Featured Posts

The Value of Feeling Appreciated as an Employee in... Whether you’re a new employee or the vice president of the company, everyone wants to feel valued, even appreciated, in the workplace. Not only does it improve morale and make the workplace a more pleasant...

Read more

The difference between classic and motion tweens in... Here it is: If you're used to doing things "the cs3 way" then you can continue to do so with the classic tween tool. It works the same way as you remember, using key frames as normal, but you cannot...

Read more

PHP: If (equal to AND not equal) - eliminate form spam... Just learned a great function of PHP thats already made my forms a lot better. A while back I wrote an article about eliminating form spam without captchas by using css to hide a text input box for bots...

Read more

Drop Downs, Fly Outs, and Accordion Site Navigation: This last week I was in a meeting discussing a client site. It was a typical business meeting that was going into overtime on a Friday afternoon, and then things turned for the worst... someone suggested...

Read more

twitter

Breaking News

  •  

SOPA Protest tomorrow. See you on Thursday.

Category : Around The Office, General Web Info, Politics, Social

This website will be “blacked out” in solidarity with the SOPA Protest for Thursday, January 18th, 2012. The internet needs to be protected in the same way as the press, and for the same reason.

If you’re just now learning about SOPA and Protect IP – scheduled to be voted on by the senate in the near future then you might want to do your research quickly – as over 30,000 websites will be down tomorrow to protest this ineffective, business killing, nanny-state, double speaking bill.

In the name of “internet security” aka (profit protection) the MPAA, RIAA, along with the Chamber of Commerce want to change the way the internet works from the router up. They want to be able to remove ANY website’s DNS listing because someone might have posted a link to a copyrighted material SOMEWHERE on the website. No court hearing to see if the plaintiff actually controls the rights, no appeal if they are wrong, no recourse for you to claim damages… just another way to frighten and kill competition from the same people who were VERY willing to sue single moms and students for downloading music and movies instead of adapting their business models to a new medium.

In case you didn’t already know Im talking about RIAA, MPAA, Chamber of Commerce, and an evil gang of media thugs (CBS, ABC, FOX, COMCAST, DISNEY, etc). These media thugs claim that there is a culture of thievery on the internet, and that may or may not be true, but what the forget to mention is that THEY CREATED THIS CULTURE – and whats more they PROFITED FROM IT.

CBS, for example, owns C|net, which was the exclusive distributer of Kazaa and Limewire in the mid 1990s and 2000s. C|net makes money every time someone downloads an application from them from referrals and advertising, sometimes up to $5 a download. With over 500 million downloads between just these two applications it’s safe to say they might have made more than a billion dollars creating this online culture. Now that phase I is complete they want to use this online community WHICH THEY FOSTERED AND PROFITED FROM as justification to rewire the internet in a way that coincidentally will make them even more money while creating unknown security and architectural problems for the rest of us.(http://www.filmon.com/cbsyousuck/)

Open Studio Group Show Opens Tonight in the Gallery of ArtSpace.

Category : Around West Hartford, Art Event, Social

This is the first event of Open Studio Hartford. Over 160 artists are showing their work in the next two weeks and most of them will be at this event tonight. Get your first glimpse at each artist’s work and style. This is sure to be a smashing event.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=152717564761248

Hartford Open Studio Weekend Nov 13th and 14th

Category : Around The Office, Around West Hartford, Social

Hattersworkshop is pleased and honored to be a part of the 21st annual Hartford Open Studio exhibit. Please stop by the studio on the fourth floor of ArtSpace at 555 Asylum st in downtown Hartford. Guests will not be allowed to park in the back lot, but parking is available at a discounted rate across the street.

Click here to download the full Event Brochure for location and event details as well as more some visual information about each artist.

Every year I have come to OpenStudio I have had a great time. The art is amazing; the people are incredible and interesting. Being a part of OpenStudio this year is already thrilling and I look forward to meeting new people and seeing some familiar faces.
Contunue Reading

“So What!” Opening a great success!

Category : Around West Hartford, Art Event, Social

Thank you to all the people who came out to the “So What!” art show at Hartford ArtSpace on October 23ed. I should also like to say thank you to Dan Small and Arturo Rosa for bringing me into the show and letting me have a section of wall to display my art. Nothing like impending deadlines to spur the creation of new art!

Prints of the work will be available for purchase during Open Studio.

The after party was also a great success and to all those who came: Im glad you had a good time. Music provided by Torrential , MisEyesis, and Dj Slav. I’d also like to thank my bartenders for keeping some semblance of law and order, or what passes for law and order in these parts anyway. Last, but not least, big ups to Andre and the other writers who created some awesome backgrounds for us to use in the gallery of some bonafied street art.

The next show is Open Studio and I hope to see you all there as well. I should have at least one new piece on display by then.

Leaving For Peru

Category : Social

Leaving for Peru for 15 days tomorrow. Wicked psyched. There’s really nothing else to say about it.
Plane leaves from JFK at 11:30AM.

Just gotta publish this page and start packing…

On the Radio Tonight – 91.3 WWUH -

Category : Politics, Social

Im going to be on the radio (Hartford, CT area) over at WWUH (91.3FM) sometime tonight from 12 to 3am. I’ve been asked to provide political commentary to The Dawn of Chaos, a metal and hardcore. I dont know the exact format yet, but Ill start posting the weekly talking points I use along with supporting links and source materials.

I dont see this becoming “another blog about politics” – there are so many already. Most of them stink, but Id like to highlight the few that have risen above the rest.

Tonight I want to cover:

  • Problems with the Cap and
  • Trade Bill currently winding through congress
  • A new slaughter of native people in Peru-America Free Trade Zone
  • Israel attacks “Spirit of Humanity” attempting to enter Palestinian waters to deliver humanitarian Aid and building supplies. Nobel Peace Prize winner and former US Congress woman taken prisoner by Israel.

More to come soon.

Working at an Award Winning Tattoo Shop

Category : Social

If you have been following the blog for a while you might remember me getting a job at a local Tattoo shop, Visual Expressions. If you live in the CT area you might also have heard us getting some love from WCCC (106.9FM).

They (WCCC) did a listener driven contest to find Hartford’s favorite tattoo artist, and wouldn’t you know it – it’s our very own Kelly Green. You can check out her portfolio here. We didn’t win anything but bragging rights, but it was fun to compete. Im wicked glad to be learning from such amazing artists – everyone in the shop has something to teach me.

I wasn’t sure when I got the job if I was going to keep it. Now I wonder if I am going to keep my other jobs. I really enjoy tattooing and like watching people show off my work. It makes me smile as an artist in ways no amount of money can. I like that.

Conundrum of Life: Solved – Morning vs Night

Category : Humor, Social

Happy Memorial Day; my thoughts on that aside.

I figured out a wondrous thing tonight while I was driving home from Springfield this morning: The best way to determine the morning/night status is to look at the street lights. If they are still on – it’s still night. Once they turn off (about 5:33am this morning in case you were interested) then, and only then, is it considered morning by civilized people.

The normal argument would say 12:01am; but that’s only if you want to be a dick about it – of course you’re not wrong, but practically speaking I’d say that I left the party at around 5:20 last night and got home at about 6 o’clock this morning.

Guest Host on WWUH 91.3 – Dawn of Chaos

Category : Around West Hartford, Politics, Social

I got to guest host on Dawn of Chaos, a weekly radio show on 91.3 WWUH. We had a great time talking about politics (Piracy & the British TV tax). I shit you not; its illegal to watch TV it Briton without a license – how sick is that? I have to pay someone for the privilege to watch ads? The real winner this week though was a story about how the French are kidnapping their bosses if they threaten to ship jobs over seas. THATS A UNION IN ACTION!

From there the conversation digressed into Ultimate Warrior – a show I’ve never seen from beginning to end. It pits fighters from all around the world against each other in mock battles that would never happen (Pirate vs French Knight). I’ve seen clips from it – but I never get through the whole thing. The scripting seems lame and the match ups moronic. (Ninja vs Spartan? Ninja would never fight a spartan head on… kill him in his sleep. Done.)

Anyway, I was happy to get some good ol punk into the mix. Most of the time the show plays metal but I brought in some T.S.O.L. Decedents, Exploited, and the Necromantics and we had a ball…

Ill be back next week Tuesday 12-3am on 91.3 WWUH with more political discourse, ramblings and rants.

Last Week of Classes – Message to Students

Category : Around West Hartford, Social, Teaching

To all my students: Thank you for all your hard work this semester. I hope you got as much out of the classes as you could. If you have any questions in the future – please dont hesitate to ask me. Just because you’re no longer in my class does not mean my door is closed.

Reflections:
Im only going to teach one class a semester from now on. I wanted to able to go in deeper with both classes and I think I could have if I was clearer about the class objectives and what I was expecting. This was my mistake. A demo reel of examples I had found to go with each assignment would have been instrumental in achieving this.

I’m glad I did it though, I learned Flash CS 4 in 5 days and met some new people who I hope to be working with int he future. Actionscript 3 is still greek, but I’ll have to learn it evenutally to begin working with
AIR.

The easy road isn’t rewarding… It’s easy.