Sean Toohey

Source: Flowtown - Social Media Marketing Application

Since Facebook released its new profile layout last week, designers and hacks alike have begun playing with their photo stream to create cool looking profile pages. Here's a shot of my first attempt (a hack of www.jolt.ca ): NOTE: Alignment in google chrome is slightly off, and probably not noticeable if i wasn't using text. Safari and Firefox look fine on the mac. Florian Stravock created a nice video tutorial that shows you the basic steps in creating your own using photoshop: Techcrunch wrote a good blog post on Florian's tutorial with a few examples and links to his PSD file if you want to take a shortcut :) .

I'm still not 100% sure if this is real, and I ask myself why anyone would want this, as I could think of many better uses for a 58 inch HD screen, but it still looks cool. More details here: iphonetable.blogspot.com

Disclaimer : Before we begin, you should know that I am not a photoshop expert, or even good at it, and the last time I seriously tried to learn photoshop was back in 1997. I still have the Photoshop 4 book, sitting unread, on my shelf. So I'm more of a photshop hack, and yesterday with almost no knowledge i was able to quickly create a decent zombie pic. So grab some Halloween spirit and lets photoshop. Make Quick and Dirty Zombie with Photoshop Start with a decent photo of yourself or your intended victim. 1. The Eyes are the windows to the soul, and our soulless zombie needs dead eyes. All i did was take the Dodge Tool and work the eyes until they were lifeless, dead and evil looking. 2. Zombies are Pale , so lets play with the Brightness and Contrast . Either of the entire photo or just the skin. 3. Zombies are Blue -ish (or whatever colour you want), so lets select the face with say the Polygon or Magic Wand , create a layer out of it and Adjust the Color Ba...

Less than a week before Halloween and ZOMBIE COUGARS is a promoted trend on twitter. In promotion of Rockstar Games Red Dead Redemption . This is what I think of when I hear the term Zombie Cougars: Disclaimer: My Photoshop skills are weak!

A Great video, from 3D artist Nigel Upchurch , with a Simple message to lower our carbon footprint by turning off office computers at night. Source: http://vimeo.com/15866184

I Love infographics and here's a cool one from Game House, showing Women are the masters of social Gaming. I know Women rule the social web (IE: Facebook, et all), but I question if they take in all the social gaming, like World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, etc. Source for Gamehouse.com Online Games

Very Cool Google Doodle today paying tribute to John Lennon for his 70th Birthday. The Video played when clicking the logo is on YouTube:

There has been a lot of hype in the media this week, stating that use of Internet Exporer use has fallen bellow 50% of market share.  From CNN Money: StatCounter, which tracks Internet data, said that IE's share of the browser market fell to 49.9% in September. More people still use IE than any other single browser, but the combined market share of non-Microsoft browsers now outpaces IE. Not being one to take their word for it (Sorry CNN), I went and checked some of the websites I run, and their roll-up reports in Google Analytics. Based on over 5.1 Million Visits in the past 30 days, these sites (based in Canada) still show IE with more than 57% share, and Firefox in the number two spot at 21%. I'm not stating that IE is not on the decline, but despite the hype, the reality here in Canada still has Microsoft and Internet Explorer leading the pack. ~ BTW, this post is written on a Mac using Chrome ;)

Interesting infographic from Bill Shrink that shows the popularity of iPhone OS in the US. Despite the hype they do not yet dominate the market. Of course they only make one phone, while the competition make several phones on various Operating Systems. Source: Bill Shrink

The CellScope is very cool use of techonoly to help Doctors diagnose disease in remote areas using a cell phone camera and a portable microscope. University of California, Berkley, Professor Daniel Fletcher and his team had an idea that now helps to save lives. They took a microscope, a Nokia N95, and put them together. They call it the CellScope. A super-portable microscope imaging device, perfect for diagnosing diseases in remote areas in developing world countries. Images of cell samples can be captured then sent by MMS anywhere in the world for instant analysis. Brilliant. Also to showcase their Cellescop, the 'World's Smallest Stopmotion Animation Character' film shot using a Nokia N8 and CellScope technology:

This blog has always been about technology and media, but every now and then I watch a beautiful paragliding video and I want to share one of my other great passions. Thanks to my friend in flight, Jonathan Wreglesworth for sharing this with me. Enjoy, Verige - un univers du roche et de glace (Vertigo - a world of rock and ice) by Stéphane Boulenger Stéphane shot this while flying over the Aiguille du Midi (3,842 m) a mountain in the Mont Blanc massif in the French Alps.

Last night I watched a documentary on soviet era photography and today I found this cool example of HDR Video using 2 digital SLR cameras from Soviet Montage Productions. HDR Video Demonstration Using Two Canon 5D mark II's from Soviet Montage This video highlights several clips we've made using our new High Dynamic Range (HDR) process. Video is captured on two Canon 5D mark II DSLRs, each capturing the exact same subject via a beam splitter. The cameras are configured so that they record different exposure values, e.g., one camera is overexposed, the other underexposed. After the footage has been recorded, we use a variety of HDR processing tools to combine the video from the two cameras, yielding the clips you see above. HDR Video provides filmmakers with many exciting new opportunities. Not only can HDR video create interesting effects, it can also allow for even exposure where artificial lighting is unavailable or impractical. For example, when a subject i...

I've had an iPhone for almost a year now but I'm not a fan of paying for Apps, and I have only ever purchased one for Geocaching . But today I found that fellow Augmented reality proponent, James Alliban ,  has released a very cool and clever app for the iphone called Fracture . Fracture allows you to paint cubist style portraits using your own photos. Aesthetics employed by abstract masters such as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque have been studied and recreated in this fun creative app. Simply use your camera or search your image gallery for 1 or more photos, adjust the settings to your specification and you are ready to start painting So if you a fan of Cubist paintings or just like to mess with photos on your phone, go out and grab a copy of Fracture on iTunes .

I first started creating digital artwork back in the mid 80s on my IBM PCjr in amazing 16 colours. In the 90s I switched to using Director and then Flash 3+ to create various pieces that I have long lost to the digital scrapheap. Last week at Gnomedex 10 in Seattle I watched artist/programmer/DJ & Googlite Scott Draves present 2 decades of open source artwork, and i wished I could recover some of my lost art.. but at the same time my work could never compare to the amazing and complex work Scott produces like the Darwinian AI Screen-saver Electric Sheep . Watch the video from gnomedex,  and ask yourself if androids dream of electric sheep. Here are my live tweets from the presentation: *10 @ spot #gnomedex 12:04 PM Aug 21st   Did he just Say 1 hr per frame to render!!! @ spot #gnomedex 12:03 PM Aug 21st @ paulbalcerak No explanation needed, just let it wash over you. 1...

Brain Solis gave the Keynote at Gnomedex 2010, he spoke about our role in building social media web. Brain was very engaging and i did very little live tweeting, here are some of his quotes: "Anyone who says they are social media expert, is fucking lying to you" - @ briansolis #gnomodex 9:36 AM Aug 20th via TweetDeck Chicks rule the Social web - @ briansolis #gnomodex 9:33 AM Aug 20th via TweetDeck #gnomedex http://twitpic.com/2gif56 9:31 AM Aug 20th via Twitpic RT @ ethernick : "Four degrees is the new six degrees of separation" (via @ briansolis ) #gnomedex 9:27 AM Aug 20th via TweetDeck RT @ thinkmaya : Everyone has a private life, public life and a secret life. Which one do you want to sh...

I just returned from another great #gnomedex in Seattle.  I will eventually put out a review, but for now here is the first in a series of Videos form the conference. Larry Wu, Co-Founder of SmartCup ,  is a brand development guru, who has created everything from the McGriddle to the Frapachino, he gave a great presentation on macro trends and Consumer Based Innovation. Many Thanks again to Chris Pirillo & the Gnomedex 10 Team for a great Conference.

I work in the newspaper business, and saw this TED talk last year, I think Jacek makes some good and inspired points on using creativity and imagination to drive business. One important lesson for designers is to go beyond design and gain real understanding for the needs of their business. This is critical in every aspect of design and development,and unfortunately most designers don't think about or understand what the business requirements are for their company.   "Jacek Utko is an extraordinary Polish newspaper designer whose redesigns for papers in Eastern Europe not only win awards, but increase circulation by up to 100%. Can good design save the newspaper? It just might." ~ TED

I'm not yet sold on the Apple iPad, but this is a great time lapse video from UK artist Kyle Lambert , using the iPad that makes me actually want one:

Roll your own social media site, Ning, has just announced that it is killing off its free product, forcing existing free networks to upgrade to premium accounts or migrate their networks elsewhere and the company has cut nearly 70 people — over 40% of its staff. VIA: Tech Crunch

Quick 2 min video for those that do not already get it: What the Hell is Social Media

The Mantra of Agile developers - Move Fast And Break Things! Marc Andreessen of Netscape, Kevin Ryan of DoubleClick, Thomas Gensemer of Blue State Digital (the company that developed Obama's online campaign), and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg reveal their strategies for innovation and give tips on how to build a successful company. VIA: businessinsider.com

Great interview with self taught documentary photographer Michael Hanson. See more great vidoes and tops on Kirk's blog .

Adidas augmented reality kicks are about to hit stores in February, here's a teaser: