Two new design patents were issued August 26, for a Slow Cooker, designed by A.B.I.D.

I chuckled at this satirical take about the design process:



It reminded me of this older video about redesigning the iPod package:



As silly as these videos are, they it accurately depict the many ways a design process can go off the tracks. It is also interesting to note that these were produced by in-house groups as teaching tools.

Check iRobot Roomba, just added to the design portfolio.

The Hummer MusixStation has been added to the A.B.I.D. portfolio of products.

We are confident in saying that this model is the most fuel efficient in the entire Hummer line.

I have put up a new page describing expert witness services. This is an exciting new aspect of my consulting practice which promises to be a stimulating and challenging endeavor.

I have created a new page on the website which contains a list of all of my US patents, including design and utility patents. This page also features images and links pertaining to some recent patents.

I have found that Google Patent Search is quite handy...easier to use than the USPTO search engine. Unfortunately there are some of my patents that I could not find through Google, but could find on the USPTO site.

Today I updated the website format template. This new template is designed to be used with RapidWeaver 4.0, and allows much more color customization. I still have a bit of work to do in resizing some of the thumbnail images to fit the new format.

After a long period of inactivity, I am glad to report that I have updated the designs section by adding a product from the ABID design portfolio. Check out the Pingtel Xpressa here.

So why the inactivity? Well in addition to being very busy with design work, I have also moved into a new Studio and it has taken quite a while to get set up. I am hoping to be a bit more diligent in updating the site in the future.

I just added the Pepper Pad to the designs section. There you will find some pictures, video, and information about the Pepper Pad mobile internet device.

I have added some video clips and an excerpt from an online review to the Cuisinart PrepExpress page.

Warning: The videos are taken from advertisements and infomercials for the product so they are a bit over the top!

I came across this video on youtube, and find it extremely inspirational:



I would love to have a car like this for running errands in and around Somerville. The inventor is now selling kits to build your own electric car, more info here.

I've had a number of questions about how I created the website, and what software I use. Actually, this is the third version of abidstudio.com and with each version I am learning more about what kind of website works best for A.B.I.D. Here is quick look back at the evolution of the site over the last few years with info about how the site was created.

I launched the first site in '02, and it was relatively simple, sort of an online brochure describing the company and showing some select products. It was a static site, hand coded html, no CSS and no interactivity. Although this worked fine for a while, I longed for a site that could be easily updated with new product designs. I was also intrigued by the new phenomenon of blogging and thought that more interactivity would allow a design dialogue to develop between friends, clients and peers.

The second version was launched in '05 using a server side content management system (CMS) based on PHP and MySQL. It was hosted on the server at my ISP, and featured an online control panel which allowed me to log into the system from any computer to make new entries and updates. Although the new site gave me all of the flexibility I was looking for soon I found that the online interface was overly complex awkward to use and the photo gallery component was quite limiting. Like so many websites and blogs, after an initial period of regular updates the site soon languished. To make matters worse, I soon discovered that the CMS running the site was vulnerable to malicious mischief and the site was hacked a number of times.

For this third version, I have tried to limit my ambition somewhat by creating a simple website and evolving it over time with new features and content. I'm using a program called RapidWeaver by Realmac Software. It is quite similar to Apple's iWeb in many ways, but much more powerful. There are a number of third party templates and plugins available, such as RapidAlbum which is currently running the site's photo albums. So far RapidWeaver has been very easy to use and very flexibleallowing the content to drive the design rather than the other way round.

Please stay tuned to see how things evolve.

- Al

Welcome to the A.B.I.D. blog. Here you can find out what's new at A.B.I.D. and read about changes and additions to the website. It's my intention to keep this blog updated in a timely manner but if you notice a long time since the last post please forgive me...I am probably busy designing.

If you have any questions for me about anything on the website, especially this blog, please send me a message via the contact page and I'll get right back to you.

- Al