Justin Dawkins

I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you to all of my readers for sticking with me while I go through some transitions in my life. As you can probably tell, I have been extremely busy and hope to get back to writing more often soon.

On the lighter side of things I did get a chance to see Kanye West, Lupe Fiasco, Rihanna and N.E.R.D. this past weekend and I can honestly say that the show was spectacular. Lupe brought the swag, and Rihanna was pretty (of course), N.E.R.D rocked the house and probably got some new fans, and of course there is Mr. West. Kanye’s gift was a dazzling one-man-show, with a single cameo from Lupe, that told a very creative and imaginative story. His performance was theatrical to say the least, as he told the story of space traveler and his quest to get home. His journey took you through space and time as he presented the best of the best, performing songs from all three albums. The thing that touched me the most however, was his tribute to his Mother that fit seamlessly into the show just how much energy and emotion he puts into his music and craft. Regardless of what the press and media may say, Mr. West you get an A+ from me. Bravo!

Oh and before I forget I must tell you that the concert was star-studded. It was clear that some of Kanye’s colleagues are fans as well as; Mary J, Musiq, Bow Wow, Chris Brown, Jermaine Dupri, Chaka Zulu, and the great Quincy Jones were all there to see the show. I was told there was others, but it’s clear that everyone was there to see Kanye.

Well that’s it for now and my apologizes on the delay. I hope that everyone is doing well and if you went to the concert and want to share pics, please send them along and I will post them here.

Peace,
Justin

As you may recall, I recently wrote a post about the observation that black people don’t read and unfortunately, to some degree it’s true. Though I remain optimistic about this observation, and would hope that this will change, I must admit that I didn’t necessarily supply a solution. Well have no fear, a solution is here. A friend of mine sent me a link to a pretty cool website and to be honest, I think it is a great tool to use for someone looking to make reading a more social event. Shelfari.com is a website that allows you to share books that you have enjoyed reading with others, particularly your friends or people within your network. The other cool thing is that it allows you to recommend books to your friends, which brings the traditional “book club” element online. Of course the service allow you to search by author, ISBN, or subject, but you can also search for subject matter in a huge tag cloud which are very useful and creative web 2.0 element. This cloud also allows you to see what other people find interesting and maybe spark you interest enough to see what all the fuss is about. My initial reaction is this service is great and hopefully will be the start of something bigger. Of course this is just my opinion, why don’t you check it out, and come back and tell me what you think.

-Justin

WOW it has been 4 months since my last post. It’s amazing how time goes by… but it makes since I suppose. One of the reasons I decided to post today was because of the latest announcement from macromedia. STUDIO 8 is here. I personally am excited and can’t wait to see what Macromedia has done with the software particularly Dreamweaver. They have already made the software for anyone who can type up a Word document. I can’t wait to see the workflow atmosphere and new features in Flash. I guess we will see. Well I have have some new projects that I am working on and will add them to my portfolio soon.

PEACE
-J

All I have to say is this should be interesting…

—to be continued—