Well, after about half a year of innactivity (both in this blog and in the graphic design community), I've returned. Don't know why I left, don't know why I returned, but I'm here, and that's all that matters.
I guess I should've made this post before the one directly below me, but oh well, it's all said and done.
Ciao!
~uH
Tuesday, November 30, 1999
Website of the day: The TuneGlue* music relationship explorer
You know, sometimes you're just listening to your favorite artist, and you think "hmm... what other bands have the same style..." or "what was that other group that was in the concert performing with them the other night?" Well ponder no more, for TuneGlue is here to save the day!
This strangely hidden page was put together by EMI Music Ltd, one of the largest record companies around. They use last.fm and Amazon to search for just about band, singer, rapper, group, or DJ you want it to, and from there, find their discography, news, a link to their website, related artists, and more.
That's fine and dandy, but there's something else about this page that makes it so facinating. They use one of the most interesting and satisfying user interfaces I have ever seen. When the page first loads, you just see a logo and search bar at the top and some sponsors/credits at the bottom. Enter any artist's name, and up comes a big ol' dot with the artist's name next to it. Click the dot, and a little spectrum of color comes out, opening up a little menu. Click expand, and six related artists pop up. Click on them, click expand, and you have even more related artists. Lather, rinse, repeat a few times, and you'll have a plethora of artists on your hands.
This strangely hidden page was put together by EMI Music Ltd, one of the largest record companies around. They use last.fm and Amazon to search for just about band, singer, rapper, group, or DJ you want it to, and from there, find their discography, news, a link to their website, related artists, and more.
That's fine and dandy, but there's something else about this page that makes it so facinating. They use one of the most interesting and satisfying user interfaces I have ever seen. When the page first loads, you just see a logo and search bar at the top and some sponsors/credits at the bottom. Enter any artist's name, and up comes a big ol' dot with the artist's name next to it. Click the dot, and a little spectrum of color comes out, opening up a little menu. Click expand, and six related artists pop up. Click on them, click expand, and you have even more related artists. Lather, rinse, repeat a few times, and you'll have a plethora of artists on your hands.
Software spotlight: Massive libraries? No money? No problem!
iTunes? It's cool.
Windows Media Player? It's alright.
VLC? It pwns.
Yet, I'm not talking about any of those. I'm talking about Songbird, the Mozilla-based libarary manager and web browser. About half a year ago, while browsing Yahoo! Answers, I came across a question about WiMP alternatives, and one of the answers pointed to the Songbird homepage. "IDK WTH this is @," I thought to myself, and continued looking around the website. Suddenly, I'm struck with something great. A 30x100 pixel button that says "Powered by Mozilla". Awestruck, I download and install Songbird, a 2-minute process for me. I open the program to find a UI that's much like iTunes, but in a dark green deviantART-like style. So I start checking out the menus and going through the "First-time startup" dialog to find that it lets you import your libraries from iTunes and several types of playlists (.m3u being most prominent, of course). So I start adding some songs via drag-n-drop in Explorer.
Windows Media Player? It's alright.
VLC? It pwns.
Yet, I'm not talking about any of those. I'm talking about Songbird, the Mozilla-based libarary manager and web browser. About half a year ago, while browsing Yahoo! Answers, I came across a question about WiMP alternatives, and one of the answers pointed to the Songbird homepage. "IDK WTH this is @," I thought to myself, and continued looking around the website. Suddenly, I'm struck with something great. A 30x100 pixel button that says "Powered by Mozilla". Awestruck, I download and install Songbird, a 2-minute process for me. I open the program to find a UI that's much like iTunes, but in a dark green deviantART-like style. So I start checking out the menus and going through the "First-time startup" dialog to find that it lets you import your libraries from iTunes and several types of playlists (.m3u being most prominent, of course). So I start adding some songs via drag-n-drop in Explorer.
Nanotechnology is not as far off as you may think...
As many of us know, companies have been playing with the idea of using nanotech for quite a while. Molecular-scale machines have been talked about for decades, but there have been a few recent concepts and proof-of-concepts that will change the way we look at the world.
Back in 2005, there were designs for an ultra-tiny, cost effective nano-sized gas turbine. Though nothing really came of it, it's certainly ground-breaking. And then there's the development of nanowire lithium ion batteries that increase efficiency ten fold or more. Oh, and we can't forget the ultra-light, ultra-thin, ultra-smooth, ultra-cheap, ultra-durable, and ultra-ultra carbon nanotubes that will revolutionize the medical world as well as everything else! But I didn't write this to inform you on past events, so I won't go on prattling on about this old stuff.
Thanks to Leonardo Fioravanti, there's buzz going in the realm of car-tech, screen-tech, and every other tech that envolves glass. Fioravanti, engineer for the famed car desing firm Pininfarina, had created a prototype for a wiperless windshield using the limitless capabilities of nanotechnology to make dirt and water slide off quickly with no marks. It uses four simple yet sophisticated treatments to the glass in order to make the water slide off virtually frictionlessly. The first treatment protects from UV rays, and helps repell water. The second treatment uses nano-dust to force dirt off the windshield. Next up, a third layer is used to sense the dirt and activates the nano-dust when duty calls for it. Lastly, a treatment is placed to conduct electricity, completing the system by, well, making it work.
Continuing the trend of complex and unimaginable nanotech usage is Nokia with their far-out Morph concept. The idea of the Morph is to be able to, well, morph into whatever you want it to be. It'll curve, collapse, convex, concave, and contour to almost anything your mind can imagine. It uses a paper-thin translucent screen that, as you saw with the concept from Leo-Fio up there, has an auto-clean feature. All this sounds very cool, but I don't think this will come into motion within the next 20 years. Here's a video demonstrating what Nokia wants it to do: [YouTube]
Back in 2005, there were designs for an ultra-tiny, cost effective nano-sized gas turbine. Though nothing really came of it, it's certainly ground-breaking. And then there's the development of nanowire lithium ion batteries that increase efficiency ten fold or more. Oh, and we can't forget the ultra-light, ultra-thin, ultra-smooth, ultra-cheap, ultra-durable, and ultra-ultra carbon nanotubes that will revolutionize the medical world as well as everything else! But I didn't write this to inform you on past events, so I won't go on prattling on about this old stuff.
Thanks to Leonardo Fioravanti, there's buzz going in the realm of car-tech, screen-tech, and every other tech that envolves glass. Fioravanti, engineer for the famed car desing firm Pininfarina, had created a prototype for a wiperless windshield using the limitless capabilities of nanotechnology to make dirt and water slide off quickly with no marks. It uses four simple yet sophisticated treatments to the glass in order to make the water slide off virtually frictionlessly. The first treatment protects from UV rays, and helps repell water. The second treatment uses nano-dust to force dirt off the windshield. Next up, a third layer is used to sense the dirt and activates the nano-dust when duty calls for it. Lastly, a treatment is placed to conduct electricity, completing the system by, well, making it work.
Continuing the trend of complex and unimaginable nanotech usage is Nokia with their far-out Morph concept. The idea of the Morph is to be able to, well, morph into whatever you want it to be. It'll curve, collapse, convex, concave, and contour to almost anything your mind can imagine. It uses a paper-thin translucent screen that, as you saw with the concept from Leo-Fio up there, has an auto-clean feature. All this sounds very cool, but I don't think this will come into motion within the next 20 years. Here's a video demonstrating what Nokia wants it to do: [YouTube]
An unbiassed comparison: Paint.NET v3.xx vs. Photoshop CS3
Yeah, comparing a free program to the most powerful image editing application on Earth isn't exactly a fair fight, but Paint.NET and Photoshop are much more alike (yet more different) than you think! To be honest, there are some things that Paint.NET is better at hands down, and some things that Photoshop takes the cigar.
So to start us off, I'll surprise you by saying that Photoshop loads almost as fast as PDN. Yup, with all the work put into CS3, the folks at Adobe were able to speed it up. CS3 is faster than CS2, which in turn, is faster than CS. Though you should note that I have 175+ plugins for PDN...
So to start us off, I'll surprise you by saying that Photoshop loads almost as fast as PDN. Yup, with all the work put into CS3, the folks at Adobe were able to speed it up. CS3 is faster than CS2, which in turn, is faster than CS. Though you should note that I have 175+ plugins for PDN...
Breaking news! Apple has gone to the light side.
I knew it was coming --that's why my last blog entry was writen out of fear--, but Apple has finally become picture perfect. At this point, I'm ripping up my t-shirt to make a flag to signal my surrender, and later, the posibility of pledging alegiance to the company I once hated more than Ford.
See, today, Steve Jobs gave another keynote speech on Apple's upcomming i
See, today, Steve Jobs gave another keynote speech on Apple's upcomming i
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