Adam Parker's Blog

Make Your Own Butter

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 22:18:48 EST

There are so many every-day things that we use but have no clue about how they are made. It has always interested me to know how things are made so that, if needed, I could make them myself. Something about being dependent on others for just about everything seems...well, reckless.

So I saw a video showing how to make a commonly used food product, butter.

Turns out butter is very simple to make. Here are the steps:

1) get heaving whipping cream
2) place cream at room temperature into a sealed container
3) shake until the buttermilk (liquid) separates from the butter (solid) [takes about 3-5 minutes of slow deliberate shakes]
4) pour off the buttermilk (save for other uses)
5) rinse off butter to get rid of extra buttermilk
6) add a little salt for taste
7) use!!!

That's it, really just shake, separate and eat. Very Very simple to make butter, but beforehand I would have never known.

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Twitter Now integrated into my blog feed.

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 23:43:34 EST

I have just finished integrating my personal twitter timeline into my blogs.

Since there are so many tweets I make, it would take up too much space to list them all out. All of my real blogs would be washed out. So I just list the number of tweets between blogs and the details can be expanded if someone wants to see more.

Feels good to make a change to the old site again. And integrating some content that I update on a regular basis is kinda nice too.
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Did you see my work today?

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:03:58 EST

So I don't typically write about work on this blog, but today is different.

"Why is it different?" you ask?

Well, today it's different because there is a good chance you saw my work today.

I have been working a lot on facebook lately because one of my responsibilities is to implement our campaign on facebook (read the reuters article here) and part of that campaign was to have a virtual gift. (g)

Today that virtual gift was the 'gift of the day' which means it was on the home page for every facebook user who logged on. So, since half of facebook's 66 million users log in daily, that means around 33 million people saw my work today. I would say that isn't half bad.

Here's what users saw:

And another picture:

So go onto facebook's giftshop and give a friend 'the boot!' with love from CareerBuilder.com

update 4/8/2008
So I got the official numbers today. Turns out that the gift was seen 79,727,580 times. That's pretty awesome!!! And over 100,000 people gave the gift to friends.
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Microsoft Surface Demonstration at MIX 08

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 10:17:12 EST

This past week at the Microsoft Internet Expo (MIX) I had a chance to play around with the Surface product, their multi-touch display/input device.

There isn't much new to add, but I can say that the product works as advertised. I didn't have any problem manipulating the objects on the screen.

Using silverlight 2 and expression, the development for this device will be great. Now that the Silverlight 2 beta is out, I would recommend grabbing a copy. It is going to be very nice to be able to develop web apps, windows apps, surface apps and mobile apps through the same/similar code base.

Here are some videos I took showing the device in action.

Pictures
The standard demonstration of image manipulation through touch. Includes the WiFi image transfer from a camera.

Snowboard Creator
This one hasn't been shown much. Imagine customizing a snowboard through an easy-to-use surface app that allows you to take your creation with you for later purchase. Not bad, very close to the t-mobile app.

Music Sharing
This was shown earlier as well, this is basically a fancy juke-box and a way to share media between WiFi enabled media devices. Also includes clip of the 'water on rocks' app and the app selection interface.

Paint
Another generica application. Nothing new here either, but a satisfactory proof of concept.

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Visiting Hoover Dam

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 23:35:40 EST

So, after the MIX conference three coworkers and I took Saturday to travel out to Hoover Dam for a little sight seeing. I had been many years ago, but couldn't remember much.

see all the hoover dam pictures here

We rode an hour by bus out to the dam and got the standard tour. Since 9/11, the tour has been cut back and you can't go all the way to the bottom anymore.

We did get to go down 500 feet and see the turbines as well as one of the spillways used to divert the river during the dam's construction.

After the tour we had a few minutes to walk over to the Arizona side of the dam before heading to the Lake Mead overlook.

I was glad we went but was very disappointed to not get to go to the bottom of the dam. That would have been a cool picture opportunity.

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Stay at The Vanetian in Las Vegas

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 17:58:11 EST

So I am out at a conference in Vegas being held at the Venetian hotel and casino. While I had been here before, I had never stayed here. Boy is it nice, much better than i had anticipated.

you can see all the pictures here

The room was a suite and it was a great place to go back to and relax. There were 2 TVs. A sitting area. Full marble bathroom. I would definitely consider staying here again when I come back.

I was on the 11th floor and it took about 15 minutes to walk from my room over to the convention center area.

Just an FYI to anyone thinking about staying there, my room ran ~$280 a night.

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Another Facebook App - Image Share

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 23:08:51 EST

So I've made another facebook application that has a little more usefulness than my previous application. This app allows anyone who adds the app to see shared pictures from any user on 4tay that they have previously subscribed to.

Currently there is no direct way for users to specify which pictures they want to share via their "shared six" that is broadcast out to Facebookand eventually MySpace.

This is a much better example of what a facebook application should be since it actually allows user interaction. For anyone interested, the application can be found here. This just one more of many apps to come.

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4tay is on Facebook

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 17:38:56 EST

Ok, so this isn't the most revolutionary thing in the world, but it is a sign of things to come. So I've created my first 4tay facebook application and it's out there for you all to try.

4tay.com Blog Feeder

So, yeah, this functionality can already be had via the notes feature and the existing rss feed, but that's besides the point.

The blog feeder is a way to map your facebook account to your 4tay account. The top 5 (unarchived and public) entries will be pulled and linked to on your profile page.

For now you can only map to one account and pull that content in. In the near future, you will be able to pull in anyone's blogs if they allow facebook sharing.

This just opens the doors for more applications in the future and this one is sure to see some of its upgrades implemented soon. I will also do a writeup listing everything I had to learn in order to make this first app so that you too can start making custom content for your facebook page.

Links
You can see the Application Page here: http://apps.facebook.com/forteblogfeeder
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Blurb Italy book has arrived

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 01:00:38 EST

Well, the book is done and is here. It looks great!! The 138 pages was thinner than I thought it would be, but it is still a pretty big book.

see all the sample pics here

So it took about 6 days to print and 8 days to ship. The wait was painful, but it arrived on time. Looking through it I noticed a few things that I would take note of.

1) Quality of the Shot Matters

I noticed that the difference between dull and sharp was highlighted in the book. Those are differences I may have noticed if I had put the book together using better displays, but it should be useful to note that the sharper the print you can get, the better results you'll have. My exceptionally sharp prints seem to just pop out.

2) Print Quality Issues (spots)

Prints on black backgrounds or with lots of black in them seemed to have a tendancy to show spots on them. In my mind this is to be expected, but I mention it so that you aren't caught off guard when your first order arrives. Most of the spots are solo and they only occur on a few pages. There are 2 pages towards the back where the spots are more prominent (see picture).

3) Print Quality Issues (color abnormalities)

I've printed one other book before and it was from Apple. In the book there were 2 shots where a certain shade of blue was missing causing a pixilated effect in 2 areas. Something semi similar occurred this time as well.

The yellow area should have printed white, but came out yellow for some reason. Since this only mildly detracts from the shot and it only happened once, I'll write it off as the gamble of cheap, custom, printing. Since this was the only mistake, I would say that a > 99% success rate is wonderful.
This error turns out to be mine, upon further examination of my original print, there is indeed a tint of yellow in those clouds as you can see here. Sorry blurb! This is another reason why creating a photobook on anything other than the best display is like playing russian roulette.

Summary

So, again, I am very happy with the book. I'm sure it will sit on my coffee table for years to come and be joined by many more creations. For the size and quality, the price can't be beat.

After seeing the results, I would recommend blurb to everyone.

See the Final Product Here:

Ten Days in Italy

By Adam Parker

Book Preview

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Italy Book Finally Done - Blurb

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 14:17:34 EST

Wow, so it's been a month since I've been back and it has taken me this long to finish my book. I placed my order yesterday and it will take up to 2 weeks to be printed and shipped here, I can't wait!!

The end result is 138 pages with one or two pictures per page. I decided that I would forego writing a story and just let the pictures speak for themselves. Of the ~1860 pictures I took, only 160 made it into the book. I only put pictures that could stand on their own and I think the overall quality of the book will be improved because of that.

I chose blurb as my publisher. Through their software application I was able to easily create and order my 11" x 14" hard-cover book. The total cost will come out to be $95 including the standard ground shipping, which is not bad considering a 20 page softback by Apple cost me around $20. Extend that out and it would be almost $200.

I'll post a follow-up once the book arrives, I just know it's going to be well worth the time, effort and money. Check out the preview on the right.

Ten Days in Italy

By Adam Parker

Book Preview

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