Logorama explores the extent to which logos are embedded in our daily existence. Said members of H5, “Logorama presents us with an over-marketed world built only from logos and real trademarks that are destroyed by a series of natural disasters (beginning with a hurricane, cyclone, tidal wave). Logotypes are used to describe an alarming universe (similar to the one that we are living in) with all the graphic signs that accompany us everyday in our lives. This over-organized universe is violently transformed by the cataclysm becoming fantastic and absurd. It shows the victory of the creative against the rational, where nature and human fantasy triumph.” [from wikipedia]

It’s a very interesting perspective on how daily life is surrounded by logos, brands every day and every time. Also, interesting to note that the city overview looks like a container city.

The runners up for Best Animated Short were:

• French Roast – Fabrice O. Joubert
• Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty – Nicky Phelan and Darragh O’Connell
• The Lady and the Reaper – Javier Recio Gracia
• A Matter of Loaf and Death – Nick Park

French Roast

Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty

The Lady and the Reaper

A Matter of Loaf and Death

Enjoy!

LG says that the monitor is perfect for gaming, but not being a huge gamer I’ve decided to test the W2486L as my Mac monitor (which includes movies & TV series) for a few weeks.

Yes, that’s me playing around with the new design of Adegga.

The W2486L would be a normal 24” monitor if it wasn’t for 2 things. First it uses the LED-backlit technology with allows LG to make a very thin monitor with a high efficient use of energy. And, with a maximum resolution of 1920 x 1080, the W2486L is also capable of playing Full HD videos. Which is specially interesting given its 16:9 aspect ratio.

Design
The W2486L is a beautiful piece of design. For those of you interested in using this monitor in your living room (like I do) you won’t be disappointed with the way it looks. The monitor’s buttons are nicely integrated into the design and even the pointy power button gives the monitor a nice stylish look. It won’t totally seem like a misfit next to your media center and those lovely B&W speakers.

Performance
I didn’t perform any specific tests to the monitor. First because I would have to research them and second because most people won’t bother to read them or even try them at home. The truth is that most people want a above average screen that performs well at their eyes, which means crisp and clear image, no lagging and lots of power (HD support). For the extremely geek of you I will copy what CNET said about their tests:

The W2486L scored well in our color tests, faltering only in our color ramp tests as it didn’t show a smooth intensity color ramp. In our Dark Screen test, clouding or backlight bleedthrough was noticeable on the top and especially the bottom-middle edge of the screen, but not quite as much as we saw on the XL2370. We were pleased though that the display didn’t crush dark grays and confuse them with black. We were able to see low levels of dark gray.

There, happy now?

Connectivity
The monitor comes with 2 HDMI ports, a D-Sub port and a DVI-D and also a headphone jack. Lots of options for the gamer in you (I’m thinking about Xbox 360 and PS3).

Downsides
The W2486L is quite a good package. If I could change anything I would probably remove the Photo Effect feature which is pretty useless (why would you change your monitor to Sepia?) and also the Auto Bright Sensor which is a smart but annoying feature that fortunately can be turned off.

Conclusion
Overall I’ve had a great experience with this monitor and would recommend it as a computer monitor that is occasionally used to watch movies or TV series. For an average retail price of 300 euros (best price at Pixmania) this is a great monitor to have in the living room connected to your computer or media center.

More W2486L reviews here, here, here and here.

Note: I’ve received this monitor from LG and was asked to test it for a few weeks. As part of that LG program, the monitor will now be given free-of-charge to the Associação Terra dos Sonhos (my choice) which supports children and teenagers with chronicle or terminal illness. Well done LG.

I’ve always had a thing for really good, deep and powerful bass. Be it on house-style music, a good RnB, a rock classic or even heavy metal (think Metallica) bass can have a striking impact on the quality of your music-listening experience.

It’s been a while since I paid any attention to fine audio equipment. I was decided to go back to owning some really good, bass-powerful audio equipment and so I recently acquired the Sennheiser HD 215 headphones.

I was not going to buy a full audio system and so I decided to consider a new set of headphones that would have really good bass but wouldn’t compromise on the audio quality of the the other side of the frequency response range.

With a factory response of 12 to 22000 Hz and big ear cups the HD 215 is definitely designed to handle deep and powerful bass. However, my tests with music requiring a good mid-to-high response, have also show that the HD 215 can handle any type of music with a clear and vivid sound. The excellent attenuation of ambient noise together with the very good wearing comfort makes the HD 215 ideal for long listening sessions.

Another little feature that I like on the HD 215 is the fact that you can unplug the headphone cord from the body of the headphones. This means the cord can be replaced if it gets damaged avoiding having to throw away a perfectly good pair of headphones. The headphones come with a practical protective pouch to carry them around.

At 80 euros these are not your everyday headphones but they certainly they justify every euro spent. I’m loving them.

I had a great time talking about my journey building Adegga. During the presentation I share some funny and not so funny moments of that journey so far. I hope you enjoy the video:

As I said previously it makes me very proud to see the work that me and my team (André Cid and Emídio Santos) have been doing during the last 3 years recognized by a national newspaper. So, what have we been doing ?

Adegga
Adegga is the project that started everything. 3 years ago I quit my day job at SAPO and decided to work full-time on this project.

• Adegga (Twitter) is an online wine community where anyone can track the wines that are drinking (to help remember later) and share that experience with other people.
• Adegga now has over 100.000 unique visitors every month and includes over 10.000 tasting notes from its members. Together consumers are changing the wine world by creating a new wine recommendation era where trust and conversation are more important than status.
• Adegga is now a platform with a soon be released API and Mobile application for the IPhone & Android.
• Wine producers can use Adegga to talk about their wines, present their winery or launch a new wine. Cortes de Cima and Quevedo are two of wine producers already doing it.

AVIN, an ISBN for Wine

• The AVIN (Twitter) is a unique identifier for each wine. Think of it as an ISBN for Wine.
• Like with books, every wine should have a unique number. This will help consumers get more information out of each bottle of wine and help them make smarter decisions.
• 2 years ago we created the concept of Dynamic Wine Labels allowing anyone with a camera-enabled mobile phone to read the label and access wine reviews, wine prices and a lot more information from anywhere.
• Cortes de Cima, Quevedo, O’Vineyards were the first to use the AVIN.
• Now, over 1 million wine labels have been printed with a Dynamic Wine Label including an AVIN and a QRCode
  
• Wineries interested in getting an AVIN for their wines should contact us.

What else?
The awarded is largely based on the work done on those 2 projects but I gave another wine related project a lot of time in 2009. Together with the star couple Gabriella and Ryan Opaz and shirt-proud Robert McIntosh I helped bring the European Wine Bloggers conference to Portugal. The conference was a major success, gathering over 160 people including wine producers, wine bloggers and wine writers from around the World. It brought new media education and attention to the Portuguese wine industry.

Portugal *is* changing
Being awarded by a respected national newspaper is the kind of exposure that should happen more often in Portugal. Some awards should exist to promote and create public awareness of great work done by young people who are shaping the future and not to award the same-old-people who are already well know and awarded. Thanks to Aníbal Coutinho for his courage in doing this and helping change this mentality.

Aníbal wrote something powerful to finish the article and I definitely think ever

If you’re a wine producer or professional in the wine area and you’ve haven’t understood why I gave André Ribeirinho the award, make sure you’re not turning your back to the future of your business.

Thank you
I would also like to thank everyone who has been supporting me and my projects on Twitter, Facebook and all around the World. You guys make it possible!

Thanks Henriette from inspiring me for that title!

• It makes me very proud to see the work that me and my team (André Cid and Emídio Santos) have been doing in the last 3 years recognized by a national newspaper.
• I feel honored to be listed amongst such amazing wine professionals as Dirk Niepoort and João Pires.
• I think that praising good work done by young people should be a part of the news (paper, tv, etc.) more often. There are a lot of great projects that should be highlighted more.

Thanks everyone for your continuing support!

Light experiences.

It’s a no stands or ties wine event and the venue will have plenty of sofas & lounge music in order to create the best relaxed wine tasting moment.

Any of the wines at the tasting will also be available to buy during the event so that you can pick your favorites and buy them for Christmas.

Date, Venue & Ticket
- The event takes place on Tuesday, 8th December 2009 from 2pm to 9pm.
- The events costs 5€ and includes a Riedel wine glass and a shop discount.

The venue is the Teatro Aberto located in the Praça de Espanha in Lisbon (see map). There’s plenty of parking space around and very easy access by subway or bus.

Visit the Wine Market page on Adegga or the Facebook Page to confirm that you’re coming.

For the last 12 months I was spending at least 1 day every 2 weeks at CoreFactor office in Lisbon. They just let me crash in once in a while and the time I spend there was good. We had some nice brainstorming sessions, discussed potential projects and enjoyed the occasional beer. It felt good to have office colleagues again.

So, last September, I started paying a rent and using the office to do some co-working full time.

Interestingly, last week a news article came out on the Jornal de Negócios talking about this whole co-working thing and mentioning me and a few other interesting co-working projects.

There’s a mention to the beautiful Liberdade 229 project that is well run by the cool Quodis team.

For me, it has been a very enjoying experience. Specially for being surrounded by nice people and very close to a bunch of small cafes and nice restaurants. It all helps to get the most of my day, every day.

I started my trip to Spain by having lunch at the famous Boqueria (a food lovers paradise!). Barcelona looks wonderful and I’ve only visited the market and took the bus from the airport. Tonight is time for some grilling & wine drinking, after all I’m chez Ryan and Gabriella and these two are some dedicated wine lovers.

From Wednesday I’ll be in Logroño at the WineFuture conference where I’ll be showing how Adegga can help wineries and doing lots of demos of the AVIN with couple of Cortes de Cima 2007 bottles.

It’s going to be interesting. Two days together with some of the more well known people in the wine world like Robert Parker, Jancis Robinson, Gary Vaynerchuck (who does WineLibraryTV and Corkd), Ryan Opaz (yes, the one from Catavino) and a few more. Some crazy numbers: almost 1000 participants, 10.700 wine glasses, 600 bottles for the grand tasting. Lots of talking, meeting, drinking coming up!