It came as a surprise this morning when I learned that I was laid-off. It’s unfortunate, but with the recent buy-out, understandable. Anyway, if you’re looking to hire a designer/filmmaker/user experience/writer/musician sort of fellow who is creative, innovative, passionate, self-motivated, easily adaptable — someone who makes his bosses look good… Then I am your man. Have a look at my LinkedIn profile, or become friends with me on Facebook. I’ve got over twenty years experience and I still love what I do.

(Also, I understand that this is not Maemo-specific, but I wanted to inform the community that I’m available — thanks for understanding.)

I’m a little late in posting this but, I only just got the Google Alert the other day.

While at c-base, in Berlin, a few video testimonials were shot of some fellow Maemo community members and I. The idea was that the community may be able to share a perspective on what Maemo is that would be useful to Nokia corporate.

Here’s one of the videos (of me):

You can view the rest here.

Special thanks to Jim Cognito for shooting and assembling the videos!

I’m a little late in posting this but, I only just got the Google Alert the other day.

While at c-base, in Berlin, a few video testimonials were shot of some fellow Maemo community members and I. The idea was that the community may be able to share a perspective on what Maemo is that would be useful to Nokia corporate.

Here’s one of the videos (of me):

You can view the rest here.

Special thanks to Jim Cognito for shooting and assembling the videos!

Imagine meeting a distant family member — one whom you may have known something about, but never actually had the chance to meet. The feeling must be extraordinary: seeing a stark resemblance (if not with you, with someone else in your family), sharing similar likes and dislikes (maybe even common paths taken or avoided throughout life), reminiscing about completely disconnected times, but having an odd sense that the two of you are not as different as you might have expected… Now, imagine doing this with almost three hundred people.

At nearly 40,000 feet and almost 600 miles per hour, the N810, my faithful traveling companion, did not let me down.

From Kansas City to Berlin, music (Canola and MediaBox), movies (Canola and MPlayer), games (too many to list) — and a lot more — even kept up with the slightly oldeg than middle-aged German woman sitting across the aisle from me, never seeming to tire of listening to music piped through the airline-supplied headphones, clapping and undulating her way across the Atlantic. (I can only imagine what she would do with an Internet Tablet in her hand.)

Even after being a tablet owner for a couple of years now, it still amazes me how fun, usable, and powerful these little gadgets are. As I looked around at my fellow travelers, I spotted several iPods, one or two qiPhones, and countless other cell- and smartphones (e.g., a plethora of PDAs). Of course, other than the iPods, most of the devices were shut off early into the trip. I’ll have to admit that quite a bit of pride comes with being a tablet user; not just because they’re still pretty unique.

Before my wonderful black 60GB iPod was stolen (with my car), I would have never thought of owning another kind of portable media device. To be honest, I use and love Macs — and even [tt:iTunes:apple.com/itunes] — and I’ll probably own an iPod again one day. My wife is a die-hard iPod user herself and only just recently found her trusty, pink, second-generation iPod broken and in need of replacement. (What can I say? They are slick little PMPs.)

But, when my stolen car was recovered, sans iPod, I was faced with a question: where was my money going to go? I thought about it and researched it for quite some time — close to the duration between the release of 770 and the N800. In fact, I was very close to buying another non-Apple PMP. Although, when I finally began to understand exactly what Nokia was trying to accomplish, as well as the N800’s feature-set, the choice was easy.

Now, a little under two years later, I’m in Germany of all places, currently attending OSiM World community. I’ll soon be presenting at the first Maemo Summit. I’m a newly elected member of the inaugural Maemo Community Council.

It really is an incredible story. Thanks to this little device in my hand (yes, I’ve written all of this on my handy tablet), I’ve made friends, I’ve gotten to participate in something that I dearly believe in, and now I’m in Berlin and I still have enough battery-power to talk about it.

The Maemo Summit is upon us!

My presentation is finished (will be posted after Maemo Summit) and loaded onto a thumb drive, I’ve got the camera batteries all charged up, I’m almost packed… All I have to do now is get on the plane. Which doesn’t happen until about 1:20p tomorrow.

A few people have already begun their trips. I wish them all safe travels!

Just a few more preparations and then a horrendously long flight to Germany…

See you all there!

As a newly elected Maemo Community Council member, I’d like you to head over and read the results here. I’m just one among an incredible group intelligent, passionate, and overall very cool individuals.

Thanks to all of those who voted for me. I promise to always strive to communicate our community’s best interests to the Nokia Maemo team.

Maemo Summit is almost here! I leave for Berlin next Tuesday and will arrive just a little late for the beginning of OSiM World. Upon arrival in Berlin, Eric Warnke (aka Brontide) and I are going to try to meet up at the airport so that we can share a cab to our hotels… This is pretty exciting!

I’m almost finished with my presentation for“Saturday”:http://wiki.maemo.org/Maemo_Summit_2008#Saturday_20 , at 1:30p. I’ve been using the Google Docs Presentation app, with the expectation that’d I’d later export it as a PDF for use at the summit. Admittedly, this application still has many issues…

• Text editing is far from perfect
  • Sometimes old typographical information is retained within a text element unless you clear the style before changing it (or, sometimes a text element must be recreated from scratch of you can’t get new style to take)
• Serif-ized text (i.e., setting a text element to “Normal/Serif”) is not retained when saving the presentation
• Image manipulation is nearly impossible (one example is that there is no way to numerically resize a graphic)
• Placing elements on the screen is tricky
  • It’s difficult to see the black element marques on dark backgrounds
  • Element placement doesn’t seem to be pixel-perfect
  • Graphical elements can be moved with the arrow buttons, but textual elements cannot
• Exporting to PDF introduces all sorts of placement errors (i.e., elements in the PDF are placed in different locations as they are in Google Docs)
• Duplicated slides sometimes retain elements from the original slide, even after deleting all of the elements on the slide (even if you can’t see the element on the duplicated slide, it can show up when you view the presentation or export it to PDF)

• The drag-and-drop functionality for organizing slides is helpful, but sometimes gets mixed-up when the section’s scroll bar is dragged and released (e.g., releasing the scroll bar can auto-select a slide, as if the slide was clicked and dragged)

Anyway, I could go on… But, overall, I’m happy that I used this method for creating the presentation. Not only was I able to keep everything online — for editing anywhere — but it creates a document that will eventually be accessible by anyone who wants to see it.

As a side note, it’s important to say that Google Docs Presentation does an amazing job of importing PowerPoint documents. I just wish it could import ODP files!

I’m looking forward to my short time in Berlin. I’m looking forward to Maemo Summit even more.

Or, is just the xml cache?

Anyway, sorry for the non-Maemo-related post (although, you should go to El Rancho if you’re ever in Kansas City). I updated my RSS feed (to exclude the post) a few days ago, yet it’s still showing up on Planet Maemo. Drat that aggregator! I just love getting all of those burries (ahem).

As I sit here chomping on leftovers from last night’s dinner, I wonder why I’ve never blogged about El Rancho, a relatively new Mexican restaurant here in midtown Kansas City, MO. Not only is El Rancho probably the best Mexican restaurant in Kansas City (easily beating any joint on Southwest Boulevard), but I’d wager that it’s one of the best Mexican restaurants I’ve ever been to (and that includes growing up in Southern California, trips to Mexico, time spent in many Southwestern states, etc.). I mean, it…is…good.

But, not only that. The people who own and operate El Rancho are amazing people — in fact, last night I joked that I wished they were my family. They are very nice, fun, and always remember us. It really is incredible.

So, if you’re in the Kansas City area, do yourself a favor and go to El Rancho. Order anything on the menu. Enjoy.