I got an informed that Ma.gnolia.com got a cease and desist order from Magnolia CMS. These are two separate companies, yes both in the tech world but different goals and products.

Big time lawyers are sending letters. Disappointing yes. Both are community based products. Ma.gnolia has the twitter handle @magnolia. Magnolia CMS has @magnolia_cms. Is it over this? Who knows? Is it because they’ve expanded their product to the USA?

Magnolia CMS is an open source product. We all need one another and I find it disappointing that they are sending big time lawyers to shut down Larry Halff’s project. Has it come down to this? :( 

In my attempt to help I’ve written a comment to the Magnolia CMS website.

Want to help? Write them

If you want to help here’s contact Magnolia CMS website and fill out the form.

Here’s my letter to Magnolia’s CMS website:
I think it is disappointing that a company that is “open source” and depends on a community for support sending a cease and desist order to ma.gnolia.com a social bookmarking website that is for the community.
There are other start ups that co-exist without harming one another’s business.
Please rethink your stand on this.
Thank you.

Let’s get behind the social bookmarking website we’ve come to love. :)

I received a phone call that no one ever wants to get. It’s taken me a while to write this post because it was about someone dear to me. I’ve started a few times to write this but could never finish. My friend Philip Kim passed away on March 12, 2009; he was 40. I found out while I was at SXSWi, this past march.

Technology has changed the way we send and share information. My friend, Chris first tried to call but since it was during a conference session my iPhone was on vibrate. I texted him and he texted “call me.” I knew something was wrong. There was just something that didn’t felt right. Chris knew I was at SXSWi and he knew I would be busy. Chris had called a friend (because he found out about Philip’s passing while on the way to a hiking trip) to check on the SXSWi speaker schedule online to make sure I wasn’t speaking that day. This was a good thing because as soon as Chris told me I couldn’t stop the tears from falling. I was in the midst of helping Jared Spool clean up after his presentation and had to run into the hallway to find a wall to hold me up. I wanted to hide and run far away from the crowds at SXSWi. I had 24 hours to get myself composed enough to deal with people, in case anyone wondered why I wasn’t really around or a bit distant; I was mourning. I wanted to let people know but I didn’t want to twitter about Philip’s passing. Chris was worried I’d find out via Facebook or Twitter. Learning about something so personal to me virally is not a positive product of social networking.

How we met

I met him in real life, I met Philip at AOL. I was at a point in my life where I really needed a friend and Philip’s infectious laughter was something that no one could resist. I do thank god for sending me good friends when I was at my weakest. Philip became a guardian angel of mine.  Philip was one of the amazing people that you were lucky to know because he just got you, or me in this case. If you’ve ever had a friend that just seemed to know you without explanations this was one of those people. He had a sister, Annah, that he loved very much. He also got you to laugh at yourself. I burned my forehead once with a curling iron and tried to hide it. Sadly he knew exactly what it was from. His sister apparently had done this too. If you could hear his laughter you would laugh too. He giggled like a little boy that knew he had done something he shouldn’t have. He always had a hint of mischief, the best friends usually do. :)

He was protective of the people he cared about too.He walked me to my car after swing dancing at the Clarendon ballroom because it wasn’t well lit and it was late at night. He took me to “grown up” restaurants because being the metro-sexual man he was he liked eating well. He was meticulous about his house and his clothes. Philip understood having Christian backgrounds and the energy it took in our attempts at living the life our Asian parents hoped for us. He usually smelled of Polo, the green bottle. He challenged me think about the future outside of AOL. You need friends that push you further than you realize you can. Encouragement, that is a gift of friendship.

Philip was an artist; he was a professor. He told me once he wanted to be a farmer. He also told me he wanted to design and build furniture. He researched and found a class that he could take during the summer. We talked about what we wanted when we “grew up.” Philip didn’t just dream he also did make things happen for himself. He was just at that point of getting everything he dreamed of. He had just started to run marathons, that’s how he discovered something was wrong. He was in top form and he lost weight but somehow something wasn’t quite right.

He was diagnosed with from a form of Leukemia called Acute Myeloid Leukemia. He fought it for almost 3 years. He had to move from San Francisco back to the Washington DC area because his family was in Northern Virginia and his sister got him into the National Institute of Health hospital. I visited him a few times while he was there. Things have changed post 9-11 your car gets searched when you enter the gate. Your ID is checked. After he told me what he was diagnosed with I joined the Leukemia & Lymphoma foundation group in DC. I volunteered what time I had and tried to do my part. I offered to donate my marrow but his sister was a match so that wasn’t necessary. If you feel like donating here’s the donation page for the Leukemia & Lymphoma society.

The digital age

Technology has changed so much of how we interact. It made me think of how one would go about notifying everyone in their circle of friends in the event of someone passing away.

Philip’s sister created a Facebook group. She knew him well enough to get into his laptop to access his address books to let his friends know what had happened. The concern is always missing someone. Annah is a strong woman but sharing the news of Philip’s passing over and over is too much for anyone person to shoulder alone. Thankfully there are avenues such as email, and Facebook to allow us to share the news good or bad. It allowed Philip’s friends to post pictures, and messages about him and for him. Another friend, Holly Liu that Philip introduced to me even organized a couple of meet-ups for those that couldn’t attend Philip’s memorial all in Facebook.

There has to be an easier way. My friend Jared Spool twittered about Philip’s passing for me while at SXSWi and unfortunately my friend P. found out this way. She said it was strange to find that out via twitter. Jared suggested that I contact various people to make them notify other people. I have to say Facebook was the easiest way because each phone call I made to let another friend know became increasingly painful.

Figuring passwords of laptops and information to access other information is also just as painful when you are in the midst of grieving. I tried to help Annah go through some of the computers thankfully she knew her brother rather well so she could guess some of them. I have 1Password and it creates very secure passwords but I’m the “techy” one in my family. I wonder if they would be able to access my information if they needed to.

I also wonder what happens to his website (renewing his domain) and his information on places like LinkedIn, and Facebook? I know that previously people created MySpace pages and if someone passed away they turned it into a memorial page. Death in the digital age is even more complicated. It is more complicated in that we get bills virtually and there isn’t a paper trail for loved ones to find. Mourning is difficult enough without having to complete a scavenger hunt.

Technology allows us to be connected and at the same time its also nice to have face time with the people you care about. I challenge you to call, email or message someone to let them know you care. To make the most of your life.  It’s something I am trying to do myself. Make the days count and live the life you want even if it scares you so much you pee in your pants ;).

Leslie Jensen-Inman and I were having a discussion about my visit to Chattanooga. I told her how I had spoken at my own college, UF in Gainesville, FL in past visits to advise graduating seniors on how to go about finding opportunities. Basically things that your design class doesn’t teach you. Everyone right now is trying to find a way to keep their job, look for a job or find new ways to make their situation better. Leslie suggested that I give two presentations during my visit.

We came up with two sub-topics: “Creating Your Future: Networking without the Ick” and “Creating Your Future: Creating Opportunity.” All this started out as a talk about design but its hard to separate form and function when you are discussing our passions intermingling. The first presentation was given at GreenSpaces. The second one was at CreateHere.

I’ve posted both of the slides up on slideshare but for now I’m going to write about the first presentation, “Networking without the Ick”

Lots of Conferences

(Slide 3)
I started out going to conferences because I was looking for inspiration for my career. I had been at AOL for about 7 years at that point. I wanted to leave the cocoon and find some new inspiration. My friend Elsa asked me to accompany her to SXSWi that year. What was my goal? It was to meet people and find inspiration.

Social Networking

(Slide 4-8)

• What is your goal for networking? Think about what you want out of networking on-line or offline. Is it friends that live in your area or a specific hobby? Is it advice? Is it a job?
• Creating Your Brand: Each of us is a brand whether we realize it or not and with each website we visit we create another instance of our brand.
• Finding a Network: What websites are out there for us to use for our own interests? Do we start one of our own or find existing ones?
• Privacy: Do you want privacy? Do you care? Which websites are watching out for your interests?
• Inside vs Outside Conversations: The context of our conversations is important. Do you know who is watching you?

Vanity Check!

(Slide 9-11)
When was the last time you “Googled” yourself? We all do it. You should be doing that. You need to check your name and see what is coming up. Your friends are checking you out. Your future significant other, even the person interviewing you next week has “Googled” you.

Example: Leslie Jensen-Inman
I used Leslie Jensen-Inman as an example because I knew she was going to be there. Searching her on Google revealed that she was a professor, has written for A List Apart and is part of the Web Standards Project. Her name is really specific but what happens when we start looking for another name that is more common?

Example: Nicole Sullivan
What happens when your name is a bit more common? I used Nicole Sullivan as the next example. According to the search results she was an actress or a geek. Which one is which? So you start looking further into the search results and you realize you’re looking for Nicole Sullivan who is also known as “Stubbornella.”

The advice from this is if your not making a name for yourself, someone else is so, you need to do it. If this is part of your professional career then it is even more important that you have an online presence. When you use your handle (your name) for a website, choose your real name or find a consistent handle to use so people can associate it with you. Facebook is an example of a social networking site that forces you to use your real name. Sure there are people that will find ways around it because of privacy issues but for the majority we are looking for our friends and colleagues and we can’t remember “Simba1234” as you. So make it easier on us, don’t make us work to find you.

Creating Your Brand

(Slide 13-22)

Your Avatar:
Be consistent: pick one and stick with it. I am a visual person I remember your avatar when I’m scanning through the list on sites like Twitter. Now if you go around and switch your avatar every other week I can’t find you. Maybe you like it that way but just in case you don’t, stick with one.

Use a photo: If you have a web cam, a camera phone, or a digital camera you can take a picture of yourself. We’ve become such a shutterbug society, there’s hardly an excuse for it at this point. Now why am I saying this when I’m so in love with illustrations? For social networking sites its better to use your photos (unless you are trying to mask yourself because your ashamed of being part of the One Tree Hill fan club; which I totally understand). Use a photo because it helps us remember your beautiful smiling/quirky face. Take a look at slide 22, which one has more meaning for you? The photos or the illustrations?

Masking Effect:
There’s a wonderful book called, “Understanding Comics” by Scott Mcloud
that my friend, Craig Cook introduced me to. The book introduces the idea of the “masking effect,” which is that the illustration of a person makes them appeal to a greater audience because the recipient of the image can place their own relationships and emotions on the illustration. If we introduce a specific photo of a person there is no question that it is that person (unless you find your doppelgänger. ;) So if you are trying to connect with other people it is better to use your avatar to represent you.

There are plenty of sites out there if you do want to hide your identity or “mask” yourself.

• Angry Cute
• Pixel Portraits
• Face Your Manga

(Slide 21)
Take a look at the community. Which person can you spot in the room while looking at the avatar? Which one would be anonymous? I’ve met people and then I’ve met people because they introduced me. We’ve been making friends and enemies since we were in grade school so we know our social networks are really powerful. The difference now is that we’re using on-line networks to maintain and explore new relationships. So we learned how to interact on-line, the question is can we do it offline again? Each of my relationships on-line have been made stronger because I had the opportunity to meet those people in offline aka the real world. We’re all running around being super busy and we’re not able to keep track of people like we would like to. Finding social network sites like Facebook, Ning, or Yahoo! Groups allows us the opportunity to stay on top of our interests and relationships.

Finding a Network

(Slide 23-25)
We’re all wanting to connect with people. We’re human. We want to find people who inspire us or can relate to us in some fashion. Don’t deny it, we just do.

Ways to Network
Attend an event and talk to the people in the group. It was much simpler when we were kids. We’d just walk up to another kid and say, “Hey wanna be my friend?” You would usually say, “Yes.” ;) In the Washington, DC area, Jason Garber started Refresh DC. I helped him by speaking at it early on and I talked about it all the time. I talked about it while I was at AOL, on the plane, and whenever I was out. If i figured out you were in the web arena I’d invite you to Refresh and sometimes if you weren’t. (Cue “guy who thought I was single and tried to find me via Refresh” story ;) ).

Upcoming.org: Find events using upcoming, some that are hobby based, professional, or even just something random. You can create events that aren’t yours, like promoting a local fair in your town. You can also create private events for events at your house. It’s pretty versatile.

LinkedIn: Find groups that interest you based on your profession. Find events that are being hosted. Join professional groups that don’t have association fees just to speak to the members.

Meetup: Another website that is based on interests. Groups schedule in-person meetups. Get it? :P

BarCamp: was started in SF and has grown into worldwide events. Anyone can start one but you will need others to help promote and organize it. People come to a designated space and camp out to speak about whatever tickles their fancy. People post topics and other people come and listen. Sometimes its rather geeky and other times its just fun. People sharing their knowledge; its a great thing.

Create your own

(Slide 26-27)
Now what if you want to create your own social network for your local book club. Some of those sites I’ve listed will allow you to do this, Ning for instance will let you create a group. It’s also good practice to check that there isn’t a local group already set up.

Inside vs. Outside Conversations

I’ve written a blog post about “Inside vs. Outside Conversations” already which explains what I’m about to say in more detail. But for those that haven’t read that…

I love Twitter but between that and Facebook we can cause a lot of trouble for ourselves, or we can watch train wrecks via our networks from the comfortable seat in front of our computer. The days where we accidentally hit reply all to a message that was meant for a specific friend is now happening on those sites. People again are reading things meant for just one person. Things are getting taken out of context and we’re all watching. Things you write on sites like Twitter can be found using a search query. Think about it. Do you really want it to be indexed? Remeber what happens on-line goes on Google. ;)

BrightKite
(Slide 30-32)
Brightkite is a location based social network. You log into the website and put in your address via the web form or use your iPhone to pin point where you are. You can post pictures with your location. You can select the level of privacy for the photo or text message. They are doing it right. They are allowing you to choose what level of privacy you want. Location is a tricky situation. Some of the people I know don’t want to be found, they have been stalked before so they are really nervous about giving their whereabouts. Giving them control over who sees the data is empowering. It is the correct usage of the technology.

Fire Eagle
(Slide 33-35)
Fire eagle was created by Yahoo! It allows you to pin point where you are. It also connects to other location based networks to tell them where you are. The great thing about Fire Eagle is that it lets you set a reminder telling you what your privacy currently is. Our needs change and sometimes we just forget what websites we use. The problem with location is that leaving it exposed makes us vulernable, so sending a reminder is really great feature. They even have a sense of humor about it, “You’ve said you’re okay sharing your location until: The end of time. We’ll contact you a couple of days before this date…”

Facebook
(Slide 36-37)
Facebook’s privacy controls are a bit more complicated like relationships.The privacy controls take a bit of exploring to work out. The easiest feature is to add someone to the block list, but even then you need to know their name and have the right instance of their name.

(Slide 38-39)
If you want to choose who gets to see your personal information on Facebook you need to decide if it is to be: “your friends”, “friends of friends”, “networks”, or those you designated as “limited profile.” There are a lot of sub privacy drop downs that will take you some time to figure out. There’s even a privacy setting for your contact information. You can choose who exactly gets your IM, mobile phone number, address, website and your email. With all these options the simplest rule is: if you don’t want people finding out about what you are up to don’t publish it.

Our relationships are complicated and the social networking sites are learning and growing every day. Think about what context you want to be seen-IF you want to be seen. Think about how your relationships offline are improved because of on-line interactions.

That’s the beauty of networking and I hope I’ve guided you through networking without the ick and the benefits of it. :D

Thank you!

I want to thank Medium (formerly Coptix) for sponsoring the lunch at Easy Bistro. It was fabulous and a great way to meet the students before I did a portfolio reivew with them.

The Design Students

I spent the day reviewing their portfolios and helping them with presentations for their future interviews. I had a great time with the students and giving them advice from my experiences. (I wrote a blog post on how to interview for a job in 2006)

The students from UTC were kind enough to write blog posts about my talk and I’m going to list them here for some link love back. :) Hopefully I haven’t left anyone off if I did contact me and I’ll add it in.

• Matt Adam
• Angela Covert
• Claire Dunham
• Alyssa Fryar
• Megan Humble
• Kelsie Lendermon
• Tara Jacek
• Tracey Moore
• MIchelle O
• Natalie Roig
• Krista Stickles
• Stephanie Tate
• Casey Yoshida

I needed a redesign and I started last year working on the logo for DesignRabbit. I created a logo that I really fell in love with but then I got busy with Yahoo! Buzz and some other projects.

Goals

My goal was to have the website showcase the designs I have been doing. I wanted people to see that my range included more than just illustrations. I’ve been designing on the web for a long time. I’ve been in the corporate world and can adapt my designs for the projects to have a consistent voice (that’ll be another post). :)  So the main focus of the redesign was to showcase the projects, setting a stage for it. The old site was hand coded in 2004 and was an exercise in coding from scratch but I should have used a content management system to keep my sanity. I wanted the website to animate and use the lightbox, be accessible and validate of course. ;)

Color Scheme

I wanted it to reflect my Cindy Li blog  but have a different palette to it. So I came up with this color scheme.

Designing the page

I started with the main page layout so it could be more of a slide show and it was framed.

I decided that the frames were too heavy but I loved the navigation. So I kept those and started over again. Plus the behavior wasn’t something that I was fond of. It was a bit too cumbersome.

Another version

I liked the lightbox javascript technique that’s been used on lots of websites lately but didn’t like the darkening out of the entire screen.So my thought was to use the advance method of the images within the page. Now with this version I wanted the work to stand on its own. I recently visited the University of Tennessee Chattanooga and spoke to the Leslie Jensen-Inman’s design students there. I spoke to them about the importance of their projects being on a clean white board so that the work was displayed as the emphasis. Realizing that I should apply what I was telling them to my own portfolio I put all my work on white backgrounds to showcase them.

Home page:

Portfolio page:

Portfolio Detail page:

Everything so far was going fine except the “portfolio detail page” was a bit off. I decided to take out the listings of other projects because if the project list got longer then it would be scrolling further than I wanted.

Content Management System (CMS)

The site is created using WordPress.My friend Marianne Masculino was their “Happiness Engineer” and we were discussing how everyone thinks WordPress is only a blogging platform but I’ve created a few sites like Eggar’s School, that use the WordPress CMS to do more than just that.

Fonts

I used Chalet Comprime in my logo but when Matt and I started researching the usage (as he was putting it into SIFR) we read the requirements for usage. Last week I blogged about “font licensing and embedding” that it was $1700. I wasn’t kidding. So I opted for using dafonts.com’s font Lady Ice instead. It wasn’t my first choice but my budget can’t handle $1700 to use a font.

Flickr

I started putting up the designs into Flickr all on 500x500 white backgrounds.Why 500x500? The medium size for Flickr is 500x500.I decided to fit within Flickr’s image standard to make my life a bit easier. I tagged each of them portfolio and it also allows me to be found via another way on the web. The images are entered into the CMS and Matt wrote a caching system to accommodate for when there are Flickr hiccups plus improving the performance.
I’ve been using flickr to keep a repository of my work as I create it so it was easy to reuse them.

The code behind it

I roped in my boyfriend, Matt Harris into coding the website. For the geeks that want to know the details behind the site.It was written in HTML5, it uses JQuery for the animation and it is supported from IE6 and up. It is IE8 ready. It is using Cufon although we know it has accessibility issues.It uses Sprites for the navigation and the images are stored on Flickr but cached locally (in case Flickr has any hiccups) and it makes it accessible for those instances where you are prohibited from seeing Flickr (i.e. schools). The back-end uses customized WordPress plugins to handle all the custom fields required by the portfolio.

Finally

So with all the dns migration “fun” to the new space and checking on last minute bugs I hope you guys enjoy my new portfolio. :)

The new live site : DesignRabbit.

My friend Silvia asked what OH meant and this started us on the topic of Twitter-etiquette or should it be Twitterquette?  Silvia wants to call it tweetiquette. Anyway, below is a list of helpful tips and a dictionary for some terms that are being used on the Twittersphere and may have been just too embarrassed to ask. I’m still on the fence. :P
Silvia this post is for you and various friends that are asking me what things mean. She’s up and running and wonders NOW what? ;)

Twitterquette

• If you Twitter a lot you might loose followers so don’t be offended if you loose followers because you do that. Solution: You could create another account one that is public and one that is private. That way you don’t have to share every thought to the twitterverse.Some people I know have many accounts.
• The flip side:when you Twitter you may just gain users too.It just depends on what you want to do with Twitter.
• If you know someone tweets a lot then you may not want them to be sent to your phone. Turn off the notifications on the website so you don’t end up paying for more content then you bargained for. If you are having a conversation between another person that requires many tweets (just DM=Direct message them so you aren’t blasting it to everyone that follows you unless you want to be annoying). :P
• When you OH someone don’t attach their name (wait what does OH mean? Check the dictionary of terms below)
• Avatars: try and keep the same one so people following you can find you easily. If you want to be found. ;)
• Use emoticons to help notate tone (if you care to), some people take your Twitters out of context which will happen from time to time.
• If you have a long url and want to save characters then use a url compressor like tinyurl or powertwitter (firefox add-on)

Dictionary of terms

Some are just geeky terms some are specific to twitter.

• OH: Definition: Overheard When do you use it: When there’s a quote you want to say and you don’t want to attribute it to the person or you don’t know who to attribute it to. When the person doesn’t want the entire world to know they said that statement.
• RT: Definition:Re-Tweet When to use it: When someone tweets a link or statement you find interesting/amusing or not and you republish it on your twitter feed
• Twitterverse or Twittersphere: What does it mean: The twitter universe
• Tweet: Definition:A twitter statement
• # Definition:This is used as a tag for trends, events, statement, phrase, or whatever someone wants to have it not just as a word. When to use it:: #followfriday, #watchman (movie), #haiku, #nerdjoke, #sxswi09 (event)
• DM Definition:Direct message me on twitter When you see it: “Hey DM me and let me know if you are interested in the tickets.” If you type D infront of a user’s name into the text field then it will get sent directly to them Example: D craigcook Hi DM to people in Europe: Note: they don’t get them to their phones. Twitter couldn’t keep up the fees so if you send one to Europe the recipient will only get it via email or their twitter software.
• @ username it directs the twitter message you have for the username. They have it in their reply tab and will see it when they search if someone messages them Example: @marianne_m Let’s go find some pirates! Ok so what’s the difference between D username and @username? @cindyli how are you (this is like yelling it out in the street for everyone to hear and your recipient ) d cindyli how are you (this is the equivalent to passing a note to someone that no one else sees)
• Private twitter accounts Why: Not everyone wants their tweets to be out in the internet searchable. They want to control who sees their published content
• Public Everyone can see you tweets. Everyone even you mother if she chooses and your boss.
• Block You can block someone from following you if you are private or public. Although they can just go to your profile page and see it if you are public.

Mobile Help codes while you are on the go

Twitter’s help tips.
Totally snagged these from the twitter help site.

• Mobile texting feature Warning: lately texting your tweets disappears into the ether, so its better to use one of the fancy applications that you can download onto your iPhone to avoid texting or use the m.twitter.com site instead.
• WHOIS username What does this do? gets the profile on your phone from any public user on twitter Example: Whois themattharris
• GET username What it does: Grabs the lastest twitter update by the person Example: Get adactio
• NUDGE What does this do? reminds someone to update I have never used this and don’t see the point.Most people tweet enough. ;) Example: nudge gleyseele
• FAV What does this do? marks a person’s last tweet as a favorite. Why? When you think they say something funny, or send a link that you might find interesting. Example: fav zeldman
• Stats What does this do?  sends you the number of followers, how many people your following and what words your tracking Why? Twitter vanity check for you and to see how many people you are following

Geek speak

Terms that have been around for a while but are being used on twitter.

• 1337 l337 is leet or elite speak. When do you see it: It’s a positive term, it came from gaming. How to use it? Checking out out Apple’s new 1337 ipod shuffle
• FTW Definition: For the win Example: My car started FTW!
• FAIL Definition:When something fails, or used as EPIC FAIL when something really screws up Example: Photoshop crashed on me and I didn’t save the file I was working on. EPIC FAIL!
• n00b n00b Definition: newbie, someone new to whatever. Example: Silvia is such a n00b to twitter. ;)

I’m sure I’ve left some out but this should get you started! Hope this helps those of you in cube land (you know who you are. ;)).