InfoTart

Last night, Pandemonium Books in Central Sq. had a book signing for a local Boston author, Mark del Franco. I sort of ran into his debut novel accidentally a few months ago, Unshapely Things. Fortunately, it’s a decent fantasy novel and an enjoyable read.

Unshapely Things takes place in an alternate Boston, a place where the Big Dig never happened and faeries and elves live among us. The main character is a druid who lost his powers for working magic (or “essence,” as the book calls it) and needs to stop a madman from destroying the world. Nothing special. Just gotta save the world!

It was also great fun reading about all of the places described by the book that no longer exist in our Boston. In the alternate reality Boston of the book, Fort Point is a fearie/elf ghetto, the Combat Zone was never bulldozed, and the Orange Line still runs above ground down Washington Street. Reminds me of what Boston must have been like back in the 1970s when it was a lot grittier than it is today. (Except for that whole faerie/elf ghetto thing…)

Anyway, Mark just released his second book in the series, Unquiet Dreams, which looks pretty good, too. So he was at Pandemonium last night to sign copies and promote the series. My friend JP told me about it and we went together.

Unfortunately, the line was very short. As in no waiting at all. So JP and I just sat down and chatted with Mark for like 45 minutes. Other folks stopped by for a quick chat and to get their books signed, but JP and I were there for the duration talking about Boston politics and life before the Big Dig. Mark is an interesting guy, fun to talk to, and he knows Boston really well! I wish Mark well with his promising new series.

We were also happy to hear that Book #3 was delivered last night to the publishers, but probably won’t be released until the holidays or maybe January 2009. I hate waiting…

And wasn’t that nice of him to pose with me? Am I becoming a celebrity stalker??

Doesn’t it just figure? I haven’t missed a day of work in like 3 years due to illness — and the minute I get laid off, I now have a nasty cold.

Yes, I’m no longer working at iSkoot due to forces beyond my control…

Such is life at a startup. The split was on good terms and I wish the company well. Before I left, we were working on some concepts for some cool new product ideas, so I look forward to seeing what the company achieves next.

What grand adventures are in store for me next? It’s a little too early to tell today, but some interesting leads have appeared. Boston? London? Sweden? Atlanta? California? We’ll see…

Meanwhile, I need to pick up a giant bottle of Vitamin C and start chewing those things down…

So I went out last night to an industry networking event in Cambridge called Web Innovators. It was at the Royal Sonesta Hotel near the Museum of Science on the Charles River. After the event was over, I joined some folks for drinks in the Royal Sonesta’s bar. And on the way out, guess who I ran into? I ran into Steven from the current season of Project Runway!!

I saw him on the other side of the room, surrounded by folks and randomly chatting. I thought to myself, “Jeez, he looks familiar…” And then it occurred to me how he was familiar! I love that show, and Steven was my favorite contestant! And of course I had to get my picture taken with him.

He’s in town to host some sort of event at the Museum of Science tonight called Seamless, Computational Couture. Looks cool but unfortunately, the event is sold out so I can’t continue to stalk him. 

Maybe I should start hanging out at swanky hotel bars more often. One never knows who one might run into…

My boyfriend, Bruce, met me at my place and we walked to Union Sq. last night for a night out. Unbelievably, even though it’s maybe a 10 min. walk away, it was my first time walking there since I moved here 1.5 years ago! Crazy, huh?

First stop — dinner at this little Korean restaurant. On the outside, it looks totally divey. I think it just says, “Korean Restaurant” for its English name. Bruce had heard years ago that it was good, so we went in & ate dinner there. Yum! It was great! It was very much like the way a Mom & Pop ethnic restaurant should be. We were the only white couple there. The food was excellent. If you’re a fan of Korean food, you’ll totally have to go!.

Across the street in the square, there is a Japanese/Korean supermarket. It’s huge! It looks tiny from the outside, but it just keeps going and going once you step inside. And right next to it is a Japanese/Korean video store with lots of silly gifts & things. Who knew that Union Sq. was the center of the Korean community (sort of) in Cambidge/Somerville?

From dinner, we walked up the street and passed a brand new cafe, so we went in & checked it out. It’s called Bloc 11 Cafe on Bow St. It’s in a former bank building and is apparently a new outpost for Davis Square’s fantastic Diesel Cafe. Cute lesbians working there. It’s only been opened 3 months. The former bank vault has a table & seating. Fun! Menu looks good too.

Then I dragged Bruce to the grand opening of a modern home furnishings store called Grand, just on the north side of Union Sq. on Somerville Ave. An old buddy of mine has a minor interest in the place, so he invited me. I saw a few other folks there, so that was cool. One buddy lives in the South End and the other in Jamaica Plain, so it was great that they crossed the river!

Bruce and I stayed long enough at Grand for a drink, then we went back to Bloc 11 Cafe for hot cocoa. Next door to Bloc 11 is a comic book shop called Hub Comics, which I’d never noticed before, so we stopped in along the way. It turns out it was Hub Comics’ first day in business! Bruce and I chatted with the owner, James, for a few minutes, who was wicked nice.

Union Sq. is turning into quite the happening scene!

Okay, but we weren’t done yet!

After enjoying cocoas at Bloc 11, we walked up Somerville Ave. towards Porter Sq. to a little divey bar called Razzy’s to see a group called One Happy Island play. (I made a blog entry about OHI earlier this afternoon.) Bruce and I had seen OHI a couple of months ago at a show at the Middle East and really enjoyed them, so we signed up for their mailing list. OHI just released a new (mini) CD so we each got one last night– they were just $5 each! Check out their MySpace page. You can listen to and download their songs Potential and Anita, which are my two favorites.

Last night, my boyfriend and I went to go see One Happy Island at Razzy’s, a divey bar in Somerville near Porter Square. This was our second time seeing the band, and thankfully, they had more stage time last night than before. And what a great show!

We’d first seen One Happy Island a couple of months ago at the Middle East. They were on the docket with Shonen Knife (a Japanese girl-punk band) and The Juliet Dagger (a Buffalo, NY, girl-led punk band). I have no idea how One Happy Island, small Boston alterna-pop band got mixed up with them, but I’m glad they did. OHI only did like 4 songs that night, but they made quite an impression on us and we vowed to see them again.

So check out their MySpace web page and listen to a few of their songs. I especially recommend Potential and Anita. They just published a totally cute little mini-CD called Pulaski Park from WeePop Records in the UK. It’s just $5! Order it online today since OHI isn’t available on iTunes yet. (But hopefully soon!)

I read an article in Out magazine about this fascinating & brilliant Brazilian band called Bonde do Role. After doing a little YouTube search, I came across the video for their brilliant song, Marina Gasolina. You’ve got to check this out!

Marina Gasolina on YouTube:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QHt3WCHUGc

This is now my new favorite song. I got an iTunes gift card for Christmas, so I bought my first track on iTunes — a remix of Marina Gasolina. I also got a CD single at Newbury Comics the other day, so now its my new favorite ringtone.

This afternoon, I hopped in my car and took the Pike out towards Worcester. My destination: Deja Brew, this cool “brew your own beer” place somewhere on Rte. 9 in Shrewsbury. I was meeting up with some buddies who had brewed up a few batched of beer there last year, but this was my first time going there and somehow I got lost.

Deja Brew is located on Rte 9 near Rte. 140, so I thought, “Hey, I’ll get off the Pike at the Rte. 140 exit.” What I didn’t know is that there is no Rte. 140 exit! Oops…

So I got off at the nearest exit, knowing that Rte. 9 was north somewhere. So I pulled over, pulled out my spanky new GPS receiver, Bluetooth connected it to my phone, and then launched Google Maps and clicked on the button for “my location”. (Thank goodness for an unlimited data plan!)

Within maybe 2 minutes, I’d figured out how to get where I needed to go and got back on the road and I was only 5 minutes late. And since I’m a guy, I was deeply relieved that I didn’t have to ask a random gas station attendant how to get there. 

The funny thing is that I had to use the Google Maps + GPS wonder duo again later this evening. See, I didn’t discover that there is no intersection for the Pike and Rte 140 until I was driving home. When I drove under the Pike, I figured there was a problem… So I pulled over again, and figured out how to get back on the Pike to Boston. *whew!*

Last night, I met up with a friend of mine for dinner at Cuchi Cuchi in Central Square. I’m embarrassed to say that I’d never heard of Cuchi Cuchi before, so it was a new experience for me. And how delightful of one at that!

The restaurant offers amazingly tasty small plates (like tapas) and has an excellent and original drinks menu. What’s even cooler is that that all of the staff dress like 1920’s Flappers. Well, the women do anyways, and the guys dress in similar period outfits. Very cool! Plus, the interior design looks like some over-the-top drawing room in the sweet old lady’s house down which seems to have remained untouched since then.

The only down side to the restaurant is that it’s incredibly expensive. Dinner for the two of us was about $110 with tip. Youch! Still, I highly recommend it — especially for a special date with a significant other. (I’m taking the boyfriend there sometime soon, but I need to save up for it first!)

Cuchi Cuchi

795 Main Street in Central Square, Cambridge

www.cuchicuchi.cc

Yay! My workshop proposal for the Boston chapter of the Usability Professionals Association was accepted!

The full-day workshop is entitled “Introduction to Mobile User Experience Design”. It’s targeted to UI designers primarily, both UI designers who are looking to make a permanent move into the mobile industry and those who may be working on something like an enterprise software mobilization project (such as making CRM data available to mobile devices). Read more and sign up for the workshop at:

http://www.upaboston.org/workshops.shtml

Usability professionals will also benefit greatly from the workshop. During usability evaluations or tests of a mobile product, the researcher needs to be able to distinguish between issues that users have with the platform (the OS), the hardware itself, and the software.

As the mobile UI designer/client, I want the researcher to break out their findings with an emphasis on usability issues in the software itself, and to have issues with the platform and device put into an appendix. We’ll want to track the platform and device issues separately so that we can look for optimization opportunities for that platform or device form factor, but we generally have little to no control over these issues — just potential opportunities for workarounds.

I also want to see smart, thoughtful analysis and recommendations from the usability researcher. That requires a certain degree of knowledge about what we as mobile client software developers do and don’t have control of because of device or platform limitations. After, mobile devices aren’t PCs. For example, mobile devices have no mouse, limited opportunities for integration with the telephony and PIM applications, small screens, limited colors, no “context menus”, etc. I am disappointed and unimpressed when I see recommendations from usability folks when they forget about these limitations. (And yes, I speak from experience with that last comment.)

Anyways, for UI designers and usability folks who live in the Boston metro area, I hope you’ll consider coming to the workshop. I think it’ll be a lot of fun, very interesting and educational (for me, too), and hopefully the first in a series of mobile-related workshops with yours truly.

I went to the Boston Mobile Mondays meeting tonight at MIT Sloan. (It’s across the street from my new job at iSkoot.) A very good friend of mine, Tim Jasionowski, was on the panel talking about VOIP. Well, that plus the fact that the topic was mobile VOIP and I work for one of the poster children of this little market niche, iSkoot. Very compelling reasons to go!

David Feldman of Feldman Advisors played moderator. He did a great job. He was animated and engaging and moved the discussion along. Thank goodness! Panel discussions can often be a miserable bore, but tonight’s actually kept my attention.

All three of the moderators were interesting, as well.

• Bob Geiman, Managing Partner at Polaris Ventures and, as far as I can tell, the VC Stud! He is one good looking man… Oh, and smart, too. He played apologist for mobile operators a little more than I would’ve expected, but otherwise smart.
• Nitzan Shaer, Entrepreneur-in-Residence at IDG Ventures. Formerly head of the Mobile Product Group at Skype. Wicked smart guy. He left Skype 3 months ago to join IDG. He seemed very cool. I would’ve liked to speak to him more privately, but unfortunately he left after the meeting.
• Tim Jasionowski, Technology Director and Senior Technologist, Rich Media, Nokia Enterprise Solutions. (Jeezus, Tim, that’s a long title!) Also, of course, wicked smart. It was funny when Tim mentioned that you can’t build a business if the revenue model is based on providing something for free, but of course Nitzan took great exception to that comment and begged to differ noting Skype’s $200 million in revenues. It would’ve been entertaining to see those two go off on that thread for a few more minutes…

I didn’t learn anything earth-shattering and new, per se, but I did note a couple of things that I need to keep my eye on. Chief among them was IMS (IP multimedia subsystem): will it revolutionize the mobile industry? Does it present an opportunity for VOIP and companies like iSkoot? Unfortunately, it was barely glossed over tonight so no answers.