In the kitchen area here at Zoom HQ, we had under-cabinet lights which helped us see the food we prepared for lunch. There were nine 10 watt halogen puck lights. They had a few problems. First, they were always falling apart. Just bumping a light would make the innards fall down and dangle from the short wires. Second, the bulbs were very expensive, hard to find in stores, and only seemed to last for a few weeks before burning out. It was a rare occasion to have all the lights lit at the same time. Also, they were hot. Not fire-hazard hot, but hot enough to be uncomfortable if you get too close.
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Posts Tagged ‘Zoomers’
High Fives for Efficiency, Elegance, Ease, and Cost Effectiveness
Wednesday, September 29th, 2010Zoom Creates Campers
Monday, August 30th, 2010
On Friday morning we packed up and headed out on the 1st Annual Zoom Camping trip. The seasoned campers were were efficiently packed with all the necessary camping gear. Others were still wondering exactly how exactly the lack of room service, not to mention electricity, was going to work. Still others worried about the weather — when we reserved the sites back in January we were picturing the August weather a little bit differently. But every last one of us was excited for the adventure and hilarity that was sure to ensue.
We lucked out with the weather, sure it could have been a little warmer, but we didn’t see a single drop of rain. We ate like kings and queens and even had our own floating island. We also learned a thing or two. Kris taught us that the water in the lake is wet! Who knew? Thanks to Eva we realized that when laughing uncontrollably while laying on a floating island in the middle of a lake, its best to keep hold of a handle. Kurtis demonstrated exactly why half shirts went out of style. June and Lisa informed us that camping is dirty. And Tim taught us that short ribs are even better when cooked over the fire in the wilderness. But most importantly, we learned that with a group of Zoomers working together, we can accomplish anything!
Zoom Creates does OSCON
Wednesday, July 28th, 2010Zoom Creates does OSCON
Last week O’Reilly put on the 2010 Open Source Convention (OSCON) here in Portland. The Zoom Dev team took Thursday morning to check it out. There were many exciting open source projects on display, and SWAG everywhere! We through caution and our identities to the wind and dropped business cards in jars and filled out forms for drawings. By lunch time, we returned to the office with bags full of t-shrits, coffee mugs, pins, pens, toys, and papers. It was a great way to spend the morning: talk about nerdy stuff with other geeks, and have something to wear for the next day. After a start like that, productivity was pretty much shot for the second half of the day, but we managed to get some work done… until we started getting phone calls for the forms we filled out and business cards we dropped. But the calls were not sales calls. Amazingly, in addition to the generous SWAG we hauled back to the office, we won three smartphones!
Qualcomm Innovation Center, Inc. (QuIC), whose focus is on integrating software and hardware on mobile devices, had a drawing to win one of ten HTC Droid Incredible phones. Both Justin and I won that drawing. And Symbian, the company that manages the operating system on Nokia phones, had a drawing to win one of three Nokia 5800 XpressMusic phone. I won that drawing too. Not bad for a days work!
Thanks, O’Reilly, Qualcomm, and Symbian for the gifts and for your support of open source projects! OSCON is coming back to Portland next year, so be sure to check it out!
First Annual Rainbow Day
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010
Rainbow Day was brainchild of the Tweedles, inspired by the Jimmy Dean Ad campaign and a line up of brightly colored shirts. The plan: everyone would sign up for a color and then could wear a top or dress of your chosen color for the day. (Note: your color had to appear solid from 3 feet away, no plaids allowed!) We brought in treats in a rainbow theme and we even caught a snapshot of the Zoomers in full rainbow attire, complete with Kurtis as the pot of gold! I don’t think you could get anymore bright and cheery then this colorful group!
If you haven’t already caught the Jimmy Dean ads on TV, you should head on over to YouTube and check out our very own rainbow inspiration.
Zoom Creates Cache
Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010
Our geocache is now live. On the first day, six people found it and logged their find on geocaching.com. The first-to-find gift, a prize for the first person who finds the cache, was a TorkScrew, compliments of BellaSvago.com. Also included in the cache at the time of launch was one of our trackable Zoom Creates Coin geocoins, Pink Noise stickers, Google laptop sticker, pink dice, Zoom coasters, a TorkScrew coaster, and a C3P0 Pez dispenser.
Before you are given the cache coordinates, you first must solve a slide puzzle featuring Hoss and Pepper – the same image of the dogs as on our geocoins. The next challenge is to find the camouflaged cache.
The puzzle and cache has been very well received. So get out your GPS receiver and come find it! To get started, go here: Zoom Creates Cache.
Zoom Creates Geocoins
Thursday, May 20th, 2010
If you haven’t heard of geocaching yet, you must be living under a rock. So crawl out of there, then look behind it because there might be a geocache hidden there. Then go to http://geocaching.com to find out what it is.
In our attempt to take over the world, we’ve decided it would be fun to hide a geocache. But to make it extra special, we designed up and had 100 geocoins cast. We just got them back from the coin makers.
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Hugs and Kitties for everyone!
Thursday, April 8th, 2010
This week we celebrated Greg’s birthday. And in preparation, as has become tradition, the rest of the design team searched the internet for just the right image to Photoshop Greg’s face onto for his birthday card from the Zoomers. All week we had been threatening Greg with a “Kittens and Hugs” party instead of the “Pizza and Pints” party he was hoping for. So, you can imagine how excited we were to find this image to “Gregify”. Of course we had to add some additional kittens, just for good measure. As we put together the card we couldn’t help but browse the images from the last few years. We certainly got a laugh out of them, so I thought I would share. Enjoy!
Perfectly imperfect
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010The design team has often talked about the tendency for designers to be perfectionists. Sometimes, especially when creating something for myself, this can be paralyzing. It has to be absolutely perfect and I can’t start until I know exactly how that perfect thing will look. Let me tell you, this can result in some blank white walls in my apartment. I know I’ll have to stare at it, whatever it is, day in and day out and that if it isn’t perfect it will drive me crazy! But what if it isn’t permanent? What if I just do without analyzing the final product and every step it will take me to get there? And then if I hate it, or get sick of it, I can rip it down and start something new. It is this idea that got us Zoomers started on a new mission to create temporary pieces of installation art on the walls of our studio. We wanted to do something that all Zoomers could quickly contribute to while taking a moment to stand up and get away from their computers. We wanted something that could morph and change throughout the process of creating it. We wanted something that didn’t need a storyboard, a set of brand guidelines or a project manager. With this in mind, reacting to a printer that kept jamming we started crumpling up the mangled sheets of paper and stapling them to the wall. And so it begins, we have a beginning but no precise vision for the end, and in this case, that is the way we like it!
The Problem with Probability
Friday, January 22nd, 2010If you were to flip a coin 10 times, and it comes up heads each time, you might think, “On the next flip, it’s SURE to come up tails – it’s due.” If you flip the coin 10 more times and again it comes up heads each time, you might think, “The next flip will surely be HEADS. Just look at the statistics.” Of course, we know that any flip has just as much chance as being heads as it does tails (assuming the coin is evenly weighted and symmetrical). So how many flips does it take to change our feeling about the next flip? Somewhere between 10 and 20 flips? (more…)
Zoom gifts that keep on giving
Wednesday, January 6th, 2010Just before the holiday break, Zoom took part in a pretty neat tradition. We have a giant stocking that is filled to the brim with holiday cheer (small toys, candy, blinking things, other awesome stuff) and if you’ve been good, you get to reach into the bag and pull out a prize. It’s a fun little bonus at the end of each day and this year there was a twist. Inside the stocking were 6 paper wrapped prizes that came along with a little something extra.
I was one lucky boy that fateful day when I reached into the stocking and got a little wrapped item with a big X written on it. That meant that I couldn’t trade the item with anyone and wouldn’t know what was inside until after everyone else had pulled out their prizes. Kris, one of the other developers here at Zoom reached in and got the matching prize, so at the end of the day, Leisa told me and Kris that we were now the lucky winners of a pedicure at Midas Nail Salon.
Yesterday was the day that the little something extra was awarded to us, and Lisa and Robin decided to join us. It was fantastic, and I’ve attached some photos for your viewing pleasure.
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