MentalX

An obligatory piece of Obama art…

I finally dropped a new design very quickly (under an hour from blank page to closing Coda). There is still a bunch of work that needs to be done, however, the shell is pretty much up. Over the next few weeks I will be doing a lot of clean up, moving things around, and making space for web experiments (what this site was created for in 1999…hence the name Mental X), art work, and music. I am also going to change the style of the writing a bit. It feels like the Noah New year. Should be loads of fun…

New site will be on hand in the coming weeks. Still working out the direction, and making mods to the design. Until then, please follow my tweets:

http://twitter.com/earlatron

I have started Twittering!! Yes, I know, I created an account almost a year ago, and never really used it. However, I have been feeling like engaging in the world of online sociality and often don’t have the time to write as much on the blog as I’d like. I was first considering a Tumblelog, but still feel like having a place to expound might still be useful. So, I will Twitter…

I have place a Twitter feed up there in the upper-right corner of this page, or you can follow me at:

http://twitter.com/earlatron

Everybody should join up, as it will be good fun. Mom…this means you too!!

So, I have discovered that I do a ton of reading on the internet everyday. So much so, that I have developed a process for finding, archiving an reading articles. Today was a particularly good pull. Figured I’d drop the urls:

http://www.lawrence.com/news/2008/mar/24/art_world_player/

http://www.webdesignermag.co.uk/images/wd_features /interviews/virb/interviews_virb.html

http://thelittlechimpsociety.com/theape/lcs-interview-tado/

http://www.simplebits.com/notebook/2008/03/14/mss.html

http://www.brendandawes.com/code/ dynamic-colour-color-harmony-with-actionscript

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/business/media/31huffington.html

http://www.joshspear.com/item/feng-gui-lab/

Oh, and don’t miss this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0qMe7Z3EYg

Well, after many years in Phoenix, AZ, my wife and I have decided to pack up all of our stuffs, and move along. In doing so, I left my job at Arizona State University to take the position of Publication and Web Coordinator in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Colorado – Boulder. The downside is that I left an outstanding team of web developers. The upside is that Nikki and I get to have a new adventure in Boulder, and I get to have a very exciting new challenge at CU. To all of my friends in Phoenix, stay in touch. To any new friends in the Greater Denver area, please feel free to contact me.

I will be posting more as soon as we get settled (the big move is this weekend — Feb. 29). And might even undertake yet another redesign of Mental X (Can you tell it’s one of my favorite things to do?). Until then…

Well, the last few weeks have been crazy. Work, as always, ramped up for a few weeks there before the start of the Spring semester. We seem to have made it over that hump, but there is no shortage of work to do from this point forth.

I have updated the music recommendations on the sidebar to reflect my current listening habits. Some old. Some new. All good stuff.

I have also posted a new track from my alter ego, Arlo Hansen. It is not mastered but does serve as a decent rough mix. If anybody out there knows of a good place, or has a studio available to master this style of music please drop me a line. You can find the track here:

http://www.mentalx.com/music/nfd.mp3

Until next time.

While I haven’t been doing much posting on this site over the last month or so, I have been plowing through a mountain of work. Here is some design work from one of my latest projects.

I have a few things to get underway to start off the new year. After those are dealt with, I will be returning my attention to this site — making a few tweaks, and starting up again with the regular posts. Until then…

So, Nikki and I finally broke down and each bought an iPhone. This was more out of necessity than anything else, as our old phones were reaching the end of their days. I initially tested the iPhone when it first came out, and was not as impressed as I thought I’d be. Now, after having the phone for a couple weeks, I can firmly say it is one of the best tech purchases I have made in recent years. It is not the end-all-be-all, but it is certainly the start of a new direction in mobile phone technology.

Since purchasing the iPhone, I have tested a strong cross-section of the sites I’ve designed. Leaving Flash out of the picture, everything has worked beautifully with one exception. There were several instances where text sizes were increased, and the overflowing of a div took place. These were solved by simply adding this line of code to the Body tag of the header includes for the sites in question:

style=”-webkit-text-size-adjust:none”

Safari on the iPhone automatically adjust text size to make things easier to read. With the aforementioned tag, you can turn this off.

I am off the NYC next week to the Future of Web Design conference. I am extremely excited about this and am really looking forward to squeezing as much information into my brain as I can. Speaking at the conference will be: Khoi Vinh, Joshua Davis, Zeldman, Andy Clarke, Jina Bolton, Ryan Sims, and many others. There are still conference passes available if you are in the area. Check it out at: http://futureofwebdesign.com/

Just got back from Denver this week. Thank you to all who covered our heads, and filled our bellies with beer. Until next time.

Many of the sites/media that I design and develop are under lock and key as they are all live courses with enrolled students who pay top dollar for the education. As a result, most of my work can’t be seen in motion. This not only bums me out, but also has hindered the advancement of my career in some ways. So, I figured I make a demo reel of sorts that quickly takes people through a series of my best work. After many takes, I finally got what I wanted and am posting it here (and on the sidebar). I will be heading into the studio to do some voiceover work for it, but I won’t have time for several weeks. In the meantime, take a look at the demo, and please let me know what you think. I am certainly open to suggestions.

http://www.mentalx.com/video/larsen_demo_lg.mov