It’s a new year and a new decade! That means it’s time that we get reacquainted with our friends and colleagues! Come out and have a drink with the BLEN Family and Friends.

Reconnect. Network. Share.

Be sure to RSVP at www.blenhappyhour.eventbrite.com and bring a friend!

(Photo Credit: www.pingv.com)

So, there’s a lot of buzz around the release of drupal 7. Personally, I’m not as excited as some of my technical counterparts (only because I’m not that technical, let the tech Gods strike me). But after talking to my team member Henok, who has enthusiastically proclaimed his excitement for the release, I can see what all the fuss is about. “Drupal’s main strength is its community. Thousands of brilliant developers have created modules that make drupal one of the most powerful CMS in the world. Drupal 7 provides developers better API’s that would inevitably lead to more useful modules. A couple of major changes in Drupal 7 for developers is the nature of nodes and fields. The Fields API can now provide most of the features of the CCK module. File and image handling are a couple of objects affected by this change” said Henok our beloved app developer.

If you want to join in on the fun, be sure to check out this event (by Phase2Technology), a party to celebrate the release of drupal 7! If you can’t join in on the fun this Friday, be sure to follow the hashtag #d7rp. Woot!

http://www.drupal7releaseparty.org/united-states/release-party-phase2-technology

AmCharts is a highly customizable set of Flash charts that plays nicely with Drupal. Generally, AmCharts could be displayed on a webpage by initializing the settings and data files in a JavaScript in the header section of the page. This process is emulated in Drupal using the Charts and Graphs module, which provides an API for AmCharts and various other charting methods. The settings file is contained in the class file of the amcharts submodule in the charts and graphs module. The data is fed dynamically by the views module and the Views Charts exposes the “Charts” option for the output. Since AmCharts is Flash based, a tool is required that enables the embedding of flash content on a Drupal page. For that, we use the SWF Tools module. SWF Tools module plugs into secondary components to display the flash content. One such component is the SWF Object 2 JavaScript.

There are various resources online on how to use AmCharts with Drupal. We were interested in various details like modifying the pie slice colors and installing an AmCharts license.

Read the rest of this entry »

The last time I blogged, I shared with you all  the details of an event that Artists for Charity was having (4th Annual AFC Holiday Fundraiser, benefiting the HIV positive kids of AFC). I’m happy to report, that the event was a success, the entire BLEN team which also happens to be apart of the AFC family, volunteered and put in the work! 

Yesterday, another great organization Citizen Effect also had a fundraiser, promoting 4 separate non-profits at Crank Up the Cause. Citizen Effect encourages citizens to take action and become philanthropists, they do this by equipping you with the appropriate tools and support. Their methodology goes a little something like this; 1. they help you choose a project, something that interests you, 2. they ask you to choose an approach, 3. you engage your network, 4. you measure your impact, every step of the way they support you to ensure you’re making an impact. I think their approach is brilliant, they help by encouraging, educating and mobilizing everyone, because at the end of the day we’re all philanthropists at heart!

As a tech family we’re not always able to put in our time on the field.  We understand that most cause-based organization require that. Rather we donate hours of coding, consulting and design. We also help organizations align technology to their overall strategy, leveraging all digital media to increase donations and support. 

That’s why starting January we will be donating our time and our attention to helping non-profits that need it the most. If you’re a non-profit or a cause-based organization and need our support, email me at hanna@blencorp.com

December 1st is World AIDS Day, a day designed to promote HIV prevention; helping people fight against HIV prejudice and stopping the spread of the virus. According to the UNAIDS nearly 33.3M people are currently living with HIV/AIDS, 16.6M of those people are children who are orphaned living with the virus.

Artists for Charity (AFC), is a non-profit organization fighting the good fight against HIV/AIDS. AFC shelters and provides for HIV positive orphans in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Annually AFC holds a fundraiser in Washington, DC auctioning off art work donated by artists around the world, the fundraiser is 100% charity, and not to mention one of our favorite organizations. 

Which is why, the BLEN team is personally involved in helping AFC continue their good work. If you’d like to learn more about AFC and about any opportunities where you can support check out their site.

In the past few weeks I was fortunate enough to attend several events; from the TEDxMidAtlantic conference, to the Africare Gala honoring Nelson Mandela, to the Future of Web Design Conference in NY, I’ve been exposed to some amazing people with impressive ideas and initiatives. 

My favorite event was hands down the TEDxMidAtlantic Conference. This year’s theme at the TEDxMidAtlantic was “What If?” The conference was held at the Sidney Harman Hall in Chinatown, DC. On the 2nd level of the theatre, there stood a blank white cardboard wall with the question “What If?” Speakers and attendees were encouraged to fill in the blank. Ideas were flowing, the energy was high. 

One of my favorite talks was by Diana Laufenberg an educator who embraces failure in her students, she teaches at the Science    Leadership  Academy (SLA), where the teaching style is based on 21st century learning. SLA is a project-based high school that provides a college-preparatory curriculum with a focus on science, technology, mathematics and entrepreneurship. Students at SLA learn in a project-based environment where the core values of inquiry, research, collaboration, presentation and reflection are emphasized in all classes. Diana, spoke about the importance of allowing students to go through trial and error when learning new content, while permitting longer class periods to allow for more laboratory work in science classes and performance-based learning in all classes. Her presentation proved, when allowing students to fail, they will get back up and try again, going above and beyond their own expectations and performing at optimum level. 

Diana also spoke on the idea of academic institutions and their traditional styles in delivering an education to its students. She stresses the importance of understanding that kids no longer “need” to attend a school to gain an education, education is accessible almost at our finger tips, education goes beyond the four walls of a classroom. With this in mind, the way we learn and create has changed, our teaching styles and schools also need to change and  evolve parallel to our environment, most importantly parallel to our students. To learn more about Diana and the other speakers from TEDxMidAtlantic check out their site, and consider donating to the org so that they may continue to spread good ideas.

Wanted to post this read from Smashing Magazine

Web typography has evolved a lot over the last years. Today we see rich, accessible typography, a plethora of type design choices for the web and a number of remarkable, type-based web designs. It’s a great time for web design, and it’s a great time for web typography. Still, being as excited as we are, we should not forget about the foundational principles of good type design on the web and use them properly within our projects. Great choice is good, but, most importantly, we should be making  read more

Veteran’s Day is day for us to honor and thank the men and women of this country who have selflessly served and sacrificed for our freedom. The image above, is of the “Raising Flag on Iwo Jima” a statute, inspired and designed from an extremely popular photo taken by Joe Rosenthal on February 23, 1945. The statue is of five United States Marines and a U.S. Navy corpsman raising the American flag atop Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II.

It is told that when these five men came back to the U.S. they were honored and praised for their heroin acts, but the soldiers felt anything but heroic, they felt that the fallen soldiers, their comrades were the real heroes because they had given up their lives for their country and for their team. Not all of us are meant to serve our country in the line of fire, but we all have something in us. Something that is innate that we can give; gifts that we can share to make our world a better place.

I have served in the US Army for 8 years and it has been the greatest honor of my life. The valor of those who have served and are currently serving always inspire me to no end.

It was with the same spirit of service that I founded BLEN Corp soon after I left the Army. It has been fulfilling to be able to work with other veterans, non-profit organizations and the federal government. It has afforded us to meet great people that are deeply invested to their communities and our country along the way. Being a certified veteran-owned business also gave us great opportunities to support the U.S. Government with our talents.

So, this Veteran’s day, take the time out to remember those who have given so much and have been so courageous in serving this great nation of ours, but also take time to think about how you can serve the United States of America, in ways that only you can!