Any merit?

Apple filed a federal trademark infringement suit against the City of New York and their GreeNYC campaign. GreeNYC created a logo that is being used on bus shelters, hybrid gasoline-electric taxicabs and even Whole Foods shopping bags. Apple says the logo looks too much like their logo and people may confuse the two.

Apple is claiming the GreeNYC mark will "seriously injure the reputation which [Apple] has established for its goods and services."

"This well-known city is using its new design in a variety of contexts that have absolutely nothing to do with Apple Inc.," New York City claims.

What do you think? Is Apple overreacting? Or has New York City bitten off more than it can chew?

A confusing path to success

My overwhelming obsession with Sharpies also extends to an obsession with using them. Using them to make lists. Only minimal amounts of work would get done if I don't make a list each day. But the list can't be just any list on any kind of paper with any kind of pen. It must be a neat, clean sheet of paper the same as yesterday's and written with the Sharpie color of the day. Some days may have the same Sharpie color as the day prior, this depends on my mood. The text is also of the utmost importance. I had tried using the PocketMod for a while, but NOPE it was too bulky, the lines were too thick and that made my writing feel too cluttered. The list must be perfectly spaced with a perfectly aligned left edge, if it isn't I start over. If a line runs too long, that's it, new list.

I have to make lists everyday because I could so easily find a million other things to do besides work. Things like petting the dogs, sitting in the sun or taking photographs could, and very often do, distract me from sitting down and actually working. This is where the neat, orderly insanity makes all the difference. I am just better at being distracted and that's why the overly systematic list works in my favor. My head fills up with all the things I should be doing and then opts out of all of them. But, if I make a perfectly aligned, tidy list it speaks to me in only ways I can hear. "HEY! YOU! Sit down! Make money! Then...buy shoes!"

When I hear that I sit down and work.

Be careful of what you ask for

FAMILY ALERT. OLDEST NEPHEW IS SET TO ATTEND A PROM. ALERT. ALL SYSTEMS GO.

Not only does he have his drivers permit, but now he's going to the prom? With a date? What? This is not possible. Alright. Maybe it is possible, but I will never say I like that fact that he is 16, with giant feet and a deep voice. (I am still taller than him though so all is not lost.)

With the tuxedo rented and the plans falling into place, my sister bravely decided to invite 22 high school kids to her home for a pre-prom party. I received a call for help with the invitations. Yay! If I can't be there to take a thousand embarrassing photos of the kids then I will do my best to contribute in other ways, other embarrassing ways.

For the invite's creative direction my sister was thinking "clip art" and "something with a tuxedo theme." I was thinking, "Do I have any of Jen's prom pictures?"

After a quick call to my parents, a couple of scanned photos arrived in my email box.

My creative direction was falling into place. Last week I picked up some great free dingbat fonts from BittBox.

The theme of the prom is "Our own constellation." Puke. Gag. Vomit. Regardless, these stars worked out perfectly. I got the rest of the details from my sister, and she unknowingly was supporting my endeavor to make this:

I hope she likes it!

Iconic day

Today was one of those days where I woke up and was excited to spend the day with my husband. Fortunately, he felt the same about me today. We had a big day planned with running errands all over town, and right from the start everything meshed into place. We were chatting back and forth while we drank our tea. The topic changed from the dogs to news to the iPhone.

Yesterday, Thomas installed the 1.1.3 firmware to my iPhone and so this morning he was showing me the new things I could do. The most useful of which is being able to put Safari web shortcuts on the home screen. He went along adding a few of my favorite sites. CNN.com has an icon, dooce.com has an icon... "Do you have an icon for Heather Ink?", he queries knowing full well I did not. "Let's make one, it won't be hard!"

We head off to my office and start clicking away. All we had to make was a 57x57 pixel image and edit some HTML. Now my blog has an iPhone icon! Right there! See it?

Install it on your phone. Right now!

And! In the process I talked him into helping me add a favicon to my blog too. (This is something I had tried to do unsuccessfully about six months ago, but it turns out it was an easy fix and of course the mastermind figured it out while I was showering.)

So now when you add my website to your browser favorites it has this pretty little icon next to it! I'm so excited!

: :: ::: :: :

How to add a favicon to your Blogger blog: Digital Knowledge Center article

Creating an iPhone icon for your website: FOREM article

I voted

On this most super of all Tuesdays, I hit the poles. As promised I took along my camera and documented my experience for the Polling Place Photo Project.