RSS Feeds Discontinued
July 27, 2006
This is simply stating officially what has been pretty obvious since the beginning of the year. I have basically stopped all blogs and posts on this site...leaving little more than updates from sites that I have tagged online.
That being the case, there is little point in continuing the existing RSS feeds on this site. So, as of 7/28 all RSS feeds that have been held over from the old site will be discontinued.
If you want to stay up with what's going on, you may want to consider subscribing to the Photo RSS feed at lluminare.
At some point in the future, I may do something in this space more closely related to photography. Until then, enjoy illuminare.com
Refresh!
May 14, 2006
So, it finally happened. A partial site refresh and yes, a rearchitecture surfaced today. I am putting my photography and my artistic interests first. Rather than pull down 6 years of posts on the weblog, I decided to leave them up and keep the old design running for those posts.
I am keeping the global RSS feed up and running, but may make further changes to it in the near future.
A few things may still be a little screwy and a 404 may pop-up. If you find something broken, please let me know.
Art Fernandez Photography
April 14, 2006
Announcement:
I am pleased to announce the launch of my new professional photography site, illuminare (www.illuminare.com), featuring fine art photographs from yours truly.
hey, where did everything go?
April 11, 2006
The main navigation recently made a final curtain call. After everything that has happened professionally and personally, it just didn't feel right to leave the nav or most of the old content up there. If you have a burning desire to read some of the stuff I have posted in the past, you can use search to get at some old posts.
I have major plans for the site, stay tuned.
February Updates
February 12, 2006
- We lost our 14 mos. old cat to an incurable infectous desease called FIP. There is very little know about the disease, and even less about how to accurately diagnose it before death. If you are a cat owner, you might consider donating to the Orion Foundation.
- The photograpy business is picking up. So much so that I am in the process of re-building a traditional wet darkroom for fiber based printing
- I am also rediscovering the joys of getting up at 5AM for early morning hikes with my camera and using a newly acquired 55mm Macro lens.
In Mourning
February 06, 2006
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever; I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood,
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
- Funeral Blues - W. H. Auden
Content Updates via RSS
December 01, 2005
This is just a quick update on what's going on with me and the site. I have basically given up blogging due to a lack of time. More often than not I am finding articles of interest and tagging them via del.icio.us or posting them exclusively via RSS.
The most recent change is that I am now actively marketing my photography via cafepress.
If you are interested in finding out what's going on, you might want to consider subscibing to one of my RSS feeds below:
We're live
March 19, 2005
It took a little longer than I would have liked, but the new site is here. A lot has changed visually and from a content posting perspective. Essentially this site is more about my work – User Experience and Photography and less about blogging about every little thing that tickles my fancy.
As time goes on you are going to see more of the following:
- Splitting of my RSS feeds into 3 individual feeds depending upon your interest (User Experience, Photography, and del.icio.us)
- Renewed focus on User Experience topics based upon recent research and projects
- Detailed Case Studies
- Featured Portfolio Samples
- Fine Art Photography from my 20+ year catalog of work
Key Learnings from UI 9
October 18, 2004
So, I made it back from Boston on Friday. A few of my friends have asked me, "When are you going to post about your key learnings?" "Get it up on the blog."
I have tons of notes and key takeaways from the sessions and discussions I participated in, but based upon my motivation level from the conference and my blogs I am not sure if I will ever really post it all. Why?
The funny thing is I really don't know where to start. To paraphrase an email I sent to one of my co-workers, the UI 9 Conference had a major impact on me personally, professionally, and from a company organizational perspective. (Boy, having re-read that statement, it almost sounds like a born-again kind of statement, but it almost is true).
On a personal level, I got a clear sense of what I want to do with myself...a motivational cumbuya having been in a high energy conference. With that I have a plan of action, which is more than I can say for myself before I went to Boston.
Professionally, I learned a few techniques, such as the "5 Second Usability Test" and also got a sense that most of the usability, political, and design problems I am facing are not unique. That latter piece was very comforting considering some of the insane situations I am finding myself in the middle of these days.
Also, I came away with a reminder that the true value of Usability and User experience is not really appreciated by Senior Management. In the end usability needs to be portrayed in concepts they understand...meaning, increase revenue, shareholder value, market share, etc. So, the term "Usability Testing" is something that needs to be banned in conversations at that level because the folks don't care about it.
And then Organizationally...well, let's just say that it became clear to me that there is a need for a usability soul searching process. That's all I can say because I really don't know where it will go or where I can take it.
I will try to finish posting some of the session highlights (like I started to do while in Boston), but I am not making any promises.