Today we're launching a new website for one of our productized systems, now called Contento in homage of it's Mexican origins. It's a CMS system and altough we still have a lot of work to do on the polish, it has quite a nice admin interface compared to alot of things we've looked at.

I'm hoping this will be the first of many launches during my stay in Norway. One of our most defined goals for 2008 is to get several of the many systems we have running for our clients made into a real product.

Any comments about the name, logo and site are welcome.

Getting together a decent portfolio of your work is always hard. First you need clients, then you need to make sure the projects are actually launched and then you need to sit down and take the damn screenshots. Today I started to play around with ViewBook which at least helps with the last part.

Large view

I got Californication from Daniel (legal copy of course) and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I don't think I've enjoyed a series this much since Deadwood and one of episode 4's themes hit right on a sore spot for me lately. Blogs and the rest of the Internet have really hurt the art of writing. Look at online newspapers today whose journalists have turned into idiot translators without any respect for fact checking at all. In Norway they've perverted the language so far that "karakter" no longer means a grade, it's now been anglicized into personality (from character). People don't take time to write properly anymore, to sit down and read over what they are trying to say and gather their thoughts in any sort of structure. I don't mean to say that I'm a good writer, but at least I try, pouring a few hours into my Less is More paper which to date has gotten not a single productive criticisms, probably because it's more than 2 paragraphs long.

My old BBS, fix.no, no longer has any articulated discussions like it did back in the old days and online I can only think of a handful of sites which don't simply reproduce Reuters tidbits or have been disintegrated into a list of "first" comments mixed with error laden troll posts. Information is moving too fast now and scanning an RSS feed doesn't do it for me. I want less, but better information instead of Google News. This isn't just a rant from some 30 year old about the good-old-days, I really do think we are providing a setting for making people more stupid.

After spending a week in Oslo working 12 hours a day it's nice to kick back and relax at my mothers place. The average Norwegian lives a life of luxury thanks to our massive oil exports (#3 in the world) and pathetic population numbers (#114 in the world). Combine the wealth with our wonderful weather results in a great deal of this luxury focused indoors and it's great to just sit back and enjoy it. The house is always warm and full of great little comfy-corners to sit in. In addition my mom makes great food, full of calories and Norwegian flavors. Later today I'm going hunting for dear with an uncle and my kid-brother and I can almost imagine myself as a real Norwegian and not a Mexican lost in scandinavia.

Update: No hunting, but I spend several hours out in 3 degree weather, constructing a small garage with my brother for his 4x4. It feels good to actually construct something tangible, something made of wood and nails and that will one day fall apart from decay and not because someone fucked up the server or forgot to do a backup. Long live the physical world!

A list apart can sometimes be a bit tedious and arrogant, but today they have an article which perfectly sums up what we, in the web industry, struggle to explain to our clients. Web design is not the same as poster design. It's not about finding the right color palette and slapping on a logo and some stock photo.

Things are starting to roll on the buisness side of things now and I've been in and out of meetings these last 3 days and hopefully we'll start working on something very soon. In the meantime I've been helping Copyleft Software with some design work for a client of theirs, kabin.no

Today I woke up to falling snow. The Norwegians (the real ones, not like me) where all pretty unimpressed by it, but I found myself standing like an idiot at the bus stop watching it fall for 10 minutes, amazed at the fact that this stuff just falls out of the sky. Can't wait till I get back on a board again!

Today I watched, for the first time in years, the sun rise. It came up from behind a building as a white, dead disc behind some clouds. As it rose into view it lit up and caught fire forcing me to turn away in a display of power to the Norwegian winter cold. It reminded me of the essence of the Norwegian spirit, of how we seem to get excited for very brief moments when something special happens in this very dull and gray country we've built.