Cognizant Designs LLC

anamanaguchi and offtopics

It’s been a while since I have spoken to you my faceless friend (the internet) about much of anything and while I am preparing a post about a couple of recently launched projects that I am quite fond of I would like to quickly catalog something that I found quite interesting. ANAMANAGUCHI which is ironic in its name and production. An 8bit alt-rock group of electric leanings that is apparently quite popular throughout the gamer scene (of which I keep some loose ties with) and actually produces audio landscapes that hearken back to happier times in my somewhat cloudy childhood.

I remember all of the sights, sounds and smells of original NES getting opened with uncontrolled excitement on my 9th Birthday. The cold winter seemed a bit warmer as I traversed the caverns of Metroid and shot flying ducks from the projected skyline. The audio scape of the 90′s in its 8bit and 16bit forms are still fixed in my mind as prime examples of what is possible given available technology and true musical artistry.

ANAMANAGUCHI seems to have a real grasp of both the nostalgia and the sophistication of how to use it. Their site ain’t half bad either. Check em out here

Mac OSX Dev Space – Basic Commandline & MySQL Imports

This will be the first in a short series about knowing your development environment and how to make it your bitch! Now I know some of you designers out there, and you know who you are, have not a clue about where to begin when creating virtual instances on your Apache environment. You just downloaded MAMP and suddenly you think that somehow that is enough. Save me your BS encrusted psycho babel about how this is information that only the server wizards need to know. Even if you never become completely proficient in this area, it is worth breaking your install to test these tools and become more fluent in the ways of the Terminal, or shell to the UNIX crowd.

Today we start with MAMP and move to the TERMINAL. In the next article I will go over some cool commands for GIT and SVN as well as setting different editor applications to run in your TERMINAL.

Quick sob story, a few months back I forced my machine into corrupted library purgatory and had only the Install Disks and Terminal access at my command. At 3 in the morning I faced the obliteration of months of work due to my lack of diligence keeping back-ups. After examining the TERMINAL and asking it for simple information like if it could read my file library, I found that I could copy files from my dying drive to the portable entirely in command line.

TERMINAL

Simple commands that you will use day in and day out:

• cd — change directory
• ls -al — list all items in a table that shows ownership and permissions alphabetically ascending
• [control key] + [C key] — cancel the command that you just entered
• sudo ‘command’ — tell the system to overwrite all permissions and authenticate yourself as the admin
• ln -s /path/to/item/you/are/linkingto ‘nameofalias’ — make a relative link to something, can be a folder or a file
• rm -rf ‘filename’ — remove anything with the file name

Another neat thing in TERMINAL is the built in auto-complete feature. When entering in a path or a filename, you need to only enter up to the last unique character and then press TAB to complete the name. (eg /pa TAB results in /path/ or something like that) Also, pressing the UP or DOWN key on your keyboard will cycle through the commands you have used, super handy if you are using a lot of the same ones over and over.

MYSQL

First you need to create the database and user that will be associated with that database in your MAMP phpMyAdmin interface. Then you need to import some data. For smaller db’s you can easily accomplish this through the same web interface but for larger databases (anything over 3mb) you will need to do this entirely from command line. Crack open the terminal and run this command:

mysql -u dbuser -p yourdbname < /path/to/backup.sql

What this command does is tell mysql to use the specified database “-p ‘yourdbname’ ” and associated user “-p ‘dbuser’ ” and import the backup sql file that you have pointed it to.

Relationships are my cornerstone

Freelancers, Artists, Designers and Developers can all agree that the hardest thing to deal with coming out of an Agency environment is how to begin growing your lead or customer base. Word of mouth and connections through friends are usually the first thing that we establish because we are looking for what is familiar. Agencies have an old business ethic that teaches us to treat our clients like transactions, to quote a new friend of mine, and that very thinking is what has destroyed many companies in our country.

What is the first human agreement? It is the relationship.

What creates the need to be ethically and morally fair with your friends, family and customers? Knowing them, empathizing with them.

I would like to present a theory for making connections. Make friends.

Outgoing doesn’t mean “life of the party”

When I say that you need to make friends and allies to attract honest opportunities, I don’t mean you need to be the king of the keg to win people’s affection. I simply mean that you should first pursue groups that are in the same field and dedicate time every month to trying some of these meetups out and seeing if there is a group of people that you identify with.

If you like a particular type of software like Drupal or WordPress it is quite possible that you can find a user group in your area filled with other people who are interested in either teaching you how to work with the software or possibly work with you.

In Denver DBUG is a place to start or you can peruse the MeetUP website.

Chambers of commerce

Another fantastic resource are small local city chambers of commerce, the reason for going for the local groups will be the familiarity you get with the group that you are apart of. Being in a room with 20 people from other fields that want to talk to you and get to know hwo you are and how you work in the community is great way to not only make friends but find resources that you may also need.

Of course with COC the bar for entry is always cash but, in a smaller city or a suburb of the nearest large city there are plenty of inexpensive and fruitful places to meet other professionals.

Call on your heros

The other thing you can do is email people whom you hold in high regard as professionals or perhaps as role models in your field. I recently emailed craigmod of the Tokyo Art Space and Link Spice fame. He was nice enough to answer some questions that I had about a particular market and took the time to give insight to an area that I had been exploring.

Whenever you email someone that you are a fan of it can be rather strange, like sending fan mail to a musician that you enjoy, the results can really change your perception of them or what you found engaging about them.

I have been met with my own fair share of experiences where the image in my mind was better than the real thing. It will happen. But you have to remember that if someone you respect isn’t gracious with you it’s either because:

1. They are really busy and cannot afford the time for idle chatter OR
2. They are pretentious dicks!

Look for the humanity and feed your creativity from this. Then, you will be the greatest artist in the world!

Sincerely Your Pal,

Zach Attack Meyer
ps. I am sorry if I have every been a dick to you. call me.