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Hola CHICAGO!!! So excited to be in one of my favorites cities in the USA: Chicago!! This Wednesday night, I will be hosting "Macy's Celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month Event Honoring Thalia as the 2013 Icon of Style". Last week, I hosted the "kick-off" at Macy's Herald Square NYC with the one-and-only Thalia (she was soooooo SUPER SWEET!)...











Join me this Wednesday at Macy's on State Street Chicago for an evening celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month and salute to Latina superstar, Thalia! We'll have music, fashions that she inspires plus mucho mas! Seating is limited so RSVP now! Here are the Details:



WHAT:

Nick Verreos Hosts "Macy's Celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month 2013" with a salute to Latina superstar Thalia; runway fashion show, music + more!



WHERE:

Macy's on State Street

111 North State Street

Chicago, IL 60602

7th Floor, Narcissus Room



WHEN:

Wednesday October 2, 2013 5:30 PM



RSVP:

Go to MacysHispanicHeritage.eventbrite.com



See you on Wednesday CHICAGO!

You're reading a web page and you're suddenly wondering: what font is that?


You can check the source code or select some text, right-click and pick "inspect element". You'll probably find a list of fonts and you won't be able to tell which one is actually used.

Chrome added a feature that tells you the name of the font that's used. This feature is available in Chrome 31+, so you can try it if you've switched to the Dev Channel or you use Chrome Canary. Right-click the text, pick "inspect element", switch to the "computed" tab, scroll down and you'll see "a summary of the typeface(s) used for that element". Paul Irish says that it "works great with Google Webfonts, Typekit, local fonts, @font-face typefaces, unicode glyphs, and all other interesting font sources."


As you can see, it's Helvetica, not Arial. No need to use WhatTheFont or WhatFontIs.

For some reason, this didn't work well for web fonts.


{ via Kristian Serrano. }

Remember the post about Google's new music video results? They're used by a Knowledge Graph carousel that shows a long list of songs when you search for things like [Moby songs], [Michael Jackson music], [Nina Simone list of songs], [Beatles track list].


Click one of the songs and you'll see the search results for that song's name. The top result is a music video from YouTube, which has a huge thumbnail. The video doesn't play inline, the thumbnail only links to a regular YouTube page.


You'll see the same interface if you search for a music artist and click one of the songs from the Knowledge Graph sidebar. You can also append "albums" to the query, click one of the albums and you'll see a list of all the songs from the album. Search for [Moby Wait for me songs] and you'll find a list of the songs from Moby's Wait for Me album.



It would be nice to play songs from the Google search results page. Even a short Google Play preview would be pretty useful. If that's not possible, then Google could embed YouTube's player, so you can watch music videos without opening a new page. Another improvement would be to automatically generate a YouTube playlist from all the music videos listed in the carousel, like YouTube does.

{ via Search Engine Roundtable }

Miss World 2012 Yu Wenxia: As the outgoing "Miss World", she looked FABULOUS. The gown was so sexy, so modern, so red carpet ready! This almost-sheer fitted gown featured long sleeves, a high neckline and silver/ gray sequins throughout in a very original pattern. I loved everything about it.











Miss World 2013 Megan Young "Miss Philippines": Megan looked resplendent in her light rose-pink mermaid style gown in tulle with sequin applique. The gown was designed by Filipino designer Francis Libiran, who had a stint on America's Next Top Model and in fact Tyra has worn one of his designs. The gown was one of the best of the night; it fit perfectly, looked expensive and well made and yes, all that she was missing was the crown!

Score: 10.




First Runner-up Miss France Marine Lorphelin: First off, Marine is STUNNING! She had one of the most beautiful faces of the pageant--next to Megan Young, the winner. She looks like someone who should be dating George Clooney! Her gown was nice. She also wore a mermaid style gown in a light blush color, with tulle at the bottom and a satin and sequined applique torso section with the back semi-exposed. It was a bit "Pageant Betty" and not so "high fashion" but when you have THAT face, you can be excused for not having the perfect gown.

Score: 9.45




Second Runner-up Miss Ghana Carranzar Naa Okailey Shooter: Miss Ghana wore a Sapphire blue fitted gown with sheer top neck section in satin with a chiffon sequined applique over-layer. The gown fit well, was the correct floor-length and overall, looked quite marvelous onstage.

Score: 9.25



The Rest of the Top 6:


Miss Spain Elena Ibarbia: Elena looked very pretty in this strapless fit-to-flare white gown which featured a bow neckline and cascade side ruffle detail. It was very "Pronovias" slightly wedding gown in its color and style. I'm glad she chose to let her hair down in order to "modernize" the look and not take it to a "Pageant Betty" level. Muy Bien Elena!

Score: 9.70




Miss Brazil Sancler Frantz: Sancler also wore a white gown for the Miss World 2013 Final Show. Hers was a bit much and verging on looking 1990s in its overuse of "stuff": you've got the white satin (which looks a tad polyester-y), then the jeweled sequins, matching jeweled earrings, the sheer sleeves, and if that wasn't enough, let's just throw on a big tulle back overskirt. It needed editing. On a good note: I do love those jeweled details in the bodice...very Gionni Straccia (Venezuelan pageant-gown designer).

Score: 8.99




Miss Gibraltar Maroua Kharbouch: Maroua made it into the Top 6 Finalists as the "People's Choice" pick. Congrats to her, however, she might not be getting MY "People's Choice" pick for this gown. I like the sequined top section but, for the most part, the gown looks like a Figure Skater who got Shipwrecked...at the Rock of Gibraltar.

Score: 7.5



The Rest of the Top 10:


Miss Australia Erin Holland: Erin wore a purple colored full gown that featured cascading chiffon details down the skirt and a nude illusion sequined top section. I like the color and embroidery work of the top. I don't think the addition of chiffon cascade ruffles down the skirt were necessary. This was another gown in need of editing, but was pretty.

Score: 9.00




Miss Nepal Ishani Shrestha: Ishani won the coveted "Beauty with a Purpose" prize and therefore made it into the Top 10. She wore a very simple lipstick red silk shantung off-the-shoulder gown. Nothing extraordinary. This is a gown one could buy at the "After Five" section at Macy's. While I respect it's simplicity, I feel for the "Miss World" you might want to take it up a notch...or two. I think that is what she was trying to do by wearing that big ol' diamante necklace. And let's just say, I wasn't a fan of that necklace; it looked too Prom & Pageant 1987.

Score: 8.00




Miss England Kirsty Heslewood: Cute and bubbly Kirsty looked soooo, well, cute! But that's it. She wore this strapless royal blue mermaid shaped gown with a gathered top section and multi-tiered bottom. I think the combination of her hairstyle, the necklace, the color of the dress, the mermaid silhouette...it didn't have any "high fashion" edge. She looked like a 16 year-old girl at her prom. I just want to give her fruit punch (not spiked of course!). Imagine her with her hair in a chignon, wearing a silver sequined column gown; she would be a whole other woman...and one I would really notice, in a good way!

Score: 8.45




Miss Indonesia Vania Larissa: Vania won the Talent Competition. She sang. Very well. I liked this gown which she wore for the Finals. It was a blue with silver sequins fitted dress with a sheer/sequins high neckline and a chiffon train. The fabric looks like beautiful Sari fabric which is something I admire. I just HATE seeing her big platform heels; such a no-no! The dress was too short and was also a bit too tight, as she had trouble walking on the stage and down the stairs of the stage. It made for an uncomfortable and certainly, ungraceful walk.

Score: 8.80




Miss Jamaica Gina Hargitay: The last of our Top Ten wore this turquoise blue satin mermaid shaped gown featuring A LOT of details: The fitted torso/top section had an interesting asymmetrical neckline and was heavily beaded; more beads and sequins trickled down toward the hips and bottom half of her gown; then, there were ruffles at the hem as well. This is another dress in need of EDITING. Listen,  you DO NOT have to throw everything AND the kitchen sink into a pageant gown. But I do think the color was a good choice especially against her skin tone.

Score: 8.55



**Next Up: My "Part Two of Miss World 2013 Gown Review"--the rest of the Top 20 plus some Great Gowns that didn't end up in the "Top 20" as well as.... "Girl! What Were You Thinking?"...Stay Tuned!



Here's a SNEAK PEAK:

Google has a great mobile interface for image search. It was launched in 2010 and improved multiple times since then. You can use swipes to go to the next image result or to the previous one. It looks like Google changed the image search UI for smartphones and tablets and now sends you to a landing page that shows the image and loads the corresponding page in the background. Intuitive gestures are gone and now you have to use the back button.


This seems to be limited to iPhones and iPads running iOS 7, so it's probably a bug. A lot of people complain about this in the Google Search Forum.

There are many reasons why the new interface is strange: loading the associated page uses more bandwidth and that's not a good idea for mobile devices, it's more difficult to check multiple search results, thumbnails are smaller and even the desktop interface shows a bigger image instead of sending users to a new page.

Printastic Challenge: This past week on Season 12 of "Project Runway" on Lifetime, it was time for the "HP/intel Print Textile Challenge". This challenge has become a "fan favorite" since in the past, there have been some FABULOUS prints created by some of the designers/contestants...








Usually the prints are inspired by their NYC surroundings or something personal, but this season, they were supposed to be inspired by a group of hand-picked "Next Gen Innovators". The results were, well...rather UN-inspiring and probably one of the least effective (and good) results to come out of this "HP/intel Print/Textile" Project Runway challenge. Looking at the past as a "Rubric" of sorts, this was a little bit of a PRINT LET DOWN.







The Runway Good:


Bradon McDonald: Bradon created a printed bomber jacket and black knit tube dress that the judges adored. I liked the look; it was hip, very cute and sellable. I could see SO MANY girls--especially models--wanting that black tight knit dress. However, it wasn't a BLACK KNIT TUBE DRESS Challenge. It was a print challenge. He used the print well in that bomber design but it was lacking in it's "exuberance" and overall "celebration" of the print in the ENTIRE design. But the judges LOOOVED it.




Helen Castillo: Weepy--and Tatoo'ed--Helen, did a great job with this two piece look. In case you have not been on the "up-and-up" of What's Hot, it's ALL ABOUT the midriff-exposing crop top. So, in terms of style/silhouette, Helen was ON POINT. Her print wasn't exciting, per se, and certainly not on par with past "Project Runway" HP/intel Challenge designers. But overall, it was an OK showing from her.




Dom Streater: Dom was the obvious winner of this challenge. Seriously. Take a look at that print above. It's not one of the best of "Project Runway", but it was the best of this season. When her model came down the runway, I was like "Yep, that's the winner!"; she celebrated the print and wisely used it almost ENTIRELY on her dress.




The Runway "Uh Oh":


Justin LeBlanc: I liked the gown style but the construction and lack of print use, was sad.  Speaking of sad...








Alexandria Von Bromssen: Somehow this look (seen above) was safe. Don't know why or how. But yes, it was safe. It is tacky, dated and something a "Club Kid" at "Burning Man" would wear...in 2002. And how, in God's name, does the model somehow look as if she has a tummy pooch? #DesignFail




Alexander Pope: Chocolate High Priestess. Alexander's inspiration was chocolate since his "Next Gen Innovator" partner was a dessert chef. I can see the "chocolate" part but the white banding that turned out to be a bit "Vatican City", totally distracted from the print, and look. Alexander was out.




Kate Pankoke: Oh poor little Kate. She failed miserably with this tricky design featuring one too many pleated godet inserts. More importantly: where is THE PRINT? Well, from some research I have done on the internets...I found out that (allegedly) Kate's print didn't work and/or print out correctly. Therefore, the producers somehow "made it work". I'll give her a pass if this is what actually occurred but...that still doesn't excuse this design. Kate was out as well.







Wanna Know What I Really Think? Here's my Recap of this Episode:






Generation HP



Previously on "Project Runway": the UBER SUPER DUPER fans were celebrated with their very own episode, while designer Ken's anger management issues were "celebrated" as well, for the world to see. I still can't get the image out of my head of Ken looking like Faye Dunaway in "Mommy Dearest," shrieking and yelling at the top of his lungs. Besides myself, I'm thinking that most viewers -- and I'm sure everyone associated with the production of the show (oh those poor talent coordinators, P.A.'s, camera and sound people) -- were happy to see Ken get the "You're out!î from Fraulein Heidi. I hear Ken's trash-talking on Twitter, saying he purposely threw the competition (what is this, ìBig Brother"?) as well as dissing Lifetime's target audience. Bless his heart. Now that the nastiness is gone, let's get back to designing and one of my favorite challenges of the show.



YAY: It's The HP Challenge!

After changing from his "Therapist Tim" uniform back to his "Mentor/Co-Host Tim" ensemble, Tim Gunn walks into the lounge, greeting the remaining seven designers and introducing Rob Le Bras-Brown, Senior VP at HP Worldwide Marketing. He is there to announce that this is the HP and Intel Textile Design Challenge. Usually, during this much-anticipated episode, the designers create a print inspired by something personal or their surroundings. This time, it will be different: They will be inspired by a "Next-Gen Innovator. The winning designer and his or her Innovator partner will get an HP Technology Suite consisting of the Split X-2 and Notebook Rove.



Designer/Next-Gen Innovator Pairings:

Helen, who won last week's challenge, gets first pick and chooses Ryan Keeley, an artist who combines painting with new media and technology. Bradon is with Nigel Sylvester, a world-recognized DMX rider/entrepreneur and youth mentor. Alexandria chooses Ilana Greenberg, a top graphic designer who uses her creativity to advance social causes. Alexander is with Thiago Silva, Executive Pastry Chef at Catch Restaurant (who coincidentally has THE BEST EYEBROWS EVAH). Kate chooses Maria Gonzalez, teen software developer and creator of the app "Say Something" to help homeless individuals. Justin goes for Nana Meriwether, Miss USA 2012, who created a foundation focusing on education and health in Africa. Dom gets Premal Shah, co-founder of KIVA.org, a crowdfunding organization for entrepreneurs worldwide.

After visiting with their innovators, the designers go back to the Parsons workroom...



CLICK HERE to read the rest of my "Project Runway Blog" Recap! 

23 year old Filipino-American US-born TV presenter and actress Megan Young "Miss World Philippines" was crowned "Miss World 2013" in a glittering show in Indonesia. This marks the VERY FIRST TIME in the international pageants 63 year history that a Miss Philippines has ever won that coveted beauty crown.The contest was televised LIVE in the USA on E! Entertainment at 5 am (!). And you can bet your Beauty Pageant Sashes and Tiaras...that I DVR'ed it! I then woke up this morning at 8 am to watch it! It was a GREAT pageant and a fabulous show, highlighting Indonesia, its culture, fashion in a marvelous manner.







Wearing
a gorgeous form-fitting mermaid style gown in a pink/blush color with silver sequin applique, Megan Young--who moved to the Philippines at the age of
10--wept as the Miss World sash was put over her shoulder by Miss World 2012 Yu Wenxia, from China.







She told the cheering crowd in Nusa
Dua in southern Bali she would "be myself in everything I do, to share
what I know and to educate people". The competition was moved to Bali from the capital, Jakarta, because of protests from hardline Muslim groups. Security
for Saturday's event was high in Bali, a resort island with a majority
Hindu population, but no further demonstrations were reported.








Curse broken: As I stated in the beginning of this post, Megan Young goes down in history as the first-ever Filipina to win
Miss World—breaking a popular urban legend that no Filipina will ever
win the title. The legend can be traced back to 1977
when Peachy Veneracion reportedly made the curse after she was forced to
withdraw from the pageant at the time. Since then,
despite the Philippines successful finishes in the Miss Universe pageant and other
international beauty competitions, the Miss World crown has been elusive...until now!







COMING UP: I will have a FULL GOWN REVIEW of the Top Finalists of "Miss World 2013" in an upcoming post SOON here on my blog, but for now, I wanted to highlight the beautiful winner and new "Miss World 2013", Megan Young...

YouTube's HTML5 player is great, but it's not enabled for all the videos. Even if you go to youtube.com/html5 and join the HTML5 trial, you'll find a lot of videos that use the Flash player. "Some videos with ads are not yet supported (they will play in the Flash player)," mentions the site.

There's a simple Greasemonkey script that forces YouTube to use the HTML5 player for almost all the videos you watch at youtube.com. You need to install Greasemonkey if you use Firefox or Tampermonkey if you use Chrome, then click the "Install" button here.

[Update (Octomber 3rd, 2013): For Chrome, use the old version from Sept 23.]

The script works better in Firefox. If you install the script in Chrome, it will disable the new Ajax interface, but everything else seems to work well.


Here's a video you can use to test the script. Please note that the script doesn't work for embedded videos.