Archive for May, 2009

When Warner Brothers friends Facebook, it could mean awesome for everybody

Yesterday, Jon sent me a link to an article about how Warner Brothers is teaming up with Facebook for the DVD release of “Watchmen.”

He summed it up like this, “Basically, it seems like with the internet connectivity of BD-Live, Warner is partnering with Facebook to coordinate screenings, special features, etc. It’s a cool way of bringing social media to consumer appliances and moving away from the personal computer.”

I read the article and thought, “Huh, I should tweet that or something.” But then, as is the way with fickle, ADD-afflicted bloggers I was distracted by something like My Life is Average or Awkward Family Photos and wholly forgot about the topic.

Until today when I began annoying everyone with a tweet-off of “Heathers” movie quotes with @winnerbowzer (sorry for that, I lose all control when it comes to late-80s dark comedies).

It was then it struck me how awesome it would be to pop in a DVD, and hook up with someone on Facebook or Twitter, or whathaveyou and talk about the movie. Especially if the DVD encouraged the watcher to do these things. After the Republican and Democratic conventions last year, I discovered how watching an even like that while using social media, is not just fun but really educational.

The idea that we could experience the media we choose (that’s not a time-sensitive event e.g. Superbowl, elections) with our social media buddies is some kind of awesome. Especially if it’s done up right, with nice design and fancy branding. If there had been a sort of Heathersesque chatroom/social media experience, I’d have been there today.

Plus, because this is how my mind works, I think of all the advertising/marketing implications. DVDs could have some sort of Willy Wonkaesque golden tickets that allow you special access to chats with stars/directors/writers. DVD releases could become premiere-y events, with people logging in to watch/experience the movie with the cast. How fun would it be to watch The Goonies while trading quips with the dude who played Chunk? More fun than the law should allow.

Adria Richards talks about building secure websites at The Nerdery

Beyond the Norm from The Nerdery on Vimeo.

Last night we got to play host to the Twin Cities Web Design & Standards group, which featured speaker Adria Richards , who is probably most well-known for discovering an unsecured database on former (perhaps if we ever get a ruling on the election) Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman’s website.

Though is a little hesitant to talk about the Coleman security issue, she doesn’t want to be that person who can only talk about one issue, she said the best thing about the whole debacle is that it has brought the idea of keeping websites secure into the limelight.

Oftentimes, she said, websites will blather on and on about how they won’t sell your information, and how it’s private, but they never talk about how secure your information is.

Take a look at the video when you have some time. It was a nice overview about the different kinds of attacks websites can suffer if you don’t secure them, and there’s a great q&a session towards the end where a few of our nerds offering up some advice on securing information.

Tech Tips: Prevent scaling in ActionScript projects

Problem:
The scale mode for ActionScript projects is set to allow zooming by default even when the width and height are set to fixed sizes. This can distort your website when the user uses ctrl-mouse scroll wheel or hits ctrl-plus / ctrl-minus.

Solution:
Set the stage scaleMode to “noScale” and configure the containing div to stretch at 100% for the height and width. You may also want to set the stage alignment to “T” which will align your content to the top of the page. This will work in AS2 as well but the ‘S’ is capitalized in Stage.
Read more

Check out the hot nerd action at about 2:54

Props to Minnov8 for the posting the Minnedemo video.

Right here on the bliggety blog, Hulu & War of the Worlds

Sometimes while sitting around watching TV, or really, commercials, I am struck by awe at the courage some companies have when it comes to advertising campaigns.

If you’ve never worked on the creative side of advertising, you’ve probably never run into the play it safe people. The Play it Safers (PiS) can neuter a campaign quicker than a vet with some scissors. The PiS are worried about offending, confusing, or generally pissing off potential customers. They often claim to want something new, something memorable, and something engaging, but often let the fear of being offensive to someone somewhere at some time veto a lot of creative ideas.

I once had an argument with a CEO about the word ‘image’ and how he thought the word was just too technical for users of digital photo editing software. See what I mean?

This is why we have so many absolutely forgettable commercials. At least that’s what I like to believe.

Last night, this Hulu campaign (specifically the Dennis Leary incarnation because he says things like “share those TV shows on your bliggety blogs, your faceyspaceys, and your tweetypages, for all your bookwormy anti-boobtubey friends”) struck me as particularly courageous and fun.

What’s so great about this Hulu campaign is how it flies in the face of broadcast history, what with all that War of the Worlds nonsense from the 30s. It takes the whole notion of brain-melting TV and embraces it. It’s part honesty, part sarcasm, and all clever. How can that kind of thing not be enjoyed?

And you know somewhere, some wonky suit at Hulu was afraid that TV watchers might find the whole thing offensive, but they went with it anyway.

While it’s sort of weird to celebrate advertising in one of its oldest forms (interuptive advertising is supposed to be dead, or dying), or to celebrate it at all (personally, I find a lot of artistic merit in a lot of advertising) there’s still value in appreciating the creative drive behind it and the courage a company took to air something that could be offensive or confusing or piss someone off.

(here’s part 1 of Orson Welles’ 1938 broadcast of War of the Worlds)

Friday Links: The mystery of the 160 character text limit solved, and more

• 50 beautiful & effective package designs. As someone who wrote copy for packaging for eight years, I always admire companies and products willing to take a risk and spend the money on a beautifully design package.
• How personality can predict media usage
• Why text messages are limited to 160 characters
• 64 things every geeks should know. Good thing I’m a nerd, because I got a big ol’ FAIL on this one.
• Starship destroyed by the Death Star. I don’t fully understand the whole Star Trek v. Star Wars thing, and I’m a little afraid to ask.

This is not at all political – except in that it sort of is.

Self-proclaimed web nerd Adria Richards was otherwise minding her own business as a technology consultant when she read a Twitter post that Sen. Norm Coleman’s website had crashed – due to an onslaught of donor activity, the campaign said.

When Adria found the site, she noticed (and documented) an unsecured database of donor information – readily available to anyone who knew where to look. A few Flickr posts later, Adria found herself busy as a nonpartisan media pundit on web security matters. Adria’s social media habits and reporting on her blog went on to influence stories in more mainstream outlets.

As first-time hosts of The Twin Cities Web Design & Standards Group, we welcome group organizer David Skarjune and Aden Networks’ founder Adria Richards to The Nerdery next Tuesday evening to discuss her experiences, as well as:

• Website design; past, present and future
• Security risks of web 2.0
• Website compromises (XSS, SQL injections, incremental GUID)
• Famous sites that got hacked and how they did it
• How to keep your client site safe and secure

Beyond The Norm: Building Secure Websites
Twin Cities Web Design & Standards Group
Tuesday, May 12 from 6-8 p.m.

Even if you work/live at The Nerdery, please register here.

Nerdery Interactive Labs, a division of Sierra Bravo Corporation, is a nonpartisan, for-profit organization. 

Attend an iPhone & Objective C talk at The Nerdery

There seemed to be a lot of great iPhone links zipping around Twitter, so it made sense to put them all in one place. Plus, it provides the perfect opportunity to blog about the tech talk The Nerdery’s Jon (who made the Distance to The Nerdery iPhone app) and Minh will be giving next week.

The talk will be about iPhone Development and Objective C hosted at 6:30 on May 13th (that’s a week from today) right here at The Nerdery (9555 James Ave. S., Suite 245. If you’re interested in attending leave a comment (or e-mail me jodi.chromey@sierra-bravo.com). I do believe Tom has promised free pizza, so we’ll need to know ahead of time if you’re coming so we order enough.

And to prepare for the talk you can take a look at these resources

• Standford’s School of Engineering’s iPhone Application Programming series is available free as a video podcast on iTunes (that link will open iTunes).
• MIT’s Introduction to iPhone Application Development
• How much money can free iPhone apps make? Quite a bit apparently.
• AppStore Secrets

(Thanks to @malbiniak and @rexisen for the links)

Surprising things you can learn while editing the Periodic Table of Nerdery

If you want your child to grow up to be a nerd (and really who doesn’t?) a good first job might be as a bagboy or grocery store cashier, at least that’s what my research has discovered. Of the 79 nerds profiled for the Periodic Table of Nerdery, eight of them listed their first job as bagboy or grocery store clerk. Good things coming out those grocery stores, huh?

Some other interesting similarities?

• “Real Genius” was the movie the nerds cited most often for favorite fictional nerd.
• Oregon Trail swept the First Internet/Computer memory category, which is kind of awesome since our own John K worked on the program.
• The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were either a favorite Nintendo game, childhood heroes, or favorite fictional nerd (a shocking upset since I was sure MacGyver would sweep that one).
• No/Can’t was the most popular word/noise to hate, which should give you a lot of insight into the nerdy mindset.
• In the comicbook realm, Superman beat out both Batman and Spiderman for most childhood hero mentions. Batman does deserve some props for getting one fan to talk about “superpower-wielding sallys,” which totally made this blogger laugh out loud.

What have you learned from the Periodic Table of Nerdery that surprised or delighted you the most?

One of my favorites? The Scrooge McDuck quote as best advice.

Great Scott! Things sure look different around here

Welcome to Nerdery Interactive Labs. Super sweet, isn’t it?

If you’re one of those who is afraid of change, don’t worry. Same great nerds, new great look. It’s still us, just with a shiny new name and brand.

Nerdery Interactive Labs, or still The Nerdery, is the name we’ve given to the division of Sierra Bravo that partners with ad, design, and marketing agencies to build amazing things for the web.

You might not know this but we started from humble beginnings. Just three programmers who integrated legacy systems with the web, as our company grew so did our capabilities. We found that more and more we were uniquely suited to partner with agencies to bring their ideas to life on the web.

As you probably know, if you’ve been reading some of our media coverage, we’ve grown like crazy this last year. Since our partner program has become such a large part of our business we decided to give it its own name and identity. And you’re looking at it, kid.

The Nerdery doesn’t change who we are or what we do. It just gives us a name, look, and feel that’s more fitting of a web development company working with creative agencies.

Go take a look around. I highly recommend checking out our work and then when you’re done with that, the Periodic Table of Nerdery (which is my favorite part of the new site).

So what do you think. Pretty cool?