The ZehnKatzen Times A blog by a Portland graphic deisgner about finding interesting and fun things in design and life and looking for his big payday Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 0 0 101 3471

Articles from The ZehnKatzen Times

[bloggage] Nifty New RSS Button on Header Image 2007-11-23 21:34:00 1147. The RSS button has been added to the head image and and an RSS feed link has been enabled in the image map. Subscribe away, you people–you know that without you, I'm nothing! Technorati Tags: bloggagem,Zehnkatzen,RSS ...

[pdx] Bike Maps for Free 2007-11-23 19:24:00 1146. I love the map Bike There, which is now in a new edition, and $6.00 isn't a big price to pay for the info on how to get around Portland on your two-wheeler. But, odd as it may seem, in this economy, sometimes you don't even have the $6. What to do?The City of Portland has good information available at the city's website, Portland Online, specifically, going to this page will take you directly to the page that not only has Portland cycling maps but also maps for surrounding cities. They are free for downloading but, if you look in the middle of the page you'll find a link where you can put in a mail request. They'll gather up a handful of the maps you want, throw in a couple of pamphlets and a cool bumpersitcker or two, and send it off to you just for the asking. That's right, basic good biking info for the asking. The above photo shows you what you'll get if you ask for the whole banana. And I suggest it; what with fuel prices being what they are, I think ...

[pdx] So, Which Portland Is This? 2007-11-23 04:48:00 1145. Okay, folks, you've been quick and sharp so far. But I have another Portland here. it has about 24,000 people to it, It's served by rail. it has a connection to a certain Lt. Dan. Most importantly, it's not called Portland anymore. What it its current name?UPDATE: Stan guessed correctly. This Portland is known as Blue Island, IL. More, as they say, to come. Technorati Tags: pdx,Portland,Which Portland ...

[info_design, street_blades] Peachtree Corners, Gwinnett Co, Georgia 2007-11-23 03:51:00 1144. Doing a Google search on the keywords sign toppers today, I came on the program that the community association of an area of Gwinnett Country, Georgia known as Peachtree Corners (this being a part of the northern part of the Greater Atlanta area) has implemented to increase community pride: tastefully designed sign-toppers, reasonably priced at $50 a throw. Any citizen can buy one, and the County will apparently install them for you, free of charge. In viewing the unveiling of one, I got an unexpected gift: a good look at the rather well-designed sign blades that presumably are standard in Gwinnett County: Peachtree Corners, GA, County road blades with neighborhood sign topper. Photo by Sean Dunlap; used with permission This design works well; it gets a lot right. The street name (or specific) is big and clear, in a an FHWA-Variant font, and in mixed case, which is actually more readable than completely majuscule (we'll discuss ... Design

[pdx] Okay, Which Portland Is This? 2007-11-22 13:17:00 1143. This Portland sits on a major waterway, and in two counties. Of Portland's corprorate area, 27% of it is in one of the two counties, moreover, that 27% is 100% in that neighboring county.We'll bet people grow roses there too, but chances are, they may be some sunny shade of yellow.Which Portland is this?UPDATE: Pril knocked this one out of the park; it's Portland, Texas. More riddles to come.Tags: pdx, Portland, Which Portland ...

[liff] Quiet Night 2007-11-22 05:27:00 1142. Though there is a big dinner and family in our near future, which is a trite thing to say, but true, and does prove that some blessings do obtain–it was possible that I wouldn't get today off. Music: "Latitude 88 North", Electric Light OrchestraOh, and while we're at it, enjoy this little Winter tradition which, without the Intermets, would not have been necessary:Technorati Tags: Thanksgiving,family ...

[info_design, street_blades] Street Signs from the Heartland 2007-11-21 20:23:00 1141. We return to the street blade beat with a couple more from the Heartland, courtesy of our Mid-Continent Bureau Chief, Stan Kost. This following image should have some resonancy with you if names of jazz like Count Basie and Charlie Parker mean anything to you:What we have here is a couple of blades out of the heart of the 18th & Vine National Historic district in Kansas City, MO. As it happens, 18th & Vine had a hot jazz scene back in the day, and some of America's more famous jazz musicians came from or passed through there; it's credited with being one of the cradles of jazz in America. It's said that the KC flavor of jazz has its own spice to it; I'm no jazz fan, so I'll have to take Wikipedia's word for it (for what it's worth, the entry on 18th & Vine seems written by a fan, but there's Wikipedia for you). It is known as the historic center of KC's African-American community. Technically speaking, the street signs are very simply informat ... Design

[pdx, pdx_politik] The Chavez Revolutions 2007-11-21 19:16:00 1140. What was amazing about is that it all fell down like a house of cards. According to Witigonen and the Merc: Mayor Tom's proposal to rename Interstate Avenue went down, 3-2. Saltzman moved to table the process-revision vote in favor of settlling the SW 4th renaming issue. Council approved the tabling. Unanimous rejection of the proposal to rename SW 4th on reconsideration. The discussion has been rebooted, if we care to have it. The only things we aren't getting back are the time and energy expended in arguing over it (and we still can't tell if the lesson was learned that processes are there for a good reason, and taking shortcuts only breaks people's hearts in the end). Personally, the lesson I think we've all learned here is: There's a Commissioner Saltzman here? That dude's so quiet, I forgot about him. Technorati Tags: pdx,pdx_politik,Cesar Chavez Blvd,terrior,pdx_geography ...

[bloggage, design] Blog Navigation, Evolved 2007-11-21 18:16:00 1139. Regular visitors to this blog will notice an addition to the header image: a line of words. Mousing over them, one should find that one's mouse pointer goes from the arrow to the pointy finger. Clicking on those image hotspots will cause things to happen. How can this be?Simple: we can haz image mapz naow. This is something that I've wanted to implement for quite a while, but since I've never quite grokked Blogger's implementation of HTML/XML, I've held off. What we have here is called a client-side image map. This means that the markup code is in the HTML and interpreted by the browser. The way I thought I would have to approach this is by image slicing from either Photoshop or Illustrator, and uploading the slices. Bloggers new regime makes this problematic; the head widget doesn't like to work with you this way. it becomes possible, however, if you just delete the head widget code. This works for me, as all I want the the head image is to sit up there ... Design

[pdx] Pop Quiz: Which Portland Is This? 2007-11-21 06:40:00 1138. A web page about Portland tells us this about it: Portland is on a lower latitude than Eugene, Oregon which is roughly 300 miles north of San Francisco Say what? What version of Portland could they possibly be talking about here? Answer to come. In the meantime, make your guesses in the comments. Good luck. UPDATE: The esteemable Isaac Lacquedem solved the riddle; this one is, of course, Portland, Maine. Bonus points here for deducing it from the text; it was copied directly, with no edits, from one of the pages on the City of Portland (ME) website. It could have been Googled, but you obviously used your considerable smarts to arrive at the conculsion. Good on you. Technorati Tags: pdx,Portland ...

[no_spec] In With the WGA 2007-11-21 05:14:00 1137. I know I'm waaaaaay late to the party on this one, but the clip is as funny as hell: I heartily endorse the WGA's actions. Now, what does a pipsqueak unemployed graphic designer have in common with WGA members who get paid sometimes beyond my own dreams of avarice (when they're working) and have a much more exciting life than I? Because, whether or not I'm working as a designer, I believe in the NO!SPEC movement. The WGA strike, while it has nothing to do with spec work, is about the same thing–resisting the need to devalue creative professions. Whether you're paying $100 for a Logoworks logo or not paying creatives royalties on the internet-distributed entertainment that you wouldn't have if they didn't do it, you're trying to get something for nothing–or on the cheap, which is even more damaging. By expecting creatives to create for less, we express that we wan ...

[liff] My OryCon 29 Photos 2007-11-20 20:55:00 1136. Not so many photos as others, and my set is kinda lame (except for the AJA photos), but I forgot my camera at home unitl Sunday. So it goes. View 'em at flickr here. Technorati Tags: OryCon,OryCon 29,Photos ...

[liff] Favorite T-Shirt Seen at OryCon 29: All Your Unix... 2007-11-20 19:02:00 1135. Every so often, a t-shirt seen at OryCon sticks with us for being wicked clever smart funny. See our winner for OryCon 27 here. This one will similarly stick with us: chown -R us ./base A translation, for those who don't speak one of the many Unixy OSs out there: chown is a command that allows you to change ownership of a file or directory. -R is a command line switch that means recursive, and tells chown that if the thing to be chowned is a directory (folder) to also chown everything in that folder and in the folders it contains. us is the user name of the user we want to change ownership to. ./base is the name of the folder. The translation, of course: All Your Base Are Belong To Us. Who says the joke is dead? Technorati Tags: Orycon,OryCon 29,funny,geek humor ...

[liff] OryCon 29 In The News–We're All Just Having A Good (and Smart) Time 2007-11-20 17:43:00 1134. As long-time OryCon habitués, Y.T. and The Wife™ are used to a certain cliché in reporting on such gatherings–without putting too fine a point on–that characterizes your average group of SF convention attendees as suspicously wierd. it's a pleasure therefore to find two local writers mentioning it and showing that that they Get It™. Kristi Turnquist's article for The Big O (14 days free, then you pay), stops by what looks like the usual "fandom-as-group-of-weirdos" station with its opening paragraph: It's not hard to spot the attendees checking in for OryCon 29 at the Portland Marriott Downtown Waterfront hotel Friday afternoon. They're the ones wearing black tricorns finished with sweeping purple feathers. Or medieval milady frocks, revealing ample cleavage above corseted folds of ruby velvet and black satin. One volunteer sports elaborate facial tattoos and piercings. Others sweep through the hotel lobby in Goth-black full-length coats. ...

[liff] On The Bright Side, You Can Squeeze the Charmin With Impugnity Now 2007-11-19 21:47:00 1133. Dick Wilson, 1916-2007, Age 91. NB: Image nicked from a screenshot of this page. Technorati Tags: Commercial Icons,actors,passings ...