MikePalmer.ca + Palmerized.com... First post via Squarespace

In an effort to consolidate my 'digital life', I've moved my personal sites (MikePalmer.ca and Palmerized.com) over to one new site, hosted and powered by Squarespace. The service allows for some pretty slick publishing options, in addition to some killer features, which I'm beta testing and will roll out in the near future. 

They also have free apps for the iPhone and iPad that allow you to edit, post and maintain things while away from the desktop. The stats package is also pretty impressive. Oh - not to mention support for about 40 Google fonts!

Given the ease of use and mobile tolls available, I'm hoping this will mean I'll be posting more often. Stay tuned ;)

Using Twitter to Track Mother Nature

What a week it's been - a #Tornado, #Earthquake, #Hurricane, and a #PowerOutage! Mother Natures sure seems to be making herself known as we've all taken a beating in the past 7 days.

The amazing part, for me, has been following these events via Twitter as they happen. It started with following The Weather Network on Twitter as they posted up-to-the-second weather updates for the region. People in the Province posted their own weather updates using #OnStorm, allowing a much more detailed look at what was happening and where. It was amazing to see hundreds, if not thousands of Tweets come in about rain, wind and lightning conditions (and photos!).

Next up was the #Earthquake that hit the Eastern seaboard last week. After feeling the desk shake here at work, I immediately jumped on Twitter, and sure enough, within seconds there were reports of people experiencing the same thing from Toronto to New York.

Following these two events, Twitter was a buzz with Hurricane #Irene. News organizations posted updates, gathered regional info from other people's Tweets, giving a true sense what was going on.

Finally, last night our power went out at home. First thing I did was fire up Twitter on my phone and sure enough, Enersource had posted an update on the problem via Twitter, with an eta on the fix.

Twitter has become my go-to destination for real-time breaking news. I rarely hop on CNN or the Star's websites anymore. I can quickly scan my Twitter feed to see what's going on, in 140 characters or less. If I'm interested in learning more, I click to get the details.

If you're game, follow me on Twitter.

iVacation

So, just got back from an epic two-week long vacation with my wife and kids at the cottage in Muskoka. Nothing like some much needed reading, relaxing, resting and a few new tech toys to play with.

Our 13" MacBook Pro wasn't handeling some video editing of home movies we were doing, so I swapped it for a new 27" iMac. These all-in-one computing beasts chewed up the video work like it was nothing. I'm totally impressed with the ease it handled the 1080p video. Final Cut X/iMovie 11 and Motion all ran really well. Having the large 27" screen and tons of real estate also helps. Not to mention, the addition of OS X 10.7 Lion, which seems to have also sped things up.

Speaking of video, we also picked up a new digital SLR capable of shooting 1080p video. So what does all of this mean? It means that soon, I'll be posting video content in addition to photos.

The new Apple video tools make editing really smooth. The new GUI on Final Cut X is (very similar to iMovie 11) streamlined and intuitive and takes nice use of Lion's full-screen application features. Exporting to various formats (iPhone, iPad, DVD, Blu Ray, etc) and social networks (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, CNN iVideo, etc) are all one-click away, and also very easy to use.

Next up will be playing some more with Apple Motion and getting some cool post-editing effects in there. Awesome stuff...

The art of the deck

As a creative director, I know a thing or two about putting together a deck. A pitch deck that is. Apple Keynote and myself are BFFs. While I'd love to write a blog post about how I strategically set up the creative rationale, balanced by the client's objectives, how it's all brought to life through stunning artistic direction and all tied together to a strong ROI... but I'l save that to another day ...and don't want to give away my secrets.

The past month or so the term 'deck' has had new meaning. I've taken it upon myself to build a two-level deck in the backyard. It's been a ton of hard work (and lumber) but I'm almost complete. There's nothing like building something out of wood, and being to sit on it after to enjoy a cold one. If you follow me on Twitter, then you have seen all of my Foursquare check-ins at Home Depot picking up all my supplies. It's been a great experience and I'd recommend others taking on some of these DIY projects - they're great fun, and an amazing stress relief!

Facebook for iPad

It's amazing that it has been over a year since the iPad's debut and there hasn't been an official native Facebook app for the device. Well, it looks like that is about to change. Techcrunch is reporting that the new app is almost done and should be releasing shortly.

Facebook has made some HTML5 improvements to their site that have made viewing from an iPad much better, but it's still not the same as viewing from a desktop experience, or a native app like the one found on the iPhone.

What's odd is there was an app release for the BlackBerry PlayBook before the iPad. I find it hard to ignore the 28 million + people that have purchased an iPad and in-fact, the native browser on the PlayBook rendered out Facebook.com almost perfectly - so why the release of the app first? Could it be they were testing the tablet app waters first with a lower install base? Is it easier to develop for PlayBook OS vs iOS? I wish I had the answers...

Hit up the link and check out the screenshots of the iPad version. It's looking pretty slick. One big question as a marketer will be if you'll have the same sort of experience with Fan Pages/Groups as you do on the desktop site, or will it be scaled back like the iPhone version. Time will tell...