augiemania ORLY?

This past tuesday marked the 3rd redesign to Dog and Pony Show.

Our focus was to make the site more “bloggy” easier to read, and more interactive. While the interactivity is still in the works, we took a huge step forward.

The theme was created with one thing in mind, easier development between sites. DAPS is now an 8 blog stable, and we wanted to create a uniform layout that was easily customizable for each site to have it’s own flavor.

I’ve added a ton of theme functions that allow for site takeovers, specific stylesheets/images per blog and other cool little function. I’ve also developed a number of widgets catered exactly to DAPS’ needs.

Essentially, when a new blog is needed, the theme and plugins are uploaded and roughly 5 lines of code are added, and a checkbox is clicked. The nessecary artwork obviously needs to be uploaded and a style sheet for each flavor is created to set colors to what they need to be. This cuts my development time per blog by hours. A two day operation is now a 3 hour operation. SWEET!

Concerning the design itself, I based the layout off of the Cleanr theme and made a number of modifications, and rewrote the style sheet. It uses the 960 Grid System so it’s really easy to modify.

I’m really proud of the design as it greatly improves the readability of the posts and all around just looks cleaner.

I found this function on php.net that figues out the current TNG style stardate.

Read about it here.

I was so awe-struck by the level of geekdom/dedication, I made a page that will show you the star date.

The other night, Chris and I decided to make a funny little bookmarklet for DAPS.

Read about it here.

I just sent this email out, but figured the news in it should be mentioned here. So I copy/pasted it all for you to read.
________________________________________

[This is a mass email, heads up.]

Hey everyone,
I have some very exciting news about this summer.
I have been accepted for a residency at The Banff Center in Alberta, Canada. (http://www.banffcentre.ca/programs/program.aspx?id=850) What this means is that I will be living on campus there for the month of June. (June 4th-ish to July 4th).

This is HUGE for me and I am SUPER FUCKING EXCITED.

What the hell are you doing in Canada?
The project I will be working on is a twitter (http://twitter.com)/loopt (http://loopt.com) type website that will display population density trends.

How does it work?
Users will load the page and see a map of themselves and other users within a small radius. They will then click a button to “Shout” (similar to a status update) that will get sent to everyone in their physical vicinity. The next part is the magic. These recipients will acts as transmitters resending the message to people in their own small radius and so on…

Along with the website, I will creating an iPhone application on the new OS to also interact with the service.

What the fuck are you talking about?
If I am downtown, and “shout” it should conceivably get to Harlem and potentially hit every user in Manhattan. Should there be enough users, this “chain reaction” could potentially travel even greater distances. Obviously, the more remote areas will have less interaction with the service. (which is the whole “display population density trends”)

Why?
Because I want to show the internet in direct correlation to the physical world. We can all join “New York City” networks on Facebook, but that has no real bearing on real world location.
From the proposal:

This project is an attempt to de-democratize the concept of social networking with the bias being location. The internet, and more specifically social networking sites, connect users from around the world to one another. Users often share many aspects of theirs lives with whomever is willing to look at their profile page. With this project, if a user is geographically isolated, they are equally isolated within the service. This model also allows for small groups of individuals to exist within the system but completely outside of any other network. There is no search functionality, isolated users are essentially invisible to other users. The use of real life geography as the bias creates many parallels between reality and the service, emphasizing the role that geography still plays in our every day lives.

You can follow my progress by periodically checking out the site (in progress) at http://shout.carlomontagnino.com/ I will also be blogging extensively about the experience on http://augiemania.com

***********
My job was EXTREMELY generous in not firing me over this. The one stipulation that stands in my way is that I finish all of my job-related duties before June.

What does that mean?
Much longer work days, busier weekends, and overall less free time. May is going to be very hectic for me, and I ask for your understanding and patience. I will be working extra hard to tie up all of my loose ends before June comes around.

I love you all and thank you all for everything.

—————————————-
- carlo

I re-did my theme a while ago and never finished it. So I spent a nice portion of today wrapping it up. You can download it here. 

I’ve also uploaded it to the Wordpress Theme Directory. When it shows up there, I’ll update.

They didn’t like it enough. Fuck ‘em.

I put http://sicolab.org together for the community of artists and musicians in Staten Island to keep track of their events and to help coordinate projects. At worst it will be wasted time, at best it can lead to much collaboration and cooperation between members of the community.

TECH SPECS:
Drupal 5.7
Garland theme
Event Module
CCK
Views

it’s a pretty basic set-up but I have plans on improving and expanding it as the need for it occurs.

If you are a staten islander, or a new yorker in general, spread the word, hopefully the Staten Island scene can get what it deserves, respect.

After getting bored staring at the SelfishJerk theme I made for wordpress, I decided to revamp it. I have been working on it in off hours over the past week. I expect it to be done in two days or so. so expect that soon.

I made this like a year ago in my flash class. Accurate!!!

This past Saturday I attended the DrupalCamp NYC and had a great time. I even made a few presentations!!!

(I am aware of the irony of being a “drupaller” and using wordpress as my site engine.)

I had a blast, learned a bunch of stuff and made some friends. Props to all who attended, and even more props to those who organized and ran the camp!!!

The new site is up. Props to my esteemed colleague for the dope design!