How to Export Email Addresses from Facebook

Facebook APIs don’t expose email addresses of users and hence none of the Facebook apps can provide you with the actual contact data of your friends. There’s however a simple (and perfectly legal) workaround that can help you easily download all your friends email addresses from Facebook’s walled garden.

The trick, as you can see in the video, is actually quite simple.

Go to address.yahoo.com and click the Facebook icon. A login dialog should pop-up, just sign-in with your Facebook credentials and within seconds, you entire Facebook address book will be available inside your Yahoo Mail Account. Once the import is done, click this link to download a CSV file with the email addresses of all your Facebook contacts to your desktop.

You can then import the CSV file into Gmail Contacts, LinkedIn, your phone address book or any of the social sites where you want to connect with your existing Facebook circle.

Update: If Yahoo! is unable to import your Facebook Address book, open your Facebook page and choose “Application Settings” under Account. Next remove the “Yahoo! Contact Importer” application from your Facebook profile and try the steps mentioned in the video again.

Source: Digital Inspiration

College Hunks Hauling Junk: Newsletter

College Hunks Hauling Junk is a national chain offering rubbish removal services that haul away unwanted items from commercial and residential property that local trash collectors won’t. College Hunks Hauling Junk’s opened in Washington, D.C. and in March, 2008, relocated the corporate headquarters to Tampa, Florida. They now have 33 franchises nationwide.

We met up with Christopher Jackson (Director of Internal Communications) and Aaron Mangal (Director of Social Media and Marketing) to discuss CHHJ’s need of rewamping their email newsletter which reaches close to 25,000 recipients each month. They supplied us with material and we designed a content rich template with links to their website, twitter, facebook and each local franchise.

(Here’s the final newsletter)

Christopher Jackson:

“College Hunks Hauling Junk is more than just a junk removal business. We pride ourselves on doing things the right way and developing a community based around clutter-free living and responsible reuse, redistribution and disposal. A big part of creating this culture of cleanliness and responsibility is our client newsletter which allows us to communicate with our audience in a direct and personal manner. Thanks to Fredrik Perman and The Product Farm, our newsletter is a powerful tool in our arsenal!”

Wind Powered Lantern

Being born and raised in Sweden (one of the most northern countries in Europe) our summer days are very long and sometimes everlasting. They call Sweden “The Land of the Midnight Sun” and certain parts of Sweden never see darkness during the summer. But that does not mean we get a lot of sun. Fluffy blankets of ever-lasting clouds often covers the country, making solar technologies less efficient.

Surrounded by the Atlantic ocean in the east and the Baltic Sea in the west, Sweden do however have an almost infinite supply of wind. I grew up in Södertälje, a windy city situated on a bay of the Baltic Sea. There’s always a breeze coming through.

The above retro concept illustration was my first exercise in an effort to design a wind powered lantern, capable of charging during both night and day. It’s suitable for breezier parts of the world, such as Northern Europe, Alaska, Canada and large portions of Russia and Asia. I have modified the design since this concept drawing and will show more renderings here on our blog in the future.

Woody Harris: Hyper Sonic Sound

Woody Norris shows off two of his inventions that treat sound in new ways, and talks about his untraditional approach to inventing and education. As he puts it: “Almost nothing has been invented yet.” So — what’s next?

Adding some “umpf” to an old townhouse kitchen

A few years back I gave my depressing town house kitchen an uplifting renovation. The house was built in 1980 and the kitchen had not been touched since then. The glass mosaic was fun! And time consuming. I put down cement boards on the floor to handle the distribution of weight added by the new tiles. The floor tile I choose was a clean white tile, with an added glass mosaic inlay around the perimeter of the kitchen walkway and also wrapped around the kitchen table area.

It sure got bright enough by adding lighting underneath all cabinets and installed additional spotlights in the ceiling. It truly brought out the incredible effect of the iridescent glass tile (which changes colors as you walk through the room).  I also installed new Corian counter tops to match the theme. I was very happy with the result.

One Idea, One World, One Market

The “dismal science” truly shines in this optimistic talk, as economist Alex Tabarrok argues free trade and globalization are shaping our once-divided world into a community of idea-sharing more healthy, happy and prosperous than anyone’s predictions.

Refrigeration Without Electricity

Adam Grosser talks about a project to build a refrigerator that works without electricity — to bring the vital tool to villages and clinics worldwide. Tweaking some old technology, he’s come up with a system that works.

Awesome and realistic 3D Physics Engine

A physics engine is computer 3D software that provides an approximate simulation of certain simple physical systems. This video shows one of the most realistic engines I’ve ever seen. It’s called Lagoa Multiphysics 1.0 and was created by Thiago Costa and essentially simulates real-life physics in a completely realistic way. This demo shows a piece of charcoal breaking and spreading as it hits the ground.

Reminder Pocket Pill Case

Its a busy world out there.  Things to do, people to see.  And you don’t always remember to take your pills.  Or in the case of your grandma, she just plain forgets.  This unique pill case was designed for that very reason.  It features a programmable alarm built into the cover to remind you to take your meds.  To access the medicine, simply push the release button on the underside and slide the case out.  The living hinge of the lids are specifically placed to negate accidental openings.

Above you can see the size difference between earlier prototypes and the final design.  Not only is it smaller, but its also friendlier.  Utilizing the aesthetic qualities of design can sometimes take the edge off of those unenjoyable experiences.   Like taking your meds.

Flameless Rechargable USB Lighter

Nathan Gabriele is one of our design collaborators here at The Product Farm – and also the designer behind our Stand Up Stapler. Besides creating beautiful products for KitchenAid at his day job, Nathan always got something new up his sleeve. This unique USB rechargeable cigarette lighter has received a lot of attention around the web. In lieu of lighter fluid and a flint, this lighter uses resistance coils to create heat. It’s the same technology found in car lighters. The small rechargeable battery cell powering the coil can be recharged via USB. On top of that, there’s some flash memory in there to store files.

PC World – Wall Mounted Renderfarm

PC World: “We have PCs packed into pianos, barbecue grills, gas pumps, and whisky bottles–and that doesn’t even scratch the surface. Check out these 20 wild, working pieces of PC art. When North Carolina modder and industrial designer Fredrik Perman was tapped to do some design work for the office of Pacific Design & Manufacturing, he figured, what better way to do a remodel than to pack six Intel dual-core processors into a glass case and place it on a wall?

This monster works as a render farm hub that also controls the file and phone server in the adjoining room. For effect, Perman added ten 12-inch blue cathode light strips, six LED fans, and a wall-mounted 15-inch LCD screen.”

Photo: Fredrik Perman
Source: PC World

More Reviews:

The Ultimate PC case mod: 6 powerful computers in one glorious case | DVICE

Wall-mounted Six PC Custom Render-Farm | SlashGear

Get ready for SPARKcon 2010! – Sep 16-19th

Although I have not had the chance to attended in previous years, I’m really excited about SPARKcon 2010, which will take place right here in the Triangle. For 4 days, Raleigh’s Fayetteville St, public spaces, clubs and stages will be filled with art, music, dance, film, fashion, design and more. SPARKcon showcases local cultural richness through an open-source approach to collaboration and cross pollination. It’s completely grass-roots and by the people for the people! Join us as we explore the creative spirit of the Triangle!

SPARKcon is a showcase of creativity, talent and ideas of “The Creative Hub of the South,” the North Carolina Triangle region.  To learn more about SPARKcon, visit their website.

Bringing back forgotten engineering from the 50’s

The initial idea of our unique utility strength stand up stapler came when I visited a neighborhood yard sale. I found a “hand vice stapler”, commonly used in industrial settings, dry cleaners etc. The interesting thing about them to me was the hinge location.

A normal stapler has a hinge at the furthest end from the staple mechanism, while the hand vice staplers hinge is more centered. We based our concept around this in an effort to make our stapler unique and meet higher strength requirements than others.

While using state of the art 3D modeling and rendering tools, we prepared a high standard photo realistic concept rendering for our sales pitch. This gave our client a very good idea of how the product would look like several months ahead as a finished product.

After one month of development and five rounds of prototype revisions, we felt that we finally had a stapler design that both we and our clients were happy with.

Picture from our factory assembly line in Dongguan City, Southern China.

Follow safe handling instructions of raw thinking

When I started The Product Farm in late 2007, I wanted to make a creative stand and differentiate myself from competitors. To promote my new business in a unique way, I had the idea of printing up some red T-shirts, then package them into butcher style foam trays, tightly vacuum seal them together with business cards and a small printed introduction of the company. I utilized the make belief labeling on the packaging to further promote my intentions and capabilities.

The response was great and the business flourished in the upcoming weeks with compliments from many recipients. Please see the full presentation below. You can click on the full screen button to take a closer look.

Making the USB Scent Flower™ – Part 3

We had finally received our first pre-production samples from our factory. They looked pretty cute and the initial reaction from people was that we were onto a very unique and fun product. The flower device concept had at this point also been showcased on Coroflot, where it reached quite a gathering.

Shortly thereafter Kevin Hall, writer at NBC/SyFy Channels tech and gadget blog Dvice, had written an article about it that spread like wildfire through the internet and was translated into tons of languages within a week. It was at this point very clear that if we were to choose one of the devices to proceed with, the truly flower shaped version was it.

It was also evident to us that the concept was good, BUT we quickly realized some concerns. Our flowers were not reusable; the fragrances were not refillable and once the fragrance oil had evaporated it became nothing but a plastic flower decoration attached to a laptop. Another issue was the lack of an universal standard as to the USB port position on all computers. Some ports were vertical, others were horizontal and the rest were just plain upside down. Our flower device was not adjustable, which meant it would only work with the one orientation we chose, eliminating those tech savvy Apple users whose ports were upside down.

I went back to the drawing board and rendered up a new flower product. I designed an aluminum cylindrical refill cartridge with room for at least three times more fragrance oil. If we were about to start from scratch, why not boost the life span and quality of our product! And since it was now refillable, we decided that each product should come with 3 refills. We scaled up our flower significantly and added the rotatable stem to make it universal.

We made a new prototype, tested out the new functionality and we were pleased with the results. We decided to lay low on this new product and a few months went by before I was contacted by Jens Eriksson begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting. I had known Jens since my early childhood in Sweden; he was my best friends’ older brother and a proven entrepreneur and businessman in Europe.

Here are some images of our final version USB Scent Flower™, first shots of plastic injection. This is when we make sure that all parts fits together properly. Potential changes are made by revising the injection mold.

Jens expressed an interest in starting up a company with me and start producing and selling our USB Scent Flower™. I welcomed the partnership and together we founded USB Flower Ltd.

Almost a year later, our product is now available for sale in several countries around the world, including through our own website where we offer worldwide shipping. The response has been great and we look forward to reveal some additional exciting news in a near future.

Stay in the loop by following our development here on our blog, our Facebook page, our Twitter page and our USB Scent Flower™ blog.

Making the USB Scent Flower™ – Part 2

Although 3D/CAD plays a very big part in almost all of our developing product design projects, the USB Scent Flower™ was one of those projects where it wasn’t as necessary from a design standpoint. Alan had faith in me as a designer and I had a great deal of respect for the engineering capabilities of his factory. We decided on the size and shape based upon a few detailed sketches and quickly began developing our first prototypes.

At this initial stage, we produced prototypes of two concept drawings. The first concept was a flat jump drive styled fragrance device with a circular flower shaped insert. The idea was that this insert could be shaped and colored to look like a flower.

Further options to allow it resemble a fruit, such as a lemon, orange or watermelon. It had a ton of variety possibilities and was also slim with less plastic parts and therefore less expensive. It would also be easy to change the flower shape into any other shape without spending a ton of money in new tooling.

The second version was what we were even more excited about. Although it was less versatile from a customization standpoint, it was more uniquely shaped and visually appealing, creating the look of a flower sprouting out of your USB port.

From a fragrance standpoint it still had an endless array of possibilities, but we were excited to develop mostly sensible and familiar natural and flower scents to conform to the theme created by our flower shape.

So we were happy with the designs of both fragrance devices and decided to tool them both up for small production runs. We then began deciding on specific fragrances we would like to be developed for the devices. Our experience with the Theraflu and Triaminic Flowing Vapors project had put us in contact with one of the best fragrance producers in China. We knew we could rely on their expertise in developing the formulas that would work in our new units. For the flower shape, we decided with Lavender, Chamomile and Jasmine. For the jump drive version we decided to try lemon, ocean breeze and baby powder (evidently popular scents in Asia).

A few weeks later we had our first production run complete. We matched our flower petal colors with the true colors of the flowery fragrances they represented. And since that just made a whole lot of sense, we did the same with the flat device. I sent samples out to a few clients of our in the marketing industry to get their feedback.

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Making the USB Scent Flower™ – Part 1

I’ve been designing, developing and producing products for what I would consider a long time. It wasn’t what I went to school for, nor was it what I wanted to be as a child (I wanted to illustrate and draw cartoons for a living), but once I was introduced to industrial design by chance in 2002, I knew right away that this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Creating professional 2D/3D artwork for six years before, my skills seamlessly transferred to this new art form. Since then my skills have expanded, I have traveled to Hong Kong and China to experience firsthand all the stages of developing projects. From managing the sourcing of new components to working with engineers to perfect designs, I have had years of experience being the driving force for bringing products to market.

One of my best contacts in China is Alan. Alan owns and operates a medium sized factory in the southern Guangdong Province of China, about an hour or two north of the Hong Kong border. Unlike other Chinese factory owners, Alan was born in Hong Kong and worked his way up the hierarchy chain. He was a factory worker as a young boy where he learned about electrical engineering and specialized in the design and production of integrated circuits. His big break came in the form of sound chips he created for a variety of very successful products featuring the biggest pop stars of the day (Britney Spears, The Spice Girls). His success continued as demand for chips increased with a boom in electronics in the late 90’s. He later acquired his own factory and now employs 800-1000 workers, depending on the season, and produces a broad range of products for many big name brands.

We had already worked together for several years on hundreds of projects, some more exciting than others. One of the most exciting projects was the Theraflu and Triaminic Flowing Vapors Device for Novartis. This particular project was a very large undertaking. Besides learning a whole lot about factory production in China, it also allowed me to be immersed in Chinese culture for several months. Alan and I, along with our combined staff and inspection personal from Novartis, traveled the country auditing factories and third party vendors to ensure that our production quality met with our clients’ high standards. This may be an exaggeration, but in my opinion I learned all I needed to know about fragrance oils used in electronic aromatherapy devices. Besides the time interval controlled fan device we had developed for Novartis, we were also working on a few internal development projects, trying out new techniques of electronically disbursing fragrance oils.

One particular night in April of 2008, I had called Alan to discuss the ongoing production of our Stand-Up Stapler. Alan mentioned that he wanted to begin tooling for a new USB powered fragrance burner, and he wanted me to design it for him. It sounded like a fun project and I was excited to start sketching. It lead to a bunch of concept drawings and after a few debates over email and phone we decided to move forward with a few flower shaped sketches that were well received by our combined staff members.

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