Promises and Pearls

Lately I've been fortunate enough to be invited to some very cool and swanky industry events up in San Francisco. You've gotta love SF. The people are so great, the food is superb and on days when the weather is good? It's one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. Sunny, blue skies but with a cool clean breeze that keeps the city from ever being too hot in the fahrenheit sense but never too hot when it comes to style.

So where have I been and who have I seen? Lucky for me the amazing Michelle Barrionuevo-Mazzini, owner of MB Wedding Design, invited me to the Promises and Pearls bridal showcase at the Asian Art Museum where I met wedding photographer Ann Hamilton and went totally gaa gaa over her wedding and pet photography. As many of you know I am CrAzY about my dog so I always feel like a kindred spirit when I find another dog lover to chat with.

Pictured here is the home page to MB Wedding Design. Click on the photo to go take a peek. Her photo gallery is absolutely fabulous.

RSS is Really Cool!

So have you ever noticed the little RSS icon in the the little browser text field where you enter urls when you surf the internet? It stands for Really Simple Syndication.

Usually the icon either looks like this one or the blue one above. When you see it and click on it it allows you to subscribe to the blog or website you are viewing so that each time new content is added you will receive an alert to let you know. Otherwise you have to click over all of the time to see if there's anything new.

I use NetNewsWire for mac. It's a program that basically organizes all of the RSS feeds you subscribe to. If you're on PC you can use Feedreader and download it to your computer. Then you can start subscribing to your favorite blogs, news media outlets and podcasts.

Who has the best boyfriend?

Well I would have to say I do. Not only is he funny and sweet, he's very very supportive of my endeavors and of my becoming a girl geek. Today he totally surprised me with a gift only a Geeky Girl would love! The entire Creative Suite 3 by Adobe!

Adobe InDesign CS3
Adobe Photoshop CS 3 Extended
Adobe Illustrator CS3
Adobe Flash CS3 Professional
Adobe Dreamweaver CS3
Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional

Are all included! Like I said, only a Geek could appreciate the significance of this gift. With a retail price of $1799.00 this was not on my short list of things to purchase in the near future. But I've been so excited to learn Flash and had finally started dabbling in Illustrator. All of these programs will be phenomenal for my web design business and for The Flirty Guide!

I keep getting geekier and geekier and I LOVE it!

If my dog is the cutest dog ever, he's definitely the best boyfriend ever! All in all I'm not just a geeky girl, I'm also one lucky girl!

Satura Cakes

Have you heard of Satura Cakes? Tried their absolutely delicious yummies? Seen their very cute and flirty shop on University Ave. in Palo Alto? I have! My colleague Carl and I went and ate a LOT of cake there yesterday.

Incredibly "light" is the best way to describe their Japanese style cakes and pastries.

From their website: "... The inspiration for our business derived from our surprising realization that the quality of cakes found in bakeries in Tokyo are generally superior to those commonly found in the United States. Japanese pastry chefs have adapted European-style cakes and pastries to the point where they now stand as a separately-identifiable type of cakes..."

Not "too" sweet also comes to mind. The flavors are subtle in a wonderfully rich and natural way. It was an amazing experience that had me making those funny "Mmmmmmmmmm" noises as I sampled dessert after luscious dessert.

The cakes are beautifully displayed on clear trays inside of lit display cases. Something you expect to see at Neiman Marcus, not a bakery. Their merchandising is beautiful and is part of the entire delightful experience that is Satura Cakes.

When we left with the remainder of the desserts boxed up so we could take them home with us I was literally on cloud nine. Make that a Satura marshmallow cloud! Yes, they even make their own marshmallows. I scored as Carl forgot to take his share when he dropped me off at my place. YAY for me!

This morning I made a grand discovery. The Satura to-go box is an exceptionally well designed box indeed! See below for the details!

Easy accesss. Notice how you can reach right in to grab whatever you want?



Or if you're more refined, like mwa, there's a nifty built in fork rest, for when you're eating straight out of the box!



Here's a close-up of the fork rest.




The Palo Alto store front. Grab your friends and go! You'll love it! People are talking and the Reviews are all raves!

Why I Love My Mac

When I got my first computer in 2001 I knew right off the bat I wanted a Mac. I'd heard that they were the computer of choice for graphic designers, and though I didn't know dirt about computers at that point, I knew one day I would be a graphic designer and that I would need a Mac. So I saved up and bought my first Imac G3DV. It was purple and I loved it!

A few years later I upgraded to my first laptop. The ibook. In this day and age with all of the free wireless around town a laptop is an amazing tool. I can work at the coffeshop, in a park, in airports or in the backyard at my house with no cords to worry about.

Recently I upgraded to a Macbook Pro and installed the Windows Operating system so that I could test the websites I'm building on different browsers. Not all browsers are created equal. Which brings me to back to why I love my Mac. Quite frankly I think Safari is the best browser around when it comes to aesthetics and ease of use. Until you view the same webpage in a bunch of different browsers you probably won't understand what I mean. Suffice to say that I love Safari because I love for all of the little details of graphics and layouts to look as visually appealing as possible.

If you've never owned a Mac before, consider it. I've never regretted it and have always felt the slightly higher price was well worth it because the Macs are just so freakishly well designed. You pretty much just pull it out of the box and go. It's that easy.