I'm not a real "fast food" guy. I don't really love burgers, and I don't really love super fried or greasy things, and I realize that by making both of these statements it's very possible that the Department of Bro-land Security will revoke my man-certificate.

That said, I've always admired Burgerville, Oregon (and Southern Washington's) home-grown fast food chain.

Burgerville goes out of their way to feature seasonal , local ingredients in monthly menu items. When a cyclist was denied drive-through service and caused a Twitter PR ruckus, they re-trained staff, put up "bicycle in lane" signs, and offered free milkshakes to cyclists. When they opened a box of Gardenburgers and "became concerned about the look and texture of the product" (!), this caused Kelloggs to shut down Gardenburger production for six months, and they switched to a locally-made product.

So, I was happy to see that Burgerville is now testing the coolest receipt ever. (Pictured at left.)

They're from company called Nutricate (tip: if you have to put a pronunciation guide next to your name, you need a new name). And, as you can see, they provide highly accurate nutritional info for your meal.

I mean, it's not surprising that tartar sauce is high on calories. But it was slightly surprising that Sweet Potato Fries were so much "worse" than regular fries.

Sure, there is some irony that you get this receipt after you've paid for your meal. But I say any nutritional education is better than none at all!

(Oh, and confidential to Burgerville: the only thing left to do? It's time to fix your interior design and remodel your stores. The sock-hoppy, jukeboxy theme of your restaurants is total disconnect from your modern, local, fresh message. You designed a great interior with Noodlin' (R.I.P.) — get those guys fixing Burgerville!)

Next Time: The Disneyland Scammer

So, we're in Japan, and we've just stepped off the train in Kashiwa, a very nice town in Chiba which also happens to be the home of Panic's Japanese HQ, which itself happens to be essentially a cozy apartment, which reminds me of Panic USA 1.0, except Noby and Kenichi don't live in the apartment, and the apartment is in Japan.

Anyway.

Noby wasn't there yet, so we wandered around the station a little bit, enjoying the good weather and banking on Cabel's First Rule of Japan: if you wander around anywhere in Japan for a little bit, you will come across something interesting. (This is also Cabel's First Rule of Everything.) So we came across something interesting:



...which despite have a semi-unfortunate acronym, was a collection of elegant, architecturally-cool buildings, possibly part of a temporary exhibition to excite the citizens of Kashiwa, with a nice wooden deck with some inviting café tables.

We sat down to catch a break.



A few seconds later, I heard some halted English coming from my left.

"Hello! Please come here!"

This was unusual for Japan, because although most Japanese city centers seemed to be filled with hundreds of unregulated and overdriven speakers, I've rarely, if ever, been beckoned in English and in person. It caught me off guard. I wandered over.

The cashier fumbled for the right words. "Please... buy something!"



OK, this was confusing, because up until this point nobody in Japan has ever outright asked — let alone strongly suggested — I buy anything, ever. In some regions of China, for example, it's normal to be followed for blocks by plucky street vendors, with sooty caps and using the Chinese word for "guv'nor" (省长), trying to sell the hapless tourist genuine 24k goldique watches, small angry turtles, expired pudding, Steely Dan CD-R's, and the like. But simply doesn't happen in Japan — just like it also probably doesn't happen in China either because I've never been there and this entire paragraph is based only on bad movies and stereotypes.

While I was a little uncomfortable, I didn't want to be rude. I grabbed a café menu, quickly translated some Katakana (you'll get surprisingly far in Japan by learning this phonetic alphabet!), and found something I kind-of almost.. but not really.. wanted.

"I'll take an orange juice, please," I explained, in poor Japanese.

"Hai!", was the eager response.

A few moments later, I picked up my orange juice.

Except it wasn't an orange juice.

It was an apple drink called "Appletizer", some weird candy, and a little card.

Yeah. Now I was confused.





The guys behind the counter and I immediately launched into a humorous, protracted, Englishanese attempt to understand what the hell just happened. Through judicious fumbling, and after a great deal of precise hand-waving and mangled pronouns, it turned out to be something like this:

At this cafe, you get what the person before you ordered. The next person gets what you ordered.

Welcome to the Ogori cafe!

As I sat down to enjoy my surprise Appletizer, loving this insane idea and wondering what would happen if you tried it in America, a Japanese woman approached the cafe. Since she could actually speak Japanese, she could read the large sign at the front and, fortunately or unfortunately, got advanced warning of what she was in for. Before making a final decision on what to order, she quietly snuck up to me to try to ask me what I had ordered, knowing that it would be her unwavering refreshment destiny. The staff put a quick stop to her trickery, and I didn't answer.

Of course, regardless of what she ordered, she got the orange juice I ordered a few minutes earlier. But here's one of the moments that make this experiment cool: she actually chose orange juice, just like I did. So she got what she wanted. Ogori cafe synchronicity!

Before we left, there was one last thing hat had to be done.

Mike went up to the cafe, slapped down a couple thousand yen (~$25), and ordered a little bit of everything: some ice cream, some snacks, some candy, some drinks, a Japanese horn-of-mysterious-plenty intentionally set up as a shocking surprise for the next lucky customer. (After his order, Mike received single iced coffee.)

As we walked away from the cafe, with just the right amount of delay, we heard an extremely excited "arigato goazimasu!! thank you so much!!" yelled in our direction, from an ecstatic mom and her equally excited young son. They truly appreciated the surprise.

It was so worth it.



For the record, here are the rules of the Ogori cafe:

1. Let's treat the next person. What to treat them with? It's your choice.
2. Even if it's a group of friends or a family, please form a single-file line. Also, you can't buy twice in a row.
3. Please enjoy what you get, even if you hate it. (If you really, really hate it, let's quietly give it to another while saying, "It's my treat…")
4. Let's say "Thank You! (Gochihosama)" if you find the person with your Ogori cafe card.
5. We can't issue a receipt.

The Ogori cafe was an unforgettable travel moment, and an idea that has stuck with me: It was a complete surprise in our day. It encouraged communication between total strangers or, in this case, members of the Kashiwa community and a couple of weird guys from Oregon. It forced one to "let go", just for a brief moment, of the total control we're so used to exerting through commerce. It led you to taste something new, that you might not normally have ordered. It was a delight.

Then, according to Noby, as quickly as it appeared, the Ogori cafe was gone.

Next time: The Best Fast Food Receipt In The World

Good news! Microsoft recently released some very helpful tips for hosting your own Windows 7 party!

Can I just stop here, and can we be honest with each other? Does this kind of acting resonate with anybody? (As Steve noted, it's totally Shovin' Buddies! ) Are there people who can relate to — let alone enjoy — this video? And has there even been a more vibrant and tangible demonstration of the difference between Apple and Microsoft? Anyway.

Turns out, though, it's a lot more fun when you imagine these guys are helping you plan a... slightly different party.


(I apologize for this childishness. It's mostly this guy's fault.)

Next Time: Kashiwa Mystery Cafe. Seriously. I'm even done writing it!

Somehow the tradition continues! While the funniest fireworks seem to have been in previous (2008) Yay! Fireworks installments (2007), this year's trip to Blackjack still yielded some amazing surprises. Enjoy.

OH MY GOD THAT GUMSHOE IS A DEMON FOR SOME REASON

But only just.

I truly enjoyed this Konami game on my Super Nintendo

Nothing says "Hollywood Trip" like Barbara Streisand's head floating next to a faceless man and Krusty the Chaplin

I enjoyed Dancer in the Dark but this new work left me a little underwhelmed. (LARS VON TRIER JOKE)

Or the eyes of everyone else around you, since it's, you know, a firework.

DO NOT

Then stay the hell away from my surge suppressor, god dammit

Sweet Corel Draw Clip Art Starter Sampler: Vol. 1

Warning: emits showers of musty locker-room smells and features strained-laughter report

Make that happen, and I might actually go to the zoo.

I'm going to be honest, I don't think I want my tax dollars funding this "elite team" anymore.

Much more impressive than the Passive-Aggressive Oregonian

I get this one for free after I eat fettucini alfredo. (I apologize.)

OK. Be honest. What did you think this was? (True answer: "Amazing Planet")

Special Bonus Feature

I've told you before about The Gauntlet: the long, treacherous stretch of Vancouver, Washington road that leads to two competing fireworks stands: Blackjack and TNT. Armed to the teeth with minimally-paid teenagers, and with an ever-escalating arms race of inflatable bouncy castles and discounted diet soda, The Gauntlet will not stop — nay, will not take so much as a single restful breath — until you make The True Choice on where to spend your fireworks money.

For 2009, I present to you: The Gauntlet HD.

Let me be clear: I have no intention of this becoming a baby pictures blog. That said, I thought it worth noting to you, the cabel.name-interested, that, one week ago, we welcomed the arrival of Joby Finn Sasser, our brand new baby boy.


Already awash in the gaming world (which means he'll be a football broker, right?), here he's about to be wrapped up by Keita Takahashi's Noby Noby Boy. (And our cat.) This plush Boy was a totally amazing gift from Keita — if you can believe this, it was made by his sister! Joby also really loves Girl .

So, yeah, baby time! Red hair!? Really long fingers! Doing awesome, fitting right into our lives. (Also: Nicole is amazing.) New life! Let's go!

Next time, I swear: Japan Mystery Cafe

There's a lot of photocopied flyers stapled on the telephone poles of Hawthorne Blvd here in Portland. The average diameter of each pole has literally extended by several KinkoInches advertising the inevitable weekend shows of Sidewalk Stalk, Dov's Houseboy, Korandom, I Don't See You But I'll Always Feel You, Emissionary Physician, Cedar Oak and Pine, Forebread, and other bands I just made up.

But one flyer, placed somewhat low with hand lettering even an indie band couldn't improve upon, caught my eye. You may be confused but not for long.

Jackoroma3 tells me that he's 14 years old, that he "likes food, likes creating websites, likes going on vacation", and has been gaming for five years.

He also has a website that pushes the limits of iWeb, offering Runescape advice that's surprisingly applicable to the real world ("GETTING ENOUGH MONEY IS NOT EASY JUST WORK HARD!") and self-critiques of his many, many videos ("PROBLEMS WITH GAME: (1) not a very good game").

Although I may not totally appreciate the videos — I know I would if I was 14 and played Runescape — I think there's something deeply, anachronistically beautiful about advertising a YouTube channel on a telephone pole.

Jackoroma3, I salute you.

Next time: the Japanese mystery cafe

Sorry to interrupt your regular blog content: but, did you hear? Panic is having a sale! All of our major Mac apps are 50% off. Transmit! Coda! Unison! CandyBar! Cheap! For three days only.

Act now! Click here and make it happen! We thank you.

Well, if I can't convince you, maybe this guy can:


(Here's a YouTube version!)

Iced Oatmeal? Taffy Sandwich? Circus Animals?

While not necessarily ever having tasting like something a mother has made, Mother's cookies have been around forever, and are beloved by children, adults, the obese, and the obese-at-heart.

But in October of 2008, Mother's Cookies went out of business, the result of a stock-punching series of bad business decisions, a corporate bond scandal, and, naturally, these uncertain economic times.

Fully bankrupt, Mother's sold their fairly tasty assets for a cool $12 million.

A few months later, much to the delight of fans, the cookies re-appeared in stores, this time as "Nabisco Classics"!



There was just one problem: Nabisco didn't buy the rights to Mother's. Kellogg's did.

Cookie skullduggery!! Yes, they're failure-ready fakes!

I like to imagine that Nabisco had this factory fully built in 1986, with a hardhat-wearing mustachioed staff member ready to push the button and turn out Mother's cookieulcrums at any moment — just waiting, silently, for the company to go chips up. I also like to imagine that Nabisco has a factory ready for every competitor: "Good news, Jenkins! Time to fire up the Pepperidge Plant!"

While none of this is probably true, but it's nice to know that even in the cookie world, competition is serious business.

(For you Mother's fans, Kellogg's has finally fired up the old machines, and the real Mother's cookies are now back on store shelves.)

Next time: The Most Intense Gamer

Of the many areas of nerdery I have merit badges in, photography is surprisingly not one of them — so my requirements for digital cameras are dead simple. I want a camera that:

• Can easily fit in a pocket, comfortably, and isn't hideous looking.
• Has a wide angle lens. (My first-ever digital camera had this, spoiling me for life.)
• Can record video. I love a pocket video!

Of course, there are smaller wishes: automatic orientation detection, a nice enough UI, good macro lens, SDHC support, etc., but they're all features you'll find on just about every camera in the world. I've also traditionally been a Canon man, always keeping an eye on their new models.

Here's why the new Canon SD960 is my current favorite digital pocket camera.

Updated UI

It's a minor miracle: Canon updated their UI. It's... not bad! (New on the right.)

Good Looking Photos

It's almost a given at this point, but it takes some sharp looking pictures:

You can see the whole set over on Flickr

HD Widescreen Video!

The killer feature, and one that's blown my mind. I know the Flip Mino HD has been available for a while (I've always thought them a little bit ugly and prefer to carry one device instead of two whenever possible) and I'm sure other digital cameras have had HD video for a while, but this is my first experience with pocket HD, and it is amazing and liberating. Maybe it's because Kid Cabel once longingly stared behind the cruel, child-taunting plastic Toys 'R Us display cabinet at the Fisher-Price Pixelvision, which recorded laggy, low-speed grain-and-white video to an audio cassette tape (!), old man, etc., but the fact that I can bust a shiny device out of my pocket and record a moment in widescreen and very high resolution onto a tiny memory card that holds many gigabytes and cost, like, fifteen dollars, is flat-out space-age awesome. It won't replace your RED ONE camera, but for a spontaneous video, it's great.

How great? It's H.264 compressed and 1280 x 720 resolution, but you should see it for yourself. Armed with my new camera on a quick relaxing trip to Palm Springs, I decided to use the opportunity to make a sample video. Enjoy:


That's scaled down, too — click here for the full size 1280 x 720 version (110 MB)

I bet you'd also get the same video quality from the two other new Canon models that shoot HD — SD780 and SD970 — but, for my money, the 28mm wide-angle lens of the SD960 seals the camera-buyin' deal.

And that's why I love it. As of this writing, it's only $299 over at Amazon.

Questions? Do you prefer a Flip? Are those affiliate links OK or tacky? What's your favorite digital camera? Let me know!

Next time: cookie skullduggery!

Good evening, Internet. It's been a while. As they say, life is like a San Franciscan Cable Car: it starts a little creaky and awkward, before you know it's going surprisingly fast, and at the end of it all you're dumped right into Fisherman's Wharf.

To catch up, here's a quick recap of some happenings around Panic — your humble servant of a Macintosh software company.

New! Office

On November 4th, Panic 4.0 fired up in a brand new office. For me, someone you might call "detail-oriented" (LOLnderstatement), this was easily as time consuming and difficult as designing and shipping an app: turning the empty shell space of a once-garage into something we can be proud of and look forward to working in. The process was also eerily familiar, from designing obsessively crazy ideas (with Holst Architecture) to getting "are you serious?" reactions but eventual perfection and pride from the construction team (R&H). I promise you a post telling the full story, sharing photos and Quicktime VR's of the space, and giving you some of the lessons we learned. And I promise to have it done this year! ¬ ¬

New! Noby Noby Boy T-Shirts

Meanwhile, we certainly haven't forgotten about the enigmatic "and also some t-shirts" part of the company charter!

Is it a game? Is it an art project? Why is there a squirrel in the corner? Keita "Katamari" Takahashi's latest PS3 game, Noby Noby Boy, is a truly mysterious but fulfilling time-waster. We love Keita's work, so we asked him to design some new shirts to celebrate the release of the game.

They're beautiful, they're available in a variety of design "lengths", and they're shipping right now. Please enjoy!

New! People

In late 2008 we added two new faces to the Panic family: Ned Holbrook, formerly of Apple, who jumped into our engineering group head-first and who we're thrilled to have on our team. Also, Neven Mrgan, our first additional designer, a talented fellow (fellow?) who most recently designed the AP Mobile News iPhone app. Neven has also introduced me to a freakish new kind of miracle: I can be working on a design, and he can be working on design for something else, and we are somehow working on two things at once! (It took ten years to figure this out?) These are great guys.

Including the brilliant minds at our international, sprawling mega-subsidiary Panic Japan — Noby, who localizes, supports, and runs the show, and Kenichi, an amazing icon artist — this brings the current Panic head-count to an often-amazing-for-me 13 people.

Wait, 13 people? For reals?

It's true! It breaks down like this: two designers, six engineers, and three support guys, plus one designer and one support guy in Japan.

We've discovered this (very cautious) growth to be a great thing for two reasons. First, we can respond to requests and add new and innovative ideas to our software faster than we ever could (and than you'll ever get from) a one-or-two person company. Second, we can finally work on multiple applications simultaneously, trying to remove our long-standing and very painful (for all of us!) "we're working on this so we can't on that" delay.

To be fair, we haven't perfected all of this yet. Right now these two modes are somewhat at odds with each other, and we're still trying to figure out how to smoothly accomplish both goals at the same time — easier said than done.

So what's up right now? We're in "working on multiple apps at once" mode, preparing updates to nearly every single product we currently ship. It's an ambitious undertaking, but I think the end results will be worth it, even if it takes a bit of time to get there. Thanks for your patience while we work hard. I promise great new things are on the way.

(Also: at what company size do I have to stop eating ramen and Hot Pockets? Because I eat those a lot. It's only at, like, 100+ employees, right?)

New! Coda Plugins and Updates

All the while, we've been working hard to keep Coda humming and fix a lot of nits. Coda 1.6.4, released earlier this month, is one of these tiny-fix releases that really does make Coda even better. But it's also important to mention that we've been adding more and more cool plug-ins to the Coda Plug-ins Page over the past few months! Head over and check them out.

Boring! Follow Me On Twitter

Since posting on the blog is an epic undertaking for me — "I should do short posts!", I always tell myself — you can always follow me on "Twitter" internet website, where the barrier to spew is much lower. Same content — snacks, stupid jokes — in 140 characters or less.

Anyway, hope all is well!

Next Time: a few words about my favorite new digital camera.

So, exactly four months ago, I totally got married. This has been a completely great thing, and I highly recommend it. You know, when you're ready.

After the wedding, sometimes people would ask me if everything feels different or more great now that we're married. When I would tell people "actually, not really!", I could naturally sense a little bit of romantic disappointment in their faces, like I'm the Harlequin Grinch. But I don't mean "not that different, yawn" — I mean "not that different, because, honestly, it's always been great." [AWWWW.MP3] My overall advice: when you know, you'll know.

Anyway, I don't want bore you with the personal blah blah blah. Instead, I'd like to talk to you about design...

Wedding design! (Guys? Guys? Stay with me here!)

The Brainstorm

I spent a too-long amount of time brainstorming the foundation of our design. First, I knew I wanted to incorporate Nicole's love of visual contrast — she who is so fond of a super-dark gray cloudy sky with a burst of a blue showing through, or a beautiful flower popping up through tired concrete. Second, I knew that the design had to represent both of us, a little piece of each. I know, right? As much as I'd love to make a wedding invitation with photos of say, photos of the latest flavors of Sun Chips ("You're invited to our peppercorn-ranchuptuals!"), it probably wouldn't play too well outside of, uh, me.

Then, two key words popped into my mind:

Pixel flowers.

Retro 8-bit quirky and fun but elegant and beautiful and colorful. Perfect. I immediately remembered seeing a magazine illustration by the amazing Nick Dewar of pixelated blossoms somewhere once. With Nick's illustration serving as mental inspiration (thank you, Nick!), it was time to get cracking.

Save The Date

The first thing we had to tackle was the age-old "save the date". Due some tardiness with the art director (sorry!), we decided to do it electronically to get it out the door instantly. Otherwise there'd be no date to save.

Enter friend and artistic genius David Lanham, out of the Coda icon. He graciously found time to to lend his illustrative talents to this project.

The first bit David cranked out was a perfect little pixel illustration of myself and Nicole, that I hoped we could use in a variety of places throughout the project. It went through some fun variations:


As you can see, we started off super micro (and I looked a little bit like Gob from Arrested Development about to perform a magic trick), then we got super (super) deformed, and finally with a bit more nudging I think David nailed it with the last one — it's cute, with just a dash of disturbing. Just like us! Uhh..

Illustration in hand, it was Cabel's turn. A few fonts, some colors, a clean layout, and a little extra something on my t-shirt (what is that? a tri-force? I honestly don't know why I added it) and it was ready to be e-mailed!


That's it. Simple. To the point. Fun.

Technical notes: I used e3 Software's truly excellent Direct Mail application to send it out. It's got a great statistics view that can show you how many people opened up the message, assuming their mail reader loads images by default. Font wise, that's Metroscript by Alphabet Soup for the logotype, and House Industries' Neutra 2 for the details. I used Neutra 2 primary because I wanted to be the last person to use this font. I love it, but I literally see it everywhere, all day long. So, sorry, suckers! You're not allowed to use this font because I'm the last guy. I called it. It's done, font closed. Use something else. Myself included. Don't look at the Coda header.

The Invitation

Onto the master illustration itself. Once I fully explained what was on my mind, David quickly cranked out a sketch of the core idea: an elegant tree, with little pixel flowers on it.


I wanted to take it into more "tree" than "branch", so I pitched the idea of having it wrap-around to the back of the invitation. David translated this into a rough layout sketch:


I liked it! But the tree seemed a little super-wide. With that in mind, it was time to make it "real".


Finally, wanting to shed the peach color and fill more space after committing to a text-free cover, we arrived here:


Awesome. Yay, David! It was time to start getting print-ready.

Pre-Press

I had decided on using letterpress for these invitations. It's good for small print runs, and it's also such a visceral, physical technique. If you ever get a chance to watch letterpress machines in action, it's mesmerizing and also tinged with danger. I found a great, local, and now-highly-recommended print shop — Egg Press — who were happy to tackle the job.

I went through their paper samples and picked one, but ink colors were harder for me — I looked at their stock inks but none of them were quite. It was time to bust out the Pantone book and pick three spot colors (for an extra charge, naturally). For the record, it's Pantone 510U, 5225U, and 5205U!

Then I re-formulated the art to fit the correct paper size, drawing an extra branch here and a flower there.

I was done. It was printin' time.

Finished Product

The invitations were now ready to go.


I love the texture, rough print, and embossed feel of letterpress. It made the "physical" nature of this job even more fulfilling.


There was one final surprise on the finished piece.

Since letterpress creates an actual physical impression in the paper when it stamps the ink, I thought it would be interesting to do one letterpress plate without ink — our pixel selves, subtly debossed on the inside.

As a bonus, since the impression runs deep, we're also embossed on the outside, and it's carefully aligned so that it looks like we're standing under the tree. Sort-of.


That's it! Here are scans of the finished piece:

Custom Stamps

One last stop before the postal office: custom stamps. We decided to use zazzle.com for this — as should be glaringly obvious. The giant zazzle advertisement (zazzvertisement?) on every stamp was a huge negative, but a high-quality pixel stamp was hard to pass up.

The Event

This fell into Nicole territory — I did the print, she did the space. But I thought she did a really stunning job designing the venue — the colors, the flowers, the details, everything kept the original idea flowing through to something physical, gussying up an industrial warehouse-style bar/venue with beautiful elegance. It was, as they say, like a dream.

I'll let these photos speak for themselves!


Yes. It's true. That is a pixel flower cake. Making that happen? High point of my life so far.


Confidential to those getting married in Portland: the amazing cake came from Bakery Bar, the gorgeous flowers by Francoise Weeks, stunning-to-everyone photography by Robert McNary, and the venue was the accommodating and incredible Holocene. Oh, and my suit? 100% Duchess.

The Photobooth

A quick wedding recommendation: for some really fantastic, non-cheesy photographic memories of your guests, look for a local distributor of good old fashioned photo booths. None of this fancy-pants digital stuff — we're talking a green, incandescent bulb that says "smile", little strips of paper sent by an ancient motor into various vats of chemicals, dropped into your hands still wet, a cool little honeycomb texture running through the paper and an ever-so-slight sepia tone. These are the real memories, four classic frames at a time.

The Gifts

As a "thank you" gift to the wedding party, we decided to get some laser-etched Moleskines made. (Can you tell I enjoyed this project?) I sent the art to Joe at Engrave Your Tech, who happened to be here in PDX, and the books were made super-quick. He also let me individualize each book with the person's name on the spine. They turned out amazing. (Sadly, it looks like Joe's not engraving them anymore (yipes!), but I bet he'll come up with something even better.)

The Ring

The very, very last step in the process: my wedding ring. A gift from Nicole, it holds a secret inside: a tiny pixel flower. You'll never see it, but I'll always know it's there.

Finally, Something Cool From Noby

A little bit before the wedding, a special gift arrived from Japan: custom-made chocolates with our little pixel selves printed on the package. These DECOチョコ (deco-choco) treats came from Noby, one half of Panic Japan. Talk about hitting your target audience — I was amazed. Let this be the best snack food picture I will ever post on this blog!

Phew

The rest was a blur.

My great friends Alex and Steve gave killer best-man speeches: embarrassing (there's no shortage of Cabel stories) but also very heartwarming. (Also, Steve delivered this great line: "If you asked me to describe the business relationship between Cabel and I, in Star Wars terms, I would say he is like the R2-D2 to my C3PO. He rolls around, interfacing with computers, solving problems, and making strange beeping noises, while I flap my arms helplessly, and shout 'We're doomed!'")

People ate many foods, drank many things, hugged a lot, saw goofy old pictures of both of us in an amazing slideshow my folks put together, danced like crazy to an amazing mix from the Juice Team on a tiny stage with the people I love, and talked to friends both old and new. And there was delicious cake. So much cake.

This was a great day. And in the end, before we knew it, it was time to close the place out and hop in the car, slightly melancholy that possibly the greatest party of our lives was over but more than slightly excited that the rest of everything was starting right then and there, in the middle of the automatic car-wash at the 76 station, in the early hours of the next day, as a shaving-cream "cabel + nicole" was washed off the hood but, really, will always be there.

Totally married. Totally awesome.

If you love the internet like I do, you've probably come across this amazing YouTube video, yeah?


Dougsploitation was the discoverer of this gem, a truly cornball religiouska masterwork purportedly by the band Sonseed. But something about the video seemed so totally awesome — so pitch-perfect goodbad™ — that, in this age of big-budget viral fakes (a little color temperature adjustment here, a little VHS video noise there, and, hey presto, the DORITOS EXTREME SONSEED campaign is ready to roll!), it quickly generated a bit of controversy. It also inspired a serious-business inter-office betting pool

I could only think of one way to win the "fake or not" bet: find a copy of Sonseed's actual 1983 record album. So I did.


And, Sonseed's First Fruit is now ready for you — just click the image above to download it. Enjoy. It's the real deal: an album full of, well, religious 80's music, and, uh, that's pretty much it, leaving little doubt as to the band's legitimacy. If you're an internet completist, you'll probably get a kick out of it. But please note: you've already heard the best song! (Although, to be fair, "Say Yes" is only a few musical degrees away from a Ringo Starr Beatles B-Side.)

Last week, as you may have heard, we shipped Coda 1.5, a majorminor™ update to our white-hot text editor that also happens to include a full visual css editor, a Terminal, web preview with DOM inspection, built-in reference books, handy clips for frequently used text, collaboration, and now Subversion and multi-file search/replace. Phew.

As the famous Dutch expression goes, this release was like a drunken chef's spekdikken — it took a bit of extra time to cook, but boy was it worth it! As the chef drunkenly added too much delicious metworst. Which in this case represents new features.

The 1.5 goals were simple:

1. Do some things that probably should have been in 1.0 (like Find Across Files).
2. Add some things people wouldn't expect from a 1.5 (like Subversion).
3. Make it free, like a big giant virtual hug to those who supported Coda, the new kid on the editing block, from day one.

With any luck, you're as excited about it as we are, and we hope it makes your websites more awesome.

Design

Two short UI stories I'll mention. First, "Find Across Files" was an interesting interface challenge. My initial impulse was to try to wedge a complete and separate files-only "Find / Replace" interface into the file browser itself — after all, you're finding in the files, and that's where the files are filed. It was not easy trying to put a giant, duplicate interface into a really small space. At one point even I tried putting the entire chunk in a pop-up bubble that would hover out of a button in the files header, but deemed it way to annoying to have it come and go. It was only after many fruster/iterations that I stepped way back and figured that we already had 80% of the interface pieces we needed to do multi-file find/replace — they were just over on the other side of the window, in the existing Find banner. By extending that Find banner to the left, and adding an area on top of the file listing that contains the file-specific settings, I think we were able to make the Find banner do efficient double duty with little GUI collateral damage. (As long as people find it.)

Second, some of you may notice that Coda's tabs now have nice little icons that indicate if an open file is saved locally or remotely. And some of you may not notice this at all. That's because the icons only show up if you have a mix of files, some local, some remote. In other words, they only show up when it's important/relevant to you. In an earlier beta build they were there all the time, but doing it as-needed seemed more elegant. (Even though we were a bit worried about UI consistency, in a "hey, where'd that thing go?" way. But no reports thus far.)

Cookies

But, to be honest, this post, like a lot of my life, is but a conduit for baked goods. Unearthing a folder from my giant "to blog" archives, I'd like to share with you these awesome Coda Cookies that were made earlier this year by Panic fans and cool kids Alexis Cordova and Sarah Bonk. I didn't get to eat them, but I did salivate over the e-mail.

I hope this trend of Panic Baked Goods does not end here.


Thanks to Sarah and Alexis for the cookies, and thanks to the Panic guys for working so very hard on Coda 1.5.

Most importantly, thanks to everyone who has downloaded, used, bought, and/or told their friends all about Coda. You're the best customers and marketing department a small software company could ask for!

Has your dream Mobile Me username long since been taken by someone else? Are you, like me, ridiculously bothered by the crapsthetics of a less-than-ideal username sitting on your desktop? I bring (possible) good news!

Apple has traditionally kept .Mac usernames on hold, even if an account was inactive. In other words, if a user stopped paying for .Mac, their username would still be considered "in use".

On Friday, with Mobile Me, Apple has officially reset all of these unused accounts.

That means a potentially large pool of previously taken — but idle — usernames is now available! Thanks to this, I managed to finally snag "cabel" (someone had it!?). Les here in the office got, yes, "les".

So, assuming you care, head on over to the Mobile Me signup page — if you make it to page two without an error, you win!

(Was two fewer characters on my desktop icon work an additional $99? Yes. It was. Leave me alone.)

Howdy, folks who somehow still read my blog!

It's been a while! Let me tell you: a whole lot has happened since we last spoke, and I hope to catch you up with all of it.

But first, it's the 4th of July. And you know what that means, right? Fireworks.

Some Make It Pretty Clear Exactly What the Chinese Designer Thinks America Is Like

Some of Them Seem to Have... "Additional Meanings"

Some Indicate the Designer Is Seriously Getting Hostile Towards the Consumer

Some Capitalize on the Hot Hot Internet Trend of 2008

What Could Be More Unforgettable Than Dollar Bill Albert Einstein

Finally, Let's Celebrate Our Freedom the Traditional Way: Babies on Tomatoes

Postscript: On Competition

When I was a kid, the mythical fireworks destination was spoken only in hushed tones behind the shadowiest of schoolyard simulated tugboat play-structures: Blackjack Fireworks. Located up in Vancouver, WA (where, like, anything is illegal, even, like, this firecracker that can blow up a medium-sized turkey, totally the same one that did you-know-what to Jimmy No-Pinky!), I'd always long to go every summer.

A couple years ago, an enterprising businessman had a great idea: "let's take that giant empty gravel lot across the street from Blackjack — the one they don't own — and open our own competing fireworks tent!" TNT on the left. Blackjack on the right.

And lo, the war of the fireworks stands began. Here's what it's like driving there today.

Welcome to Muscle Park, a relatively-new theme park in the relatively-new Odaiba area of Tokyo.

Muscle Park is dedicated to all manner of physical and mental gymnastics, but in a good way, and without any uncomfortable locker room moments. Why did we go? Muscle Park has a special training ground for Sasuke, which you may know as as Ninja Warrior! (If you watch G4!) If you've never seen the show, I highly recommend dropping it on your TiVo. It's an amazing physical challenge / game show involving a series of increasingly difficult obstacle courses. The first course looks mostly fun. The second course looks mostly really hard. The third course looks mostly impossible. And to give you an idea of how challenging the fourth and final course is, Sasuke has run for twenty seasons, and only two people have ever actually won. (Cultural note: can you imagine how quickly, say, Deal or No Deal would have been cancelled if there had only ever been two winners in 10 years? But it's genius: when someone fails you feel it in your gut, and if someone wins it feels like you've just watched history unfold.)

Enjoy! Mike eats a giant burger! Which actually wasn't that giant! Dave actually tackles Sasuke! And does way better than I would have! A local shows us how it's done! Despite getting a splinter on the hunging tree tumor!


(Here's a YouTube mirror, just in case.)

Hey, here's something you've probably already seen!

Earlier this year I gave a talk (my first public presentation ever, actually!) at Johnny Rentzsch's intimate and engaging C4[1] conference in Chicago. Despite nervousness, it was really great fun. We had just recently finished Coda, and with one hour to fill and a lot of Coda-related things still swirling around my mind, I pretty much just started talking. What followed was a whole lot of hyper-warp thoughts about all things Panic.

I almost didn't post the video of it here because I think, subconsciously, this blog is a kind of cyber-vacation from work stuff, which explains why I talk about junk food and post dumb photos all the time. That said, I realize that you, dear reader, might actually be interested in these kinds of behind-the-scenes Panic things every now and then. And my parents probably haven't seen it either. So, uh, please enjoy!


Bonus Content! Here's my complete C4 Presentation.keynote (6.91 MB) file for your interest. Follow along! And here's that Grid.psd (52 KB) file — I believe it's the document I used to demonstrate my vector shapes+layer effect technique in Photoshop.

If you hadn't heard via Twitter (and why would you?), I just returned from over two weeks of quality time in Japan. A lot of business and business planning, but also a whole lot of fun. The truly watershed event: this time, I had Steve along. Japan is a place that Steve and I have literally talked about since we were kids, and although I've since been to Japan many times (including a couple trips with my fiancee), Steve's once-monumental and well-beyond-ha-ha-doesn't-flying-suck fear of the aeroplanes kept him from joining me in the past. Now, it's as if his fear has been almost entirely, like, 35-Pass Secure Erased, totally Gutmann-style. Much like a 35-pass erase, it took him a whole lot of time and a whole lot of hard work to get rid of it — but on the plus side Steve's brain is now government compliant and be sold at a garage sale. What's that? I need to cancel my nationwide 35-Pass Erase Comedy Tour? Tough crowd.

Anyway, kudos to Steve. Great to have him there. (And also nice to have Dave and Mike join us later.)

So: Japan stories time!

Within minutes of riding on the first trains in Japan, I notice a significant change in advertising, from train to television. The trend? No more printed URL's. The replacement?


Search boxes!¹ With recommended search terms!

It makes sense, right? All the good domain names are gone. Getting people to a specific page in a big site is difficult (who's going to write down anything after the first slash?). And, most tellingly, I see increasingly more users already inadvertently put complete domain names like "gmail" and "netflix" into the Search box of their browsers out of habit — and it doesn't even register that Google pops up and they have to click to get to their destination.

But, I ask you: could this be done in the USA? Wouldn't search spammers and/or "optimizers" ruin this within seconds? I did a few tests with major name brands and they're almost always the top hit on Google (surprisingly, even Panic). But if Nabisco ran a nationwide ad campaign for a hot new product and told users to Google for "Burlap Thins" to learn more, wouldn't someone sneaky get there before they do?

Despite my questions, this trend seems almost inevitable to me. In fact, I bet that some point in the future, Safari's title bar looks a little bit more like this:

Update: Version 1.1 released 2/8/08. Good bug fixes + Opera compatibility!

...so I fought back the charging Guanaco, immediately hopped on my paraglider, and basically caught the first flight out of Chile — but not without dealing with some cantankerous customs inspectors while drinking a cool glass of chicha. Really sorry it took so long! But hey, two years later, it's finally done!

Smooth Javascript Image Zooming For Your Web Pages

This much-requested chunk of Javascript to zoom images inline, originally written for this blog but later rolled out to the Panic website and used for screenshots, is now polished up, bug-fixed, available for you to use on your website!

Designed to view full-size photos and images inline without requiring a separate web page load, FancyZoom's raison d’être (French for "raisin-determination") is providing a smooth, clean, truly Mac-like effect, almost like it's a function of Safari itself. Since I originally wrote this script, there are now a lot of image zoomers to choose from (including a similar effect now on Apple's own site!), such as the popular (and inspiring) Lightbox. So you might be asking: "Cabel, why use FancyZoom?" Well, here's why!

• Focused on the smoothest, most polished zooming animation possible
• Automatically scales images from any image link, with no HTML changes
• Preloads full-size images in the background on link mouseover
• No resource-heavy Javascript libraries — 100% coded from scratch to zoom
• Draws a nice drop shadow under the full-size image to offset it from the page
• Uses Safari 3's "box-shadow" feature to draw the drop shadow natively, no images required
• Requires only two new lines of code in your HTML
• Tested and works with Safari, Firefox, IE7, and IE6. (Looks better in modern browsers.)

Since FancyZoom is so easy to add to a web page, I encourage you to give it a try!

Instructions

Installing FancyZoom on your web pages should be dead simple.

FancyZoom 1.1.zip (53 KB)

Additional Details

There are a few extra notes that you might find useful.

Want to add a caption? Add a title tag in your href. That's it!

FancyZoom will use the size of the first element in the href to determine the initial size and location of the zoom.

FancyZoom works best if you wrap your href around a thumbnail, but also works from text-only links to images.

FancyZoom will attach itself to any jpg, gif, png, bmp, or tiff link in your page.

If you're a Javascript hacker, FancyZoom's flexible fadeIn and fadeOut functions can be used for all sorts of fun stuff.

If you explicitly don't want an image to zoom, add a rel="nozoom" tag to your href.

Example

It's both an example, and some random pictures from Macworld Expo 2008!

Release Notes

Version 1.1 released 2/8/2008.

• Improved Opera compatibility
• Fixed an issue that would cause crazy infinite zooming
• Improves caption behavior in certain situations
• Now returns any alt-clicks and command-clicks back to the browser, for standard behavior (open in new tab, etc.)

License

FancyZoom is totally free for your non-commercial website.

In a bit of an experiment: if your website is commercial (i.e. makes you money), you can license FancyZoom for $39 per site, a one-time fee. Instantly add nice image zooming to your site. Click here to instantly and securely buy a license.

Enjoy

I hope you and your websites enjoy FancyZoom. If you make any cool changes or improvements, let me know! And if you have awesome feedback, or find weird bugs, drop word in the comments.

It may be patently obvious, as the relevant post is directly below this one, but until FancyZoom moves to its own home on the web, sometime in 2018, this is probably the best way to get the word out to you RSS reading folk: FancyZoom update! Actually, it shows how little I use the RSS — do people get notified when I make revisions to existing web log posts? Or do most people turn that feature off? Do I sound like the world's oldest man? MY PICTURE BOX IS BROKEN, WHY CAN'T I GET MY MOVIE FILMS ON MY PICTURE BOX?

Anyway, FancyZoom is already at version 1.1. I made it work with Opera (and, theoretically, the Wii!), fixed some crazy bugs, and improved the keyboard behavior. Release notes in the original post.

I hope you enjoy these updates!