Lost City Products, purveyors of “the most beautiful hand embroidered products in the world”  has expanded their collections to include pillows, scarves and one-of-a-kind chairs. They turned to us once again to design the latest iteration of their website featuring a media page for sharing their inspirations, a blog with the stories behind the products, as well as a new slide show and video player that streams content created exclusively for the site by video artists and musicians.

We’ve been tweeting for about a month now, follow us @chmstry and @tddwlsn.

Also, check out Ape Lad’s cool re-interpretations the of the Twitter bird.

Don’t call it a come back! Ever since Muxtape went down in August we’ve been searching for a way to broadcast our mixes. We found Opentape, an open-source package inspired by the Muxtape interface. Our web mixtape movement continues with a pilot test, Relaunch – an eclectic mix of rhythm & blues, electronica and downtempo.

LIFE and Google have made ninety-seven percent of the Life Magazine’s photo collection, which stretches from 1860 to today, available online.

I have been told that whenever the planet Mercury goes retrograde so do the tools of communication like phones and computers. When it comes to astrology, I’ve always been a little skeptical.  I’ll be the first to admit I only believe in the zodiac when it works to my benefit, which I suppose, is very Capricorn of me. After my latest rash of technical problems with email, texts and phones, I’m starting think there may be something to it.

Whether you believe in the Mercury in retro thing or not you take this Capricorn’s practical advice and back it up. When it comes to important files get in the habit of backing up to an external hard drive, burning them to DVD or syncing them to an online service. For online I use Dropbox, also check out Backblaze. Those of you on a Mac who’d like keep track of Mercury can add this widget to your Dashboard.

As for the planet Mercury itself, NASA’s Messenger spacecraft most recent flyby yielded these amazing photographs.

We’ve launched a website for the Uptown Music Theatre. Founded by our client jazz trombonist, Delfeayo Marsalis, this New Orleans based non-profit offers in-depth training in theatre, music, dance and song to young people aged 5 -18.

The amazing retouch work of Electric Art.

While we wait to see if Muxtape will ever reboot, I’d like share a few other cassette tape-related sites with you.

With their collection of audio tape cassettes, Tapedeck.org will take you back to the time when deciding on which blank tape to use was the first step in creating your mixtape. My favorite was the TDK SA-X 90.

To create your own version of the classic cassette tape cover use Says-it.com’s cassette tape generator.

If you want an Old School feel with 64 megs check out SuckUK’s cassette package USB Stick.

To convert your old mixtapes as well as all those Ready for the World, Rippingtons and Take 6 cassettes you’ve holding on to for all these years, Ion Audio (nice name) offers a series of products to help convert your analog collections to digital. With their Tape 2 PC deck you can import from cassette to mp3s and with their LP to CDR turntable you can burn direct to CD from vinyl.

This past Monday Muxtape went down. On their site it simply reads “Muxtape will be unavailable for a brief period while we sort out a problem with the RIAA.” 

The RIAA‘s position is that Muxtape is hosting content illegally. In a statement regarding the closing of the site the RIAA said, “Muxtape was hosting copies of copyrighted recordings without authorization from the copyright owners. Making recordings available for streaming playback also requires authorization from the copyright owners.”

It’s too bad. The site was a great way to share, learn and listen to new music, we really enjoyed using it. Though, I can’t say that I’m surprised, we’ve all had this conversation before, this is what happens when the music industry meets new technology.

The July 4th weekend sets Summer off in full swing. To experience the best of “free” NYC check our friend and client, Sharon Pendana‘s incredible Free list. Already in it’s 3rd version, the list contains concerts, films and other happenings in the city. Download a copy from her blog, its free!

Found on the graffiti artist Banksy‘s website.