Rohdesign Weblog: Blogging

Here you'll find all posts file under the Blogging category.

February 20, 2009

6 Years Blogging

Welcome to year 6 of continued blogging at Rohdesign.

I'm pleasantly surprised at how sustainable my blog has been.

It's good to see this space remain a place I can share my thinking, processes, insights and design work with others.

A Busy Year
This year has been especially tough. I've dealt with a job change, incredible busyness professionally and personally and the impact of using Twitter to share small tidbits I might have posted here a few years back.

There was a rise visibility of my sketchnotes from SXSW Interactive 2008, SEED 3 and An Event Apart this past year, and a few posts about my design process to boot.

Goals for Year 7
One of my goals for my 7th year is a focus on sharing more of my design process posts, from initial challenge to final solution for logo, icon and other design and UI work I'm up to. In fact, I have 2 posts brewing already.

Thanks!
I want to say thanks to you, my readers and visitors, for leaving comments and visiting the blog all of these years. Thanks go to my family and friends, who have always been supportive of my work here.

I appreciate you all, and I'm looking forward to a great 7th year of blogging.

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October 2, 2008

I've Gone Pink for October!

In honor of my friend Kathy who is a breast cancer survivor (Yeah!) I've decided to go Pink for October.

Thanks to Matthew Oliphant for starting this off and challenging people like me to raise awareness of breast cancer and the important research and preventive care needed to fight it.

Learn more about going pink at PinkForOctober.org

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July 28, 2008

Rohdesign Rated 8.5/10 at Blogged.com

Last week while on vacation in Pennsylvania, the Blog review site Blogged.com rated Rohdesign.com as an 8.5 out of 10. That's a pretty decent rating, considering my tendency is toward fewer, in-depth posts.

If you'd like to add your own review of Rohdesign at Blogged.com, look on the Rohdesign review page — there's an area for ratings and comments at the bottom of the page.

Thanks Blogged.com!

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March 22, 2008

SXSW Sketchnotes: Additional Observations

It's a bit over a week since posting my SXSW Sketchnotes and I've been fascinated watching the meme and images make the rounds. It started small, with mentions on Twitter and then blogs with links, images or both in postings (currently at 66).

On Thursday, I notice a huge increase in Flickr emails with favorites and comments on the sketchnotes, so I checked my RSS feed searches for 'sketchnotes' and found that both Boing Boing and Digital Web Magazine featured them.

The Digital Web Magazine article was an intentional collaboration between Matthew Pennell, Tiff Fehr and me, but the Boing Boing mention was organic, via a post by Laughing Squid earlier in the week.

My observations about this whole experience?

People like to share things that make them look good — If you do something unique and interesting, people love mentioning your work to their friends, especially if it makes them look good. Being the first one to find something cool can earn credibility with a network of friends.

Word of mouth is powerful — I couldn't have planned the path or the speed with which the sketchnotes would have taken any better their own path via word of mouth. This reminds me how powerful word of mouth is. I know in theory how quickly good or bad messages can spread — this experience reinforced it for me.

Share your work with your network to "seed" it — I had several friends who I first shared the sketchnotes with: Twitter friends who attended SXSW and the speakers at the events I covered with my note-taking. I also mentioned them to longer-term friends like Jim at Coudal, Armand at Moleskinerie, as well as newer friends like Matthew & Tiff at Digital Web Magazine, who contacted me prior to SXSW. The old adage that you should build your network before you need it is really true. Having the trust and friendship beforehand makes all the difference.

Creative Commons Licenses Encourages Image Posting — I firmly believe that hosting the sketchtoons on Flickr with a Creative Commons license allowing re-postng with attribution made it super easy for bloggers to include images on their sites. This further encouraged visitors to check out the set, my site and even dig into my archives or email me directly.

Things you do outside your main work can improve your reputation — I'm a professional designer and art director, specializing in logo, web and icon design, yet am gaining notice via sketchnotes. This is a good thing, since my sketchnotes show how I listen, process information, think, analyze information and capture it visually. While completely separate from my professional work, it is at the same time at the very heart of that work, showing how I solve problems for clients.

I'm now considering a few products created from the SXSW Sketchnotes, including an e-book with high res images and added notes, and an on-demand or limited edition printed version of the sketchnotes, for sale to those who would like a copy. If you have interest in either of these items, please leave a message in the comments.

Finally, thanks to everyone who has mentioned and linked to the images, or left comments here or on Flickr. Your kind words have been greatly appreciated! :-)

Stats on Flickr — Wow!

Photo: John December

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February 20, 2008

5 Years Blogging

And it's official, the Rohdesign weblog is 5 years old today.

When I started this experiment in 2003, I had no idea where blogging might go, or whether I could maintain this blog for 5 months, never mind 5 years.

While it started as an experiment, it has become an important, integral part of my personal and professional life.

This is a place where I can share my thoughts, however crazy. It's a venue for my sketches, design work, and design thinking. It's an outlet for reviews of products and services I like. And it has connected me with many new friends and clients.

Thank You!
Thank you those who have encouraged me in this journey — you are the ones who keep me going when I am tired or discouraged.

Thank you to those of you who subscribe to my RSS feed or pay a visit each time I post — I'm very honored that you take the time to read what I have to offer here.

Thank you to those who comment on the blog — I appreciate your insights, humor and occasional corrections which help keep me on track and humble.

Thank you Gail, for encouraging me in all I do. You're an awesome wife!

Here's to another 5 years! :-)

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December 6, 2007

2008 Sketchtoon Coffee Calendar: Top Spot on Google

Happened to search at Google on the term coffee calendar yesterday, and it turns out my little 2008 Sketchtoon Coffee Calendar owns the top spot of the natural search results.

Holy smokes!

Turns out that Ricardo Levins Morales' very cool 2008 Coffee Calendar is in second position on the first Google results page.

I'm not quite sure how this happened—I'm not complaining—but it's surprising.

Actually, it's not that surprising in one sense. in my research I've found very few coffee calendars available. There are a couple, but far fewer than I imagined ought to be out there, considering how many coffee fans there are in the world.

This is also a good reason for putting in regular effort, day in and day out, to build and maintain a quality blog. When it comes time to share or sell something (especially yourself) all that work can pay off.

Buy It Today: 2008 Sketchtoon Coffee Calendar: $19.99 + shipping.

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November 8, 2007

Just Catchin' Up

After attending the SEED Conference last week Monday and the National Youth Worker's Conference in St. Louis this past Friday through Monday, I'm taking a blogging break for at least a week to get back on top of projects.

I have several posts on NYWC and other items I plan to get up here, but for now I need to focus on client work and personal catch-up.

I'll be back soon! :-)

Interesting Links
In the meantime, here are some links worth checking out:

43 Folders: Palimpsest: the guide to a (mostly) paperless life
The Moleskine Project: A collection of Moleskine sketches
zzilch: Moleskine iPod Touch Case
Michael Mace: Google, the OS company
Miquelrius USA: A great source for Miquelrius notebooks online

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August 27, 2007

ProBlogger Logo Design

At the end of May, Darren Rowse contacted me through MakaluMedia, to redesign the ProBlogger logo.

Darren has one of the net's most popular blogs, and is one of the founders of b5media. I was honored to have a chance at designing the new identity, so I agreed to come on board the design team with Darren's site designer, Ben Bleikamp.

Darren's story is interesting, not only because he turned blogging from a hobby into a full-time career and business, but because he freely shares what he's learned from blogging. I quite like Darren's attitude of helping others grow and succeed by sharing his knowledge.

In this post, I'll share details and sketches on the new ProBlogger identity.

Initial Specs and Feedback
Darren answered my standard list of questions, and from his initial feedback I gathered several themes to embrace and portray with the new ProBlogger identity. He wanted ProBlogger to be:

• A welcoming community where bloggers can learn and grow
• A source of information on making income from a blog
• A site promoting professionalism in blogging
• An extensive blogging reference
• Keywords: income, professionalism, community, inspiration, credibility, encouraging

Darren wanted a clean, crisp, contemporary, professional logo, without superfical "Web 2.0" stylings. He wanted a logo to represent himself and his blog, in a design that wouldn't go out of style in 6 months.

Sketches v1
With all of this information in mind, I began sketching multiple concepts to get the project rolling (click the image to see the v1 sketches).

With all of my logo projects, I like to loosen up with pencil in my Miquelrius notebook, freeing my mind to explore ideas. Note the keywords on the upper right of the page, which help guide me in idea generation during this first sketch phase.

I focused on theProBlogger P, as it portrays the brand well, and would be a consistent element from the original design. I explored one other idea (8) which suggested community as a nucleus with network connections and multiple outer atoms.

In Darren's feedback, I learned that he liked the emphasis on the P. He preferred the squarer P characters, as these leaned away from the "surf" look and feel he saw in ideas 17, 18 and 19. He also liked the community concept he saw in 8, so it was on to v2 sketches to explore those ideas a bit more.

Sketches v2
I this set, I explored the winning concepts and a few others, bringing in aspects of idea 8 and the community "atomic" ideas merged with the P character.

After review, Darren and his team of trusted advisers focused on two ideas from this v2 set: concepts 19 and 23. Next up was the black & white and color phase.

Black & White and Color Concepts
Because Darren was on a tight timeline, I changed my normal process, including both black & white and color logos on the same mockups. This way Darren could see the B&W ideas and some explorations of initial colors.

Concepts v1:
In the first set you'll see I came up with ideas based on the v2 sketches (2, 3, 4 and 5), along with a new idea (1) which came out I worked with the logos. Sometimes this happens, and I've learned to go with the flow and include these as options:

Darren's feedback from round 1 aimed us at the P within a nucleus circle with orbiting atoms around this central icon to embed the concept of comminity into the mark. While the more graphical representations of this community were interesting (1, 2 and 3), the clearer P emerged as Darren's top choice.

Concepts v2:
Based on feedback from v1, I narrowed to the single P with orbiting atoms, exploring different ways the atoms could be positioned, the connection between atoms and the outer ring, a font option and variations on the provided color pallette:

Concepts v3:
Darren really liked the color combo in ideas 7 and 8 in this set, leaning toward 7 a bit more. He wanted to keep the "P" and "BLOGGER" in orange and do one final exploration on atom position and separation between the atom and the outer ring. So I did a final v3 to help Darren see the 3 final options:

In the final version, I felt the leading atom suggested forward movement, and the separation of the atoms from the circle provided focus to the 3 atoms. 7.1 was chosen as the final winner:

Conclusion
Darren was pleased with the final logo, which was subsequently included in Ben's redesign of the site. It was great fun to see the logo announced on Darren's blog, followed by the release of the new site design.

As one might expect, with a major change on a popular site, there were a few who liked the old design better. However, after reading comments on the site related to the new logo and design, a majority of Darren's readers really loved the new site design and logo. Most importantly, Darren was pleased with the results.

Thanks Darren for choosing to work with me and MakaluMedia on the logo design. It was an honor and a pleasure working with Darren and Ben on this project.

Related Links
A New Look for ProBlogger - Coming Soon (Very Soon) (ProBlogger)
New Design Update (ProBlogger)
We’re Entering New Design Transition Phase (ProBlogger)
ProBlogger Redesign - Bedding Down for the Night (ProBlogger)
Redesign of Problogger.net - Designer Tells All (ProBlogger)
Redesign of Problogger.net (Ben Bleikamp)

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June 13, 2007

Citizen Blogging Summit: On The Panel

On Friday, June 15th, I'll be appearing at the Citizen Blogging Summit sponsored by Newsradio 620 WTMJ with my good friend and fellow blogger Pete Prodoehl and blogger Jason Kotecki, who I don't know yet, but love his cartoons.

The three of us are on a panel from 2:25-3:10 called "Beyond Politics, Beyond Milwaukee" which means we get to talk about everything else related to blogging. I think we're the breather session, meant to cleanse the palette after talk show host Charlie Sykes and the political bloggers argue political theories.

I love how Pete expressed this on his post about the Summit:

I’m really not sure what to expect. Mike Rohde and I are on the 2:25-3:10 Panel, Beyond Politics, Beyond Milwaukee. I’m guessing we are the ‘tech bloggers’ or maybe the token ‘non-political’ bloggers. Anyway, I’ll just prepare for this the same way I prepare for BarCamp or Web414 presentations, wait until the last minute, attempt to do nothing, then embrace the chaos.

Classic Pete. I'm with ya Pete! :-)

I plan to discuss blogging as a method for "thought leadership" which is to say, sharing your work, process, personality and thinking, as a way to build credibility and to augment your business. That's what I find most valuable about this blog.

We're not sure if this will be on the radio, or recorded as a podcast. If I find out more before Friday, I'll post it here, and will add a link to the podcast, if there is one.

Special thanks go to Phil Gerbyshak, who told organizer Sean Hackbarth, about Pete and I as candidates for the event. I owe you one buddy! :-)

Interested in attending the Citizen's Blogging Summit? it's free, lunch is provided — just register to attend.

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May 16, 2007

SOBCon08 Suggestions

Now that I've taken a little time to unpack my thoughts about SOBCon07, I felt it would be a good time to share my suggestions for SOBCon08:

• More Workshops — I would love to see more workshop sessions, like we did with the "Iowa Caucus" of Mike Sansone, Mike Wagner and Drew McLellan. The ideas and collaboration from this session was energizing, but we ran out of time.

• Longer Breaks — I wished for more/larger gaps between sessions, to congregate with others and get to know them better. I just popped out to meet with people to solve it, but I'd prefer not to choose between sessions and meeting others.

• Free WiFi — T-Mobile WiFi was available for individual purchase, but I'd prefer a free, SOBCOn WiFi service to encourage more blogging during the event. I think 3 or 4 WiFi base stations would have been about right to avoid a saturated network.

• SOBCon Speaker & Attendee Page — I'd love to see an official speaker and attendee page on the SOBCon site, with names, photos, bios, 5 favorite posts and blog links. This would help new attendees "meet" other attendees before the event.

• Unified SOBCon Page & RSS Feed — What about a single Page and RSS feed, where any post with "SOBCon" and "SOBCOn08" tags would be included? Attendees could follow a single feed, and see every related post before, during and after the event.

• All Day Coffee — In the afternoon on Saturday, a couple of attendees and I were searching for coffee but found only stacks of soda bottles. It'd be great to keep hot coffee available all day, for those of us who like the rich, black brew. :-)

I hope these suggestions will encourage the '07 attendees to suggest some ideas in the comments, and be useful for SOBCon08 next year.

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May 15, 2007

Unpacking SOBCon07

I'm not surprised to find myself still brewing and unpacking the reverberations of this weekend at SOBCon07. The conference was a concentrated burst of energy, community and challenges, that I haven't been able to completely process.

Part of it for me, and I think for many attendees, was diving headlong into something completely new, without any expectation of what to expect, or what we'd get out of it.

I didn't know anyone but my buddy Phil Gerbyshak, so I had to step out and meet some new people. That's the wild thing though — people were stepping out to meet me, treating me as an old friend.

Some of this must be chalked up to knowing Phil, but much of the warmth and friendliness of other people seemed to be at the very core of the SOBCon vibe.

Here are some observations after much brewing and pondering:

We all came to give and take. Everyone present came ready to give something away, while being confident they would receive that much and more in return. Everyone I met was sharing energy, which encouraged me to keep sharing my energy.

This was our conference. Bloggers dreamed it up, handled the logistics, showed up and then created it like a barn raising. We connected and encouraged each other, challenged each other and made it happen. Two nights in a row, I witnessed people spontaneously gathering to talk, pulling chairs into circles until no chairs were left.

We are brands, like it or not. One thread running through the Saturday sessions was how we're all projecting a brand (ourselves), whether conscious or unconscious. From our writing to our blog design, everything we project and communicate is our brand. The challenge for everyone was how to sync your brand with who you really are.

We're communicators, not bloggers. David Armano challenged us to stop calling ourselves bloggers, and instead consider ourselves “conversation architects.” I'm a communicator — whether with words, sketches, graphics, sound or video — I aim to communicate with others through this space on the web. Rohdesign is now operating without "Weblog" in the title to reinforce this idea.

Conclusion: I had a great time at SOBCon07!

It was more powerful than I expected, and the people were wonderful. I've already established relationships with several people I resonated with, and plan to build more relationships as the week goes on. Relationships really are at the heart of SOBCon.

I was also challenged to step my communication to the next level. After 4+ years of writing at Rohdesign, I'm energized to keep on sharing, encouraging and learning.

I can't wait for SOBCon08!

SOBCon07 Attendees:
Liz Strauss
Wendy Piersall
Andy Sernovitz
Phil Gerbyshak
David Armano
Mike Sansone
Drew McLellan
Mike Wagner
Terry Starbucker
Christine Kane
Rodney Rumford
Ben Yoskovitz
Chris Cree
Robyn Tippins
Diego Orjuela
Vernon Lun
Jonathan C. Phillips
Sandra Renshaw
Brad Shorr
Timothy Johnson
Tammy Lenski
Sean Rox
Muhammad Saleem
Lorelle VanFossen
David Dalka
Todd And
John Yedinak
Joe Hauckes
Tim Draayer
Jeremy Geelan
Carolyn Manning
Sheila Scarborough
Steve Farber
Dawud Miracle
Doug Mitchell
Jeff O’Hara
Dave Schoof
Jamy Shiels
Adam Steen
Hannah Steen
Chris Thilk
Barry Zweibel
Eric Bingen
Ellen Moore
Cord Silverstein
Jean-Patrick Smith
James Walton
Sharan Tash
Vernon Lun
Tony Lee
Scott Desgrosseilliers
Mark Murrell
Kammie Kobyleski
Easton Ellsworth
Mark Goodyear
Ann Michael
Kent Blumberg
Ashley Cecil
Robert Hruzek
Sabu N G
Mazur Krystyna
Lisa Gates
Franke James
Chris Brown
Troy Worman
Karen Putz
Jesse Petersen
Terry Mapes
Andy Brudtkuhl
Lucia Mancuso
Peter Flaschner
Derrick Sorles
Thomas Clifford
Rajesh Srivastava
Claire Celsi
Jason Alba
Alex Shalman
Cristiana Passinato
Brad Spirrison
Ari Garber
Dr. Rob Wolcott
Cheryll Cruz
Sharon Scherer
Jason Wade
Jill Pullen
Doug Bulleit
Wendy Kinney
Brenda Friedrich
Ella Wilson
Chelsea Vincent
Ayush Agarwal
Paul Mangalik
Premchand Kallan
Xochi Kaplan
Michael Snell
James Bergstrom
Raj Majumder
Keith Levenson

Special thanks to Jonathan C. Phillips for providing this extensive list of attendees. :-)

Photo: Vernon Lun

sobcon07

Technorati Tags: sobcon07, rohdesign, mike+rohde

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May 11, 2007

SOBCon07: Day 1 Impressions

I've spent a good day heading to and spending time at SOBCon07, and wanted to capture a few impressions here before I head to sleep.

The people at the conference are just amazing. I mentioned knowing only Phil coming into SOBCon, but it didn't take long to meet many friendly, warm people.

I met Tim Johnson and Director Tom (Clifford) over lunch, Mike Sansone and Clare Celsi in the restaurant, Terry Starbucker and Franke James in the lobby... and the conference hadn't even started!

I'd have a hard time naming everyone I met here, but in general everyone treated me warmly and as one of the crew right away. I feel right at home in this crowd.

Christine Kane provided a wonderful performance tonight. She's a great singer and musician, with an on-stage presence that made me feel at home and relaxed.

After the music we had a delicious light dinner, including pastries and veggies, cheese and sushi, all of very high quality. After eating, we had an open mic time, where we each shared a little about ourselves and what we do on our blogs.

After the kickoff even ended, I spent time hanging out in the room and then in "Le Bar" with many of the bloggers here at the conference, listening to their stories and how they blog. There's a common theme I see emerging from every attendee: a general amazement that this convention is really happening and that it's awesome to finally meet these friends in person.

I think it's fascinating and encouraging to watching online-only relationships expand and deepen in face to face connections. Coming in as an outsider of sorts, I'm able to see this dynamic occurring between people.

After only the first day, I've concluded I've made a great choice in attending SOBCon07, simply to meet so many wonderful, friendly people.

I can't wait until Saturday! :-)

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May 9, 2007

Getting Ready for SOBCon07 in Chicago

Tonight I had a great talk with my Milwaukee blogging buddy Phil Gerbyshak, who I'm traveling with to SOBCon07 in Chicago this Friday and Saturday. I'm excited!

Phil and I are doing a road trip from Milwaukee to Chicago for the event, enjoying the time driving down, and taking it easy when we arrive. I can't wait to see Phil give his keynote speech on Saturday and talks from other speakers on the schedule.

Of the about 80-some bloggers attending, I know one — Phil. Still, this is a great opportunity to meet and get to know many new bloggers. This is Phil's crowd, so I'm sure I'll meet new people through him, and on my own.

I'll be sketching and taking notes at the event and may continue the sketchnotes approach I experimented with at UX Intensive... we'll see. I'll post a report of the weekend's activities, along with an analysis of the conference.

If you'd like to attend SOBCon07, there are still spots available.

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April 11, 2007

AdaptivePath UX Intensive & SOBCon07 Blog Conference

I'm excited about the end of April and beginning of May, because I'm attending 2 important events in the Chicago area. Both look like great events.

Since I'm a Chicago kid, going back to the hometown is always great fun. I'm planning on a train ride for one event and a road trip with a friend for the second. If I'm lucky, I'll even meet up with a few Chicago friends while in town.

Here are the two events I'm attending:

Adaptive Path: UX Intensive: Interaction Design Workshop
The First event on my schedule is Adaptive Path's UX Intensive: Interaction Design Workshop, happening on Wednesday April 25, at the Black Orchid in Chicago:

In this course, you will build upon your understanding of the principles of interaction design by learning tools and techniques that will improve your interaction design work and your collaboration with your teammates. Will be led by Dan Saffer, a Senior Interaction Designer at Adaptive Path and author of Designing for Interaction.

I'm very excited about growing more deeply in my interaction design practices, being challenged in new ways, and meeting some interesting people at the event.

SOBCon07: Successful Outstanding Blogger Conference 2007
The next event, SOBCon07, takes place Friday, May 11th and Saturday 12th at Hotel Sofitel at Chicago's O'Hare airport:

An evening and a day of community, strategy, and information about the art, technology, and science of relationship blogging for 250 experienced bloggers.

We will demonstrate to 250 bloggers how to take their existing blogs to the next level through interactive presentations on publishing, design and branding, tools, analytics, social networking, marketing, and coaching, from the perspectives of the blogger and the audience.

I'm heading down with my blogpal Phil Gerbyshak, who I suspect will know tons of people, and introduce me to more than I can remember. I'm looking forward to meeting other bloggers, and learning how to be a better blogger.

I'll likely write follow-up reports on the events, so keep an eye open here for those.

If you happen to be attending either UX Intensive or SOBCon07, drop me a line!

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February 20, 2007

4 Years Blogging

Amazing to think that on February 20, 2003 I started writing this weblog.

4 years seems an awfully long time to maintain something, but fortunately, it's been a joy. I've loved having a place to share ideas, and I hope for 4 more years.

I think, looking back, that the freedom to write what I wanted has been integral to maintaining this place for writing and sharing so long. Being able to talk about topics ranging from design and sketches to cycling and kids makes a huge difference in opportunities to share thoughts. Oddly enough, some of the most obscure, spur of the moment posts have been the most popular.

So, if you're a blogger looking for inspiration, I say write what you want to. Write what you love to write about. Be real. Life is too short to pretend, or to write what you think others want to read.

Thanks for taking time to read my words here, whether you're a regular, a lurker, or a one-time Google visitor. I appreciate your choice to stop and read my thoughts.

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January 5, 2007

5 Things you may not know about me

I was tagged this week by Pete Prodoehl to do a 5 things post (started by Jeff Pulver), so here we go — 5 things you may not know about me:

1. When I was in college, I met Tom Baker, the 4th Dr. Who, at the public TV station where I worked as a student designer. I met Tom at the elevator, so a fellow student and I talked with him on the ride down and got signed photos to boot. Tom never offered a word about himself, instead, he asked us, 2 lowly student workers, about our goals and dreams. I've always thought Tom Baker's attitude toward us was classy and to be emulated.

2. I tease my wife Gail with the Barry Manilow hit Copacabana. I quietly hum the tune, until the song turns into a songvirus in her head. in 1998, Gail and I were visiting with a friend in Stockholm, Sweden. We sat in a square of Gamla Stan (Old Town), having a coffee, when an American High School band came walking through the square, playing Copacabana. Gail accused me of paying the band to play the song, but it really was a complete, but very funny coincidence. "Her name was Lola..."

3. I invited one of my best friends, Andy Bauer, to our wedding in 1999. I also invited Andy to stay in my flat for 2 weeks prior to experience Milwaukee, and we had a great time hanging out together. The unusual part is I'd never met Andy in person — of course we had written each other via email and chatted on the phone for 5 years, so we already know each other well, but never in person. I love the Internet for opportunities like this.

4. I was the proud owner of a dark green, 1968 Volkswagen Beetle. After being front-ended while sitting at a stoplight on the East Side of Milwaukee, I painted the crushed and re-formed hood with the grinning jaws of a WWII Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter plane. It was amazing how quickly cars got out of my way after that.

5. I know various greetings and phrases in 10 foreign languages: German, Dutch, Korean, Japanese, French, Thai, Swedish, Spanish, Hebrew and Russian. Since I can pronounce languages pretty well, I often surprise native speakers by speaking these phrases accurately, with no accent. Ahn-nyung-ha-se-yo!

The Next 5 Victims
While picking 5 people to do their own 5 things strikes me as a bit chain-letter-esque, I'll honor the request, and pick out 5 friends to do the same:

Joe Phillips, Steve Rohde, Michael Ashby, Davy McDonald and Daniel Schutzsmith.

Related Links:
Steve Rohde: 5 Things you may not know about me

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January 4, 2007

Word Count Journal Launch & Design Notes

On January 1st, 2007, Word Count Journal, a new project our MakaluMedia crew has been working on, launched for public consumption.

The Word Count Journal idea is simple — sign up and then write a little bit each day for 365 days. If you write the minimum every day for a whole year, you'll have written at least 66,795 words. Word Count Journal is especially well-suited to anyone who wants some encouragement to keep their words flowing every day.

I wasn't sure if the idea would interest me as a blogger, but it's actually pretty fun. You aren't penalized for missing a few days, since you can always log in and quickly catch up on your posts.

I've even found it fun to write more than the day requires — you only need to meet the minimum, but it's sometimes easier to keep on rolling.

My Word Count Journals Page

And now, a few words on the design of the Word Count Journal site.

Word Count Journal Identity Design
Our team had a great time working through the design of the site. I had the pleasure of designing the Word Count Journal logo, as well as assisting my colleague Alex Bendiken in establishing a site design based on the new identity.

I had long wanted to use the font American Typewriter for a logo, and this project seemed the perfect opportunity to use this font.

While Word Count Journal is an online journaling application, I wanted to bring in the ideas of analog journaling — the pencil icon and typewriter fonts — as these recognizable elements help convey the idea quickly.

You'll note that the letters have been pretty tightly kerned, especially 'Journal' which I snugged so tightly that the 'u' and 'r' have merged into a ligature, and the 'n' and 'l' have been customized to allow for a close fit.

The pencil icon was kept intentionally simple, and also snugged into the space above the curl of the 'J' in Journal, keeping in the style of the overall "cozy" theme of the type treatment. Placement of the 'Word Count' text was a tough call — I wanted it centered in the space above 'Journal' initially, but decided to align the 't' of 'Count' on the right edge of the 'a' in Journal.

You wouldn't think so much goes into kerning of a few words, but I feel this little extra effort pays off in a more flowing identity.

Word Count Journal Site Design
Based on the logo, I assisted Alex in developing the initial direction of the site design, which he and the team completely fleshed out and built. I really like the cooler aqua blue and grays, combined with warm orange and bright yellow, and the use of American Typewriter throughout the site. Alex and the team did a great job keeping the structure simple, yet super-functional and beautiful.

If you'd like a space where you write a little each day, check out Word Count Journal!

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September 13, 2006

Blogging Demystified: Simply Digital Podcast Episode 5

If you enjoy reading blogs but aren't sure you have the skills to create, write or manage one? Think again!

Michael Ashby and Analog Dave of the Simply Digital Podcast focus on Weblogs in episode 5 of their podcast on technology for regular people.

Mike and Dave describe what blogs are, why you might want to start one and some of the easiest and cheapest places to get into blogging.

Check it out: Simply Digital Episode 5: Weblogs (28:57)

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June 21, 2006

Digital Creativity Flow & Google

Tonight, after replying to some nice comments from Jana on my recent article Analog Tools Foster Reflection, Creativity and Flow, i decided to head over to Google and figure out how she came across my post.

Jana suggested she was searching on the terms "digital writing" and "creativity" though playing with those terms didn't turn anything up in the first few result pages. So, I played with a few words from the post, starting with "digital creativity flow."

I hit return and bing! Look what Google turned up — the first hit on those 3 keywords!

How did this happen? I mean, I like the post, but how does a little weblog, written by a designer in Milwaukee grab first place on a 3 keyword search? I suppose the text of the post must be part of the reason, but still.

I have known about these kinds of high-level search results from other posts here on the weblog. Try searching Google for yogurt packaging and again a post written in 2004 occupies the 1st spot.

Amazing and nice, but I have no idea how this happened. Mind you I am not complaining whatsoever, but am simply astonished how powerful a blog can be, often without really trying.

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June 3, 2006

Rohdesign Weblog Chosen by the 9rules Network

Ring!

I pulled my mobile phone from my pants at lunch today — it was my friend Jordan.

"So have you heard the news Mike?"

Before taking a last bit of a sloppy joe, I offered "Uh... what news is that Jordan?"

"You've been picked out of 700 submissions in the 9rules Network! you were one of the 111 chosen for the 4th round of submissions!" Jordan replied.

Well, indeed I was.

Here are all 111 chosen sites, including the Rohdesign Weblog. Sweet!

I've not yet received an official email on what the next steps are to agree to terms of the network, but I suspect that will come soon. I'll update this post when I'm an official member of the network and have their slick logo added to the blog.

For those not familiar with the 9rules Network, here's a tidbit from the About page:

The 9rules Network is a community of the best weblogs in the world on a variety of topics. We started 9rules to give passionate writers more exposure and to help readers find great blogs on their favorite subjects. It’s difficult to find sites worth returning to, so 9rules brings together the very best of the independent web all under one roof.

And here are the 9 rules they're founded on — I love 'em:

1. Love what you do.
2. Never stop learning.
3. Form works with function.
4. Simple is beautiful.
5. Work hard, play hard.
6. You get what you pay for.
7. When you talk, we listen.
8. Must constantly improve.
9. Respect your inspiration.

Thanks 9rules Network! :-)

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March 23, 2006

Two Web Articles: Web Standards & Palm PDAs

I managed by sheer coincidence to have 2 articles published on the web on Wednesday: an article on Web Standards and an interview about how I use my Palm PDA.

Web Standards: Why Bother?
First is an article I write for Bob Walsh's MyMicroISV weblog called Web Standards: Why Bother?. It's an overview of why owners of Micro Independent Software Vendors (MicroISVs) should consider using "Web Standards" to build their company website, rather than complex, old-school nested tables with font tags and spacer gifs. I provide a brief overview of the benefits to be had by using Web Standards, XHTML and CSS to build your website along with links to resources.

¿Qué hay en el Zire 72 de Mike Rohde?
Next, a little while ago, Albert Cuesta from Canal PDA, a Spanish-language PDA site, write and asked if I'd do an interview. I thought it'd be fun, so I said yes and gave Albert everything he needed. Yesterday he wrote to tell my my interview was online: ¿Qué hay en el Zire 72 de Mike Rohde?. Now don't go thinking I can understand or can reply in Spanish — Albert was kind enough to translate my answers! :-)

FYI, here are my answers in English, if you're curious:

Current occupation
Design Director for MakaluMedia Group, designing logos and corporate identity, websites, application icons, user interfaces and print materials. Founded and published The Palm Tipsheet from 1998 to 2003. Member of PalmSource's Palm OS User Council and maintain a PalmSource Expert Guide forWriting, Text Editing & Word Processing. Finally, I write and maintain my own personal weblog.

Current & Previous PDAs
Palm Zire72s is my current PDA. I like PDAs and devices with good balance, in this case the Zire 72 has a nice size, bright screen at 320x320 pixels, good battery life, onboard camera and optional WiFi with an SD card.

I also own a Dana Wireless, great for writing on the road because it has an excellent full-size keyboard, onboard WiFi and 20-some hour battery life. This machine is a dream for writers and bloggers.

Previous PDAs: Palm Tungsten E, which was also a nice balanced device, but was damaged accidentally. Sony Clié N610C, which was a wonderfully balanced device with great battery life, nice size and high res screen. Handspring Visor Deluxe, PalmPilot Personal and my first device, a Pilot 1000.

Regularly-used accessories
256MB SD card, Palm WiFi SD card, Vaja leather case, Belkin Sync & Charge cable.

Full list of applications you currently carry in your device (excluding applications inclided in the OS).

Applications Documents To Go; e*Mail; Eudora; iSilo; MyBible; Shadow; Splash ID; Splash Photo; WebPro; BDicty; DayNotez; eReader; Foreign; JFile 5; Noah Pro; PayOff Plus; SiEd; SlovoEd; SnapperMail; TipMe; TripBoss; upIRC; Wordsmith

Utilities BackupBuddy VFS; Colorize; DigiMe; FileZ; InstantText; MissingSync; TealLock; TomCatalog; PW Generator; Uninstall; Switch5

Games GoMocu, Hmaki, Vexed

Which of the above applications do you consider essentials and why?

e*Mail - for syncing email from Entourage Mac via the QueueSoft Entourage conduit, so I can read and reply to emails offline

Eudora - nice for checking emails when I'm using the SD WiFi card.

iSilo - for reading news and blogs offline in conjunction with iSiloX for Mac OS X.

WebPro - Great for web reading when using the SD WiFi card.

Splash ID - For managing my private data; love the integration with its desktop application for Mac OS X.

MyBible - for reading and reference to the Bible at church and on the go.

NoahPro - Great for quick lookups of words I'm curious about.

BackupBuddy VFS - My backup lifeline should the Zire ever lose battery power. Love that my data is all safely backed up on my SD card.

FileZ - Super utility for managing files on the Palm.

LauncherX - very nice tabbed interface to all of the stuff on my Palm.

Hmaki, Vexed - Good for stress relief when necessary. :-)

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February 20, 2006

Rohdesign Weblog's 3rd Birthday!

Wow, 3 years. It's hard to believe that 3 years have passed since I began this blog on February 20th, 2003 with the post Get that Weblog a Rollin', posted to my former Blogger account.

Now, exactly 420 posts later, I'm amazed at the variety of posts and topics I've covered, including blogging, books, computing, creativity, cycling, design, family, film, food, drink & coffee, iPods, kids, Macs, Milwaukee, Moleskines, music, observations on life, Palm PDAs, photography, sketches, tech, travel, web design, WiFi and other tidbits.

When I started the blog I had no idea where it might go, only that it was freeing to write about anything I wanted to, after 6 years writing and publishing the Palm Tipsheet. I loved the Tipsheet and those years producing it, but in the end, it had become a burden. It was so narrowly focusing on PDAs. I still enjoy Palm PDAs, mobile tech and so on, but it's become just another facet in my interests, rather than a dedicated focus. That's a good thing.

I still recall friends teasing me a few months into my blogging that I was writing more than I ever did with the monthly Tipsheet issues. But in fact, those comments confirmed I'd made the right choice. Writing became a joy again and not the burden it had become while pushing out Tipsheets each month.

So what wisdom can I impart from my 3 years as a blogger?

Share what you love with others.
I love to write and I love to sketch, so it's been a natural combination to combine sketch work with detailed explanations of the thoughts behind the sketches. Sharing stories from my life have been fun exercises too, including posts such as: A Challenge to Encouragement, A Day Downtown or Surprised by a Diary. Each one of those stories was a joy for me to capture and share, and (I think) were also enjoyable for visitors to read.

Take breaks.
I think it's also important to know when you are dried up and walk away for a while. If you pressure yourself to come up with good stories or posts, then it may feel forced. This is of course more true for my style of long, thought-out postings than those who post many small tidbits each day. Still — we all need a break from time to time.

Be generous.
Spend time leaving good comments on the blogs you read regularly. Write back personally to those who leave good comments on your blog. Make mention of those you admire in your blog, especially those blogs with excellent stuff which might be less well known.

Thank You!
Thanks to everyone who has left a kind word in the comments, or have emailed me directly. You guys are the ones who encourage me to keep cranking out the posts. Special thanks to fellow bloggers Matt Henderson for providing Movable Type for my weblog and to Michael Ashby, Sammy McLoughlin, Shaun McGill for their encouraging words and frequent mentions.

Here's to a 4th year at Rohdesign Weblog! :-)

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February 15, 2006

Surfacing

I can't believe it's been nearly 2 weeks since posting my Music-Driven Moleskine sketches; life has been increasing at a furious pace here, and my blogging time has suffered as a result. Well, I thought it was time to at least surface and let everyone know I'm just fine — but very busy! :-)

Been thoroughly enjoying The First Crusade by Thomas Asbridge. Quite an amazing story of the Crusades genesis in 1095. The book is a detailed historical and cultural description of the people and times which caused a monumental shift in history — so monumental that we're still feeling the shock-waves today. While you'd think such a detailed book of history would be dry and unreadable, it's actually quite an interesting, well-written book. I recommend it highly.

Haven't been sketching as I should be, but I've resolved to get a few more sketches in my Moleskine this week so I can post them here. Funny how when you aren't sketching you miss it terribly. I suppose I'm addicted to sketching. :-)

About 2 weeks ago I ordered my first Starbucks "Short" Latté, and it tasted quite good. If you haven't heard, Tim Harford recently wrote about Starbucks' 8 oz version of their drinks, called the Short (as opposed to Tall, Venti and Grande). What's good about the short? Well, the ratio of espresso shots to milk is better, and it's about 30 cents less than the Tall. It takes some nerve to order one at first, but now I'll order them when I get fancy coffees at Starbucks.

Thanks for stopping by! I promise a full post of some sort later this week.

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September 23, 2005

Happy BlogBirthday to Lornitropia!

Today is the 1 year birthday of A Visit to Lornitropia — a friend and fellow Milwaukee blogger Steve Duncan. Steve and I have already had several great coffee meetings, talking blogging, mobile tech, the web, podcasting and more. Steve works as a Competitive Analyst by day, and likes to share insights from his career, though he covers a wide gamut of thought.

http://www.lornitropia.net/

Happy BlogBirthday Steve! :-)

Technorati Tags: blogging, milwuakee

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August 31, 2005

BlogDay 2005 Recommendations

A few weeks ago, I came across the BlogDay 2005 event and thought it would be fun to participate. The idea to have bloggers share 5 different blog recommendations was proposed by Nir Ofir, a blogger and editor for the Israeli portal Tapuz.co.il.

Nir wanted to learn about new blogs, and offer blog readers a glimpse at other blogs as recommended by the bloggers they already read.

Here's the idea behind BlogDay in the words of Nir himself:

BlogDay was initiated with the belief that bloggers should have one day which will be dedicated to know other bloggers, from other countries or areas of interests. In that day Bloggers will recommend about them to their Blog visitors.

In one long moment In August 31st, bloggers from all over the world will post a recommendation of 5 new Blogs, Preferably, Blogs different from their own culture, point of view and attitude. On this day, blog surfers will find themselves leaping and discovering new, unknown Blogs, celebrating the discovery of new people and new bloggers.

Here are my 5 recommendations:

Rands in Repose
I enjoy Rands in Repose quite a bit, because of the writing quality and thoughtfulness of each post. Rands doesn't write often, but when he does, it's very good quality stuff, that gets me thinking. I also quite like his blog design.
Selected post: The Bear Story

Daring Fireball
The blog of Jon Gruber, who comments mainly on technology, particularly the Mac, user interface and reading between the lines of news stories. Like Rands, Jon posts less regularly, but when he posts, the writing is excellent and thought provoking.
Selected post: Ronco Spray-On Usability

Tech Ronin
This is the weblog of Janet Tokerud, who often writes about various tidbits that seem to interest me. She also buys all of the gadgets I wish I could buy, but can't justify! As a fellow Mac OS X user, avid reader, Moleskine and pen freak she provides good insight on many of my favorite things.
Selected post: The World is Flat, Now What?

Veerle Pieters
Veerle is a Belgian blogger covering design, music and other related tidbits. I love her excellent tutorials in graphics and web design and have also enjoyed her music suggestions. I appreciate that she shares her knowledge.
Selected post: 5 Steps to achieve a nice aqua effect

Jordon Cooper
Blog of a Canadian pastor and techno-junkie. Jordon provides challenging writing on culture, faith and technology, along with great contextless links. Jordon is currently going through a tough time physically, but manages to keep writing somehow. I like Jordon's honesty and the revelation of his personality through his posts.
Selected post: Summer Reading List

I hope you enjoy checking out my recommendations and look forward to checking out others in the BlogDay collection at Technorati.

Technorati Tags: BlogDay2005, blogging

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April 9, 2005

Busy, Busy Busy!

Apologies for being a bit quiet here the past few weeks. life has been very busy on both the professional and personal side of things and blogging is a lower priority right now.

However, i have some posts brewing on my mind right now that I'm looking forward to writing up, that will be coming in the next few weeks.

On the pen front, Michael Leddy in the Pen Freak comments helped me sort out the exact model of Shaeffer fountain pen I have here, with broken off pen cap clip — it's the Triumph Intrigue, which looks very much like the image below:

I think I'm going to try and locate a new pen cap for it, and maybe even locate a backup of the same or similar pen online somewhere. we'll see. There's always the Lamy Safari line that interests me, Fisher Space Pens and the Vanishing Point fountain pens from Namiki to explore. So many pens, so little time :-)

Have a great weekend!

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February 22, 2005

2 Years Blogging

Two Years.

It's hard to believe I've been hammering away at my blog for two years.

I had been reading several blogs for over a year. I admired the writing of blogs I read and I began to look forward to the thoughts being shared at those favorite places every day.

I thought, "Why couldn't I write a blog? Why not just try it?"

So I did. I got a free Blogger.com account and began writing. At the same time, I was letting go of the Palm Tipsheet, mainly because I felt it had run its course, and I longed to write about so much more than just Palm handhelds.

My next concern was, would I lose interest in writing? Would my blog end up another ghost town of ancient, rotting posts?

Here I am, two years later. Now I can't imagine not having a blog.

My blog has become a public place to share thoughts, float ideas, share stories, sketches and design work — a place to experiment and receive feedback from interesting people. It allows friends, family and new readers to explore my stream of consciousness. It's like a vapor trail of thoughts.

It's funny, because last week I met my first fellow blogger from Milwaukee, Todd Sattersten. In our lunch conversation, he told me how much he appreciates meeting bloggers, because he can read their archives beforehand to get a much deeper, clearer picture of them.

I think blogging is hitting mainstream now, for that very reason. Regular people are finding other regular people freely sharing of themselves. It may be the sharing of wisdom, or stories, or opinions. Whatever the "it" might be, the act of sharing reveals that we are all human beings, who think and laugh — and screw up.

Blogs provide a way for people on a digital network to connect. Blogs are great, because people make them so. It's not the features, or the platform, or the design — it's in the stories people are sharing with each other. It's the conversation, just like the Cluetrain said.

For me, blogging has challenged me to think, to write, to sketch and to share. I've met many new people through this space, and have most importantly, learned more about myself and others through the experience.

So, if you aren't blogging now, why not give it a shot? :-)

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January 8, 2005

Rohdesign Weblog RSS Full Posts Enabled!

Hey RSS fans, tonight I've finally worked out how to setup full blog posts on my RSS 1.0 feed! I learned from a post by Lee LeFever at Common Craft, that the 'MTEntriy' tag needed to be changed from 'MTEntryExcerpt' to 'MTEntryBody' and it works!

You may need to refresh the RSS feed too see it, but it now includes all text, formatting, links and even images (e.g sketchtoons, photos, etc.) for the last 10 posts.

If you haven't subscribed to the Rohdesign RSS feed yet, check it out here.

In other RSS news, iSiloX 4.2 was released this week, with RSS conversion features.

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September 13, 2004

Painting The House

Hey, I've been away from the blog a bit, mainly to paint our house! Right now I'm not in a position to post more about that, but plan a longer post with photos this week. We used an airless sprayer which was a pain and then later a joy to use (once we learned the problems it was having).

Anyway, it has been and will be a focus again this week, as trim and touch ups are needed. But boy, what an experience! Now that we're about 85-90% complete, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! :-)

UPDATE 2004-09-14
I now have a few more details and pics to share and a few minutes at the end of lunch break to get them posted here.

First, the state of the original house color: UGLY. Dark brown siding with circa 1974 mustard windows and trim. We've always wanted to change the colors, and now finally we've done it. I'm amazed every time I see the new color on the house, how much more attractive it is and how much bigger it makes the house look. But that's normal when going from dark brown to medium tan with creme trim.

We used dad's powerwasher, which worked quite nicely to prep the aluminum siding surfaces. Dad accidentally power washed some of our cement patio, and discovered that cement looks great when power washed. So, once the painting is completed, we're planning to spruce up the sidewalks, patio and driveway via power wash (this will also serve to clean up bits of over-spray here and there).

The process was very hard and time consuming. Because we used an airless sprayer for the main surfaces, lots of taping, papering off and masking were required. We were amazed at how much needed to be taped and hidden from over-spray.

As to what an "airless" sprayer is: think of a giant auto sprayer or airbrush that sucks paint into a 50 foot tube via a piston. You dunk two tubes in the can of paint, the piston pumps until pressure is achieved, then the spray head can spray the paint. The piston pumps as needed to maintain the pressure of the system. It's "airless" because with other sprayers, air is the propellant for the paint — here pressurized paint becomes the propellant.

The priming stage started ok, but got progressively worse as we went along. By the end of the priming, my dad and I were about to toss the airless sprayer out, as it spurted paint at the end of every spray pass (putting splatters on the house). Dad decided to have a look at the spray head, and learned that it was not sealing after each spray, so he picked up new internal parts. After this change, the sprayer worked "just like buttah."

The main body coat was next, and went quite quickly. We estimated that the house painting took about 5.5 hours in total. As an example, dad watched as I sprayed a 10 x 50 foot section of the house, then commented "Well, what you've just sprayed is about 3 hours of work with a brush". Once I began to get the rhythm and feel for the machine, spraying went very quickly. It felt as if I couldn't stop, or I'd lose my momentum. It was actually fun to paint the house! :-)

As of today, the trim is starting to come along. front and side gutters and downspouts have a single coat of trim paint. We still have a bit to do, but this is easy to do a bit at a time, now that the main chunk of the house is painted. There are many touch ups to do, but that's a matter of repeated passes. We should have the house completed in another week or two, weather permitting.

I think the most important lesson learned from this whole project is this: you can do it if you believe you can. In this case I thought I could do it, but my dad was convinced I could. At the start, it was dad's confidence which drove me to excel, until I could see for myself that I could do it — and enjoy it! It's truly a great feeling when someone has complete confidence in you and you meet those expectations.

Best thing is, we have a great looking house, for very little cost. I've no idea what it would cost to have the house painted professionally, but I'm sure it would be more than our costs to do it ourselves.

Besides, now I can say to myself and others "I did that!"

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July 22, 2004

Thursday Update

He was an older gentleman, standing in line at the photo output center last night, and he drove me nutzo. We saw him in the parking lot, arriving just before us at the station, plugging in his card. We waited.

And waited. And waited. And waited. Our friend was processing 91 pictures — but no... not just getting photo prints, but cropping, editing, resizing, color correcting every... single... picture...

Aggghhh!

We finally left after waiting nearly 25 minutes, because Gail noticed the gent had returned to one of the pictures he had already edited, cropped, rotated, color corrected, resized, sepia toned. We were already late for a cookout and couldn't afford any more waiting, so we left (returning later that evening to print our pics within 5 minutes).

I was actually pleased to see the digital print console getting use, and that a senior gentleman was getting into digital photography... I think we just had very, very bad timing. :-)

And now for the Thursday update.

Redesign Update
No progress this week, following the finalization of the design. There's quite alot going on, and I'm not in a hurry to finish, primarily because we have a vacation starting on Friday. So, maybe I'll start on the CSS over vacation but more likely I'll just wait until August, when we return.

Have a great weekend!

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June 19, 2004

Weblog Back Online

The Rohdesign Weblog is now back online. Comment spammers' scripts seemed to have stayed alive, as I was greeted with 26 nice new comment spams once the Moveable Type database was hooked up. Sad and funny, all at the same time.

Look for Rohdesign Redesign: Part 2 to appear sometime on Monday. By the way, Rohdesign Redesign: Part 1 is in the archives, if you'd like to check it out.

Have a great weekend!

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May 10, 2004

Vacation Recovery

Just a quick note to let everyone know I am back from vacation, but as often happens, a vacation means catch up at both work and home. In fact, that's what I'm up to early this week.

I hope to have some new stuff here on Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on how things go with my vacation recovery. :-)

Cheers!

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April 30, 2004

Break Time

To coincide with a week off of work next week, I'll be taking a week off of blogging as well.

Enjoy the first week of May everyone! ;-)

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April 21, 2004

Busy Week

Apologies for the lack of posts here of late. It's been a busy week so far. However I plan to write a bit Thursday at the café, so the drought should be broken soon. :-)

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April 6, 2004

Thoughts on Weblog Voices

The way people express themselves is quite interesting to me. I'm constantly amazed at how different people each have a creative voice which reaches right out of their work. Some voices are very clear, while others maybe have interference because they maybe are not yet aware of their voice. However, in nearly every case (except where someone is trying to copy another style) their voice is there.

I find it very intriguing that various writers can use the very same words and vocabulary but it's how a writer chooses to work with their words, in context to each other, that can set a mood or provide a vivid mental image. Put three writers, artists or photographers in an identical environment and each will offer a story, drawing or photos, each from a slightly different perspective, each with a unique voice.

I realize this is pretty obvious, but I still find this very fascinating. I feel this is why weblogs can be so interesting. Each weblog is more or less and extension of an individual or a group of people, putting their voices and thoughts out there for everyone to see.

I have several weblogs which I visit each day to see what's happening, whether it be with a specific area of interest or just the personal thoughts of a friend or even what's happening with an interesting writer I may not even know personally. I really enjoy the voice of each weblog: the way a topic is presented or a story is described or maybe an angle provided I hadn't considered.

The biggest limiting factor I see are the sheer number of weblogs available to read — it's already immense and growing daily. How do you deal with all of the weblogs out there? An RSS Aggregator/Reader to manage and organize blogs is a good start, and of course we each choose a weblog by the writer behind it, or the topic, or both.

Probably the common sense answer is to choose your weblogs wisely and stick with them. If you find a great weblog and your list is already very long, maybe consider replacing a much less-read blog with the new one, instead of adding to the list. I find that over time what may have interested me has lost some of its effect and I'll visit much less often.

Anyway, technicalities aside, what I do know is I enjoy weblogs even more than when I began reading them about 2-some years ago. There are several bloggers I've followed for a long time, because there is something about the writer behind it which draws me back regularly.

Sure, topics like Gadgets, Palm OS, Mac OS, etc. might have some drawing power — but the bottom line for me is always the humanness of the blog: the writer, their personality. and their voice. I really love that.

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April 1, 2004

No Foolin'

Well, I had thought of a few clever little April Fool ideas today, but never had the time or gumption to actually write one up and make it feel real. Oh well, that's alright, because it seems everyone else on the web is hard at work, creating spoofs today, which is cool.

My idea, which never came to fruition, was to maybe suggest that San Disk had come up with a second generation Palm OS SD WiFi card with incredible 1000 foot range. I'd have a really nicely built, low profile SD card shown, with a little gleam on it. You know, selling it big time and all that.

Then, in the copy, detail how there was this special, hair-thin 1000 foot long fiber optic cable that needed to be wrapped around your head and then connected between the SD card and your access point. Seemed about right, considering the delay after delay we've seen from San Disk WiFi card drivers for the Palm OS.

Anyway, I've got nothing to trick you all with this year. Sorry. Maybe next year.

Happy April 1st!

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March 15, 2004

Blog Free Week

Hey everyone, I've got lots to catch up on 'round here, and my office and home is in need of some good spring cleaning. Besides that, I thought it'd be nice to take a short break to refresh the brain cells, having written about rest last week.

So, I'm going to take a blogging break for a week to catch up. See you all on Monday, March 22nd. :-)

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February 20, 2004

A BlogBirthday and Newtons

Well, today turns out to be my big one year BlogBirthday! Woo Hoo! :-)

Actually I am amazed that a year has gone by already and yet in other ways it seems like I've been doing this blogging thing for a long time now. I think that's a good sign. So, to all of those who have encouraged me in my blogging over the past year, thanks! :-)

In what seems to have marked the occasion, I had a nice chat with Sammy McLoughlin today. It turns out Sam had a spare Newton 130 round his flat in New York City he wasn't using anymore. Well, it all really started when I mentioned to Sam that I'd always wanted to own a Newton... that's when Sammy mentioned he had one collecting dust in his cupboard. Further, he was nearly adamant that I accept it in exchange for my little bit of web design work on the Palm Addict website. Okay, not adamant, but very much encouraging me to accept his Newton as a thank you. Wow, that Sammy is really a great guy. :-)

Well, not to be one passing up a great chance at some interesting handheld hardware, I of course said yes, and Sammy seemed very pleased to see his old Newt going to a good home. Now I just have to start doing a little research on what can be done with an old Newt 130. Already it seems to have a dead backup battery, but Sam says it runs fine otherwise.

My hard core Newt using friend Andy once told me to look for a 2000 or 2100 because the processor is so much faster, making the handwriting recognition much better, etc. Well, I guess for now the 130 will have to do -- but really I'm more curious than anything. I want to see what the user interface is like and how it compares to the Palm OS. Should be great fun exploring Sam's old Newton.

So, if you happen to be a Newt user and can point me to some good web resources, or have suggestions about Newt use, I'd love to hear from you. This is all new territory for me, so I welcome your wisdom. It's likely I won't become a hardcore user, but one never knows.

Have a great weekend all!

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January 9, 2004

Other People's Weblogs

Today I wanted to take a moment to mention some other weblogs I really like. Some of these weblogs belong to friends of mine, some are weblogs I just admire greatly.

My Palm Life
John Winstanley and his cohort Sven Rafferty have just pumped up the My Palm Life website recently, which is a blend of weblog, Palm news site and forums. John had been doing the Blogger thing for a while on his own, until he and Sven decided to give it a go together. Both guys seems to be having fun at this new venture and that's just what blogging is all about! Good stuff guys!

My First Blog
I have another "Blog-child" (someone who starts weblogging because of your own weblog) in Scott Fringer. Scott is an IT guy who lives on his Clié NX73V. He wasn't sure about starting a weblog, but after some discussion he decided to give it a try. His blog is called appropriately, My First Blog. I was pleased to see that he's been experimenting with mobile posting via his Clié and Vagablog. Keep going my friend!

Witold Riedel's Weblog
I was just reminded about Witold Riedel's weblog and site last night and can highly recommend his blog and wonderful sketches. Witold travels to work on the NYC subway and while riding, likes to sketch in his small Moleskine notebook. He recently had an interview about his sketchbooks which also features a gallery called "Seeds for the Pen." Wow. I don't know Witold, but I do highly admire his work.

flashenabled.com
I like to drop by and check out Phillip Torrone's flashenabled.com site now and again. Phillip is a tech and gadget junkie, and a Segway owner/advocate. My friend Lorenz mentioned in an email that he had just posted a collection of black and white photos called option 3, taken every half hour, 7 days per week for 3 weeks. The resulting 1,066 snapshots are very nice. I don't know Phillip personally either, but if I did, I'd suggest that he turn his cool photo collection into a slideshow or a quicktime movie with a music track running in the background.

That's it for this time. I might make this a regular thing, maybe monthly... not sure yet. If you have any weblog suggestions for me and other visitors, please feel free to leave them in the comments area below.

Have a great weekend!

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December 19, 2003

Christmas & New Years Blogging Break

I've decided to take a little blogging break over Christmas and New Years weeks, as those are usually busy personally and work-wise. Rather than add another thing to do for the next few weeks, I think it's best to take a little break and resume again in 2004.

However, if Lord of the Rings Return of the King is as good as I'm expecting, I may drop in during my break and post a brief review of the film. We'll see. :-)

I wish you a wonderful holiday season: a Merry Christmas or a Happy Hanukkah and a happy and blessed New Year. Be sure to spend time with family and friends, and maybe even take a little personal break to reflect on 2003. I always find those two things the most important ways I celebrate this time of year.

See you next year! :-)

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November 17, 2003

Weblog Writing Tips, Austrian Kaffeehaus, Palm OS Blogging Update

Now that title ought to be an award winner for most bizarre compilation of tidbits in a single weblog posting. But hey, it's my weblog... :-)

Advice on Writing Weblogs: A few weeks ago I came across this link to the article 10 Tips on Writing the Living Web by Mark Bernstein at A List Apart and just tossed it into my links collection to check out later. Today, while looking for good things to mention, I stumbled across the link again, so here we are.

Now not all 10 of Mark's tips will apply to every writer, and some might not interest you, but at least one or maybe more of these tips ought to be helpful. Mainly, Mark tells you to be real, writing what you know and being honest about what you think. But you'll enjoy reading all 10 tips, so don't just take my summation as enough, read the whole thing.

Austrian Kaffeehaus in London: This weekend, my good friend Andy, who happens to be an Austrian living in London, sent along a webpage he's posted about Kipferl, a cool new Austrian coffee house he's just found in central London. Just reading Andy's description made me hungry for a Kipferl and a cup of Sachers-brand coffee. Andy, let's start talking about some Christmas treats, ok? Mmmmm! :-)

Palm OS Weblogging Update: Lastly, I've received a few requests of late about my journey with weblogging with a Palm OS device. I thought I'd present an update on that here. Essentially, nothing has changed. I've experimented with a few apps like Azure and several web browsers on both the Tungsten C and Dana Wireless, but found them all lacking.

I don't want to run Java to do the Azure thing, but even worse, there's a 4k limit to posts in Azure. The same 4k limit and use of pop-up windows in Palm OS web browsers has also soured me on using them. Yeah, for short posts it's workable, but not ideal. Check out Michael Ashby's Weblogging With Your Palm post on the subject for more details.

I have found that a document on the Mac synced via Wordsmith, Quickword or DocsTo Go seems to work best. And now that my Tungsten E has the new 32k Memo application and conduit, a Memo could work pretty well too. Alternately, using the "Send' key on my Dana Wireless while connected via USB cable works great -- I write remotely and then I just use the Send function dump raw blog text right into NetNewsWire's useful Weblog editing window.

In fact, my big plan for a Palm OS blog tool, is contact Stand Alone Software about writing a dedicated application in the same vein as Hand/RSS for reading RSS feeds. I like that Stand Alone has considered both wired and un-wired customers with Hand/RSS, since feeds can be updated either via a net connection or their included Mac or Windows conduit. Seems like a perfect way to do a Weblogging tool to me.

So, if you're interested in seeing Stand Alone build a Weblog tool, please join me in dropping them a line to make them aware of your request. Who knows -- it might just work. :-):

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September 29, 2003

Back On Track

Well, hello everyone! It was very nice to take a blogging break last week... I was able to catch up a little bit and even gather some ideas for weblog posts in the process.

I've also started reading a new book, discovered at the library last week. I'd heard good things about William Gibson's Pattern Recognition on the net and from my good friend Dan, so when I saw it on the new fiction rack I had to grab it.

In a nutshell, the story follows Cayce Pollard, a "cool hunter" who works for ad agencies to locate the "next cool thing" -- she's a pattern recognizer. Pollard also happens to have a side hobby of following segments of mysterious "footage" that appears regularly on the net with no clues as to who is shooting it, or why it's being released. As the story progresses, she's drawn to far off places and into odd situations as she searches for the meanings and maker of the footage.

Even halfway through the story, I can tell you that Pattern Recognition is an excellent read! I love Gibson's way of describing places, which at times seems to approach poetry. I get these wonderful travelogue-like snapshot images from his place descriptions, which makes the story seem all that more real. The characters are also very well done -- quirks and all. Overall, the story is very different and compelling.

The only downside: Pattern Recognition is new fiction, which makes it 7-day loan material. This means I've had to really keep a move on, reading before bed and choosing the book over football games on Sunday. Still, this is a good thing in my estimation, since it's become a real pleasure and joy to take a little time each day or an hour on a rainy Sunday afternoon, to read a bit more of the story.

So, once this book is completed I'll be sure to write a review in a little more depth and will probably invoke the excerpt function of Moveable Type so it won't be a spoiler for those yet to read the book.

As for other tidbits... I'm enjoying my French Press coffee maker each morning. I've told Mashby, who turned me back on to French Press coffee, that I now feel like a coffee snob... drip coffee just doesn't have the same draw after rich press coffee. I plan to have a more detailed post on that this week.

I'm counting the days until the film Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King (ROTK) is released. I'm 3/4 of the way through ROTK in book form and can't wait until that film is released December 17th. In fact, if you don't mind a few potential spoilers, here's the official ROTK Quicktime trailer courtesy of my LOTR-loving friend, Andy. WOW!!

Anyway, I've enjoyed my break, which has actually made coming back even sweeter. This weekend I was looking forward to cranking out posts again. I even have a few new post ideas up my sleeve following my little hiatus. :-)

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September 22, 2003

A Little Blogging Hiatus

I have a few things around here that I'd like to catch up on and get ahead of this week, so I've decided to take a little break from blogging, so I can have my lunchbreaks back. :-)

Meantime, here are a few select weblogs to have a peek at while I'm away:

GearBits
Mashby.com
Palm Addict
Gizmodo
Palmsolo
Mobitopia
goodthatway

See y'all next week! :-)

Mike

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August 6, 2003

Back to Blogging

Well, I'm finally back on track and ready to start blogging, after a very nice week long break in Western Pennsylvania. It was nice to step away from things here for a little while, though it does normally mean twice as much to catch up on, upon return to "Regular Life". But what else is new? :-)

Lance's 5th & Le Tour Thoughts
I was highly tempted to post some tidbits here last week when Lance Armstrong won his 5th Tour de France, but decided that many others would cover that event like a blanket. One of my favorite blog posts on Lance's 5th was at Matt Henderson's weblog and a great article on Lance himself was found over at Frank Steele's Tour de France 2003 Blog.

I was very pleased with this year's Tour, which was wilder and closer than any I've ever seen. It was great to be on pins and needles right down to the individual time trial in the 19th stage. While Lance wasn't in the same form as his previous 4 Tours, I was actually more impressed with this 5th win, because of his smart tactical moves, cool head, bike handling in clutch situations and tenacity in the face of many problems.

I admire Jan Ullrich for keeping things close and his sportsmanship, but it appeared to me he pushed a little too hard in the last time trial. His crash was due to his aggressive riding in bad conditions, combined with his watching a video of the day's course in his hotel, rather than doing a recon ride like Lance did that morning.

Finally my highest regard goes to Tyler Hamilton, who, with a fractured collarbone snagged 4th place overall. I was pleased that Lance got his 5th, but was blown away by Tyler's dedication and drive, especially in his stage win and 2nd place finish in the individual time trial. Lance had better look out for Tyler in 2004...

Palm Stuff
On the Palm front, I've recently received a Tungsten C to test out here on the Wi-Fi network and I'm very impressed with the device so far. Well, mostly anyway... reception here in my house is not the greatest on the Tungsten C, but my Netgear Wi-Fi router is in the basement and we have a 2.4 GHz phone system working here too. I need to do some fiddling with the setup. I also want to test the T|C at a friend's place and a coffee shop.

Anyway, I will be posting tidbits about the T|C here as I think of them now, which seems like a nice connection to all off my recent posts on the device a few months back. :-)

Books
I'm reading a new book about Canada's and Alaska's Inside Passage, called Passage to Juneau: A Sea and Its Meanings by Jonathan Raban. I'll get into a review once I've completed the book, but I can report that It's an excellent read, particularly if you enjoy sailing and travel writing.

Alright, time to get back to catching up...

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July 22, 2003

A Short Blogging Holiday

With a week long vacation coming up later this week and all the required preparation for travel and other tasks to complete beforehand, I've decided to take a little blogging break.

My weblog will be idle starting Wednesday the 23rd and back in action somewhere around August 2nd, though I might be tempted to pop back in and comment on the Tour or any wild Palm handheld announcements that pop up. We'll see.

Meanwhile, I thought it might be nice to leave a list of tidbits you might want to check out while I'm on my little hiatus:

Palm Stuff:

ZDNet: David Nagel Unplugged: Can Palm re-connect?
Found this link through PDAGeek today and have yet to read it, but at first scan it looks pretty darn good.

Seattle Times: On Golden Palm: The battle of the handhelds
Jeff Carlson has been a Mac guy and Palm guy for a long time and writes very well. PDANews24 put me onto this story today.

Wired: Sony Breaks Ground With New PDA
An in-depth article about Sony's new Clie PEG-UX50.

Cycling:

USPS.com: Frankie Andreu's Tour de France 2003 Diaries: Stage 15
Frankie has some great insider diary entries about the tour, since he has access to the riders (and specifically Lance Armstrong). The site's navigation is a little lacking as for showing archive entries, but you can manually load up the stage diary entry you want by changing the last 4 digits of the page name to the date you desire (03tdf_fa_0721.htm).

Frank Steele: Tour de France 2003 Weblog
Frank is doing an excellent job tracking down the most interesting stories on the net related to the Tour. This is the place to go for the last few stages of the Tour this week. Keep rollin' Frank!

Oskar van Rijswijk: LOGos Tour Blog
Oskar is also doing a superb job tracking down stories and video clips -- his was the place I found the clip of Armstrong going off-road in stage 9. Greetz Oskar!

Have a great week and a half... I know I will.:-)

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July 7, 2003

Getting Back in Rhythm

I am almost back in the swing of regular blog posting after a nice, long independence Day weekend and time spent with our friend Andy Bauer. We had a great time the past two and a half weeks with Andy (who is now safely back in London).

We saw and did quite a bit in two-plus weeks time, including dinner at two very good steakhouses (Butch's Old Casino Steakhouse and Mr. B's Bartolotta Steakhouse), sailing, fireworks, a 4th of July Parade, Old World Wisconsin (a living museum) and much, much more. Hopefully I'll be able to recount a few highlights when I'm back in the rhythm of blogging again.

However, with the combo of Andy's visit and a long 4th of July weekend, it's going to probably take a week to get on my normal posting schedule, so please bear with me. I may just do quickie posts with links until I'm able to get back to more substantive posts.

I should mention that I'm in the midst of a wonderful old Jules Verne novel on my Sony Clie called The Mysterious Island. It's a great story, set in the 1860's and recounts how a crew of Union civil war prisoners escape by stealing a balloon during a hurricane and manage to survive on a remote island. I loved 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, and this one is right up there in quality. Highly recommended!

Okay, off to a few outstanding tasks here... :-)

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May 23, 2003

Weblog Updates: New Mobile Edition & RSS Link

I have a few weblog updates to report, before this long Memorial Day holiday weekend in the US. Most notably, I've added a mobile edition of the weblog main page for use with AvantGo, iSilo, Plucker or any other mobile-sized online or offline web browser. Here's the full URL:

  http://www.rohdesign.com/weblog/mobile.html

The mobile edition uses a greatly simplified template that ought to work much better with handheld tools as it doesn't feature any links on the left or complex tables. The mobile template also has the added benefit of taking less space on your handheld.

I've also simplified my RSS 1.0 news feed URL from rohdesign_rss.xml to a much simpler and easier to guesstimate rss.xml and/or rss.rdf. Here are the full URLs:

  http://www.rohdesign.com/weblog/rss.xml
  http://www.rohdesign.com/weblog/rss.rdf

I've kept the old RSS feed in place for those who don't want to change the link in their news aggregator... and just because it seems like a nice thing to do. Eventually I will post a note on that version to switch to the new file.

Hey, if you have a long US Memorial Day weekend coming up, enjoy the day. If you're a tech person I challenge you to break away from the computer and your gadgetry for a while and enjoy the sunshine. It'll do you a world of good. :-)

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April 28, 2003

Moveable Type

It was time to move on up to Moveable Type. I think in general the weblog should work the same way, if not better than the Blogger version as MT has many, many more features that suit my current blogging needs. That's not to say Blogger isn't a great system -- it's awesome for those getting started or those who want a simple blog and blogs with specific features (like email posting found in Blogger Pro).

Anyway, if you see any wierdness, let me know. Meanwhile I'll be working to improve the weblog as I learn more about ol' MT. :-)

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March 12, 2003

Blogging Gone Mainstream?

Today I read an interesting article at CNN, talking about blogging going mainstream. More of these kinds of articles seem to be appearing lately, following Google's recent purchase of Blogger.com (Blogger is a company which is popular for its free and paid blog services).

I find it intriguing that a phenomenon like blogging can be happening below the radar for quite some time, until a singular event (like Google buying Blogger) brings it to the attention of the media and general public. This process seems similar to the way musical acts are "discovered" even though they've been doing local or national tours for years and years.

I had a friend ask me what I thought the real deal with blogs was. He wanted to know if I thought were they just a fad like pet rocks, or if I felt there was something of substance to them. My answer was both.

Blogs do seem to have a momentary faddish aspect to them. In fact, many are starting blogs with great enthusiasm that will probably stop posting once they discover nobody is reading their work. As an example, check out this Wired article about weblogs abandoned by their owners.

On the other hand, there are many useful blogs that provide journalistic-level coverage on current events, some that specialize in research on very specific topics, and still others updated by developers, who share details of their development process with users and colleagues.

I think just as email, web browsing and chatting have all grown up and settled into a groove, blogging will settle into its own niche too. Once the fad has run its course, blogs will find their place in the web and become another staple for those who use and enjoy them.

I think the biggest problem facing a world of blogs is the sheer number and variety of them. There are just so many resources out there, no one reader will be able to see them all. Over time I think the better, more dedicated and more focused bloggers will prosper while bloggers who lose interest in blogging will falter. This is the normal way of things -- the best naturally rise to the top.

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