Month: February 2009

SoCal Trip/Family Reunion Photos

Posted by Rich Harris – February 18, 2009

So I just got back with my 3 sons from a family reunion trip down in Orange County, CA. I had an amazing time. My sons were angels the whole time and we had a blast. It was really touching to see them meet some of their cousins and other family members for the first time. I wish they could hang out with them more often. My oldest was pretty bummed we were leaving and it made me all emotional since that’s where my roots are. Anyway…I’ll now get out of the waaaambulance. Below are some of the more artsy photos of the set I shot at our reunion and just generally on the trip. I hope you dig ‘em as much as I do….I love candid, that’s how I roll.

Full photo set on Flickr

GoLearn Skateboarding Hits #1

Posted by Rich Harris – February 8, 2009

I found out this morning that my iPhone app has hit #1 in top paid sports apps. I feel like finally some rewards may come from my hard work and the amazing work of my team. Yay! I had to show off the screen shot below.

GoLearn Skateboarding

Ok I’ll shut up about it already.

A Sample Of My Evening Routine

Posted by Rich Harris – February 6, 2009

My 6 year old and I have a nightly routine before bed of making a couple ridiculous videos. This is the 80,000th one we’ve made this month. This routine goes on for about 30mins every night. Liam is currently the head of the household. I just live here and pay the bills. He’s a goofball.

Launched My First iPhone App and Now It’s Featured at Apple!

Posted by Rich Harris – February 4, 2009

GoLearn Skateboarding Home ScreenIn 2008 I designed the UI for a How-To skateboarding iPhone/iPod Touch app called GoLearn Skateboarding. In December Apple approved the application, and this month they said they wanted to feature it! The feature went live yesterday and as of today it is ranked #2 in the top paid apps within the sports category at the iTunes app store! I’m super proud of and stoked on this project and we have a few more apps we plan on rolling out. I only did the front-end UI design so I have to give credit to Erik Florio/Giuseppe Taibi from Whagaa Software for providing the engineering expertise and the GoLearn platform. Credit goes to Danny Keith for all his help and support. Last but not least I need to thank Jarrod Allen and Jason Crum of Half Pint Skateboards for the video expertise and rider support. Everyone has been so awesome and I’m excited to see what opportunities arise for us in the near future. I’ve included some screen shots in this post.

PURCHASE THE APP NOW AND SUPPORT US!

My Brother Tom…

Posted by Rich Harris – February 4, 2009

He lives in Minnesota with his wife Jenny. She sent me this photo of him to my phone and I couldn’t resist posting it here. He’s the only guy whose sense of humor has a depth that matches mine! Look how sexy he is in this photo. Sorry ladies, I know he’s one hot bastard, especially in this get up….but he’s taken. I however am single and just as ridiculous as he is.

tom

Music, Great Weather, Family Reunion

Posted by Rich Harris – February 4, 2009

The weather in Santa Cruz has been phenominal lately. I’m a little scared cause I’m convinced a drought will happen for our county this summer and we’re gonna have to do some wacky hippy water rationing thing where we all shower in the mountains with buckets of water and live in some commune but it’s all good. I’m thankful for so many things right now…my children, my home, close friends, art and music. Life is uneasy at times but it’s a blessing to be able to even walk to earth for the most part.

I’m heading down to Southern California with my 3 sons to attend a family reunion. I can’t wait to hang out with my brother again. We’re getting closer as we get older and I’m really enjoying his company. His wife is amazing and was like a sister to me the day we met. My mom is a total champ and has been overly accomodating with providing us a place to sleep etc. Should be awesome. I’ll be taking a ton of pictures when I’m down there so stay tuned for that onslaught. :0)

I’ve been working on a bunch of music lately. I started a new accoustic project with a friend of mine and it’s going really great. I’ve been inspired to write a lot of tunes lately and can’t wait to hit the local coffee shop circuit to test out the songs and see what the response is. I’m also in a new rock band called Zed that I’m playing drums for. Our sound is along the lines of Clutch/Zeppelin with a heavier twist. I’m in it with my bros Pete and Mark from my previous and better known in San Jose, CA project Stitch, as well as a new close friend Greg Lopez. Our sound is gonna be fun to try out in the local clubs and I can’t wait. I shot some photos of the inside of our band rehearsal space yesterday. Posted some below. Enjoy….

TinyURL and Others’ Activities Are Bigger Than We Know

Posted by Rich Harris – February 3, 2009

So I’ve been using TinyURL quite a bit and I’ve seen all the other shortURL services out there. There may have already been articles written on this concept but I realized that these services aren’t just offering something extremely useful, they’re using their service (or should be!) to monitor what domains are being embedded the most, posted by the masses of us out here socializing all over the web. If these types of companies/services are smart, their focus is more importantly  monitoring net user behavior when it comes to embedding/sharing links/content. They could easily sell this data to companies for various purposes. I’d be really interested to see some stats as far as top 10 embedded domains (and their respective URL’s). You could really pull some useful data/reporting out of there to make some decisions about how you run certain types of social marketing campaigns and initiatives, see what types are currently most viral, etc.

I guess my point is how for the longest time we’ve all thought McDonald’s was in the business of fast food but what most don’t know is that they’re more in the business of real estate (thousands of McD’s all over the world making them money on lot equity, etc.). I think this is referenced in the “Fast Food Nation” book.

Cool stuff…