Not So Far Ahead...

Whilst the Indy looks ahead ten years, French website Nowhereelse.fr points us towards the very near future with these clips of what some take to be a glimpse of the forthcoming Apple tablet device (iSlate, iGuide are amongst the names mooted) which is rumoured to be associated with a 'big' media event in late January.
Not sure about this though - something about it is iffy (or a few things are iffy) - not sure I can put my finger on it exactly. But it's a very nice fake nonetheless if it is indeed a fake.

The Indy Looks Ahead. 10 Years Ahead.

UK newspaper, The Independent, stumbles slightly tackily into the next decade with a twee but nonetheless interesting vision of how far things will have changed for us all by 2020...
(Part 2 tomorrow apparently).

Helpful Dialog Box Of The Day

Many thanks to Apple's Garageband for flagging up this helpful little gem whilst I was (successfully) installing a Jam Pack.

Groovy Magazine Concept - Mag+

Mag+ from Bonnier on Vimeo.

Fascinating mag (and also 'tablet experience' in general) by Bonnier, and Berg.
If Apple's tablet device ever appears I hope it's content could work something like this...

Green Apple Turns Greener

Not only has Apple been putting more and more effort into improving its green credentials, showcasing its credentials with a dedicated section of its website - but it has now also given up its membership in the the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over the Chamber's stance on climate change legislation.
In a letter to Thomas J. Donohue, President and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Apple's Vice President of Worldwide Government Affairs, Catherine A. Novelli, stated Apple's position and submitted Apple's resignation...

Apple is committeed to protecting the environment and the communities in which we operate around the world. We strongly object to the Chamber's recent comments opposing the EPA's effort to limit greenhouse gases.
Apple supports regulating greenhouse gas emissions, and it is frustrating to find the Chamber at odds with us in this effort. We would prefer that the Chamber take a more progressive stance on this critical issue and play a construtive role in addressing the climate crisis. However, because the Chamber's position differs so sharply with Apple's, we have decided to resign our membership effective immediately.

I never need new reasons to love Apple. But what the hell... Awesome.
I'm not naive enough to believe there's no whiff of marketing about something like this - but kudos to Apple for doing it anyway. There's a definite momentum with the company's various efforts that suggests that positive spin and profile is simply part of a virtuous circle of doing the right thing. Will be interesting to see if others follow suit or what waves are made.

Vroom Vroom...

I'm setting up my new business at the moment, as I'm currently in the middle of a redundancy process and need to get my head around "Life After Teletext", where I've been for 11 years, busily getting complacent and institutionalised.
Getting a similar job is pretty much out of the question (as in it's both unlikely and to be honest, probably undesirable) so I'm looking at freelancing more than anything - the skills and experience are there; but it's going to take a lot of hard work and persistence too.
There's some interesting projects that I'm aiming to pursue, primarily because they'd be things I'd love to do and would be brilliant if they worked out - but I'm also keeping my feet firmly on the ground and prepping to do my fair share of "grind" work too; the kind of thing of which the best you can say is that it "pays the bills..."

One of the major upsides to what I'm planning is that pretty much everything I can do on my Macs, but there's two things that have sadly meant I need to get Windows up and running...

One is that, as a web designer amongst other things, I really need to ensure that anything I build looks and works fine cross-platform, so I need to check it in PC browsers on a Windows OS. The other is that I bought a special application called "Business in a Box" which is basically an adaptable business and legal document resource. Had I wanted just the English version then there's a Mac one, but as I wanted the English AND Spanish combined edition it's got a bit more complicated, as it's not available for the Mac and requires a PC version that is a bespoke app that allows exports to standard "Office" formats.

So basically I've just had to shell out on the Business in a Box software, plus Office for PC, plus Windows for PC, plus Parallels to run the whole fat lot on top of the Mac OS.

This had better all be bloody worth it!!! It's yet another disappointment to my team too, who've been devastated by the sight of me buying project-planning and accounting software recently. By the way, the best project planning software for Mac is unarguably OmniPlan by the wonderful folks at Omni Group, who also produce OmniGraffle which is pretty much indispensable for things like sitempas and wireframing.

By the way, the new business is called Vroom Media.
There's a main information site here...
And a more detailed portfolio site here at Vroom Vroom...
Plus there's a page on Facebook here...

If you need some nifty design work doing, and you're a nice person and a prompt payer then get in touch ;-)

New El Canto Del Loco & Pere Tutusaus Websites

It's been a busy couple of days with me overhauling and relaunching a couple of my "pet project" sites. I won't call them "hobbies" as they're too important to me, and I felt that given the other rebuilds I'd done recently it'd be a great opportunity to carry on learning about Wordpress and PHP and CSS geekery by giving both sites a complete makeover and moving them from Blogger to my own domains and building them from the ground up with revised designs.

Here's how the new El Canto Del Loco website looks...



And this is how I've reworked the new Pere Tutusaus website, although I've left the branding more or less intact on this one, compared to the hefty redesign of the whole styling that I've done with the ECDL site...



I've also been working on a very cool idea that I've come up with which will also be a WP project; although it's huge by comparison, and also very secret squirrel, so I've got to try and stay excited about it for months yet while I mess around at refining and developing the idea and figuring out if there's any money in it!
Stay tuned...
And stay patient...

"LOL"

I may be getting a bit more reactionary in some of my views - like for instance I reckon using a mobile in a car should result in the filth being allowed to crush your motor into a cube *on the spot* - but it tends to be that these views come from decent observations. And one of those is that people CANNOT drive while using a mobile. Nor can they cycle while using one. And let's be honest most people can barely walk while using one (and alarmingly I'm talking about people using it as a frikkin' phone not as a texting device here...)
Hence why I love this cartoon. Thanks to Chris at Gonzovision for sending it on.

Paddington Never Used To Be In Camden....

Cool / weird trick of the day...

Click on this link to go to Google Maps, or alternatively try putting '54 Great Russell St, Camden Town' into the Google Maps page...

Then click on "Street View".

Street View, it would appear, is not only an intrusion into privacy but also some kind of portal into an alternate universe.

Tube "Departure Boards" on WWW & iPhone

(*Yes, it's always this much fun...)

Quite a nice new development from TFL, the people who bring you tube trains. Sometimes.
It's a new web tool called "Departure Boards" which as the name suggests, provides upcoming live train information in exactly the format you would see on the departure boards at any given station.
You simply select any station from any line, and - whoomph - there it is.
Excellent piece of work, and one that could only be seriously bettered if it were translated into a bespoke iPhone application; something which has in fact been done here by awavana.com - and very nice it is too.

Although the interface and execution are nice - and it is genuinely a great idea for communicating data, there does remain the question of the relevance and accuracy of the information itself. Let us not forget that last year the Departure Boards at Gunnersbury Station (District Line, Richmond Branch) were actually nominated for the 2008 Whitbread Prize For Fiction...



(*Okay; so that last bit was untrue... But only because nobody had the presence of mind to fill in a nomination form)

Rendering My Arse...

Many thanks to 3D artist (see above) Chris for sending this on...

Snow Leopard Set For June 8th Release

Fairly reliable sources are now pointing to June 8th as the release date of Mac OSX 10.6 - "Snow Leopard", the next major upgrade of the Mac OSX and notable most specifically for NOT introducing a bunch of spiffy new interface features (the kind of geeky fun we have come to expect from Apple) but instead putting its primary focus on under-the-hood performance improvements and enhancements.

Snow Leopard is expected to make great advances in processing, to include the new Quicktime shown a few posts back, to deliver huge OpenCL possibilities for developers of all kinds of applications, to continue to expand on multi-touch feature support, and to also have a considerably smaller footprint (or paw-print) than previous versions of the operating system, freeing up room for users like me to fill their hard drives with even more crap than ever before.

In the absence of any cool screenshots, I've just dropped in that cute picture above, plus a link to Apple's main info page about Snow Leopard - and also, for those of you who are so-inclined, a link to SnowLeopard.org - The Snow Leopard Trust, the world's leading authority on the study, conservation and protection of the endangered snow leopard out in the real world.

Is This The New Quicktime?

This is a screengrab image posted by Feber.se purporting to show the new minimalist interface of the forthcoming version of Quicktime, expected out with Mac OSX 10.6 "Snow Leopard" - very much in line with the basic 'play' interfaces of stuff like iTunes videos.
A nice clean interface like this - plus the rumoured integration of currently paid-for "Pro" features could be a real step forward for QT. Nice.

A Couple Of Safari 4 Interface Hacks

Still loving Safari 4 BETA - although despite the blinding speed, Top Sites and overall Coverflow sexiness etc, those UI tweaks of putting the tabs at the very top of the app, and also losing the progress bar in favour of the little twirly device are really still getting on my tits a stupid amount.
Short of actually just getting over it and chilling out - which I think we all know isn’t going to happen - I should thank Gordon for sending on a couple of Terminal hacks to set these right.

I don’t often use the terminal I must admit - but occasionally it’s a very useful last resort; particularly if you’ve got a hack or command passed on or recommended by a reliable source (and these ones I believe come from MacFixit.com which is pretty much as good as it gets).

So, firstly, you can reinstate the tabs where they used to be by typing / copying this into the Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4TabBarIsOnTop -bool NO

and the progress bar can be reinstated by typing in / copying this:

defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeToolbarRedesign -bool NO
defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4LoadProgressStyle -bool NO


It’s important to note that the progress bar hack will leave you without the Cancel / Reload button - but if you’re happy to do those with simple keyboard shortcuts (Apple and full-stop for Cancel, Apple and R for Reload) then it’s no great loss.
The progress bar is a very useful piece of UI - it not only indicates activity but shows you what kind of activity is going on (or indeed is NOT going on). If the progress bar is stuck at some point across a web address then this is actually telling you what the problem is. For example if it’s stuck over the http: bit it’s a protocol problem, whilst if it’s over the page name, then it’s a problem with that page or elements on it. Not a lot of people know that.

Hope these are useful and thanks to Gordon and MacFixit for spreading the hacks.

Creativity Is What Should Count On ITunes

Cult of Mac brings news that in an interview with TIME magazine Van Morrison has made clear his intention to withdraw from the iTunes Music Store; giving us the benefit of such dubious bits of wisdom as “I’m not a download artist” (whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean...) to explain the curious decision - quite frankly I’d want my offerings everywhere possible in such tough times, especially when it appears that iTMS is operating in a pretty healthy way compared to offline purchasing in general.

What is interesting to me in all this is certainly not Van Morrison himself (who I only really know as a narky old curmudgeon who had the poor judgement to record something with Cliff Richard...) - no, it’s more his general attitude to iTMS in context of his portfolio on the Store.
Go look; he has a bog-standard list of albums.
And that’s it.
That’s his contribution to making iTunes work for him.
Lazy bastard.

If I was a recording artist who was working with iTMS, not only would I work bloody hard to ensure that all albums, singles and any kind of B-sides and bonus-y type stuff was available, I’d also be making sure I used the Store 100% to engage more with fans.
Get all the promo videos out there - and the “making of” videos. Podcasts of course - probably video ones. Why not “digital booklets” (that’s actually just a posh title for PDFs to be honest) of ongoing news and photos, of studio notes and tour diaries? Why not dust off old and rare material and get it out there? Look at digitising old live stuff that’s not worth pressing DVDs of, but which fans would download in a heartbeat? Documentaries, iCals, downloads of the winning entries from special fan-remix challenges? The potential is pretty much as limitless as your imagination.
Which in Van Morrison’s case would appear to be pretty bloody limited indeed.

As far as I can see if you’re not thinking of things like that then you’re a lazy dimwit who doesn’t deserve to succeed on iTMS. It’s a pretty sure sign that Van Morrison certainly should withdraw - I have no idea how far he’d be missed; probably not much so long as “Brown Eyed Girl” is still available on some oldie compilation album somewhere.
He’s as myopic as the record companies still tend to be.
Long live iTunes and all its possibilities for the creative artist.
And while we’re about it, let’s see a few more artists actually getting creative with iTunes...

Safari 4 Beta Is Out And Awesome

Okay - good news for those of you who enjoy surfing the interweb.
There's so much crud out there (and indeed on this very site) and so many sites to follow and organise and look at... well, in its latest version (the BETA release of Safari 4) Apple has delivered its best browser yet to help enrich your web surfing, and to be honest it pisses on pretty much any other browser I've seen too. (yes, that's basically all of them).
Whilst they'd done a couple of things I'm not so keen on - like shifting the tabs to the very top of the navbar, and changing their behaviour a bit - some of the plusses are utterly brilliant.

People will make certain comparisons to Google's Chrome browser with regard to the most obvious new feature; the "Top Sites" screen - but that won't do it justice. Although its starting point is a collection of your most viewed sites (albeit presented in beautiful 3D Aqua-fied glory) the cleverness comes in being able to completely turn this into a beautiful Favourites / Start page by sticking drawing pins into pages you want to keep in a certain place and organising others around them. It also has a nifty little touch of letting you know if pages have been updated by showing them with the top corner folded down and a star showing up.

There's a whole interface lifting going on with "Cover Flow" (Apple's gorgeous way of shoing items by flipping through them, derived from iTunes where the metaphor was flicking through a bunch of album sleeves) being used across so many functions such as searching your History for previously visited sites, bookmarks in general, and also special bookmarks such as a folder of sites associated with people from your address book.

The final thing to recommend it is its speed. This is fast. Really fast. Overall rendering is great and the performance on pages heavy with things like Javascript is nothing short of blistering.
Combine it with Safari Ad Block and you have very probably got the most exquisite browsing experience available.
There's a Windows version too, so give it a try (though given that it will be authored to exploit the structure and processes of Apple's OSX operating system, it's unlikely you'd feel quite the same boost. But it's still a fab browser and deserves a tryout.)

There's a page covering all the features here...
And you can download the Safari 4 Beta here...
*Just bear in mind it IS a beta version. It won't be perfect.

...Although it's pretty bloody close.

2009 Bikesports In iCal

For any of you who may be into motorbike sports (or at least the main world championships in various categories) I've made a bunch of iCals to help keep tabs on all the important dates in 2009. iCal is an application on the Mac, which uses the open .ics calendar format - which means that you can also use these in various Windows and Linux applications such as Microsoft Works (Version 8 or higher), WinDates, Mozilla Calendar, Sunbird and Zimbra.

MotoGP 2009 Calendar
Click here to subscribe in iCal...

CEV Buckler 2009 Calendar
Click here to subscribe in iCal...

SBK: World Superbikes 2009 Calendar
Click here to subscribe in iCal...

BSB: British Superbikes 2009 Calendar
Click here to subscribe in iCal...

World Superstock 1000cc
Click here to subscribe in iCal...


More information about how to use these calendars on Windows PCs here at iCalShare...

Hope they're useful.
Enjoy :-)

gb

Live Performances Of "Music From The Worm Farm"

As the "Music From The Worm Farm" project I did the website for nears its end, I should point out the forthcoming live performance of the project's output.
The performance is at 7 pm on Thursday the 19th of March at the Science Museum's Dana Centre in South Kensington, London. Tickets are free, and a free CD  of work from the residency will be given away.
Click here for full information on the evet...
And click here for the 'Performance" info page on the Worm Music website.
Ongoing notes form composer Keith Johnson can be found here on the Worm Music blog.

Scintillation

Not entirely sure what to say about this film - SCINTILLATION - by Xavier Chassaing, except "bloody hell that's cool..."

Watch it, it's beautiful.

Tyrant, Rock Star, Diva, King... & Don't Forget Human Being

There's an excellent piece on Cult of Mac at the moment, reflecting on Steve Jobs' decision to step back from Apple till the summer on account of health issues being "more complex" than previously thought.
I wanted to share it as it's a pared down, non-hysterical look at the present and the future and - without getting ghoulish or mawkish - also attempts to understand the nature of Jobs' legacy, whenever his time may come.
Most chatter on the various Mac forums is a mix of hysteria and cynicism, and some utterly unreal trolling from sickeningly greedy and self-obsessed shareholders (apparently), who deserve nothing short of the mightiest punch in the gob.

There's not really much to do except hope that the stepping back / treatment etc is not a gentle euphemism for the long goodbye but a genuine assessment (and in no way loaded) of what's going on; to wish Steve Jobs all the best, and to hope he's back doing more "insanely great" things when he's good and ready.

Click here for the article...