Broadband and community development in the Hudson Valley
On March 29 at Indotronix in Poughkeepsie, Hudson Valley Tech Meetup—hosted for the first time by Gerry Pallor of RXI Digital—tackled a hot-button issue: broadband internet. According to the FCC as of 2015, the term “broadband” refers to a type of internet connection, such as cable modem, DSL, fiber, or satellite, that’s always on (as … Continued
Celebrating the Accomplishments of Hudson Valley Women in Tech
On January 28, Hudson Valley Tech Meetup—including co-organizer Shauna Keating, our very own digital artist and designer here at EMN—invited the community to their second Day of Women in Tech, a celebration of all that underrepresented genders have accomplished in the technology field here in the Hudson Valley and beyond. Co-organizers Shauna Keating and Sabrina … Continued
Applying Human-Centered Design Methods to Your Process
What is human-centered design? Human-centered design is a way of approaching your design practice that specifically addresses the needs of your user base. It’s possible to design something beautiful and that works really well—in theory—when only you and your team test it, but could be missing the main needs of your users once it gets … Continued
Case Study: EMN Creates Streaming Soccer Channel for StockadeFC
I had the opportunity to meet Dennis Crowley last year, when he accepted our invitation to speak at CatskillsConf 2015. While there, he hinted that he had a “secret project” that would be coming to our town in the summer—and then he delivered a 4th division semi-pro soccer team, right to our back door. So when … Continued
Hudson Valley Tech Meetup Awarded “Innovator of the Year” Award by Th!nk Dutchess
We’re so happy and proud to announce that Hudson Valley Tech Meetup has been recognized with an “Innovator of the Year” Award from Th!nk Dutchess. Th!nk Dutchess Alliance for Business is a business-led, nationally recognized economic development corporation dedicated to attracting, retaining, and expanding for-profit and not-for-profit businesses in Dutchess County. (While EMN is located in Ulster County, … Continued
Thought-Provoking Discussion at October’s Hudson Valley Tech Meetup
Last week’s HV Tech Meetup welcomed back a crowd favorite: Ads! This duo creates light-hearted parodies of popular songs, the actual lyrics replaced with poetic musings about the evening’s speakers (and, like in Wednesday’s case, they sometimes even improvise, creating a “Take Your Seat” song on the spot to herd the audience toward the stage). They … Continued
Tech, time management, and productivity: an EMN office experiment
As we all probably know too well, technology can sometimes make us feel like we’re being less productive—it can be hard to focus in a world full of screens, pings, and pop-ups. But wait! Technology is supposed to make our lives easier! So there must be a way to use tech to become more productive, focused, and efficient. … Continued
HV Tech Meetup brings music and mayhem to Poughkeepsie
September’s event, held at Indotronix in Poughkeepsie, brought some exciting and unexpected new twists to the world of HV Tech. Attendees entered the space to the sound of dance music in the air and Sparrow Hall, local creative and HV Tech member, in the DJ booth—or, more accurately, at the DJ podium. Sparrow’s mix got … Continued
Hudson Valley Tech Meetup: The Musical
Hudson Valley Tech Meetup returned to Kingston last Wednesday, where members beat the heat in the beautiful air-conditioned Senate Garage. Throughout the night, the crowd was treated to a few surprises—including the unveiling of two brand-new videos that we produced for the Ulster County Economic Development Alliance (featuring Karina Dresses and Dennis Crowley’s work with … Continued
Inclusive Design in User Interface
What is inclusive design? To design something to be inclusive means to make it approachable for a diverse set of users. Often, this focuses on optimization for accessibility without compromising the experience of users not using assistive technology. (Assistive tech might include things like screen reader apps that “read” a web page for visually impaired users, speech … Continued
Celebrating 2 years of tech community in the Hudson Valley!
At Wednesday night’s June Hudson Valley Tech Meetup in Poughkeepsie, we hit a major milestone: HV Tech’s second birthday! If we were a child, we’d be a walking, maybe even talking toddler. That’s pretty exciting. A lot has happened in the last two years. We’ve moved from small spaces in the back of restaurants and … Continued
Shauna’s top 6 favorite SmashingConf talks
I was absent from the office for two days last week, but it was for a good reason: I was volunteering on the event staff for New York Smashing Conference! Smashing Magazine, a digital publication for web designers and developers, puts on multiple conferences around the world every year to spread innovative ideas in the realms of art, technology, design, … Continued
Hudson Valley Tech’s May Meetup: Celebrating Agents of Change
Change was the name of the game at May’s Meetup! Members gathered at the beautiful Senate Garage in Kingston and, after an exhilarating opening performance by the Percussion Orchestra of Kingston (POOK), engaged with talks on the way tech is transforming the educational, media, and economic landscapes. This month’s Meetup was sponsored by Lightower, a fiber … Continued
Water Footprint Calculator chosen for EPA’s highest recognition
Last year, our team here at Evolving Media Network partnered with the GRACE Communications Foundation to produce the Water Footprint Calculator, an interactive web app that allows users to visualize what contributes most to their daily water usage and experiment with ways to reduce their impact. (Check out the app in action in a feature … Continued
Domain suspended by ICANN? Here’s how to fix it
You wake up one morning and sit down, excited to admire your beautiful new website. Taking a sip of coffee as you open your browser, you type in yourname.com or coolstartup.co. But instead of the homepage you spent months designing and developing (or working with a company like EMN to design and develop), you see this notice: “You have reached a … Continued
HV Tech and IBM team up at April Meetup to focus on people
“What makes Silicon Valley different is that they’re not isolated in silos. They create a fabric of ideas… That’s what we want to do here in the Hudson Valley.” This inspiring idea is how Michael Lyons, software engineer, explained why IBM rolled out the red carpet for Hudson Valley Tech Meetup this week. In today’s … Continued
Hudson Valley Tech Explores Community Regeneration
1044! That’s the new high for Hudson Valley Tech Meetup members, announced at this week’s gathering with (animated) confetti. We broke one thousand, and with that accomplishment came the energy and inspiration we’ve come to expect from the Meetup (but just a little bit bigger). That energy was helped along a bit by a new … Continued
Community Engagement and Design
I’m Shauna, and I’m currently an intern here at EMN. I’m in my last semester of college at SUNY New Paltz, where I’m earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design. In the past four years, I have learned a lot about design in several different places. The first is the most obvious, which is … Continued
Herding Cats: Lessons Learned in Five Years on the Front Line
My name is Lindsay Hutton, and I am the senior project manager here at EMN. When I started working here almost five years ago, the world of digital and web development was all new to me. After a brief training period I was thrown into the deep end. That may sound a little harsh, but … Continued
February’s HV Tech Meetup: Security, Social Media, & Smileys!
Last week’s HV Tech Meetup—held in Poughkeepsie this month—introduced the group to a brand new space, as Indotronix International Corporation, a downtown Poughkeepsie IT company, generously donated their business event space to become the new HV Tech headquarters east of the Hudson. New Poughkeepsie Mayor Rob Rolison opened the event. “We are open for business,” he said … Continued
JSX: At first I was all like “huh?,” but then I was like “oh, okay.”
Separation of concerns has always been really important to me as a developer. My career in front end web development largely started after the CSS revolution and the burning down of vile inline styles and behaviors. To this day, I get very nervous and cagey any time someone tries to mash those concerns back together. … Continued
Hudson Valley Tech Meetup’s 2016 Kickoff Event
Started from the bottom, now we’re here. That was the general sentiment at last night’s January 2016 Kickoff edition of Hudson Valley Tech Meetup. A little history on HV Tech: our principals here at Evolving Media Network—Dan Stone and Kale Kaposhilin—teamed up with Dan and Sabrina Schutzsmith of Digital Empire, a Poughkeepsie-based digital creative company, … Continued
What are your 2016 web-solutions?
Here we are, at the beginning of another year. After the confetti has settled and the hangovers cleared, it’s the perfect time to review and reevaluate what’s working—and what’s not—in our lives and for our businesses. And, in 2016, that naturally includes our business websites. If we’ve gathered anything from talking with our clients, it’s … Continued
Always be learning
My name is Avi Arenfeld and I am the newest member of the development team at Evolving Media Network. I was taken on by EMN with the understanding that this was my first full time position as a junior dev, and that I had a lot to learn. Being part of this team has introduced me … Continued