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!
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Warren M. Robbins Library
National Museum of African Art
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| Dear Friends and Colleagues,The Smithsonian Institution Libraries and the Warren M. Robbins Library of the National Museum of African Art lost a dear and valuable friend on July 3, 2010, with the death of Professor Stanislaw Chojnacki (1915-2010). We are establishing a memorial fund in honor of Professor Chojnacki and I want to invite you to contribute to the legacy of our mutual friend.
As a world renowned scholar in Ethiopian religious art, he had just completed a memoire of his 25 years in Ethiopia, Twenty-five years of service at the University College and the Institute of Ethiopian Studies Addis Ababa between 1950 and 1975. In recognition of his life’s work, the Robbins Library will redouble its commitment to enrich its Ethiopian collections. The expansion of the collection will be his legacy as the books acquired through donations from his friends and colleagues will be designated in our library catalogue “In Memory of Stanislaw Chojnacki.
Stan, or “Choj” as he was known to his friends, was a life-long bibliophile and lover of libraries. On his visits to Washington, DC, he would always set aside time to come into our African art library and check out new acquisitions on Ethiopia. The highlight of his many visits was on November 1, 2006, when he delivered a public lecture reflecting on his six decades of research and writing on Ethiopian Orthodox art and iconography.
He was truly a “citizen of the world” as well as a scholar of the first order and is much missed. We hope that you will help preserve his legacy.
I know he inspired and encouraged others as he did me, and because of that, I felt a donation in his memory would be a fitting tribute to his good works.
We hope you will join us by donating to our memorial fund in honor of Professor Stanislaw Chojnacki.
If you prefer to send a check, please make it payable to the “Smithsonian Institution Libraries” and mail it to:
Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Stanislaw Chojnacki Memorial Fund, Attn: Rachelle Hardy, P.O. Box 37012, MRC 154, Washington, DC 20013-7012
Thank you,
Janet L. Stanley, Librarian
Smithsonian Institution Libraries,
The Warren M. Robbins Library of the National Museum of African Art |
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Preceding the Smithsonian lecture, the Smithsonian Institution Libraries displayed a selection of Ethiopiana in the Warren M. Robbins Library. Here Professor Chojnacki chats with two of the women attending the program. The open volume on the table is the 1900 Ethiopic text Miracles of the blessed Virgin Mary, by Wallis Budge.
Professor Chojnacki with his former student, Dr. Aklilu Habte, who went on to become the President of the University of Addis Ababa.
Professor Stanislaw Chojnacki and librarian Janet Stanley at the National Museum of African Art, November 1, 2006, on the occasion of his public lecture and launch of his book Ethiopian crosses.
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According to FourSquare nearly 50,000 people came out on Saturday Oct. 30th to either Keep Fear Alive, or Restore Sanity. Either way Washingtonians and tourists alike had fun. This was by far the most I’ve laughed at a rally. No matter what your political view was, or lack of, there was a sign that we could all identify with. There was even a sign for a successful single guy by the name of Ray who’s looking for someone to “change the world” with.
"Smoke it Down a Notch"
“God Hates Tea”
"Fear Keeps Me Paid"
- “Don’t Believe Everything You Think”
There are several methods of creating a form in Drupal. For those who want to create a robust and logic-oriented form, CCK (the most advanced and robust method) is perhaps the best choice. For programmers who want to have full control, the Forms API would be the weapon of choice. However, we sometimes just want to create a simple form with relative ease. That is where the Webform module comes in.
This module simply adds a “Webform” node type to a site. Therefore, its submissions are not nodes that can be exposed through Views. Submissions may only be viewed using the tools that are provided by the module itself. Some of the neat things about the Webform module are the ability to either email the submission to an administrator or save it to the database. Each form is associated with a node, which alleviates the need to setup a content type for a given form. Continue reading Creating a Custom Form in Drupal »
If you haven’t already heard TEDx MidAtlantic is BACK and better than ever (ok maybe just better than last year)! Here are the deets! The BLEN team will definitely be in the building!
Date: Friday, November 5th 2010
Location: Sidney Harman Hall – 610 F St NW, Washington, DC 20059
Time: 8am – 8pm
Number of scheduled speakers: 22
Number of attendees: 750
Overview: TEDxMidAtlantic celebrates the power of ideas to positively change the world; we aim to build community by bringing together like-minded people who believe in this mission. “What If” is the theme for TEDxMidAtlantic 2010, which will be held on November 5, 2010 at Sidney Harman Hall in Washington, DC and will feature an impressive lineup of speakers.
Visit www.tedxmidatlantic.com for more information.
About TEDxMidAtlantic
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x=independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized. TEDx MidAtlantic is operated under license from TED. TEDx MidAtlantic 2010 will be held on November 5, 2010 at Sidney Harman Hall in Washington, DC and will feature an impressive lineup of speakers such as Steve Case, AOL founder and chairman of the Case Foundation and Revolution; Esther Dyson, a technology industry veteran and philanthropist; innovative green architect Tim McDonald; microbiologist and vertical farming pioneer Dickson Despommier; Carnegie Mellon School of Design head
Terry Irwin; education innovator and Johns Hopkins Business School Dean Yash Gupta; award-winning theater director Michael Kahn; along with many others to be announced soon.
TEDxMidAtlantic celebrates the power of ideas to positively change the world; we aim to build community by bringing together like-minded people who believe in this mission. Register for TEDxMidAtlantic 2010 at: http://tedxmidatlantic.com/registration
I was having a discussion yesterday with an iPhone 4 user. Dont get me wrong I own one to. I do feel that it’s most likely the best phone on the market right now.
Although the claim is not scientific; as I have not had a chance to test other phones. Most of us in the US are locked in to a cell phone provider through heavy contracts. I have been using a cell phone for 12 years. I have had only 3 providers. I had VoiceStream (now T-Mobile) for the first 2 years, then Sprint for 7 years and now AT&T for last 3 years. Continue reading iPhone 4 Problems »
In March, 2010, we’ve launched the World Bank dataVis– a data visualization platform for the Africa Development Indicators (ADI).
Today, we are happy to announce that dataVis got a much needed boost. We’ve added all of 1,638 indicators upping from 50 – an increase of 3,276%. The new dataset adds a breadth to the already rich dataset. We have also worked on a better caching mechanism to handle the new dataset.
This is by far the biggest update we’ve done on dataVis. In the subsequent release, we plan to use the new World Bank API to access the ADI dataset and perhaps move it to Drupal taking full advantage of the wbapi module written by the amazing folks at Dev Seed. This will be a huge step in the direction to support the World Bank Open Data initiative.
dataVis is built using open source tools: PHP, MySQL, and Symfony. We also used amCharts and amMap to render the charts and maps.
Here is a taste
On Wednesday October 13th at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) in Washington DC , the very first meeting of 2010-2011 was held on the Haitian State. The event was lead by the good people at RAND, State Department, and of course USIP. I found the event was informative, detailed and thorough. At the same time, there was plenty that was remained unknown.
An interesting issue that struck me was the amount of donations that have been pledged or donated that have not yet been realized. Or the number of police officers on the streets of Port-Au-Prince, yet there’s no justice system to uphold the work that the police is doing. How about how many people are sitting in pre-detention facilities, who will wait months, if not years before they see trial. It’s no surprise that the country has yet to move the rubble off the streets, but what was initially assumed by the US, the idea that we could rebuild Haiti in two years, is now far from reality. As most international AID workers and governments have come to the aid of Haitians, the majority have come to the realization, that this is going to be a challenge, and one at the fundamental level. But the trick is, getting the Haitian people and it’s leaders to set that tone and those core principles that are pertinent to any society. Something that will take place after the elections.
To be honest, as soon as I left USIP, it dawned on me how naive I was about Haiti’s current state and how we as human beings tend to glamorize fundraisers and charities, which isn’t all together a bad thing, but that seems to be where most of us stop asking how, why, who and what next? The people of Haiti need more than donations, they need to build an infrastructure, maybe you can put your skills and talents to work? See how you can help rebuild Haiti, learn more about current developments in Haiti, check out RAND’s research here.
If you haven’t heard already, a classic clothing brand by the name of ‘GAP’ recently, redesigned their logo. When I first heard about it, I thought, “why?” Why, would an iconic brand like GAP ever redesign their logo, isn’t brand recognition one of the principle rules of marketing? But before I criticized, I took a look at the “new” logo. Nothing about the new logo felt “new.”
There’s no aesthetic appeal, nothing that makes you feel like it’s refreshed. And I’m not sure it should have felt new or refreshed, because it’s GAP. It’s like taking the Ford logo or the Pepsi logo and changing it. Maybe the issue was that they were feeling insecure about their performance on a business aspect. So they thought, ‘hey maybe, we can change our image and seem like we’ve improved or revamped.’ The issue with that is, is that GAP hasn’t really changed in all the years I’ve personally shopped there. So changing the logo doesn’t really change what’s on the racks, or did they think, that it would bring people into the stores?
Whatever brought on this need for change, maybe needs to be reconsidered. Maybe the change needs to begin within GAP, within the styles and designs of the clothes. Or maybe GAP needs to contact a branding agency and get a second opinion?
What I’m really hoping for, is that this new logo was a hoax or better yet a publicity stunt.
