m@: überesque vägaries.

I’ve been jamming out to the Delorean song featured in...

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 12:16:00 -0500

I’ve been jamming out to the Delorean song featured in this video for the last few weeks. I loved the original, but this remix is fantastic. You can hear it over here at SoundCloud, too.

I’m not sure how I stumbled across it, but I’m sure...

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 10:54:00 -0500

I’m not sure how I stumbled across it, but I’m sure glad I did. At the end of January, YouTube released some pretty mind-boggling stats around popularity and upload rate. But they celebrated it with a wonderfully immersive microsite.

Every second, one hour of video is uploaded to YouTube. That’s 24 hours every 24 seconds… or a decade every single day. Discover more time-bending stats at http://www.onehourpersecond.com.

The problem with statistics like this lies in its stickiness and comprehensibility factor. (Yes, I made that last term up.) Just reading the rate above as text, anyone would have hard time wrapping his mind around what ‘24hrs of uploaded video every 24 seconds’ really means. Is that a lot? It sounds like a lot, right? Luckily, Google (and lots of other smart companies) are starting to leverage the powers of HTML5 and CSS to create sites that go well beyond that of a boring stat or embedded video.

Give a look at the One Hour Per Second site and you’ll see what I mean. They coupled a strong artistic representation and mental extension of this rate applied to other (somewhat) tangible things that help you draw comparisons to comprehending this data:

“In 1.5 seconds of uploads to YouTube, the International Space Station completes one orbit of the earth. [1.5 seconds of uploads =] 91 minutes of video”
“In 36 seconds of uploads to YouTube, the Byrd Glacier in Antarctica moves 14.76 feet. 36hrs of video”
“In 1 minute 36 seconds of uploads to YouTube, the Sahara Desert expands by 500 feet. 4 days of video”

You get the idea. But it’s this light interaction and seamless transition between animated elements and an almost a cappella soundtrack that creates a joyous interactive experience. It’s really the audio that does it for me. It’s like the teacher in Charlie Brown meets a beatbox extraordinaire.

Want some other neat examples I’ve seen recently? Check out Google’s Zeitgeist 2011, a beautiful HTML5 representation of their popular search data. Really, it’s gorgeous. (But keep in mind that it’s basically a Keynote presentation of data made interactive and exciting.) Or even check out Kickstarter’s Annual Report / Year in Review. Stats, popular videos, and project recaps have never been so interesting. Do sexy infographics make your pulse quicken? GOOD is for you.

These are my new running shoes. That’s right. They are...

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 19:08:29 -0500

These are my new running shoes. That’s right. They are awesome, thanks for noticing.

Finally.

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 11:25:11 -0500

Finally.

Bug with Tumblr Backdated Posts Ordering?

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 19:37:10 -0500

Hey Tumblr — I haven’t heard anything back from you loverly folks in over a week.

I’ve been Googling “tumblr backdated posts ordering issue” (or some derivation) for the last few weeks hoping something would arise, but I’m not having much luck. I found a few posts describing post backdating working or not, but nothing along the lines of the pagination ordering issue I’ve been seeing. I figure there’s got to be a few other people experiencing a similar issue, so why not write it up?

As I’m sure my few followers have noticed, I’ve been putting a bit of work into finally filling out my portfolio over the past few weeks. In an effort to keep things simple, I’m just using a tag #portfolio to create that section of my site.

As I was planning the best strategy to overhaul my digital existence, it eventually came down to a WordPress vs. Tumblr scenario. I’ve had a lot of WordPress work experience, so I know how powerful and customizable it can be, but I know it can also be a good amount of work to publish simple posts — especially on the go. And although they’ve got some improved apps, nothing really compares to the simplicity of the Tumblr suite. And let’s be honest, the themes are way sexier. So I thought I’d keep it as simple as possible for as long as viable. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about myself, it’s that the easier it is to create the content, the more likely I will be to do it.

I had one requirement that I wasn’t sure Tumblr could fulfill: backdated posts. I needed a way to create an ordered portfolio section. With a bit of poking and experimentation, I found that Tumblr supported this. Whew. And tag pages even support RSS feeds to match, which would be nice if I ever want to display a feed of only portfolio items, like on the next version of MattLeiker.com. The RSS feed even displays the backdated post date correctly.

As I’ve created posts related to the projects I’ve worked on over the last 8 years, I started to notice something was funky with the post ordering between pages. Since I started with cataloging more recent projects and worked my way backward (for the most part), I’ve ended up creating posts for some of my oldest projects last. Yet those newer posts have the oldest (backdated) post dates.

If you look at my portfolio page, you’ll notice that all the posts on the first page are appear to be ordered by date. Glorious. Perfect. Wonderful.

But if you go to the second page of posts with the #portfolio tag and examine the dates, you’ll see that the posts are indeed in chronological order, but they aren’t necessarily older than the posts on the first page.

Crap.

Here’s what I think is going on:

Tumblr supports backdated posts. Glorious.
… but before they started supporting it, I think their system was probably set up to display posts ordered by post ID.
Post IDs get larger as the post gets newer. I suspect post IDs are probably unique across the entire Tumblr system.
This is likely what each users’ dashboard uses to order whatever posts are coming in from their “Follow” list. (It would probably be too complicated for the Tumblr servers to order a Dashboard by date — and that would defeat the purpose.) I don’t mind if my backdated posts show up in the Dashboard, but I do expect them to be in order on my site.
When Tumblr renders a site, I suspect it looks at the list of posts ordered by post ID, grabs the first 15 (or whatever you have it set to display), calls that “Page 1”, then reshuffles them by post date before finally displaying them.
When you click “page 2”, it grabs the next 15 posts in the system ordered by post ID, and then reshuffles ‘em by post date. Wash, rinse, repeat for each page.
(Displaying only posts with a particular tag behaves the same way as the main loop.)

So, what can I do? Is this a bug you’re working on Tumblr? Do you ever expect to support this properly? Or do I have to move to WordPress to get true backdated post support?

I’d really like to not have to remake all the posts in a chronological order before backdating them just as a workaround.

And I’d like to recreate some posts from my old blog here on Tumblr — which has to be a manual process since you don’t support much in the way of importing content. All of those posts would need to be backdated. But I don’t dare if it’s going to wreak havoc on anyone attempting to peruse my archives in a normal fashion.

Please help.

Vimeo has announced that their 2012 Vimeo Festival + Awards are...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 12:07:27 -0500

Vimeo has announced that their 2012 Vimeo Festival + Awards are open to submissions. I completely missed it in 2010, but their award ceremony was incredibly well done. Hosted by early internet comedy vlogger Ze Frank, the real star of the show was their incredible ‘architectural projection’ set. If you do nothing else, watch a few seconds of the video above around the 7:00 mark and then again at the very end.

It reminds me a lot of the Amon Tobin ‘Isam’ show I saw last year. Wild.

Wonderfully brilliant. Wonderfully simpler. Not entirely...

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 12:06:00 -0500

Wonderfully brilliant. Wonderfully simpler. Not entirely practical, but who uses printed maps these days anyway?

Ingenious Infographic: U.S. Highways, Mapped Like A Subway System

Curious to see what the hubbub is all about here at the New York...

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:08:45 -0500

Curious to see what the hubbub is all about here at the New York Tech Meetup. There’s 800 attendees and yet tix originally sold out in 2 mins. @nytm #nerd

‘All is fare in love & Brooklyn’...

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:38:55 -0500

‘All is fare in love & Brooklyn’
…Especially at the intersection of Meh and Eh.

Testing out my traveling train mobile workstation: iPad +...

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:56:52 -0500

Testing out my traveling train mobile workstation: iPad + B.tooth keyboard + wifi.

Howdy Viewers! A quick note...

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:31:00 -0500

For those of you viewing this portfolio feed on my personal landing page, MattLeiker.com:

I recommend clicking here to view my portfolio and all it’s rich formatting on Tumblr.

For those of you viewing this portfolio feed on Tumblr:

Tumblr seems to be experiencing some big bugs with regards to pagination and backdated posts. There are just shy of 30 portfolio entries, only 15 of which on the first page (and even those aren’t necessarily the newest). Please see page 2 for additional entries until I’ve got this resolved.

MattLeiker.com, v4.0 Retired January 2012, you were simple,...

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:01:00 -0500

MattLeiker.com, v4.0

Retired January 2012, you were simple, clean, and served me well. But you weren’t very easy to update and had no dynamic qualities. Shame on you. Rest in peace.

View the archived version. (My apologies in advance for any broken links.)

Music forever.

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 16:25:29 -0500

Music forever.

ABC News Voce Communications; launched August 2011 ABC News was...

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 09:46:00 -0400

ABC News

Voce Communications; launched August 2011

ABC News was interested in moving all of their channel-level blogs to WordPress. They needed an enterprise-grade, dependable solution to incorporate their new designs, as well as simplify their publishing process. As the political season was just heating up, it all needed a carefully choreographed late-night switchover so as to minimize the disruption. Voce worked in coordination with ABC News’ design department, sales team, support staff, and QA groups to make the migration and switchover possible.

project management, on-site client meetings & presentations

Disney Properties Newsroom Network Voce Communications; rolling...

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 10:28:00 -0400

Disney Properties Newsroom Network

Voce Communications; rolling launches began June 2011

One of the loftiest and most challenging projects during my time at Voce was the task of creating a unified, simple, and powerful Newsroom platform that could be utilized and customized by all the Disney Parks news properties. The project serviced the public relations and public affairs departments for Disney Parks, Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, Disney Sports, Disney Vacation Club, and Adventures by Disney.

This long-term project required collecting a set of unified requirements from numerous stakeholders and a changing team of corporate representatives. It required interfacing Disney’s legal teams, incorporating various rounds of feedback and approvals. It also demanded that we leapfrog Disney’s internal IT department, while satisfying audit requests. The Newsroom project also required designing a template-based system that could be adjusted and customized to each newsroom’s individual brands and needs. As the project neared launch, it necessitated that I create a dynamic digital set of training tutorials that could be continuously updated as we added and refined features. Ensuring that all the Disney stakeholders understood the new system and the intricacies of the custom elements we created especially for their needs, I visited the various teams on both coasts, performing presentations and training sessions.

account management, primary client contact, project management, drafted & maintained SOWs, created product requirements documents, rough UX/design mocks, content migration, initial template & site setups, development QA, post-launch support, on-site client meetings & presentations, authored extensive tutorials, conducted on-site training

ESPN Front Row Voce Communications; launched April 2011, upkeep...

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 18:50:00 -0400

ESPN Front Row

Voce Communications; launched April 2011, upkeep through 2012

Lifting language from my announcement post on Voce’s blog:

The Voce Connect Platforms team is pleased to announce the launch of ESPNFrontRow.com, a WordPress-based corporate platform for ESPN’s communications department to offer “news about ESPN, employees at ESPN and behind-the-scenes activity at the sports media empire”, as Technorati aptly put it. Mike Soltys, ESPN’s vice president of communications, was quoted earlier in SportsBusiness Daily saying, “This is a way for us to speak directly with consumers.”

Seeing the incredible success of the work we’d done on the Disney Parks Blog, ESPN was eager and excited to finally have an official platform on which they could respond to issues, promote events, and give fans the behind-the-scenes look that they crave. We helped give them a simple and manageable set of tools to tell their tales. It also doesn’t hurt that the site is mantastically sexy.

account management, primary client contact, project management, on-site client meetings & presentations, drafted SOW, created business / product requirements documents, development QA, post-launch support

∂isney Creative Lab Voce Communications; launched Jan. 2011,...

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 10:32:00 -0500

∂isney Creative Lab

Voce Communications; launched Jan. 2011, ongoing support/updates throughout year

The Creative Lab is an internal brainstorming and “cool sharing” site that allows cast members the opportunity to share “buzz” with the Imagineering team, executives, and peers. This could include internet memes, humorous YouTube videos, or outlandish images. Employees can then create an “idea” from a buzz by sharing a suggestion or concept as to how it could be similarly actioned or modified by the company. Fellow users can comment, vote up their favorites, and engage in discussions around ideas and concepts.

Similar to sharing a link on Facebook, the system would automatically grab text and images from a link to a website or video. Ideas and buzz could be sorted by a popularity metric. Users could even be ranked against each other by an engagement metric. The Lab also featured some great editorial tools for idea generation such as a homepage carousel, blog, a moderated Brainstorm area, bookmarklet, and a live feed of activity across the site that could be monitored. It even further integrated with various systems by incorporating hooks into the company authentication system and internal share tools.

primary client contact, project management, drafted & maintained SOWs, created product & technical requirements documents, development QA, post-launch support, on-site client meetings & presentations

AARP Blog Voce Communications; launched Jan. 2011, ongoing...

Fri, 07 Jan 2011 09:52:00 -0500

AARP Blog

Voce Communications; launched Jan. 2011, ongoing support/updates throughout year

AARP was looking to migrate their existing Shaarpsession blog and get on the WordPress VIP wagon. We took the opportunity to clean up the theme, organize and refine the content hierarchy, and get everything jiving with AARP’s global SSO (single sign-on) and header/footer integrations.

primary client contact, project management, drafted SOW, created business / product requirements documents, development QA, post-launch retainer support

NVIDIA Blog Voce Communications; launched December 2010 NVIDIA...

Fri, 03 Dec 2010 17:52:00 -0500

NVIDIA Blog

Voce Communications; launched December 2010

NVIDIA knew the importance of maintaining an official corporate presence, but was unhappy with their previous platform. Voce was charged with the site redesign, migration of existing content, and development of custom WordPress theme and features to support NVIDIA’s editorial needs.

account management, primary client contact, project management, drafted SOW, created business / product requirements documents, development QA, authored tutorials, post-launch support

Fujitsu ScanSnap Community Voce Communications; retainer upkeep...

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 11:14:00 -0500

Fujitsu ScanSnap Community

Voce Communications; retainer upkeep 2010-2011

Already existing in the Voce PR network as a WordPress blog, the Platforms team was charged with iterative upkeep and feature development for the ScanSnap Community site. Major enhancements include adding internationalization language support (i18n) and support video carousel.

project management