Posts filed under "featured"
Forest was back in town for the weekend and we were catching up as I’ve not seen him since the summer. We’re shooting the shit and he asks me how my artwork and design work is going. Of which I had to answer with the truth, in reality it’s not. Oh yeah sure I’ve recently been playing around with Habari, but to be honest Habari is a hobby which I’m enjoying being a part of, but I wouldn’t say it’s stretching my artistic muscles. It’s definitely making me take a much more pragmatic approach to design and I’ve done this before but I know when my artistic muscles are being flexed and sadly I can’t really claim the last year to have provided me with any level of truly artistic expression and in talking with Forest I kind of inadvertently voiced the reason why.
I’ve heard in the past that there are two sides to the way the brain works (I could obviously be making this shit up so if you’ve got links whatever please do send them over) in that it’s operates and functions with practicality in mind, maths, engineering, science. And then there is the creative side of the brain. These two areas don’t cross over very often but when they do you get freaks of nature like myself who do engineering by day (so it’s all about calculations, making things work/fit) and by night I draw and I create, or at least that’s what I thought I could do easily.
The harsh reality of the situation however is that I’ve obviously FAILED in that respect (chalk another failure on my part, one of many in my life) What I’ve found to be the case however is that if I’m submerged in engineering, my other drawing energy and concentration seems to disappear. I guess much like many people I need to be in a particular frame of mind. The music that I’ll be listening to has to inspire me as well (I draw a lot better when I’ve actually got music I’m really into at that particular moment in time); my mind has to be a blank, and I have to have focus. Cutting my drawing based on pesky stuff like eating and sleeping is the bane of the entire exercise to be honest.
So what’s the solution you ask? Well now that I’ve ACTUALLY identified the problem (which I always knew but I’ve not properly voiced until now) it’s really up to me to MAKE the time for drawing and retrain myself to my current situation. Originally I thought I’d have trouble finding the time to do all these things. See it’s not a question of whether or not you have the time to do something (at least that’s how I see it), the harsh reality of a busy working life is that you’ll never find the time. It’s up to you to seriously make the time and it’s up to you to train your mind and schedule your time in such a way so as to accommodate those things that you want to do. My problem it would see is my psychological status and my willingness to tackle the creative avenue in front of me.
So it’s time to be pragmatic about things one more time and really put in the hours of building and creating once again. Hopefully that’ll manifest itself in several unfinished projects that have been laying around the place in the attempt of making them a reality again.
It’s been a truly exciting time for Habari on the design front (not that it’s not been exciting on the code front, but I can only really properly comment on all things design to be honest). Since the last time we talked, Michael has been a busy boy with absolutely everything under the sun. All these ideas have been filtering through the designs as we build towards a unified look for the administration panel.
Remember these mockups are just that mockups, we’re still meandering trying to sort things out, this is an open design process so things are going to change. Don’t think that what you see here is gospel and how it’s going to be, don’t be quoting me fekking Jakob in my face about usability and whatnot. These are the formation months, trust me we’re going through MANY MANY loops and discussions. So with that in mind let’s begin shall we.
The Installer
The installer now is broken down in several sections, and Owen came up with the idea whereby this area might be further customised by developers to make it easier to do things and incorporate elements so that it’s easier to administer new installations (or something like that, best talk to him about that). The design follows through the idea to keep things simple and as modular as possible.
Stage One:
Final Stage:
We’re still playing around with loads of things here. The header and footer are still up for discussion but the main ideas are there. We’re definitely going for the easiest installer award with this release.
Create Page
The main page has gone back a step. Originally all the Habari mockups were done in blacks and shades of grey however as the design ‘progressed’ colour started being added. We’ve taken a step back to confirm how everything fits together before we move later on down the line for the full branding of the application.
Michael’s been pretty busy and he’s got his ideas regarding the media browser on ‘paper’. Once we’ve ironed out all the kinks and how it’s going to work I think it’ll be the most special media browser on any blogging platform.
We did have a great deal of interation of ideas between us on the logo. Work is still ongoing in this area and probably will be for a little while longer as we try and find ourselves the best fit for what the logo means to the community and how people will view us effectively.
Remember nothing is set, everything’s up for discussion. As always Spread the news!
Anna kept telling me to watch this series again and again. I do actually remember the TV spots for this series, which preceded the actual series being broadcast over here in the UK. I remember really thinking the idea was very intriguing however as you can imagine I completely missed it, since I’m honestly not very good at keeping to a schedule brought about by the TV box. It’s funny but I’ve watched more TV in the past couple of months than in the last few years, mainly because I can download and watch whenever I actually choose to watch them. Anyway back to Prison Break; without a doubt one of the smartest and most gripping TV series ever made. I know bold statements but this is a very very different kettle of fish to all other great TV series of the past year or so (we’re talking Battlestar Galactica, Lost, Heroes, My Name is Earl etc). What makes this series so damn special? I guess part of the success in my eyes is it’s incredibly tight plotting.
The story centre around Michael Scofield (fantastic name, best one after McGyver) who orchestrates him being admitted into prison so that he can save his brother who’s on death row. Already the story resonates with me because it’s taken the prison story and flipped it in a direction I’m not used to. We’ve seen several ‘prison break’ type movies in the past (led of course by the exceptional Shawshank Redemption) but not exactly like this.
See Michael’s had a while to prepare for this. He’s put contingency after contingency after contingency. The really amazing thing is of course that absolutely EVERYTHING he’s planned gets a spanner in it at the end of every episode. The cliffhanger endings are pretty amazing and the tension is exceptionally well produced. There are several exceptional twists within the story and I think I counted one scheme where the acting was terrible (but that was from a supporting actor rather than the main cast).
Which leads me to the actors themselves. All the cast is exceptionally well chosen for their roles which is weird as I’ve not really seen (or can remember) seeing them in anything prior to this.
I love that the warden is actually a good guy. I think there was only a single moment in the entire first season where I thought he was a building up to being a bastard and I guess that’s another definite asset of this series, not following with specific stereotypes that I’ve become used to. Obviously the fact that the guy’s an engineer resonates with me a little bit (ok a lot) and it’s great to see how he gets himself out of one bad situation after another.
Ultimately however this series is about what one brother will do for the other one. The answer is a lot and those who have brothers understand this pretty well. Growing up you might want to kill each other or were constantly bickering about stuff, but ultimately after everything you knew that you couldn’t stay mad with each other for more than like 10 minutes. What impresses me the most about the story is when you finally are told the WHY. Why would Michael risk EVERYTHING he had, put himself through hell, enter prison to save his brother. Apart from the fact that it’s his brother, what would possess him to take matters in his own hands like this. The answer is basically the core reality of what brotherhood is all about. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone because I really loved the explanation and I think you’ll feel the same way.
This is the first (hopefully) weekly instalment of the comings and goings on in the Habari Design Community. As this was our first week ‘out’ it was obviously a pretty wild and exciting ride with an immense amount of interest from all people around the world. What’s fascinating to me is that the people at the table currently trying to shape the design aspect of Habari. We’ve got Michael and myself working on all things admin at the moment, with comments from the entire community. Bryan Veloso has joined the team and he’s going to be handling all the website related stuff (from main site to wiki design to whatever the hell else we can keep him busy with) and we have the truly talented Yoram who’s kindly offered to do the icons, so as far as I’m concerned we’re in pretty good shape regarding the graphical direction the project is going to have.
Logo
A great deal of work has been done in the logo department. However we’re still not really decided on the direction we want to take as the current options on the table haven’t been a unanimous ‘HELL YES’. There are merits to all of them but I think with respect to the logo it’s better to just wait for that one idea that jumps out at us and really makes us all smile rather than settling for a right here and right now solution. Here’s a few examples of what are on the table:
Installer
A lot of work has gone into the installer as well. I’m not going to comment on the design of the installers, because that’s out in the wild going through the motions.
We’re still hammering through these back and forth, but the idea is there, one click install, degradable JS that makes parts of the install appear as and when the previous section has been completed and verified.
Administration Panel
Very minor tweaks going on here, except of course the colours. The pink is displayed for when you hover over the log out button.
Publish
More work going on this part. We’ve been having a lot of discussions regarding the number of buttons we should have. The subtle addition to these mockups is the slider for the tags (think increasing/decreasing the tags on display).
Remember nothing is set, everything’s up for discussion. As always Spread the news!
It’s been one hell of a couple of days since we first talked about the Habari project. There’s been a slew of reaction to the news all over the internet (go to the pingback section of that post) and to be honest it’s far exceeded all expectations I could have had because I honestly don’t have any. See I wasn’t completely sure how everyone would react over the news and therefore I was preparing myself for a little bit of a fight, in so much that we would have to prove the meritts of the software before we got people actually wanting to join and help build the community.
This in turn got me thinking to what all this meant and so I’m writing this post for several reasons. A couple of them is to dispell any rumours, a few others is to point everyone in the right direction should they want any more information, while others is to address concerns I’ve heard from people over the last couple of days.
On Community
There’s been a lot of speculation as to why we’re doing this. I’m not going to speak for the others (because they’re doing a pretty good job of it themselves to be honest) but I’ll tell you why I’m doing this. I’ve been talking to (read: boring) many of my offline friends with just how cool this is going to be. The first thing that they ask me is “Why the hell are you doing this to yourself? Why are you working for free again? Why are you spending your free time doing this?” I can only answer by saying that it’s incredible fun to be part of an online community of like minded people who are trying to make one of my favourite pastimes (ie blogging and tinkering with my website) a more enjoyable experience. I love being involved in open source projects and this is without a doubt one of the biggest things I’ve ever been involved with.
When I first started looking for an alternative to Movable Type I had two options. The first was WordPress the other was Textpattern. I chose WordPress for the community. That community however has changed. It’s core has shifted into something different. The thing is though I can’t really say that this is the community’s fault. This shift actually can be attributed to something else. The fact of the matter is that WordPress developement has stagnated as far as the .org user is concerned.
The only explanation I can give is that this is because the WordPress development shifted it’s attention. Shifted from the .org section to the .com section. I’m not going to condem the guys for doing this, in fact in most cases I understand them doing this. However this move and shift hasn’t gone unnoticed and obviously a lot of energy flying about the WordPress community has either gone into the ether, ignored or shrugged aside. All these thousands of people out there that have contributed in the past feel as though they have been forsaken. That could be part of the reason why a great number of people genuinely got excited about the prospect of a new system, written from the ground up that might address questions. It’s all about the community. It’s all about the people that you interact with and that help you along your way.
What you think the latest release of ‘features’ on WordPress.org is a coincidence. It’s obvious (to me at least and this feature could have been in development for months, in which case I apologise) that this is a knee-jerk reaction to a situation that obviously has made them sit up and think about the situation. It’s not every day that several prominent developers (Robert, Owen, Michael), at the very least in the past otherwise they would not be in the credit box on wordpress.org, decide to leave and start something on their own; it’s a sign that something isn’t exactly right in the community. My absolute favourite one however is this one (I only saw this because it was lying in my referrer log), so yeah go and hammer that link and lets get it up there at the top :) lol.
So you’re aiming to kill WordPress?
Don’t be silly. Nobody is trying to kill WP. We’re not aiming to make software that is better than WordPress, we’re trying to make software that is better than ALL blogging software out there. Lets be clear about this there are quite a large number of open source projects that allow you to do essentially the same thing. Their degree of complication obviously varies, however the fact remains that there are many alternatives. As it stands it’s considered that WordPress is the best alternative that’s available on the market. So it’s obvious that people would think that we are in fact trying to create something that out does WP. Also many of us have come from a WordPress user base, however that doesn’t mean other people from other backgrounds cannot join the fun. But would we really be getting involved and doing something if we didn’t feel like there was a void to be filled? Room for one more solution that offered an alternative way of doing things? We’re ultimately here because we feel that we can contribute back and put our efforts into something that can aid people and can provide a fun platform to share their thoughts, photos and media.
We don’t even have a developer’s pre-release. The reason it was announced in any fashion was because one of the core developers moved his site over and was the first person to actively use the code for his site. That’s a MAJOR success, one that deserved to be celebrated. In a weird twist of fate, outing slightly earlier than anticipated was actually an incredible great thing. Why? Because people that were on the fringes, thinking that this was just all wishful thinking might actually hold some legs. As such this little buzz has gotten several people wanting to contribute, and here’s one reason why:
Habari is a fresh start. We’re all in the unique position that we’ve been blogging for several years now. We’ve all had our share of experiences with open source and we’ve all seen several different packages in our time. We’re at the stage now that if we had a fresh start we’d do things slightly differently and hopefully better. And that’s what we’re aiming to do.
Habari Contribution Model
I guess that might be the greatest draw to the Habari project. We’re pretty open for people who want to contribute to the project, in fact the way that this project has been set up, it’s ideal for people wanting to contribute as it’s got a completely different structure in it’s development, in that it’s a meritocracy. It’s a great way to make sure that the software comes first and that there is no one person who veto’s everything or has final say in everything.
So were do we go from here? Well one of the things that I shall be doing as I’m coordinating the designers on this team is to give a recap every Sunday of this week’s activities on the design front. What we finished off and what we’ve got to look forward towards. I’ll be including pics and so everyone is always welcome to chime in and add their two cents to the design either here or in the dev mailing list.
Well Chris broke the news about, Habari, a new open source blogging CMS platform. While he didn’t want feel it correct to mention in the post who was involved, I’m going to step forward and put my hand up as the designated pixel pushing monkey of this motley crew.
What I find amusing is that as this news was released by Chris, I read this post about how any new blogging software would not stand a chance because of WordPress. Man I love a fucking challenge. I mean reading that post you’d think we’d be fools to even consider making a WordPress alternative. I guess all I can say to that is: Colour us DAMN foolish.
History Lesson
Back in November Chris approached a few of us to see who would be up for helping design for the new project he was working on. His timing couldn’t have been better to be honest with you. See I had a MASSIVE itch that just needed to be scratched. I had definitely not said everything that needed to be said about blogging administration panels, especially since the last one I was actively involved with didn’t exactly go exactly the way it should have.
I felt pretty burnt the last time round to be honest, so much so that I really thought it was best for me to steer well clear of any open source involvement in the future. However like I said in that post the most important thing that I got out of the online experience was the collaboration with the guys. If it was anyone else asking me to do something apart from Michael, Joen and Chris I’d have probably declined there and then. I didn’t join the team because I didn’t have anything better to do (as it will become clear in the coming months), but alas because I really want to create something that I can be proud to have been involved with and that I will find a joy to use. Something that I can contribute towards and that others can contribute towards as well in an open fashion.
So when Chris came forward I was all too happy to say yes. Considering that I had actually contacted another developer (I’m not going to mention him by name but needless to say he was also having a similar itch which says a lot about how things stand in the current open source blogging world) about starting our own blogging CMS, it was interesting that others around me felt the need for an alternative as well.
Shuttle vs Habari
The great thing about the Habari project is the fact that it’s a clean slate. Imagine starting on the ground floor. There were no presidencies, no set stringent codebase that couldn’t be altered, no existing userbase that might be confused and the list goes on. This is a decidedly different beast than Shuttle.
Those who don’t learn from the past end up repeating the mistakes again and again. So my approach to the graphical development of Habari is slightly different. Simply put, I’m going to be as transparent about the design process as you can imagine. I’ve seen several times in the past couple of months on the project, that through being open about the design I’ve been able to seriously move it forward in ways that I very well might not have considered. Ideas are what will make things move forward. At the same time it’s important that one person takes the bull by the horns and really goes to town on the design. Others should jump in with as many suggestions as possible, all the time because that’s how the innovation will continue and the project will not stagnate.
The Design
I will be going into a lot more detail in future posts regarding all the design decisions and what everything does and how it all fits together, so be patient, it’ll all pay off in the long run I promise. As we’ve only recently kind of decided about colours (although knowing me I will probably tweak them, but I’m trying to be very good about this and sticking with this colour scheme), posting this will give people a feel of the quality of final product we’re going for (and I’m not going to even talk about the code, the others are more than capable of that).
The following jpg is but a mockup, however Chris has implemented a fair chunk of this believe it or not (with probably like a 2 week old mock up), I’m telling you the man is a machine that will not be stopped. His dedication has forced me to make sure that I bring my very best to the table. It’s a bit of pressure that I’m actually relishing. Keeps me honest about things.
Final Thoughts
If you’ve got ideas you think the ultimate BLOGGING CMS should have drop a comment, I’d love to hear what ideas everyone has and what’s important to them as a user. What is it about your current blogging software that you wish could be simplified/improved, I’m all ears.
Easily one of the coolest gadgets I got this year was the Blackberry Pearl (or 8100 model). I’ve been playing with it for like a day now and I know it’s going to be something really special to use for a good long while. Although it’s a nice site, the images really don’t do it much justice. It’s honestly a thing of beauty in design if you have it infront of you. It’s only slightly larger than my previous Ericsson and packs a serious punch with respect to the number of features it’s got in it.
The only annoying thing I found was the flap you put the SIM card in doesn’t stay set, but opens until you put the battery in there. Minor annoyance but it’s a real shame as this could have scored some more points of rock solid construction. Another thing that is really starting to PISS me off, is the fact that none of these phone manufacturers have clocked onto the fact that it would be nice to have a normal earphone jack as opposed to some piece of shit they’ve concocted for you to plug in your earphones.
The Future was Orange
I’ve been with Orange for the last year and a half. The best part of being with Orange wasn’t the coverage (which is shit where I live) or the price package (which was shit once again but I’ll get to that in a minute) but rather the one little perk of having 2 for 1 cinema tickets on a Wednesday. Of course, based on my previous post, I’ve not been doing that very often either, which means that this little perk, wasn’t all that much of a perk as far as I’m concerned, so I didn’t need much convincing to drop them as my network of choice.
What’s interesting is that I was able to get the phone and a whole new package that suits me down to a T while paying less. The issue with a lot of these packages that many operators provide is that they’re honestly not tailored very well for the average user. They either give you an immense amount of time in “off-peak” hours that are not always useful, so you end up not using all of them, or they give you too little minutes during normal times. The good thing however is that after a year and a bit of using my phone regularly I’ve got enough bills to know exactly how much a use and of what. No need to guess these things (as I’ve had to in the past).
Enter the T
hmm got to check how much that costs on the internet to see if it’s cheaper.In the end T-mobile based on their Flext system which effectively gives you a pot of money every month that you can use for either calls or texts all from the same pot. Obviously I’ve opted for the unlimited internet service on there which is brilliant to be surfing the web while waiting on the train platform or even walking to and from places. You know when you’re in any store and you think to yourself:
Well now it’s just a few clicks to check the net there and then.
Opera Mini
So I’ll be talking about things/software/tips and tricks/links that I find out for the Pearl as I go along. Hopefully other people can benefit from my experiences. The first software tip I’ll throw everyone’s way is the Opera Mini browser.
Seems that Opera is definitely the little browser that could. Seems that this little browser is a hit on the Nintendo market. I’ve got to say that Opera Mini (opera for mobile devices) is MILES better than the standard BlackBerry browser. For a start they’ve cut away a lot of the clutter that the BB browser has when the menu is pressed. People on that size of screen don’t want to scroll FOREVER. We want something quick and to the point. Sure the browser is being updated pretty regularly as far as I can tell. It’s got RSS integration which is essential for all mobile devices as far as I’m concerned.
The Home page is EXACTLY what you want to see when you first log into the browser. Oh sure I’m as self obsessed as the next guy, but having BK as my home page on my BB seems a bit of a waste of space, although it’s definitely interesting to see how the site renders on a mobile phone (I’ll be sorting out a seperate mobile spreadsheet in the not too distant future).
The Application Opera Mini has attempted to access the network. Would you like to allow this?The only annoying thing for me at the moment (which I’m not sure if it’s got something to do with the actual browser or t-mobile’s settings) but effectively every time you use Opera it asks you:
If anyone’s got a way of stopping this fekking annoying message coming up everytime Opera is used please, pretty please with a cherry on top drop something in the comments and I’ll update this post accordingly.
For those in the T-mobile camp wondering how to sort this out onto your Pearl, here’s the steps I took:
From your Pearl go to http://mini.opera.com and follow the instructions.
<li><p>Chance are after you've tried to connect it'll fail on your ass (it did on mine). Thankfully Opera have already forseen this problem and posted <a href="http://www.operamini.com/help/connect/?provider=T-Mobile®ion=UK">this page</a>. Note that this is for the UK market, although as you can see they've sorted everyone out for the rest of the world as well.</p></li>
<li><p>Go to Options > Advanced Options > TCP and then put the information you got from that page.
Turn off, remove battery, turn on and it should all work.
As I continue my review of 2006, go read part 1 if you want to find out my thoughts on The best of the Net 2006, I’m turning my attention to movies. Interestingly I think this year has been one of the worst years for movies in a really long time. That isn’t to say that I haven’t enjoyed a good number of movies this year, it’s just that I found less time for movies this year, which I can probably attribute to the lack of quality flicks being shown this year.
Cinema Movies
This is a list of the actual movies I saw in the cinema (that’s a pitiful 11 (I forgot that I’d watched Pan’s Labyrinth movies, which is completely ridiculous as far as I’m concerned):
Aeroplane Movies
while the rest of the new released movies were watched on flights:
Best Movie of 2006
From the above the best movie was without a doubt Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige. I’ve talked about it more extensively on my review of the movie. Funnily enough Kevin Smith’s Clerks II is a definite runner up as it definitely gave me a couple of hours of pure entertainment. The whole donkey sequence was one of the funniest things I’ve seen on screen. So funny I actually had to stop and catch my breath. Comic genius. Cars is up there as well, although it’s definitely not as good as either the Incredibles or Finding Nemo.
Most disappointing movie of 2006 for me personally was X-men 3. Seriously they were on auto-pilot for that movie. Another minor disappointment for me was Superman Returns. Not because it was a bad movie, but rather because it wasn’t as great as I actually really wanted it to be.
To be Continued…
Here’s a list of movies that were released this year and that I will no doubt try and actually watch sometime in 2007:
However the PRUNE of all prunes surely has to go to Rocky Balboa (and that’s considering some of the stinkers I’ve seen this year, I mean it’s got Last Holiday for fuck’s sake). I mean seriously what the hell were they thinking when they got round and signed all the contracts for this? It’s one of the most ridiculous concepts I’ve ever heard and it’s really strange that Hollywood is so lame that it has to create another sequel. They should have stopped after 2 and called it a night. Hell I might even stomach 4, but seriously Rocky 6? I haven’t even seen this and sure as hell am not going to bother wasting my time with it. What next Die Hard 4? Oh shit yeah they’re going to be making that.
I started writing a best of 2006 about a week ago, however I’ve had to break that down into several posts because it got far too large and I didn’t feel that I would be doing each topic justice, if I bulked all of them into one post. So for the first topic of conversation I’ll talk about the best of the Net for 2006. This is mainly about design on the net, internet applications, websites that caught my attention on the net for one reason or another. So without further adieu here’s the Squeaky Kode Trophies for the year of 2006.
Addictive Site of the Year
Advertising/Design Goodness. This is the one of those sites that even though I might have 500 unread items in my feed reader, I’ll most definitely jump to this site and have a look and see what’s new. The reason is pretty simple really, it provides me with inspiration every single time. Although I hate adverts, I absolutely LOVE good ads. A good ad will go a long way with me to be honest, and this site brings the very best of the advertising world right to your feed reader, generally speaking every day.
Best Advert of 2006
Sony Bravia Paint. On a similar note to the topic above, I couldn’t really not mention the new Sony Bravia advert. How do you top the supreme bouncy balls advert of last year? I’ll tell you how, using a hell of a lot of paint. You’d think this was probably the only advert I’d seen that was special, and I’ve got to say that it definitely had some stiff competition from the Citroen Mutations advert.
Best Designed Site of the Year
UXmag came out of nowhere as far as I’m concerned. Very very slick sight, it combined that attention to detail that Subtraction has and ran it all of a Textpattern install. What I love about it is the attention to detail, the fact that it resizes according to the size of the browser without really loosing any of it’s design intent. I think that’s an absolutely fabulous design for a news portal. I also really enjoyed seeing what Phu’s been doing with his site as well. Honourable mentions include Dave Shea’s new redesign, although his previous design was pretty timeless, the orange and blues really worked very well. Of course Shaun Inman also did a bit of a redesign job which I thought was an interesting concept . Watching Michael sort out his site for several months was fun, so the ‘new’ trend of a live redesign seems to be making a bit of a come back (Mike was ahead of that trend it would seem).
Best Internet Application
Up until last year, I’ve got to say that I only every used personally hosted services, however this year I’ve expanded to several other services that I’ve found to be crucial in how I enjoy the internet. The first on the list was Ma.gnolia. You’re probably using another social bookmarking service out there, I decided on this one because it was well designed. I know sounds fickle, but I’m a fickle designer that likes to be surrounded by nice things.
It’s taken me a long while but I finally bit the Flickr bug as well and got myself an pro account as well. I’ve got to say that I don’t use it as much as I should do but that will be changing in the not to distant future.
For my feed reading I’ve jumped on the Newsgator bandwagon. I’ve got a lot to write about with respect to FOFRedux and will hopefully go to using that application in the not too distant future sometime next year, but in the meanwhile I’ve found the Newsgator service to be exactly what I was looking for.
So I guess it’s not so much that I had a specific internet application, but rather the fact that I actually decided to use several of the plethora of applications out there for use in the first place.
Best Internet Related Software
Firefox 2. Yeah, what did you expect? If you haven’t tried this little browser yet, make your peace with the other browser you’re using and head on over to take back the internet your way. My favourite feature of the new ‘version’ (sorry it should have been 1.6, but I can understand it for marketing purposes) is the dictionary in the text fields, restore session and automatically restart after an update. The icons are also pretty cool I thought as well.
Best Firefox Plugin
Firebug. Yeah well, I created this particular category because FIrebug really blew my mind as I honestly thought that there was no way you could top the Web Developer Plugin which I can’t do anything without, and then comes this exceptional plugin that serious makes my life a lot more easy and lays everything in front of me in a clear manner that was otherwise obscured.
Blogging Networks Politics
While I know it wasn’t fun for any of the 9rulers out there to see our network’s name dragged into the mud, it made for interesting reading to be included in the internet gossip pages. One thing I will comment on however was the fact that Blogging Networks in general felt as though they were soo much less important this year than in previous years. Yeah I’m including the venture capital funding that b5media received. I might be feeling that way due to the fact that networks and the interaction I was having with the people in the network was less this year than in previous years.
If you think I’ve missed something pretty fundamental just drop a comment and I’ll be sure to add it into the list or create a whole new category for it.
Over a month ago I was on the hunt for a laptop. In my quest for a small laptop I actually looked at the Fujitsu-Seimens model and the Sony Vaio, and hell I even looked into getting myself an ibook or whatever it is they call themselves nowadays (the cheaper kind not the medal ones). Alas none of them really floated my boat, because they were either too thick, or too heavy. I wanted something far more portable than any of those models could provide me with.
In the end I settled on a Toshiba R100. I got this particular model for a couple of reasons. The first was because I’d actually seen the model in question as all the directors in the company got these things as standard issue earlier this year. The beauty of these particular laptops are that due to the fact that they don’t have a CD player makes them incredible light and super small.
As you can imagine, the standards Windows install lasted a total of like 5 hours on my machine as I quickly found a way to install dapper drake straight away. Once I’d done that I decided that it would be a good idea to try installing beryl on there, bad idea. For all those thinking that you can get all the funky 3D effects on this machine, you can’t. The computer has a Trident graphics card, and as such this extra layer it would seem is not possible. You could try but what happened with me is that it basically screwed up Sudo for me and things were not installing and a whole slew of other rubbish came of it. So word to the wise just avoid it on this machine.
I’m writing my findings down here in the hopes of a couple of things. I can’t be the only person to have Ubuntu installed on this machine, or even the only one that wants to have Ubuntu installed on this machine, so I’ll going to chronicle my findings here and fill it up as a resource for other helpless souls that are tearing their hair out as well, and hopefully I might get some answers to some of the bugs that can be found on this machine.
Installing Dapper Drake
This was actually the easiest thing in the world. Download an exe file, run it and it’ll reboot and start the installation process automatically from the net. It’ll download all the packages and install the thing right there and then, taking roughly about 1 hour in total (depending of course on your internet installation). The great thing is that everything worked out of the box. No problems whatsoever. I’m not sure if my keyboard was having a little bit of trouble there as I currently do in Edgy.
Installing Edgy Eft
Unfortunately things don’t go according to plan with this particular install. The reason as I’ve come to understand is really down to the shoddy and buggy Xorg. It’s a definitely step backwards as far as I’m concerned. If this was my only machine, I’d be fucked. Luckily the great guys over on the irc channel #ubuntuforums were a great help and got me up and running.
The problem is that Vesa doesn’t work, and the trident driver is just not good enough. There’s a bit of a bug involved here that I don’t know what the deal is. When you log in you’ll only see a quarter of the desktop. You’ve got to CTRL-ALT-F1 to restart xorg quickly, log back in and it’s all working nicely. Fekking annoying bug if you ask me. So I reported the bug on Launchpad, and someone got back to me less than 24hours later. Still hoping for a resolution to this, but it’s great to have someone get back to me directly and so quickly to try and solve my issue.
The next problem I had was in the keyboard (in fact I still have this problem, which is a real pain in the ass to be honest. Basically, when I log in, the keyboard letters are recognised, however the rest of the keyboard, and I’m talking about the symbols buttons, come up with some utter giberish. Selecting another generic keyboard solves the problem. If anyone has got a solution to this stupid bug I’d really be grateful (once again I’ve logged a report in as well about this).
So is Edgy worth it. It’s a more polished graphically at least distribution to Dapper. The login screen isn’t as scary as Dapper. The icons have been polished and look a lot more professional to be honest. Things like he new help icon and the new login screen are all great little additions that basically make the package look more professional. The new chocolate background is also pretty cool. I am glad that they didn’t go for the community created screenshots that we previewed. I’m with Mark Shuttleworth on this particular subject. It just wasn’t right.
One thing I have noticed (and maybe that’s because the harddisc is smaller and less complicated than on my desktop machine,) but Nautalis is actually faster on this install. It’s changed ever so slightly with the latest addition of gnome.
Applications
As I’m using this machine for a completely different set of reasons and because I’ve got less power than my desktop machine I’ve gone on a bit of a hunt for a different set of applications.
XFCE I thought I’d try another windows manager instead of gnome. XFCE was the obvious one. I’ve got to say that while it does seem lighter, it’s definitely not as polished as gnome. There are certain things in it that really do need some work. Some pretty fundamental things. I’ll definitely have a look at it in a few months/years to come, but for the moment I think it’s got a way before it’s as solid as gnome.
Thunar One of the great additions however is Thunar, which I think is a fantastic little application, very light and gets me to where I want to be straight away. I’m using a completely different icon to be honest, mainly because I love the screen with the stars, after all I am attracted to the stars.
Abiword Another great little find is Abiword. It’s got a pretty rubbish splash screen, but it is supremely lightweight Word replacement. It looks exactly like word, only slightly more slimmed down. For the type of documentation I require however it’s absolutely brilliant. So much so that I’m thinking about making it my default word processing tool of choice on my desktop machine as well. Hopefully the same developers can have a look at making an Excel alternative as well using the same ideologies, it just works really well and has got a very clean user interface.
Wifi
Not sure how to get this enabled or to test it’s all working to be honest. I’ve not had the chance really as we don’t have a wireless network at home (although we are definitely starting to think about this much more seriously). If anyone’s got any good tutorials or applications that can allow me to roam and see what’s around in my area or so that when I’m in a Starfucks I actually have that option available to me that would be most excellent.
One of the main reasons why I’m completely quiet at the moment is mainly due to the fact that I’m working on this behmouth of a building, Los Faros De Panama. It’s by far the largest project I’ve been involved with as it 3 towers (central tower clocking in at around 84 floors) and a podium level of 6 floors. Architects are Chapman Taylor, while we’re doing everything else (structure, mechanical, electrical, public health, fire, vertical transport and the list goes on) It’s been an interesting challenge getting to grips with the American
Interesting little bit on the Panama Investor Blog as well, regarding the size of this project. It’s going to be a damn long week, I can tell you that much.
In a time when I should really be blogging MUCH more often (as I’m going through some pretty tough and generally strange times right now) is actually the time when I felt the need to stay away from my blog and the online world in general. I’ve not really been able to pinpoint the reason behind this as my website has always been something of a release for me. It’s something that I use to express what’s on my mind and purge my mind.
The harsh reality of the situation is that the weblog is often times not the perfect or ideal solution for venting and for getting things off your chest. The reasons are simple. You end up sounding like some whiny git, or you upset people in your real life that might take offence with what you’ve written. So in effect over the past couple of weeks I’ve just kept silent because of that.
As if that would be enough, it’s not. I can’t really talk about my personal life as much as I’d like to. I’m a very open person, so most (if not all) of my thoughts are written on my face, so my site should really be a reflection of that right? Wrong. I can’t really talk about soo many things that I would like to get off my chest because these words are then let out into the wild. Left into the cyber realm far away from my control. I can’t realistically hide my writing from some people. It’s like some people I’d love for them to be able to read things that I write while others I’d like to filter that sort of thing out. Or does it really matter? That’s what’s been going on in my head these past few weeks and to be honest it’s not until I actually sat down and started writing these things down did I realise what was annoying me, what was keeping me away.
In a way I guess blogging is less (to me at least) about what it was in the beginning. At first it was all about expression. You did your thing and got on with it, because NO ONE was watching us in the beginning. Nobody really cared about what these guys did in the fringes of the internet. We had a certain amount of anonymity.
I’m currently at a crossroads. This is a crossroads that will effect my online presence, as this week I was seriously considering packing in the pipe dreams of graphic novels, artwork, design, graphics and the lot and just concentrating on engineering. I know it’s fucking strange to hear and it seems as though I’ve given up after a fashion.
Then yesterday I remembered something. It’s a feeling only artists can feel. Maybe designers as well, but artists more so, because they’re doing all the lifting. It’s about the feeling of completing the piece of artwork in front of you. You start off with a blank piece of paper, with only a vision, a clear idea of what the final drawing will look like once you’ve completed it. Once you’ve laid the last bit of ink, or completed the paint and it’s dried, that feeling lasts only a little while; the problem is that engineering can NEVER replicate that feeling, no matter how much I decide to give it time and energy and effort.
So am I packing it in? Probably not just yet, but I definitely needed to have this heart to heart to get things off my chest, and I guess that’s what it’s all about.
The Prestige, the new Christopher Nolan movie is like getting Christmas early. I mean how could the following ingredients possibly disappoint. You get Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Scarlett Johansson, Michael Caine, David Bowie all in one movie, set in turn of the century London, revolving around magicians and the ultimate magic trick.
Seeing as how becoming a magician was one of my first dreams of what I wanted to become when I was older, you can imagine how giddy I felt watching this movie. It wasn’t slightly good, it was bloody good. Watching the movie there was this sense of urgency, tricks and double tricks, twists and turns. You always were thinking how is that trick done, how do they do it, what’s the deal with it all.
Bale is awesome as he’s definitely beginning to take over as one of the premier actors you go for when you need a solid performance. Michael Caine is doing a spectacular job as always. In fact with regards to the acting (and casting for that matter), everything was completely spot on.
One of the first things you find out about the movie is why it’s called the Prestige. I’m not going to ruin it (unless you’re really into magicians, then you probably already know, I didn’t), as I wouldn’t be able to it the same justice as Michael Caine does in the first few minutes of the movie. The story centres around two rival magicians who go through life trying to achieve greatness. As you can imagine with a movie coming from the Nolan brothers we’re going to be dealing with a non-linear timeline with many twists and turns (I mean come on, what else would you expect from those that gave you Memento, one of the all-time classics of modern cinema.
Nolan has definitely routed himself as one of my favourite directors as he’s currently three for three in my book. He’s definitely taken over from David Fincher who has disappeared into the ether of late (wasn’t Panic Room the last Fincher movie?).
Abracadabra.
I got back from Greece on Sunday in a pretty mixed way. I’m glad that I didn’t have a repeat of previous experiences in airports however even though the flight was delayed by an hour it was worth it simply for the view coming into London. Sunday was the 5th of November, as ‘V’ from V from Vendetta warns us:
“Remember, remember the 5th of November”
I’ve got to say I’ve never seen London in the same way. It was a completely clear sky, and the entire city was lit up. Down below as far as the eye could see were firework going off in every single location all around the city. It was pretty spectacular as I hadn’t really appreciated just how large this city actually is; I tend not to bother looking out into the distance as I approach. So here’s a word to the wise, if in the future, you get the opporunity to fly into London in the evening on the 5th of November, and you know it on good authority that it’s going to be a clear night sky, definitely book that ticket.
It’s late. What’s definitely becoming endemic of my life in general (being late with projects), Broken Kode | Season One is roughly 8 months late. This book was meant to have been completed and at the printers end of February so that I could put it forward for the Blooker prize. Wasn’t for the prize to be honest, but so that I could at least adhere to a deadline and get the book finished. I remember pressuring Michael to sort out the introduction and then I subsequently missed the deadline (sorry Mike); who knows maybe I’ll put it forward for this year’s Blooker prize (although I seriously doubt it would stand much of a chance).
The first paper copy of the book sat on my desk (next to my mouse) for the past 6 months and hadn’t moved. It just sat there as a constant reminder to me that I had invest hundreds of hours in compiling and putting together that it wasn’t complete. I took it with me to America and completed reading it and annotating it on the plane there but couldn’t find the energy to sit down and correct everything.
If I get nothing else out of this vacation (which I actually have) I’ll know that I completed this book.
I’m happy to report that the copy has been sent to Lulu and is ready to be ordered.
The standard version is in glorious black and white, however I’ve included a colour version of the book as well for myself and to see what the colour printing of Lulu is like, as I intend to compile a design and illustration book in the not too distant future (yeah I know, but thankfully that’ll only be illustrations and a little commentary here and there). For all intents and purposes that’s all the tweaking I’ll be doing. I’ve gone through the original book soo many times, I’ve still got that feeling that I’ve missed something; maybe that’s because I’m soo close to this book that I feel as though I’m never going to really finish the book and that there’s always something to do.
The original book came in at over 285 pages long. After sitting down and thinking about it, I felt that a lot of the posts really didn’t deserve a whole page dedicated to them. So part of the exercise was to cut down the number of pages. The current page count is a more manageable 195 pages.
I’ll be providing a decent page for the book and sorting out my Lulu store front as well, until then the dead tree version provides a little bang for your buck, as it’s got the following goodies:
- Introduction by Michael Heilemann
- 12 Illustrations (created during that year) which form the month covers
- Commentary for most of the posts
- Sketchbook material
- Afterword
As this is one big experiment, I’m going to write down some of my reasoning behind the layout and design of the book itself and other things I’ve learnt about the Lulu process. Hopefully these might enlighten those brave souls that are considering jumping into the book based on blog field.
One post equals one page
So here’s a layout of the pages themselves (click on the image for an expanded view). Now I’ve decided to put one blog post on every page. This allows you enough room to actually include a number of things, including the categories, the dates and other good stuff like commentary for the actual posts themselves.
All Posts?
For some reason which I can’t really explain I honestly thought it was a good idea to try and include all the posts I made in the book, regardless of their quality. The reasoning behind this was that I wanted to be a completist. Fortunately the voice of reason came upon me and I think it’s important to distinguish the difference between the online world and the print world. Publishing on the online world is cheap. I can afford to have crappy posts every once in a while. In a book however you really should put your best stuff out there otherwise the book won’t get a second look. People have enough books/movies/theatre/etc vying for their attention, I don’t think putting in my incoherent rants (and some of them are seriously incoherent I’ve found) into the mix and increasing the noise in your life.
Comments or no comments?
When compiling this book I was in the pretty fortunate position that I didn’t really have to wonder too much about the comments themselves as I didn’t have all that many comments in the first year of the ‘Kode’s life. I think if I do go through with making Season Two, I might include the more important comments much in the same way I’ve included only the worthy posts within the book. It’s all about what enhances the book and makes it something more enjoyable.
Extras?
I guess this section came about for a couple of reasons. The first was when I started thinking for reasons why anyone would want to buy a book based on my blog where all the posts are available for reading for free. It’s not like my blog is ground breaking or anything. It’s not like it’s got essential commentary on life, the universe and everything inbetween. I guess I wanted to make it slightly more worthwhile, make it stand out from the online version of the same content.
Summary
It’s been a hell of a long journey, marred by the fact that it’s taken as long, I’ve got no one to blame really but myself. The saving grace of course is the fact that the Lulu process is pretty painless. I was able to set everything up and have it all up and running in a very short while. The site has been slightly updated throughout this year and is slightly more polished, however there still is room for improvement I think (at least from a usability point of view). What’s great is that the online help function is now working and I got a couple of questions I had answered straight away which was very satisfying.
For my latest redesign (and on the other sites and programmes I’m working on) I’ve structured the CSS file somewhat differently. Rather than having what has become CSS convention of having every element of each class, id or whatever on a separate line:
[css]h1{ padding: 0 0 35px 0; margin: 0 0 25px 0; font-size: 2.0em}[/css]
I’ve instead decided to put everything onto one line: [css]h1{ padding: 0; margin: 0 0 25px 0; font-size: 2.0em}[/css]
What does this do you ask? The single most important thing in a CSS file, it makes it manageable. It makes it easy for me to actually edit the damn thing a few months down the line, in a quick and easy way. Rather than scrolling down 500 lines of code, I’m scrolling down 150 lines. The main structure for me is done in programmes like Bluefish or CSSed, however a lot of the editing and tweaking is done within Firefox, so I need to have the easy for scrolling down quickly.
The added bonus of this method is that it reduces the size of my file at the same time. I honestly started thinking why the hell I didn’t do this earlier as it just makes oh so much more sense to condense the file.
I’ve been meaning to talk about the latest season of Battlestar Galactica since it began airing 3 weeks ago now. For all those who don’t know what I’m talking about, go here and read (which reminds me I really should go back to my old posts and format them accordingly, how embarrassing). Without a shadow of a doubt the great TV show that is currently on the air. Groundbreaking in many ways and essentially just a damn good story.
Matt beat me to the punch with his review on the latest Battlestar Galactica episode (season 3, episode 4) Exodus Part 2, but it most definitely was a complete rocket (no pun intended). As of right now I’m going to get into details so PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE with a cherry on top, go somewhere else because I’m going to be throwing SPOILERS. You’ve been warned.
So what did I like about this episode? So many great moments to think about. I absolutely loved the scene with the Galactica jumping into the atmosphere and launching the Raptors; classic scene, the flames the idea itself and a flawless execution.
Gaeta is a great little character. If there was one person that I think would be me on that show it would be Gaeta, except I would have definitely pulled that god damn trigger. In any case I’m still holding that Baltar is a fraking Cylon, based on the completely dodgy way in which he escaped his ‘death’ in the pilot. Everything blows up and he’s hiding behind Number 6’s skinny (and incredibly lovely legs). Bollocks the man is a Cylon.
The scenes with Tigh and Ellen were brilliant. I think Saul is a complete fuck up however he’s been put in a pretty bad position time and time again. Most people would have cracked under the pressure. He kind of has, however at the same time he keeps fighting, even though he probably wishes he would die. Listening to Ellen give her final goodbye was just great. Here you had a woman that obviously would do anything for you, and has had to. This is war and in war you do ugly, terrible things, in order to survive. I don’t think Ellen was evil, more like completely stupid and misguided, but she loved her husband, after a fashion.
The Pegasus coming to the rescue was completely predictable and I was wondering when they were going to get rid of that ship. There can be only one Battlestar, although Bill’s now back to being a Commander rather than an Admiral, which is a shame, I really liked that growth of character.
Speaking of growth in character, that is actually one of the most important aspects of this little jump the writers have put into this particular season. All these character are now even more fucked up and damaged than what they were before the invasion. Now the inter-relationship politics are even more intense, however we have no idea what caused this rift. What happened in that one year. I guess we can expect to find many of these questions answered in the coming weeks. I’m going to try and do this analysis on a regular basis.
Also for some reason, listening to the podcasts, while I do like the fact that the team is actually doing these, some of the magic is actually taken away from the show by them talking about their practical consideration, room and the cost of an episode. I dunno, I guess the show really does suspend my disbelief that I don’t want anything to bring it back.
I’m currently in Greece for a full 2 weeks. I’ve been looking forward to this break for well over a month now, hell I’ve been looking forward to this break for at least 3 months. I didn’t go anywhere during the summer period, which was probably the worst thing to do for my psyche to be honest. The summer was a very dark time for me with very little bright spots which was clearly reflected in my mood and how I dealt with those around me. Being a traditionally pretty patient person, I noticed myself getting more irate with things and situations that I would normally brush off, or at least see the funny side. Hasn’t been the case for at least 3 months now.
I guess I can attribute this to the situation in Lebanon which seriously hit me very hard. I can probably attribute it to work which has been very far from enjoyable these last few months, or I can attribute it to unfinished business from several areas that kept me down (my list of unfinished projects is pretty extensive). Needless to say, I need a break and a break I shall have. However I’m never happy until I’ve got things off my plate and I’ve been very good at not putting anything new on my plate but actually finishing those projects that I had opened/started/committed to first, after all I’m a finisher, not just an instigator.
Since it’s good to have a list I think I’ll make this list to remind myself what I have to look forward to in getting these monkeys off my back:
Finish the Splash Panel Redesign.
The site is nearly a year old now, and I’m still using Fauna, which has done the site proud but I’ve got a lot more in store for this site. The break in Greece is going to do wonders to the amount of writing I get done for the site. This time round however I’m going to be sure to stock up on the reviews and release them at a slower but regular pace. Expect a lot of European comics and some more indie revies (as that’s the majority of comics I have in Greece).
Stathi’s and Priya’s Websites.
The other two websites that I have promised and have actually done most of the work on (ie all the artwork is complete) it’s just a matter of coding the damn things. These will be done once I get back from Greece, although I might get the urge and sort them out while I’m in Greece, who knows I’ve got two weeks to fill in.
Broken Kode Season One
Book’s been done, edited by hand and just needs those tweaks to be put into the file and thrown out to lulu. This is probably 1 day’s work or something like that so I think I might be doing something about this in the not too distant future. Just get another thing that I said I’d do off my plate.
Broken Kode Prints
This is an interesting one. For a while now I’ve been asked if people can buy prints with my artwork. It’s been in the back of my mind and I did it once, but to be honest it was a great deal of hassle and not enough benefit. So I might go away from the DIY route and use a service like Zazzle or something similar. If any one’s got any recommendations that can cater for Europe at reasonable prices I’m all ears.
Chameleon Theme
I talked about this ages ago. Obviously life got in my way and I wasn’t really able to go forward with this one. It’s a very simple idea, which I’m going to elaborate on in a massive post in the coming days. Once I’ve done the design I’ll contact the souls that answered my call the last time. Don’t want to be wasting anyones time. Needless to say that the current Broken Kode redesign and believe it or not Crazyegg have both enabled me to have a clearer view as to what works and what doesn’t in the design of a site (once again more on this at a later stage down the road).
Also on a completely different note, I really need to get myself a laptop (any recommendations for small dinky laptops, like the Fujitsu Lifebook or a Vaio would be welcome) as I’m currently using my dad’s windowz install using an ADSL connection that might be a little difficult to sort out on Ubuntu and it’s seriously painful to get anything done (which isn’t helped by the fact that it’s a shitty CRT screen that’s got a tinge of purple going through,…nice), the ‘Kode has never looked this bad.
In constructing a building the foundations are the first things that go in. Much in that vein, I’ve decided to approach (and name), every iteration of Broken Kode after the construction of a building. These are then followed on by the superstructure (the stuff that sits above the ground level), and once everything is there, the cladding and services (ventilation, electricity, water) come in.
Back in May when I updated the site, I called it Foundations. I eluded at the time that the reasons behind this name was because I was effectively taking a step back and start taking things in a simple manner. Build the site up at my own pace. No real rush in getting anywhere, just proper steps into crafting a site that I would be happy with. In order to do that I had to make sure that the foundations (see, there was a reason for that name) I lay were rock solid, thus making my life in updating the site less of a chore that it traditionally is.
Inspiration is a funny thing, in that you don’t know when and where it’s going to come down. Arguably the worst period for me in the past year was when this itch decided it had to be scratched. I actually started the mockups on this site before I even switched over to Ubuntu, as I had begun the mockup design in Photoshop. When I moved over to Ubuntu, I started using Inkscape as my first method of tackling layout and design for websites and have found it an utter joy to use.
Structure
The biggest difference is the structural layout of the page. You’ll notice I’ve tried to steer away from a traditional blog look. I’ve done it far to many times, I’ve tried a couple of other iterations and while it’s been good, I think my writing style and how I have chosen to use this site and how I write has taken a shift and the site design should really reflect this accordingly. I’m traditionally a verbose person and therefore my posts and even my asides at times can be very lengthy.
The first and most significant change that can be seen in this design is the rigid grid layout that I’ve adopted. Effectively the only page that’s had a proper makeover is the index page. The post page also got a very slight change (but that was implementing ideas that I had for the previous incarnation of the site but was too lazy to get on and implement it all).
One of the many criticisms I get from friends regarding the old incarnations of the site is the fact that there is far too much text on the page. Not enough explanation. I guess the designs really didn’t provide all the information required. I can definitely vouch for the fact that a lot of what I’ve done/have been involved with is hidden under the wayside and I felt it was pretty important to get those elements on the page and shown in a proper light. It’s been very varied, but I will say that a great deal of inspiration was derived from the Guardian newspaper I have been reading this newspaper on and off since it got it’s face lift earlier this year. It’s got a crisp clean design which is what I was intending to get in there as well.
Where to next Mr.Jones?
The site is slightly borked in IE. All I can say is IE and IE users can suck on my fat hairy toe. I mean seriously people, if you’re still using that piece of shit, stop it. You’re doing yourself a massive disservice and giving me enough grief to have to deal with and try and the blasted thing make play nice (and obviously I’ll have to think about the rubbish that IE7 will no doubt be spewing out). Grumble grumble grumble.
Seriously IE is a lame animal, and the quicker someone puts it out of it’s misery the better we’ll all be. It’s the only humaine thing to do to be honest. It’s a waste of my time (of which I don’t have all that much at the moment to give to clean it up).
The site looks manageable after a fashion and I’ll be sure to clean it up to pick up the minor elements that are still showing up. I do need to sort out the additional pages (as I only really concentrated on the main pages) but that’ll no doubt get sorted out once the dust settles in the next couple of weeks.
So what’s next you ask? I’ve got another 3 website that I’ll be sorting out over the next month or so, and then I’m taking a complete step AWAY from web designing, for anyone, in any capacity. I will finish off my obligations however once that’s done you won’t even be able to afford my services in that department, because they won’t be for sale. I’m going to be concentrating on my artwork fully and my writing. I think it’s time I buckled down and did what I first set out to do with this site.
Following on from Part 1 of this series of posts on Ubuntu, I’m going to talk about Ubuntu and Linux’s most POWERFUL concept. Installing software through repositories. The way I understand it is that these are databases of all the latest stable software that has been tried and tested to work with Ubuntu. The software goes through several checks and something called REVU, comments are passed back and forth regarding how to make the package better before it’s committed to the repository. This means several things to the end user, however I’m going to concentrate on two:
<li>You get notified of any updates to any software that is running on your machine that is part of these repositories, so you're always up to date with the latest software (that's all software, from graphical applications to files you don't really care about or know what they actually do). It's a cute little orange and white star icon that pops out at you informing you to update your system.</li>
<li>You have a massive database to search for applications that will allow you to get the tasks you want to get done at your finger tips, with the click of a button.</li></ol><!--more-->
Synaptic Package Manager
In the past when I would want to do something with my computer, I’d search the Internet for some software that would allow me to do something. Traditionally there were the proprietary applications and then there was the less capable but free applications available. Every once in a while you’d stumble on some open source software that would really excel itself. Needless to say I used to spend a lot of time searching the net for applications that might fit the bill of what it was I was looking for. Ubuntu takes care of the searching for me, through the Synaptic Package Manager (pictured below). (For those newbies looking for this, just go to System > administration > Synaptic Package Manager)
You can search for applications either by category, or if you know what it’s called by name. So if you want some software that burns DVDs, or a bit torrent client then search through key words. You’d be surprised just how many applications are out there that can do all sorts of things you’d be finding if not difficult, at the very least expensive and worse frustrating on a windows machine. This little application and thought process IMHO should be the impetus of all Linux discussions. We’re dealing with THOUSANDS of developers all over the world contributing to thousands of programmes to help make YOUR (and my) computing experience easier and more enjoyable to undertake.
The issue of course is that you might need to add more repositories in order to get the very latest software which might not be verified from the Ubuntu team. This is the beauty of open source. It’s not like traditional proprietary software. There really is no need for open source to make massive leaps and bounds in one go (the traditional method employed by software houses to make you buy the upgrade), things are enhanced and augmented with time, step by step. You can even build your own repository list.
Easyubuntu
Easyubuntu should be a link on the Ubuntu desktop once you’ve installed the full thing. Why? Because it’s got all the software that isn’t covered by the GPL license that Ubuntu can’t ship with or whatever the legalities of the whole thing actually is (they could go down the Novell route and offer it as an option in the install stage, which would save a lot of people a lot of time, agro and hassle). Here’s a list of all the software that can be installed from running this little collection of applications. So all your drivers, Flash 7 (Adobe hasn’t released 8 for Linux, however they’re committed to 9 apparently), Java and the list goes on.
Automatix
I’ve only used Automatix for a couple of things, however the list of software that it will install is very impressive. It’s not as polished an interface as Synaptic to be honest as it does all sorts of ugly things (to someone who’s used to the standard Ubuntu dialogue boxes) but that shouldn’t stop you from using the application itself. I’ve heard rumblings within the Ubuntu Community where some people have expressed not liking using this system. I’m not sure why not to be honest (as in I genuinely don’t have a clue so any thoughts would be appreciated).
Resources for starting out on Ubuntu and Installing Ubuntu
Generally speaking, due in part to the architecture, and the other being that it is the most used Distro, most software runs on Ubuntu, it’s just sometimes a hassle, if in case it’s not found in the above methods. In that case then you’ve got a couple of options. .deb files (since Ubuntu is a Debian fork) has got these packages which act effectively like .exe files. Double click and install away. There are also others who have done autopackagers as well. Again these act like .exe files, so you double click and install. I’m going to admit I’ve tried to actually install software from the source code, however EVERY time I’ve tried, I’ve failed, and I’ve gone back and tried to find an alternative solution from the above. However if you are thinking about doing this here’s a couple of good links to refer to:
So there you have it, methods of how to install applications on Ubuntu, there’s more one way to skin a cat and in many ways a lot simpler and more open than windows in that there is generally an open source application for everything. Some are more mature than others and that’s what I’ll be talking about in the next posts on the subject. The next topic I tackle will be about applications that provide Sound.
http://www.brokenkode.com/ubuntu-advocate-part-2-installing-software
I’ve created a brand you category on the Kode. It’s called ‘Funk You Mr.Architect’. Before I get into what I’ll be posting about in the category I’ll put a small disclaimer that I like architects as people. In fact I live with one, so I’m not a professionalist.
I’m going to talk about the industry I work in, since I look around the blogosphere and there is little going on about this here industry. There are not enough blogs talking about architecture, engineering and everything inbetween. This is the industry that builds the buildings you live in, the transportation you depend on (from roads to train stations to airports), the schools and universities you learn in and the supermarkets and shopping centres you buy your stuff from. Someone has to sit there for YEARS to design these things, then someone else has to come along and build the bloody things while trying hard to keep with the design vision and intent.
Part of the reason for me blogging about this is to actual build awareness. One of the most frustrating things I’ve ever heard is a building described as a so-and-so architects’ building. Lets get one thing very clear, a building or construction job is not ‘an architects’. The architect plays a role in a team that can comprise between 100 people and 5000 people. Each one of these people has the RIGHT to claim it as their project as well. However the way that the media and industry has been chiselled people seem to have forgotten this little fact, or don’t care to say it. I’m going to be going on the attack and will no doubt upset people but fuck it someone has to say something.
Hopefully I’m going to tell you what the architect’s role actually entails and what the other 5000 people do as well. If anything it’ll be educational. So for the first post we’ll just set up the major players for you to mull on.
- Client
- Project Manager
- Quantity Surveyor
- Architect
- Consultant
- Contractor
- Sub-contractor
- Manufacturer
A project generally speaking needs the following groups of people involved, at different times of the project’s life. The amount of involvement is clearly dependant on the type of construction contract everyone is working towards, but we’ll discuss that much later down the line.
Introducing the first in a series of Broken Kode Originals (I’ve got another 5 to go). What’s a Broken Kode Original? It’s an original website design by me. The first one has gone to Mark Wade of RWebsDesigns.
It all came about a while back when he got some lip over the design of his theme. The ball got rolling from there and I promised him the design in 2 weeks. Yeah, that didn’t happen but the main reason behind that was that I’m an anal retentive bastard. The nice thing about it all is that Mark just waited patiently, which obviously made me want to sort this out a bit sooner rather than later but at the same time I had to make him proud of the trust he put in me.
In the end I really enjoyed doing this site emmensely, even when IE made me want to pull my hair out (which reminds me to thank Jon for being my knight in shining armour, you rock buddy).
My inspiration for the theme as the name implies was the Autumn leaves that until a month ago were a vibrant part of the London landscape. It just seemed like the perfect design since in our conversations, Mark did say that he would like:
Something in nature, seasonal forests,..
One last thing when going over there to have a look, please don’t look underneath the bonnet, I’m still sorting out the code but I had to go live because I’ve kept the man waiting far too long for this.
I’ve finally sorted out the gallery section of Broken Kode. This has been on the backburner for nigh on 2 months now, with the only reason I can give for the delay being that I couldn’t decide on the final format for the gallery. Originally I was actually waiting for Zenphoto so that I could incorporate the functionality in there for my needs (thumbnails, navigation between images etc). Unfortunately, although a very nice package, I’m not proficient enough in php (yet, something I’m hoping to rectify in the near future) to be able to hack the thing to my needs, and with the lack of an extensive online resource (much like WordPress’s Codex), I was effectively fighting a loosing battle.
I thought about going for a Flash solution, however again this would bring about the problem of me not updating the section on a regular basis. I needed to go to a very simple CMS type solution. After bashing my head for 2 weeks now, I decided to use my default WordPress install, and just HACK it to death. The truth of the matter is that I’ve only touched one file from the core WordPress files, so hacking to death is a gross overstatement. I’ve just used plugins and hacks set out by others.
Much in the same was as I’ve done with the main site I’ll be modifying things slowly but surely till I get it the way I want it, so hopefully now I can concentrate on content only rather than spending far too many hours design, coding and then going through the process all over again. This final look was done in one evening, after I’d spent the better part of 1 week going back and forth with what I wanted. Part of the design was remove ANY clutter that would distract from the images themselves, so simplicity is the operative word here. Grab the RSS feed to stay up to date with this section of the site.
As a matter of interest for all those looking for Flash based solution to their gallery needs here’s a pretty extensive list of solutions that came my way on my hunt:
- Example by Tutorio
- FIG (Flash Image Gallery) - Very promising solution, I just wish I had access to the FLA. I contacted the author to buy a license off him, I’m still waiting.
- Eyelash Photo Gallery - Didn’t get very far with this solution to be honest. Seemed a bit too convoluted.
- Swinburne Tutorials - Neat solution, good tutorials.
- Flash XML roundup from the ParticleTree boys
- Dynamic Flash Gallery - Very nice, except why the hell does it resize my browser?
I’d first like to thank the 9 people who bought a print off me. You guys rock, and I’m seriously humbled by the fact that my work is appreciated enough for you to buy something off me. You guys have made the Broken Kode priority list and once I’ve got things set up correctly you will be getting promo stuff when the time comes. All the prints have now finally sold out. It took around 6 months to go through them, and I think I made a total of something like £50, so I won’t be relocating to the Bahamas any time soon; then again I didn’t exactly do it for the money. Honestly I’m just glad that 9 gracious souls decided to indulge me, so I’d like to thank you guys greatly.
Those who actually visit the site rather than just rssing me will have missed the little additional graphic that’s sitting right there on the side bar for about a day now. That’s correct I’m teaming up with Streetshirts to provide original BK t-shirts. There’s a couple of reasons behind this, mainly due to the fact that I actually really want to wear nice t-shirts that don’t cost me the earth. Sylvane (one of my housemates) mentioned to me a couple of years ago that I really should start using my designs to create some t-shirts. 2 years later. The tees will hopefully be available later on this week, as I’ve still got to iron out some bits and pieces with Steven (from StreetShirts) who’s been exceptionally patient with me. This is a teaser of what to expect. There will be a total of 3 t-shirts available in the first collection. We’ll see how things pan out and go from there.
One of the reasons I’m actually announcing this now rather than when they officially go on sale is due to the fact that the excellent Treehouse, a PDF web development magazine, came out today, and it’s FREE, so all you boys and girls can go download now from the great folks over at Particletree. The guys were extremely gracious to run an ad for me, however in my classic fashion I’m not 100% ready. I’d like to blame it on the stars and the moon and public transport but truth is I just didn’t actually see October coming so fast.
So thanks guys for running the ad, you’re on my Christmas card list… even though you mispelled my name; it’s Abou Alfa guys, not Alpha :)
Version 4.0 has been a long time coming, as I’ve been sitting on the design for at least 3 month now. The idea popped into my head sometime in May, just something snapped and the idea began to grow. By the time I came back from holiday I knew exactly what I needed to do. Unfortunately due to work and life just getting in my way I was forced to put it on hold.
Reason for Redesign
Emmortel was a failure. Not for anything other than the fact that I just couldn’t force myself to take care of two websites, and provide them with the same attention and loving. It’s a change of philosophy for the this site as I effectively will be my blog and portfolio at the same time. It took me a good long while to accept that this was the proper route to take. I truly admire Joen for being able to consistently push out his monthly installments without fail. That sort of commitment is something I can only hope and dream of achieving. This is effectively my attempt at that.
The one section of the site that is still in active development is the Gallery section. I’ve got an slight idea of what I want however I’m not 100% there yet. Hopefully that should get sorted out in the coming days.
Code
Originally I was planning on doing what I’ve done with the previous 2.5 code designs, which is mainly taking Rin or Manji and hacking them to death. So how this didn’t feel like the right way to go for this particular version, and I went about writing the code from scratch. One of the main reasons I love doing a redesign anyway is because it improves me as a designer and coder. I can see the steps I take forward every single time I decide to go down that road.
This project also marks the first time I’ve used PHP Designer 2005 and HTMLGATE. Both fantastic applications that deserve your attention. Sure they’re not perfect as there are several bugs that need to be ironed out, but as website development tools go they’re both exceptional tools.
Inspiration
Yeah right, like I came up with this stuff without nicking ideas of people :). I just wanted to take the time and acknowledge the works of several people that inspired me when I wasn’t feeling particularly creative. Joen’s Noscope, Bryan’s Avalonstar, Khoi’s Subtraction Phu’s Ifelse. Thank you gents couldn’t have done it without you (and in Joen, Bryan and Phu’s case really couldn’t have done it without them).
Future modifications
There is bound to be many modifications to come, as hopefully people will point out funky things happening in their browser, and the more I look at it all and take it in the more I’ll try and find different ways of dealing with things. I felt that it was time to release it and then tinker slowly but surely, with my self imposed pressure being elevated. Now to make sure all the plugins work before I go on and sort out the links.