I have had many names for the things and people I love. My first dog, Muffin, known to me as “Nurchich” … My daughter (@cadie on twitter) known as “the gadoo”, “the bazoops” and “the pickle”. But why do we name these loved ones as any other thing than their real names?

Honestly, I don’t know… But I find these endearing names so human in nature and pretty dang awesome.

Sometimes we name them after other endearing objects, like “honey” or “dear”, ok and “the pickle”, or even something else. There’s nothing wrong with that IMHO. I just find them kind of cliche. So I find myself trying to make up names just to feel somewhat original, I guess. I don’t really know why, but in my case, its endearing to me. That’s all that really matters, right?

As corny as it may sound, I call my wife “my wife” and it makes me endearingly happy. Honestly, it matters only to me and I like it that way.

So… What do you name your loved ones? Call this an experiment in love… Or something like that.

So… What if you only had 140 characters to make that pitch? What would yours be?

What other things should the “140 Principal” be applied to?

First! if you want to be a good designer, you have to understand typography. This book is BEYOND ESSENTIAL!!!

Then, when you understand that, add this to your repertoire.

Also… I bookmark & share a LOT of design stuff, if you are interested in that. Use some sort of reader software and subscribe to design blogs. It’s well worth it! Here’s my link feeds:

My Shared Items
My Delicious Feed

Last but not least… ALWAYS BE LEARNING!!!

I’m trying to make a calendar wallpaper for each month this year. Here’s “Feb 2010. What do you think?

I am so getting as many of these as I can get my hands on. So cool!

Nearly equal to the power of Gmail for business is the Google Calendarr system. It has all of the great features of the desktop systems like shared calendars, free-busy schedules, invitations and scheduling options and much more. The added benefits are similar to Gmail as well. It’s browser based, can be shared or pulled up from just about anywhere, can sync with just about any mobile calendar system you may use on your mobile device, lets you create multiple calendars for different uses and even can send you email and SMS reminders for the things you have coming up.

Quick Add:
Through the quick add text box you can add events to your schedule with (nearly) standard english syntax. The formula to remember is “What, When, Who, Where” when typing in quick add commands.

SMS Integration
I particularly love the SMS integration as you not only will get invitations and reminders sent to your phone but you can also interact with your calendar through SMS. Just remember, you have to set your phone up in the settings BEFORE you can use any of the SMS features.

The magic number: 48368
This is the short code Google uses to communicate with you. Once you have set up your phone for SMS messaging in the calendar settings (mobile provider SMS charges may apply depending on your mobile service package). Text any of the following codes to

• help: If you ever forget this info, you can get it quick by texting “help” to that magic number and you will get 3 short messages with some tips
• next: will return your next appointment information
• day: returns today’s schedule
• nday: returns tomorrow’s schedule

But wait there’s more! You can also use the Quick Add rules to add items to your calendar through SMS. How cool is that?

Shared/Public Calendars
A shared calendar is a calendar that multiple people can see, change, add or edit events on. These are great for long term projects with groups inside your organization. Public calendars are a way to publish your calendar information to a web address that is visible to all.

As you can probably imagine, all this virtually hosted information and service makes it so much easier for you and your crew to connect with each other and the world from no matter where they are. Via the web, mobile devices and phones they can connect, collaborate and communicate with ease and simplicity.

Enclosures: M4V, MP3

Any better promo ideas? I figured we’d start with this…

Thanks for listening