Date: Thursday, 14 Aug 2008
Time: 7:00 pm–9:00 pm
Location: Room 317, 251 Mercer Street NYC (SW corner of West 4th)
Note: Use the entrance on the west side since construction blocks the Mercer Street entrance. Must bring photo ID.

Agenda

• Meet new members. We expect and welcome new faces!
• By-laws reform. Progress report from Joseph Shraibman.
• Planning future meetings and events. Good news is we have just received a sizable grant from ISOC-NY for our Fall program.
• ISXubuntu Linux project progress report. News from our trusty coders.
• OneWebDay planning progress report. Washington Square Sep 22 event taking shape.
• NYC Broadband. Discussion of new report from from the Mayor's office.
• ICANN. We have been accepted as an at-large structure.
• Status of Connecting .NYC. An update from Tom Lowenhaupt.
• Web standards. How can we make our own site more W3C compliant?

Jeffrey Barke is senior developer and information architect at theMechanism, a multimedia firm with offices in New York, London and Durban, South Africa.

…as a young designer, I had shown my portfolio to a Cleveland-based agency in a job hunt. They tactfully told me that while they liked my work, without a specific & identifiable style, I would not be a “salable” creative; fitting into their corporate system. In other words, they wanted a singular style to sell instead of substance. I explained to them that my portfolio had creative solutions which were based on what the client’s audience required to identify with a brand, and had very little to do with my own personal visual style. I changed my personal visual styles when I got bored, or needed to feel revitalized. It was this response that empowered me to get in my car, drive from Cleveland to New York City, and take my first New York job at the now defunct (yet highly influential Web design consultancy) methodfive.

At The Police’s final concert last night in Madison Square Garden, I was reminded of the importance of transformation by Sting, who acted out a creative metamorphosis onstage. Arriving and playing most of the show with a shaggy gray beard – he appeared as a grizzled, aging musician instead of the symbol of health and vitality expected from the leader of the pop trio. Just before the encore, he publicly changed his appearance backstage (and onscreen) with a shave. Like a Phoenix rising from the ashes of a long tour and interpersonal battles within the band, he changed his persona during the intermission – emerging revitalized and new; shaved and young – delivering a two act play as an example of how first, the long tour had aged and tested him – and on this final night, revitalized him – as he moves once again past the shadow and drama of The Police, into the next phase of his career.

Was this overplayed and dramatic? Of course, but rock n’ roll should always have an unpredictable element of bombast. And possibly, so should you.

Dave Fletcher is the Founder / Creative Director at theMechanism, a multi-disciplinary design agency with offices in New York, London and Durban, South Africa. He is also a fan of music and believes that a sign of old age is going to see the “final concerts” played by bands that formed after his birth.

From Webmonkey:

"F**KING NDA" has become a mantra on Twitter. Every time a developer posts about his or her latest run-in with the metaphorical brick wall that is Apple's NDA, the capitalized expletive is sounded off. "F**KING NDA" has become such a phenomenon, a website has sprung up at F**kingNDA.com to track the twisted tweets.

Apple's software development kit (SDK) for the iPhone is the primary set of tools for building apps for the iPhone, especially if the creations are to be included for sale in the device's App Store. The NDA, which must be agreed to before the SDK can be downloaded, prevents programmers from discussing the finer points of their code.

"There is no legal way for developers to talk about they are developing," Williams laments. "No way to post tutorials. No way to give code away. It's hard to interact with other developers and to write code without reinventing the wheel. Normally, you could post [a coding question] on Twitter and get an answer within minutes."

More info on why the iPhone NDA is no good:

• iPhone NDA: Doing more harm than good—Chris Foresman
• More on the iPhone NDA—Chuqui 3.0
• Lift the iPhone NDA online petition

We could have avoided the blog post except that an “unnamed designer at Pentagram” decided to “teach the kids and haters a lesson” by flinging his own monkey poo into the fray:

“I designed the new Shake Shack identity and the original existing identity. The permanent signage on the exterior of the new Shake Shack will appear as the original logo, familiar from the Madison Square Park location. The new retail identity will be used in the interior for items like menu boards, cups, paper and packaging, but not on the architecture. The sign in your shot is temporary–it’s just a piece of paper.

The new identity is not an homage to Steak n Shake. The typography has nothing in common–the new Shake Shack logotype is in script. Sometimes it appears straight. Sometimes it will appear in a stamp or seal in a circular motif. Saying it’s a rip-off of the Steak n Shake logo is like saying a hot dog is just like a hamburger because they’re both in a bun.”

Thanks “Mysterious Designer at Pentagram” – you have put the people who are been yammering about this nonsense in their place – not only with your mastery of the obvious, but with your snotty and authoritative tone. By mixing phrases for designers (“…it will appear in a stamp or seal in a circular motif”) with ironic comparisons designed to resonate with total morons (“hot dogs and hamburgers”? Really??), you’ve actually stooped to the very level that a masterful agency such as Pentagram should always choose to remain light years above.

Calling all designers, developers, information architects, project managers, writers, editors, marketers, and everyone else who makes websites. It is time once again to pool our information so as to begin sketching a true picture of the way our profession is practiced worldwide.

Note—There's a "curated" selection of Google I/O videos posted on my blog at http://jeffreybarke.net/tag/io2008/.

PowerPoint presentation

Demos/tutorials

• Gears
• Google AJAX Feed API

Jeffrey Barke is senior developer and information architect at theMechanism, a multimedia firm with offices in New York, London and Durban, South Africa.

Just like the toys and gadgets that litter our desks at the office, Spaced will gleefully litter your creative brain with clever and unhinged plots, quirky direction (by Edgar Wright), twisted acting, and an occasional zombie thrown in for good measure.

Margaret, now residing at the London office, turned the American creative bunker on to the show long before it was available in the states, and I couldn’t be more happy that I’ll not only be able to pick up a copy of the DVD later today (with a wry nod to the poster art of Star Wars on its cover), but I’ll also get to have a copy signed at the Virgin Megastore in Union Square by Simon, Jessica and Edgar – all who were in the East Village a few hours ago (that’s Sharon with Simon before the screening) – treating us all to three episodes on the big screen, and some interesting insight afterward.

Dave Fletcher is a self-admitted Spaced junkie and Founder / Creative Director at theMechanism, a multi-disciplinary design agency with offices in New York, London and Durban, South Africa.

Google I/O was a two day developer gathering in San Francisco, 28–28 May 2008, which covered building the next generation of Web applications with Google and open technologies.

Jeffrey Barke, senior developer and information architect at theMechanism - New York, attended and will talk about what he learned there, specifically focusing on Gears, Google App Engine and the Google Ajax APIs. Prior to the meetup, you can read a bit about his experience here and watch some of the videos he's gathered at JeffreyBarke.net.

24 July 2008 . 7:00 pm
theMechanism
440 9th Avenue 8th Floor
New York, NY 10001 [map]

RSVP now!

Please contact us if you'd like to present at the September or October meetup.

Jeffrey Barke is senior developer and information architect at theMechanism, a multimedia firm with offices in New York, London and Durban, South Africa.

Dave Fletcher is a Founder and Creative Director at theMechanism, a multi-disciplinary design agency with offices in New York, London and Durban, South Africa. He prefers his dumplings with a side-effect of lycanthropy.

I was perplexed to see that they are using “RAG,” printed in their corporate typeface without further explanation.

My initial inclination was that they were promoting a clothing drive or other means of donating to the poor. Later I realized this wasn’t a GAP store at all, but a company that has been around longer than the GAP called RAG New York.

Regardless, this is a perplexing use of corporate branding of a clothing store without necessary explanation for a couple reasons:

1. considering the short attention span of the average out of town subway traveler in New York City;
2. considering that human fashion trends don’t yet dictate that we should be wearing rags.

Dave Fletcher is a Founder and Creative Director at theMechanism, a multi-disciplinary design agency with offices in New York, London and Durban, South Africa. After posting this entry, he’s fairly certain that either GAP or RAG will not be knocking at theMechanism’s door any time in the near future.