This year, as part of our annual giving campaign, we hope to help free children from poverty through a variety of gifts that can provide long term relief and joy.

Check out what we did.

We’re are donating to Compassion International in honor of you, our family, friends and clients.

We hope these compassionate gifts outlive the Christmas season.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from everyone at Going Interactive.

First, I had to decide that I wasn’t going to check into EVERY SINGLE LOCATION – only the high value locations.  What’s a high value location?  Locations that are significant (subjective, I know) and desirable (objectively determined by ongoing active competition for the Mayorship).

Second, I decided that I’d only rarely check into new significant locations, and only defend a handful of my existing Mayorships.

Finally, I decided to quit competing for Mayorships altogether.  I just check into significant locations that I’d want to share with my friends on Facebook and Twitter.  I probably only do that about once a week now.

As I venture forth, I no longer feel pressure to whip out my iPhone, and plant my Foursquare flag onto new shores.  I’m the wandering gypsy, rather than the campaigning conqueror.  And I feel much better now.

Going Interactive created an immersive online toy experience for Hasbro’s – The CribLife. Each doll comes with a unique code which unlocks a world of fun. The full experience offers videos, games, interactive comics, printables, design your own crib and more. Girls can engage with any of the personality filled dolls online. There’s 7 dolls and 7 awesome ways to get to know your doll even more. Check the toy shelves at stores like Toys-R-Us and Walmart. Now go get a doll and unlock the fun!

Here’s a quick highlight reel to wet the appetite.

Immersive Online Toy Experience from Going Interactive on Vimeo.

Heres’a sample clip. We’ll post complete video a bit later when it’s officially out on the net.

The theme for this year’s campaign is “Help RCA Reach for the Sky!”. Everyday at the Ron Clark Academy they reach for the sky, dream big and transform children’s lives.  To get a great overview of how awesome the RCA is go to http://ronclarkacademy.com and click “Watch RCA in Action” video o the home screen.

To visit the GI designed and developed campaign page go to: http://greatamericanteachersclub.com/Summer_Campaign/

Do you think it will be as “big” as the iPhone and really change the way things are done?

It seems like some are jumping on the Apple bandwagon and buying it with no questions asked. Some people say it’s awesome and they love the way it’s freed them from small phone screens in watching media. For others, I hear them saying…”so what is it? is it a computer which can’t do what a computer does, or is it a phone that doesn’t really work like a phone at all, or is it a small video player?”.

Really, all of these are great questions to ask, which brings me to my point. How long should a consumer wait before they jump in and get the latest (and greatest) technology? I’m not sure there’s a correct answer here, but it is a valid thought.

For the Apple enthusiasts, it makes sense to go out and buy what they put out instantly, because rarely does Apple “mess up” a product (not counting the old Cube desktop unit of course . But others who aren’t comfortable spending the big bucks might decide that they still have to have it yet they’ll buy another brand, like Sony or Samsung, etc.

The big question is still…is it really worth buying the latest technology until it’s proven to be “worthy”. Obviously one could argue the concept of what is worthy until they are blue in the face, but for this purpose, let’s look at the product (iPad) as being worthy as a new and innovative piece of digital technology for society as a whole.

What’s the iPad to you?

Just another gadget which looks cool but doesn’t help you?

Or is it replacing your need for paper based books?

Or is it just a new version of the walkmen for movies and has a bonus of using wi-fi?

Or…is it just convenience for those of you who think laptops are still too big, but really only use them for email and Facebook?

In the end, we should continue to push big companies like Apple, Microsoft, Sony, etc. to push the boundaries of technology. We, as consumers, don’t need something that’s half this and half that but looks neat and is super glossy. We want things that are genuinely helpful and innovative. Devices that make us ask ourselves… “How did we live without that?”.

WEGENER uses the site as part of an integrate marketing plan that includes trade shows, e-mail campaigns and direct sales. We created the site with a combo of HTML 5 and the Drupal CMS system. This technical approach to a microsite is a great way to promote a B2B or B2C product online. The microsite

I apologize for the small images, you can click each one to enlarge it a little bit.

01.

First, grab a texture. Crumple a piece of paper and scan it, google a photo of dirt, run a noise filter in photoshop, whatever you want. Open in in photoshop and desaturate the image and pump up the contrast a little.

02.

Convert the texture to a bitmap. Go Image>Mode>Bitmap (if bitmap is not clickable, then convert it to grayscale, then to a bitmap). From here there are a few options, for this I went with 50% threshold. If youre going for that halftone look, then choose halftone and play with the settings until you get what you like.

03.

After you get the look you’re going for, save the image as a tiff. Placing a bitmap tiff into Illustrator allows you to change the color of the tiff in Illustrator.

04.

Open up Illustrator. I used an old vector thing I did a while back.

05.

Group the objects you want to apply texture to. Then, with that group selected, go to the transparency toolbox. If its not already there, go Window>Transparency. Click the more options icon in the right corner of the transparency toolbox. Of those options, select “Make Opacity Mask”.

06.

It looks like your illustration has disappeared. It hasn’t, it just isn’t being masked yet. In that transparency toolbox, you should now see a thumbnail of your grouped illustration and a black box next to it. Click the black box. Now you are editing the transparency mask. Selecting the box with the thumbnail of your illustration will allow you to edit the contents of the transparency mask.

07.

With the transparency mask selected, place the bitmap tiff file you made earlier. Now you should see a rougher version of your illustration. Play with the color of the bitmap to get different levels of grunge. White is most visible, and Black is least visible. From this point, just play with different bitmaps, add another to the transparency mask. Add 4 more, whatever looks good. When you’re ready to save of move on, select the illustrations thumbnail in the transparency toolbox.

08.

That’s it. I know this is slightly unclear and not totally concise, but it should be. I think if you have enough to get going, then experimentation is the best way for you to learn. There really isn’t any one way to do anything in illustrator, you have to figure out what works for you.

Then the Atlanta 2011 Snow Storm hit. Sunday January 9th. In the wee hours of the morning. And none of us had made it the office since.

We awoke to almost a foot of snow and it put us at a standstill.  It continues to be around freezing and there’s a ton of frozen dangerous ice everywhere. We couldn’t get out of our neighborhoods. Must less to the office. For 4 days now.

It’s been a LONG time since that happened. Since 1992 (I think) when I first move to ATL as a young designer lad from TPA. I remember calling in everyday to the company I worked for to see if I had to go in. I think I we all got to milk it for 2 maybe 3 days.

Now we get to milk it for AT LEAST four days. But seriously it HAS been dangerous driving. GI J and I slid in his car down our nhood road this AM in our first attempt to make it!

Luckily most of us can work remotely with our home net wi-fi connections. Though some claim it goes out from time to time  Anyhow we’ve managed to persevere and give our clients what they needed.

Thanks for you understanding too clients. I know you in NYC and BOS think it’s kind of funny. But you can relate. I hear they haven’t picked up your trash in NYC since the 1st Dec. snow storm.

Tomorrow we attempt to go back in. To our beloved projects server. So we can continue to provide you with our outstanding design and customer service.

Here’s a few photos of our attempts to drive by today (Day 4) to test the conditions.

DD

Where we usually park (keep in mind this is Day 4 – so it’s been worse for 3 days)

And on the way to check the scene out: YIKES!

But now for the holidays ALL airlines were providing free wi-fi?  Yep. It turned out to be true. I wondered how in the heck this could be? ALL airlines? Free wi-fi for a month and a half? Wow.

We flew to Tampa Bay for Thanksgiving on Delta and sure enough there was free wi-fi. I discovered when I went to sign-on it who was responsible. Google. Of course, Google!  Who else would have what must certainly be the enormous budget required to provide promotional free wi-fi on all flights?

Then we flew to New Orleans over the Christmas break and sure enough they had the same thing going.

The initial sign-on screen asked for an email address and for the user to try out it’s Google Chrome web browser.  I did’t download it on the flight. But when I got back into the office I remembered and installed Chrome on my MacBook Pro.

I was immediately impressed with the speed of it -which they tout.

If I hadn’t of been offered free wi-fi in the promotional name of Chrome I probably wouldn’t have tried using it anytime too soon.

So kudos to Google for a great and somewhat non-traditional promotion.  I’m sure it cost a ton. And I hope a lot of people are trying out Chrome now.

Another cool thing was that they didn’t shove the marketing down our throats. They didn’t say FREE WI-FI ON ALL FLIGHTS FROM GOOGLE CHROME. They said FREE WI-FI. And only when you used it did you discover who was sponsoring it.

I’ve gotten used to going to Chrome now when I want fast browsing. It IS really fast. And it has a lot of other features I’ve yet to dig into.

Here’s a link to “Why use Google Chrome?” and that super cool online comic book by artist Scott McCloud about it.