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Site Launch: IRO Cycle

I’ve been so busy scouring the internets for posts that I almost forgot to post about this myself! The site is for IRO Cycle, which we just launched last week. First the back story…. IRO makes fixed gear bikes, which, if you lived in Williamsburg (like I do), the Lower East Side, or the Mission District in SF, you would already know have worked their way up the urban cycling chic food chain from exercise track bike geekiness to messenger bike craziness up to hipster status symbol. I’ve developed an eye for them while working on this site and can safely say that there are between 1 and 3 brakeless…

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10 Tips for Managing a Creative Environment

An interesting side effect of being a user experience designer is having a hightened awareness of your own work process. I often find myself, for better or worse, thinking not only about the work that I’m doing, but about how I am actually doing it. On a project-wide scale we generally think about our tasks in terms of milestones and deliverables, but I think it’s worth noting that in going through the motions of a project from conception to completion, we’re not simply creating the thing itself but also developing, exploring, refining or simply practicing the framework for our creative process. At the core of creativity there is a foundation…

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I <3 Tumblr!

Seriously. One of the nicest, simplest UI’s I’ve seen in awhile. For your updates on all things Christin visit xinroman.tumblr.com. If that’s more than you can handle then just stick with me here. The tumblr UI has really led me to rethink my feelings on the whole “lifestreaming” trend (a trend that, like most among the super geeky, seems to have lost it’s spark twice as quickly as it got it). I dunno, there’s just something so pretentious and self-indulgent about “lifestreaming.” Like it’s just a more streamlined manifestation of that fascination we all have about ourselves as we “exist” on the internet. Or maybe I’m just not putting it…

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What’s (the) 411?

It’s my first “employee outing” at a new part-time web/tech start-up gig, and we’re on our way to an evening of obscure microbrewery beers and nostalgic button punching at Barcade when my boss’s wife gets hit hard by an 8 1/2 month pregnancy-induced burger craving. Having been a vegetarian for the last 14 years of her life, she is new to the many 1/4 pound options that our great neighborhood of Williamsburg has to offer. While I do consider myself somewhat of an expert in this area, I’m also just hoping to get in good with the new boss’s wife, and possibly score some brownie points along the way. Nothing…

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Amsterdam and Picnic ’07

Amsterdam & Picnic 07 So I’m in Amsterdam at this festival called Picnic. It is very corporate and very heavily-sponsored…but also incredibily well-organized and just, well, beautiful! As far as conferences go. There was definitely some extra effort put into making sure the food is good, the setting is lovely, the tech is there…all the extras. Here I am sounding like a petty American wondering how much money they put into this thing and why, then, is it so damned expensive to go. (About 1,000 Euros for the whole 4 days!) Of course it doesn’t matter…it’s lovely nonetheless. And, while one of the stipulations of tagging along with Josh for…

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A quick note on a recent event that I find very telling as to the state of this country’s views on law enforcement 6 years after 9/11.

…And I only bring up 9/11 at all because a) I coincidentally happened to just finish re-reading David Foster Wallace’s “The View From Mrs. Thompson’s” today, b) I am extrememly disappointed in how The Events Of are still hanging over this country as we are determined to allow the most ridiculous security measures be taken against our most basic freedoms to feed some strange sense of patriotism we all feel that earned the hard way 6 years ago (in other words, I’m leaving for Amsterdam in two days and I’m very upset that I have to decide wether to pack the hair product OR the facial cleansing system, seeing as…

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