Month: September 2007

FallingWater – must-see computer generated movie

Take one of the most visually inventive and uniquely designed houses everwikipedia-FallingwaterWright_resize , get a fresh new method of presenting a modern view of it, and animate the whole thing. If you take the time to see it, you’ll find one of the neatest animations ever put online.

If you hit the movie, you’ll probably sit through 15-20 seconds of it and start to wonder “Why the hell did Randy suggest I watch this?” Trust me, you’re almost to the part that makes it worth seeing. You’ll go through another 10-15 seconds and think, after reading the above, “OK, now he’s just taunting me – there’s nothing to see here.”

At this point, you’ll start to see the animation, and it will all come together for you. Once you see:

Continue reading “FallingWater – must-see computer generated movie”

It’s PC clean-up time!

Do you keep your system in tip-top shape all the time?  Do you clean up old, unneeded files, wipe down the case, clear our the dust, and perform regular backups?  If you’re like the vast majority of home computer users, the answer is no.  I’m certainly not one who is good about doing these things.  While randomly reading one of my many “Man, I love this site, but I rarely remember to read it even though it’s in my Bloglines feed” web sites, I found this collection of links to computer clean-up guides that we all should be using regularly.

The guide starts out with the virtual cleanups you need, such as uninstalling programs you don’t need any more and looking at disk usage and cleaning clutter, but also includes the real-world cleanup task you should do regularly – clean out dust from the system and keyboard.  As is typical with a LifeHacker article, the comments add extra suggestions that are as good as what is in the article.

[tags]Cleanup, Clean your computer, Declutter, LifeHacker[/tags]

I’ve verified her preferences

Ahhh, Jessica.

STUNNING actress Jessica Alba says she is up for a one-night stand – as long as the man leaves the next morning.

. . .

“I feel like a lot of women try to make it into more, so they don’t feel so bad about just wanting to have sex. I don’t really have a problem with just wanting sex. Never have.

I can confirm with absolutely certainty that she does is indeed up for a one-night stand (I am totally making this up). The tough part about leaving the next morning was getting her to untie me (I think you’ve figured this out by now).

Yes, this is old news. I just forgot to post it when I first read it.

[tags]Absolutely untrue facts, I lie, Jessica Alba, One-night stand[/tags]

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Centipede made by a girl?

wikipedia-centipede_arcade.png

Just very recently, I found out that the old arcade game Centipede was programmed by a woman – Dona Bailey – the only woman programmer at Atari at the time. Although I sucked mightily at the game, I always loved Centipede. Unfortunately, the industry was not kind, nor did it recognize that she was worth keeping.

Did things change once you’d done Centipede?
Yes, but I’m not sure it was for the better! There was a lot of surly attention after that. It’s not always popular to do something [like] that — the first thing that happened, I was not ready for at all, and I still haven’t figured out how to deal with this part — people just started, y’know… the typical kind of thing that people would say was, either it was a fluke or I didn’t really do it, somebody else did it. I’m a very peaceful person, and I felt sick of fighting, so I really just disappeared, and I haven’t had contact with the industry for at least twenty years.

Eh, what can I say? Men weren’t very open to women in the industry then, and while I understand it is better now, I’m sure there are still places where women are viewed as outsiders to the gaming industry.

Regardless of that, though – the entire interview is pretty cool to read, really. She pretty much left gaming not too long after the success of Centipede, but is now back into it somewhat – she teaches a game design course at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Humanized products for improved work

While reading a commentary at Coding Horror on the fallibility of tabbed interfaces, I found reference to a really slick tool for better managing windows, processes, and yes, even tabs in Windows. Called Enso Launcher, this application gives you a stupidly simple method of finding the program or tab you want to use.

On average, it takes over 10 seconds to open Notepad using the Start menu–and that’s if you happen to remember that Notepad is in the Start menu. By the time you find it, you’ll probably have forgotten what you wanted to jot down in the first place. Enso Launcher typically takes just over half a second-20 times faster than the Start menu.

nso Launcher’s open command places applications, websites, and files at your fingertips. No more time wasted digging through the Start menu; no more time spent learning your web browser’s latest Bookmarks system. Enso Launcher even passes the Over the Phone Test-which the Start menu certainly doesn’t do. To see how all this works, click on the movie below.

There is a video on the site (which plays inline, so you don’t need to open another program or anything) showing just how simple the tool is to use.

After having looked at this tool, I decided to check out their other product – Enso Words – and let me tell you – this is the Humanized tool that really caught my interest. It is a universally accessible (for universal values equal to the computer you have it installed on and running) spell-checker that’s damn smart about working with you to correct spelling errors. From what I’ve seen of it, this is a real gem.

Spell check is a fundamental: wherever you type, you’ll need to check spelling. So why isn’t it available everywhere? With Enso Words, it is. From Microsoft Word to Mozilla Firefox to Macromedia Fireworks, Enso Words gives you a spell check that makes the others jealous. It’s simple and it’s elegant: it really feels like magic.

There is a video (again, inline) on the page that shows just how slick and smart this tool is. It’s a $20 (minus a nickel) purchase with a free trial download available. I plan on testing this on my desktop today or tomorrow when I have a few free minutes. If it works just as well as it appears to in the videos, I’ll be getting spendy on it. This looks to be even more useful and accessible than the online spellchecked SpellJax that I highlighted here recently in the asides section (right sidebar).

[tags]Words, Enso, Humanized, Spell checking, Useful tools, Stupidly simple, Interface, Design[/tags]

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Come on Sony and friends – make me want a PS3

I really want Sony and other developers working on games for the PS3 to release a load of really great games that will finally make me want a PlayStation 3. I already want a Wii, and have since before it was released and became the surprise hit of the current generation of consoles (and I told you folks long ago that it might well be a great hit once released). I already want an XBox 360, primarily motivated by my currently owning an original XBox (well, 2 actually, but I haven’t had a chance to mod the 2nd one into a media player). Believe it or not, I’m rooting for Sony to make the PS3 a console I’d want, too.

Not that my wanting any of them really matters, since I lack the time and finances to actually buy one. But I figure if I find enough good stuff on the console to make me want one, there’s a pretty good chance a lot of other gamers will feel the same. And the better each console does in a generation, the better off the parent company will be for the next generation. And we gamers are never satisfied with the hardware we have now – we’re always looking ahead at what is coming along that will be better. That, and my older brother has a PS3, so I figure if I ever do get one, I can share games with him. I hope.

All that nonsense out of the way, I decided to go looking at how some of the recent PS3 releases are actually doing. Not just checking at my preferred gaming sites (Penny Arcade, Bill at DQ, Joystiq, and Blue’s are the top of my list, by the way), but at what the industry overall has rated these games and what other gamers are rating them. For this, I need MetaCritic.

Continue reading “Come on Sony and friends – make me want a PS3”

Consumers contribute half a billion dollars to Apple

In a news announcement that absolutely boggles my mind, we find that Apple has sold 1 million iPhones as of today – weeks ahead of their predicted mark of the end of September.

Apple Inc. said Monday it sold its one millionth iPhone on Sunday, just 74 days after its introduction and ahead of its expectations to hit the mark by the end of September.

. . .

Apple shares rose $3.97, or 3 percent to $135.69 in morning trading.

Hey – I’ll admit I screwed up and bought Bioshock on release day. My unwillingness to wait cost me $50. Those of you that bought the iPhone are now on the slowest data network out there, and out $600 (assuming you bought the high-end, which all my amazing readers would certainly do if they bought at all). Sure, Jobs is giving $100 back, but that’s in the form of iTunes credit, so many folks will end up spending more there, giving even more money to Apple.

So while this news baffles me, there’s no denying that Apple has elevated its cult status far beyond the early turn-of-the-century hold it had. And folks out there still can’t wait to stay ahead of others on the gadget train. Check back with me in 2010 – I’ll probably be ready to hope on the iPhone train then. Certainly no sooner, and maybe still not then. But maybe that’s because I still think a phone should be a phone – everything else is fluff.

And hey – the investors like it.  Capitalism clearly knows more than I do.

[tags]WTF, iPhone, Apple, Early adopters, 1 million[/tags]

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