These sites are very focused, professional and clean. You will also notice that there’s usually a video displayed in an iPhone casing that shows how these applications are used. In this post we bring you 40 excellent websites designed to showcase iPhone and iPod touch applications.

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“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.”

— Plato

This evening one of our designers said he saw me on TV. Since I had no recollection of being filmed recently, I was confused as to what she was referring to. That was until I saw this image:

Strangely, I have to agree with her on this. I have become very Roger-esque in my demeanor and hairstyles these days.

For those who are interested, yes, she still has a job and…

…yes, I did ask for her to show me what I would also look like if I had a goatee.

In 1976 was the same age my daughter is now (to all you algebra majors out there, this means “NEAL = OLD”). While this commercial would scare the my kids to death, it is no scarier than them seeing 800 promos on PBS for the looming global pandemic in between shows like Word Girl and Martha Speaks.

So, I had them take a test to see if they had the swine flu. It is a very easy test and just takes a few seconds. All you have to do is click the button to see if you have it. This test right now is 99.9999% accurate as of this post and is touted as the most realistic Swine Flu test on the web today.

There are a lot of tools, scripts and addons which can make your stay at facebook more fun and a bit less comprehensive. From downloading whole facebook albums to posted videos, these tools cover almost everything. I’ve combined a list of the tools that are actually helpful, skipped the spam.

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Welcome to the re-launch of the BG Lounge; a collection of news, tips, tricks, thoughts, ideas, offers and incentives to share some of our observations and bring a bit more of a voice to Bauer Graphics.

For many of you, this might be old news, but for our new readers, It is our sincerest hope that you can find some usefulness in our ranting.

ENJOY!

While going through the garage this last weekend, I came across this gem:

I remember having that cutout on my dorm fridge in my freshman year. From there it went above my art desk, in my first painting studio and it came with me all the way across the country on the dashboard of my powder-blue Taurus. It was on my computer at Kinko’s when I was a desktop publisher and at my desk at Imagebuilder Software (where I met my beautiful wife Heather). It was in my nightstand alongside lozenges and kleenex to provide that push to get up when I wasn’t well. The last place I remember this being was on my office wall when I was the Director of Internet Marketing at a company that let me go for “thinking different” (see post from 4/13/2009). It went into a box of my belongings which is where I found it this weekend.

This single panel in this one comic strip has provided so much inspiration in my life and I don’t know why it has been buried in my garage for this long. It is back out and posted on the creative wall here at Bauer Graphics for everyone to see.

If this inspires any one out there an n-th of how much it has inspired me, all that work in the garage this weekend would have been worth it ;)

Now get out there and enjoy the day!

- NEal

To all clients I cancelled meetings with on Friday and Monday,

My apologies for the short notice in canceling meetings at the end, and at the start, of the week. I was unexpectedly hit with an unknown sickness which causes me to sound like this:

Now, I know that most of you are wondering why a super-human-picture-of-health, like myself, is coming down with an illness like this. The cold and flu season should be months behind us and the transition to warmer weather brings afternoons filled with the sun’s warmth and vodka lemonades. Both have been known to destroy almost any known virus. So, why me and why now?

A quick look at twitter brought me these results:

image courtesy of XKCD

So, it is possible that I have the flu. I highly doubt it is the swine flu as, according to the twitter post above, I didn’t eat pork all week. It would be more likely that I have Chicken Flu or Moo Flu, but since I haven’t seen these two on a running ticker on CNN, I’m guessing that neither of those illnesses exist yet. That is too bad because we have a great campaign built around “The Voodoo you do for Moo Flu.”

Until that project lands in our lap, let me provide our Lounge readers a bit of a PSA regarding the recent Swine Flu epidemic. The CDC has posted some basic information on the swine flu on their site. Some items you’ll be interested to know is that you’re very unlikely to get it from pork products.

That will be great news for this lovable little scamp

Some basic (if obvious) public health advice: wash your hands often, and stay at home if you’re not feeling well. My apologies if I cancel more meetings this week, but I do it because I want all of our clients to remain happy and healthy. All clients with meetings cancelled this week will be compensated with extra drinks and/or deserts in our next meeting.

Stay healthy ;)

Inkscape is a free vector graphic design alternative software similar to Adobe Illustrator and CorelDraw, only it doesn’t cost you a penny. It is maybe not as powerful as its higher priced rivals, but certainly powerful enough to design high quality vector graphics. Here are some tutorials to check out if you’re thinking about using Inkscape.

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Foreword: Bauer Graphics was recently asked by Oregon Creative Industries to design the OCI logo. We are honored to have the opportunity to help grow the creative landscape here in our beautiful state of Oregon.

As Oregon celebrates its 150th birthday this year, we are reminded just how far we have come. This little west coast state has broken all of the molds set by stereotypes of the past, and has expanded its reputation from that of downtrodden loggers & beaver trapping brawny that occupied the minds of ignorant Americans for years prior.

It isn’t much of a surprise to most native Oregonians, let alone those at the front lines of creativity that Oregon has got it going on! We have climbed the ranks, and earned our stripes as one of the world’s most talented, innovative, culturally-diverse, liberal, sustainable & above all CREATIVE states.

Oregon has a long tradition of creative-ness. We have managed to shimmy our way into the spotlight as a top-tier town with a knack for turning heads with our innovative beat brought through some of the top companies in the world. Perhaps you’ve heard of a small company called Nike? How about Columbia Sportswear? Or one of the thousands of other creative firms that call Oregon home.

One organization that understands the magnitude of originality that the region offers is Oregon Creative Industries (OCI). A labor of love from networking mavericks, Steve Gehlen & Tad Lukasik, OCI was born in August 2008, from a discussion at Cre8Camp Portland in July. The desire is to unify the entire Oregon creative community, and hopefully brand Oregon as a creative metropolis.

Creative Industries is defined as a set of interlocking industry sectors that focus on creating unique property, content or design that previously did not exist. In 2008, Oregon employed approximately 60,000 people in the creative industries. This number includes not only arts-related industries, but also the software industry.

The main vision behind OCI is to provide a backbone that provides networking, promotion and advocacy to a variety of creative industries-related organizations–both structured and unstructured–in order to increase business opportunities and revenue for the community.

In December 2008, The Oregonian described OCI as more than an organization, but rather a movement. Bauer Graphics believes that this hunch couldn’t have been more accurate. This new insignia, we believe, will serve as a proclamation to just how incredibly inter-dependendent the entire creative industry can be, as well as always has been.