Free Soft

If you are in NYC right now, find an excuse to get out of your office. Say you have to go and rescue some kittens, or your mom called about the mags under the bed. Whatever. Just come, see, and touch all this:

You can also touch Adam, Matt, John, Chris, Brian, and meself.

Look at that amazing Gizmodo logo made out of Lego. They made it for us, and it glows from the inside. Thanks Lego, for all your bricks make us happy.

Watch the proceedings on the live Justin.tv feed:

[Thanks to REED ANNEX and thanks to our benefactor gizmine.com]

Gizmodo Gallery

Reed Annex

151 Orchard Street

New York, NY 10002

Gizmodo Gallery Reader Meetup

The reader meetup takes place across the street from the Gallery, at a place called The Annex (not to be confused with REED ANNEX where the gallery is hosted.) The address is 152 Orchard Street and we'll be there at 9 PM SHARP on Friday December 5th.

Gallery Dates:

December 4th-7th

Times:

12/4 Thursday

12-8

12/5 Friday

12-8

12/6 Saturday

11-8

12/7 Sunday

11-4

[Read more about our Gizmodo Gallery here and see what else we'll be playing with at the event.]

Tagi: orchard street, kittens, gizmodo, justin tv, glows, benefactor, mags, bricks, chr, annex, lego, ace, excuse, reed, proceedings, new york ny, mom

So, I'm already getting some boot menus from people! I'll put the entries up here. Please comment and critique them. I will also be giving some of my thoughts:

These two are from chris custren:

These two are from poorlad:

This one is from pH:

That's it so far. If you've got any comments or suggestions about them, leave them here. Here's what came up from a technical/practical perspective: As I've mentioned, gradients are good. It is also very good if you can do things in grayscale (as poorlad did for one of his images, but even the blue scale can be programmatically generated) since it saves on expensive bitmap data. On using the Apple logo, here's what we're willing to do. We're willing to accept a logo with an original, unaltered Apple logo OR a logo created from scratch that resembles the Apple trademark. We cannot accept logos that modifies copyrighted Apple materials. The rationale for using Apple trademarks is because this is merely for identification purposes. If their lawyers have any problems with that, we will respect any requests to take it down.

Tagi: bitmap data, grayscale, gradients, chr, critique, menus, scratch, lawyers, peoe, perspective, logos, images

The days of waiting any amount of time to see what is new and hot from a trade show appear to be over. Today is the last day of the 2010 IBS show and already there are plenty of YouTube videos, twitter feeds (#ibs2010) and blog posts from the show. Of course there will be plenty more to come but this is a good start. We were going to attend but had to choose between this show and World of Concrete Feb. 2-5, which we will be attending in 12 days, stay tuned.

Wood Worker’s  Journal (YouTube) – One of our favorite woodworking personalities Chris Marshall, is currently on hand at the 2010 show and already has a dozen plus videos up on YouTube. Get more info and read recent blog posts from Chris Marshall.   

 Bob Villa, On The Level (Blog) – I’m sure Mr. Villa himself is held up in a Las Vegas hotel room tweeting and trying to knock these blog posts out each night after the show before making his way onto the strip for a little R&R… Ok maybe not but “On The Level” still offers a nice look at some of the new innovative consumer products from the show.

IBS2010 Video Booth (YouTube) – On the IBS2010 home page they have a link to YouTube (bottom of every page), apparently at the show they set up an almost live Video Booth where you can go in and talk about the show and be almost famous.

Sears Blue Crew (YouTube) – If you are interested in some of the new craftsman products these guys have several videos up already from the “Garage of Innovations” set up just outside the convention center. They also stopped by the Bosch Booth, Rockwell and a few others for a quick update on new products.  

These are just a few of the different online media sources for info from the 2010 International Builders Show and many more will be popping up over the next few days.  

    

Tagi: youtube videos, video booth, bob villa, almost famous, sears, media sources, vegas hotel, feb 2, chr, craftsman, rockwell, woodworking, amount of time, hotel room, bosch, ibs, few days, amp, nbsp, marshall

If you haven’t had a chance to hear the MyFixItUpLife radio show, it’s a great 1 hour weekly show about power tools, home improvement and much more. The show is on different local stations around the country but I prefer to listen through the free podcasts channel, which has all their episodes listed with short descriptions. Most of their episodes feature celebrities & expert guests so it’s easy to find the topics that are most interesting to you. Recent celebrity guests include Mike Holmes, Christopher Lowell, Chris Grundy and many other hosts of DIY shows.

Their website also has some great articles and a library of videos which cover a wide range of different home improvement projects. The site was recently updates and am a big fan of the new format which separates all this information by topic (ie Tools, Flooring, Bathrooms) so in each topic you get a nice mix of different media. For instance when you visit the Kitchen page you will get a video on kitchen drywalling, blog posts and recent audio podcast interviews about kichen products. Mixing up the media helps me stay interested and also makes it easy to skim through.

    

Tagi: home improvement projects, feature celebrities, free podcasts, expert guests, celebrity guests, mike holmes, rsquo, statis, grundy, chr, power tools, flooring, bathrooms, amp, nbsp, hosts, radio