Mary J. Kim Diaz

Star Trek Infographic

This infographic is titled “15 Things You Didn’t Know About Star Trek” and sadly, I  thought I’d be familiar with more than just 4 of the factoids.

I Googled the artist who created the graphic, Ricky Linn, and I like his portfolio.

Must-have Android Apps

A friend asked me for advice on apps he should download to his new Android phone and I responded with a long-winded, 27-bullet reply (a last-minute addition to this blog post makes 28). Here it is.

100% vital (and FREE) apps:

• Owner – Show  contact information on your lock screen
• Battery Indicator – Puts an exact percentage of battery remaining in the top left notification bar
• Advanced Task Killer – Android phones allow multi-tasking, unlike the iPhone which only allows 1 program to be used at a time, so some programs run in the background and waste your phone’s available memory. Use this app to “kill” all running tasks by the push of a button. Dont forget to put vital apps (ie: Battery Indicator) on the “ignore” list so that they continue to the run in the background.
• Google Voice – If you have a Google Voice account, you can set it up on your phone to transcribe and play all of your voicemails right to your phone

Good to have:

• Digital Clock – Put a big digital clock on the home screen
• Facebook – Decent app for FB
• gTasx – If you use Google Tasks, this is a standalone app for managing tasks (you can also point your browser to the mobile Tasks page but I like the app)
• Personal Assistant – Check all of your bank and credit card accounts from one app
• Sound Manager – You can schedule your ringer, alarm & media volume by time (ie: mute ringer from 9am-5pm while at work, etc)
• Kayak – Find airline flights on your phone
• Amazon – Amazon shopping app
• PayPal – If you use PayPal a lot, this is a good app to monitor your usage and send money
• Google Reader – To read your Google Reader RSS feeds
• Listen – For podcasts
• Stopwatch – Decent stopwatch app

Cool apps:

• Google Sky – Points out the constellations in the sky
• Pandora – I use this app for internet radio every morning in the shower
• Ringdroid – If you want to edit mp3s to make your own ringtones
• Shazam – Hold it up to your car speakers and it’ll tell you what song is playing
• Tube Downloader – Download YouTube videos right to your phone (awesome)

Other Essential Android Tips

• If you hold your finger down on an empty area of your home screen, you can install widgets or add quick-dial shortcuts, bookmarks, etc, right to the desktop of your phone. You can even create folders to hold shortcuts to apps that you specify.
• Keep GPS turned OFF to save your battery life
• Check all of your apps to make sure that sync’ing is done every hour or more, instead of every 15 minutes (to save battery life)
• I even keep Wifi off to save battery, and only turn it on when I need it
• Go to Settings > Location & Security to set an unlock pattern for your phone
• Go to Settings > Language & Keyboard > Android Keyboard to “vibrate on keypress” — it helps with typing
• Get a minimum 4gb microSD card to hold music on your phone
• If you’re on a Mac, download DoubleTwist onto your Mac to sync your iTunes playlists to your phone

Video: T-Shirt War

T-Shirt War by Ibrahim Nergiz: “222 t-shirts, 2 days, 1 fire extinguisher.”

I like the sound effects the best.

UPDATE [1/25/2012]: Looks like they were commissioned by McDonald’s and Coke to do a commercial:

Hating on Friendster since 2005

“Dear Friendster,

Please add a ‘Website’ field to our Friendster profiles. RSS is great, but c’mon!

Mary”

Looking Glass concept

This is what designer Mac Funamizu believed the future of internet search would become when his concepts were submitted for a design competition and won in 2009. Google Googles, Google Sky Map and tons of iPhone & Android apps are already making this a reality.

More photos at Industrial Design Served (Served is a family of sites that I’m quickly falling in love with).

BBC’s new visual style

I’m excited to see BBC’s new visual style roll out — this BBC blog post gives a sneak peak.

Taylor Swift infographic

The complete works of Taylor Swift: a symbolic analysis with icons representing the number of songs employing its motif. Infographic is from the article Why Taylor Swift Offends Little Monsters, Feminists, and Weirdos.

One of my designer friends at work sent this to me because I was humming a Taylor Swift song at my desk. I don’t even know how it got in my head when all I did was listen to the news this morning. Today’s incident in addition to the time I became happy when I heard a Lady Gaga song on the radio for the first time in weeks (“happy” in quotations, under the same category as satisfying an addition) makes me very afraid.

Depressing error message

This error message made me so depressed yesterday. Sigh.

My Valentine’s Day cards

The Valentine’s Day cards I created for my friend Lillian who is away in veterinarian school, and my husband in medical school. You poor souls. Here are some cards to cheer you up during all that studying.

Funny text message

I received this text message during a meeting at work today and it buzzed 4 separate times since it’s also one of the longest texts I’ve gotten in my life. I personally think it’d be awesome to have talking dogs and my own hologram. Thanks E!