Threshold Blog

Charlie's Back!

The long awaited sequel to Charlie The Unicorn is here! Now that's something worth blogging about.

Watch the first episode

Happy Holidays From Threshold!

Come inside our merry little home, cozy up to our fireplace and enjoy a collection of shocking holiday cards that should probably be tossed into the flames.

Go To The Holiday Card Mantel Of Shame

Get Satisfaction

Satisfaction launched their beta site this week. In it's infancy, it's a little difficult explaining what "people-powered customer service" is before the people are really there yet to power it. But the concept of this open conversation for any and all companies and products is really intriguing - I really hope it catches momentum.

Here's the description from the Satisfaction site:

"Satisfaction is a place for real people to get the most from their products and services, and for companies to get real with their customers. Everyone is welcome in our community, and we invite you to make your mark here."

Still not exactly clear what it's all about? I hear ya. For more insight, read the Community Guidelines.

I'm actually more excited about their use of social-network-portability with hCard supported profiles. Instead of creating yet another unique social network profile and unloading yet another eye-catching thumbnail image from your hard drive, you can start with one you already have from another site that supports hCards. This a great feature! So Web 2.5:

Look ma! No Flash!

This Solitaire site is an amazing testament to how far simple Javascript has come in web development.  Previously, a page with this level of interaction and intelligence was only possible with Flash.  Now it's just the latest in rich web applications.
http://worldofsolitaire.com/

If you want to fairly easily start adding this rich interaction to your pages, check out the Moo tools Javascript library.  It's light and powerful:
http://mootools.net/

Image Resizing Made Easy

As Michael Arrington on TechCrunch says, "I Want This in Photoshop Immediately"  Amen to that. 
This image resizing technology is truly amazing and innovative. 

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/08/27/i-want-this-in-photoshop-immediately/

Learn Baby Learn

The Learn List is a super simple resource that aims to gather the best web design tutorial and book links from all over the web. The website was designed by Chris Robinson at Crobbo.com

Flying Colors

Stop what you are doing right now and go explore Red Interactive's new site: http://www.ff0000.com

Once you've set up the super simple ye olde thyme avatar just say "Hello There Good Sir!" to fellow visitors with the chat function. Or, if you are so inclined, you can even put your dukes up and start sparring with 'em. But I prefer just jumping up and flying into the starlit sky.

Word on the street is that this "Red Universe" was in beta form for quite a while where it was carefully refined and perfected by suggestions from invited friends and colleagues. It definitely shows in the final execution. A+

"Microsoft Surface" surfaces

Today, Microsoft officially announced Surface.  A completely new computing model based on touch.  Imagine computing on a coffee table where the table interacts with your phone, your camera, your credit card, or even random objects placed on top of it.  All these interactions happen through the simplicity of the touch interface.  The idea is similar to what Apple is proposing with the iPhone, and now Microsoft is making it even more ubiquitous as a common computing platform.

Take a look at Microsoft's videos on their site here:
http://www.microsoft.com/surface/
Another nice video demonstrating the capabilities here:
http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2007/05/29/announcing-microsoft-surface.aspx

Stumble!

"StumbleUpon lets you "channelsurf" the best-reviewed sites on the web. It is a collaborative surfing tool for finding and sharing great sites. This helps you find interesting webpages you wouldn't think to search for."

With over 2 million registered StumbleUpon users, I may be a little late to the party talking about this, but I don't care. For something this fun and educational you need to keep spreading the word. With this addictive app, you can stumble in and out of unchartered surreal and instantly enjoyable websites with just a click of a Firefox Add-on nav bar button.

So get out there and start stumbling! And then post a blog when you find something of interest.

16 Things I Learned at SXSW

Here's my 16 Things I Learned at SXSW PowerPoint presentation posted on SlideShare.