Bitmap News
April 27th: BKTK Meetup @Bitmapnyc
Friday, 15 April 2011 18:10
Brooklyn Tech Meetup (BKTK) will be meeting again on Wednesday, April 27th at 7pm for our next round of networking, drinking, and discussion. The Meetup will be free, but if you feel like chipping in a few bucks to supplement the snacks, that's always appreciated.
This month, we'll have two different people presenting discussion topics:
Up first will be designer and former HR guru, Arthur Bouie, who wants to discuss different design strategies: "What do you use to get the job done? How did you create your process and how do you model it to fit your clients needs?" Whether you're a designer yourself or someone who works with designers at any point in your process, this should be an interesting topic and we'd love to hear your perspectives!
After Arthur, Nick Ditmore, Biz Dev/Creative Director with HERO, will be leading a discussion of how to make the most of your professional network to drive new business. This can be a confusing a touchy process - whom do you contact and when? To cold call or not to cold call? Ask for favors from friends? - and Nick has some good strategies and thoughts to share. And, as always, the goal for these topics is to have an actual discussion, so we'd love to hear from all of you. I, personally, would love to hear from some of you who have been on the receiving end of sales/networking initiatives to hear to what worked and what might have turned you off or soured the process.
At any rate, it should be a good time and, now that the weather's nice, there's no excuse not to trek out for some drinks and intelligent conversation!
Looking forward to it,
- Matt
PS: We're always interested to hear what you're interested in or working on. If you've got something you'd like share with the group that you think would generate an interesting discussion, let us know! Email me at: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Upcoming Workshops @Bitmap
Wednesday, 30 March 2011 14:26
We've got a whole slew of events and workshops coming up over the next few months, and while we're still working out the schedule, there's too much excitement not to share some of it! Here's a quick taste of what we have in store:
Pete List, who's done 2D and stop-motion animation for everyone from Nickelodeon to Marilyn Manson (mixing in some Venture Bros. and more [adult swim] along the way), will be teaching a workshop on using Flash for 2D animation. Come get your learn on from an animation master, and see how to use Flash for what it was actually designed for.
Nick Robalik, owner of Bitmap and Principal/CCO of creative firm HERO will be teaching a class on using those features of Photoshop few seem to fully understand: layer comps, smart objects, etc. and how to move your creative genius between programs in the Adobe Creative Suite with ease. Nick used to teach Photoshop, Illustrator & Flash at a few major universities, and now he's imparting that knowledge onto you at the low, low cost of "not near what they used to charge college students to listen to me ramble on about the laziness of Designers not learning how to use fully utilize their own design tools." He's also written books on computer animation & audio engineering (both woefully out of date but still available through Amazon), and he loves helping people learn, so...you should come!
We've also got Philip Z. Kimball, our on-site lawyer who specializes in creative & technology industry-related law, preparing some workshops on Intellectual Property, Trademark, Patent & Copyright law as it applies to the freelancer and small business. These are things we often let fall by the wayside - they're not much fun to deal with - but we need to learn to better protect ourselves and Philip has kindly made himself available to answers any questions you may have about the basics of the applicable laws. We really like Phil - like us, he's done with working for large companies and wants to blaze his own trail (legally, of course) by helping out small businesses.
More info coming soon. Fun people learning fun things in a fun way. Rock on.
Yay! Press!
Saturday, 26 March 2011 17:27
Aaron Short of the Brooklyn Paper was nice enough to stop by a short while back to see what we were up to, and wrote a nice article about us. Read the article here.
It's pretty accurate - and how often can you say that about the news these days? - but it leaves out a few things, and we have a few small corrections:
Since speaking with Aaron, we've actually lowered our daily pricing; it's now $35/day instead of $50/day. Also, rental prices drop when a member commits to a minimum 6-month lease (one-month deposit required).
We also offer large-format, gallery quality printing for artists, designers & photographers. We do architectural printing at extremely low rates for freelance/small business architectural designer as well.
We actually have more than half a dozen servers for motion graphics & 3D rendering. All told, in those little boxes we have 48CPUs ready to rock on just about anything we throw at it. Our actual file & print servers, as well as quite possibly the most overpowered custom-built router of all time, are completely separate units.
Thanks again Aaron! Stop by any time and we'll find something nice to do for you :).
Tonight @7pm: BKTK Meetup @Bitmapnyc
Wednesday, 23 March 2011 12:31
We're hosting this month's BKTK Meetup again - we had a good time (and turnout!) last month and figured why not offer up the space again? Good people, good discussion, and good networking opportunities abound for all.
Daily Crafton, Creative Director at livefrombklyn will be helping us get started with the discussion. Learn more about the event here.
Rant: The AT&T + T-Mobile Merger and You.
Monday, 21 March 2011 20:09
<rant>
My personal experience with AT&T has varied between absolutely terrible and outright horrifying. Real customer service - that is, customer service past a number to call, computers to speak to in an attempt to get to an actual, thinking human being, and the occasional human being I actually manage to get through to (they who deserve our pity more than our scorn) know very little about how to solve any actual problems, from billing issues to who provides minicell towers (local stores say to call customer service, customer service says to call local stores). It is next to impossible to get any real support, and the little available requires significant time, patience and the jumping through of many, many flaming hoops.
AT&T should be embarrased, but it's designed to be this way. It's cheaper to let customers suck wind, and they assume people don't have the time or don't care enough to do anything about it. They're usually right.
T-Mobile is much better (for a giant telecomm). Customer support seems to be informed on at least the basics of the hardware they sell to run on their network (or can at least search for web-based answers faster) and in most of the country T-Mobile coverage is just more reliable. If their service during my tenure in Texas had been as reliable as in the Northeast and out on the West Coast (at the time it was spotty in many areas surrounding Dallas; I'm under the impression it has since improved) I never would have left them.
After experiencing AT&T in the New York area, I wish I never did. Does your iPhone actually make phone calls? My 3GS hardly ever did, and on those comparatively few occasions when a call managed to connect it dropped shortly after. While AT&T's service is slightly better using other devices - my Android-based Galaxy Tab, which no major US carrier wanted making phone calls to begin with, has little trouble on their service - it's overpriced and 3G/what they refer to as 4G but isn't, and is still occasionally spotty in areas where it shouldn't be like Union Square or downtown Brooklyn. But it works. Mostly.
I could go on and on (and on) about the whole thing, or I could make a useful suggestion: support the startup wireless providers. Cancel your contracts, eating termination fees if you can't argue your way out, and go with someone like SimpleMobile. They're running on the same network as T-Mobile and $60/mo with no contract includes unlimited everything. Take your fancy iPhones and iPads and Xooms over there (that's where I'm going), or maybe Boost Mobile, which has coverage in all the areas where folks like us would need it. Talk with your money, tell your friends to do the same - it's the only direct way to make them listen.
Contact your state reps. Tell them the reality of another big telecomm monopoly isn't one you're interested in. Be fully informed on why this is bad for consumers, and go to them with that information. Don't lie down and take the degradation of our technology & communications infrastructure lightly. Paying more for less is never a good thing.
</rant>
- Nick