Kimonostereo's Blog

San Diego Comic-Con 2010 - I survived!

2010-08-01T21:35:53Z

It's been about a week since we got back from Comic-con, and I think I've finally had enough time to reflect on it and take it all in.

In a word, Comic-con is overwhelming. It's 120,000 + attendees and we're a tiny blip on that map! The last time we were here was three years ago, when we took the train in for a Saturday while we were on vacation. One day is not nearly enough time to do an event of this magnitude. Walking the exhibit hall with crowded corridors and exhibits makes it even more time consuming.

This time was different. This time we'd be at Comic-Con for the entire event and we'd also be exhibiting. Being an exhibitor is a totally different experience than being an attendee, and gives you a very different perspective of the convention.

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It was great to see some old friends and make new ones. I always get excited to meet fellow comickers, I just wish I had more time to chat with them. A bunch of us in Small Press were first time exhibitors, so we weren't alone at all!

It was really nice meeting Mike Maihack of Cleopatra in Spaaaaace! Aside from being really down to earth, he has a really great style that caught my eye a while ago. Some of you may remember him from Cow and Buffalo which is also a very good read.

I was excited to see Debbie Huey of BumperBoy fame. If you're looking for a kid friendly comic, I couldn't suggest a better one. BumperBoy and his cast of characters are simply adorable! I wish Debbie would do it as a webcomic so I could read more of his adventures. I bought three of her latest books from her table and we got to chat a bit too. It was good to catch up! She also had a few needle-felted versions of her characters that were ultra cute!

It was really great to talk to Raina Telgemeier and Dave Roman at last! Although I didn't ever see them together at the same time. Raina is the author of Smile, one of the top selling graphic novels this year! I had a chance to chat with Raina for a bit at the Flight booth, where Kazu and Amy Kibuishi were at as well. I also finally got introduced to Baby Juni! Kazu is currently working on the 4th Amulet book and Amy is working on her first novel.

We also got to chat it up with Patara from Vuduberi who is just the sweetest! She had some ultra cute penguin plush as well as a furry Yetti! Although we couldn't find PMBQ of Pandaline, she came and found us! It was fun catching up :-) Deb Aoki from manga.about.com came by to say hello and dropped off treats for Audra and I! We are so blessed to have these friends.

Other folks we said hello to were Meredith Gran (Octopus Pie), R. Stevens (Diesel Sweeties), Scott Kurtz (PVP), Dan Goodsell (Mr. Toast), Scott Brown (SpicyBrown) to name a few.

Working Comic-con was really grueling, but I can honestly say it was fun. Our hotel was a mile or so away from the convention center. Each morning we'd catch the trolley in and we'd walk back after dinner. It didn't seem so far with so many people everywhere and so much to see along the way.

But aside from all that name dropping, let's get to heart of the Comic-con fun! Photos! I've uploaded some of the photos I took during my short jaunts around the exhibit floor. I wish I had more time to see more things, but I did have a good time anyway.

My comic-con photos are here.

See photos of the folks we met here.

Obama Looking at Awesome Things

2010-04-04T21:59:51Z

This was just too good to not share!

More images here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dryponder/sets/72157623726710218/

The Unicorn Has Landed!

2010-03-30T18:56:49Z

After a short wait of 3 months, it's finally here! This is an Ernie Ball / Music Man Albert Lee dual humbucker in classic white. I dubbed her the "Unicorn" because there were only mysterious photographs of her being played by the owners of Ernie Ball / Music Man on their forums. No one knew when this guitar would actually come out. Well it's finally here!

More photos here: Albert Lee HH Photos.

Restringing Day

2010-03-27T21:51:11Z

Decided to clean up an restringing the Edwards JP "Les Paul".

Serpentine: Journey meets Whitesnake

2010-03-27T19:20:38Z

Enjoying this recently. It's like Steve Perry with bleached hair, beard and tattoos!

More from Serpentine here. Check out "A Touch of Heaven".

iPad GET

2010-03-12T20:54:17Z

So I woke up at 3:30 am HST to order / reserve my iPad. That's 5:30 am for all you West Coast folks.

I got the WiFi 32GB version.

You're welcome.

Taking a break

2010-03-12T19:29:09Z

This week has been so busy with deadlines! We decided to take a break and get something from Satura Cakes.

I had a craving for Hokulani Bakery red velvet cupcakes, but alas, they weren't open. These did just fine.

SMILE by Raina Telgemeier

2010-02-16T04:41:43Z

I was first introduced to Raina Telgemeier's work when we paid a visit to the San Diego Comic Con back in 2007. It was our first trip to the comic con, and we only had a day to spend there so we wanted to make the most of it. Audra was very excited to pick up a copy of Raina's adaption of the Ann M. Martin's The Baby-Sitters Club graphic novel. Audra was a fan of Raina's work and was excited to finally meet her. Unfortunately we couldn't track her down and things were really crazy that Saturday that she didn't get a chance to meet her.

Flash forward to today and now we own all 4 volumes of The Baby-Sitters Club graphic novels as well as a couple of pages of original artwork from one of the books! (Yes, we are huge fans!) We both follow Raina on twitter and had been anxiously awaiting her new graphic novel called SMILE to be released.

]]> SMILE is an autobiographical dental drama that takes place during Raina's childhood. The story is quite personal, and at times caught me off guard. I literally cringed while reading of the horrific accident that damaged her two front teeth, but this provides the nucleus for the story that unfolds. While painful to read at times, there are lighter moments too. Raina, like everyone, experienced the ups and downs of middle school as well as the joys and hardships of friendships and crushes. Raina does a really awesome job capturing the nuances of what it was like to grow up in her shoes. For me, it was like going through middle and high school all over again.

There are times when SMILE felt so deeply personal, that I almost felt guilty. It was like sneaking a peak at Raina's diary... but therein lies the charm of this book. While I have never had braces or dental horror stories of this magnitude, I can empathize and almost feel the pain that she went through. I cringed and laughed, uncomfortably at times because I can recall what it was like growing up and could relate entirely to the story that was unfolding as I read.

This really is a story of turning lemons into lemonade. Telgemeier could have simply lived her life without sharing these experiences with us, and that would've been that. Instead, she gives us a deep, personal look into what it was like living through multiple years of dental work and the pains and joys of each experience. Children picking up this book that are going through any of the same situations no matter how small or severe, will probably be relieved to know that they aren't alone.

SMILE had it's start as a webcomic before Scholastic scooped it up and put it on it's Graphix imprint. While the webcomic was done in black and white, the book is done up in dazzling full color. Raina's style is light and so fluid- a perfect match for the young characters she is drawing and the story that is being told. Most enjoyable was her hilarious view of how her dentists worked on her teeth as well as getting her first set of false front teeth. That said, I think many will enjoy reading this book even if you've never had braces or dental work done. The photo at the very end is worth the entire read. I know it will make you SMILE!

SMILE by Raina Telgemeier
224 pages, Full-color
Ages 9 - 13 (Adults will enjoy it to -Scott)
Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-0545132053
Paperback ISBN-13: 978-0545132060

Full disclosure: By clicking on the links below and purchasing any of these books, you will be helping nemu*nemu!

How We Made the nemu*nemu App

2010-02-09T10:02:00Z

How to make your own iPhone Webcomics app

We had been toying with the possibility of a nemu*nemu iPhone App since the iTunes App Store launched but had no idea how to go about building our own app. For a while, I thought having our own app would mean I'd have to learn Cocoa and figure out the iPhone API. While I could probably do it, it would take a lot of time and effort... and I don't know about you but I don't really have much extra time outside from my day job and nemu*nemu.

So it was to my utter delight that we launched the nemu*nemu iPhone app this week! (or rather, iTunes released it for us.) The entire process took about a month or so in between my other projects, and constant testing and re-testing to ensure the app worked the way we wanted it to.

How did we do it?

Guy Kawasaki, one of my personal heroes, tweeted about how he made his own iPhone app, quickly and more important, easily. He used a company called AppMakr which specializes in creating iPhone / iPod Touch apps using RSS feeds and graphics that you provide. AppMakr was able to create a bunch of iPhone apps for the various topics from his AllTop website. Fascinated, I decided to check it out myself. I was quite amazed at how easy it was to make an iPhone app using AppMakr.

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Create the World

Making an app with AppMakr is fairly straight forward. You create graphics for your iTunes avatar/icon (512 x 512 png), a splash page (320 x 480 jpg) and a header (320 x 46 jpg) if you want. You then supply AppMakr with an RSS feed from your website that you want them to publish into the app. You can even include advertising from Admob or even Google Adsense if you'd like to get affiliate ad sales.

You can test out your app right on AppMakr's website using their iPhone simulator. Once you like what you see, you can then publish your app by paying AppMakr the publishing fee. AppMakr will then review your app then send it to Apple for review. Once Apple approves your app it will appear in the iTunes store for all to download.

How much does it cost?

AppMakr has two levels of pricing: $199 if published under AppMakr or $499 if published under your very own Publisher Account. By choosing the $199 option, AppMakr will be listed as your iPhone / iPod app publisher. There is no further cost to you to create your app. Your app will be available for FREE in the iTunes app store.

The $499 option is geared toward folks who have a Apple Developers Account and want to have the app published under their name and have control over the publishing process as well as setting a price for the actual app. This is not only more expensive but also a bit more complicated to do.

We chose the $199 option because we wanted the app to be free to everyone, and mostly because it was the cheaper option of the two.

So how easy was it?

The actual making the app with AppMakr was really simple. Getting the RSS feeds and sections in the app working the way I wanted them to was the hard part.

AppMakr's interface is basically a webform that you fill out. You upload an icon. You upload a splash screen. You paste in a RSS feed then choose an icon that represents that RSS feed and that's about it. The hard part was creating the different sections of the app and getting them to work the way I envisioned it.

Unfortunately, AppMakr doesn't currently have a template that will link to static webpages. It can only grab content from an RSS feed. While most of nemu*nemu's sections have RSS/atom feeds, there were a few things that I wanted to build into the app didn't have one, such as the comic archives. While I could have simply create an RSS feed that loaded all of the comics since 2006, that really wouldn't have created a great user experience and would probably put a strain on the server each time it was loaded. (Not to mention take forever to load over a 3G or EDGE connection.)

Instead, I had to figure out a way to embed the static page elements into an RSS feed, then somehow get the RSS feed to update automatically for me. Luckily, nemu*nemu uses Movable Type as its foundation. With a little time and effort I figured out how to create a new RSS template with the comics archives in separate chapters. Once that was done, I easily adapted this to my other static pages.

Next, I ran into some issues with the iPhone app simulator on AppMakr's website. I had created a special "thumbnail" for each nemu*nemu comic that featured just the first frame. The AppMakr iPhone simulator kept creating a thumbnail of the entire comic instead of showing that first frame. It drove me crazy because I kept redoing my entire RSS feed since I thought -I- was doing something wrong. I finally decided to email AppMakr support, who told me that the iPhone simulator had some limitiations but that it SHOULD work once I published my app.

If I wanted to be absolutely sure the app worked the way I wanted it to, I was told that I should register for an Apple Developers account. Once I had an Apple Dev account, I would be able to build my apps and test them on my iPhone as many times as I wanted to before submitting the App for publishing. An Apple Developers account costs $99 a year, which is an added cost but in the end it was worth it because I got to beta test my own app until I was absolutely sure it worked the way I wanted it to. This is NOT something you have to do, and it is kinda complicated to set up. However, if you are a stickler for perfection - like me - it's an investment you should make.

I built the nemu*nemu app 18 times before I was satisfied with it and paid to release it for publishing. The best part was that Audra and I got to really play with the app first hand.

Caveats

There are drawbacks to using AppMakr. One of them is that they are extremely popular right now and are getting swamped with app builds. I know they are increasing their staff to handle the demand though. Although it might sound unfair to call this a drawback, if you need answers right away for questions not covered in their documentation or FAQ, it might be.

Another is that once your app is published, you cannot update it unless you pay to do an update. AppMakr hasn't stated how much an update would cost, but I'm hoping as they get more clients the price will be lower than the $199 to build an app.

If you plan to charge for your app, you'll have to go through the process of getting an Apple Developers account and paying $499 to create your app. I haven't investigated this option, but I did go through the process of getting my Apple Developers account. That part was easy. Creating the certificates and authentication details to work with AppMakr was difficult, although it is all documented on their website.

If you are looking to support all versions of the iPhone OS and iPod Touch, you are out of luck. AppMakr's builds only work on version 3.0 of the iPhone/iPod Touch OS and support ONLY the 2nd generation and up iPod Touch devices. According to AppMakr, this is a hardware limitation of the 1st generation device. I have already heard from a few disappointed nemu*nemu readers and I've already seen a one star rating on iTunes because the app will not work on their first generation iPod Touch. So if you are looking for the widest compatibility, you'll have to look elsewhere for now.

Update: This would probably only affect webcomic developers but it I thought I would mention it anyway. AppMakr apps can cache rss content so you can view your app when there is no wireless / 3G connection, but it doesn't cache images which are actually links to images in your RSS feed. This means folks will be able to read your blog entries and other text based RSS feeds material but anything that requires images to be fetched from a server will not show up unless there is some sort of internet connection. Not a deal breaker, but something to be aware of.

Will you make an iPhone app?

So now that you have a snapshot of what it took for us to create the nemu*nemu iPhone app, you can decide if it's something you'd like to do as well. It was a really easy way to create an iPhone app and I can only imagine that they will be adding more features in the future.

The good folks at AppMakr also gave me a little gift to share with all of you who are interested in building your own iPhone app: Use the code NEMUNEMU and get $50 off your app build until February 28, 2010!

I hope you all have fun making your iPhone apps!

Thoughts on iPad

2010-01-28T21:25:08Z

After almost 2 years of speculation, Apple Inc released their first product in a new category called the iPad.

With so much hype and anticipation, it was almost impossible for Steve Jobs and company to fulfill everyones expectation of what this device could/should be. It wasn't very long before comparisons to other products began and folks started pointing out what they saw as shortcomings of the device. Voices from all over the interwebs quickly made comparisons to netbooks and others began calling it a "Bigger iPod Touch".

]]> First of all, for full disclosure purposes, I am an Apple follower. My primary job (employment) is taking care of over 100 Apple Macintosh computers and servers at a private school. I also own shares of Apple Inc. stock. That said, I have not yet tried the iPad, nor have seen it other than the pictures and videos that are scattered across the net.

"You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new." - Steve Jobs

It's not about what's missing.

The internet is abuzz with everything that is missing from the iPad. It doesn't have a camera. It's to heavy. It doesn't have HDMI. It doesn't do multitasking, and so on. If we take a look back at 2007, the same thing happened with the iPhone.

The internet declared that features missing from the iPhone would lead to it's doom. The iPhone circa 2007 had no 3G, no MMS, no copy/paste, no apps. Many predicted it would fail or that announced that they wouldn't buy one because of these shortcomings. We all know how that turned out, right? The biggest thing to remember here is that in 2007, right after the announcement, NO ONE had even held one in their hands or tried one out. The demo units were all behind a glass. There were no sample units for anyone to touch.

Today we know that the iPhone was a huge success... a 40 million sold and growing kinda success. Yeah.

iPad like the iPod?

I think what some folks are feeling with the iPad is liken to my first notion of the iPod back in 2001. When Steve Jobs walked out on stage and introduced the iPod, I thought it was the stupidest thing for Apple to do. I really thought that Apple was losing it. "Why in the world did they bring out an mp3 player? And why is it so expensive?!" were my words before even trying it out. It was only after I reluctantly tried an iPod out in the Apple Store did I understand how cool it really was. The feel of it in my hands and the way it operated were just amazing. It was simple and elegant and I just had to have it. I bought it on the spot... and eventually so did millions of other people.

Update: Read forum reactions to Apple's 2001 Announcement of the iPod and see if there are any similarities to today.

If you read the blogs of anyone that actually had hands on with the iPad yesterday, you know how each had their own opinions of the device before the hands on. It's what they said or wrote after the hands on that really caught my attention. Almost all of them said it's something you have to touch and experience to really understand. They also mentioned how fast it was!

I believe that this is one of those devices you'll just have to try for yourself in order to understand what it means to you. Not reading about it. Not imagining what it's like. Not watching videos of it, but actually using it with your own hands. It's not about what features are missing. The things we feel are missing today, will be here before we know it. Then folks will move on to the next thing and this will happen all over again. No one is ever satisfied with tech, right?

What folks are missing

I think there are two things that most folks missed about Apple's iPad announcement.

The first is that they are using their very own processor, the Apple A4. Why is this important? Apple now controls all the ingredients to their pie. They no longer have to rely on anyone else's off the shelf microprocessor that might have specs that are "close" to what they are looking to use it for. Instead, they built a custom made one just for the iPad. By fabricating a chip set of their own, they can now control the speed, the battery life and just about any of the intricacies that might have been limiting using an off the shelf processor from Intel or anyone else. Apple's R&D will pay off because I do not think there is any other mobile device maker that actually controls all of the pieces of what they make the way Apple does. From industrial design, to the OS, then the battery and now the processor. Apple controls it all to bring an elegant user experience.

I can only imagine that Apple will be fabricating their own chip set for the next iPhone and iPod Touch. The Apple A4 was a huge step forward and probably one of the most important announcements that was overlooked yesterday.

Second is the iPad OS. Sure it might look just like what you're used to in an iPhone but it goes even deeper now. Whether you know it or not, the iPad is preparing you for the future of computing. The iPhone and iPad do something that I didn't even notice at first. It obscures the entire file system from you. The user experience is so well thought out that you don't even bother to worry about where your files are stored, unlike in a regular computer. We spend less time worrying about files and more time using the device.

Thinking about this made me realize that the iPad is exactly what a lot of people want. A computer that does the things easily and elegantly; without fear or worry that you'll mess something up. The iPad OS is so nice, I think even my grandparents could use it without much trouble. There are no discs to install, no virus to be afraid of, no files to accidentally misplace. It just does what it's meant to do. This to me, is the future of computing... where the abstraction of the underlying "computer" is removed from the user experience. Perhaps one day, computers as we know them today will be only for professionals who need file level access to do their jobs.

Lastly, yes, I am getting one. I don't have to touch it to know that this is the next step in mobile computing. I am not entirely sure where the iPad will take me, but I'm going to find out.

Karate Kid

2009-12-27T18:44:08Z

Audra wasn't feeling that great yesterday, so last night we just lay in bed and watched a streaming movie a la Netflix. I hadn't seen Karate Kid since I was about 20 or so and it was a long time since Audra saw it as well.

In my head I had the notion that the movie was just really corny one liners in a Japanese accent by Noriyuki "Pat" Morita: "wax on, wax off", "left circle, right circle", etc. While those lines were there in the movie, they didn't end up sounding so corny after seeing the entire film again.

]]> I'll spare you the review of the entire movie since most of you have seen it already and know how it ends. Although it was made in the 80's, I felt that it held up pretty well. I commented to Audra that they no longer make these types of movies where there is a pretty innocent love story intertwined with the main focus. It's all about getting it on nowadays.

I do think that the Karate competition resembled more of a free style ultimate fighting for teens and it seemed awfully ethnically unequal for a "Karate" competition. That said the rest of the movie was really well done and I think we can thank Pat Morita for some authenticity throughout, 'cept for that "crane move" at the end. I never, ever saw that when I was taking Karate.

The lessons taught by Mr. Miyagi weren't about fighting or winning, it was about balance and life. Something that still applies today.

After we saw the movie, Audra mentioned that there was going to be a remake of this movie. I recall my buddy Wayne mentioning it to me as well. I decided to watch the trailer, and while I usually hold judgement until I see a film, the preview had me quite upset.

You see, they are remaking this movie with Jackie Chan as the Mr. Miyagi character (Mr. Han) and Jayden Smith will be the Karate Kid. This all takes place in.... get this... China. I'll let the trailer speak for itself.

You Can Call Me Al

2009-12-15T20:34:48Z

Well my search is partly over!

At long last I have acquired a Ernie Ball/Music Man Albert Lee in Pink Burst!

It's a 1995 model with a strings-thru-body bridge. It has Lollar pickups: Lollar Blonde for the neck and middle positions and a Lollar Blackface for the bridge with a bridge plate mounted on the pickup.

I got the guitar from a forum member of The Gear Page. He was selling it because he needed the cash. The guitar seems like it was really played as there are some dings, chips and dents on some edges.

I spent some time cleaning it up and then setting it up a bit. Will have more time to actually play the guitar once I've got everything the way I like it.

And now time for some pictures.

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KKS Vacation Day One - Steve Lukather in Concert

2009-10-23T07:20:20Z

Last night was Steve Lukather's birthday bash at the Roxy.

We flew in from Hawaii to LAX and headed straight there after dropping our stuff off at the hotel. Slide Away (Trevor Lukather, Luke's son) opened up for him. It was an awesome performance!

Steve's band set up was what he used for his tour. He had 6 Lukes as far as I could tell: Radiance Red with Black headstock, Dargie I, BFR, Sparkle Black, and Blue Dawn. He played them all at least once. He stuck with the Radiance Red and Dargie I most of the night though.

I was hoping to get Luke's signature on the two rear plates of my Dargie and Black Luke but no luck. Backstage was for VIP's only.

David Paich came out as well as Edward James Olmos (Commander Adama from Battlestar Galactica). It was a majorly awesome night. I just wish I had a chance to meet my hero in person. Seeing him perform live was good enough for me though.

For the first half of the set, I was right in front of the house speakers. Toward the end middle of the show it became a loud mush that was intollerable. Luke sounded way better throught the monitors on stage.

Luke was funny and had a great time with the audience. Really enjoyed his rendition of Mike Landau's "Buzzed" but I really enjoyed Luke singing his own tunes the best. He's got a great voice!

Needless to say, it was a dream come true to finally see and hear Luke with his band. It was better than I could have ever hoped. Totally enjoyed myself!

Complete photos from the event can be viewed here: Luke Concert Photos.
Here are some highlights.

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Slide Away

Set List - He played Michael Landau's Buzzed and Pink Floyd's Shine On

Radiance Red

Dargie I

BFR

A shot of Luke's Balls

David Paich

Commander Adama (BSG - Edward James Olmos)

Guitar Collection

2009-10-13T06:59:12Z

I was asked tonight if I had any pictures of all of my guitars together in one picture. I don't, and the main reason is that I have too many and our house doesn't have anywhere large enough to display them all. If I had guitar stands for each of them maybe I could do a photo.

Audra suggested that I take some photos and then maybe make a blog entry for each of them. I think I'll do that. Here is part of the collection in 3 photos. I'll talk about each one in a separate post with some better photos a bit later.

Set 1: Edwards "JP" Les Paul, Ernie Ball Music Man Edward Van Halen, Home Made Telecaster (Ploppercaster), Home made Korinna wood hollow body strat.

Set 2: Schecter Ben Vegas, Fender Baja Tele, Fender Hello Kitty, Fender Eric Johnson.

Set 3. Brian Moore C90P.13 midi guitar, Ernie Ball Music Man Luke 2, Ernie Ball Music Man Luke 2 in Dargie Delight 2.

Mystery Package from Google

2009-09-25T23:38:26Z

I went to the P.O. Box today and found this package waiting for me. It was addressed to Anise Kurobu.

I didn't think too much about it at first. A few fans have actually sent mail addressed to the pups. What made me do a double take was the fact that this package was from Google.

Here is what was inside.

The book is called Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins. It's a book of poetry.

I called Audra to see if she knew what this was about. She had no clue at all!

I noticed there was a bookmark in the book, and it was set to a page that was dog-eared.

The bookmark was for a google service called Google SideWiki. Now here's a mystery!

]]> The package came from Susan Taing who I googled and... sure enough she's the product marketing manager at the big G.

Upon further investigation of the book and the bookmark, I discovered some web sites that finally clued me in on what this was all about. This is a PR campaign that Google is doing for some expert bloggers. It was announced that Google was going to send out a "gift pack" to a few bloggers and the Book is the gift. Not sure how nemu*nemu got on the list but that's fine with me!

The poem that was dog-eared in particular was this one:

Sometimes the notes are ferocious,
skirmishes against the author
raging along the borders of every page
in tiny black script.
If I could just get my hands on you,
Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien,
they seem to say,
I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head.

The PR is specifically for http://google.com/sidewiki/, their new application that allows anyone to comment on any website. There was a write up about the whole marketing campain here and here.

So there we go. Mystery solved.