Even though I shouldn’t own a car, I do, and as every car owner in NYC knows, dealing with alternate-side parking is a hassle. That, combined with my recent itch to write a small mobile app, has lead me to the following idea:  the “Dude, Where’s My Car?” app for mobile.   Here’s what it will… Contin...

­ This past weekend, Phil Ashlock and I headed down to DC to participate in TransparencyCamp, a BarCamp event put on by the Sunlight Foundation.  We spent two days with ~200 open government and transparency advocates from all sectors — government, non-profit, tech, etc.  All in all, it was a pretty ...

Over at TOPP, we’ve been talking recently about the “spectrum of engagement” — in other words, providing a variety of ways that people can engage with a website, ranging from quick & easy (e.g., thumbs-up-ing something) to slow and involved (e.g., writing a blog post or signing up for an account).  ...

This week, TOPP moved into additional, (maybe) temporary office space, to alleviate some of the crowding at our office in the West Village.  We were looking for a place that was convenient, comfortable, and most of all, available immediately (backstory is that we’ve been basically sitting on top of ...

For your reading pleasure, the Broadsheet Wide theme for the Vienna RSS reader. Continue reading

It’s really amazing how walking down the street with a funny hat on puts smiles on people’s faces.  Today, I’m going to pretend I’m not wearing a viking hat.  I only wish I had bought the hat before I got on the subway this morning.  Happy Halloween! Continue reading

Here at TOPP, we’ve been using Fresh Direct for a while now for our office groceries (even while being critical of them on one of our blogs).  It’s easy — we can order online and have food delivered right to the office.  However, the packaging Fresh Direct uses is really outrageous; items are delive...

Frannie and I are ready to sell our car, Dudley.  He’s a great car, and we love him, but we just don’t use him enough to justify the expense.  If you’re interested or know anyone who might be, let me know I didn’t make a website for this car like I did last time, but… Continue reading

This week, we launched the new, improved GothamSchools.  GothamSchools is the latest media / advocacy initiative from The Open Planning Project, and our first foray into the world of education.  We’ve got a great team of reporters in Philissa Cramer, Elizabeth Green, and Kelly Vaughan, and the new s...

For a while now, I’ve been using Chandler to keep track of my to-dos.  Chandler is a semi-historic open source project which I’ve been following ever since I read Dreaming in Code (and in many ways, it’s saga parallels ours at The Open Planning Project with our work on OpenPlans)  I’ve been rooting ...

“Release early and often” is a phrase often heard in software development, and is more like a mantra for most web development projects.  The idea being that it’s better to get something “out there” in a simple or reduced form, rather than wait and wait and wait for your grand plan to come together. ...

In doing some photo hunting for a side project, I came across this gem of a photo on Flickr. Riding the subway all over the city, I often think about the fact that most great subway moments (and many great city moments, for that matter) go unrecorded. Perhaps this is part of the beauty of… Continue ...

I came across this enigmatic construction sign yesterday on the side of the West Side Highway in Manhattan. I did a double-take, trying to determine if, perhaps, I was the only one who could see this message. What do you see? I honestly can’t think of a reasonable explanation… Continue reading

In the spirit of blogging all the cool stuff we’re doing at TOPP, I’d like to announce the launch of a new website: Park(ing) Day NYC. Park(ing) Day is a global event, originally conceived by awesome SF-based arts collective REBAR, where for a single day, regular parking spaces are “leased” for use ...

Bastille Day on Smith Street is one of my favorite days of the year.  It’s great fun: the streets are closed, sand is trucked in, and a giant Petanque tournament is held.  But the tournament is just an excuse to be there: the real fun is the great food & drink put out by… Continue reading

Over at The Open Planning Project, we’ve always had a bit of a hard time explaining what we do.  That job just got a little bit easier, with the launch of the new-and-improved TOPP website last Friday.  Reactions from within the staff have been remarkably similar: something along the lines of “Phew,...

A few months ago, I wrote up a simple javascript photo gallery viewer for a side project, so I thought I’d offer it up to the world. It’s unobtrusive javascript, and it takes a simple list of photos and turns it into a slidey slide show. It’s built on top of the Ext Javascript Framework,… Continue r...

I stumbled upon SmartyPig this week while looking through the Happy Cog website, after reading a Zeldman post, linked to by Daring Fireball, which was brought to me via Melkjug. Gotta love the blogosphere. Now, after all that, not only do I have a new Favorite Web App, but I have a new bank. My… Con...

I came across a post this morning about a new service called Sendible. The basic idea is this: create messages of various types (email, sms, twitter tweets, facebook messages, etc) in advance, then sit back and relax as they get sent out right on schedule. Interesting idea — apparently there are a f...

In addition to being the first day of summer, yesterday was the second annual Make Music New York festival. It’s really an incredible event — musicians of all abilities and genres take to the streets to play free mini-concerts. The event came to NYC for the first time last year, and we had a great… ...