::: Welcome to Don's Digital Café. My name is Don Cook and I am your host.
++ Where inpiration lives: San Diego, CA, USA / Don Cook / Don's Digital Café 

This is our BETA test site, meaning that it is not quite finished. In the meantime, you can enter our BETA CONTEST for a chance to win a new Espresso Machine (contest rules and start date TBA).

Following you will find just some of the many things that inspire those that work at, or do work for Don's Digital Café.

INSPIRATION RICH INVIRONMENT.

We are not a Restaurant or Internet Café, although we do have WiFi and our own kitchen, called Bistro 150.

We are a hi-tech Digital Graphic Design Studio, Digital Web Design Studio, Digital Photography Studio, Digital Darkroom, Digital Sound Recording Studio, HD Digital Video Netcasting Studio, and a 3D Digital Art Studio, and other things.

The most natural and interactive way to draw is by using a highly sensitive pen-on-screen experience that a tablet like the Wacom Cintiq.21ux offers.

Our workspace is awesome and awe inspiring. It features a fork lift for lifting people's jaws off the floor when they fist visit us (just kidding).

Things happen at Don's Digital Café that actually taste and smell great before they are released, and they migrate by osmosis through all kinds of processes that wouldn't happen without the presence of the truly talented forces contained therein.

As we teeter on the glittering edge of a new economy, it appears that Don Cook's Digital Café will make the leap into a future ripe with new visions, inspirations and possibilities.

Although we are not a Café or Restaurant, it's nice to know that we have a "Bistro" located within our "Café". It's called, Bistro 150, and provides the organic "fuel" for the creative minds of those that work at, or visit Don's Digital Café.

Our work environment consists of the very best "tools" combined with the very best "talent" to create a unique type of "synergy". A simplified definition of synergy is: "The effect of the whole is greater than the sum of the effects of the individual parts".

This definition does not do justice to the type of synergy that we strive to achive at Don's Digital Café.

Synergy arises when two or more persons with different complementary skills cooperate.

Conversely, the most common reason why people cooperate is to create synergy.

In a typical business, teamwork will usually produce an overall better result than if each person was working toward the same goal on their own.

We are not your typical business. Our "team" does not consist of people with different complementary "skills". It consists of people with different complementary "talents" (and skills).

The difference may seem small, and may escape most people's ability to understand. To understand the difference, it would be very helpful to know the difference between skills and talent.

Skills can be learned. Talent cannot. It is a personal gift possessed by relatively few people. It is innate and usually cannot be learned. Talent: You have it or you don't.

This is why we refer to our talented and gifted helpers as "Talent" and not "Team Members" (although "Heros" might be more appropriate).

When you create a Team of persons with different complementary skills, you create something special. We take that concept, and cast it further, by involving special persons who have both talent and skills.

This gives us something very special. To create something extremely special, we combine the right talent with the right tools (hardware, software and other resources).

Our location is truly inpirational.

Located in beautiful San Diego, California, USA, Don's Digital Café is close to an International Border, an International Airport, two General Aviation Airports, and 45 Farmers Markets.

Opinions may vary, but we think San Diego is the most beautiful city on the face of our planet.  If you live or work here, you just might agree.

At Don's Digital Café, the "bytes" that are served are mostly ones and zeros. However, because of our close proximity to Farmers Markets, and the beautiful San Diego climate, we also have our own Kitchen and "Urban Plantation" (small organic garden), and much more.

Our Kitchen, called "Bistro 150" offers vegan soups, salads, sandwiches, raw juices, and green smoothies made from fresh, organic ingredients from local organic farms, and from our own organic garden ("Urban Plantation").

Those that work at or visit Don's Digital Café, also enjoy the finest organic teas, coffees and espressos on the planet. Our coffee beans are organic and roasted fresh at the San Diego Whole Foods Market.

Don Cook, a trained chef and student of food science and nutrition, is a passionate proponent of local, organic and sustainable food. He chose the "150" in our kitchen's name to reflect the fact that ingredients will come from within a 150-mile radius of our kitchen. Bistro 150 also features fresh baked artisan breads, indoor and outdoor patio dining, and when the menu calls for grilled vegetables and tempeh, pool side dining.

The inspirational advantages of our location start with delicious, nutritious food, but most certainly don't end there.

At Bistro 150, you can grab a thermos of organic garden vegetable and red beet juice. A sandwich spread with organic black bean hummus, avocado and spicy tahini. Stuff it with sliced tomatoes, onion, red peppers, and Broccoli sprouts. Add a seaweed salad with cucumbers and miso dressing, and then head to the beach for a peaceful picnic.

After your picnic, don't forget about the many benefits of walking on the beach. It can be relaxing (as well as excellent exercise), so go ahead and pick up a pretty shell, look for surfers (and other people, dolphins, whales, birds and seals) playing in the surf, and notice the always changing colors of the water and the sky.

FRESH GUARANTEED!

Take time for contemplation and appreciation. Think about the things you’re grateful for. Meditate, pray, enjoy the sunset, or simply take a moment to pay attention to what is good, positive, and beautiful as you go about your walk. When you return to work, you'll be the the best and the freshest that you can be. In fact, when you walk in the office, and show us your seashells, we stamp your forehead with a "FRESH GUARANTEED" stamp (just kidding).

If your inspiration comes from rest and relaxation you will find a jacuzzi with a waterfall, sauna, massages (including reflexology), and tanning beds. Sorry, we don't have any chocolate massages as offered at the Chocolate Spa in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

If you are like Don, and don't trust "any thought arrived at while at rest", there is a state-of-the-art gym with treadmills, cycles and stair climbers that you can connect your iPod to a video display for learning and/or motivation. Strength training machines and free weights abound.  There are also hi-tech Sport Courts, including those for Basketball and Tennis.

INSPIRED BY SCIENCE FICTION.

The overall look and feel of all of our websites was inspired by the SyFy Channel series, Battlestar Galactica. To say it is a "reimagining" of the original 1978 TV is an understatement!

"Galactica is so beautifully designed, shot, edited and acted that you can practically smell and taste its emotional validity".  ~ Diane Werts, Newsday

The above photo is of Sam Anders and Kara "Starbuck" Thrace of Battlestar Galactica, showing off their very cool tatoos. These actors are not just pretty, they are also very good actors (true "Battlestars").

We invite you to view one of TV's finest, boldest and best dramas (sci-fi or otherwise) by watching Battlestar Galactica, both the original and the new series, the webisodes, the TV Movies (Razor and The Plan), and the prequel series, Caprica.

If you look closely, you will notice that all publications (including photos, magazines, e-papers and books) are printed on paper with all four corners cut off at 45 degree angles.

This was most likely done as a way to make an advanced, future civiliazation look different than our own.

We want our websites to look different than others, so a lot of the graphic elements and photos have the corners cut off at 45 degree angles.

This will provide us with a very consistent and unique "look and feel".

Because of the octagonal elements, when you visit any of our websites or online stores, you will instantly recognize it as one of ours.

It’s fairly easy to look at tablet computers (like Apple’s iPad) and flexible thin video screens (like LG's e-paper) and realize that it won’t take long to combine these two technologies into a single product that will work just like the octagonal shaped "touch screen" paper we see in Caprica.

INSPIRED BY THE TECH GUY.

The inspiration for Don's Digital Café came from Leo Laporte and his innovative TWiT Cottage.

Leo (also know as the "Tech Guy") hosts and produces some of the most popular podcasts and netcasts in the world.

These include This Week in Tech, Security Now!, net@nite, The Daily Giz Wiz, Windows Weekly, MacBreak Weekly, and This Week in Google, all under the TWiT TV banner.

Some of these are netcast in HD on the TWiT Netcast Network, some of them are on iTunes and the TWiT channel on the Roku player.

Leo hosted two shows on TechTV, a 24-hour a day cable channel dedicated to computers and the Internet.

Call for Help and The Screen Savers (two of Don's favorite shows) aired live every day of the week from 1998 to 2004.

In May 2004, TechTV and G4 merged to form G4techTV. Call for Help, despite being the network's second-highest rated show (ranked just below X-Play in viewership), did not appeal to the combined channel's target demographic (in the opinion of G4 executives), and was cancelled immediately. The final United States edition of Call for Help, taped two days prior, aired on May 21, 2004.

After Call for Help was cancelled in the US, Leo began producing it in Toronto for Rogers Communications. The show aired in Canada on G4TechTV, and Australia on the HOW-TO Channel. Rogers moved production to Vancouver in 2007 and renamed it “The Lab with Leo Laporte.” The show ended its ten-year run in May, 2008.

The above photo is probably the most important photo on this site, even though it may look ordinary. This is a Photo of Leo Laporte with Kevin Rose in the background. What is important is that Kevin is a long time friend of Leo's, a former cast member, and the founder of DIGG.

In May, 2008, Leo launched a live streaming video version of TWiT called TWiT Live with 30 hours of original programming each week. 2.6 million people watched TWiT Live in its first month.

Note from Raster Master: Currently, Leo hosts a national radio technology talk show every Saturday and Sunday from 2-5:00 PM (Eastern Time) on the Premiere Radio Networks including XM Channel 158, He also appears regularly on many television and radio programs including Live with Regis and Kelly.

Don's Digital Café will be similar to the TWiT Cottage, only with a more hi-tech look (lots of glass, chrome, brushed aluminum, and . . . no wood). Also, instead of computers (Leo uses Mac minis) hooked up to four different monitors, we use computers (Macs and PeeCees) connected to one large HD monitor using a Quad Splitter.

Like Leo, we will have a presence on YouTube, iTunes, and a ROKU Channel. Leo's ROKU channel is called "Twit". Our ROKU channel will be called . . . you guessed it: "Don's Digital Café".

:: Source: [Don's Digital Café, San Diego, CA USA]
:: Logo Design: [Don Cook, Don's Digital Café, San Diego, CA USA]
:: Innovation: Web Design and Internet marketing redefined.
:: Available: President's Day, 2010.
:: Cost: TBA (about $0.75 million USD)

::: Sophisticated website construction and content management system.
++ Web Development: San Diego, CA, USA / Don Cook / Don's Digital Café

All of our websites are in different stages of the construction process. Some are being parked for free at GoDaddy while we work on them.  As they roll out and "go live" (are published online), they will all have a consistent look and feel (you will be able to instantly recognize all of our websites as being distinctive and belonging to us).

We are using a PHP-based open source CMS (Content Management System) which is also a module framework. It enables us to create and organize website content, edit the layout, automate some administrative functions, and much more. Even with its diverse interface, all of the functions can still be carried out without advanced programming skills.

Note from Raster Master: The Content Management System (CMS) that we use is considered today to be one of the most advanced on the planet. It provides us with a set of capabilities for our most sophisticated website construction and maintenance needs. Yet, it remains comfortable and simple to use due to how well organized the interface is.

:: Source: [Don's Digital Café, San Diego, CA USA]
:: Logo Design: [Don Cook, Don's Digital Café, San Diego, CA USA]
:: Innovation: Revolutionary concept for serving up dynamic websites.
:: Available: President's Day, 2010.
:: Cost: Varies according to the unique requirements of each website.

::: The future of marketing is here.
++ Internet Marketing: San Diego, CA, USA / Don Cook / Don's Digital Café

The future of marketing is online, and successful web marketing requires a new set of skills, and a unique language of its own. The Internet has changed the way companies attract and keep customers, requiring fresh advertising strategy that utilizes e-mail, websites, wireless media, and much, much more.

The cornerstone of Internet Marketing is web design, web interface and usability, and scripting languages. However, in order to effectively communicate within the 21st century business environment we must use many other proven techniques.

These proven techniques include such things as SEO (Search Engine Optimization), developing careful relations with the News Aggregators, RSS and ATOM Syndication, Newsletters, opt-in e-mails, pay-per-click (and per impression) advertising, affiliate marketing, press releases, multi-media advertising, business blogs, podcasting, netcasting, and by cross-linking our sites with our own, and other value-added sites.

Viral marketing techniques include the use of social networks, word-of-mouth advertising, video clips, images and text messages.

Note from Raster Master: We build upon the foundations of marketing with today’s tools, creative talent and the technology of tomorrow.  Our skills and knowledge enables us to keep pace with the way a fast-moving industry operates today. However, it is our creativity and willingness to inovate that enables us to be able to adapt with the industry as it continues to evolve into tomorrow.

:: Source: [Don's Digital Café, San Diego, CA USA]
:: Logo Design: [Don Cook, Don's Digital Café, San Diego, CA USA]
:: Innovation: Web Design and Internet marketing redefined.
:: Available: President's Day, 2010.
:: Cost: TBA (about $0.75 million USD)