Fuji san by Thanapol Marattana - breath-taking landscape of Mount Fuji, Japan

Fuji san by Thanapol Marattana via 500px

Billy Joel Plays George Rodrigue's Blue Dog Steinway During New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival Fundraiser

Billy Joel stops into the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts (GRFA) to play the Rodrigue Steinway for the 2013 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival Fundraiser Courtesy Musings of an Artist's Wife

Another inspiring post from Musings of an Artist's Wife - By Wendy Rodrigue, Wife of Artist George Rodrigue

This time of year is a wonderful time to be living in Cajun Country.  Not only is it Crawfish season, but for several weekends in a row we celebrate the amazing cultural heritage of our south Louisiana communities.

I'm particularly fond of the Festival International de Louisiane and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, having spent a substantial chunk of my childhood in both Lafayette and New Orleans.  In Wendy Rodrigue's latest blog post, she shares some of the ways music, art, and storytelling intersect through George Rodrigue's own past.

... AND Billy Joel stops by to jam on George Rodrigue's Blue Dog Steinway piano!

Watch the Best Video Introduction to Gamification & Explanation of its Pros & Cons from Penny Arcade

It's a funny and informative introduction to gamification and I guarantee you will laugh out loud at least once :)

This may actually be the first simple explanation I've ever seen of any of the potential positives AND pitfalls of using gamification as a strategy.  Clocking in at around 6 minutes, it's a great introduction to share with people who are interested in learning about the basics of gamification.

The fantastic work done on this particular episode deserves to be called out:

Written By: James Portnow
Scripted & Narrated By: Daniel Floyd
Art & Video By: Erin Siegel

Brought to us all by Penny Arcade.  If you're not already a fan, you're missing out.  Trust me.

Video Interview with Ev Williams on Medium - the next evolution in the way we write, share and consume content on the web

Medium Team hard at work at Obvious HQ

I know 6 months seems like an eternity in Internet time, but it was only back on September 25, 2012 that Ev Williams, Biz Stone, and Jason Goldman (the original founders of Blogger, Twitter and many other web platforms) unveiled Medium, one of the latest creations from their startup incubator, Obvious.

Medium announced only a few weeks ago that they've acquired the long-form publishing startup Matter, and I have to agree with Matter's founder Jim Giles that the Medium / Matter acquisition seems like a natural fit:

"So the offer was a surprise, and we just had to think really hard about whether it was the right thing for the kind of journalism we want to produce. But actually, after spending a lot of time thinking about it, it really became clear it was. That’s partly a values thing that’s come out of our discussions with Ev over the last year or so. Medium is set up – although it’s a much bigger and more ambitious project than Matter – at heart it has very similar goals. 

We both want to find a way of publishing and supporting really great writing and making that look really beautiful.

Then there’s the practicalities, which also made a lot of sense. We’re  a new publication. We have nicely growing subscribers but it’s still really tough for any new startup, and coming over to Medium means we can do a whole bunch of experiments that we probably would have struggled to do if we remained independent. We can start playing around with tweaks to our business model. We definitely have no plans to change it, but there’s lots of different ways that you can tweak the idea of selling individual articles."

Given that you are reading this post on one of the most popular blogging platforms on the planet and that you likely heard about it through Twitter (both of which were created by this team) I would imagine that you might agree with me in noting that the tools that this team builds tend to change the world.

So, like me, you may be a little curious about what all the fuss is about over Medium and want to try it out for yourself.  But of course, as is the case so often, there's a catch...

Read on for my initial thoughts and an informative YouTube fireside chat with Ev Williams...

Living Social Hacked: security breach leaves 50 million users compromised

Living Social Hacked: security breach leaves
50 million users compromised

I'm not sure how much we have in common, but I'm pretty sure neither of us would want to receive this email at 7:16 PM on a Friday evening.

But sadly, I did.  Right before I dropped some delicious BBQ onto the grill to celebrate the kick off of Festival International de Louisiane, I heard a little ding from my email client notifying me of an important message (you may have gotten one too).

It would seem I am one of the 50 million or so LivingSocial registered users whose account information was compromised in an cyber-attack on their computer systems in which attackers gained access to sensitive personal information about LivingSocial's customers (namely, me).

The breach appears to have been contained, though there are only scant details about the attack being released from LinkedIn at this time.

The information that was accessed includes (but note they do not say "is limited to," which means additional information may have been accessed) Customer Names, User email addresses, Birthdates (only for some users, not all 50 million, WHEW), and encrypted passwords.

LinkedIn transforms Contacts section into super-powered personal assistant that integrates with EVERYTHING

Image Courtesy of  TechChrunch

Today, LinkedIn released a few important new features for members that really turbo-charges their Connections section of the site.  In addition, they released a new mobile app called Contacts for Apple devices (with other platforms slated for future release dates).

If you're like me, you have probably already imported some of your Contacts into LinkedIn from your gMail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc accounts.  Which was great...except of course, that it was a one-time affair.  If you have added any contacts since your original import, those won't appear on your LinkedIn Connections because the import is a one-way process.

Well, go back and do it again, because now LinkedIn creates a permanent connection to your mail system's contacts and will keep your contacts synchronized between those systems (should you choose to permit it) and your LinkedIn profile.  Unbelievably, LinkedIn also now supports synching your mobile device's contact lists with your LinkedIn profile if you also install the mobile application.

Festival International de Louisiane - Best World Music Festival - Come Festival With Us in Lafayette, LA

Parc International for Festival International de Louisiane in Lafayette Louisiana

It's that time of year again: time to come to Lafayette, Louisiana to experience the world's premiere exhibition of Francophone culture, art, music, food, and entertainment at Festival International de Louisiane.

From their "History & Mission" :

"Festival International de Louisiane is a community-based, non-profit arts organization formed in 1986 to produce an annual visual and performing arts festival celebrating the French cultural heritage of southern Louisiana - primarily a combination of French, African, Caribbean and Hispanic influences. The largest outdoor, FREE Francophone event in the U.S., the Festival places special emphasis on highlighting the connections between Acadiana and the Francophone world. Each year performing, and visual  artists from Europe, Africa, Canada, the Caribbean and the Americas are invited to share their talents with Louisiana artists, residents and visitors.

Since its creation, Festival International de Louisiane has become famous as a premier presenter of some of the most unique world musicians and performances in the United States. Popular Louisiana artists such as Aaron Neville, Dr. John, Irma Thomas, Allan Toussaint, Zachary Richard, Sonny Landreth, Beausoleil, Buckwheat Zydeco, Boozoo Chavis, Amedee "Bois Sec" Ardoin, D.L. Menard, Terrance Simien, C.J. Chenier, Geno Delafose, Marc Broussard, Marcia Ball, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Canray Fontenot and Buddy Guy have all performed on our stages."

That's right - deep in the Heart of Cajun Country there's a global gathering of french-speaking people and cultures that converges on Lafayette, LA every year to celebrate our rich heritage, delicious cuisine,  and foot-stomping music and the best part?

It's 100% free & open to the public!

Wendy Rodrigue & George Rodrigue Share California Adventures with Blue Dog

Image Courtesy - Wendy Rodrigue's Blog

I wrote recently about a fellow Blogger Wendy Rodrigue's post The Road: Wendy Rodrigue & George Rodrigue from Musings of an Artist's Wife.  I always love reading Wendy's blog - it's like listening to one of your favorite Artists and his Muse communicate openly through this channel that didn't exist when Picasso was around.

It's exciting :)

That post was a prelude as they began their trip across country for a sojourn out to their Carmel, California beach house.  Not only is the prose delightful (thank you Wendy), but the Candids they get of George in the zone are fantastic.


The first is the sequel to her previous post (a' la The Road Part 2): America, Unexpected.

The second post she shared

Free Event: Fiber for Breakfast :: Fueling Healthcare - See how Lafayette, LA is using innovative fiber-powered technologies to deliver new experiences in patient care.

Screen Capture - The Louisiana Immersive Technologies Enterprise (LITE) Center's Home Page

One of the reasons Sam and I were excited to move back to Lafayette from Austin, TX was the innovative things the community was doing around Fiber To The Home.

That's why I'm delighted to share this wonderful free event with you that is being held at the LITE Center in Lafayette, LA : Fiber for Breakfast: Fueling Healthcare.

During the event, there will be brief presentations from representatives from

• Lafayette General Medical Center
• Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center
• Acadian Companies
• Schumacher Group

I can assure you this is not an event you are going to want to miss....Plus if you're one of the first 25 there, you get a free lunch.

Google adds Google+ comments to Blogger

Google adds Google+ comments to Blogger

It took me less time to enable it on this blog than it did to write and share this post.  You can see for yourself how the new comments look on my blog in the capture above from a post I made a while back.

Here are the instructions:

1. Login to your blogger.com blog and navigate to the blog in which you want to enable the new Google+ comments system.
   
2. Click the Google+ link in the left hand menu.
   
3. Click the "Use Google+ Comments on this blog" check box.
   
   Mine looks something like this:
   

Developing Zend Mobile Apps that utilize Cloud Web Services with Kent Mitchell

I recently wrote about the latest Zend Studio Release, version 10.0.1.  This video from Kent Mitchell covers using Zend Studio to develop apps that are connected to cloud web services.

Additional info at the Zend Developer Zone and the YouTube Page for the video below.

If you're a (free login) member of the site, you can also watch the higher-resolution flv version of the video at http://www.zend.com/en/webinar/studio/70170000000c17m-DevlpMobApps-20130320.flv

Ideum announces major updates for Gestureworks and Presenter Interactive Multi-Touch Wall Systems

Ideum releases revamped gestureworks.com sites

Even by my (sometimes tending to the over inflating . . . sometimes!) standards, what I am posting today is a Set of Major Updates on Ideum, about whom I've written on a few distinct occasions.

I recently had a chance to confirm via email from CEO Jim Spadaccini and Nora Galler that in addition to the updates detailed below, the GestureWorks site & Wiki have received a facelift recently.

I can confirm after reviewing the links below that the site updates are not only clean and quick to load, but it's much easier to use the new layouts than it was with the old sites. Kudos to the team for investing in an improved user experience - the UI/UX changes will pay dividends with happier customers, like me!

Now, for the updates ...

Google Hangout with KAL, the 35 year veteran political cartoonist from The Economist (Kevin Kallaugher)

Image Courtesy of The Economist

Updated : 04/18/2013 5:02 PM CST - Updated links & content to point to the recorded video vs. the live Google Hangout and added Links for fellow participants plus super secret spoiler!

I'm a long-time reader of The Economist and one of my favorite parts of every issue is the comics from KAL (Kevin Kallaugher).  His work has been entertaining me (and I'm sure millions of other readers) since I started reading The Economist cover to cover back as a high-school freshman debater.

Fortunately for all of us fans, Michelle Hayden and Mark Johnson from The Economist coordinated a Google Hangout with KAL on April 18, 2013 at 10:30 AM CST.  I had a wonderful time participating with the other readers who joined me for the live chat:

• Kristen Anderson
• Karen Kim
• Jeff Nenarella
• Nikhil Venkatesa

Even if you weren't able to make the live chat, you can watch the entire video below (you can also watch and comment over at The Economist's Website):

SPOILER ALERT: Kal reveals an insider Cartoonist secret near the end of the video, the secret is revealed after the jump at the end of the post ;)

Free Online Course: Gamification by Kevin Werbach via Coursera

Free Coursera Course: Gamification

This free online course from Coursera is taught by Kevin Werbach, an Associate Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics at the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania.

After hearing about the class online I decided to sign up myself!  Although I've downloaded a few class lectures from iTunes, I haven't yet registered for a Coursera class, so this one was my first class.

There's a video introduction for the class from Kevin Werbach himself and quite a few other resources I put together below.  If you're new to Gamification, the following graphic provides a basic introduction to the concept, but I've also posted an introduction here on the blog that's a quick read.

Zend Studio 10.0.1 Released - Available for Immediate Free Download

Zend Studio Download Center

UPDATE: Bonus "Introducing Zend Studio 10" YouTube Video after the jump!

What's in this latest Zend 10.0.1 Maintenance Release? The announcement email gives a little background on what's included in the update:

"We are pleased to announce that Zend Studio 10.0.1 is now available for download.

This maintenance release includes several updated components including the latest Zend Framework 1.x and 2.x releases, support for Windows 8, integration with Zend Server 6 for IBM i, and a variety of other product improvements and bug fixes."