Kremer Design

The year has begun quickly, already looking at the disappearing snowbanks of winter, and the poor sledding weather. Spending 2 weeks in Whistler, BC, Canada was the best event of the past few years. A renewal of energy, reuniting with friends of past, as well as meeting many new and intriguing people.

I’m making personal changes in my life, and while the details won’t be broadcast here (since this is technically my business website), the resulting positive energy will likely be evident in my work created. I’ve already noticed a uptick in my productivity, as well as a new attention to correct use of “your” and “you’re”. Maybe the productivity has to do with basically taking a 2 week vacation and needing to fast-track a few projects, but even though I’m fighting a head cold the past few days, I’m still getting things done (Tim- I’m getting to your project later today…).

Back to work—— Cheers,

(Ok – here’s pic too – Skijoring race this winter – First place Recreation class -5th overall (I think) – notice we’re passing a team of 2 Labs. Photo Credit – Celia Davis)

The weather here in Whistler is awesome, well, since it stopped rain/sleeting last weekend. It’s not as great weather for the athletes, or the wax technicians by any means, but no complaints from the other side of the fence (except for the hours-long wait for buses, or the inability to really get out on the course away from the stadium).

I hope you are all following the MN athletes, as well as all the Nordic and Biathlon racers. Here is a small sampling of the photos I’ve taken from the past week. I’ll be here another week, and try to update again before then. Sorry for the quality, my point and shoot digital camera doesn’t deal well with low-light, high-speed action.

2010 U.S. OLYMPIC CROSS COUNTRY SKI TEAM

Morgan Arritola, Ketchum, ID, 23, 5/13/86
Caitlin Compton, Minneapolis, 29, 11/7/80
Kris Freeman, Andover, NH, 29, 10/14/80 (2002, 2006)
Torin Koos, Leavenworth, 29, 7/19/80 (2002, 2006)
Andy Newell, Shaftsbury, VT, 25, 11/30/84 (2006)
Kikkan Randall, Anchorage, 27, 12/31/82 (2002, 2006)
James Southam, Anchorage, 31, 6/5/78 (2006)
Liz Stephen, Montpelier, VT, 22, 1/12/87

(name, hometown, age as of opening ceremonies, birthdate, (past Olympics))
Source: USSA

More info:

http://fasterskier.com/2010/01/ussa-announces-2010-olympic-team/
http://www.usskiteam.com/crosscountry/news?storyId=2338

As most Minneapolis folks know, we have fully passed from summer into winter, with maybe 4-7 days of fall in between. I haven’t spent anytime shoveling yet, and hopefully the first snow emergency can wait for another month or so, as I’m not looking forward to a late night towing of Caitlin’s car from the old neighborhood. It will be soon enough to need to move it for fall street cleaning.

Work projects continue steadily, which is a good thing I suppose. The past few weeks have not necessarily been perfect, with the move into another apartment, it took a few days to get the power outlet grounded correctly. Add on moving boxes for a few days, and then the unpacking and figuring out how to put everything accumulated in an office into a space about 25 square feet smaller. Still working on figuring out how I’ll be running power into the closet to hook up the printer and the wireless router. Right now I’ve reconfigured the citywide modem to be both local-area-network and hooking up to the local node.

My favorite shows have been back in season, well considering I haven’t updated in a while. Since I only have your standard rabbit ears for local digital television, I don’t really watch much more than catching a Simpson’s or Family Guy episode here and there, or football now and again. The shows I end up downloading or finding online are Mad Men, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and Entourage. Entourage is already done for the season, and Mad Men is over half complete. Philadelphia is just getting started though. It’s good for me that they are spread out at least somewhat, so I can concentrate on getting work done when it needs to be.

I’ll be taking the dog to a Skijoring class tomorrow. Hopefully he cooperates. Wish me luck.

While this might let strangers, or strange friends, know where I am at all times, I still think it is an interesting piece of software. Once again, a program on my BlackBerry, connecting GPS with Google maps, letting anyone know my general location. In a time where I’m willing to put thoughts online in a world fully connected, it’s eerie to think someone somewhere, someone I may not know has an idea of where my phone is.

Consequently, next time I’m running late to a meeting, take a look here and see if I’ve left yet. On a side note, when my battery is beginning to die, with no charger in site, I do sometimes turn off the updating feature. I don’t have any data on how much power it takes, or how often it sends info, but if the end is near, Latitude gets the turn off. Another side note, if you are in a plane on the runway, it places you at the entrance of the airport, as opposed to inside somewhere.

So I talked about my troubles syncing my contacts and calendars of my BlackBerry and Apple/Mac previously. I spent way too much time trying to get the RIM software to work. No luck. I had come across Spanning Sync earlier, and kept looking for a free service, but nothing worked. So I downloaded the software, and just tonight plunked down some hard-earned cash to keep it around.

The upside is their $5 referral fee program, which I figure I might as well set up here, as I’m already giving them some advertising. Maybe possibly someone out there will look to hook-up a fellow Graphic Designer in Minnesota with some help, while helping themselves out at the same time.

Basically just click here when you are ready to order Spanning Sync, and you get Spanning Sync free… ok, well not free, but $5 off which is still 20%, and pretty good nonetheless. (I get $5 too, which gives me another 2.4 months closer to my dreams.) Conversely, you can type this easy to remember combination in the discount code box: JMHAK3

I just happened to be on a Windows testing a client site in Internet Explorer, and wondered – with all the issues I have to dance around creating sites – what my personal site looked like in IE. Well, so you know, apparently I need to make some upgrades to my own site’s code, as there are definitely some issues with margins and spacing. Unfortunately, I’m not going to be able to take a look for a week or more. I can’t remember whether I tested on Win IE when first creating the site, but I’m pretty sure I would have. I’m going with the idea that there has been some updates to IE that have caused the problems. In the mean-time, I’d suggest downloading firefox anyway, and checking it out there.

In other news, I’m heading out on 4 weeks of Training camps from coast-to-coast. I’ll be up in Grand Rapids for the rest of the week helping Bill Meyer run a shooting camp, then after a couple days back in the cits, I’ll be heading out to the Methow Valley, in Washington State, to run a shooting camp there. I fly back on a Sunday late from Seattle, and then get in the veggie burner and head East to NYC and VT. The east coast trip is a Caitlin Compton training camp, of which I’m coaching and participating in apparently.

I’ve set up my BlackBerry to work as a modem, and I’m in the process of finding a quality inverter for powering the computer while on the road, to be the best road-warrior I can be. I still need to figure out a good place to get grease while out east, but I have some leads to work with. I’m also planning to add google latitude to the website, so anyone can follow our progress.

After only 4 months of having my BlackBerry Pearl from Sprint, I’m happy to announce my successful sync of my contacts and calendars from my computer to my phone. Being on a Mac was the first problem for the PocketMac Software from RIM. The software simply wouldn’t sync anything. I finally managed after hours spent uninstalling and reinstalling the software, and about 2 hours on the phone with RIM to get it to actually sync real data, my calendars. Contacts though would prove to be too difficult. 

I tried and tried, everything I could think of, but nothing for my troubles. As part of the figuring things out process, I upgraded my account to the special (more expensive) Sprint BlackBerry Data plan. I was going through the google software available for the BB, and found… Google Sync. Awesome. After a bit of filing on the Apple Address Book, I was ready. I used an address exporter, which allowed me to save each group separately. Doing this allowed me to upload each into my gmail account, and then back download to my BlackBerry. 

I haven’t really spent the time to see if any of the categories came across. I highly doubt it… but the nice thing is to be able to see who is calling now. I don’t know how I made it 3 1/2 months without knowing who was calling. The joys of caller ID.

So if there are others out in the world who need a tutorial on getting Address Book Contacts to their BlackBerry, and PocketMac is not working – here’s how:

1. Address Book to CSV Exporter
2. Gmail
3. Google Sync

Enjoy!

Headed to Duluth to see my sister Kate graduate UMD. 

The 3 of us on the right all graduated from UMD. L to R; 2009, 2008, 2001.

It’s been a very busy Spring here at Kremer Design LLC. New clients, returning clients; my business’s recession is nearing the end.

Flash programming has made a return, sub-contracting with Solaris Internet, I’ve had a few projects already, and more on their way. The first project was a bit of a headache getting back into using Flash on a routine basis, and the following projects were a bit easier. The most recent project was an expedited kiosk player with touch-screen interaction. I had the opportunity to set up the equipment myself and test it out before (regretfully) giving it back to the company for final deployment. Turned out pretty cool, a few tweaks after delivery, prior to final deployment, but pretty neat. The next projects sound like a lot of fun, and hopefully more interaction. I might have to get another Flash Programming book.

• A few more websites to the tally, most still in bidding, production, or planning phases;
  • MedTech For Solutions
  • RMA of NY and NJ
  • Sisu Ski Fest
  • Jean OConnell for St. Paul School Board
• Logo for Johnny Ingdal, The Norwegian Painter
• Previously some Mouse Pads for a new startup ErgoNet.
• City of Lakes Loppet as per usual – Busy season getting the summer events lined up

Also getting into Biathlon Season. Last weekend we held an Intro to Biathlon Sunday afternoon, and I’ve completed putting together the info for the summer. Finally. Let’s hope for a good size group so I can make the program feasible.