'Tis the season for updates

Check this out. If you've spent any time around this blog, you know that I'm mad for Google's SketchUp 3-D modeling software. SketchUp is a powerful (and free) program that designers, architects and regular Joes and Janes use to model three dimensional objects. It's as equally adept at drawing houses as it is at drawing carpet tacks. If there's a three dimensional object in life or in your imagination, SketchUp can draw it.

SketchUp users have at their disposal a primarily user-created collection of objects and models called the 3D Warehouse. The models and objects in the Warehouse can be downloaded directly into a SketchUp model. This is really helpful if you're doing a room layout and you need an Eames Lounge or two. Rather than drawing it from scratch, you can go grab one on the Warehouse and then download it directly into your model. The Warehouse is a real time saver.

But the Warehouse is more than just a collection of objects, it's also a place where SketchUp users can upload, store and share models. And as of last week, Google enhanced the ability of an existing SketchUp model to be shared.

Here's a simplified example. Suppose I'm a humble architect at the firm of Shreve, Lamb and Harmon. For the sake of argument, let's call me Gregory Johnson. Now, let's say I have an idea for a cool building that would look great on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. I stay up all night one night and draw a model of a building. The next morning, I want to show it to my boss. Again, for the sake of argument, we'll call my boss William Lamb.

I decide that I want to e-mail my boss and tell him about my idea. Because I'm smart, I uploaded my model to the 3-D Warehouse as soon as I finished it. So rather than adding a bulky attachment to my e-mail that won't work unless Mr. Lamb also has SketchUp installed, I can just e-mail him a link.

Mr. Lamb,

I have an idea about what to do with the vacant lot on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 33rd Street. Follow this link:http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=ce8a4aa401c82e92776079129397a44

If we do this project, I will let you take all the credit.

Best,

G. Johnson

Cool, so now my boss knows about it. If I can generate some buzz about my idea, Mr. Lamb will hear about it from his friends in addition to hearing about it from me. This will make a better case for my idea than I can make on my own.

I, Gregory Johnson, know that the reigning who's who of Manhattan society are currently enamored with MySpace, so I decide to embed an interactive copy of my model in my MySpace page. Snap! 3-D Warehouse generates the embed code for me. A couple of clicks later and this baby is gracing my MySpace page.

So here it is, moments after I completed my model and already there's a buzz building about it. As luck would have it, Pierre S. DuPont came across my embedded model moments after seeing it and fell instantly in love. He decided he wanted to be the principal investor and by nine o'clock Mr. Lamb had a check on his desk for $24 million. And the rest, as they say, is history.

The point of all of this is that now 3D Warehouse users can embed interactive, 3D models on blogs and other web pages. Check this thing out again:

Once you click on the model, you can use the flywheel on your mouse to zoom in on it as you spin it around. That's really cool!

As always, anyone can set up his or her own private section of the Warehouse too. This is especially helpful if you're collaborating on something that needs to be kept from public view. In that case, the same linking and embedding are still fully functional, but for members only. Slick!

So, they did it again. SketchUp gets more useful and usable with time and that is a very good thing.

The dragon's lair

The lovely and talented Adrienne Palmer from Susan Palmer Designs in Honolulu sent me a photo yesterday in the hopes of getting a rise out of me. It worked. Wow. Here it is.

I'll ask you what she asked me: how does something like this make it into production? This faucet's made by a big player in the world of specialty faucets and these things don't come cheap. But really, who gets an idea at a brainstorming meeting and shouts, "That's it! We need a dragon tub filler! It's perfect!" Then somebody else agrees with the original guy who thought it was a good idea. So much so that the dragon gets designed and produced. Then it shows up in a showroom and somebody buys it. Who are these people?

I've hauled my share of existing swan faucets and tub fillers out of homes I've renovated. Somebody thought they were pretty once. Chances are though, she thought that in about 1968 and her house is being renovated because she's dead and her kids sold the house to somebody who hired me to de-old lady-fy it. Can I say that? Let me tell you, it's a very special kind of a person who buys a gold, swan-shaped faucet.

Believe it or not, I once talked someone out of buying a dolphin-shaped tub filler like this one.

But a dragon? Honestly, I wouldn't know how to react if a client introduced that thing as an idea.

Well, I suppose that there's something out there for everyone. But I'd rather not know about some of that stuff.

A requiem of a sort

My bestest friend moved to New Orleans last week. He moved there on the heels of another good and great friend who moved to New Orleans about a year-and-a-half ago. Sigh. It's starting to feel that the spell cast by the Crescent City is taking my St. Pete friends away one by one. I'm thrilled for both of them, though life around here will most definitely be a lot less animated.

I have visions of them sitting in the dim light of louvered windows on a sweltering afternoon as they sip lemon cokes with chipped ice à la Blanche Dubois. That is when they're attending the many festivals, parties and costume balls the people of Nawlins throw to keep themselves entertained. Ho hum, and here I am stuck in work-a-day Florida. Poor me.

I got a phone call on Sunday morning that detailed their plans for an exciting Sunday. They were planning to go to town to go to a food festival and then to take in as much high and low culture as they could get their hands on. I hung up the phone and went back to scrubbing my floors. Scrub. Scrub. Scrub.

I have an idea about what their lives look like over there on the other side of the Gulf of Mexico and it looks a little something like this.

If this is not what their lives look like I don't want to know about it. Allow me this fellas. Please.

Family Hack has yo back

Lynn Taylor is a residential designer and a speaker on topics as varied as energy efficiency, urban infill housing, historic preservation, good construction practices and cottage developments. You can find out more about Lynn on her website, Taylor Made Plans, or you can follow her on Twitter as @taylormadeplans, which is how I know of her.

Lynn tweeted a link to a website called Family Hack yesterday and the link led to this incredibly helpful video. This is the fastest, smartest, I-can't-believe-this-never-occurred-to-me method to retrieve an object dropped down a drain I've ever seen. Watch this:

That makes so much sense I can barely stand it. Thank you Family Hack guy and thank you Lynn Taylor.

Family Hack is written by Michael Davis and Hannah Russell-Davis. Holding their own are kids Khymi, Susan and Jackson. The Davises write about how to travel the world with three small kids, how to work from anywhere and how to feed, clothe and educate their three junior staffers. They also love smart shortcuts, saving money and cool stuff. And speaking of cool stuff, I think Family Hack may have given me an excuse to get off my high horse and go to the new Ikea in Tampa.

A well-designed, fully-functional storage system for under five bucks? Now they're singing my song.

Spend some time with the Davises, you'll be glad you did.

A year in the life

A year ago today, I challenged myself to write at least one blog post a day for a year. Out of those 365 days, there was just one day that went post-less. I ended up writing 537 posts in the last year and that far exceeds what I thought I was capable of, even if I missed a day. I did it for the exercise of writing every day but at the same time, I wanted to see what would happen if I really threw myself into this medium.

I've made a couple hundred bucks (thanks to my sponsors!), met and befriended an entire community of people who have grown up around this thing, I've had great interviews with people I admire, I've been flown across the country to go to meetings at companies like Google and GE (Google! I can still barely believe that one), I've had posts translated into Italian and Polish and run in European web sites, I correspond regularly with people around the world, I've landed a couple of freelance writing gigs (more please!), I've been reprinted in major newspapers, I've picked up a few design clients, I've advised a number of new bloggers; and most importantly, I can look back over a year's work and be proud of it.

When I jumped into the blogosphere, my plan was to put together an online resource for my design clients. I had no idea that any of the benefits I just listed were possible. I knew nothing about HTML or sitemaps or backlinks. I don't think I'd ever actually read a blog before I started. Pretty shortly after I committed to daily blogging though, I noticed that my traffic started to increase. They were some heady days, let me tell you. I think I had 500 hits last July and I thought I was the king of the universe. If I don't get that in a day now I think some thing's terribly wrong.

I've been looking forward to this anniversary and for a long time I viewed it as an end to my commitment to write every day. I've toyed with the idea of cutting back to a five day a week gig, and I may do that some day. Just not today. Over the course of a year, writing every day has become so ingrained in my schedule, so much a part of me, I'm not real interested in going without it.

I am making some changes though. Eventually, there's going to be a revised layout around here. It's slick and clean and very much still under construction. I'm also going to start running guest posts from time to time. Franki Durbin's going to take over when I go on vacation in August for example. Guests posts are open to anybody who's interested though. Have something to say? Want to say it in front of an audience? Let me know and we'll work something out.

Anyhow, many thanks to all of you for reading my screeds and rants. Keep coming back, there's more fun stuff to come.