The site, called Be The Mayor, helps you determine how many more Foursquare check-ins you need to become the mayor of a venue. Nice and simple. If you use Foursquare, I bet you’ll find this little tool totally useful. If you don’t, check out the cute logo anyway!

Please take a quick look if you have a moment, I’d love to hear what you think!

After much googling, I discover at the very end of this complicated thread (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2035030&start=15&tstart=0) a suggestion to download and install the iLifeSupport update (http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/application_updates/ilifesupport903.html) which worked BEAUTIFULLY.

This is only my 3rd day of MBP ownership. Hopefully this will be the last of my troubles but if not you can count on me letting you know about it.

Anyway, my first evening in NYC was Thursday for the Digg Meetup. After wandering the maze that is Webster Hall, getting freaked out by hallways full of tv screens, and squeezing through the crowds at the bar, I finally managed to settle down in a cozy back room of the balcony. Overall it was a fun evening… I reunited with some friends from SXSW (Jacqui, Aubrey, Trammel, & Tom), met some new friends, chatted with a girl who used to work for Scarborough Country (she said that Joe is a womanizing ass – why am I not surprised?), ate a free Klondike bar, saw Chris Hansen ( “To Catch a Predator”), and was totally impressed by a live set from Wallpaper.

The next day (Friday) I wake up to an email saying my meeting with SciFi was cancelled so I went back to sleep. Later that evening I went to Aubrey’s and Eva’s Birthday Party at 10 Degrees, which apparently was full of all sorts of internet famous people I didn’t recognize. Ah blissful ignorance. In one conversation with Mark Trammel we discovered that he used to be an adjunct professor IN MY MAJOR (Digital Arts and Sciences) at the University of Florida while I was a student there but I never took his class so we never met. Crazy small world. Also I met a few folks from Animoto and they are friendly and awesome!

After a fancy dinner with the birthday girls on Saturday the group of us wandered over to Whiskey Ward (love that bar) and then to another bar where karaoke was just ending (thank god) and I met Brett from Mashable and some guy who works for the Treasury Dept (awesome?). Towards the end of the evening I stopped having fun as strange boys got really aggressive and it seemed like Aubrey and I looked more like tasty bits of tender meat than actual human beings. But our heroes Rick and Marshall rescued us and escorted us home safely.

Sunday was a much needed lazy day. The Webbys Sunset Cocktails event happened to be in my hotel so that was a nice easy commute. I didn’t do a whole lot of mingling because Aubrey and I found a pretty cozy spot to sit, but I did finally meet Ozzy from Lolz. We talked about our mutual friends Terrence and Gillian the whole time, lots of mutual love and affection there.

Monday I took a quick trip for a meeting at AMC and then back to the hotel to start prettying myself up for the Webby Awards. I wore a dress I borrowed from Gillian (just like every other dress I wore all weekend) and Jeffrey Campbell shoes. The event was by far the fanciest thing I’ve ever been to, I felt a bit out of place until I finally got to cheer for my clients when Green Porno was called to give their acceptance speech (“Isabella Rossellini left the building”). Highlights: Trent Reznor in a suit, Sarah Silverman, Lisa Kudrow, the Victoria’s Secret models, Martha Stewart, Arianna Huffington, Beeker, chocolate-covered strawberries. Lowlights: not being able to find my friends at IFC. BOO.

Then the After Party at Hiro Ballroom. THERE WAS DANCING AND IT WAS AWESOME. Towards the end of the night Rick and I got ambushed and ended up in Gawker, I guess because we inspired a very confused photographer. Whatever, man, I’m kinda stupidly just excited to have been in Gawker. It’s particularly entertaining because the last time I visited NYC back in February I ended up in the Village Voice for attending a “Single Bloggers” mixer. NYC loves me. I love it right back.

I coded their video players too, so I figured, piece of cake! WRONG. A few of my usual tricks for this kind of interaction failed me when any rollover of a button on the controls resulted in the whole menu slipping away right under my cursor. Seems calling “onRollOver” of one button also calls the “onRollOut” of another, even if they happen to be on top of each other. Eventually I settled on a cursor coordinates check that runs every frame and tests to see if the mouse is over the x & y bounds of the video. If so, and the menu isn’t already showing, call showMenu(), but if not, call hideMenu().

Some Actionscript2 code for you: (uses the awesome Tweener class)

function hideMenu(){
Tweener.addTween(videoHolder.menu, {_y:227, time:1, transition:”easeOutSine”});
hideVolume();
}

function showMenu(){
Tweener.addTween(videoHolder.menu, {_y:192, time:1, transition:”easeOutSine”});
}

function mouseTest(){
if (_xmouse > 400 && _xmouse 13 && _ymouse < 245){
if(!menuIsOpen){
showMenu();
menuIsOpen = true;
}
}
else{
if(menuIsOpen){
hideMenu();
menuIsOpen = false;
}
}
}
videoHolder.onEnterFrame = mouseTest;

As always, I welcome your more efficient solutions!!

The kids love it.

Please vote for the People’s Voice: UPDATE: IFC WON THE PEOPLE’S VOICE! HOORAY!!!

This was a SUPERFAST RUSH RUSH RUSH job. Since it’s a fairly uncomplicated, temporary landing page, I figured I’d give Actionscript 3 a try.   Wow, that was NOT a good idea.  My hope was that building smooth scrollbars would make more sense in AS3, but NO, the scrollbars fought me the whole way just like always.  And then, to make matters worse, AS3 ended up requiring 3x as much code for the simple things like creating button links and rollovers!  Maybe I just don’t get it. Clearly, I just don’t get it. But I’ve since gone back to AS2 faster than a PC user to WinXP from Vista.   I just don’t think AS3 is good for what I do. Of course, feel free to go ahead and tell me how wrong I am.*

Despite my personal hardships, the site came out great! Of course, I was only the developer, not the designer, so I can’t take credit for the site’s beauty.  If I had had more time (and less frustrations with AS3) I would’ve liked to have added some more intro and outro animations similar to the opening animation.  Ah well, maybe next time.

*I welcome your thoughts on AS2 vs AS3, and I really REALLY welcome your scrollbar code.   I’d love to have something reusable so I can stop pulling my hair out over the damn things.

I worked with a fabulous team, many of whom I met in person for the first time only last week at the launch celebration!  My responsibilities included the design of the Media Lab Studios pages, both the main page and the templates for all upcoming contests, as well as converting most of the Web Series pages over to the new templates.   As if that wasn’t challenging enough, there was plenty of opportunity for new creativity in designing the customized background images.

Some selected works:
The Stagg Party
Little Big Planet
Z-Rock
Absolut Indies
Getting Away With Murder
Get Hit (my favorite background image)

And, somewhat unrelated, Facebook apparently knows me all too well, but consequently fails at actually advertising to me.  Yes, I am aware of the new IFC.com.  And YES, I LIKE FREEZEPOP ALREADY!!

• best dramatic web series: Young American Bodies (sesason 3)
• best comedy web series: The Guild  (sorry IFC, I have a HUGE crush on Felicia day, I’m sure you’ll understand.)
• best reality web series: The Stagg Party  (naked ladies, people!)
• best news series: Lunchbox
• best directing for a comedy: Get Hit’s Jeff Wiens & Peter Blomquist
• best directing for a drama: Young American Bodies’ Joe Swanberg