Lawrence Siulagi

I just worked on a mockup using Fireworks CS4 and am in love with this prototyping tool. While I haven’t used Fireworks since it was owned by Macromedia, this is definitely not your father’s Fireworks.

With cool new collaborative features (albeit with other Adobe tools) and much needed enhancements like customizable assets in the common library and better text handling, Fireworks makes me want to use it for all all my design mockups.

I haven’t experimented with the CSS in the style panel, but from looking at the code I exported, it looks like it’s doing the job right. The PDF export is nice for more secure options and the software’s GUI is much improved using snap-to widgets.

But while there is an improvement in speed, I would still recommend using it with nothing less than an Intel Duo Core processor. Also, I’ve never really been a layer-slicing kind of designer but I’m keen to learn how others use this feature.

And alas, Photoshop, do not feel overlooked. You’re still my number one image editor. 0_x

In a bold move, Mississippi has made red-light cameras illegal. As many here in Portland and Beaverton know, these cams are mounted in and around some of the busiest intersections in an effort to catch those drivers who believe laws don’t apply to them.

While evidence supports that red-light cams decrease accidents, Mississippi officials have another line of reasoning:

They may be advertised as speeding deterrents to city councils and safety tools to worried parents, but according to another school of thought, red-light cameras are all about making money.

Virginia, however, believes red-light cameras have helped in reducing accidents:

Research conclusively demonstrates the effectiveness of automated enforcement in reducing red light violations and related serious injury crashes. It also shows that photo radar can reduce vehicle speeds and crashes. The citizens of D.C. are benefiting from the implementation of these programs.

How does the public feel about this. The same report cites our fair city:

An evaluation of the speed camera program in Beaverton and Portland, Oregon, found strong public support for the use of cameras in school zones (88-89 percent) and neighborhoods (74-78 percent).

While Floridians believe the cams cause more crashes:

Rather than improving motorist safety, red-light cameras significantly increase crashes and are a ticket to higher auto insurance premiums, researchers at the University of South Florida College of Public Health conclude. The effective remedy to red-light running uses engineering solutions to improve intersection safety, which is particularly important to Florida’s elderly drivers, the researchers recommend.

And for those who think they can trick red-light cams by switching lanes, Discovery Channel’s Myth Busters say you might want to think again.

Are you ready for the new line of eco-friendly cars from… IKEA? Quoi?

Apparently, this has the backing of the WWF no, not the World Wrestling Federation but the World Wildlife Fund.

But a NYT article is placing its bets on “Practical Joke” as the release date is, you guessed it: April Fools Day.

Le’go of my LEG-oh.

Wall-E and Watchmen Trailer Mashup. Hilarious stuff.

Being half Filipino, I grew up with chicken adobo as a regular dish. Years ago, I asked my mom for the recipe and have been making it since.

Adobo literally means a marinade for meat but unlike marinades which require a time to … um … marinate, the meat actually cooks in it and produces a tangy taste unlike any other you will experience. Warning: the smells that fill the kitchen will make your mouth water.

The key ingredients are meat, soy sauce, pepper, garlic, brown sugar and vinegar. No frills here: just pure and simple. Some add bay leaves or onions but I like to keep things simple.

Ingredients:

• 6-8 chicken thighs with skin
• 4 tbsp soy sauce
• 2-3 cloves garlic
• 1/3 cup vinegar
• 3 tbsp dark brown sugar
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

In a large cooking pot, heat soy sauce and chopped garlic on medium heat. Place chicken thighs in pot skin-side down for a 1-2 minutes. Turn over thighs and cook for another minute. Pour in vinegar. Season with salt and pepper and turn heat to low for simmering. Sprinkle brown sugar over the thighs and cover the pot. Simmer for 40 minutes. Serve with white or brown rice and steamed broccoli or carrots and peas. This is Filipino comfort food at the highest level.

In a New York Times interview with Anne Mulcahy, Xerox Corporation CEO and responsible for bringing the company back from the financial brink, she talks about qualities she looks for in a job candidate which is refreshing and more true than ever in this competitive job market.

Q. When you’re assessing a job candidate, do you have one or two acid-test questions?

A. They have more to do with behavior and culture than they do with competence and expertise. Generally speaking, the people you talk to have the competence and expertise. That’s how they got to the interview. So then the most important aspect is whether it’s a good fit. And so I always ask the question, why are they choosing us, not so much why we should choose them. I really want to hear about what they could do for the company and why they think it would be a place they could be successful.

It’s a little bit of a test. Have they done their homework? Do they understand the place? Do they aspire to the kind of value system and culture we have here? I’ve learned that it’s probably the biggest success or failure indication, as well, about whether people are a good fit with the culture.

Q. Do you find yourself looking for certain qualities in a candidate more than you did several years ago?

A. Adaptability and flexibility. One of the things that is mind-boggling right now is how much we have to change all the time. For anybody who’s into comfort and structure, it gets harder and harder to feel satisfied in the company. It’s almost like you have to embrace a lot of ambiguity and be adaptable and not get into the rigidness or expectation-setting that I think there used to be 10 years ago, when you could kind of plot it out and define where you were going to go.

I think it’s a lot more fluid right now. It has to be. The people who really do the best are those who actually sense it, enjoy it almost, that lack of definition around their roles and what they can contribute.

Q. And how do you get a sense of whether a person has that quality?

A. Part of it’s from their experience. I think seeing how much breadth someone’s had, and their appetite for not just vertical career ladders, but their appetite for what I call the horizontal experiences, where it wasn’t always just about a title or the next layer up. And that there was this desire to learn new things, to kind of grab onto things that were maybe even somewhat nontraditional.

Those kinds of experiences I think bode well for someone who’s going to be open and adaptive in this job environment.

Every now and then, an idea comes along that is truly a Luddite’s lament. No electricity, coding or digital wizardry. Just good ol’ fashioned, handmade sleight of hand.

Where were you when the web’s flurrious web app — Twitter — twittered out? This seemingly endless flow of tweets ground to a halt this afternoon sending this twitterer into heavy withdrawals within minutes of Twitter’s error messages. They could have at least made an effort of updating the twitter status or even changing the error message which was more akin to the blinking lights of a VCR after a power outage.

Twitter, instead, was off to a flying stop.

…the New York Times online features a story about Trekkie love for Kirk’s captain chair on their home page.

Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a command-chair building machine!