David Chartier’s Neighbors

Help Us Celebrate 2 Years of Vox!

nobody@vox.com(Team Vox) — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 17:37:03 -0600

October is a big month of birthdays here at Six Apart: Vox is celebrating its second birthday, while TypePad turns five and MovableType turns 7. Even future blogger-extraordinaire, Penelope Trott, daughter of founders Ben and Mena Trott, turned one year old this month!

Because Vox would be nothing without you, we hope you'll take a moment to share your favorite Vox stories with us. Visit our anniversary page: Celebrating 2 Years of Vox and check out some stories and photos from last year's anniversary. While you're there, submit your favorite Vox memory or meaningful experience. We'll be updating the page all month, so keep checking back to see your story and photos.

You can also share your favorite Vox memories by answering today's Question of the Day.

Vox was created for the people who told us they wanted to connect with family and friends on their own terms. Today, Vox is an amazing community full of passionate people willing to share their stories, photos, and lives. To those of you who have made Vox your home: Thank You.

Vox Turns Two

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Day three of the caption competition (and more frames in stock!)

nobody@vox.com(Moocards) — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 15:08:20 -0600

********* IMPORTANT UPDATE: Great news! More MiniCard Frames are now in stock! For those of you that missed out on the first load, get in quick before the others fly off the shelves as well. Also, make sure you get your frame whilst they are still at the introductory price of $39.99/€26.99/£19.99. ********* And now for the third image in MOO's Christmas and Holiday Card Caption Competition... We enjoyed seeing all the captions you could come up with for image number 2; the 'bacon angels'. Who knew rashers of bacon could be so seasonal?! Our third photo was taken by laihiu. Get your captions in quick as time waits for 'snowman'! (chortle chortle)

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nobody@vox.com(verseguru) — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 06:28:01 -0600

→→→ฎฌกว

与丐龜
Posted via Pixelpipe.

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Image 2 of the Christmas and Holiday Card Caption Competition

nobody@vox.com(Moocards) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 09:59:05 -0600

The MOO Holiday and Christmas Card Caption Competition is already off to a flying start!

We're thrilled to see so many brilliant captions submitted already. From the cute to the funny to the downright ridiculous. We love them all, and picking our winners is going to be pretty tough!

Remember, you can keep submitting captions for all the images until the close of the competition, so as we add more images, keep checking back to the old images too, in case it takes a couple of days to think of the perfect caption!

Our second photo was taken by Sappymoosetree.

Once you come up with your caption, remember to post it in the comments, to be in with a chance of winning!

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Announcing the Christmas & Holiday Card Caption Competition!

nobody@vox.com(Moocards) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 12:57:12 -0600

It's all go in the MOO cowshed this week. Yesterday we announced the launch of our brand new product, the Mosaic Frame for MiniCards, and today we announce the start of our 12 day Christmas & Holiday Card Caption Competition!

Now, without wanting to make you all big headed, we know you're a creative and witty bunch. (The Egg Hunt showed us you were also rather clever too). So this season we thought we'd hold a caption competition, rather than a photography one, to get your creative juices flowing in a different way.

The idea is as follows:
• We post a Christmas / Holiday photo
• You post a caption in the moo.com blog comments (remember this bit, it's important - the captions must be on the moo.com blog!)
• The best two captions for each photo (as chosen by the MOO Crew) will win a 25-pack of MOO Christmas & Holiday Cards (debuting soon)
• The best caption of the whole competition will win a Grand Prize -- £125 (or about $250) worth of MOO products including the new Mosaic Frame

It's easy - and should be fun. At the end of it all, we'll make a People Powered Ready Made pack of Greeting Cards, which you or anyone else will be able to buy. AND money from each pack sold will go to charity, but more on that in a day or two.

Sound good? Hope so, because here's the first photo, taken by Vox_Efx.

All you need to do now is think of your caption, and post it in the moo.com blog comments to win a prize - woof woof!

The Rules:
First off this is just a fun little competition so we shouldn’t have too many rules, but we need a few to make it fair.

Keep the captions clean please - imagine my Mum might receive one of these cards. The MOO judges decide if the caption IS clean.

Everyone can play provided you follow rule number 1.

Anyone can win except the MOO Crew (i.e. people who work and get paid by MOO)

If two people write the exact same caption (we hope that doesn’t happen) and it is chosen as a winner, the caption we receive first wins.

Only one of your captions can be chosen to win, but enter a lot because that might help your chance of winning.

All submissions must be in by October 27, 2008 at midnight London, England time. (that’s 7pm for folks in New York or Toronto and 4pm for those in San Francisco or Vancouver)

The best captions are picked by our internal panel of judges through a secret vote. Joy will watch that we don’t cheat.

Grand prize will be chosen by secret vote cast by the MOO Crew (again, that’s people who work at MOO). Joy will watch that no one cheats.

Winners will be announced on October 31st (oooh Hallowe’en)

No whinging or whining please.

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Open Letter to Rep. DeGette and any other member of Congress

nobody@vox.com(John Gaskell) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 00:29:08 -0600

Here is an email I just sent off to Rep. Diane DeGette, my Congresswoman:

Dear Rep. DeGette,

I appreciate your taking time to write the letter back to all of the concerned constituents that I am sure contacted you regarding the Wall Street Bail Out. And by now, I think you are beginning to see why we are angry. We are angry because Congress has once again added trillions of dollars to our national debt to bail out organizations that will not survive regardless of what we do. The culture on Wall Street is corrupt and un-sustainable.

The entire premise of Adam Smith's creation of free market capitalism is that each entrepreneur, each business, indirectly helps themselves and their fellow man. The baker helps himself by making and selling bread and helps his fellow man by feeding him. The premise requires that greed, corruption are kept in check by the proprietor and moral behavior is followed. Without this proper moral compass, free market capitalism, in its purest form cannot function. Executives of many large corporations have lost their moral compass to the mandate of maximizing share holder profits in the short term and ensuring maximum bonuses for the corporate elite. Since they are incapable of moral behavior, we must then regulate them.

I believe one way to reduce the greed of Wall Street is to take away the temptation. I would suggest you author a bill NOW that would mandate a maximum executive compensation for all public companies. If this will not fly, make the law apply to those that make bids on government contracts or receive federal bail-out assistance; Basically, any company that receives federal dollars must agree to a maximum executive compensation agreement of no more than say, 20 times their lowest employee's salary. Want to increase your pay? Increase the salary of the workers below you.

Please let me know what your thoughts are on this proposal. I believe now is the time to make a change in the culture of business in America. This proposal will help the American workers, shareholders and help regain the public's trust in publicly traded companies.
Thank you,

John Gaskell

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New Mosaic Frame, for MiniCards!

nobody@vox.com(Moocards) — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 10:19:15 -0600

*********
UPDATE: That was quick! We've sold out of the first batch - but we have more on the way and are hoping they'll be available to buy on Monday! Sorry for any disappointment. When we said we had a 'limited number' - this wasn't quite the limited we meant - there are more to come, please bare with us.
*********

Hi, my name is Paul Thorogood and I'm the Product Designer at MOO. I'm the person who designs everything you physically get to play with - from packaging to products, like the new Mosaic Frame.

Moo presents Mosaic Frame -

As you can see in the video, the Mosaic Frame is a fun, easy way to display your MiniCards - and, just like the MiniCards, every frame can be different.

You might like to know that we got our inspiration for the Mosaic Frame from you - our customers, and all the amazing ways you've displayed your MiniCards. In the past, we've created acrylic frames to exhibit MiniCard designs at our parties. We liked them so much, and they got such a good reception from our guests, we decided to make them a permanent fixture in our office - and we're always getting comments on how good they look.

Here's a photo taken by Jeff Veen when he popped by the office:

With the Mosaic Frame, we wanted to create something unique, versatile and easy-to-do, because we found the acrylic frames were time consuming and a little complicated. We also wanted to let people display their MiniCards in landscape or portrait format, within the same frame - because not all your cards are the same way up, as we'd seen in the photos in the pool.

And so the new Mosaic Frame shouldn't be thought of as one frame, but as 20 MiniFrames inside a larger one, which create a pattern. This pattern allows each individual MiniFrame to be shuffled around into different positions - landscape or portrait with no gaps. There's a huge variety of ways to lay out your cards, and even the frame itself can be hung in a landscape or portrait position.

You can find out more about the frame or check out these top tips for assembly.

Top Tips when assembling Mosaic Frame

1. Assembly or handling
When assembling or handling, make sure your hands and the surrounding area are clean and free from dirt or dust! (Dirt can get trapped in between the two panels and can be hard to remove). And remember - to remove or handle the clear front panel and avoid getting unsightly finger prints, always lift the panel with both hands flat against the opposite thin edges.

2. Which way up?
Make sure you have your frame in the correct orientation (landscape or portrait) before removing screws - the 'keyholes' are located on the reverse of the white panel, and are used to hang the frame. For the correct orientation, make sure these are at the top.

3. Lay it down
Assemble and dismantle the Mosaic Frame on a flat surface, to prevent movement and loss of components. (The frame should come with the screw heads (male screws) located at the front of the frame). Always close frames on a flat surface, to stop the screws rolling away!

4. Avoid being charged
When removing the frame from the protective packaging it might become statically charged, making the MiniCards lift out of their frames when replacing the front acrylic panel. To prevent this, wipe with an anti-static cloth (if one is available) or clean with a normal household window cleaner. (Always make sure that both the front and back acrylic panels are dry after cleaning to prevent damaging the card sections of the frame - and try to use a lint free cloth to avoid unwanted fibres getting trapped in between the panels).

5. Laying out your cards
Once you've chosen which way you'd like to hang your Mosaic Frame (landscape or portrait) the next thing to do is work on your design. After practicing this many times, we've found the easiest way to do this is to lay down each MiniFrame in the orientation required specific to the MiniCard chosen, then place the MiniCard in the frame once it is in position. It sounds a bit complicated, but once you start you'll see it's not! The brilliant thing is, if you hang it and don’t like the layout after a week, month or year, simply take down and jiggle it about a bit until you're happy.

6. Be firm - but not too firm!
Always make sure that the screws are fully tightened to prevent movement of the MiniFrames, but be careful not to over tighten as this could damage the acrylic panels or cause them to crack.

7. Hang Ups
Be careful when hanging, not to bump the frame too hard as it could knock the MiniCards out of place. To hang the frame you will either need two screws with rawl plugs, or nails (nails should only be used to hang on a wooden surfaces) to go into the wall. Position the screws/nails 148mm apart to hang portrait and 279mm apart to hang landscape, making sure that the heads are no larger the 9mm in diameter and no smaller than 4mm in diameter. Measure the distance between the screws from the centre of the heads. (As you can guess, I'm quite good at DIY, but don't worry, the frames look really good resting on a shelf too.)

8. Use me and abuse me
When developing theMosaic Frame we came up with numerous things you could use them for including art pieces, presents with a personal touch and picture displays for both the home and office. Please let us know what you do with yours and if you have any photos, feel free to post them to the Flickr Pool, or our Facebook group, as we'd love to see!

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2nd Annual DonorsChoose.org Blogger Challenge

nobody@vox.com(Team Vox) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 16:19:20 -0600

2008 Donors Choose Blogger Challenge

How would you like to make a difference in the life of a public school students?

For the second year in a row, Six Apart is participating in the DonorsChoose.org Blogger Challenge. The challenge runs all throughout the month of October, and we'd love for you to participate along with us. Just as we did last year, Six Apart is sponsoring the award for the bloggers who reach the most kids.

How It Works

The Blogger Challenge is a friendly contest amongst bloggers to raise money for low-income public schools. Here's how it works: teachers from all over the country post items for which they would like funding, such as writing supplies for a journalism class, equipment for a science lab, or music instruments for a band class. Bloggers choose their favorite projects and link to their challenge page in a post or via a giving widget on their blog. The bloggers who raise the most money or reach the most kids will win an award.

Here's how you can participate:

Go to the Donors Choose Blogger Challenge page and find a blogger's giving list you'd like to support.

Set up your own challenge and let your readers know in a blog post or by installing the widget (it just takes a few clicks).

No matter which way you choose to participate, you should feel incredibly proud of yourself for helping to bring resources to students in struggling classrooms.

Donors Choose will announce the results in early November, and we'll reveal the winners of the Six Apart award for bloggers who reached the most students shortly thereafter.

Are you going to accept the Blogger Challenge? Tell us about it (and link to it) in the comments!

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MOO API hacks at BarCampLondon5 - and a winner

nobody@vox.com(Moocards) — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 09:43:18 -0600

Hello, it's Stef here, MOO's CTO. At BarCampLondon5, I gave a session on the beta MOO API. The slides are here. We also held a little competition - the best API hack over the weekend would win a Flip Video Ultra

The entries were as follows:

They're all a little rough and ready (knocked together in hours, in
true barcamp spirit), but they do demonstrate the range of things one
can do quite nicely.

Make MOO postcards via MMS, with a nice little shortcode authentication method too.

by Sam Machin.

Make MOO Postcards from Flickr Sunsets

by Nathan O'Hanlon

Make MOO minicards from Amazon book covers.

by Simon Willison

Generate minicards with your Wii codes on them for sharing

by Dominic Hodgson (and (unnamed) girlfriend)

Ten Word Review Moo cards

which takes reviews from , The Ten Word Review and renders them into cards.

by Neil Crosby

and the winner is...

It was tricky. I like them all, and all demonstrate API superpowers in different ways, but the grand prize goes to...

Ten Word Review Moo cards

Well done, Neil.

I think we'll be having some more competitions soon. I enjoyed that. Thanks to all who entered.

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MOO & People's Music Store - Beautiful beta welcome packs.

nobody@vox.com(Moocards) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 09:12:01 -0600

Because I'm into API fun, (and just like showing off) I wanted you to see a beautiful use of MiniCards the lovely chaps at People's Music Store made up to thank their beta testers.

You all know how much we love people-powered here at Moo, whether it's making personalised gift tags or postcards from your actual holiday instead of boring Scarborough seaside collages (well, maybe I should go on better holidays, but anyway). So what do you get when you put MOO and the People's Music Store together?

At the People's Music Store you add exactly the music you want to your store (they've got lots), start telling people about it and when they buy from it, you get points to spend on more music for yourself. Perfect. Now I'm going to be a bit cheeky, and ask you to check out my own People Powered store and help me save up for the uber-awesome Magnetic Fields release I really really really need ;-)

So, the point, I get to it: imagine my delight after I had been helping beta test the site for them for a while, and in the post one morning was a totally gorgeous package of Moo MiniCards with my store name and link on the back, and my store picture on the front! Also included: a beautiful screen print, stickers and - my favourite bit - a packet of sweets.

Run by six guys over in Soho, who all have impeccable musical pedigrees, throw brilliant parties, and of course all have excellent taste in music, I showed it to Denise, Paul and Alex, the art & design geeks here at Moo, and they all fell in love with it too, especially the personalised letter and screen print by Kate Gibb (in keeping with the musical theme, you may recognise her work from some Chemical Brothers cover art).

The cards were printed using the MOO API, with different text on the back each time (you can do that when you're programming with the API) - with the newest wrapper, Ruminant. Ruminant is written in Ruby by James Darling, and at first it only supported lovely but lonely MiniCards for his People's Music Store project. But then he put his code up on GitHub, the social sourcecode website. He says, "Github's sort of like a code orgy" - uh-huh, and it must be sexy, because before long Tom Armitage found it, extended it, and now it works for stickers too.

I'm told there are other exciting but currently super-secret ideas hatching at People's Music Store and with Ruminant - I don't know what's going to happen, but I hope it involves more sweets.

Ooh - almost forgot! A few of us from MOO will be heading to the Photography Book Now event put on by Blurb on Friday, October 10th in London. It's a celebration of the winners and all entrants behind their People Powered photography book competition (we talked about the competition here). If you're interested, why not join us? Sign up over here: http://pbnmeetupuk.eventbrite.com/?ce=moo

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