC for a few days, I decided to take the nuclear option and reinstall Windows.

Low and behold, the headache of a reinstall worked. The CableCARD activated successfully, and Windows Media Center detected it and configured all of the new channels. The programming guide picked up everything, and everything came in nice and clear. I’ve beem able to watch and record all HD programming without any problems. There have been very few issues, and what issues I did encounter were fixed quickly with a firmware update. So far I am very happy with the HDHomeRun Prime.

So as of right now, it doesn’t look like it’s going to be a white Christmas. If you really had your heart set on some snow, fear not. You can now make a run to the hardware store for some parts to build your very own snowmaker. Appropriately named Instructables member, MakeSnow has a very nice step-by-step on how to build it.

Snowmaker photo by MakeSnow

Well folks, it’s Cyber Monday again. You know what that means… it’s time for another iteration of my holiday geek gift guides. I started this quite a few years ago as a list of gift guides to help me find gifts for the people I shop for. Most of these are geared more towards geeks and gadgets, but there are several for more general gift giving. If I run across more, I’ll keep this post up to date. Or if you know any that I missed, leave me a comment, and I’ll add ‘em to the list.

• CNET 2011 Holiday Gift Guide
• Boing Boing Gift Guide 2011
• 2011 Uncle Mark Gift Guide and Almanac 
• ThinkGeek Holiday Gift Station 2011
• 5th Annual Wired Wishlist
• Wired GeekDad Holiday Gift Guide
• Wired GeekMom Holiday Gift Guide
• iLounge’s 2012 iPhone + iPod Buyers’ Guide
• TreeHugger Green Gift Guide 2011
• Engadget’s Holiday Gift Guide, 2011
• Gizmodo Gift Guides 2011
• MAKE Magazine Gift Guides
• TechCrunch 2011 Gift Guide
• PC Magazine 2011 Holiday Gift Guide
• ZDNet Holiday Tech Gift Guide 2011
• Digital Trends Holiday Gift Guide 2011
• 2011 InfoWorld geek gadget gift guide
• New York Times Holiday Gift Guide 2011
• Ain’t It Cool News Quint’s Holiday Gift Guide 2010
• Part 1! DVDs! Blu-Rays! Video Games! Art!
• Part 2! Books, Comics, Music and Food!
• Part 3! Collectibles, Toys and Board Games!
• Uncrate Gift Guides
• Cool Hunting: Gift Guide 2010
• Core77 End of Year or End of Days Gift Guide
• The Awesomer: Awesome Awesome Gifts 2010
• Perpetual Geek Machine Holiday Book guide
• DVICE Holiday Gift Guide 2011
• Popular Mechanic’s Can’t-Miss Holiday Gift Guide for 2011
• Inc. 2011 Holiday Gift Guide: Editor’s Picks
• The GQ 2011 Gift Guides
• Tom’s Hardware Holiday Gift Guide: Computers Of All Kinds (added 11/29/11)
• Earth Techling: 2011 Holiday Green Gift Shopping Guide (added 11/30/11)
• GigaOm: Cord Cutters Gift Guide (added 11/30/11)
• Lifehacker Premium Web Services Gift Guide (added 12/10/11)
• 2011 Unclutterer Holiday Gift Giving Guide (added 12/10/11)
• Dry as Toast 2011 Holiday Gift Giving Guide (added 12/10/11)
• The Verge – Holiday Gift Guide 2011 (added 12/15/11)

(Guides from previous years: 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004)

Want.

This is a slick little gadget. It’s a little green ball with cameras mounted all over it. You toss it into the air, and it created a spherical panorama at the apex of your toss.

I wonder how careful you have to be when throwing this. I bet a little bit of spin would mess up your panorama. Either way, it’s a pretty cool idea.

Are you tired of plain-old Tetris? Do simple square shapes bore you? Give Stateris a try.

Take a the timeless classic video game of Mario Brothers, then add the innovative modern game Portal, and you get a great game that I’d love to play MariO.

I hope they follow through with this mashup!

I’ve always got a good collection of podcasts on my iPod. In fact, I probably listen to podcasts more than I listen to music. I usually download a new batch of podcasts every couple weeks. I’ll fill up my iPod and listen until I run out, and then pull down the newest batch. I have my list of favorites, but am always on the lookout for new content to put into my podcast rotation. Below is a list of my top podcasts. Let me know in the comments what you like to listen to.

• Buzz Out Loud (website – iTunes)
  This is a daily podcast from CNET where they talk about the tech happenings of the day. I usually download about 6 of the newest episodes of Buzz Out Loud.
  
• A Life Well Wasted (website – iTunes)
  This podcast is a recent addition to my list. Their tagline is “An Internet Radio Program about Video Games and the People who Love them.” This isn’t your typical video game review show. It’s actual stories about people and video games. It includes stories about collectors, or interesting video game history, and is usually very intriguing.
• Macbreak Weekly (website – iTunes)
  This is a Twit podcast from Leo Laporte (of which I subscribe to a number). This one is kind of hit or miss with me. Sometimes I’ll listen, and sometimes I’ll just skip it until my next iPod refresh. It’s about all things Apple, and the quality of the show really depends on the guests of the episode. I find myself fast-forwarding through long Andy Ihnatko rants a lot of times.
• Security Now (website – iTunes)
  Another Twit podcast, this one deals with computer and internet security. I kind of pick and choose these episodes based on the topic discussed. There are also regular question and answer episodes that I’ll grab from time to time.
• Tech News Today (website – iTunes)
  Again, a twit podcast. I only download this one every now and then, and I usually don’t pull down many episodes. This podcast comes out every weekday and is similar to the Buzz Out Loud podcast listed above. In fact, the host (Tom Merritt) of TNT was a host of Buzz Out Loud up until a year ago, when he moved to Twit. Anyway, it’s a good podcast, the host does a nice job, but it’s not at the top of my rotation. I’ll pull an episode or two every time I refresh the iPod.
• This American Life (website – iTunes)
  This is a podcast of the NPR radio program “This American Life.” These are usually pretty good, and provide a view into a certain theme every week. Every now and then I’ll find myself fast-forwarding through a radio essay, or an author reading one of their short stories, but generally the topics are insightful and interesting.
• This Week in Google (website – iTunes)
  Yep, another Twit podcast. This one is actually about general cloud computing as well as Google. The hosts (Jeff Jarvis, and Gina Trapani) are very likable, and they usually talk about interesting things that have happened with Google (including Android), and the cloud in general.
• This Week in Tech (website – iTunes)
  This is the last Twit podcast I subscribe to, as well as the flagship program for the network. The premise for this podcast is a panel of tech-folk come together to discuss the prior week’s tech news. It’s pretty good 95% of the time, but also very much depends on the panel that gets brought together for a particular episode (sorry, can’t stand Jerry Pournelle).
• WNYC’s Radiolab (website – iTunes)
  This is probably one of my favorite podcasts. It is also an actual radio program from WNYC released in podcast format. The premise for the show is usually investigating some big science or technology question through experiments or interviews with experts. Just about every single episode is genuinely interesting, and I end up learning something. Some of my favorite episodes include investigations in to sleep, or if and how animals think, morality, or what makes pop music popular. I highly recommend this program.
• You Look Nice Today (website – iTunes)
  YLNT has not been released in quite a while, and may very well be dead, but it’s still one of my favorites, so I decided to list it. This is a comedy podcast, and is mainly made up of three guys sitting around BS’ing. That’s it… doesn’t sound like much… but it’s FUNNY. If you’re looking for a good episode, check out the one where Jonathan Hodgeman and Jonathan Coulton are guest hosts.
• 99% Invisible (website – iTunes)
  This podcast is a recent addition to my lineup. It’s a quickie podcast (most episodes are only a few minutes in length). The show is about design and architecture in everyday things. These things are usually overlooked because they’re done so well, hence the 99% invisible.
• Diggnation (website – iTunes)
  I used to listen to this podcast more than I do now. I don’t find myself downloading this one very often any more. It’s based on the Digg.com website, and involves the two hosts going over some of the top stories from the site. They usually only get through a few stories though, as their banter (which is why you listen to the podcast) normally takes up most of the time.

That’s my list. I’m always looking for new podcasts to download. What’s on your list?

Want!

(I just need some more french cuffed shirts)

Have you ever wanted to display your mood with a pair of giant cat ears? Well, the wait is now over. A Japanese project called Neurowear has created a set of robotic ears that react to your brain waves. The concept is a little odd, and I’m not sure if this is something I’d wear in public, but it’s a very interesting idea to communicate what you’re thinking using a peripheral that you wear on your body.

They need to create a dog tail to communicate happiness when it wags.

It’s been a good week for new Mentos sightings. I found another new roll (or new packaging at least) in CVS today. The candy is the regular Mentos mint flavor, but the roll has a heart in place of the “O” in “Mentos,” and instead of the normal “Mint” text, it says, “Kiss Me.” I assume these are tied to the Mentos Kiss Fight campaign, or are special wrappers for Valentines Day.

Update: After eating the entire roll (because that’s how I roll… Ha!), I noticed that there were two pink Mentos mixed in with the white mint ones. The pink Mentos taste like mint, but are pink in color, just like the strawberry you find in the mixed fruit rolls. After noticing that, I think this roll is a game you play with someone you like. You pass the roll back and fourth, and whoever gets the pink Mentos has to kiss the other person, or get kissed by the other person. It’s kind of the Mentos equivalent to spin the bottle, or mistletoe.