Let There Be Mom Video

Let There Be Mom is a non-profit organization that was founded in Greenville, SC in January of 2007. The organization was created to help Moms when they, or their child’s father, become diagnosed with a life threatening illness by helping to preserve the legacy of the ailing parent. The goal of Let There Be Mom is to make each person’s legacy as unique as the life they lead.

To date, Let There Be Mom has served 13 families, which have 29 children between them. All of the families they work with have children 18 years old and younger.

We have seen firsthand how they have impacted some of these families and we have considered it a privilege to create this video to help tell their story. We hope you will join us in supporting Let There Be Mom and be a blessing to others as they go through the valley.

Cross Browser Testing

Yes, I’m running three computers at my desk right now. Two PC’s and two Macs (that’s two more PC’s than usual, for those of you that are keeping score). The reason? I’ve been working on programming the new Greenville Rec website for a few weeks now, and one thing that we do for every website we build is test it across multiple browsers.

Believe it or not, every browser renders a website differently. A website pulled up in Firefox may or may not look the same as the same website in Internet Explorer. Even further, a website may not look the same way in different versions of Internet Explorer (especially IE6). There are several online services that will generate screenshots of a website, but nothing beats being able to browse in real time.

Stay tuned, as we’re hoping to announce the launch of the new Greenville Rec site in the next few weeks.

Greenville Rec Logo Redesign

Greenville Rec approached us at the end of 2008 to redesign their logo and we were very excited that they were ready for a change.

During the Discovery Phase, we sought both internal and external feedback on their current logo.  We discussed colors, icons and creative suggestions. After that, we evaluated the name Greenville County Recreation District (GCRD). Through web analytics research and focus group feedback, we decided to shorten the name to Greenville Rec.

We worked very closely with Mike Teachey throughout the entire process, from concept phase to internal sell-in to completion of the final artwork. At the internal sell-in, we presented our concepts to the department heads. We went through and narrowed it down to the top 3. After this meeting, we made a few modifications to the top 3 and from there, the final decision was made. We presented a total of approximately 15 concepts and you can see the logo that was chosen at the top of this post. Greenville Rec liked the cleanliness of the new logo and that it did not tie to a tree or a park.

Greenville Rec’s slogan is “Creating community through people, parks and programs” and this logo communicates diversity of people, parks and programs and how they are all connected with one another.

Music Monday III

Today’s Music Monday selections are coming to us from Ben Moffett

If you’re not familiar with why we’re doing this, check out this post. There’s still plenty of time to register for the iTunes gift card giveaway. Enter here!

Applications
1.  RunKeeper: Great little application to track your walk. Also displays a map of your walk and keeps a history
2. Fox News: not an itunes app but the best source in news and it is formatted for iphone.
3. Pandora: of course, what can I say, the best way to listen to music.
4. ishoot: fun tank battle game that will keep you coming back for more.
5. scrabble: just like the real boardgame but you can play it with a friend across the room who has an iphone or in the next meeting with your clients.

Music  (.99) each
Don’t hate me but I’m going with some old ones…
1. Firehouse – Love of A Lifetime
2. Men at Work – Down Under
3. Fine Young Cannibals – She Drives Me Crazy
4. Dire Straits – Money For Nothin
5. Lifehouse – Hanging by a Moment

March Madness 09

Click the links below to see who we picked in our 2009 NCAA Tournament Brackets!

Tom’s Bracket • Joe’s Bracket • Jim’s Bracket

We’ll be sure to let you know who wins!

Music Monday: Part II

Today’s Music Monday selections are coming to us from Ben’s wife, Jodee.

If you’re not familiar with why we’re doing this, check out this post. There’s still plenty of time to register for the iTunes gift card giveaway. Enter here!

Applications
1.  Pocket God: $.99  – A great game where you can torture little islanders. It’s addictive and fun.
2. The Oregon Trail: $5.99 – Classic game where you try to keep your frontier people alive.
3. Touchgrind: $4.99 – A fun and different game where you can skate with your fingers.
4. Tweetie: $2.99 – A great interface for Twitter.
5. Distant Shore: $.99 – A fun twist on social networking – you walk along a beach and throw bottles in the water sending messages to different people.
6. Virtual Villagers: $1.99 – Try to keep your villagers alive by finding food, water and building shelter. This is a real time game.

Music  (.99) each
1. Mad World – Donnie Darko
2. Apologize (feat. OneRepublic) – Timbaland
3. Savin Me – Nickelback
4. Best I Ever Had (Grey Sky Morning) – Vertical Horizon
5.  Decode – Paramore
6. Hot N Cold – Katy Perry
7. You Found Me-  The Fray

100 Free Applications for Mac

Here is a great article for anyone that owns a Mac: 100 Free Useful Applications for Mac, Part 1. One of our personal favorites here is MindNode, an easy to use mind mapping application.

It looks like there will be a part two of this series coming out sometime next week with another list of useful Mac apps.

Music Monday: Part I

Here’s a little series we’re going to be running throughout our iTunes Gift Card Contest. We thought that it would be fun if we each put together a list of what we would do with the $25 iTunes gift card (even though we’re not eligible…hey, it’s still fun to dream, right?). On Mondays throughout the contest, we’ll be posting a list of music, iPhone applications, and video that each of us would purchase with $25 iTunes store credit.

If you haven’t entered for the drawing for the actual iTunes gift card yet, click here to learn how to get signed up.

I’m up first, so without further ado, here’s my list (in my case, these are all a selection of what I’ve got on my iPod Touch at the moment):

Applications

1. Bejeweled 2: $2.99 – Classic game of swapping jewels to get 3 (or more) in a row.
2. iShoot: $2.99 – Think Pocket Tanks, but on the iPhone.

Music (.99 each)

1. Washed by the Water (Acoustic version) – Needotbreathe
2. A Long December – Counting Crows
3. Dare You to Move – Switchfoot
4. Black Balloon – Goo Goo Dolls
5. Chasing Cars – Snow Patrol
6. Desperately Wanting (Acoustic version) – Better Than Ezra
7. All for You (live) – Sister Hazel
8. The Heat – Needtobreathe
9. This is your Life – Switchfoot
10. When You Come Back Down – Nickel Creek
11. You Never Let Go – Matt Redman
12. You Are Here – Needtobreathe
13. Streets of Gold – Needtobreathe
14. One Headlight – Wallflowers
15. Run – Collective Soul
16. She Talks to Angels – The Black Crowes
17. Take Me Away – Lifehouse
18. Untitled Hymn – Chris Rice
19. Unwell – Matchbox 20

Win a $25 iTunes Gift Card from Drum!

To celebrate the launch of our new website, we decided we would hold a contest here on the blog and give away a shiny, new $25 iTunes gift card. To enter, you have to do two things:

First, you’ll need to do one of the following:

• Follow Drum Creative on Twitter and post a tweet with a link back to this post.
• Mention Drum Creative in a post on your blog and link back here.
• Become a fan of Drum Creative on Facebook.

(you can always do more than one of these things too…we’d love you for it, but it won’t increase your chances of winning)

Second, and most importantly, you must leave a comment on this post to let us know where you are completing one of the first three requirements.

Do both of these and you’re in. The deadline to enter is April 30th, 2009. A winner will be chosen at random on May 1st, 2009 and will be notified via email. Employees of Drum Creative, their familes and their pets are not eligible to participate. To everyone else, GOOD LUCK!

Drum Web Announcement

If you have visited DrumCreative.com recently, then you have no doubt noticed that there have been some substantial changes to our site. We have been working away on this new design and we are now excited to say that we are ready to officially release it out into the world. Now that we’re going public with the new look, we wanted to point out a couple of key features.

If you’re reading this post, then you are already staring at the most significant change – the addition of a Drum Creative blog. Watch this space for updates on what is going on in the wide world of Drum. While we’re talking about social web applications, we would also like to point out that you can now follow us on Twitter and check out our latest pictures on flickr.

Another section of our site that has been updated is our portfolio. Head on  over and browse through some of our past projects and be sure to click on each of the images to zoom in on each thumbnail. On some of these, you can also flip the image over to see some additional information.

So take a few minutes to look around and be sure to check back often!