Apple has released iTunes for Windows. To Windows users, welcome to piss easy ACC and MP3 encoding.
If you listen carefully, faint feline growlings can be heard over at the Apple site as well. Panther is due for release next weekish. 9am October 25th to be exact.
Here’s something that makes no sense to me, my aunt won’t let her 14 year old son watch the Simpsons but she’s taking him to see Christina Aguilera? Surely you get more good quality, humorous, entertainment from the Simpsons instead of watching Madame Aguilera writhing around while miming?
What’s with this cruel and unusual punishment?
According to this article Xerox is currently developing:
…automated document design software that takes the text, graphics, and other elements that might be parts of a complex document and flows them iteratively into example page layouts.
Users can define rules such as corporate colours, logos etc, and the software will come up with what IT perceives as the best designs.
So some software could be making design choices in the near future. I don’t like the idea of software essentially telling people that good design can only be achieved by following certain formulas. I can just see it now. Bigbad Co has fired their graphics department leaving it all up to the most junior person in the company and this software. This person is now dubbed the whatever-they-are-AND-graphics-guy. (His first task might be to design himself some new business cards – possibly.) Guy inputs photos, text and diagrams and lets the software do it’s magic. He presents 3 designs to Bigbad Co. I can see a couple of different scenarios here. a) Bigbad Co loves ’em all because a computer can’t be wrong, or b) Bigbad Co asks for a gazillion changes and ends up spending hours hitting the “design it” button until they get the design “they” think is right.
On the other hand it could turn out to be a valuable time saver for when you want to see a certain design applied to say different page sizes or orientation.
Xerox are also looking at developing it for other media such as web and PDA.
Lick me, I’m a macintosh. The title alone is enough reason to read this article about the Apple way of… stuff.
The Joy of Tech – cat comic. Love this comic, I’m sure this is what my cat does/attempts to do when I’m stroking the keys on my iBook instead of him.
I want this tree in front of my house.
Found this article about a new MP3 player from Dell on Daring Fireball.
In short it looks as though Dell are trying to do the whole Apple iPod thing including the music store.
Mr Gruber is unimpressed and so am I. (Mind you my experience with Dell machines are hardly pleasant. So far the only good thing I can say about this manufacturer is that they make computers in black.)
Natural Selections: Colors Found in Nature and Interface Design is a concise article on what is possibly my favourite design element — colour. (For those of you who are not designers/artists of some description, and quite possibly some who are this may sound a bit mad). It’s also an element that clients are very wary with and almost always go with the *safe
option, ie blue grey and predominantly white — maybe a smidggen of orange or red.
When clients come to me asking for a new web site or interface they have such bold ideas for being fresh and eye catching, something with a personality of it’s own. In the end all they seem to want is what’s *safe
or what their competitor has with a slight twist. Colour is not something clients want to stuff up because it has such an immediate and emotional impact on how users see the company.
Yes sometimes safe
colours are appropriate, but it seems to me that this IS the sole reason they are often used, leaving us with some bland unmemorable designs, almost indistinguishable from one site to the next.
*Safe, ie neutral light colours that won’t offend and in many cases don’t impress either.
Looking for bonsai accessories that are both stylish and highly amusing? The good folks at Crash Bonsai have the answer.
Adobe will soon be attaching their own acronym to the newest versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, GoLive and InDesign. The new releases will get CS (Creative Suite), whacked on the end. At least CS makes some sort of sense I guess, not like Macromedia and the whole MX thing. What the fuck does that stand for? Does anyone know? Macromedia Xtreme? Making Xylophonics? Monkey Xex? Marketing Xuberence? And what is it now that it’s MX 2004?
Adobe have obviously overlooked the X factor while racking their brains. For instance, Macromedia Studio MX, Windows XP and Mac OSX all use X’s. Either that or they just wanted to make sense… Mac OSX does make sense, with whole X as the roman numeral for 10.
Adobe’s CS range will be shipping at the end of November.
John Gruber, gracious host of Daring Fireball, shares his thoughts/observations on the new G5, IBM and Apple.
Apple has just released their new G4 powerbook range.
Nice little sub menu to navigate through the powerbook area, when you roll over each silver beast to the right, the screen flips up.
I guess this means we will have to wait a little while longer for G5 powerbooks…
Could this man be the next Governor of California?
This site has some great mpegs and video. Need I say any more.
Apple has released new iPods with 20, and 40Gb capacities. Apple has also managed sleekify and shrink these new portable beasts ever so slightly.
Along with the new models comes the new ads/imagery Apple has gone with to tantalise the general trendy public with disposable income. Vector silohuettes of young hip dudes and dudettes grooving out with their prized iPods against one of five trendy vibrant colours. The American Apple site actually lets you switch and choose between a banana cadmium, must-have-magenta, terminally hip turquoise, livid lime and of course (& my favourite,) a gorgeously violently vibrant violet, depending on which particular shade of funk you feel like. Bastards didn’t do so for the Australian site.
The vector work is really nice, with a good balance of solid simple form and finer intricate lines for curly hair for example. The design of the iPod itself lends itself incredibly well to this sort of illustration style. Bright white pods and headphone cords add just the right contrast, while reminding us these ads are meant to sell iPods not funk*.
I like ’em and if I wasn’t already the proud recipient of an iPod implant myself, I’d probably feel as though I’d really need to buy one now. Yes that’s right, I’m in the 18-30 demo, and a designer. These ads were tailor made for moi.
BTW Apple has also upgraded the flat panel iMacs to 1 and 1.25GHz.
* Funk is an optional extra at no charge — Yet. The level of funk may vary between individuals.
Enter yo’ bitch ass fav url’s into da Shizzolator to see the web according to Snoop Dogg, know what I’m sayin’? www.asksnoop.com n’ shit.
I’ve decided to terminate my mobile phone service with Telstra because I can’t get decent reception any where near my house with them. The only service I know that works very well in my area is Optus, so I thought, okay, I’ll swap and take ye olde number with me because I can actually remember it now and don’t think I can handle a different one.
You can see where this is going can’t you?
I was in the Optus stop on Saturday afternoon, the servers they were trying to set up my account through went “AAAARRGGGGH!!!!” and took forever. Finally all went through, and was told all would be working on new phone with old number in 2 hours. It has now been almost a week. Apparently there have been some problems with the info that was submitted to set up my account. Then after many unnecessary phone callls to the Optus shop and the customer service center, later found out that they’re having technical problems porting my number.
FUCKING PORT THIS OPTUS!!!! (INSERT MIDDLE FINGER STICK UPPAGE).
The saga continues…
So far I’ve only skimmed this article quickly and checked out the comparison charts, but this looks to be quite a solid article comparing the pros and cons of the 9 browsers available for us OS X users.
This morning I was awoken by meows of distress coming through the uncovered air conditioning vent in my ceiling. Jasper my kitten had managed to get up into the roof via ladder conveniently placed just below an uncovered manhole. Why do you have so many holes in your ceiling you ask. Well my dad is installing the air conditioning himself at his own pace. He started a couple of years after we moved into the house, he’s taken about three years now and it’s not finished yet. Yes you guessed it, my dad makes a living out of this.
Any how cat in ceiling. Up ladder I went, we have 9 or 10 foot ceilings and I don’t fare well with heights, so that was fun in itself. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts to coax him down with food, toys and the promise of a belly rub I got pissed off and left him up there. My brother had a shower and Jasper started getting quite distressed from the steam, and started meowing at the edge of the manhole. Up the ladder I went again and managed to get a hold of the squirmy, dusty little shit. Needless to say there was much clawing at my head and ladder. He momentarily stopped and clamped himself to my head so I could get him and myself down ladder safely.
This episode will be a testament to cats inability to think Hmmm, I can climb up there, but can I get down?
On the plus side, this is the earliest I’ve been to work in months.
I saw this ad on tv last night for the first time. It’s very very slick, and like all the other Apple ads, makes you salivate in/on your seats.
It’s a lazy monday, the best way to start a lazy 4 day week. My reasons for laziness are:
a) Both our project managers are away for a week! (They are a couple, it has pros and cons…)
b) I’ve finished some major-ish work 1 week ahead of schedule!
c) I have Friday off as a personal day
! (Personal day = a day off every month, with pay given to every employee at my work in lieu of pay rise they can’t afford.)
Links are of pretty visual stuff, illustrations and design and the like. Oh and one design conference:
Insect: requires a Flash Player
Kurt Halsey Frederiksen: gorgeous toony style paintings
Craig Phillips: Sydney based sometimes comic artist
James Jean: gorgeous paintings
Repless Abandon: Canadian illustration collective
Lounge72: design portal
DiGiT Expo 2003: design conference in Sydney 18th Sep – 20th Sep
Art | Eye 2003: nice design and illustration portfolio
Here’s a guy (or juy?) with his priorities straight. He’s arguing that the GIF file extension is pronounced with a soft g
like giraffe, not the hard g
as in great loon
or go fuck yourself
, or get over it! What the hell do geeks know about the english language anyway!
Remember back in May I had my number plates stolen off my car? Well this morning as I was leaving for work a detective called me to arrange for a time for me to give a statement about it. Yes that’s right, we are in August — plates stolen in May, so that’s roughly 1, 2, 3 months since the incident.
Okay, so the police have better things to do with their time, I understand that. I just don’t exactly understand what else I could possibly tell them. I parked my car here. I came back to car after work and found plates gone. Um — gone, yeah, you know as in no longer there. Yep, both of them. Front and back. Stolen — ’cause I don’t remember putting them in my pocket, or setting them down anywhere… I mean I checked behind the couch, and like in between the cushions, in jacket pockets, but they were really gone man.
Okay, now I’m being stupid.
On a similar car-like tangent, my condolences to Simone’s car, who after a couple of weeks undergoing repairs from an unfortunate accident, has been involved in another accident. From what I hear the owner of Simone’s car is okay, and still has full control of her swearing faculties. Yes Simone, it is a sign for both of us, and yes, the rest of the world can fuck off now. * Fuck-tards!
* Word thieved from Dave.
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