SML Life Card

Introducing the SML Life Card. It's like the Joker except it's brighter.

QDOS = Digital presence tracking metrics

Screenshot: http://qdos.com/user/See-ming-Lee/3a0f686c608b5a3da8200b97aacdfc48/html

QDOS is an service which measures a person's digitial presence, which is a formula based on the person's popularity, impact, activity and individuality.

QDOS index fluctuates overtime, and was most evidential in my recent absence from Internet play. The charting application (not shown here) can plot a person's QDOS over time. I wish that there is a way to chart multiple person over time though.

According to today's report, I have higher influence than Julia Stiles at the moment, having a Q4916 (the higher the better) and a ranking of #2,166 out of 67,660 actively tracked profiles.

To put things into perspective, Robert Scoble has Q6064 (ranking #628) while Pete Cashmore (Q7313) is at #187. Barack Obama has a Q11733 and is the top-ranked person at the moment, followed immediately by Britney Spears, 50 Cent and Beyonce Knowles.

What's your QDOS like? Find your QDOS and post a screenshot on Flickr.

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

SML Massify Pitch: Crazy is Good

Created my first pitch on Massify today:

http://www.massify.com/pitches/crazyisgood



I hope that I'll be able to do a bit more interviews with the folks the next time I head out again.

About Massify
Those of you who is unfamiliar with Massify: it's a film production social network / community that unites filmmakers, actors and fans in the pursuit of great film. The site provides tools targeted to filmmakers, as well as abundant space for users to showcase their portfolio and reels. In addition to features commonly found on other social networks, Massify also partners with recognized film production companies and organizes competitions to promote and attract talents.

Their latest competition is a music video challenge where directors will get to pitch ideas for the rock band Low vs Diamond. The winner will get to work with Epic Records and RSA Films - a great opportunity for aspiring filmmakers indeed.

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

Facebook: New Design Rollout 2008

www.new.facebook.com/profile.php?id=667218034

Facebook started rolling out a new site design on July 20, 2008 for users to preview and test the functionality of the site. The new design has been under testing since the beginning of this year, and more than 100,000 Facebook users have participated in user testings which led to many layout and features included in the final version.

The profile page comes with a single status feed + the wall, with additional info and photos pulled into separate tabs. All the applications have been grouped into the Boxes tab. The users can add additional application tabs as required (similar to iGoogle fucntionality).

Tabs should address the insane load-time with many profiles, but the added benefit to Facebook is that there are now more opportunities for them to display ads - so it's a win-win situation for the company as well as the user.

You can check out the new design at www.new.facebook.com


©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

Animoto = Generative music video using photography

I have been meaning to try out Animoto for a while now and I finally got to it today. The service analyzes photos and music to create a video slideshow.

Images can be uploaded or imported via popular photo sharing sites such as Flickr, Facebook, SmugMug, etc. For the soundtrack, you can either upload your own or pick from their music library, which covers several different genres, from classical to electronica, from jazz to indie rock.

As with any generative services, the results are mixed. You don't really have a say on how the effects will be mixed together. But it is good if you need to throw something together quickly.



SML Photography from See-ming Lee 李思明 SML on Vimeo.



Coney Island Mermaid Parade / 2007-2008 / See-ming Lee from See-ming Lee 李思明 SML on Vimeo.

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

Utata > Explore

Most people flock to Flickr Explore to discover interesting shots, but the algorithm is a bit of a hit or miss sometimes. Provided that you have pretty good photography skills and have a good idea of who it works, you can game the engine.

The best way to find photography on Flickr that speak to you is to discover your own gem. In many ways, explored photographs are already discovered. While on the surface it appears that you are finding something rare, in reality you are already one step behind the machine. Why let the machines decide your fate. Find stuff on your own.

Lately I've become active in the Utata pool again, because almost every photo feature there has depth that speaks volume. Don't take my word for it. Run up to the Utata pool on Flickriver. It's a better way to explore and find hidden talents.

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

Swurl = RSS aggregation with sweet timeline

seeminglee.swurl.com/timeline



Swurl is yet another RSS aggregation service that I just discovered. it has the usual list view (see seeminglee.swurl.com) but also a timeline view that places your activities around the activities themselves, instead of locking them into a calendar view. I like this.

Unlike most services which requires you to go about to invite your friends to join the service, it fetches your contacts from various services into the friends list automatically.

More goodies > FriendFeed is that Swurl apparently imports your complete set of Flickr data, not just recent stuff like FF. In this sense, I can see Swurl function better as a history trail.

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

Opera emotional stickiness

Checking out Flowgram today and came across this video of an opera singer in the "top viral videos of the year" collection. The collection comes handy in verifying some of the principles made by the book I'm reading at the moment: Made to Stick: simplicity, unexpectedness, emotions, stories.

Britain's got talent paul potts nessun dorma !!!by allsortofvids103

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

Gecko Reflow

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

One vision, one line of thought, and classical music

I love TED, but it is not often that I find myself watching the same video over and over again. Using classical music as a medium, Benjamin Zander re-ignited my passion for classical music, my sense of purpose in life, and inspired me to not think about the tiny details which do not matter, and focus on experiencing everything with one broad stroke.

Benjamin Zander: Classical music with shining eyes



©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

How do you design? by Hugh Dubberly

www.dubberly.com/articles/how-do-you-design.html



In this 147-page book (available for download as PDF), Hugh Dubberly collected over one-hundred descriptions of design and development processes in hopes to foster debate about design and development processes.

The book asks interesting questions:
+ How do we design? Why do we do it that way?
+ How do we describe what we do? Why do we talk about it that way?
+ How do we do better?

...with practical goals in mind:
+ reducing risk (increasing the probability of success)
+ setting expectations (reducing uncertainty and fear)
+ increasing repeatability (enabling improvement)

It's an interesting and inspiring read. Highly recommended.

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

Orange: First internet balloon race

Orange launched another advertising campaign: the world's first internet balloon race.



The game is a little bit different than most other internet games in that the game does not occur on one site, but instead occurs among multiple sponsor sites. Anyone can be a sponsor--all you need to do is submit a URL to the game.

Anyone can join the game and get a balloon. The only way to move ahead though, it appears, is when you visit a site, or when anyone decides to give you a boost or when you landed on a site that would give you extras.

The whole experience feels a little bit like web-ring meets 1010wins. If you are determined to win the race, you ended up visiting a ton of sites that you normally won't get to. The 'sponsors' in turn get some brand exposure. In this sense Orange is providing a free advertising platform in the name of an internet game, and through doing so create brand awareness for itself... power to the users?

via CrackUnit

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

Foldable display concepts by Johnny Lee

Johnny Lee from Carnegie Mellon University demonstrates some of his ideas on how we can simulate displays on flexible and foldable surfaces in order to fit large interactive display into our pockets. Tracking is accomplished using the Wii Remote and IR LEDs.



via Aaron Rutledge

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

Wordle.net = tag clouds with beautiful typography

More visualization goodness: Wordle.net generates typographically beautiful tag clouds via a del.icio.us username or words submitted on your own.

SML Del.icio.us Tags


SML Flickr Tags: Use http://www.fluffykittens.com/wordle/ to generate the data needed.


©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

Many Eyes = Community for data and data visualization

I found an interesting site called Many Eyes a few weeks ago. It's a collaborative environment where users can upload data sets and use one of the site's visualization module to create interesting visualization.



To create the visualization seen above, I first grabbed the complete list of tags from my Flickr account using the flickr.tags.getListUserPopular method. I then formatted the results (tags and tag count) to the format required by the site. After my data is uploaded, I chose to visualize my data using the Bubble Chart format.

Here's an interactive version where you can explore my tags in detail, or search for a tag.

In the screenshot captured above, I searched for my initials SML and highlighted all the tags that contain it. The reason there are so many instances of it being used is partly because I like to use very specific tags, such as SML.Graphic-Design and SML.Appendectomy to easily get to my stuff on the public pool without the need to use combinations or username.

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

Coney Island Mermaid Parade 2008

I had a lot of fun photographing the Coney Island Mermaid Parade last year so I went back for seconds this year. As I process my photographs, I noticed that I am inherently attracted to really colorful things. The photographs bear similarity to my information design projects :)

Related Flickr Sets
+ Coney Island Mermaid Parade 2008
+ Coney Island Mermaid Parade 2007















©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

Frustration with Yahoo Small Business

Last year I registered 200+ domain names with Yahoo. It was cheap and efficient, and all is well... until last week.

I had changed my American Express card number and as a result, when the domain names are up for renewal this year, the system alerted me on outdated information. I tried to update my payment information, and to my surprise there is no way to update all the payment methods at once. Domains' payment information can be updated one at a time only, which is a fundamental UI flaw.

To make matters worse, when I clicked on the link to update my information, the site would consistently return a blank page that leads to no where, and I am unable to update anything. I tried refreshing the page but again nothing happens.

In my frustration, I tried contacting support on the phone, and had been on hold for two hours without any assistance, and the call will then be terminated by the system. There are no email support available, and all the meanwhile I am receiving account suspension notices and my domains are failing one by one, a truly frustrating experience.

Here's when the nightmare begin: when I signed up for the service, the domains were 9.95/year. I just received emails telling me that starting on 2008-07-01, the renewals will cost me 34.95/year. If I were unable to cancel my accounts by that date, I will be paying upwards of close to $10,000 for domain names.

Do you have any suggestions as to what I might do? Alternatively, do you know if there is an email where I can reach customer support?


©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

Firefox Mobile Concept Video

Mozilla Labs posted a demo video of the Firefox Mobile on their site today and it's highly innovative using just a single-touch interface — providing yet another great example of how limitations can incubate innovation.

The interaction design is really sweet. For more information, check out the detailed description of all the features on Aza Raskin's blog. (Aza is the head of user experience at Mozilla Labs)


Firefox Mobile Concept Video from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

via LifeHacker

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

Windows Vista

Recently I bought a new computer, because my nifty XPC is really starting to feel old. The computer comes with Vista. Because of all the bad press that it has had, I was really worried how it will turn out.

The computer arrived a few weeks ago and I panic: I wonder how I can possibly get use to the Aero glass window title bars with the dirty smudging blurred effect. It irritates me. It's not clean.

But since I'm stuck with it, I had no choice but to customize my experience and make it better. It's been almost a month now and after much tweaking and adjusting (plus switching to Vista Aero Basic mode), it really is not that bad.

The single-panel scrolling program file list was awkward at first, but now that I have used it for a while, I find it to be quite usable. Production level jump, and I'm no longer sticking five million icons into my quick launch bar anymore.

To paraphrase Zuzana Licko, "people read best what they read most" (Source: AIGA), I believe that "people use best what they use most".

Recommended reading
+ Arstechnica: Windows Vista: more than just a pretty face

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

Flickr Maps

Flickr kept on pumping out new features, like this map view, but I don't know how to get to it on their UI unless I type it into the URL:

www.flickr.com/photos/seeminglee/map



One thing I do like about this UI is that it only shows the related places relevant to the currently displayed photostrip, and only photos that are geo-tagged are displayed here.

The default view looks at the most recent photos only, with the option to sort by interestingness.

Other recently launched features include the ability the explore the world and places, allowing the user to either find out about popular cities, or little known destination — which is a great way to learn about the diversity of culture and humanity.

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

Beatport = Excellent source of electronica

I never really got into buying songs online. When iTunes Store first opened, I bought a few albums from it because I own an iPod, but very quickly I was deterred by the fact that I can't even play my iTunes purchases on my Squeezebox because of the DRM-protection.

Annoyed by the situation, I subscribe to Rhapsody Unlimited, which let me cue up pretty much anything I want for a low monthly subsription fee of $12.99. When I find something I really want to own, I just go buy the CD and rip it to MP3 so I can play it anywhere.

Then Amazon introduced Amazon MP3 Downloads, and it changed everything. Really, what's not to love about being able to purchase DRM-free MP3s encoded at 256k? I thought that the 1-click and ship to feature was evil in getting many books that I probably do not need then.. that's until I discover the even more instantly gratifying 1-click and download MP3 :)

Just when I thought that there can't be anything better than 256k DRM-free MP3 downloads, I discovered Beatport yesterday. Beatport offers 320k DRM-free MP3! To top it off, it even offer WAV (16-bit 44 kHz) and 192kbps M4A!



Little did I know, the site was actually launched in 2004, and the latest version as seen above was released in August 2006. Beatport focuses on electronic music specifically, with an eye squarely focusing on DJs and electronica lovers. In other words, it's made for me.

The content is top-notch, and I am able to get to a lot of remix tracks that I would not otherwise been able to get my hands onto if I were to browse on mainstream music sites (such as those described above).

Highly recommended!

Related SML Universe
+ SML Music
+ SML Remix Music
+ Symphonic Electronica

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

UT LOOP! / 2008 / Uniqlo

Yet another fantastic play toy from Uniqlo:




Play the full thing at http://www.uniqlo.com/utloop

via IconSpam by RSNJ

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

Ten Thousand Cents

Screenshot: http://www.tenthousandcents.com

Ten Thousand Cents is a digital artwork that creates a representation of a $100 bill. Using a custom drawing tool, thousands of individuals working in isolation from one another painted a tiny part of the bill without knowledge of the overall task. Workers were paid one cent each via Amazon's Mechanical Turk distributed labor tool. The total labor cost to create the bill, the artwork being created, and the reproductions available for purchase are all $100.

The project was a collaboration between Aaron Koblin and Takashi Kawashima.

Here's a video documentation:


Ten Thousand Cents from Ten Thousand Cents on Vimeo.

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

Yahoo! Live

http://live.yahoo.com/

Kind of like Kyte, except with better UI – but it does not do video streaming captured on mobile phones which the Kyte platform allows.

In a gist: Yahoo Live allows anyone with a Yahoo ID to broadcast webcam video stream from multiple users at the same time. Y! Live was previously used at the Winter Music Conference which streamed live video stream from different events: http://live.yahoo.com/evt/wmc/

Y! Live is currently under an experimental release, and supports a highly customizable widget for your live feed. I will provide more details after I play around with this a little bit further.

Bonus: you can follow @ylive on Twitter to see if there’s anyone broadcasting live from the site: an interesting idea to get audience.

Updates
+ 2008-04-27: In the original blog post published on 2008-04-25, I have incorrectly stated that Yahoo! Live does not have native Facebook and MySpace support, and i was informed by the development team that there is in fact two Facebook apps and MySpace implementation developed. Details to be posted shortly.

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

Dipity = RSS-driven interactive timeline

Found this nifty site called Dipity yesterday which will turn any RSS feeds (Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, you name it) into an interactive timeline.

The most straight-forward thing to do is of course to visualize your own data:


Interactive version:
http://www.dipity.com/user/seeminglee/timeline/See_ming_Lee

Since it's RSS-driven, you can create anything. Here's a visualization of IconSpam:


http://www.dipity.com/user/seeminglee/timeline/IconSpam

Source: via Lifehacker

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

PicLens = Image browsing made easy

I don't know how I managed to not know anything about PicLens until today.

PicLens is a browser plug-in which transforms image streams into a full-screen browsing experience. I installed the Firefox extension this morning and I'm in image surfing heaven moments after.

Here's a quick demo on YouTube before my review:



I have been on Flickr for a while now and have accumulated a lot of contacts over time. All of my non-friend contacts on Flickr are folks that I have made a decisive choice to maintain contact because I respect their photographic creation. 1000+ sounds like a lot, but when you consider that more than 24 million people are active on Flickr everyday, a thousand is actually quite a small amount.

While my intention is to be amazed by my colleagues' work, the paging mechanism + thumbnail clicking has also become rather annoying overtime. I tried using the Slideshow module to go through my contacts' photos, but the 200 count limit imposed by Flickr still create some problem.

PicLens does not impose image count limit to any browsing. The browsing model is also so fluid, transparent and intuitive that require zero learning-curve.

With this tool, I did something I have never done on Flickr today:
1. I browsed through every single image posted to my contacts' recent photos.
2. I browsed through the entire photostream from a contact I recently added.

There is no way I could have tolerated this process if I were to do this in Flickr's native interface. It has also replaces the need for flickrleech now, which I must say have served me quite well before PicLens.

But PicLens does not only do Flickr, it also does Facebook, YouTube, Google Image Search, Yahoo Image Search, and the list goes on... I tested it on Google Image Search and had the first tolerable experience on Google Image Search today.

This tool is indispensible. Highly recommended!

Related SML Universe
+ SML Del.icio.us: Flickr + Tools
+ SML Tools
+ SML Wiki: PicLens

Source: via IconSpam

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

Connected Unconscious = global multimedia art and music extravaganza

is... a collaborative exhibition produced by BrooklynArtProject.com and the Brooklyn Academy of Music featuring work by 15 top emerging artists from around the world.

Opening night is tomorrow (Thursday, April 17, 2008) 6-8pm Free at BAM with free cocktails, but you should RSVP.

(below is C+P'ed)



Connected Unconscious is a collaborative exhibition produced by Brooklyn Art Project and
BAM celebrating the creative possibilities of our web 2.0 connected world. Featured work includes 15 original pieces from members of the BrooklynArtProject.com community of 1100+ members from over 22 countries.

RSVP NOW // ART, COCKTAILS & REMIXES
In addition to all the great art, we'll be playing Connected Unconscious theme based video and music remixes created for the exhibtion by rising star Brooklyn DJ's, curated by Halcyonline.com. Enjoy free cocktails courtesy of BAM and meet all the artists flying in from around the world to
participate.

Opening Night // April 17th - 6-8:00 pm // Free -
Exhibition dates // April 17th - May 11
Venue // BAM Natman Room located at 30 Lafayette Avenue in Brooklyn, NY

Featured Brooklyn Art Project Members:
+ Foon Foono — Singapore
+ Josh Heilaman — Oklahoma city, OK
+ Derek Lerner — Brooklyn, NY
+ Maya Bloch — Tel Aviv, Israel
+ James Cospito — Brooklyn, NY
+ Sarah Nicole Phillips— Brooklyn, NY
+ Stephan Fowlkes — Brooklyn, NY
+ Kim McCarthy — Seattle, WA
+ Jun-Jun Sta.Ana —Chicago, IL

JURIED WINNERS
+ Maria Sochaniewicz
+ BriAnna Olson
+ Louis Caldarola
+ Erica Falke (Drexel)
+ Jax Chachitz

HALCYON AUDIO/VIDEO REMIXES
+ Crybaby — Romeo Alaeff
+ The Pimps of Joytime/Bonita — Remix by Dj OBaH
+ Displaced Construction #1 — Ezekiel Honig and Joshua Ott
+ Bedroomz — Levon Vincent and Brian Crumley

Cost: FREE!
Official Site: http://www.brooklynartproject.com


©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

Insane drummers on the keyboard

Obviously years of piano playing does not mean that I can play drums using a keyboard as well as the pros... and the amateurs

The Pro: Huston Singletary on Ableton 7


The Amateur: The Asian Drum solo Travis Barker


©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

Rapping on Web Standards

Never seen this sort of thing before: rap music on web standards and design. Pretty nifty:



Lyric highlights:

easy to look at with a nice navigation
when you can't find what you want it causes frustration
a clear Call to action to increase the temptation
use appealing graphics they create motivation
if you have animation
use with moderation
cause search engines can't index the information

when you use CSS, you page will load quicker
client satisfied like they eating on a snicker
they stuck on your page like you made it with a sticker
and then they convert now that's the real kicker
make you a lil richer, your site a lil slicker

The full lyrics of this song by The Poetic Prophet (aka The SEO Rapper) can be found on YouTube: Design Coding

Source: James A. Reeves (aka KinoSport), via email

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

Go Creative Commons!

Ever since I switched my Flickr stream to Creative Commons, I noted that my photos are starting to pop up on various sites. The license requires the articles to provide a link back to the original post, and in turn the credits transformed to an interesting PR link that drive traffic to my stream.

A photo I shot during gay pride got used in a German blog called kruez.net yesterday. I don't read German so I don't really know what it's about, but what I do know is that it threw 1000+ views to that photo in a single day:


Source: http://kreuz.net/article.6903.html

To be exact, Flickr Stats reported that 1,565 visits came from that article, which amounts to 92% of its overall traffic. This was surprising to me considering that the link to the photograph appears at the very end of the article.

Needless to say, my original fear where of losing control is all gone. I am quite happy with the decision to switch.

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe.

GoCrossCampus = Massively multiplayer game built on your social networks

GoCrossCampus is the latest online game swiping across the college dorms on the internet.

Built as a massively multi-player online strategy game similar to board games like Risk, this online gaming venture created by four Yalies and a Columbia undergrad is being compared to Facebook by the New York Times.

It's not another social networking site (thank goodness) but the game play that's easy to pick up reminds me a little bit of the snowball-throwing apps that made Facebook successful (and consequently annoying), and consequently helps you maintain the weak ties (and thus by network theories, strong connections) in your social network.

I tried it out today playing on the Yale alumni game:


Friends of the SML Universe would note that according to this screenshot, SML is currently controlled by Morse. SML, in this case, refers to Sterling Memorial Library, and should not be confused with yours truly.

In a gist, each participant represents a member of a larger team, each has a captain which can give private orders to its team mate. Participants made their own move for each turn (which lasts for a day?) following the masterminds of their team leaders (or not). Over time, teams conquer territories which resembles real physical location of the place.

I had fun so far, and during the visit spotted some old friends from college.

The games online currently are targeted to students and alumni of selected universities, but they are open to organizations who may wish to play.

Source: Jim Orsi via IconSpam

Related SML Universe
+ SML Wiki: Go Cross Campus

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.

Design and the Elastic Mind

Design and the Elastic Mind is the latest exhibition at MoMA with a focus on "the ability of designers to grasp momentous advances in technology, science and human behavior and convert those changes into objects and systems that people can understand and use." ...Huh?

Don't get it. No problem, fire up your browser and get an overview of the exhibit on the project's site to check out the projects together with an innovative navigational model that link you to related projects. Pretty nifty.

http://moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind



Source: Andrew Carlson, via email

+++

Here's one video shot by David Oyler at the show: Shadow Monsters is a piece that was created by Philip Worthington using Processing



Source: David Oyler, via email

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.

Color Wars 2008

As reported by Mashable, the color war on Twitter is the latest collaborative fun to show your support for your favorite color.

Apparently how this thing works is you go through the list of color teams that exist, decide which one you want to back, and then follow that color. You get to choose between red, green, yellow, blue, orange, pink, gold, off-white, plaid, fuscia, clear, white, purple, stripe and puce (and Ze Frank is seemingly heavily supporting the green team)

See a list of all the teams at ColorWar2008.com



SML Universe, in association with SML AIDS and SML Life, is fully supporting the rainbowteam, because life celebrates diversity.

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.

Improving Interface Design / Garret Dimon

An interesting presentation by Garret Dimon on interface design, filled with quotes and examples. Presented originally at the Web Visions 2007 Improving Interface Design Workshop.

| View | Upload your own

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.

Bugs can be entertaining too

Give Japanese anything and they will make it exciting and fun:

http://www.japanesebugfights.com



Source: Nater Kane, via Twitter

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.

SML Chess / 2008-03-06 / SML

Still life in anticipation for greatness.

Chess = Game of life.

SML Chess / 2008-03-06 / SML, originally uploaded by See-ming Lee 李思明 SML.

SML Copyright Notice

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Ideas Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.

UI Junk must die

This is a quick post because Twitter has now become my number 1 English killer: my sentences are malformed and I can no longer write beautiful proses that Mr Herz can manifest.

That said, I am becoming increasingly annoyed by what it appears to be the end of an era of transparent UIs: there is not just an explosion of sites in "beta" but also sites filled with rounded corners and gradient-ware that I believe is stealing the audience from the content and function that a webapp is trying to do.

While Tufte held his flag against the chart junk that's obscuring the presentation of chart data, I proclaim the that UI junk must die: they are adding more visual stuff to adjust which adds no value to your app.

An interface, like well-set typography, should be transparent: that is, that the user should not be made aware that its existence. As soon as you attract users to look at how beautiful your tabs and buttons are, your content is nowhere to be focused. Surely your content is more important?

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.

Worldwide social network preferences by continent

The French newspaper LeMonde published a map on 2008-01-14 showing a divided world for social network preferences across the world.



Source: Le Monde.fr: Réseaux sociaux : des audiences différentes selon les continents

No clear winner here, though the front-runners are definitely Facebook, Orkut (Google) and MySpace (News Corp).

What is particularly surprising to me is Friendster is still alive and well—in South East Asia. This map does not represent Chinese social network sites though, which I think will likely tip the figures.

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.

FriendFeed is now public

Friendfeed came out of private-beta and publicly launched today.



Friendfeed integrates with your friends' popular social destinations (e.g. del.icio.us, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter) and aggregates them in a single feed. It's all the things that you make Facebook addictive without the splur of application requests that annoys you.

One really cool feature of FriendFeed is the idea of imaginary friends. When you add an imaginary friend and hook up their user profile on other networks, their activities will get added to your friends' feed and you can enjoy the ambient voyeuristic addiction of your social sphere without the added guilt of spamming your friends to join yet-another network where you can be dumb-founded for explaining the networks' immediate benefits (think Twitter).

You can comment on any of your friends' items across all the sites. The comments you make are only visible to your friends, making it possible to discuss things among your own circle of friends on even the most popular items without the noise of the public Web that most won't want. I do wish however that FriendFeed would also post comments on the public web (particularly for Flickr).

I have been beta-testing this site since last year and I am very happy with it. Create your account and try it out!

Related SML Universe
+ SML FriendFeed
+ SML Network

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.

Processing + Music = Magic!

Today was the first time I see a seamless integration of music + processing. It's an amazing beauty created by flight404. Enjoy!


Solar, with lyrics. from flight404 (aka Robert Hodgin) on Vimeo.

Also see HD version on Vimeo and Flight404's blog post about his process.

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.

The sweetness of fast lens

My Canon 50mm f/1.4 arrived in the mail today. I just tried it on and it's really sweet, as in *really* fast. To understand just how fast it is, when I put it wide open, I am able to shoot at 1/750 seconds inside the office, which is unbelievable.

It took me a very long time to decide on getting this lens. A fellow photographer said the lens is boring. Well it's boring when you have lots of light, but when you have no light, I think that this lens is awesome.

I decided against the the f/1.8 after seeing the rather inferior bokeh from the Flickr Canon EF 50mm f1.8 Pool. It appears that the pentagon-shaped bokeh a result of the lens using a 5-blade shutter. I am also a little bit bothered by the number unfavorable reviews of 1.8's construction.

I did not go for the f/1.2L because I can't afford it. It is an absurd amount of money to set aside for a hobby--although I will be revisiting this later if I get a portrait photography business going.

I will be posting photographs on my photo blog soon. Stay tuned.

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.

Business content portal + social networks

FastCompany.com redesign launched with many social features (Web 2.0)



+ Member profile
+ Comment box
+ Ability to start your own blog
+ Ability to add 3rd party feeds onto your own page (function as blog reader)
+ Professional networking features for opportunities + ventures
+ Article recommendation
+ Inline poll (agree / disagree)
+ Article tagging
+ Article bookmarking

All these things are not new, but I'm glad that finally there's a business entity who recognize the power of networks to add value to their content.

We'll see how this rolls out.


©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.

Yes we can

dipdive.com


THE YES WE CAN SONG WAS RECORDED AT ETHER AND RECORD PLANT IN LA ON JANUARY 30 AND 31ST, 2008.

ceo of inspiration:
barack obama:

song produced by:
will.i.am

guitar by:
george pajon

video produced by:
will.i.am and mike jurkovac

director:
jesse dylan for cYclops form

executive producers:
will.i.am
mike jurkovac
fred goldring
jesse dylan
priscilla cohen
sheri howell

associate producers:
sean larkin
sarah pantera
carol cohen
steve koskie
wendi morris
scott spanjich

talent:
adam rodriguez
alfonso ribeiro
amaury nolasco
amber valletta
auden mccaw
anson mount
austin nichols
aisha tyler
bryan greenberg
cliff collins
common
derek watkins
ed kowalczyk
enrique murciano
eric balfour
eric olsen
esthero
fred goldring
harold perrineau
herbie hancock
hill harper
john legend
john schaech
kareem abdul jabbar
kate walsh
kelly hu
maya rubin
nick cannon
nicole scherzinger
sam page
sarah wright
scarlett johansson
shoshannah stern
taryn manning
tatyana ali
tracee ellis ross
will.i.am

crew:
carol cohen LINE PRODUCER
matt harrison PRODUCTION SUPERVISOR
adam martin 1ST AD
kevin o’neil 2ND AD
araeia robinson PRODUCTION ASST.
patrick mcgovern PRODUCTION ASST.
rolf kestermann DP
ryan brown 1ST AC
justin rhoads DIT
marek kanievska 2ND UNIT DP
torre catalano 3RD UNIT DP
jamie banfield GAFFER
kevin shipley ELECTRIC
braydon baldwin GRIP
adam joeseph SOUND
damon d’amato TELEPROMPTER
adam kleinfield STILLS DIT
brett freedman HAIR AND MAKE-UP
asia geiger HAIR AND MAKE-UP
terrence “biff” butler EDITOR
carold lynn weaver POST PRODUCER
anton capaldo-smith ASSISTANT EDITOR

vendors:
rock paper scissors EDITORIAL
indie rentals CAMERA
cinelease LIGHTING AND GRIP
film this! PERMIT
image mechanics STILLS
rushes TELECINE
greenberg teleprompting SCRIPTING
line 204 WALKIES




©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.

Notchup = Get paid to interview for jobs

At a time when you are getting bored with yet another social networking site with a professional twist following LinkedIn's success, Notchup joined the game with a truly innovative twist to the game: get paid of interview for jobs.

That's right folks: Notchup asks the companies to pay up for a time of you sitting in for an interview.



How much is your time worth? Apparently a whole lot. In fact, it looks like that I can possibly make a living out of going to job interviews.

Here's more: the company gives its users incentive to invite their friends who might be interested in other jobs: for each friend you invite, they'll pay you a bonus equal to 10% of what your friend earns on every interview they do for a year.

It sounds kind of like a pyramid scheme to me but I signed up anyway. We'll see what happens. Like Ziki, Notchup has a LinkedIn profile import option, which is very handy because who wants to enter yet another profile these days?

In my opinion, all network data ought to be stored on the user's end and an open API ought to be made available to import user data instead.

There's no direct profile linking yet and the site is fairly barebones--the news of its availability also appears to be causing some server load issues, but the idea is sound and I look forward to seeing how well it goes.

via email from Kit Latham (Flickr / SML Wiki)

Related SML Universe
+ SML LinkedIn
+ SML Network
+ SML Ziki

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.

CoComment = useful comment aggreagator

Commenting on other people's photos and blog posts is fun, but if you truly wish to engage in a dialog with folks, it's a virtually impossible task. Tracking comments RSS on your most frequented blogs is possible, but ultimately if you see the entire web as one gigantic blog like I do, you're out of luck, until CoComment came along last fall:



CoComment is a useful web site which aggregates blog comments onto a single portal. It tracks your comments via a browser plugin. In addition to tracking conversations across multiple web sites, it has tagging capability to allow easy content filtering.

Recommended.

Related SML Universe
+ SML Network

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.

Keep Life Sexy / Personal lubricant rebrand through UGC

www.keeplifesexy.com is KY-Jelly (a personal lubricant)'s venture into UGC-powered advertising.



The concept is really simple and straight-forward, to the point where I actually question its creativity. That said, I also felt that many interactive seen these days are so 'innovative' that the target audience might just not get it.

Bottom line: it's an innovative approach to any pharmaceutical marketing site and it succeeds in updating my brand perception for this old-school standard. That makes for a successful campaign.

via Tom Ajello's tweets

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.

IconNicholson Pranksters / SML Thank You

Today (2008-01-21) was my first day at work since the SML Appendectomy incident, and it is heart-felt to see the IconNicholson mascot vandalized with my logo.

What a sweet welcoming gift. Whoever you are, much SML Love to you! :)



Related SML Universe
+ SML Dogs

SML Copyright Notice
©2008 See-ming Lee / SML Thank You / SML Universe. All rights reserved.

MeeVee = Television scheduling made easy

For the longest time of my life, I don't have cable, because when I used to have it, I could not find anything to watch.

Two weeks ago I was chatting with Dirty Patrick (SML Wiki) and he said that I should get it just so that I can watch Project Runway.

My cable box arrived last week and I found myself addicted to the show. I liked it so much that I finished 2 seasons worth of Project Runway on Netflix DVD.

It's great when you've got friends to tell you what to watch because they know you well, but beyond that I'm stuck. I tried TV Guide at first but the interface is closed to useless.

What I really needed is a site that will give me TV recommendation based on interests. As always, I posted my question on Ask MetaFilter and in a matter of days, my recommendations came back: http://www.meevee.com



MeeVee really doesn't let me down. Based on the TV listings that I favorited, I created a time schedule for me. It will even record directly to Tivo. I haven't tried out the community features yet but this site looks very promising.

Thanks for everybody on MeFi who helped me out!

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.

10,000+ views on a Flickr set

Who would of thought that my 200 Most Interesting Gay Pride New York 2007 (set) would have reached 10,172 audience since I put them up on Flickr last June?

As such I've decided to create a quick slideshow of all the photos (no audio track for now... but will try to put some grooves on it later:


200 Most Interesting Gay Pride New York 2007 / SML from See-ming Lee

Thank you all for the faves + comments as well.

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.

Personal Branding

Back in the spring of 2007, I started the exercise of personal branding.

I love doing branding and identity projects, but there aren't many opportunities at the moment. I have learned over time that the best way to keep myself fresh is to do it constantly and persistently. So I follow the paths of Oprah and Martha Stewart and started the exercise of personal branding.



My extensive exploration of self is my research on understanding my brand, and it is from these analysis that I came up with the logo that you see today, from which I have developed my color system and branding guidelines.

The Logo

The logo is composed of three circles: small, medium and large. The three colors are the origin of colors, and represents design (magenta), technology (yellow) and marketing strategy (cyan) respectively. The execution is simple because I had a Bauhaus education.

The logo is placed everywhere where I exist, and extend beyond the seeminglee.com domain and into all the collaborative communities. I use the logo to 'stamp' holiday greetings. I also use it as my avatar on all my social networks. Because the logo scales well, it is also used as the favicon on my main hub.

Fun today

I was doing some experiments with video projection the past couple of days and I thought that it might be fun to brand myself directly on my body.

So here's my current advertising campaign running on Flickr: this is the closest I've been able to get my logo on the product—myself.









©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.