EeePC 1000HE

I got a new laptop today!!!  I ordered an Asus EeePC 1000HE netbook last Saturday and it finally (no fault to newegg) arrived this afternoon.  I gotta say that I'm really impressed.  This little laptop has just the right sized screen, 160Gig of storage, the newest Intel Atom (N280) processor, a multitouch trackpad, realtime performace stepping, and what seems to be a realistic 7 hours of battery.  Read the Tech Report review for the details and good pictures.

The realization that no laptop under $2,000 was going to satisfy my application development needs lead me toward getting a netbook.  The Tech Report article pushed me to purchase, and so far I'm very happy with the decision.

Mundial

Erin and I went to Mundial Cocina Mestiza for dinner this evening. I won't get into a full blown review because I could just do that on Yelp.

That said, if you go, strongly consider having their Chile en Nogada. Simply put, it was stuffed peppers, but in truth the flavors were a fantastic, delicious combination. Erin's rib eye entree was very good, but not great. All in all, not a place we would return, but a nice dinner as a one-off.

gChat comes to iGoogle

I've been waiting quite a while for this, but finally, gChat has come to iGoogle.  It looks and functions basically like gChat in Gmail did before they added the SMS and video capabilities.  Finally iGoogle is becoming the one-stop-shop.

Slight design tweaks on Google Maps

I just noticed that Google has a slightly new look for Map. I'm not sure if I like it. It's the first time that my eyes have progressed down to the ad listing. Usually I hardly notice the ad placements, but this new, blocky layout was different...dono if I like it.

Going to SXSW!

I found out this morning that I'll be going to South by South West. I expressed some interest in going last November, but with the state of the economy, I didn't think I'd be going. But to my pleasant surprise, I now have plane, hotel, and conference tickets. The interactive conference overlaps with film, but I'm going to miss the music. Now it's time to select the seminars I'd like to attend...

Erin's New Job!

Erin was formally offered a full time position at Matec, the Midwest AIDS Training and Education Center. She's been working there part time since early December. Yay!

Israel!

Erin and I both got a free trip to Israel from Shorashim!!!  We depart on the 5th of January but we'll likely extend our trip to tour Egypt.

Vegas Sports

Sports had the same concept as music, but was still a big project.  This screenshot has it all.  This casino has an upcoming event, a news story, and highlights.  Instead of some javascript motion for the 'Overtime Guaranteed' (auxillary) content, Sports uses a 3-D papervision scoreboard.  Very Cool.

Vegas Sports

Vegas Music

The music project for the LVCVA was an effort not only to make people more keenly aware of the music scene in Vegas, but also to show them what else is happening around the show.  The concept of Play Louder is to show how Vegas takes further or louder than any other city in the world.  Now for the tech goodness.

Music is heavy with fast moving ajax.  That's almost a given, but what you can't see behind this scenes is the full blown CMS (Drupal core) that we implemented to associate and augment existing data.  We also worked with a 3rd party to integrate the artist bios.

It was quite an undertaking and quite an achievement.

Vegas Music

Vegas Right Now

Vegas Right Now - go.

This campaign has been under constant evolution since it launched in March.  I chose to highlight it only because it has been through so many iterations.  It first went live as a very simple, almost static page.  It's since evolved into a house for several sweepstakes, and most recently because a fully content managed page.  :)

VRN