What’s in it and what you can do

Everyone who uses Gmail or Google+ or any of Google’s products and services recently received an email notification of the upcoming changes to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.

At first, I didn’t want to bother to take the time to read through it, but after receiving the same email 12 times – I decided to go ahead and take a look.

Google provides a wide variety of valuable services for free. They are also the top search engine and all of their services are an integral part of my job and my personal life. Part of what it takes to make their services free is the collection and distribution of user information, and I understand that.

However, that being said, there are things about Google that make me squirm a little. After all, nothing is really “free”.

The privacy policy language is a bit vague and hard to fully understand, but here are a few notes I made on the policy that you may find interesting…

Google may collect the following information from you:

• Any personal information you give in any Google platform – including, name, address, photo, etc.
• Information about the Google services that you use – including websites that you visit who advertise through Google
• Mobile device information – including your phone number, type of device, etc.
• Mobile log information – your telephone log, SMS routing & IP address
• Your location
• Information gathered from cookies and pixel tags – on the web and in your email

Google uses the information it collects in the following ways:

• To “provide, maintain, protect & improve” services and products
• To present more targeted ads
• To keep forever for “legitimate business or legal purposes”
• To share with publishers, advertisers & connected sites (with the exception of “sensitive personal information” which you must opt-in in order to share)

This is not a comprehensive break-down of the privacy policy, just the major points I took away from it. You should read the entire thing for yourself and decide for yourself what you think about the new privacy policy.

If you decide you can’t live without Google products and services, but you want to limit the amount of information Google collects from you, here are a few steps you can take to control a portion of your privacy:

• Google and other sites use special cookies for “behavioral advertising”. The Network Advertising Initiative has a site where you can learn more and opt-out of receiving these cookies.
• Remove information you want to keep private from your Google Account dashboard.
• You can opt out of some advertising by editing your ads preferences.

Image credit: opensourceway via Flickr.

Broad Ripple Back in the Day- photo from SmallBox offices

Greetings Super Bowl 46 visitors, welcome to our fair city of Indianapolis! Once you have settled in and checked out all that downtown has to offer, and I realize that is no small task, I respectfully request that you wander north a few miles and give Broad Ripple Village a visit. Broad Ripple was once its own town before being consumed by Indy. Interested in learning more? Here’s Broad Ripple’s Wikipedia page.

The Broad Ripple of today is a little schizophrenic. Wow, I just spelled that correctly without spellcheck! Totally winged it, must be my lucky day. Anyway, Broad Ripple is one place during the day and another at night. Since I recently turned 40, I have to admit I fall more on the day side of things at this point. But it’s a blast at night as well so you can’t go wrong no matter when you visit.

Here’s some of my favorite spots and things to do:

Indy CD Vinyl: I’m a huge vinyl collector, some might call it a habit, I consider it an investment and so far my wife seems to be buying it, so all’s good. I stop by Indy CD & Vinyl almost every day. Rick, the owner, is a great guy, knows a ton about vinyl and always looks out for stuff he knows I like. Getting to pick through the stacks of vinyl before they go on the floor is one of the highlights of my week. If you have any interest in getting into vinyl collecting or adding to your collection then stop by and see Rick, Annie, Mike and the gang. They will take great care of you.

India Garden: I remember the first time I had the lunch buffet at India Garden. It was a life changing experience. According to some touring bands coming through Indy, India Garden’s buffet is the best in the country. I can believe it. So good. Funny thing, I have never been there for dinner. Might totally suck but I seriously doubt it.

Audio Solutions: if you stop by our SmallBox offices you may note the awesome stereo we have procured for the break room. All we had to do was walk down the street to Audio Solutions, who hooked us up with everything for a great price. They know their stuff. If you want a great home stereo/theater set up go see them. The place is filled with mouth-dropping gear. Ask for Graham.

Monon Coffee, Starbucks and Hubbards & Cravens: I have to admit I am pretty hooked on Starbucks these days but if you want to have an authentic Broad Ripple coffee shop experience then go to Monon. Great baristas, excellent espresso drinks and usually the coolest music around outside of Indy CD & Vinyl. The Starbucks here is one of the best around. How Starbucks finds people with these amazing memories is beyond me. They usually have my drink ready before I can even speak. Great place to meet for business as well. Hubbards & Cravens is a little out of my normal path but they are a solid local coffee shop, more upscale vibe than Monon but great wifi and excellent coffee. There is also Perk Up off the Monon trail that some friends swear by but I never seem to make it over there. Regardless, you will not be lacking for coffee in Broad Ripple .

Wellington: having a bar directly across the street that feels, and looks, like a real English pub is a beautiful thing. There’s always great music, incredible beer on tap and a cool staff – a recipe for…awesomeness! The Wellington can be hard to find, even when standing in front of it, and is about the size of a postage stamp but well worth a visit.

Monon Trail and White River: when it’s nice out I usually find my way to the Monon Trail for a walk. I particularly love the overhangs on the bridge across the White River. I just wish there was a way to see the Broad Ripple dam from the trail but unfortunately it is obscured from all views unless you’re standing in the woods or on a boat. A real shame since the river is a major, and often overlooked, asset to the city and Broad Ripple. Wish I could see that damn dam!

Short list of other cool places to check out:

Brugge (Belgian beer and food), Petite Chou (awesome food and great place to work in the mornings) Bungalow (great for gifts), Good Earth (a real health food/vitamins store), LaPiedad (the fastest, if not the best, Mexican food ever), Marigold (gifts for the ladies in your life), Broad Ripple Brew Pub (the original microbrew bar in Indy), Naked Tchopstix (best sushi in town),  Just Pop In (their Indy Mix of cheddar and carmel is addictive) and Union Jacks (love their personal pub pizza for lunch, also great for beer). I know I’m missing some here…

Oh, did I mention our SmallBox offices? We are in the middle of Broad Ripple, overlooking Westfield and Guilford. Personally I think our offices are the best bar in town when we decide to throw parties- planned or impromptu. But I may be a little biased.

Mostly I would encourage you to get out and explore for yourself. The only place I would recommend you avoid is Brothers. That place just bums me out. Wish it would pack up and leave so a better bar/restaurant could take its place.

Welcome Football Fans and Party People!

It’s finally here! After years of planning and preparing for one of the world’s largest sporting events, Indianapolis is finally starting to get cozy with football fans from all corners of the globe for Super Bowl 46. Between the celebrities and media in town, all of the events throughout the week, and the actual game itself, there’s plenty to see and do for the next week.

This is Indianapolis’ first time hosting the Super Bowl, and although the city’s never hosted this event, some people believe it’s set up to be the best host city ever!

If you’re from out of town, and want to take in all of what Indy has to offer, SmallBox is here to help! We like to think we collectively have our finger on the pulse of the city and what makes it special.

Whether you’re looking to head to the big events throughout the week, or would like to get away to the places that make Indy unique and awesome, check out our list of places you should check out!

Here’s where some of us at SmallBox think you should be headed during Super Bowl week:

Some of Indy’s Best Grub Spots and Watering Holes

Elizabeth – When visiting any city, I think one of the best things to do is check out local restaurants – not those crazy chain restaurants that you can eat at when you are basically anywhere – but the local restaurants that bring a unique flavor and personality to a city. Indianapolis has some fantastic local restaurants, some of my favorites being in Broad Ripple. This is a super short list of some of my faves, and thankfully Indy has plenty of tasty local food spots to feed you during your visit. Happy eating!

• Monon Food Company or 3 Sisters Cafe for brunch or lunch
• Bazbeaux for pizza
• Mama Carolla’s to feed your Italian cravings
• 10-01 for some delicious dinner entrees.

Jon - Yats is a good cajun place to eat, and Brugge makes some of the best beer in the world.

Leigh – Brugge Brasserie and Mama Carolla’s Italian cuisine in Broad Ripple

Sara – If you like dive bars, you must venture to South Broad Ripple, or SoBro as the locals call it, for the Red Key. This legendary Kurt Vonnegut hangout is best experienced well after the sun has gone down. The staff is amazing, so long as you don’t break the rules. No swearing, no moving the furniture and gents are expected to give up their seats to ladies if the bar fills up. With model airplanes dangling from the ceiling and Patsy Cline on the jukebox, the Red Key offers a welcome step back in time, plus they make a mean manhattan. Two more things: bring cash and beware that smoking is allowed.

Leigh – The Sinking Ship on North College Ave and The Wellington in Broad Ripple are great bars

Neil – Fountain Square in general is a great – especially with it’s close proximity to the downtown area and Lucas Oil Stadium. Lots of great restaurants and drinks and a bevy of arts & culture hotspots:

• Red Lion – English Style Restaurant
• Siam Square – Thai Cuisine
• La Revolucion – Mexican
• Calvin Fletcher – Coffee Company
• Brass Ring – for Cocktails
• New Day Meadery – tasty treats

What is there to do around here?

Neil – One great part of the timing of the Super Bowl will be that the big weekend falls on First Friday.  So I would have to say that for those interested in the arts community that venturing to Fountain Square and some other downtown art spaces would be an awesome way for visitors to spend their Friday nights – it is also a great way for Indianapolis to flex our collective creative muscle.

Jon – Excellent record shops:

• Luna Music
• Indy CD & Vinyl
• Vibes are all worth checking out.

And I can often be found at Half Price Books on 86th Street. It can be a treasure trove – mainly for vinyl, sometimes for books.

Leigh - I like to shop at Silver in the City on Mass Ave, Luna Music and Indy CD & Vinyl. I’ll check out bands at Local’s Only (Indie Rock, Blues), Melody Inn (Indie Rock, Metal, Punk), Chatterbox (Jazz), Slippery Noodle (Blues, Rock)

Dan – I love visiting the Indianapolis Museum of Art. During the summer the gardens surrounding the building are lush and vibrant and they’ve recently opened an “Art’s and Nature Park” just west of the grounds that is perfect for picnicking.

During the winter, browsing the various museum galleries is a wonderful escape from my every day routine. A recent special gallery has opened dedicated to Native American art and artifacts, which provides an amazing perspective on humanity and how our culture has evolved (or devolved? heyoo…).

Once in a while, as I show a coworker or client something on my computer, I get a “How in the heck
did you do that so fast?!” reaction. I am a huge fan of quick keys, or keyboard shortcuts that make quick work of tasks like minimizing browser windows and moving files to the trash. Here are just a few of my
most-often used keyboard shortcut time savers.

1. Snag a Sneak Peek. Have you ever opened or shared the wrong file? If you have OS 10.5 or later, you can easily eliminate those “oops” moments — take a “peek” of the file by tapping the space bar. This feature works great with most standard media file formats (MP3, MOV, MP4, JPG, PNG, PDF etc) and with iWork and iLife native files (Keynote, Numbers, Pages).
2. An Easier Way to Dump. If you’re like me, you were originally “trained” to drag things to the trash to delete a file or to eject a disc, but you can save yourself a lot of extra “mouse-work” by learning to tame your trash habits:
   • To move a file or folder to the trash, select it and use Command + Delete.
   • To instantly empty the trash itself (without the annoying confirmation) use Option + Shift + Command + Delete
   • To eject a disc, camera or other server or hard drive, select it and type Command + E
3. Quick!!  Hide!! Never be caught off guard by an impromptu visit from your boss or co-workers again… simply hit Command + M to instantly minimize the window and keep it away from prying eyes. “What if the other windows I have open are MORE incriminating?” you might be asking? Easy… use F11 to instantly minimize ALL open windows. If you’re on a laptop or using a keyboard that utilizes the function keys for other purposes, simply use Control + F11 (and yes, this trick will give you access to your other function keys too.)
4. Cycle and Recycle.  Don’t waste your time navigating from program to program or file to file via the Dock or through Menus, instead start using Command + Tab to cycle forward through your open applications and Command + Shift + Tab to cycle backwards through them. And some applications (Chrome and Photoshop for example) support a similar short-cut — try using Control + Tab and Control + Shift + Tab to cycle forward and background through any files (or tabs) you have open.
5. Quit Already! Yes Macs are great, but they can still fall prey to renegade applications that suddenly decide they don’t want to “play nice”. When you’re faced with such a dilemma, don’t fret, just click Command + Option + Shift +  ESC  and hold for 3 seconds to “Force Quit” the renegade app and regain control. Yes, you’ll lose any unsaved data, but you’ll save yourself from tearing your hair out from frustration. You can also access the Force Quit feature by holding the Control + Option keys down while clicking on the app’s icon in the Dock and select “Force Quit” from the pop-up menu that appears.

BONUS TIPS FOR LION USERS:
Just Swipe It. With OS Lion, Mac ushers in a new alternative to the standard “keyboard shortcut” — gestures. While it still feels a bit strange to me, I do find myself using a few of the “triple finger swipe” ones.
Using three fingers on your trackpad:

• Swipe up to see all currently open spaces, apps and open files
• Swipe left or right to cycle through Full-Screen apps (this only works with full-screen enabled applications)
• Spread (using 3 Fingers + Thumb) to reveal the desktop (if you have Lion try it! It kinda feels like you’re just flicking everything out of the way)

What about you? Do you have any time saving keyboard shortcuts up your sleeve?

There are a number of things I’m looking forward to in the next 365 days (my last year living in my 20′s, the presidential race and election, seeing if the Mayans were right, and more). But the thing I’m most looking forward to, I’ve been waiting for my entire life. The Super Bowl is in my town! Granted, the home town Indianapolis Colts won’t be playing in the game, but it’s been a dream of mine to go to a Super Bowl at some point in my life. I won’t be attending the game, but all of the festivities in Indianapolis for an entire week is the next best thing! I cannot wait.

One thing that is often surprising to people when they get to know me is my deep love for sports. I apparently don’t come off as a sports fan, but if I’m listing things that I know the most about in life, sports is in the top two. Particularly professional football.

The countdown has begun, the Super Bowl village is the epicenter of awesome. I cannot wait. I plan on visiting the downtown area nearly every day during that week just to be a part of it. It might be frigid in February, but they’re going to have heaters lining the streets apparently. It quite probably will be only time we get to play host to the big game, so I want to take full advantage of the opportunity to participate. I also realized that there’s no better way to improve your roads and put your city’s best face forward than to host a party like the Super Bowl. Road construction has been going on all over Indianapolis at what seems like a feverish pace for quite a while now. So if nothing else, it will be good to not have to dodge the orange cones and merge into one lane on a 4 lane highway any longer – assuming everything’s done by show time.

If you’re in town during the first week of February, I hope you’re able to get downtown to participate in the Super Bowl festivities. Maybe I’ll see you there!

This post is part of Think Kit 2011.

Many, many moons ago, I received a Christmas ornament from a woman named Annie. I was fresh out of college and working as a barista in a busy coffee shop in Chicago. Annie became a regular customer for a few months, though she never once ordered coffee.

She visited for the sole purpose of dropping off gifts for anyone working behind the counter. Didn’t matter who, she just liked to give presents. Sometimes it was a pack of ramen noodles or a stack of literature picked up in a hotel lobby. One day near Christmas, she gave me this glass ornament she’d bought on clearance at neighboring Anthropologie.

By most accounts, she was a crazy lady. Her husband had passed away, and she shuffled the streets of Chicago in his old clothes, her petite frame swallowed up by an extra large tweed overcoat, boat-sized leather loafers she could barely keep on her feet clopping with each step. Aside from gifting random things to complete strangers, she also burst into unexpected shouting, often of the profane sort. These other things got her cast out of most the businesses in the neighborhood, my old workplace included.

All of her craziness aside, I get inspired by her zest for gift-giving every year. It’s become an annual tree-trimming tradition that the first ornament to go up is Annie’s. I have no idea what became of her.

This post is part of Think Kit 2011.

Several times this year I got handwritten thank you notes in the mail from my good friend Micki. A couple of the notes were expressing gratitude for small favors many people would have marked with a simple spoken “Thank you.” Perhaps because getting handwritten notes has become so rare for me, her cards made a big impact. When most communication happens via text, email and Facebook, there’s something intimate and cozy about recognizing someone’s handwriting.

Handwritten notes shouldn’t be so scarce.
On any given day this time of year, I know I might find a holiday card in the mailbox. Wouldn’t it be great if checking the mail was this exciting throughout the year? Thanks to Micki I’ve been making it more of a habit to spread random mailbox cheer.

If you’d also like to send more personal notes, but don’t have the addresses of family and friends, check out Jenny Banner’s new app, Addy Me for quick, easy collecting of your contacts’ mailing addresses.

This post is part of Think Kit 2011.

As I think about the various people that have made a difference in my life this past year, I realize how very blessed I am with the incredible group of people I am surrounded with. I am truly fortunate to have wonderful family, friends and co-workers. There are many people that impacted my life this year, so I will share just a few stories of these awesome people:

I have a few friends that made a difference in my life by asking me hard questions and being willing to show me tough love as I faced a crossroads in life. They challenged me, but also encouraged me, and I was able to make a big decision in my life with new confidence as a result of their willingness to not tell me what I wanted to hear, but instead challenge me to think past myself and my circumstances and to recognize a greater purpose for the trials we face in life. I came to a place of new clarity and true peace after these hard conversations, and I’m so thankful for these women that were willing to walk that road with me.

One of my very dear friends is about to see her husband go off to serve our country in Afghanistan. Without even knowing it, she has made a huge impact in my life by the way she has faced this new season of life with incredible courage. She has a beautiful attitude and strength about her that I so admire. As she faces a year ahead as a single mom, I know that I want to be intentional about encouraging her and supporting her through this season of life, and hopefully in some small way help her see what a difference both she and her husband are making through their sacrifice and service.

One other special person that has made a major difference in my life is my daughter, Zoe. What I most appreciate about her is her constant zeal and energy for life. She lives each day with purpose and truly looks to find adventure and joy around every corner. Her imagination knows no bounds, and you will often find her singing or dancing- no matter where she’s at or who’s around her. I love her outlook on life and know that her joy is contagious to everyone around her.

I know there are so many people that have made a difference in my life this year, and it makes me so grateful to have those kinds of people around me. As we head into another year, I want to be very intentional about how I live my life, that I would constantly look outwards and find ways to make a difference- big or small- in the lives of the people around me. I know that I have been both encouraged and challenged this year to live life with that kind of purpose.

This post is part of Think Kit 2011.

I wasn’t always a process guy. Back at the start of my career I was very much fueled by the physical production of creative and tangible projects. It was only after going through dozens of these projects that my attention started to turn to, “How can we make this better?” instead of just “How can we make this?” Fast forward a few years and my creative time in the trenches is now spent helping a project and a project team work better rather than always being hands on. It is rewarding for sure, but it’s different type of thrill than the one that comes with creating something from scratch. Needless to say, I still need that fix of “making something” every now and again.

That itch never went away and led me to strike out on a different type or project. A year ago I founded a video game editorial site with some close friends of mine, and the site continues to grow well beyond it’s original intention of just being a outlet for our video game geek outs. As satisfying as that has been, I still wanted to do more. I turn my hobby into something that could help others.

Image courtesy of Nuvo.net

It seemed a bit daunting at first. We were a group of writers scattered throughout the midwest without a good way to bring everything and everyone together. Indianapolis isn’t exactly a hot bed of video gaming culture, but I did find one surprising outlier in a local video game cafe called NetHeads. NetHeads caught my attention as I discovered it was hosting a summer camp for kids and introducing them to basic video game design and development. I reached out and quickly became good friends with the manager, and one of the first conversations we had was about hosting a video game event to raise money for charity.

I was pretty excited, but I had also been here before. Great conversations. Great ideas. No action. I wasn’t about to let the opportunity slip by and I had learned with the successful launch of our website the year before, that’s it’s all about milestones and accountability. We set ourselves a timeline and agreed that we needed to do the event before the end of the year in 2011. We just had to follow through.

As summer turned to fall, the event started coming into focus. NetHeads was the perfect venue not only to host the event itself, but it also gave us the opportunity to livestream video to better promote the event. We decided that the event would be a 24 hour video game marathon that we could blog about and utilize social media to drive traffic to a donation form for a charity that specializes in providing games and toys for children’s hospitals. As we began spreading the word about the event, it became clear that there was much more good we could do through gaming. I met with my team and we decided to form a community service organization that could pursue these opportunities in the future.

On October 14, 2011 the A Call to Gamers (ACTGamers.org) website was launched and the 24 Hour Charity Gaming Challenge began that evening. After 24 hours of gaming, tweeting, blogging, and video coverage we managed to raise over $1,000 for the Child’s Play Charity.

ACTGamers more than tripled the original donation goal that I had set back in the spring. Not only did it feel great to make something and have it be a success, but thanks to support of our donors it was incredibly humbling to have the fruition of that idea actually benefit others. I hope to have an even bigger impact next year through the organization.

After the event we put together this video summary of our coverage and plan on doing another event in the spring.

This post is part of Think Kit 2011.

This year, I tackled something that had been on my to-do list for an age. I learned to bake my own bread. Last winter, I didn’t buy store-made bread at all – not once.

No matter how busy I got, I made it a weekly ritual.
There was something therapeutic about the process. The kneading of the dough, reminiscent of days long ago when I used to work in ceramics. The warmth of the oven, the smell of the loaves baking on the oven… All slow, measured, calming steps.

And the finished product?
It might not be much cheaper, once both time and ingredient are accounted for. It might not be better than the sourdough you can find at local bakeries. But I can’t imagine taking any other bread over a hand-crafted loaf, fresh from the oven with just a bit of butter.

This post is part of Think Kit 2011.