Google + eBay + YouTube = AWE$OME $AVING$

A few weeks ago, my Kenmore washing machine started giving us problems.  It would wash and rinse like normal, but at the end of the cycle the clothes were soaking wet. I got by a few days by reaching in and spinning the basket by hand just to get it started. But soon enough, there was nothing I could do to get that washer to spin.  What was I to do?

Enter Google

Some quick keyword searching “kenmore washer won’t spin” lead me to this brilliant post: Sears Kenmore Washing Machine Repair. Phenomenal. Someone had the same problem as me and all they wanted to do was share it with the world.  Fine by me, he posted step-by-step instructions (with pictures) on how to replace a motor coupling. The most common reason for my ailment. But of course that wasn’t my problem, the motor coupler was fine.

Sergey’s Law

Search long enough and smart enough on Google and you WILL find what you need. Google has all the answers… they don’t call it Sergey’s Law for nothing.

So through Google I found out that probably I had to replace the clutch on the washer. A few more clicks and I had a replacement piece for under $20 on eBay and a video installation guide from YouTube.  It can’t get much easier than that.

Disclaimer

I am not a home appliance, small-motor or machine repairman. But after some time on the internet I certainly feel like it. I imagine I saved myself anywhere from $150-$500 repairing this myself. My point is that if you know what to search for, if you know that other people have had the same problem or situation and if you know there is a reasonable answer, you will find it through online search and the powers of the internet.

And when I have something worthwhile to report, you can be sure I’ll be sharing it online because… I LOVE THE INTERNET.

Ultimate Designer’s Quiz

Fast Company is a great magazine. I’ve had a subscription for the last few years and I can say that it is a great resource for anyone who is in business for themselves; whether it’s for design or not. Accordingly, Fast Company is a magazine that has “a unique focus on the most creative individuals sparking change in the marketplace”. (Fast Company – About) I highly recommend it as a “must-have” magazine subscription.

In the April 2010 issue, Tina Dupuy authored a great little quiz Ad Agency or Indie Band? She says advertising creatives fancy themselves rock stars and although I don’t disagree with her I have to admit, I didn’t do very well when put to the test. Both creatives and bands, she says, use similar techniques when naming themselves.The challenge here is to distinguish top creative agencies with up and coming indie bands.

Take the Quiz

Ad Agency or Indie Band Quiz Resource Guide

After taking the quiz myself, I wound up Googling (yes, it’s a word) every agency and band to see what their sites were like, check out their work and tune into some new music.  Aside from naming, there is one thing the two groups have in common and that’s an appreciation of a well designed website. Here are my results:

*** Spoiler Alert: If you didn’t take the quiz yet, you’re about to find out the answers. ***

Bands

White Rabbits
Black Lips
Ra Ra Riot
Big Business
Apostle of Hustle
Black Math Horsemen
Six Finger Satellite
The Mars Volta
7 Worlds Collide
Spiral Stairs
The Crayon Fields
Sleepy Sun
Amadou & Mariam
Florence and the Machine
Noah and the Whale
Zero 7
City Center
Volcano Suns
Red Red Meat
Client
Gift of Gab

Agencies

Juniper Park
Rockfish
Big Spaceship
Unknownlab
Victors and Spoils
Ground Zero
Toy

Sunsets, Beards and Friends on Flickr

So I finally got around to adding a bunch of pictures from my BlackBerry to Flickr so I can share them with everybody. So far you can see pictures of my lame but hilarious beard, sunrises and sunsets on my way to and from work, my six year old son’s fantastic drawings, my friends and a whole host of completely random and useless junk.

I’m also adding a link on the sidebar to my Flickr photostream right below my email, RSS, Twitter and LinkedIn. So feel free to check it out!

My Photostream

Father of Gravity Makes Doodle Move

In honor of Sir Isaac Newton’s birthday, Google introduces the first Doodle to use animation. It seems fitting that Google used JavaScript instead of Flash or an Animated GIF to produce the effect. That would have been like cheating. Instead, they created a simple equation to help “explain” why the apple falls. Just as Newton helped explain the Universal Law of Gravitation through a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis, Google uses an interval function to make the apple drop.

Sir Isaac Newton, an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist and theologian is generally regarded as one of the most influential scientists in history. I’m not sure how he found the time to do all of that, but he he also found time to write the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy). One of the most influential books in scientific history.

Google Doodle Drop

Image from Amit Agarwal

Merry Christmas, from me to you

With Christmas just one week away, I’m bringing you some pure holiday entertainment. I came across this song last year after hearing it on the radio and have been in love with it ever since. Boney M is disco era super group that is going to have you singing and grooving along to the holidays this year.  Merry Christmas!

Mary’s Boy Child – Boney M.

A Man’s Home is His Castle…

And truer words were never spoken when that home is the hands of this father & son team. The newest LEGO commercial (and possibly new campaign) aimed squarely at adult men speaks this proverbial expression loud and clear. Using a voice reminiscent of the late John Facenda (of NFL films greatness) LEGO manages to capture the ear of the casual viewer during ESPN commercial breaks and the like.  I first saw this during SportsCenter and have seen it multiple times on the guy-centric sports channel. It does the job effectively as everyone who has seen it  immediately wants to get out the bricks and build something.

The best part about this commercial is that the LEGO set they’re building isn’t a set at all. It comes purely from their imagination. How fun is that? A father and son building the wildest thing they can think of, complete with “windmill thingies” just because they can. I don’t know if LEGO is going to release any more in the “Build Together” series but I hope they do. This is the first time I can remember LEGO doing targeted television commercial ads aimed at the adults who are actually buying the product.  Brilliant, it works.

LEGO Build Together

I think this commercial is hitting the airwaves just in time for the holiday season.  And I for one am going to go out and buy some LEGO sets to build with my son. You should too!

Wow. This is awesome.

An Oakland Raiders mascot with an extremely crowd- friendly moustache. I found this logo (circa 1970-something-awesome) when looking for old NFL logos and I just knew I had to do something with this picture. The guy above is a perfect embodiment of what the Raiders stand for; I really don’t need to say anything else. I just remember growing up with friends whose dad was a big Raiders fan. I’m not really sure how Oakland got to claim the color black as their own, there’s plenty of teams who have black as their main or alternate uniform color. In any case, no Starter jackets or beanies here, just plain old Raiders fun. Check out the current logo below. Not much has  changed except for the nice little shaving o’ the stache.  See for yourself:

If you are all as sad as I am that they decided to forgo the ‘stache in order to clean up their misery, go over here to do some Moustache Reminiscing.

***DISCLAIMER – I am not an Oakland Raiders fan.  I belong to the Philadelphia Eagles. Fly Eagles, Fly!

D&D Vending, LLC is a brand new, full-service vending machine company based in Coatesville, PA. They not only sell and distribute any and all vending machines (soda, snack, video) they also service them for you. Which is great, because the last thing you want to do is try and repair your snack machine yourself.

1. Concept

After speaking with D&D, it was clear they wanted one thing – something unique. They didn’t care so much if it was fancy and fresh or simple and straightforward. But one thing was for sure, they wanted it to be their own. And that is a great thing for a designer to hear because that means we are free to experiment a little bit.

2. Sketches

Back to the trusty Moleskine Plain Soft Notebook – Pocket size (buy):

3. Mock Up

The circle logo was decided on for it’s similarity to a coin, the retro feel of the type, the simplicity of the initials and it’s flexibility.  Below are a few versions of the D&D in a circle.

4. Final

It wasn’t hard to decide on the retro font Deftone Stylus. You can find it over here at Font Squirrel, a great site. I adjusted the white space around the initials and fit everything into the circle a little cleaner.

Here’s a detailed version on a red background:

5. BONUS CONTENT!!!

Here’s a concept I was REALLY keen on. It’s based on a stylized version of a vending machine and transforms a logo into a character that really takes on the personality of the company. It developed after I was trying to draw a 3D perspective of a vending machine in Illustrator and I ended up with a wonderful mistake. It’s so unique it’s hard not to fall in love with it. I still think it has a lot of potential but for now he’ll just live on in my mind.

In any case, developing a visual identity for D&D has been fun and I am already working on converting this into a complete identity including print and web.

Cheer Up, Mr President

I received my January 2010 issue of Golf Digest yesterday and imagine my suprise to see the cover story “10 Tips Obama can take from Tiger”. I’m not going into the whole story, you can find that here, here and even more here. But I do have one question… which is worse? The fact they put the controversial Woods on the cover only two weeks he hit the news or the fact that Golf Digest used such poor PhotoShop work on their cover. If it wasn’t obvious to everyone else, both the heads of Obama and Tiger have been cut and paste onto new bodies in Photoshop. In a very bad way. I don’t know know if you’ve seen either one of them lately but I don’t think they need body doubles.

Photo Illustration

The funny part is that it got mentioned by Golf Digest as a “photo illustration”. Read below:

Personally, I think the illustrations, like the one you see at the top of this page are waaaay better than the Tiger/Obama mashup.

Check out more of the coverage over at Golf Digest.

You Cannot Use this Product at this Time.

This has got to be the absolutely WORST thing anyone using Adobe Creative Suite products can see on their machine when they attempt to start up one of their programs. And more often than not, it happens to you at the WORST time. This has happened to me on two occasions with Adobe CS3 Master Collection. The first time it was partially fixed with a reinstall. I say partially because I still couldn’t use any of the video editing programs in the Master Collection (I previously upgraded from Design Premium) but since I didn’t need them at the time it was acceptable. The second  time around, however, a reinstall was not successful and neither were many other simple fixes suggested by both Adobe and other online resources. The FlexNet Services restart option did nothing for more as it was already running. The Adobe License Recovery program also failed at getting me back up and running.

Don’t worry, you CAN fix this!

So I finally found the solution over on RaisedByTurtles.org by Tom Lambert. In his Fix CS3 post Uninstall a Service in Vista, Repair Adobe CS3 and Clean Up the Registry both he and a Commenter Named JL provide detailed instructions as well as where to get the things you’ll need.

It’s not that hard, but it is time consuming. Also, it will wipe EVERYTHING Adobe off of your machine so only use this as a last ditch effort. But I’m guessing if your in a situation like me and you have no choice you’ll try anything. The one suggestion I do have is save anything you don’t want to recreate like color swatches, actions, settings, etc. It will save you some time once you have successfully reinstalled your Creative Suite software.

Here’s what I did to get Adobe Creative Suite 3 Master Collection working after I received the Licensing for this product has stopped working error message.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Uninstall using the CS3  disc. Reboot.
2.Manually remove any and every folder you can find labeled ‘Adobe’.  Look in Users, Documents and Settings, Program Files, Roaming Profiles, etc. Reboot.
3. Download and Run the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility. Reboot.
4. Download and Run the Adobe CS3Clean Script – Level 1. Repeat.
5. Run the Adobe CS3Clean Script – Level 2. Repeat.
6. Run the Adobe CS3Clean Script – Level 3. Repeat.
7. Run the Adobe CS3Clean Script – Level 4. Repeat.
8. Reboot.
9. Run CCleaner. (If you don’t have it you get it at File Hippo.com). Reboot.
10. Install Adobe Creative Suite using discs.

Presto!

So there are a few things on JL’s list that I skipped and still had success. I think if you strip your machine of all things Adobe and start fresh there are only so many things left to clean up after the first few times through the cleanup script.  But this definitely worked and it also worked for a friend of mine who had the same problem with CS3 Design Premium on a Vista laptop. She actually had a slightly different problem where she couldn’t even install the programs from the disc. She just kept trying to install and all it would give her was Acrobat. She also spent MULTIPLE HOURS on the phone with Adobe support and it was absolutely useless. Very poor customer service from Adobe on this issue. Thanks, Krista for helping me out with this and taking one for the team with Adobe! I just can’t help feeling there should be some kind of class action lawsuit after so many documented cases of lost productivity have been documented across the web.

Good Luck!