Recently No. 001

Busy. In a word, the best way to explain this week. The weeks have been packed since the beginning of the year. It’s a good kind of busy though — no time to read feeds, just a quick sweep two or three times a day at Twitter, but mostly time is spent in applications, communicating, solving problems, creating solutions.

Tin Cans with String to You
Skype has been a remarkable tool for group communication and work. It’s cost-effective (free for some), fast and handles media and chatting well. I hardly ever get on Adium or chat period as I dislike distraction, but Skype works very well for talking to Scott and Andrew in Chicago. Being able to speak to each other without the effort of having to dial outright, lift a phone or see each other goes a long way in bridging the gap both geographically and with the time difference. Technology eh?

Pick Two
I like all of our clients. I like them even better when they’re whip smart and decisive. Lately, we’ve been fortunate to have clients that are both.

Investing in Ourselves
We’re building sweat equity in tech, which I like to call “sweat tech-uity”, creating, designing, developing a web application that should see the light of day very soon. It makes me very happy. If you’re on the mailing list or on Dribbble, you may have seen some sneak peeks or actually know what it is. It’ll come in handy if you’re headed to South By Southwest Interactive. We hope it’ll be useful and fun. We built it with ourselves in mind, and we think we’re like a lot of people so it should have some appeal.

Squirming at the Old Me
Andrew is in the Chicago Tribune this week for his personal project, 1954. Andrew posts a spread from his journal from 1993 daily. The name comes from the datebook itself — it’s from 1954, which happened to coincide with the dates exactly in 1993. Read the article or visit the site.

Stretch That Back Out & Those Thumbs
Scott’s been a busy man himself. Two things: he released the customized jQuery script that is in use on the website we designed for Central. It’s called Backstretch and scales a background image up if it meets its maximum size — a lovely full screen background. Very nifty and an effect seen prior only in Flash.

The second: a problem that might happen in the new iPad and a possible solution to it. The iPad split keyboard. Reminds me of those ergonomic keyboards that split the keys at an angle. I could never get into those.

Stamps, Labels, Envelopes, Embossers, Cards, Buttons
Jen has been doing an amazing job doing research and getting all sorts of materials ready for the shop. One of the decisions we made with packaging and print materials is that we’ve opted for reusable and recyclable materials wherever possible and environmentally friendly printing, inks and processes. This is important to us, and so we’ve gone the extra mile to be eco-conscious.

Some items have arrived, and things are looking really sharp. We had a custom embosser made, and I’ve been embossing things like it’s going out of style. New cards ready for everyone, and new glow in the dark buttons are gleefully making me smile like the kid I used to be coming from our long-time friends over at Busy Beaver. Christen Carter & Co. never cease to produce the best buttons.

⊕ wsft.us/163