TCHO

Photo Source

A new chocolatier in San Francisco.... Looks interesting...

Terroir Natural Wine Merchant

Photo Source

Terroir opened in San Francisco about 8 or so weeks ago and is located in the ever developing SOMA district. They claim to be the first natural wine merchant in the US. It's a big claim but, considering how hard it is to fine natural wines in the US, I am ready to believe them.

Two friends and I decided to visit this place for the first time on a Sunday night. We arrived around 9:30pm and found ourselves in a very warm yet minimalist space. It was an interesting combination of clean modern earthquake retrofitted loft with a more rustic and cave like aspect to it. There was a lot of wood everywhere and scruffed up surfaces. Nice old blackboards with the wine list upon it, and also some helpful tips...

We sat down at the small bar and felt a little lost. After all, all of the offerings were Italian or French. None of it seemed familiar. The bar man, Luke, sensed that and made us feel at ease.

First he asked some questions, what do we like in general, red? white? fruity? full bodied? Then he brought 3 glasses, and a bottle. "Try this" he said. Hmm, it's good but... no... "ok, lets try this" Mmm, nice but... maybe too fruity for our taste. "Ok, what about this?" He brought out a bottle from Château Gaillard, a bio-dynamic wine from the Loire region. It was I believe a '97 vintage? but I am not sure. Anyhoo right away from the aroma, I knew this was it. I smelled cheese rind, earth and minerals. Those are my kinda smells..... :-) so I decided to split a carafe with a friend and my other friend decided to go with an organic Port. We were all very happy with our selections.

Luke (who is French) was super friendly and knew a lot about his industry. I asked if they carried any Californian wine, and before I knew it, he said "Yes, Coturri". I was like, what? no way! I was just going to say, you should carry Coturri! Needless to say, I was delighted, being that I have been known to be very fond of Coturri...

Anyhoo, to make a wonderful and enjoyable story short and to the point, Terroir is a truly wonderful addition to SF, and I, or anyone who visits, will be sure to discover new and delightful wines, or enjoy a well loved glass of Coturri....

I will certainly be back!

dabbledb

Need to make complex graphs and charts which are accessible from anywhere there is internet? Yeah, me neither, but in case you ever do, try dabbledb out!

Project Management Tools

There are too many of them, yet none seem to quite do what I want. Everyone works differently and to make a software that is perfect is a challenge but so far, none come close, for me.

One of my biggest problems has to do with the fact that I detest iCal. As much as I want to like it, it is a completely dysfunctional piece of software that doesn't work in a natural way. Maybe I am just so used to Google calendars that iCal seems so backwards, but if I can't even see the time on an event without looking at the dumb drawer, then what is the point. Ok. I will stop the iCal bashing.... If only it was a good software tho, maybe my suffering would end.

Most project management softwares out there strive to integrate all the Mac apps... by doing this, it means Mac mail, address book and iCal serve as the content to which the project management software works, assuming we all love them.

Ok but the search still goes on for a project management tool or combination of tools that actually solve all the headaches and problems of managing project.

Here is a list of recent softwares I have run into. I will give a more concise review of those I try in the future:

• Freshbooks
• Highrise
• On The Job
• Actiontastic
• Home Business Trio
• HelpSpot
• Billings2
• Cadmio
• Studiometry
• Streamline
• Copper
• Cashboard
• Less Accounting
• Side Job Track
• Expression Engine
• Blinksale
• Voodoo Pad
• TimeNet
• Daylite
  

Whew, that's a lot!

iBoughtAMac!

No, I didn't buy my MacBook Pro yet (but I will soon!!!).



Straight from their site, this is what they're about:

"iBoughtAMac aims to deliver a well rounded collection of information for the Mac user. You've got questions, iBoughtAMac hopes to have the answers."

So far, looks like a pretty neat resource for all your Mac needs.

Quicksilver....

...maybe it's time I learn how to use it.

It's an app launcher that drastically saves you time, but it is also does file actions, such as locate your file, and do this and that to it. It is an intelligent software, meaning that it learns your habits and what you access most often. It is so versatile, probably the reason why I have stayed away from it for so long.

If you are curious about it, I found this really in-depth guide to using Quicksilver. It's compiled for very beginners to advanced users.

I shall be looking into this during the week and see if it finally sticks this time....

Update 06/19/07: It didn't stick... Ughh, it's not really working for me I guess...

MAGIC!

(photo courtesy of magiconline.com)

Yay! If everything works out as planned, I shall be heading to MAGIC 2007 held in Las Vegas, from August 27-30. I shall be joining my team at Fairtex showcasing our collection. My collection!! Wooo!

A little about Magic (taken from here)...

Formerly known as the Men’s Apparel Guild in California, MAGIC was founded in 1933 as an association of Los Angeles area menswear manufacturers. In 1942, the association, known then as the Men’s Wear Manufacturers of Los Angeles, produced its first show, the Roundup, in Palm Springs. CA. In that same year, the association also began producing Market weeks in Los Angeles. Boyswear was officially added to the shows in 1946.

In 1948, the “Men’s Wear Manufacturers of Los Angeles” voted to change the name of the association and form a corporation. Since the membership had grown to include manufacturers outside Los Angeles, the name was changed to Men’s Apparel Guild in California, hence MAGIC.

The growth of MAGIC mirrored that of the California apparel market and in 1979, MAGIC opened its doors to manufacturers worldwide. Due to enormous growth, the show relocated from Los Angeles to Las Vegas in 1989.

In 1995, MAGIC expanded to include women’s apparel with the introduction of WWDMAGIC, a joint venture with Women’s Wear Daily.

In 1997, MAGIC purchased Children’s Trade Expo and launched MAGIC kids. Soon after in 1998 MAGIC International was acquired by Advanstar Communications and became a wholly owned subsidiary of Advanstar Communications, Inc. (www.advanstar.com)

Today, MAGIC occupies over 1 million square feet of exhibit space each show and attracts over 100,000 attendees from around the world. Buyers and sellers of men’s, women’s and children’s apparel and accessories converge twice a year in Las Vegas for one of the most influential business events in the fashion industry.

Coppeneur — Lavendel & Cranberries

Brief: Dark chocolate (min. 72% cacao) filled with lavender cranberry ganache.

Tasting Notes:
Aroma before break: Sherry liqueur, port, grape juice concentrate, red wine, cranberry juice, raspberry, ganache, green bell pepper, arugula leaves, chalk, walnut, powdered sugar, levain bread, raspberry seed, green pepper-corn, salt, caramelized red peppers, tomato sauce.

Aroma at break: Salted pretzels, cherry, marmalade, cranberry, lemonade, polished oak wood, Grand Marnier, blintz, blood orange.

Taste #1: Tart cranberry, warm brown bread, rice starch, green apple, dried cherries, chalk, crushed grapes, after-taste of uncooked pasta, flour.

Taste #2: Blood orange, cranberry, oregano, grape leaves, raspberry seeds, green melon, finish of watermelon rind, potato starch, lavender, thyme, green strawberry, green bell pepper, after-taste of grape skin/seed, vine, pickled cabbage?, sour dough bread.

Overall: At first a very tangy yet creamy bar. Rich and juicy. Like eating fresh tart fruit. Then, deep chocolate surfaces with the breaddy qualities which then develop into a more dry and starchy mouth-feel and flavor towards the finish and after-taste. Lavender only hints into the after-taste for me, upon the second tasting. Perhaps this bar was not at its prime freshness. Lots of green bell pepper for some reason. Enjoyed the alcohol-like qualities of sherry and port.

Rating: B+

Ingredients: sugar, cacao mass, cacao butter, concentrated cranberry fruit juice (10.3%), whole milk powder, glucose syrup, cream, butter, humectant: sorbit, natural cranberry flavor (0.7%), lavender (0.3%), emulsifier: soy-lecithin, natural vanilla.

Company info:
www.coppeneur.de
Confiserie Coppeneur et Compagnon
53604 Bad Honnef
Germany

Bernard Dufoux — Orangette

Brief: Candied orange rinds enrobed with dark chocolate (min. 80% cacao).

Rating: A+

Company info:
www.chocolatsdufoux.com
Les Chocolats Bernard Dufoux
15, Rue Archers, 69002 Lyon
France

SF Beta April

April 26, 6-9 PM @111 Minna Gallery

Full cash bar, gourmet catering by Sauce Restaurant, DJs spinning throughout the night, and a dozen startup demos.

Tickets: $10/20 Online, $15/$25 Door

www.sfbeta.com


UPDATE 05/03/07

Ehh, it was OK. I did enjoy countless free Hendrick's Gin & Ginger Ales, and a very good shoe shine... So I guess it was worth the 10 dollars... The food was non-existent tho, and the demos didn't thrill me. Many of them seemed dry and not too ingenious... I wasn't impressed. It is true tho, that amongst hundreds of software and web-app start-ups, only a hand full make it big, so I guess this provides the breeding grounds for innovation, which is well needed in this industry.

On My Desk

Creatives share with the world the environments they work in. Photos of desks, studios, drawing stations, inspiration dens, etc.... It's always fascinating to see how others work.

Here are two links dedicated to sharing views of work spaces:
On My Desk, Room to Work

Here is my old desk (wow, what a mess!):



Here is my current desk, at my home office:

RhythmSource Web Design

I have just completed the website re-design for RhythmSource, a company that develops tools for rhythmic study and performance. The site has not been launched yet as it is currently in development stage, but I just wanted to post some design files just so that you can get a sense of what it's going to look like. I have been working on this for 2-3 weeks and personally pretty happy with the results. Ideas, criticism, comments are warmly welcome!



Weird, I am writing as if I have an audience, although I never intended this blog to have one.... Well, if it does, so be it!

JumpCut!!

Awesome! Video editing on-the-fly & sharing has just gotten better. With all the experimenting in white lab coats being done these days you are bound to get new webalishious developments making old webalishious sites seem drab and stale...



JumpCut makes YouTube look like a little munchkin playing with pots and pans....

OK, I have experience to back me up here. I have used both, and found myself distraught with issues on YouTube such as:

1. Voice syncing not working
2. Uploads not being smooth
3. Approval process for my uploads took days!
4. Uploaded videos had awful compression pixellation...
5. Ehh, the site looks messy, badly designed
6. Cannot edit, cut, re-mix your videos.

Now, with JumpCut, you can:

1. Enjoy a smooth and informative upload process
2. Upload more than one video at a time
3. Upload photos and audio tracks as well
4. Splice and edit your clips
5. Combine audio, photos and video clips with text and effects
6. Save it in minutes and
7. Share it easily with all or only just your friends, at the click of a button.

Oh, and 8. Aesthetically the site is pleasing and 9. Footage is of rather good quality!

JumpCut clearly speaks for itself. Try it out!!

bubbl.us

A really nifty online brainstorming tool! Wow, can this come in handy!

I recommend everyone try this out. You will be hooked. Create an account and save your brainstorms. I kid you not, this can really mean a difference to your planning and task and creative thought-process.

And... It's much more fun to use than pen and paper...

Upon exploring it further I found that on top of all that you can also collaborate on brainstorming with others, as a team! Perfect for team projects.

Lulu - Self Publishing

"An on-demand publishing tool for books, e-books, music, images, movies and calendars."

I have not looked deeply into this service yet, but from what it looks like, it takes the strain and costs away from working with a big publisher and allows you to control publishing of your own work, be it writing, music, art and more.

If it really does what it says it does, it can really be good for the small fish, competing with the big fish in the world...

I am working with a client that may be using this service soon, so I will update and give a proper review of Lulu when the time comes.

Some Mac and GTD linky-links

From The Efficient Mac User

• 11 Ways to Optimize Your Mac's Performance
• 13 Sources for Free and Shareware Mac Software
• Getting Things Done: 12 Task Management Solutions for Mac Users
• Getting Things Done: 9 Online Task Management Solutions

How to Crop a Raster in Illustrator

Tips on how to crop using the clipping mask, and better yet... Cropping permanently. I could never figure that one out...

But thanks to Anne-Marie, now I know!

Check out "How to Crop a Raster in Illustrator"

Kuler

This is a pretty neat development at Adobe. Make color palettes till past your bed time!

It is described as being "the first web-hosted application from Adobe Labs designed both to stand alone and to complement Adobe Creative Suite 2.", "Kuler is all about color: color for exploration, inspiration, experimentation and sharing."

With it you can easily search, create, and share color themes online, then you can download themes you like as an Adobe Swatch Exchange (.ase) file for use in Illustrator CS2, InDesign CS2, Photoshop CS2, and more.

Be weary though... They may soon start charging for this service as it is currently within their "lab" experiments. Once it's been perfected, they may charge, who knows. But if so, it would be dumb since all the content is user generated....

Reducing Bloated Illustrator Files

A tip coming from Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion.

In "Illustrator CS, you could run a built-in Action meant for just this task:

1. With your bloated file open, open the Actions palette (from the Window menu).
2. Select the tenth one down, Delete Unused Palette Items, and Play it.
3. If you've already saved the file, do a Save As and overwrite the previous file.

Running this action and overwriting the file reduced my original rectangle.ai file from 436K to a far more palatable 120K. Woo-hoo!"

This could really be a space saver if all my Illustrator files were re-saved without the unused palettes.....

MailChimp

"MailChimp makes email marketing easy.You can build signup forms and permission lists, design HTML email newsletters, track opens and clicks, manage bouncebacks, unsubscribes, and so much more..."

Homentasch Cookies

Recipe below.


It was fun and delicious! My first time making Homentaschen. This recipe was altered by me, to make it just a little better!!!!

Blood Orange Homentasch Recipe (makes 32 such)
(You can cut recipe in half to make 16 instead)

Dough
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
a little salt
200 gr cold butter
blood-orange zest, of one blood-orange or more
2 egg yolks
2-4 Sp blood-orange juice

Filling
3/4 cup water
3/4 cup sugar
150 gr poppy seed
2 Sp honey
1 Sp lime juice
some spoons of apricot preserves
some spoons of Triple-Sec (by taste and consistency, to make a paste)

Preparation
1) Dough:
Mix all dry ingredients, add orange zest. Chop butter to shards and work with fingers into the flour mixture until the mixture resembles crumbly sand.
Add egg yolks until a grainy consistency. Add 2 tablespoons of orange juice until the dough is smooth.
It may require an additional tablepoon of juice.
Wrap in plastic sheet and chill for at least 2 hours.

2) Filling:
Bring water and sugar to boil. Add poppy seed and bring back to boil. Reduce heat and cook for 10-15 minutes, until the mixture becomes thick and reduced.
Remove from heat, add honey and lime juice. Mix and let cool. Mix apricot preserves with triple-sec to make paste and add to poppy seed mixture. Taste and add more if need be.

3) Preparations:
Prepare a bowl with egg yolk/water and a brush. Line a baking dish with non stick paper or greased foil.
Prepare a chilled, floured cutting board. Cut the chilled dough to 4 section and leave 3 in the refrigerator.

4) Cutting circles:
Roll the dough or flatten with the back of your palm, fight stickiness with flour but do not overdo or it will change the crumbly nature of the dough.
Roll out sections of the dough to 1/4th inch width. It may be easier to work with small portions of dough due to stickiness.
With the help of a round floured glass press the dough to cut out circles.
Wet a little the edges of each circle of dough with water.

5) Fill up and form:
Put 1/2 or 1/3 spoon of the poppy seed filling onto the center of a circle. (Do not overfill or the triangle will burst during baking...)
Fold over to create the triangular shape. Press the wetted edges together firmly and put onto the baking dish.
Chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

6) Preparing to bake:
Set the oven to 325 F.
Brush the triangles overall with the egg yolk mixed with a tablespoon of cold water

7) Bake:
Bake for 15 minutes or until nice and golden

8) Cool off:
On rack for 25 minutes

9) Sugar powder:
Once in room temperature, sprinkle sugar powder amply.

On a cold stormy night...

...what could be better than a warm drink to feel cozy at home.

How about a perfectly frothed rich hot chocolate, with a dash of ground cinnamon on top!?

No words will suffice to describe this delight.

While sipping away, I am wondering what my next triumph will be...

Hmm, what would Frothed Soy Powdered Green Tea taste like? I am sure it would be awesome! Ellie, you will have to tell me where to buy some good powdered green tea for this experiment!!!

Mmm!
.....................
Update 02/27/07:

I had another thought! I was thinking that I could make my espresso in the morning, and then add a little cacao powder to the espresso, mix it well together and then add hot frothed soy milk!

Yes, maybe that is called a Mocha, but I have no clue... Never had a mocha before anyhoo...

Mother Daughter Dinner!

A awesome dinner hosted by Ellie and her mom.


Ellie and her mom.


Me and my mom.

View a more detailed account of this fabulous dinner at Ellie's blog.

How retarded can life get....

I got run over by a bike messenger last week. It was Friday evening and I was heading home from a long day of work, when I was crossing the street (my right of way) and to my horror, a speeding cyclist smashed right into me, from the left, causing me to smack down to the ground and skid across the pedestrian crossing. It was raining and I literally was laying there, covered in muddy water, at a perfect angle to watch the dumb ass speed away down the street.

It was awful, but the worst part is that no one helped me up. I had to help myself up and I had to find a lamp pole because I blacked out for a second. I was so shocked I was in tears.

The guy who hit me finally came back to see if I was ok, but I was in such shock I just told him to go away and leave me alone.

Anyhoo, I wasn't completely ok. I bruised my knee quite badly and it still looks rather gross a week later.

Oh well. It was one of the more "not so good" days of my life.