Chris Ball is the lead software engineer for One Laptop Per Child, who is a geek and wears t-shirts and has an Android phone, pretty much like a lot of the rest of us.

But recently, a local electronics retailer had a promotion where they gave away free parts to 1000 people, and Chris was one of the lucky ones to participate.

Chris made off with $100 in free electronics and decided, with the help of his wife Madeline, to put them to use in a way no one had ever thought of before- making a t-shirt that keeps count of unread emails! Right there on the front of the t-shirt, using LEDs, it keeps a total count of how many messages are waiting to be read in the Inbox. It uses an Arduino Lilypad and Bluetooth dongle to talk to his Android phone and the count displayed right on the shirt for everyone to see!

posted on Thursday, June 3rd, 2010 in design, social networking, technology, tips
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Admit it, you watch Dr. Who, and you never miss an episode. You love Tom Baker and his stripey muffler best, but you think the new guy is doing a pretty darn good job so far.

And, you’re probably one of those types who likes to collect knick-knacks from your favorite sci-fi shows, too, right?

Think Geek‘s got you covered! The 10th Doctor’s sonic screwdriver was sadly destroyed… But, like Madonna’s career, thanks to the power of the TARDIS, it keeps coming back! Each Doctor has had a different sonic screwdriver, and this latest one is a little bigger and features the power of green light to work it’s magic.

You, too, can own one, and impress your friends while you make imaginary repairs to your inter-dimensional post boxes and time warp conduits, prepare your cube for impromptu time travel or just look cooler than the Star Wars kid.

Sound effects, springy action, and best of all, batteries included, just for $25.99! DO NOT DEVIATE!

posted on Thursday, June 3rd, 2010 in design, miscellaneous, tips
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Probably the worst part about working is the daily commute each way, stuck in traffic. NASA aerospace engineer, Mark Moore, dreams of the day we all get around like the Jetsons, flying around in our own personal space cars, instead.

He’s come up with the Puffin, a vertical-takeoff-and-landing (VTOL) personal aircraft, as part of his doctoral thesis. It’s purely designed for single occupancy- only 12′ long with a 14.5′ wingspan, and it’s completely electrically powered. Even more bizarrely, it’s part plane, part helicopter, and part “WTF is that?!?!?”

posted on Thursday, June 3rd, 2010 in design, outlinks, technology
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I’m sick and tired of having to design a website more than once every time I make one. Anyone who designs websites knows what I am talking about. You design it to W3 standards, which works for every modern browser like Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera, and then you go back and make it work as well as you possibly can in Internet Explorer.

Even though Microsoft has released version 8 and is developing version 9, they are notorious for having their own standards for the web all the way back to the first release of Explorer. They are fairly capricious about which parts of CSS IE respects, and instead insist upon using their own set of “filter” commands to complete a small subset of what CSS can do.

Because it is the default install browser for Windows, it commands a large market share. The statistics on my websites show that IE users account for between 40 and 70% of my traffic. So I can’t dismiss it, as much as I would like to. But anyone who is reading this site, or is even slightly technically inclined, knows that their internet experience will be enhanced by using any other browser. Even my 90-year old stepfather surfs the web with Firefox.

posted on Thursday, June 3rd, 2010 in design, tips, web
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With the current ban on any form of tobacco advertising on Formula One cars or racing paraphernalia, Phillip Morris was forced to remove all logos relating to Marlboro cigarettes. But, true to tobacco company form, they found a way around the prohibition through a subliminal use of their ubiquitous logo:

They’ve reduced it to a bar code, which reads exactly the same way to a viewer as it would as the car speeds by at hundreds of miles per hour. Clever, dastardly, and probably entirely legal.  ›› Graphicology Blog.

posted on Friday, May 7th, 2010 in advertising, design, outlinks
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It’s spring in the Northern hemisphere, and those of us lucky enough to have gardens to distract us from technology have been planting them and getting them ready for the growing season. But it’s also just as important to decorate the garden properly with the right accessories.

Here are some options those of us with geeky thumbs are considering intermingling with the greenery:

The Garden Jawa

posted on Friday, April 30th, 2010 in design
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There’s a huge difference between spec work and pro-bono work. I am vehemently opposed to the former, and a big fan of the latter, and would do more of it if I had the time and money to spare. Lippincott just re-branded the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation in a way that really shows off the value of a good pro-bono campaign: it brings a welcome new level of maturity to GLAAD, and shows that Lippincott pays every bit as much of attention to the details for a pro-bono client that they would for a multi-million dollar corporation. GLAAD’s new identity is quite well executed- it is well-focused, eye-catching, and on-message, far more so than their previous version. Futura may be from the past, but I think it works very nicely here as a solidifying part of their logo. ›› Brand New

posted on Monday, April 19th, 2010 in design, outlinks
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I’ve never been a fan of at&t’s corporate branding since they took Saul Bass’s iconic logo and inflated it into a fussy, overly dated “death star” look. But now BBDO’s really gone off the damned deep end with their new “Rethink Possible” campaign. The hideously shaded and gradiented (yeah I know it’s not a word) 3D globe is now as bloated and fuzzy as their spokesdrone, Owen Wilson.

Oh, there are other versions, too, now without shading, and built of a variety of objects to fill out the logo, reminiscent of the recent rebranding of AOL by Wolff Olins.

Apparently the ultimate goal is to make at&t a company that exists solely on a name-less logo like Apple or Nike, but hideous crap from a company with huge customer service problems like this ain’t gonna cut it. ››Brand New

posted on Friday, April 9th, 2010 in advertising, communication, design
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I have always considered myself a halfway decent photographer, and over the years I’ve collected some of my favorite shots I have taken using my Panasonic Lumix digital camera and made some free desktops/wallpapers for you to download. The reason I love this particular camera so much is because it has a Leica lens- Pansasonic has a deal with them to produce their electronics, and Leica makes the glass. Panasonic’s versions sell for a lot less, but work just as well as far as I can tell. I love the results I am able to get with it, and I’m happy to be able to share them with you!

posted on Saturday, April 3rd, 2010 in design, eponymous, photography
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Yet another sign that my generation is now greying and becoming the establishment. Here’s the guy who designed renegade typefaces like Blur and album covers for Throbbing Gristle taking the reins at one of the most prestigious art schools in the UK, much less the world. ›› mediabistro.com: UnBeige.

posted on Tuesday, March 30th, 2010 in design, outlinks
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