28 Feb 2011

Calling All Gowalla Users In New York City

The place where I work (which shall remain unnamed) has put in a great deal of effort into commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire.  The anniversary date is March 25, so it's really coming up on us quite fast.  Unfortunately, due to budget constraints (all travel has been eliminated) and the preoccupation of Gowalla with SXSW (understandable), we're in a bit of pickle.

That's where you come in.

This is a call out to everyone in New York City (and adventurous types in the outskirts) who have a mobile phone and the Gowalla app.  I need your help creating the missing locations.  
Some of these places don't exist anymore, but thanks to a lot of research by a few of us at my place of employment, I believe we've got a good handle on them with a reasonable degree of precision.  Some have been moved since 1911, so just because I pinned something where it isn't now, doesn't mean it was wrong in 1911!  Those where I need a little more help will be labeled as such.

100 year anniversaries only come once, so I would appreciate any help you can provide.

To help, all locations can be found on the Google Map at: http://goo.gl/maps/Et95

Manhattan
* Triangle Shirtwaist Factory ✓done!
* Frances Perkins' Residence 
* Great Hall at Cooper Union ✓done!
* United Press (at least as of 1911)
* Engine Company 33
* Old 8th Precinct Police Station
* New York City Buildings Department
* Newark High Street Factory Fire (empty lot now, coordinates took a great deal of research but nailed it!)
* Metropolitan Opera House ca. 1911
* Engine Company 72
* Home of Mrs. Gordon Norrie (as close as I could get it)
* Fifth Avenue Association
* Committee on the Safety of the City of New York
* The Tombs Courthouse
* Worth Street Subway Station (abandoned)
* Home of Cecilia Walker, victim of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
* St. Vincent's Hospital (as of 1911.  Current location appears to be different)
* Mercer St. Police Station
* Bellevue Hospital ✓done!
* Bellevue Morgue Pier

Staten Island
* Mount Richmond Cemetery (imprecise - need help improving the coordinates - there are graves marked noting the fire)

Queens
* Cemetery of the Evergreens (imprecise - need help improving the coordinates - a monument to the tragedy, a large marble slab featuring a kneeling woman.)

Again, I want to thank any intrepid New Yorker willing to help me out with this.
25 Feb 2011

Why should only iPad owners get usable apps?

It's no surprise that the iPad and iPhone are the vectors for better apps. Apple has very well-thought-out human interface guidelines for iOS, and it enforces those principles in its app review -- developers are strongly discouraged from creating new approaches for what Apple has already figured out how to do well. There's some discipline that developers can't easily escape, as they can for in-house projects or when writing apps for "whatever you want to do is fine" OSes such as Windows, Linux, and Android.

This is seriously the most well thought-out article on Infoworld...EVER.

Developers of mobile, desktop and web apps should all read this....NOW.

25 Feb 2011

Apple shares Mac OS X Lion with security experts | News - Security - CNET News

http://m.cnet.com/Article.rbml?nid=20036218&cid=latest&bcid=9969673&bid=83&te...

Good move. I wonder if this is the fruit of their recent high-profile security hire.

Sent from my iPhone

24 Feb 2011

How modern hit-men clean that dead body smell from the trunk of their car

17 Feb 2011

How to create an interactive iPad app prototype in 30 minutes using keynote | Amir Khella

I'm going to have to check this out in greater detail. Quite intriguing.

9 Feb 2011

Dell unveils 10-inch Windows 7 tablet | Crave - CNET News

Dell again displays how they just don't get it.  Windows' UI controls are NOT finger-friendly.


6 Feb 2011

This Is Why Flash MUST Die

Flash

...no matter what the Android fanboys, RIM, or Adobe says. 

Watch a movie and get this little gift.

Give me a plug-in-free Web. That's all I ask.

3 Feb 2011

Mobile Design Fail

Him: We've got this app that has all these features and we're still adding more.
Me: What's the user experience? What's the use case?
Him: I want you to tell me what you think of the user experience.

FAIL

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Mike Pulsifer