xiann.com

Wow, organizing a web portfolio of my work since 1997 has been a big job. I finally opted to just upload some pics to my Flickr account in an effort to get this moving. This is a work in progress, but check it out: Christian’s selected web portfolio 1997-2007

So far, this has been a busy year. To name some of the things that have been going on with Fab Apps:

• We launched a lively Socially Responsible Investing Jobs Board on the Social Investment Forum’s website, in addition to enabling e-commerce on the Forum’s website to power online donations, publications orders, and online events registration.
• We’ve launched our first Facebook app, an “I Voted” sticker for your profile page.
• We helped the Environmental Working Group distribute their first viral Flash widget for their campaign website, PetsForTheEnvironment.org.
• We are just weeks from launching a web design and total web content rewrite for the OMI USA’s Justice, Peace, and Integrity of Creation effort.
• We have located our office at Affinity Lab, a fabulous shared office space in Adams Morgan, full-time.
• But the biggest news is that our free tool for word discovery, Wordage.info, will be ready for the world in just a few weeks!

In addition to my work with Fab Apps, I have been continuing to work with web design firms Digital Division and Unison Agency.

There you have a good bunch of work news. In my personal life, Jim and I have moved from Northern Virginia to Washington, DC. I have grudgingly given up on kung fu classes for now, because the school isn’t near where I live anymore. But I have been drawing a lot, nearly every day, and experimenting more with the charcoal techniques I learned in a drawing class earlier this year. Good times!

By popular demand (including mine) and just because they wanted to, my long-term web host, Dreamhost, has gone carbon-neutral. That means that my websites are now carbon-neutral, too. Yay!

Also, here’s a link to the Inconvenient Truth’s carbon calculator if you want to know what your carbon footprint is. According to this calculator, my carbon output is 3.6 tons per year, and the average American’s is 7.5. Hmm.

It’s 2007! 2006 was a busy year for me, both personally and professionally. Here’s a retrospective on selected web projects I worked on last year. Check it out!

What are your New Year’s Resolutions? Mine involve Kung Fu, a “Survival Trek”, and coding Flash components. Oh wait, that’s just this month! :-)

I’m successfully writing occasional reviews of things to eat, drink, and do on Small Picture again. What’s next? I’m hoping to add a wee bit of new content to this website (xiann.com) sometime soon, and maybe I’ll even update electron zoo again within a week or so.

Empty promises? You’ll never know unless you check back again soon. Please feel free to leave encouraging comments. Laying out at the pool can be very enticing …

Also, check out my sister Sheridan’s brand spanking new sci-tech site, Attack of the Monkey. Does half-assed blogging run in the family? Only time will tell.

Welcome to my latest personal website. It uses Wordpress, a blogging system that I rather like and that Dreamhost (my web host) installs automatically. Very cool.

I haven’t added a lot of content here. All I really did was design the new site, which is based on Red Train (a Wordpress template by Vladimir Simovic), with some photos I took with Jim while we had a great time in a Seattle playground last year. I also wrote a new bio about myself … sort of. (You can judge for yourself.)

I know I haven’t exactly been keeping my blogs up to date (particularly not small picture and electron zoo), but I’ve been busy. I’ve been taking some classes in cartoon art and creative writing (humor writing specifically — so I hope you’re laughing your ass off right now) taught by two fun people, Bill LaRocque and John Kachuba. I’m hoping to put some of my new work from these classes up on this website really soon. (Oh, and I will also eventually update the other stuff too. I swear.)

Also, I’ve made some major progress on Co-op America’s websites (this is my “day job”, which is actually rather cool for a “day job”) — some you may notice; much is behind-the-scenes.

Not to say I didn’t experience any winter slump this year — February is the worst. We really ought to bump it off the calendar or rename it. My suggestions are “hibernation month”, “depression month”, “gain five pounds month”, or perhaps, someday, “Tahiti month”. (I’m particularly fond of that last idea.)

I am a little behind the rest of the Western world, where misery is said to peak around January 24. In any case, I feel great now. Leave me a comment and let me know how you like my latest new website. (Or how you don’t like it, I don’t care.)