Jarrett Interaction Design

A few months ago, I discovered that one of our dev teams was using a new little tool for developing their UI mockups. They looked great, as if they had been sketched by hand by someone talented with a medium-nib felt pen.

When I looked into it, I discovered Balsamiq Mockups, by Peldi Guilizzoni. He (and his small team now) are constantly developing the tool, adding meaningful features but keeping it very simple and very focused.

It is simply the best UI mockup tool ever created. It has changed my (work) life. Thanks, Peldi!

One of Teresa’s coworkers was on Martha Stewart last week describing his invention of a movable Salad Table for growing lettuce and small vegetables in your backyard.

Here is a picture of the one we built and planted this weekend:

You can also watch the Martha Stewart clip and get the instructions to build your own!

A few weeks ago, our (nearly) nine-year-old home PC died. It froze up and wouldn’t even show the bios. Nine years ain’t bad for a PC… I had only ever upgraded memory, the graphics card, and a hard drive. I think we paid $2K for it back in the day. Luckily, everything important is hosted on network drives, so nothing lost.

We now have a new Dell Inspiron 530. I bought it with just integrated graphics and purchased separately an XFX GeForce 8800 GT graphics card. That required a power supply upgrade, so I got the Dell-compatible PCPower Silencer 500 power supply.

For the first time ever, my expectations of a computer’s performance are easy to meet. It’s just a computer. Our lives haven’t changed as a result of the new PC… previous ones did change how we did things. It’s a good computer, but it’s just a computer. This time, everything was only $600.

Over the weekend, our good friends Walt and Barb visited.  Barb came up with a great color scheme to make over the ugly, white-painted brick fireplace in our living room, and we all worked out the details.  On Sunday morning, we executed the plan.

Here are the results!  The fireplace is now a dramatic focal point of the living room.  The red stripe on the mantle really makes this a unique piece.

Thanks so much to Barb and Walt!

Now all we need is a new sofa, chairs, throw pillows, etc. 

I did my first run in a month today. I’m trying not to be a fair-weather runner, but when it’s below 30 degrees F, I just can’t stand it, so I’ve restarted this week.

It wasn’t too bad. I didn’t lose all the fitness I had built up, and I should be back in full swing within a week. And I love that it gives me an excuse to go outside every day (above 30 degrees anyway).

Over the holidays, Teresa and I spent a bunch of time organizing the house. We moved in almost four years ago, and we found places for our stuff, but we hadn’t reorganized as we discovered what worked and what didn’t over that time.

One of the things I (finally) organized was our large CD collection, about 1/3 of which I’ve managed to digitize in iTunes. Reorganizing the collection allowed me to rediscover some of my favorite albums.

The album that turned me on to Heavy Metal (specifically, British Steel style heavy metal) was Iron Maiden’s Powerslave, with the cut Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

I listened to that album again today, and that spurred me to search for the original text on the web. Not only did I find the text, but audio recordings of people reading it aloud.

The best of the recordings was made by the Gutenberg project, and is available at a really cool site, LoudLit.org. There are a number of other writings available, read aloud along-side the text. What a wonderful resource!

And welcome to everyone who is swamping our region to be a part of today’s historic events. Those of us who live and work here are watching on television and avoiding a multiplication of the normal traffic, but that doesn’t change the elation I feel in so many dimensions.

Private message to Pat: 1-20-2009 has finally arrived!

Over Christmas, we got to spend a bunch of time with baby Marin.  For their Christmas card this year, Wally and Stephen snapped some photos and used this one.  She really is a little angel; it’s not just a costume.

This year is starting out right! The Hokies beat Cincinnati 20-7.

Best wishes for a wonderful 2009!

Unexpectedly, Tyrod looked really good, and the Hokies beat Boston College soundly.  Now on to the Orange Bowl against Cincinnati!  (Cincinnati has a football team?  Who knew?  It’s my dad’s Alma Mater, so I guess it’s a generational battle.)