AntSaint

Eugene Start-up OseEco wins $57,500 in Investment Competition

Congratulations, OsoEco! The Eugene startup just won a large cash prize in the "sustainability" category of the Angel Oregon investment competition:

Link: Eugene tech start-up wins big: The Register-Guard, Eugene, Ore..

OsoEco is developing a free Web portal that enables consumers to research “green” products and services, and to share their findings and recommendations with each other.

Traditional Irish Music Tonight at UO's Beall Hall - Eugene Irish Cultural Festival

The Eugene Irish Cultural Festival's evening concert, in collaboration with the University of Oregon School of Music and Dance, is tonight at Beall Hall:

Ticket prices are $13 for adults, and $9 for students and senior citizens. Tickets are for assigned seating.

The musicians playing are:

• Gerry Carthy, who grew up in Co. Mayo, Ireland
• Eliot Grasso (Uilleann piper) and Dave Cory (tenor banjo, guitar)
• The Black Brothers, who grew up in Dublin in Ireland's foremost "family of song"

To order tickets, call the UO Ticket Office at 541-346-4363. The Beall Hall Box Office doors open at 7 p.m. Beall Hall Concert Hall doors open at 7:30 pm. Concert starts at 8 pm.

Note About Parking: There is a lot of construction occurring near Beall Hall. There is a parking lot behind the Knight Library. To get there, go south on Alder Street and take a left across from East 16th Avenue, just south of the College of Education. Signs will lead you to the parking area behind Knight Library.

Nearly Healthy Calzone-Quesadilla

On Thursdays and Mondays, Jodie goes out knitting with the girls. I usually take these nights off cooking so as to have more time to drink coffee and work on some side projects. Tonight I whipped up a quick, slightly unhealthy yet very tasty calzone-quesadilla. It took about 5 minutes to work up this combo of greens, cheese and spicy meat, wrapped in a folded-over tortilla:

Ingredients

• 1 tortilla
• Enough pepperoni to layer 1-3 pepperonis deep on half the tortilla (I love pepperoni, so went 3 layers. Your mileage may vary)
• Handful of arugula, spinach or other quick-wilting green leafy vegetable
• Brown mustard
• White sharp cheddar cheese, grated (or mozzarella, or monterey jack, whatever you have on hand)

Directions
Set a dry medium or large skillet to warm on medium heat. On tortilla, layer in pepperoni, then greens and mustard, and top with cheese. Fold over tortilla. Dry grill each side 1-3 minutes — keep an eye on the cooking side of the calzone-quesadilla to make sure it doesn't burn or scorch. Enjoy — just watch out for pepperoni grease and napalm cheese.

Scientific Web Design: 23 Actionable Lessons from Eye-Tracking Studies

A fascinating series of tips eye-tracking study results came out last year. If you're involved with the design and user-friendliness of websites in any way, the conclusions have something to teach you.

Link: Virtual Hosting Blog � Scientific Web Design: 23 Actionable Lessons from Eye-Tracking Studies.

One finding in particular was most interesting to me. Graphics and video are important elements to a site's design, but too often text gets poo-pooed. Just because it's a graphic, doesn't mean it's the attention-getter:

"Text attracts attention before graphics. Contrary to what you might think, the first thing users look at on a website isn’t the images. Most casual users will be coming to your site looking for information, not images, so make sure your website is designed so that the most important parts of your text are what is most prominent."

Oregon Coast mystery reels in the curious

The mystery of the newly uncovered shipwreck on the Oregon coast continues:

Link: Oregon Coast mystery reels in the curious: The Register-Guard, Eugene, Ore..

What ship is this? Why did it run aground? How did it wind up here at Coos Bay’s North Spit, being examined, photographed and poked at by a handful of curious folks such as me?