We will make amazing coffee the way we think it should be made. Full stop. Our way may not be for everyone, and that’s okay: we’re not making coffee for everyone…we’re making coffee for you. For those who value craftsmanship and quality over convenience and cost – we’re your huckleberry.
Handsome Coffe Roasters

Whenever I get to LA this is definitely on my to-do list!

In a new campagin, Sony Ericsson runs fictional product testing on various focus groups. Brilliant idea and very well executed. See more below:

Toddlers

Guidos

Glam Rockers

Surfers

Seniors

Head over to the Sony Ericsson YouTube channel for all the videos.

My top 3 favorite ads from Super Bowl 46

Alright, here’s my annual summary of the best ads from The Super Bowl, but before I get onto the ads let me tell you this: Super Bowl Sunday is a different story in Denmark. I can do with the time zone difference and the fact I have to wait untill the next day for the ads to show up on YouTube, but one thing that truly annoys me is the commentators. For some reason they are danish.

This completely puzzles me. To anyone outside the US, Super Bowl boils down to a 6-hour stereotypical cultural exploration: You’ve got big warrior-like atheletes, an excessive half time show,the most expensive commercials in the World and those legendary commentator voices as the cherry on top.

Why would you ever want to change that? Do they actually think they’re doing us danes a service dubbing out the real commentators?

Anyway ’nuff rambing. Off the the ads:

#1: Audi - Vampire Party

#2: Chevy - Happy Graduate

#3: Bud Light - Here we go

Oh, and the worst one? Without a doubt The Dog Strikes Back from VW. Such a pathetic comeback after the brilliant Darth Vader last year that I won’t even dignify it by commenting further.

Want more? Check out my top 5 from 2011 and YouTube’s Ad Blitz.

What’s your take?

Don’t forget to link to your favorites in the comments of course! Looking forward to hearing your opinions.

Also, how do you think the quality this year compares to last year?

Above is the yearly address in where Matt Mullenweg, the founder of WordPress, talks about their 2011 milestones, predictions and what their new focus points are.

22% of new US domains are running WordPress

As WordPress keeps picking up popularity, especially as a CMS for almost any kind of website – including CNN, Irrational Games, Mozilla and the one you’re browsing right now. It’s definitely a platform to keep your eye on if you’re involved in web design.

“WordPress is not just growing, it’s accelerating ...”

Why I love this open source product

One of the best things I’ve done for my career was starting to use WordPress in my projects as I can now create beautiful, fully content-manageable, websites for my clients. Websites built on a rock-solid platform that has been tested and tried by thousands of companies and literally billions of visitors.

By relying on this ready-made highly adaptable software I keep my focus on the things I do best; concept and design, knowing I am building on top of a solid foundation.

This leads to better and easier-to-use websites for my clients.

Get your Facebook profile as a book

The Social Memories app will turn your Facebook data into a 28 page long, professionally bound, book filled with infographics about … well, you.

How Social Memories work

You simply permit the app to fetch your Facebook data and set a time frame(one year for instance). Then kick back for a minute or two while it finishes up. Your book is now ready – pretty cool!

– The printed versions costs 19€.

Zite is a personal news feed that gets smarter as you use it

This free app is one of the most interesting news aggregators I’ve seen. It relies on an algorithm to decide what content is relevant to you based on other news, articles, blogs and videos you like. I’ve used it for a couple of days now and I’m very impressed with it so far.

It has been described as The smartest magazine yet by Mashable.

Zite is a personalized magazine for your iPad that automatically learns what you like and gets smarter as you use it. Zite gives you personalized news, articles, blogs, videos and other content from a variety of both mainstream and niche publications and sites. Zite can personalize by syncing with your Twitter or Google Reader account or on its own.

Zite app on The App Store

How it works

1. Hook up your Twitter and Google Reader accounts (optional)
2. Wait a couple of seconds while Zite figures out which news categories are relevant to you based on the kinds of articles you subscribe to on Google Reader and which users you follow on Twitter.
3. Keep using the Personalization sidebar so Zite can fine-tune what content to gather.

What is your favorite news aggregator?

How do you stay updated? Do you use Flipboard or news.me? I use a mix of Twitter, Flipboard, Zite and Reeder to keep in touch with the news relevant to me.

Twitter is fast and easy to browse. It’s also a great social networking tool.

Flipboard is the most beautifully designed of the bunch and the one i will usually spend most time in because it handles all my platforms in one place.

Reeder is for browsing my Google Reader feed. Usually all the web design related articles i subscribe to.

Zite is a new one for me, but I’m very excited to see how intelligent it after a couple of months. The cool thing about Zite’s algorithm is that it finds articles from news sources and blogs you’ve probably never even heard of. None of the other apps do that.

Read more about Zite and get the app

• Zite app official website
• Zite app on the app store
• Review by The Wall Street Journal
• Video Review by FOX Mobile

Your must-have iPad applications

We all love the iPad (Well, most of us anyway) but without apps the iPad wouldn’t be worth much. Here are my top 5 iPad apps.

Flipboard - Your news in a wonderful wrapping

Flipboard is essentially nothing more than a news feed, but in a wonderful wrapping. Flipboard supports lots of different sources like Facebook, twitter, flickr, Google Reader, and lots of Flipboard feeds. What makes Flipboard stand out from the horde of other feed-apps is the design. It takes whatever feed you wish to see and applies a beautiful design, which makes it feel like you’re not just reading a bunch of pointless Facebook status updates, but makes it feel like flipping through a magazine. And it’s free!
Flipboard in the App Store

Aweditorium - The app for indie music

Aweditorium is THE app for anyone who likes indie music. When you start it up it selects a track from the database at random and starts playing. Every track is spiced with photos and small graphic facts about the band or artist you’re listening to. You can even switch it to lyrics-mode for most songs by tapping the screen. All content is provided by the artists themselves. The music is great and the user interface is simple yet beautiful. Most tracks even include a video with some extra content, be it a live performance from the band, video blog or something completely different. It’s a great way to discover new music or enjoy the music you’ve already discovered, and one of the best Apps for iPad I’ve ever seen.
Aweditorium in the App Store

LIFE and Guardian Eyewitness

The people who know Life Magazine all know that some of the best photographers in the world over the years, have worked for Life. Their iPad app gives the user free access to hundreds of galleries with Life’s best pictures, covering almost any genre. But be careful – once you open this app and start flicking through the pictures it’s hard to stop. There are so many breathtaking and beautiful pictures that even after spending a lot of hours browsing, I still discover new pictures all the time. Every picture is accompanied by a short text explaining the story behind it, and it makes for very interesting reading. New galleries are added often so you’re sure not to run of stuff to look at for a long time.

The Guardian Eyewitness is the “one-picture-a-day” app from the British newspaper. Where Life offers loads of pictures this app only gives you one picture a day – But what a picture! Each picture tells its own unique story, and they look stunning.

Life in the App Store
The Guardian Eyewitness in the App Store

Project - Interactive magazine

Project is Virgin-entrepreneur Richard Branson’s new iPad magazine. So far five issues have been published, and each more breathtaking than the last. Project gives digital magazines a whole new dimension, using video, audio, and the iPad’s built-in functions to the fullest. The app is free, but each issue costs around 3 dollars, which is a very fair price considering the amount of content you get. Project is made exclusively for the iPad and was even featured on the demo models of the iPad when Apple announced the next line of tablets. Project has a very informal tone, and it’s just a joy to read and look at.
Project in the App Store

Evernote - Great notetaking app

If you’re like me and believe that the iPad can be used for work as well as fun, you need Evernote. As the name implies, Evernote is a notepad but much better than the standard one Apple offers. You can add pictures and audio to your notes, put them in to notebooks, sort by geotag, use tags and much more. It also syncs with the Evernote servers, which means that when you create a note on your iPad it’s also on your smart phone and your computer. So even if you forget your iPad with all your notes at home right before an important meeting, you just get out your phone or laptop and it’s all right there. It’s quick, easy, and works perfectly.
Evernote in the App Store

What’s your favorite iPad Apps?

We would love to hear from you. What are the best iPad apps to you and why? Do you use you iPad for work, fun or both?

Also, a big thanks to Jeppe Olesen who guest-blogged this article! Check out his Twitter profile and let him know what you think.

A Technique for Producing Ideas

This book reveals the process your brain goes through when it comes up with ideas. It makes it tangible and teaches you to take control of the process. Being only 48 pages long, It’s a very quick read. It actually feels more like an article or a long blog post than a book, but in those 48 James Webb Young manages to concise idea-creation into a conscious 5-step process.

The 5 steps of idea generation

1. Gathering of materials and information
2. Working over those materials in your head trying to combine bits of information into a new idea
3. Giving up, putting it aside and letting your subconscious work on it while you stimulate your consciousness with something completely different. Be it a movie, a book or anything else as long as it keeps your mind active.
4. The idea pops into your head at any random time. Often while half-asleep or in the shower
5. Shaping and developing the idea. Sharing it with others and applying the feedback.

I greatly enjoyed reading through this one, so for your own sake, please go pick up a copy :)

You can browse the book and check reviews on Amazon.

It’s is always inspirational to hear people talk about something they truly love — Here’s 12 minutes of pure happiness from the proprietor of Galcos Soda Pop Stop.

I Found this on Inspirations Ministeriet.

In this talk from RSA Animate, Sir Ken Robinson lays out the link between 3 troubling trends: rising drop-out rates, schools’ dwindling stake in the arts, and ADHD. An important, timely talk for parents and teachers.
The RSA YouTube channel

What’s your opinion?

Is our educational system outdated? Is the current system one that doesn’t benefit the majority of the students? Are we stuffing our kids with dangerous ADHD medication for no reason? Is the system killing creative thinking in favor of rationalization?

One thing that really struck me, is the idea that we organize our school classes by age rather than by individual interrests, skills or working patterns. It seems that age is the least important of those traits, so why is that the key factor?

Liked this video?

Ken Robinson did a similar video in 2009 called Do Schools Destroy Creativity where he draws the parallel between schools and prison camps. He’s talking about how kids are tought to fear authority and compete for prestige based on consumerist values.

Embed your own video player on Facebook

Facebook and the Open Graph Protocol allows you to define special meta data on your web pages that defines them in Facebook’s social graph. In this post i’ll show you how to set up the meta tags required for you to use a custom video player on Facebook, styled exactly like you want it. It will show up, and play, directly within Facebook status updates whenever someone shares the web page containing that meta data. Pretty cool, huh?

iPhone and iPad support

This method allows for HTML5 fallback which makes the video work on iPhones, iPads and other non-Flash devices. Even inside the native Facebook iPhone app — My example is set up with a HTML5 fallback to show that functionality.

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<!-- Open Graph tags -->
<meta property="og:title" content="Circular scrubbing video player" />
<meta property="og:description" content="A video player interface experiment, which features circular scrubbing and a very minimal design." />
<meta property="og:type" content="video" />
<meta property="og:url" content="http://ahrengot.com/playground/circular-scrubbing"/>
<meta property="og:image" content="http://ahrengot.com/playground/circular-scrubbing/thumb.jpg"/>
<meta property="og:site_name" content="Ahrengot's Playground"/>
<meta property="fb:admins" content="100000936142315"/>
 
<!-- Video player specific OG tags -->
<meta property="og:video" content="http://ahrengot.com/playground/circular-scrubbing/video-player.swf?url=http://ahrengot.com/playground/circular-scrubbing/assets/video/example.mp4" />
<meta property="og:video:width" content="374" />
<meta property="og:video:height" content="202" />
<meta property="og:video:type" content="application/x-shockwave-flash" />

That’s it – If this was of any help to you, or you have any questions, I’d really appreciate your feedback in the comments. Oh, and if you like the video player in my example it’s available on Envato marketplaces: Video player with circular scrubbing.

“Konkreet Performer is a music control and performance instrument for the iPad. Its unique and intuitive multi-touch interface reconnects the musician’s actions directly with the music. Use PERFORMER to play your Synth, operate your DAW, or anything that receives OSC or MIDI. Re-explore your favorite music software tools with a whole new way to search, find and perform your sound.”
Konkreet Labs on Vimeo

You can find Konkreet Performer on the App Store.

Art Project takes Google Street View indoors

As you’ll see in the video above, Google’s latest project is a cool new discovery tool for art lovers, which enable you to explore the worlds museums in an almost virtual reality kind-of-way.

Google captured the museums using their street view technology, so the navigation is exactly like you’re used to. Google Art Project also features some “Super high-resolution images” of the most famous paintings. These high-res photos will allow you to see the paintings in even more detail than you can with the naked eye.

Have a look at Google Art Project

YouTube’s annual gallery of Super Bowl® commercials is BACK! It’s that time of year. Watch the game. See the commercials. Find the commercials online and share them with your friends.
SuperBowl XLV Ad Blitz

Below are a few of my favourites from the blitz

Dr. House: You're the best ever!

VW: The Force

Sealy Mattress: After Glow

Coca-Cola: Siege

What’s your impression?

Personally, I think the standard is pretty high this year compared to 2010, where Parisian Love was my favorite, but I’d love to hear what you guys think!

The Shape of Design

Frank Chimero has decided to write a book about design. Not so much from a visual stand point, but rather talking about the storytelling processes behind design.

He used Kickstarter for funding and has already broken way through his goal of $27.000 with the video above.

Looking forward to reading this one :)