September 2009
3 posts
artchang.com →
I’m officially moving my blog to http://artchang.com, which is now hosted by Posterous. Tumblr gives me problems posting lists, code snippets, and such. For some reason I’m getting much better SEO over on Posterous as well. Either way, I might not be updating my Tumblr that much anymore. Visit my Posterous hosted blog!
Crack in the bridge, found only when dismantling? ...
The Bay Bridge, here in Oakland / San Francisco, California, underwent a huge change last weekend. They found a crack in the bridge, that was extremely dangerous, which they had to fix before continuing their planned construction. Everything opened up only about 2 hours behind schedule. Everyone is happy… but doesn’t anyone wonder: If we only caught that crack by first dismantling...
Snow Leopards and Rails
My turn to put in a few notes on what I did to get Rails to work nice with my newly updated Mac OS: Snow Leopard. I got most of my information from Riding Rails blog post here: http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2009/8/30/upgrading-to-snow-leopard. I would recommend reading that through, but I found a few new things along the way:
Save your .bash_profile and your paths before doing the upgrade to...
August 2009
13 posts
Sanjay Black Photons (Ocellaris x Percula)
I received a pair of clownfish today, they are both a hybrid from a captive bred brood formed between a Onyx Amphiprion Percula and a black and white Amphiprion Ocellaris pair, two totally different Amphiprion (clownfish) that are very rare in that they’re completely black with white stripes. This is a pair from them, which have a dark orange mixed with black. These were bred by Sanjay who...
On our way to Dog Patch Labs for #railsrumble
Woke up super early (5am) for the Rails Rumble 2009 competition. The competition started about 12 hours ago, but we decided to get a little sleep in and start early this morning. Here’s our walk from the Embarcadero BART over to Dog Patch Labs on Pier 38 (townsend and embarcadero). All photos taken from my iPhone and processed 2x through the Magazine filter on CameraBag.
See and...
Friends Up
Taking pictures of my friends at the California Academy of Sciences Nancy decided to go for the scrunch look:
California Academy of Sciences, the People
So I went to the Academy of Sciences last night for my friend, Denilyn’s, birthday. I got there really early to get some planetarium tickets, and just went around taking pictures. I ended up taking pictures of mostly people hanging out. This place is so cool, it’s my third time and I still love it.
Yardbarker's new HQ
We’ve been at the new Yardbarker.com Headquarters for a few weeks now, and I haven’t taken any pictures! We’re still in San Francisco, heck, in the same building, but different floor. The layout is nicer, we have more conference rooms, and it’s of course a fun place to work. Lots of good stuff coming down the road for Yardbarker. Features galore! Here are some pix: ...
Public transportation yields great photo ops
I’m in love with taking photos with my iPhone. I’m never looking for perfect quality, sharp, well exposed shots, but more composition. It’s always really handy and super discreet. I’m also completely infatuated with public transportation, and the stories it shows you in the form of riders. Here’s a shot I snapped while on the N Judah Muni train today:
Pizzeria via iPhone
Another shot taken with my iphone, edited on my iphone with camerabag
2 tags
Fundraising Prints are done! Check them out
I picked up the 8 prints today from Photoworks SF! These prints are all from my photos that I am donating as a fundraising event for the Relay for Life 2009 in Palo Alto, CA. They will be going up for silent auction all day Saturday August 15th, winner announced at 9:30pm.
Here they are (btw checkout the sweet Brazilian Hardwood floors at my girlfriend’s apartment):
Palace of Fine Arts
The Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, CA. Took this last weekend when the fountain was off! There’s usually a huge fountain going on that destroys the surface, but that night it was off, and we had a great reflection in the water. I was also able to snap a picture of Issa taking the same shot. The shot below is handheld at 5000 ISO:
Palo Alto, CA - Relay for Life 2009
This weekend, August 14th through August 16th, I will be volunteering at the Palo Alto Relay for Life event. This event is the annual fundraiser for the American Cancer Society that also plays a role in trying to spread awareness about cancer, it’s symptoms, as well as the free services that the American Cancer Society provides. It brings the community together in a very rewarding and...
Too young and too busy with bettering your life?
You’re young, maybe a kid with no responsibilities, or you’re a young professional trying to pay back school loans or making a name for yourself. Being young means you can take risks and take on huge challenges that your health, lack of responsibilities, and general recklessness allows. Serious young professionals are those who won’t accept general half-assery, and surround...
Rails Rumble 2009
Browseology will be taking part in this year’s Rails Rumble 2009 event, thanks to Ryan Spoon and Polaris Ventures getting us a spot in the competition. We will be working out of Dog Patch Labs at Pier 38 in San Francisco! Will be a great experience working at the location and competing with the Browseology team. See the map for Rails Rumble contestant locations here
Giving tumblr another go vs. posterous
There’s the differences between Tumblr and Posterous that make them unique in their own ways and use cases, but for me the major difference is the community around them.
If you look at the directory of blogs on Tumblr, the majority of the people on Tumblr are artists of some sort, Photography, music, and so on. If you look up developer, startups, or technology, they’re pretty small...
July 2009
10 posts
Ideas are cheap, development easy, so why aren't...
This isn’t an article about my experience, it’s not an article to promote anything I have, and by no means is this meant to tell you what you should think. In fact, this has nothing to do with me, and I have nothing to gain by it. Does that make you feel better about reading this? There’s this nervous community out on the internet right now, a niche of entrepreneurs who are...
Start and finish one app in one day with us on...
This Saturday, July 25th, 2009, the Browseology team is going to start and finish an app from scratch in a single day. We’ll come up with some idea in the morning, something decently interesting, and develop it in one day. Completely in one day. Anyone also willing to take a break from their larger big projects for a day of something new? We will put all the apps up to show the world...
Under the Waterfall
Found a video on my harddrive taken by my girlfriend Issa while I was taking a picture of the underside of the Staubbach waterfall in Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland. It’s pretty wet, can’t believe the flip mino didn’t give way. My camera did fine, it was actually getting hit by a constant stream of water, but the lovely weather sealing of the nikon didn’t even flinch. Below...
The best weekends are those spent helping others
I had a great weekend helping out at the Los Gatos, CA Relay for Life event. I’m happy my friend Win (Rearden Commerce) and Sonny (Apple) came to help out and volunteer with me. Between helping out, I was able to take some pictures! Today, the tear down and cleanup was the hardest. Going to sleep last night at 4am after getting home shortly before from the event, and then waking up at...
Using GTalk and XMPP to get online friends
Inviting a friend to join you in some real time application is an easy concept, but hard to do from the perspective of that real time app. You need near instant response from a friend, and what better way than to find a friend who’s online and available through protocols used by chat applications? For a web application that only requires one request to find all online users, and then...
More from Lake Como, Italy
Went through a few more pictures from Lake Como. Nothing that amazing. I’m getting bored of my old photos, I need to get my camera fixed so I can go shooting again. Below you’ll see a Villa where they filmed parts of Star Wars Episode II, where Queen Amidala is hiding with that whiny Anakin Skywalker. Also seen in the last scene of James Bond Casino Royale, where Bond shoots Mr....
Los Altos - Relay for Life 2009
Somehow I never uploaded these pictures I took at the Los Altos Relay for Life event! I arrived early to help volunteer with some logistics. They had everything so well organized that I barely had anything to do. Then I just went around and took some pictures. It was a hot morning, even at 9am, but there was a nice breeze coming through. If you guys have never been to a Relay, I’d...
iPhone Photos
After Melissa forwarded me to Greg Schmigel’s photography, I wanted a try at it too. I truly believe that photography isn’t about equipment, it’s about composition and the process of getting the picture. You can’t make a good picture out of nothing. There’s a difference between a photographer, and someone who wants to be a photographer: The photographer goes and...
Quick trip through Lake Como and Milan, Italy
After visiting Switzerland, Melissa and I headed over to Milan Italy, and Lake Como for a few days. Have to go back, but here are a few of the pictures: Posted via web from Arthur Chang | Comment »
Javascript Closures
I had a good conversation today that brought up Javascript Closures, which was me mostly having no idea what closures were, and the concept just being pretty hard to explain right off the bat. Anyway, that all lead me to go checkout what closures are. In a nutshell, Javascript Closures are most likely used in everyone’s code already, and the actual technical aspect is not new, it just has...
June 2009
15 posts
In the Alps
Proof we were in the alps =) Posted via email from Mel and Art | Adventures | Comment »
Made some card designs for fun
Decided to not code for a bit tonight and made a few designs on Adobe Illustrator CS4. I’m on my last use of Illustrator’s trial period. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to justify buying a license in the future. Anyway, these are just for fun designs! Let me know what you think. See and download the full gallery on posterous Posted via email from Arthur...
Friends who have my photo as their avatar!
Not a photo of me, but a photo I took of them. It’s fantastic to see them using it! It means I took a picture of them that they really like =) Posted via email from Arthur Chang | Comment »
Collaboration, is it trendy yet?
I’ve posted previously about real-time, and all the hype and trends behind it. Anything that became “real-time” was instantly cool. Back in the day it was streaming music, then video like on YouTube. In the present time it’s Friendfeed going real time, Twitter going real time, and possibly google too? Now that it’s been done, there’s no more real innovation...
Revisiting old hobbies
I’ve devised a plan to go back to my childhood hobbies. I have so many new ones, but none of them have been as “good” since I’m all old and busted now a days, like michael says about things sometimes. So what’s the first one I’m going to do now? I’m bringing back my good ‘ol violin days. I played for 12 years or so vigorously, it’d be a...
The Wedding of Michael and Pamela
The wedding was absolutely perfect! better than perfect. The Swiss Alps wasn’t a perfect backdrop, the Swiss Alps was where we WERE. We were in it! The chapel was beautiful, the location was gorgeous, the weather could not have been better. Mike and Pam are the most amazing couple, just seeing them together brings tears to your eyes. It’s impossible for me to take a bad picture...
Going going, back back, to cali cali
We’re back in California! Safe and sound. We spent the last few days in northern italy: Milano, Como, Bellagio, Verrena. I’m so tired, I’m going to sleep. more updates tomorrow! Posted via web from Mel and Art | Adventures | Comment »
Michael and Pamela Smochko
The official civil ceremony for Mike and Pam’s wedding happened today in Brig, Switzerland! This isn’t the actual ceremony that happens tomorrow at the chapel in Bettmeralp, but just the official part where you are legally married in Switzerland. Despite the casual legal paperwork and ceremony, it was quite beautiful and emotional. ...
The Swiss Alps - Lauterbrunnen and Jungfrau,...
I’m in the Swiss Alps! No Heidi’s or Yodeling yet, but we’re staying in Lauterbrunnen, and it’s absolutely beautiful here. There are about four waterfalls right next to our hotel that we can see from our balcony. The one pictured above is walkable in 5 - 10 minutes, depending on how many pictures you take along the way there. There are all these trams and stuff that...
Luzern, Switzerland
It’s been a couple days since I’ve posted pictures, but internet has been spotty and I’ve been too busy outside to actually post any of my pictures. Lucerne (Luzern) Switzerland is a scenic place, but way too touristy. We didn’t get the feel the culture of Switzerland as much as we did in Zurich, mostly because everything is catered to tourists. It’s nice...
Arrived in Luzern (Lucerne)
We’ve just arrived in Luzern! It is so beautiful here. The train ride was extremely comfortable, and had breathtaking views of the countryside. Our hotel was a little walk from the train station, but what a beautiful walk. We were greeted happily by the staff (husband and wife) who helped us with our bags and got us checked in. The receptionist lady (the wife) already knew we were...
Guten Tag (hello)! Switzerland
I arrived in Zurich, Switzerland after quite a journey from San Francisco, CA. Flight cancelled from Chicago to Zurich, so had to stay a night near the airport in a hotel, then the next day flew through Frankfurt to Zurich. Along the way, our luggage completely disappeared. Finally three days after we leave, we have clean clothes to wear again! It’s beautiful here, the sights, the...
Bags have been found
Great news, our bags have been found and are in Zurich airport now, they will be delivered to our hotel sometime today or tomorrow. Yesterday we had the most fantastic day ever! Other than wearing the same clothes for the 3rd day in a row, we met up with Mike and Pamela at their hotel, and then walked around central Zurich. We then met up with Hans who has an architect company here in Zurich,...
Switzerland!
We made it finally to Switzerland! A day and a few hours late, and with no bags. There is no record of our bags anywhere in the world’s system of baggage. We left a claim and we’ll see if we ever get our bags back. In the meantime we got $300 swiss francs to buy a few things for our trip. Too bad it can’t replace my suit I was going to wear for the wedding. Updates soon...
Travel Tools
iPhone MacBook pro Tripit Gmail Nikon gear Lonely Planet Fodors a pen Posted via email from Arthur Chang | Comment »
May 2009
14 posts
See ya in 2 weeks
I’m leaving on Sunday for Switzerland for two weeks. I’ve written about a million lines of code in the past couple weeks (no joke!) and got a lot done, but now it’s time to step back for a few weeks to checkout another part of the world. Before I get into some plans, I really have to give a big shoutout to the Yardbarker.com team. We’ve come a long way...
Stanford uses my photo and takes credit?
Ignorance or trying to get credit for a photo someone else took is offensive. I volunteer my time, my photography for good causes, charities, and non-profits, but not so that somebody can take a photo off a site on the internet with clear copyright information listed right next to it, then give no credit, and dance around happily in the praise that they get for such a great image. Not only that,...
How do you define real-time?
How exactly do you define “real-time”? Currently a lot of companies are coming out with a real-time label on some aspect of their service. The trend seems to be: Content they serve is now automatically updated without needing viewers to manually reload. Content is updated sooner and faster Slap a chat on it, call it real time. Put some twitter, facebook, openid, what have you and call...
Relay for Life - Willow Glen, CA
The best way to spend your birthday is to volunteer for a good cause. I made the decision to go down to Willow Glen, CA to help out and photograph the Relay for Life. Relay for Life is a 24 hour event, organized and run by volunteers and staff of American Cancer Society, to honor and remember cancer survivors, patients, and those who have passed. The event is the largest fundraising event the...
OASES Benefit Dinner 2009
I had the honor of attending the OASES Benefit Dinner of 2009 in Oakland, CA last Thursday. It was a fantastic program, and to top it off, the shots I took a few weeks prior were displayed in 35 x 24” sizes all around the entire venue! It was fantastic to know that the pictures were good representations of the program that everyone was happy to show. I brought my camera with me to the...
Humanized Messages for Prototype
Click here to download: kineticmsg.js (3 KB) Humanized Messages for Prototype I ported this cool jQuery javascript library called Humanized Messages over to Prototype and Scriptaculous. For those unfortunate enough to be stuck with Prototype and can’t use all of the great slick jQuery libraries, here’s one to add to the Prototype list. Attached...
Issa
Posted via web from Mel and Art | Comment »
... I miss the beach
When will summer finally come and stick around? I totally miss the beach. Three weeks ago or so when I was there, it really felt great. I can sit in the sun all day, every day. Being outside in the warmth is one of the greatest feelings in the world. I miss it so much I went and posted a few more pictures from the beach: Posted via web from Arthur Chang | Comment » ...
Thank you!
Joe and I want to give a big thanks for all the people who came for the Browseology Preview Launch. Everything went smoothly and we started getting great feedback already. We really appreciate everyone’s involvement, help, and participation. We love to hear what everyone has to say, and everything is taken seriously and into consideration. Big new features are lining up to be rolled out...