Articles by Tag

Details = Design

I just recieved an update for the PCF internet TV application Democracy. I’ve kept up with this app for the past year or so (read “Download some Democracy”), but the thing that caught my eye right from the beginning was the installer on my desktop.
Democracy app
When I drag the TV icon to my Applications folder, there’s a hole in the wall where all the funky fresh 70s wallpaper is. It’s a tiny detail, but it made quite an impression of me.

“The details are not the details. They make the design.”
   –Charles Eames

date Thu, 07 Jun 2007 Bookmark comment Comments
tags Tags: ,

Fire replacement icon

Fire icon The majority of my friends in New York use AOL Instant Messenger, all my Dutch friends use MSN Messenger as well as my brother, a few amigos from Brazil are using ICQ, I have a few people on Yahoo! Messenger, then there’s wifey on the local network using Bonjour, and finally all my collegues on an internal Jabber server at work. Am I supposed to have six skinny yet tall windows littering my desktop? Get real!

Several years ago, I found this smokin’ application called Fire on Sourceforge (puns!). I’ve been a huge fan every since. The interface uses minimal desktop real estate, it’s very customizable, there’s even a tabbed chat window which keeps the window madness under control, and it’s a stable little program. There’s a ton of other features that I would encourage you to read about on their site. I will say that the one drawback is the poor performance of sending files or lack of audio and/or video chatting. But, pound for pound, if you’re typing text back and forth to you friends across multiple messaging platforms, this is the answer to all your dreams!

Since this app is free, I decided to make some sort of contribution and build a few additions to Fire. Feel free to download them both below.

date Mon, 07 Aug 2006 Bookmark comment Comments
tags Tags: , ,

My del.icio.us Mac

Social bookmarking tools for OS X using del.icio.us

If you’re using del.icio.us social bookmarking and Mac OS X then you’d better check these tools out:

However, if you’d like to dig even deeper, there’s an exhaustive list of all things delicious right here.

date Sun, 05 Mar 2006 Bookmark comment Comments
tags Tags: , ,

Download some Democracy

Democracy screenshot
Image: Participatory Culture Foundation

With a name like Democracy (formerly DTV), this application makes a strong statement by making the user somewhat of a program selecter. You choose which channels to subscribe to, you choose which clips to keep, delete, etc. As of right now, there’s a limited amount of channels that provide good, quality content, but what do you expect for free? I suppose you could say the same for 90% of the podcasts out there. At any rate, the interface of Democracy is well thought out and quite nice to use—not perfect though. While it’s easy to subscribe to channels and navigate through them, once you’ve downloaded more than 10 clips, they get stuck in a huge, scrolling row on the right. I suspect these small tweaks will be attended to as the development progresses. Other than that, it’s a real nice app, a pleasure to use—definitely fills a gap with internet TV/videos.

One more thing…on Mac OS X, once you start downloading clips, the default file location is in your Videos folder, which makes them accessible via Front Row. Nice!

Great job to everyone at the Participatory Culture Foundation!

date Tue, 21 Feb 2006 Bookmark comment Comments
tags Tags: , , ,

What the Fleck? Sign me up!

Fleck

Joke or not, all the buzzwords are in line, so watch out for Fleck to deliver…

…something.

Soon?

Update:
Just came across something from the early sixties that looks remarkably similar to the Fleck logo here.

date Sun, 22 Jan 2006 Bookmark comment Comments [3]
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Google Earth for Mac

Every since Google Earth became available for Mac yesterday I’ve been spanning the globe looking for:

Wow, I feel like a real (lazy) explorer! Vespucci, you ain’t got nothing on me, heh.

date Thu, 12 Jan 2006 Bookmark comment Comments
tags Tags: , ,

Everybody's dragging…

…but the real question is do you have the patience to play this little online game? Well, I say game, but it really isn’t. Rather, it’s one of those refrigerator letter magnet thingies that 100 people are using at the same time. So, essentially, it’s impossible to spell anything because people continuously steal your letters.

I was entertained for 1.5 minutes. Check it for yourself here.

date Thu, 05 Jan 2006 Bookmark comment Comments
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IE for Mac headed for the graveyard

Microsoft Explorer

Microsoft will end support for Internet Explorer for Mac on December 31st, 2005. I know, try and hold back the tears.

In all fairness, I do remember around 2001 using IE on my G4 because it was the best one around. And to tell you the truth, there’s one magical feature that I have dearly missed since using this thing…the draggable page! Remember that one? Hold the spacebar, get the glove icon that allowed you to drag the page up or down, left or right.

date Mon, 19 Dec 2005 Bookmark comment Comments
tags Tags: ,

Yahoo's widgetry

Yahoo! Widgets

Yahoo! bought Konfabulator a while ago, but just recently put up a section of their site dedicated to widgetry – which looks remarabkly similar to Apple’s widgets. I like the fact that there’s finally some new cross-platform hotness going on. Mark another one up on the board for Yahoo!

date Tue, 13 Dec 2005 Bookmark comment Comments
tags Tags: ,

Yahoo! + del.icio.us = Yummy?

Ladies and germs, according to the del.icious blog, it appears that Yahoo! has bought out del.icio.us. Check out Mr. Smiley face to the left, doesn’t he look like he’s ready to munch on another cute little internet company? Hey, his mouth looks like asideways letter D!

:D is for De-licious.

I know quite a few people who have been Yahoo! loyalists from the get-go but I never jumped on board for one reason or the other. However, recently I’m starting to come around. As a designer, I’m kinda diggin’ a lot of their interface improvements. But more importantly, I think their adoption of tags (Flickr, del.icio.us, etc.) is forward-thinking. It’s entirely possible that it’s a defensive move as well (what up G). At any rate, I’m kinda happy Flickr and del.icio.us are in the same family now, I just hope the big ol’ internet corporation doesn’t eff it up.

date Sun, 11 Dec 2005 Bookmark comment Comments [1]
tags Tags: , , ,

Firefox 1.5


Get it while it’s hot!

date Wed, 30 Nov 2005 Bookmark comment Comments
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What am I worth?

My blog made me rich, bitchAccording to Dane Carlson, there is indeed a dollar sign attached to my misguided efforts from linking all of this crap together. Apparently this blog is worth $564 . All I want to know is when to expect my check in the mail?

date Sun, 30 Oct 2005 Bookmark comment Comments
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Patent infringement over JPEG compression

This legal issue over JPEG compression resurfaces every once in awhile, I’m amazed it’s still around.

“Since its inception over three years ago, Forgent Networks intellectual property program has generated more than $100 million in revenues primarily from licensing the ‘672 Patent to more than 40 different companies in Asia, Europe and the United States.”

The thing is, these little guys have yet to license JPEG compression.

Wow! If this works out for them, that’s going to be an enourmous check. Read more here.

date Wed, 05 Oct 2005 Bookmark comment Comments
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