I’m setting up a meeting with him to get more details, but on the surface this looks right up my alley.  I’m big on providing educational opportunities for historically disadvantaged groups.  I’m not interested in hearing the usual education system cop outs like, “If the family is not involved, then we can’t do anything. It’s not our fault..” This is a self defeating attitude. I’m interested in hearing about people and organizations who are making an impact in spite of their customer’s family situations.  I think Strive is one of those groups.  ABC and Prep for Prep are two others.

• Zagat to Go for iPhone – Last word in restaurant apps
• All City Street Art – Turns the entire world into a giant outdoor gallery
• Jonas Brothers –  Soundcheck concert, for Jonas fans everywhere

My former business partner Eric is running the company from this point on.  For all Semaphore related business, please contact him here:  Contact Semaphore.  Please understand that due to the requirements of my new role, my relationship with Semaphore has ended.  To be explicit: If you contact Semaphore for development services, Mekka will not be involved in the design or development of your project.

For those of you wondering where I am heading next, I am joining the Amazon.com mobile team.  Amazon has one of the most creative technical teams on the planet and I’m thrilled to be a part of it.  For those of you wishing to contact me in the interim please use the address “mekka” (at) mekka (dash) tech (dot) com.

To everyone at Semaphore that I’ve had the pleasure of working with over the past 3 years, a sincere thank you!  Special thanks to the senior dev team, KT, CJ and TS.

All City Art

Over at Semaphore we’re getting ready to release version 1.2 of All City Street Art. This app lets users see amazing street art that is available near them. I had no idea that there was so much great street art available near me. I was driving back from Pizzeria Mozza in LA with Marcus, a very talented Art Director, and encyclopedia of information on street art. In just a few short blocks he pointed out two amazing pieces.  He was even able to correctly identify the artists, just based on the style of the pieces.

How do you know this is an EINE piece?

The first piece was by EINE.  I wondered how he could tell that this was an EINE piece just by looking at it.  He showed me the EINE piece that was near his house, and let me compare it to the one we just saw.  It was obvious at that point.

The piece we saw on Melrose: http://allcityart.com/photos/1158/twitter

The other piece in New York: http://allcityart.com/photos/1158/twitter

Shepard Fairey? Really?  Aren’t his pieces very expensive?

People pay 10s of thousands of dollars for Shepard Fairey pieces, but your city is like a free gallery of his pieces, if you know where to look.  In case you don’t know who Fairey is, he made the iconic Barack Obama poster.  This huge mural is available on Melrose.  Marcus explained to me the connection between, Fairey, Obey, and “Andre the Giant.”  Fascinating stuff.

As we pulled away, he noticed two more pieces.  LA is full of world class street art, if you know where to look.  We didn’t even cover the more obvious examples, commissioned murals, and frescoes.

The Shepard Fairey piece, wide angle:
http://allcityart.com/photos/1162/twitter

Detail shots:
http://allcityart.com/photos/1163/twitter
http://allcityart.com/photos/1164/twitter
http://allcityart.com/photos/1165/twitter

Warning, this app is infectious. I’m starting to see street art everywhere.

We considered using MongoDB for the back-end, but ended up going with trusty old MySQL. The classics are hard to beat. We’re exploring potentially using Mongo or Couch or something similar in an update, but we’re still doing tests to see if the performance increase will justify the effort.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/03/touchscreens-smartphones/