Author: Don

/ Don

My Minority Report Interface is Coming…

Back in September 2005, I was interviewed by Communication Arts about our site, Who is Augustine, for Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything is Illuminated. The final question of the interview was about my dream computer set-up, to which I promptly replied: “I’m looking into getting one of those translucent screens that Tom Cruise used in Minority Report. If anyone notices them on the market in the next century, please drop me a line.”

It looks like the software is coming from Leap Motion. Now I just need to speak with Paul Bettany about providing the automated voice for my Jarvis.

 

/ Don

Mission Small Business

Dear Readers,

I have a favor to ask you. I’ve applied for a grant sponsored by Chase and LivingSocial for my company, era404. This grant could help me with some internal development ideas I have to help the company grow. In order to be entered into the competition, I need to have 250 votes from Facebook users. The process is really simple and should only take one minute. Here’s how it works:

1. Browse to: https://www.missionsmallbusiness.com/

2. Click the blue “Log-in & Support” button

3. A pop-up will ask you to connect your Facebook account to prevent users from voting more than once. Chase will not use your Facebook account to get any information or post anything to your newsfeed. They simply use it to tally votes. Click “Login with Facebook” from the pop-up.

4. Search for “era404” in the Business Name field at the bottom.

5. Click the “Vote” button to the right of era404 in the search results (there will only be one result).

That’s it! If you feel comfortable, please forward this message to friends and family. We only have until June 30th to get 250 votes to be entered into the competition.

Lastly, if you’re worried about Chase and LivingSocial having access to your profile (even though they will not user your information or post on your behalf), you can revoke the privileges after voting, here:https://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=applications

Thank you SO much for your time and support!

/ Don

Note to Self

Android’s “Note to Self” feature has become a life saver for me. I remember things when I’m walking to and from meetings, sitting on the train, or generally away from my desk. And rather than keep a notepad or moleskine and pen with me at all times, I’d begun to use the message voice action that’s packaged with Android.

The only cumbersome aspect of this feature is that it doesn’t let you specify the recipient of the note to self. After all, in Google’s world, your Google Account’s main email/gmail address is (and should be) your “self.”

“Maybe I can recreate the main email address tied to my HTC Evo,” I thought, “so that it’s a more specific ‘self'”. I tried to change it from don.citarella to don.citarella+mobile, but had no luck. Apparently, once you’ve associated a main address with an Android phone, the only way to remove/change it is to perform a factory reset.

So, while it’s not the cleanest/best solution, Gmail Filters do the trick.

Read more

/ Don

era404.com Reboot

era404 screenshot

I always say that the cobbler’s kids have the oldest shoes. The last relaunch of era404.com had been in 2005, before the widespread use of iOS devices (which don’t support Adobe Flash) and the release of browsers capable of supporting HTML5, CSS3 and JQuery.

For the last few years, as all designers seem to do, I kept saying “God, I really need to update our site.” As my brother Chris always says, “the second worst problem in the world is having too much work, but it’s far better than the alternative.” era404 has been fortunate in that we’ve never found ourselves with too much idle time on our hands. That said, we’ve been seriously lacking in the capacity to explore new business development and professional upkeep and maintenance on our public image. Until now. Read more