{bp} formerly known as WebBP :: Blog

Palm learns how to communicate the "wow" of webOS

If Palm had launched last year with commercials more like this one, I suspect more people would be using Palm webOS smartphones today.

Let's hope this isn't too little too late. Go Palm! Learn more about Palm webOS.

A film worth seeing (again): The Corporation

The 32nd annual Portland International Film Festival (PIFF) kicked off last Thursday with the world premier of Laika's Coraline (yes, there was actually a red carpet in front of the Schnitz; see Oregonian news coverage). I've seen some great films at PIFF over the years.

Five years ago this month, there was one film that really made an impression on me: The Corporation (about the film). Hannah and I watched it again last night and I can report it has aged well and remains very relevant. If you've seen it, chime in below. If you've never seen it, I highly encourage you to watch it. It's a really insightful film, sure to foster some spirited conversations about how to save the world, some deep thinking, and -- hopefully -- motivate change. 

Here's the trailer to give you a taste:

Inspiring.

At Mount Baker, Washington. By Michael Kittell. Reprinted without permission.

Every so often I come across a picture that is so striking I just keep staring at it. This picture, the second place pacific northwest image in The Oregonian's 2008 travel photo contest, is one such image. I want to be there!

After reading the little blurb about the image in the paper, I went to the paper's web presence, OregonLive.com, where I was amazed to discover there is no permalink for the image. It only seems to exist in a pop-up window. Wanting to be able to share this image, I searched the web to see if Michael Kittell had it published on Flickr or another site.

While I was not able to find the image hosted anywhere, I did stumble upon a feature article (55 Peaks) in the Pomona alumni magazine and an interview with the Fresno Bee, both of which chronicle how the boyfriend-girlfriend pair of Michael Kittell and Taylor Smith decided to climb all 55 peaks over 14,000 feet in Colorado in 55 days in the summer between graduating from college and starting law school. That sounds like such a great adventure (and an inspiration to us all)!

Is it spring yet?

This has been a crazy spring. Last Friday, it was 80 degrees and I was playing Frisbee in the sun. Today it's snowing outside (I'm not kidding!).

Happy Holidays!

May your holiday season be filled with simple joys and special times spent with friends and family. I will be offline until January. Best wishes and see you in 2008!

Project 365: Capturing today everyday

Sometime in the past year I stumbled upon a Lifehacker post about Project 365. The idea is to document your life by taking a photo every day for a year. The author gives a few reason why you might want to do this. For me, it's a simple and fun way to ensure that I get to be creative for at least a few minutes every day. As life has gotten busier, being creative is something that increasingly seems to get pushed to the side and I desperately want to bring it back.

So I am. One photo at a time. Every day. I started on my birthday and intend to keep it up through the coming year.

I may need your help until it becomes second nature so I encourage you to follow along. I'm not making any promises -- to myself or anyone else -- about the quality of these pictures. Some will undoubtably be more inspired than others. That's okay. For me, this isn't about perfection nearly as much as it is about the creative challenge of coming up with something new every day for a year. And to simply delight in the little things that give every day so much texture and richness. I can't wait to look back at the year ahead this time next year. Won't you join me?

38-31, 2 OT.

Civil War Victory!
Originally uploaded by brycepayne.

My brother surprised me with tickets to to the Civil War game for my birthday this year. It was at Autzen. The home team has won in each of the last 10 contests. Not this year. Final score: 38-31, double OT.

Good to be back

2007 has turned out to be a really busy year and a lot of things have conspired to keep me from blogging in a while. Last week, I did something I don't usually do: I took some time off.

I finally got to focus on a few projects that have been on my to do list for years. And it felt great.

One of those projects was rescuing the content of my original blog, byline: bryce, which has been offline since 2003 when Userland decided to pull the plug on hosting *.weblogs.com, and republishing an archive of it on WebBP. Like so many things, it took longer than it should have, but I'm very pleased to have it back online. Re-reading some of my old posts brought back memories and reawakened a part of me that has been missing for a while.

It feels good to be back.

Alive. Recentered. Thankful.

Biotech in Portland: Owning up to reality

From today's Oregonian: OHSU's waterfront vision: 2 million square foot campus: "Making room for biotechnology industries, for years an anchor of OHSU's planning, has faded."

Someone has finally admitted it. Portland is not and most likely will never be a major biotech hub. While the vision may have been grand, the reality has simply never really caught up.

From a 2003 article in the Daily Journal of Commerce:

As Seattle gears up to create a biotech hub at South Lake Union, the city of Portland is laying the foundation for what it hopes will be a successful biotech public/private partnership...The city....sees South Waterfront as an opportunity to entice biotech firms from California to Switzerland....Don Mazziotti, executive director of Portland Development Commission, said the city is attempting to recruit more than a dozen biotech firms. The city is hoping the development will create 10,000 jobs.

The biggest news in this space is that ProteoGenix Inc., a Portland biotech startup spun out of the pediatrics department at Oregon Health & Science University, recently secured $20 million in venture capital -- and I believe is planning to move out of the city of Portland.

The PDC continues to tout biosciences as a key industry cluster in Portland on its website.

Joseph Cortright: "This notion that you lure biotech to your community to save its economy is laughable. This is a bad-idea virus that has swept through governors, mayors and economic development officials." Mr. Cortright is a Portland economist who has co-authored a report on the subject.

Quick Usability Comparison of Airline Terror Alerts

Like many, I woke up this morning to the news from London that the UK had foiled a major terrorist attack. We will learn more as this story unfolds. According to this article, "flights operated by Continental, United and American were the likely targets of the foiled plot."

Having just flown home earlier this week and recognizing that the only constant in travel these days seems to be change, I decided to take a moment and see how well these carriers are getting this new information out to their customers.

All three carriers provided some indication of important information on their home page, but to varying degrees of clarity and importance (I will try to upload screen shots later; in the interim, visit aa.com; co.com; united.com directly). Each then linked to a dedicated page with additional information.

What follows is a summary of each site, the link text used on the home page and a link to the detailed page. For each, I've shared my thoughts on what works well (+) and not so well (-).Fast usability feedback for developing times.

#3 United: New baggage policy, travel tips

+: includes information about how to access current schedule information and United's EasyUpdate service which sends updates via SMS or e-mail to mobile devices (but omits link to service)

-: page title of "Customer Travel Tips" doesn't convey importance of information, use of ALL CAPS and underlining

#2 American: Due to additional carry-on baggage procedures issued by federal authorities, some airports may be experiencing heavy congestion. Please allow plenty of time for security screening. Additional information including policies for future travel is available here.

+: Includes time of last update at top of page, used text anchors to quickly link to UK or US specific information, lots of information

-: fixed, small type size, narrative layout rather than scannable list of prohibited or acceptable items

#1 Continental: Travel Alert: Elevated Security

+: Includes time of last update at top of page, effective use of headings, makes use of bullet lists to aid in scanability of prohibited items and exceptions, limited use of bold text to highlight new recommmendation to arrive three hours in advance

-: none

Conclusion: Overall, Continental has done the best job here, with a direct color-coded link and a clear, well organized and detailed paged. While American put more information on the top of their home page, their detailed page left me more stressed and confused than Continental's (due primarily to the use of bold paragraphs and small type size). United's approach is the weakest, with decent information buried under vague link-text that I'd ordinarily skip right over. Baggage policy? Terrorist threat is more like it.