Posts filed under "reviews"
Late last year I made the move to a mac and while there was a bit of getting used to certain things I’ve been really very happy with everything that it’s offered me in terms of getting on with computing in general. However the thing that I’ve missed the most is Firefox with all of it’s plugins and general speed and open source goodness. I tried Camino and i’ve got to say it’s good in some respects but trying to get any of the blasted plugins to work was a mission in and of itself. It just seemed to me like it wasn’t really there in terms of both backing and development as Firefox, which is just as well. So for the last couple of months I’ve been using Safari, and while I like a lot of stuff in Safari, I think there is room for improvement.
Enter Firefox 3 Beta 4 which was released earlier this week. DAMN that’s MUCH better.
I’ve installed GRApple Yummy theme, which is basically a correct integration of the theme into Leopard and I’m away. Firefox 3 is faster than Safari at loading up, it’s slowly starting to get all the various plugins updated as well and crucially it now also looks the part as well. I’ve not really played around with the browser much yet but one of the more welcome additions is the fact that now I can look for plugins and themes from within Firefox itself rather than going to the mozilla website and searching. It’s inspired me so much so that I installed ScribeFire straight away and I’m writing this from within there which I’ve never done before, just because I can.
So the guys over at Pixelmator have just released yet another update on their excellent little image editor. Now the thing that has impressed me more with this little editor isn’t soo much the actual editor, because the truth of the matter is I don’t think it has got what I need (which is surprisingly a small list) what’s impressed me most is their diligence in releasing new updates for the software each and every month on around the 20th or so. While some people on the forums expect them to be releasing things on a daily basis, I really like how they’ve decided to release once a month and see how much stuff they can cram into that month before releasing it to the world at large.
It just means that I’ve got something to look forward to from them and makes me happy to see that they are developing constantly to improve on the editor. What you can also notice from their updates log is the fact that as time has gone by, they’ve definitely been getting better at closing out issues as the lists have become larger and larger.
Does Pixelmator get my thumbs up as a Photoshop killer? Honestly not yet but as three minor requests that would make this editor my choice one, which I can’t imagine as being too difficult for the sole coder (I think it’s only one guy doing the coding right?) to deal with, however it might not be a major priority at the moment. Here’s the list:
Rulers and Guides - Listen if I’m going to be doing any digital work of any description I need these things. So I need to be able to add guides, move them about and snap to these guides. The ruler set to pixels as a minimum before you move onto something else is fine as an initial release if you’re thinking doing everything else will take too much time. Maybe limit the functions to their most basis before expanding might be a good idea?
Text Function - Yeah this is pretty poor. Now while I might be ok with the limited font functionality how I would really like to have a full text box that I can resize as a minimum rather than being able to just put some text in a straight line. I know it’s a really minor thing, but in my eyes it’s what separates a good image editor from a great one. If you can add this into the next iteration that would be AWESOME.
Folders for Layers - Not sure how difficult this is but again this is one of those things that makes organising my layers something manageable as opposed to a complete and utter free for all.
I’m not going into any more detail as I’m sure the other things will come in time, however if I can get the above items by March I will love you guys forever.
This past month and a half have allowed me for some reason to watch more movies than I watched nearly all of last year. I just finished watching ‘Stardust’ which is based on a story written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Charles Vess. I believe I’ve got the book somewhere in Greece but I never got around to reading it and alas I’ve not had the chance to buy the book again. For some reason last year I missed this movie when it was in the cinema last year. I wanted to watch it but didn’t make enough of an effort to go and see it. As it turns out I was probably missing out on one of the few great movies from last year.
The best way to describe this story is a modern day fairy tale but with soo much charm that it leaves you with this stupid smile on your face after finish watching the movie. The story begins in Wall, called this because of a great big wall that separates it from the city of Stormhold. Tristan trying to win the love of his life, Victoria promises to bring her a fallen star they both saw fall (on the other side of the wall) before her birthday, which is one week. I’m honestly not going to try and ruin anything but the star isn’t exactly what he originally bargained for and the story that unfolds is one of the most pleasant, fun and ultimately romantic movies I’ve seen in a long time. Stranger still was the choice of the actual director of the movie, which was none other than Matthew Vaughn, of Layer Cake fame. Not exactly the kind of movies I’d expect from the man but he’s definitely creating a body of work that makes him one of my favourite directors in recent times. There’s a quality to this movie that harkens back to an era in the 80s where they used to make fun fantasy and sci-fi movies. Movies that had heart.
And before anyone mentions that I’m writing this review on Valentines day, seriously this has NOTHING to do with the retched day that is coming upon us (happy love day everyone, only the few Simpsons fans got that reference), it’s just an unlucky coincidence that I’ve just finished watching the movie. If you’re looking for a great movie that will leave a smile on your face after you’ve finished it, then this is one for you.
So went and saw I am Legend with Willy Smith on sunday, without really thinking about it too much. First movie of 2008 I go to, so it’s good that i did come out with a smile on my face. Sure it was no 28 Days Later (not seen the sequel so I can’t comment on that one) because that movie was a lot more closer to home for me, since it was based in my current home town of London and I am Legend is based in NYC.
My favourite parts in both movies are what the survivors of these plagues actually do in their free time and the scenes around the completely deserted cities. From that aspect this movie really does capture this element in a great way. In a surprising way, Smith actually does a good job in his role as the military scientist who’s lived through the plague that hit mankind. He does seriously come off as a very likable character and the co-star Sam is also a great positive to the feel of the movie.
Ok, spoiler alerts from now on, so move along if you’ve not seen the movie yet.
So what fell for me? The main area for me which didn’t really resonate that much was the fact that Will Smith was a military scientist who is actively trying to find a cure. He doesn’t come across as that sort of character. Scientists don’t look or act like him (well at least not the scientists i’ve met in my life). They put far too much Hollywood gloss over it by making sure I saw him work out without a shirt on. From that respect it was just pandering to the female population which I just kinda rolled my eyes at and asked for the movie to move along with the story. I’m glad he didn’t fight for another shower scene again (like he did in I robot,..hmm must be a bit of a theme going on there with the ‘I’).
I wasn’t all that impressed with some of the effects for the zombies or nightwalkers or whatever they decided to call them. Something about their design just fell extremely flat for me. However having said all that many of the concepts surrounding the story were pretty fun to see pan out. Like why the movie is called I am Legend was a good one and the fact that they were created after a cure to cancer.
There are several plot holes in the movie, however overall it was a fun movie to watch. Nothing you can’t watch on a dvd or something, since I don’t think it’s terribly necessary to have the full cinema experience past the first 20-30 minutes.
It’s been nearly 4 years since the last Radiohead album ‘Hail for the Thief’. While I enjoyed that album as I’ve generally enjoyed most of what they’ve produced, The Bends and Ok Computer being the zenith of their output as far as I’m concerned, their new album ‘In Rainbows’ is a completely different beast altogether.
The major difference here is the way in which they’ve decided to distribute their album. See they’ve decided not to go the traditional route and release the album via a label. Instead what they’ve decided to do is let you download it off their website. Nothing new there, right? Ah but here’s the catch. YOU decide how much you actually want to pay for it. You can either pay something, or download it for free.
This turns everything on it’s head as far as I’m concerned. I’ve always claimed that the price of music is completely and utterly extorionate. A tiny teeny fraction of the cost of what you pay actually goes to the creators themselves, instead the majority goes to everyone else around. £12 for an album is just too much. So download it you say and just keep the music? You obviously don’t know me very well. When it comes to music from my favourite bands I will buy the CD. It’s just the way it goes. For me it’s not just the music, it’s the package. It’s the entire experience. I’m also a collector of sorts. I like to have physical copies of material by certain bands. I own a proper CD player and Amp that I paid through my nose to get a better sound. If you think that you can’t tell the difference, then you’ve obviously not heard a proper system in action.
Sure, this might be something of a dinosaur mentality however it’s one of those thought processes that I honestly cannot get away from. The thing is Radiohead are known for the amount of effort and creativity that they put into their package as well. They obviously feel the same way about this sort of thing, otherwise we wouldn’t have the school library book for Amnesiac or the Map for Hail to the Thief. Case in point, in addition to the actual download option, there’s also the option to pre-order the physical edition of this album, which comes with 2 CDs with artwork, photographs, lyrics and 2 Vinyls of the material as well. All encased in a hardcover book and slipcase.
I’ve only just found out about all this, since I only found out yesterday that they’ve got a new album out. So I quickly downloaded the album (more on that in a little while). Is it any good? The short answer is that ‘In Rainbows’ is BRILLIANT. It’s one of the best things I’ve heard this year, and this is a year where the Smashing Pumpkins released their return to form album. It’s a mixture of ‘The Bends’, ‘Ok Computer’ and maybe even a little bit of ‘Pablo Honey’. It’s not this heavy rock album. It’s a glass of fine wine, where the drums and guitars are back. Yorke’s voice is crisp and clear over the music in this perfect mixture that only they can achieve. God it’s great to hear well produced music again.
So back to the download versus physical object question, what am I going to do? Well I’ve already downloaded the album for free, and have ordered the physical edition of the album as well.
Tales from Earthsea by Goro Miyazaki (the son of Hayao). File this under “I hadn’t heard anything about this until yesterday” sections. This movie seems to have all the right ingredients. It’s an adaptation of the great Earthsea story (which I’m a huge fan of). It’s being done by Studio Ghibli, who are to me like Pixar, they can do no wrong. Finally it’s directed by a Miyazaki, so it’s bound to be great right? I was like, oh cool, it’s his son doing a movie. That’s bound to be interesting.
Then I started thinking, hang on, I’ve never heard he had a son that was into animation. Seems like there has been a series of in house fighting over the fact that Goro was given this movie to direct. Surprisingly the main instigator to all of this was his own father. Reading around further (article from the latest Little White Lies) shows that the father/son relationship has completely broken down and is practically non-existent really. Honestly, this has kinda taken away from the movie from me. It’s not a particularly happy story but alas a new Ghibli movie is always cause for celebration.
The movie is out in cinemas in the UK as of the 3rd of August. Loads of good links over at the wikipedia page. You can read Goro’s translated production blog over at Nausicaa.net
Just got back from watching the Transformers with Yanni. To be honest, I really don’t think I could have watched this movie and enjoyed it as much as I did with anyone but Yanni. See we both grew up watching and playing with the Transformers. We’ve had countless arguments about them , with them and because of them.
So what did I think of the movie? First off, this isn’t a movie for everyone. Not everyone is going to appreciate the whole idea of transforming robots. If you’re a guy in your mid to late 20s this movie was made for you and me. Classic lines like:
You’ve failed me once again Starscream.
Echo straight out of the cartoons we would watch on a Saturday morning. The story was adequate in that it chugged along and there was something there in-between the awe-inspiring action scenes. I don’t usually get like this, but this movie was all about the robots, transforming and kicking the shit out of each other.
Forget the bullshit attempts at humour, I swear that asshole who tried to write the American Pie riff needs to be taken outside and given a good kicking. It had absolutely no place in this movie. I’m sure it was some toss-jockey producer saying that they need more humour in the movie. Some of the humour was done well, like with Bubblebee and his great music choices at the beginning of the movie.
Can someone explain the relevance of the Australian chick and the fat man? Comic relief and what exactly? Easily the most REDUNDANT characters I’ve ever seen in any movie. Also I’ve got to say that John Turturro’s role was a tad bit annoying. I love John (Big Lebowski being his crowning achievement as far as I’m concerned) but what the hell was this role all about?
Anywho, enough about the peripheral characters, lets concentrate on the stars of this movie, namely the Autobots. It’s great how they explained the whole morphing into cars and whatnot, that was very nicely done. What I didn’t really care for was the whole product placement within the actual fekking movie. Was it really necessary to have the whole Ebay thing? Or every car being a GMC? Or what about Nokia being Japanese as well? Or the Pepto Bismol? I mean seriously great chunks of this movie was nothing more than one big advert.
However all of that disappeared, the second you saw Bubblebee transform into the newly supped up version of himself. Or Optimus Prime transforming for the first time. Starscream and Megatron transforming in mid air, combined with the sound effects and the music is enough to make you forget about all the short comings of the movie, because basically they COMPLETELY kicked it out of the whole theatre. I’ve never seen anything like that. It was meant to be larger than life and the effects delivered every step of the way.
Bring on the sequel.
You know when you’re in the dark about something and then someone wakes you up and you get that realisation that things could have been better, you just didn’t know any better, because nobody bothered to tell you about it?
What am I talking about? I’m making less sense than normal? I’ll tell you what I’m blathering about. I’m talking about how fonts are displayed on the four major web browsers, Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 2, Safari 3 and Opera 9. If you’ve visited the ‘kode in the last week, you’ll have seen some more changes in my every evolving design process. Currently I’ve given up altogether with putting a design mockups and opting for the completely different approach of throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. Subsequently I’ve decided to do things in glorious black and white and start thinking about colours and design elements once I’ve got the basic structure and functionality working as I actually want it. However what I have done is use fonts as big bold elements in the design, going above 16px font-size to bring things to the forefront.
Fortunately for me (as this is what actually opened my eyes) was that this effectively brings out the font rendering inadequacies in my favourite (and de facto) browser, Firefox.
Firefox
Obviously all development occurs in this browser. Everything from the web developer plugin, to ruler, to Colorzilla to Firebug all live on this browser. You’d be taking a huge step backwards if you thought to design in another browser. However the font rendering is actually the worst of the entire lot. Notice the ‘o’s in the main title, completely pixerlised monstrosities. Have a look at the sidebar list of links. Those are meant to be bolder. The letter spacing however is in tack and is looks as it’s intended.
Opera
I’ve tried in the past to use this browser, but to be honest there wasn’t anything there that was bigger than Firefox which has been my de facto browser for many years now. Predictably this little browser renders the fonts in a very similar fashion to Firefox proper. It’s still choppy, no font smoothing at all. Surprisingly however it does provide a very slightly better rendering. The best place to notice this difference is if you take a look at the ‘a’s in Javascript.
Internet Explorer
What the Deuce? This is actually where all of this started. I inadvertedly launched IE7 and the fonts had rendered oh so much better. I was genuinely surprised. I consider this machine (my dad’s) as the vanilla machine. This is what the majority of people have, with respect to fonts, setting etc, in that they remain exactly the same. So imagine my surprise when the fonts where actually smoothed. Of course it wasn’t perfect in that it hadn’t picked up my letter-spacing which is annoying but alas at least they were doing something more right than Firefox, which I’ve got to say I did not expect to say. IE is one up on Firefox.
Safari
Which brings us to Safari. Oh dear. Remember that scene in the first ‘Matrix’ where Cypher is eating the meat and make a deal with Agent Smith and he goes “Ignorance is bliss” taking a big bite out of the steak? Man, that’s exactly how I felt after I had the fucking red pill. Seriously you need to have a look at this to believe it. The difference in rendering is unbelievable. Even though the design is as simple as milk, it actually looks half decent. There are different weights to different types of text.
The fonts are all smoothed (the only part that I felt was a bit off, but that’s only because I’ve been staring at this for a while trying to find faults) is the bottom of rounded characters which become slightly more blurred. I haven’t checked to see what other things this browser has to offer because I’m still a bit gobsmacked by the way it rendered a simple page. I understand that Safari is based on the same framework as Konquerer, is that correct?
Final Thoughts
While Safari doesn’t have the development community that Firefox has, it completely and UTTERLY trounces on it when rendering text. I think this should be the first thing that the Mozilla team address for the forthcoming Firefox 3. Forget all the other bullshit guys, this should be priority number 1 because you guys are trailing EVERYONE.
Okay, just to confirm to everyone that I neither care nor have I ever watched any of these stupid reality TV shows that try to make singing stars. I think they’re generally a complete waste of time, and apart from the odd clip of the truly terrible ones during auditions I have to say that I don’t care for this.
However, (yeah you knew this was coming), this little clip was something different. I’m not going to ruin it because to be honest you have to go in there without ANY expectations. Don’t read the comments, just click on the play button and watch.
Don’t ask me why but I actually felt teary during that. I swear, I have NO idea why and I’m kinda annoyed by it. Real men don’t get teary. Real men don’t cry :). I think it’s partly because I didn’t expect it to be honest but it’s a pretty cool little clip and maybe someone to look out for in the not too distant future, maybe?
The new London 2012 branding was unveiled today and seriously, it’s very funny how the organisers have got this soo spectacularly wrong. I don’t even know what the fuck this piece of shit is actually meant to be (also check out the absolutely heinous website) .
Update: Seems they’ve launched the site 4 days early since they saw what an absolute pile of shit their ‘placeholder’ actually was. I mean my placeholder is not better but at least you can read the text and it doesn’t hurt your eyes from the sheer stupid colour choices.
I’m to understand that it says 2012 but I mean seriously, what the hell were they thinking.
What I find really ironic is how the British design press (Creative Review, I’m looking at you) kept harping on how the Athens Olympics logo just wasn’t all that great. Personally and I’ll admit that my opinion on the subject may be slightly biased but I thought the Athens Olympic logo was miles better, miles and miles better.
Now see that is bloody interesting. A month ago I kinda asked about whether or not people actually look at design or not. Since that time I kinda have this inprogress site design going on and have noticed my readership and hits to the site seriously fall by half.
So for all those thinking to themselves and wondering whether or not design is still important to traffic, hell damn yes it is important. You’re all fickle, you know that don’t you :). Which also means I’ve got to pull my finger outta my a$$ and just finish off the design, which I more or less completed as a mockup last week. So expect something soon.
Ok if in case you didn’t read the title of this post, it has the word spoiler in it for a reason, not interested in finding out what has happened on the end of the third season then pretty please with a cherry on top go somewhere else and you don’t ever need to blame me for ruining anything for you. Good everyone else here?
Watched it yesterday and I’ve got to say I was pretty damn excited about this episode. I got back home at a normal time and went straight to downloading the episode. All the while I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. The big massive revelation; who is the Cylon, who is the Cylon. I don’t get one I get 4 of them, definitely didn’t see that one coming, especially Saul as one that’s come out of NOWHERE. I’m sure they’ve thought this one through, but seriously how the hell does that actually work? He’s like over 50 years old and that’s how old the Cylons are right? At least that’s what we were originally led to believe.
So I did a bit of researching. Ron Moore’s podcast isn’t up on the scifi channel yet however if you look around you’ll be able to find a couple of interviews scattered around the place where he talks about things.
The biggest twist of couse was definitely Starbuck’s appearance at the end of the show. I honestly didn’t expect that. I’ve got to say that while listening to Ron’s commentary regarding the reasons to kill off Starbuck never rang true with me. It seemed as though it was all about the AUDACITY of it all, which felt a little bit on the weak side. It’s nice to see how they’ve pulled one of the best cons in recent television history. ‘Kill off a character’, have actress in on it as well so all her interviews point that she’s going to be moving on, don’t insert her name in the credits of the actual episode and then have her come back right at the end. Of course there are a lot of unanswered questions but it’s definitely one of the better endings on the show which always has pretty spectacular cliffhanger season endings.
Also I really loved ‘All along the Watchtower’ cover by Bear McCreary and his brother, definitely will be getting that once it’s available from somewhere.
http://www.brokenkode.com/battlestar-galactica-season-3-finale-spoilers
Frank Miller’s 300 had my money several times over from the moment I heard it was going to be made. Then came the trailer and I nearly came in my pants several times over (I know not a pretty vision but at least I’m being truthful). Then I shared the trailer with Stathi and Christos and while I thought I was excited, these guys were even more excited about this movie than I was. Honestly between the three of us we’ve probably seen the trailer like 3000 times. I can’t count the number of times we’ve quoted the lines:
“Blasphemy? Madness? THIS IS SPAAARTAAA!”
So to say that we were completely hyped for the movie is a slight understatement. So how do we celebrate this momentous occasion of the release of 300? We book the top section of Everyman cinema in Hampstead (much more about this glorious cinema theatre in a moment) and pack it with 40 something Greeks. To say there was a bit of atmosphere in the theatre, is once again a slight understatement. Half of us screamed the above line when Leonidas said it.
The Venue
It’s strange but one of the things that annoys me about cinemas is that the experience seems to have been diluted. I’m talking in a general sense here. It’s no longer something special, it’s no longer something that is truly an experience in every sense of the world. Thank god someone remembered this and made the Everyman Cinema in Hampstead, North London. Basically it’s very small little venue however there are different levels of seating throughout all of which are larger than usual, with little tables to the side of them. The side seats are leather with foot rests and all of them have champagne bottle holders. The ambience in there is amazing. Seriously I kept looking at just how beautiful the place was and how great all the colours worked together seamlessly. The screen isn’t the largest, the sound isn’t this amazing THX (at least I don’t think it is) but it’s definitely one of the best cinema’s I’ve ever been to. This enhanced this movies completely for me even further than if I watched it in your run of the mill movie theatre.
The movie itself
In case you missed my review over at Splash Panel, go and have a read about the actual graphic novel itself first of which this movie is based upon. This isn’t a movie based on a myth, this is a movie based incredibly faithfully on a graphic novel that is based on history. Keep that little fact in mind when watching this movie. It’s not supposed to be historically accurate. It’s meant to be a man movie.
“A new age has begun. An age of freedom, and all will know that 300 Spartans gave their last breathe to defend it.”
The story is a timeless one, depicting one of the greatest if not most important battles in history, completely stylised of course with loads of magicians and huge monsters people and weird freaks, however believe it or not it’s not the story that counts here but how it is delivered. You see this story has been told several times before, however never like this. Some of the fight scenes in here are some of the most brutal you’ve ever seen in a swords and sandals epic. Forget all the rubbish that is Troy and Alexander and open your eyes to 2 minutes of pure Spartan maddness cutting through one guy after the other. Then chilling out and eating an apple over the dead. It’s meant to be over the top. It’s meant to be completely manly in nature. The dialogue just drips of testosterone and I think that’s one of it’s greatest qualities. You don’t get enough movies where the guys are completely hard as nails.
A distinct success of the movie was use of colour filters throughout the movie. From the soft yellows used for Sparta to the blues used for scenes with the Immortals. The darker browns used for the fight scenes made the red capes sand out even more. Make no mistake this movie isn’t for everyone (although I wish it was). For a start it’s an 18, which means this movie is violent, has got scenes of a sexual nature (read: soft porn) but there isn’t any real swearing as Miller didn’t really have any of that in his book.
My gripes
I’ll get this out of the way quickly so that we can move on. There were not that many, in fact there was probably only one gripe of which I didn’t hear it in the trailer but basically they chose to pronounce the name of the single most important character in the movie incorrectly. I am of course talking about Kind Leonidas. It is not LEO-N-EYE-DIS, the proper pronounciation of the name is actually LEO-NEE-DAS. It’s a pretty simple thing that I honestly wish they would have gotten any Greek boy from the nearest restaurant to tell them how to get it right phonetically. Of course this could NEVER ruin the overall experience which was pure magic.
The Casting
I’ve got to say that the casting in most cases (except for Leonidas’s son, who thankfully had nothing to say) was completely inspired. Gerard Butler was an AWESOME. Gerard held your attention completely. His voice was worth EVERY penny they paid him as he truly made you believe in the Spartan way. Never retreat, never surrender.
The choices Vincent Regan for the Captain and David Wenham for Dilios were also chosen very well. I loved Lena Headey as the Queen, that was also pretty damn inspired casting. However for me the surprise casting was for that of Xerxes; I have NO idea how the hell they managed to make Rodrigo Santoro actually look like Xerxes but it’s incredibly impressive stuff.
The Details
The icing on the cake for me however was definitely the ending credits. See that’s the level of love and attention that’s gone into this. Basically for the end credits they’ve taken Frank Miller’s panels and basically given them a bit of a 3D effect treatment of the blood being splattered everywhere. Truly awesome stuff and it was great to see such reverence to the source material itself.
From a comic book point of view it was completely faithful to the style. The additional areas were actually very very well done. The scenes with the Queen showed just how hard she was. It was an welcome addition to the story while I am a purist in these things I think if it’s scenes that don’t take away from the actual original source material then I have no problems with it at all.
Final Word
This is not intended for a girlie night in, or people who enjoy movies light the Princess Bride or some such rubbish. You’re here to see Spartans kicking ass and talking names. You will probably not see as stylish a movie for a very long time. You see it’s a complete an utter epic. Epic in scope and epic in the way that it portrays everything. From the tumbling arrows that blot out the sun, to the amazing scenes with the ships crashing down and the Spartans overlooking the devestation, ripped directly out of the book and shown in motion.
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.
Continuing in my series of the best of 2006, just finished my post on the best graphic novels of 2006 over at Splash Panel.
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.
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’ve reviewed Frank Miller’s 300 over at Splash Panel. It’s most definitely one of the few graphic novels that every red blooded male should have on their shelves.
I’ve been trying to find ways to increase my productivity and effectively take my life back by the horns, which for the past couple of months has spiralled out of control.
Gmail is a staple in my life. I use it and don’t think about it. I’ve not gotten to the stage where I really use the folders as I can, however that might be about to change. So I’ve been looking into other online solutions that might be able to reach that status. Traditionally I’ve tried my very best to shy away from online services except those that are backed by one of the major players, mainly because they’re not going to be charging me cash to provide a task that while isn’t necessary to have online is nice to have. You could say it’s a bit of an antithesis to Web 2.0, and in a way it actually is. You’d also expect someone like me to jump for this sort of thing, however I don’t move into this arena without a little bit of caution, simply because I don’t like to be dependant on others that can pull the plug on me at any time or worse, decide to change the terms and conditions.
NewsGator
For all those in the dark earlier this year I help redesign the excellent open source RSS aggregator Feed On Feeds Redux. I’m still completely commited to the project, however I’ve been extremely busy of late to be able to do anything else apart from work (I will be posting the fruits of that labour in the not too distant future), so the CSS is still in a bit of a mess at the moment, which is my fault to solve. In the meantime back to news aggregators, FOFR is not really ready yet. It’s a bit on the slow side; the team is working on it but I need to take my life back now (once it’s ready I’ll probably move everything over to FOFR). I don’t know why not many people have been talking about this particular service because I seriously rate it a great deal. It’s completely free, clean interface, and actually believe it or not operate in the same way (more or less) as FOFR. You can import and export your feeds, you can move feeds into folders (and read all the feeds individually or within that particular folder), it’s fast, the subscribe to bookmarklet works a charm, the favicons pop up (and can be turned off if you don’t want them). Elements can be saved (or flagged depending on how you would like to term it). The only option that is missing as far as I’m concerned to be honest is the addition of tagging. I dunno if I could be bothered to tag things to be honest since I’ve only really gotten into tagging on my blog. Ben has recently mentioned Newshutch, which I’ll definitely check out, although I have the feeling that Newgator is still far better. If only they could sort something out for linux, that would be well appreciated.
Ma.gnolia
I’ve been using this for a little while. I love the colours, I love the design of the site, I love the bookmarklet. Again I’ve not been using it for all that long, however I am getting into the habit of using it whenever I come to a website that I really like however I don’t want to clutter up my firefox bookmarks, because it’s get far too much. I haven’t used de.lic.ious (or where ever the bloody i’s go to be honest), because it looked far too basic for me. Too much text not enough form and structure to it all. Then again I’ve not visited the site in a good long while. Yup still a bit sparse for my liking.
Google Calander
I’ve only started using this today and I think it’s great. It’s got one single KILLER feature as far as I’m concerned. That is the fact that Google will text message me with the latest element on my calander of things to do. I can choose how far before it text messages me, however I seriously think that this is one of those features that is a complete godsend to someone like me. I’ve got far too much on my brain to be honest to worry about a number of things and will forget appointments, or worse (as is becoming a bit of a problem) double book things, or in the case of a couple of weeks back, triple books something. Yeah it got a bit ridiculous. This is part of the reason I’m chopping at the bits to get a PDA or the new Sony M600i.
I think I’m becoming a life hacker, hopefully the next couple of weeks will see a bit of this hectic lifestyle that I’ve been living cool down a little bit and I can actually get back to finishing off some of these projects that have been on my plate for months, some even a year.
Finally my wishes for a mobile that actually provides me with what I want have been answer with the latest Sony Ericsson M600i.
I honestly don’t care that it doesn’t have a camera, as I find that feature a bit superfluous for my liking in a mobile phone anyway. It’s also fantastic news that mobile phone manufacturers are starting to utilise touch screens a little bit more, thus reducing the overall number of buttons on the phones, simplifying the design completely. Even better than a Crackberry.
In my mind this is exactly what I was trying to get last year. A phone that lets me:
- surf the internet
- check my emails
- all within a nice, small tidy little package, not the size of a PDA.
On a similar but unrelated note, by the very nature of contracts in the UK, I end up getting new handsets every year; while this is a great thing, it’s also a terrible waste, as I’m massing a collection of handsets. All of them work, but they’re different generations. Randing from a battered Ericsson (when Sony hadn’t merged) to an oldie Nokia, the LG chocolate phone and my Sony Ericsson K750i. Definitely make a nice collection of how quickly technology for mobile devices has ramped up in a small space of time, but what the hell am I supposed to do with all these handsets? It’s not like they’re vintage yet so I can sell them on ebay as a collector’s item, and it seems like an awful waste chucking them in the bin. I mean where do ipod mini’s go when they retire? I ask because I’m eying up either a Zune or one of the new ipods.
Grid Systems by Kimberly Elam (published by PA Press) is required reading for ANYONE even thinking about jumping into graphic design of any description. I blasted through this book in a week and it’s definitely one of those books you refer back to again and again as it’s a reference book as well as a book which generally teaches you the basics.
Just finished reading this book, which is definitely on my list of best books of 2006 already (I know we’re only just half way through the year) but this book does stand out very tall.
Blink is written by Malcolm Gladwell who has crafted the only book on psychology and how the human brain works that I’ve ever, not only been interested in reading, but actually got past the first paragraph.
Blink is all about rapid cognition and the way our brain works in such a way so as to actually aid us in making dicisions throughout our lives. It’s about those GUT feelings you get and all about the hows and the whys that you get them. It’s about how you can trust them and why you shouldn’t ALWAYS trust them. How your mind is sometimes misled and then the explanation about why it was mislead.
It’s truly a fascinating look at the world around you and more importantly the people and how you interact with these people. Once you’ve read this book you will start looking at people around you in a different way. You’ll begin to ‘read’ their reactions slightly differently. Body language and subtle twitches of their face will begin to shape a whole new meaning for you.
One of the great things about this book however is the style in which it is written. It’s got an almost informal feel to it all. Like Malcom was just sitting next to you and having a conversation with you about something he’s been researching for a while now. This would make an absolutely brilliant documentary and in many ways the book reads like one, in that it does reproduce a number of conversations with various characters and their experiences throughout the book. I guess that is ultimately what makes this book so readable is the fact that it doesn’t go on and on and bore you about the theory. He gives you a small description of the theory only AFTER he’s hooked you with the bait. He explains the situation and stops it off at a place which keeps you hungry; wanting; needing to know the final reasons. I’m a COMPLETE sucker for that method at first. If the final explanation leaves me wanting however my attention span turns away. Malcolm manages to really deliver with a good ending in just about every single one of his examples.
It very funny, but I’d never heard of Blink before I picked it up and bought it. I’d never heard of Malcolm Gladwell before Blink. I was casually walking around Fopp one Sunday (must have been a few months ago now), and the cover really grabbed me. Something about the name just clicked in my head. I read the cover very slightly, but it was only until I got into reading that I realised just how important it was to really start believing in your unconscious mind. The bloody thing works on OVERTIME and we haven’t even noticed. Or more accurately don’t tend to notice as often as we really should.
Go buy Blink, your life will be different once you’ve read it. Guaranteed.
Arguably the most arty thing I’ve done in London in a good long while, yesterday I went to watch Kabuki dancing in Sadler’s Well in Angel. This was the last show in the tour by Ebizo Ichikawa XI. On what was probably the single most humid day of the entire year in London I was in a closed theatre with another few thousand or so people, without air conditioning, sitting next to the biggest lady in the entire audience (on one side at least, Sophia is quiet petite so there wasn’t a problem on the other side).
The word Kabuki means a lot to me as it’s the title of one of my favourite graphic novels (I’ve written the first review for this series on Splash Panel). The graphic novel effectively showed me what could be done with the graphic novel format and I’m still aspiring to craft something that I can be proud of in that genre of storytelling. So when I saw the advert for this particular show I had to see it.
I will say that Kabuki isn’t for the action/adventure types. This is a form of theatre that hasn’t much changed in over 400 years, so what it is trying to convey and the methods by which it conveys them might not really mean much for the culture of today. This is most definitely an acquired taste. It’s not like a form of music. It’s an appreciation of Japanese culture and the time in which this type of theatre came to prominence.
I for one really enjoyed it. I was taken aback by how perfect the male actors were pulling of the female roles so gracefully; fair enough they’ve been training since they were 4 years old but still it was an amazing transformation to see Ichikawa go from a woman in the play ‘The Wisteria Maiden’ to the evil samurai in ‘Kasane’. The kimono’s and the sets and the music were superb as well (but then again I loved that before I even was saw the show). The musicians seriously impressed with me with their absolute stillness when they were not involved in that particular part of the musical section.
I also learnt of a number of things about the Kabuki theatre experience that I was completely unaware of. Like the fact that members of the audience actually shout the names of the house of the actors or their number in the lineage. The fact that the story is mainly told in their actions themselves, rather than in words. Sometimes the music and the lyrics are used to tell the story leaving the actor to concentrate on the motions to tell the story. Like I said it’s an aquired taste but one that I recommend for those who like Feudal Japanese Culture and viewing storytelling in different mediums.
Been meaning to write a proper review about this book for a good long while. Due to many commitments it’s not been possible to really get into the book until now. “Blog Design Solutions” is a book that was released earlier this year (from Friends Of Ed) and was written by 8 guys from around the world; you might recognise a couple of the wee rascles, Chris J Davis, Michael Heilemann, John Oxton, Andy Budd and several others (I appologise I’m not terribly familiar with their work/sites but I’m definitely going to check them out from now on). The common link between these gents is that they’re all bloggers. The difference is that they use different software to run their sites.
There are numerous sites around the place that highlight the differences between the major blogging software packages available to run your blog sites on. What this book does is give a taster, a morsel, a sampler of the major ones. The book is seperated into 7 Chapters. The first two chapters cover general information about blogging and the world of blogging. While the second chapter tackles how to set things up to test and run a blog on you machine locally. It’s a nice reference guide to have to be honest. I personnally use XAMMP, but it would be good at some point when I’ve got a bit more time to set things up in a less lazy manner :).
The next 5 chapters are where things get interesting. Each chapter addresses the ins and outs of a particular blogging engine. Movable Type, WordPress, Expression Engine, TextPattern are all covered. The final chapter is very interesting because it tackles the subject of building your own blogging engine from scratch and how you go about it.
Movable Type is covered (including the history that Mena probably tends to like to forget, ie when MT3.0 was released and there was this massive jump away from the MT solution to the WordPress solution). I was intrigued to read this chapter because honestly I think to myself what the hell is the point of using MT? It seems to me like it’s lagging behind most of the other internet blogging solutions? The answer to two fold I guess. Part of it is the fact that it’s pretty old (in internet terms) and has a loyal base of users; in addition to that it’s also the fact that there is a core base of developers that are accountable to you if in case you want something done, or sorted out. Some users want that level of support, especially if we’re talking about commercial corporate users of some description.
The WordPress chapter is special to me, because it’s the WordPress chapter (in case you didn’t realise the ‘Kode currently runs on WordPress) but more importantly it was written by my two buddies Michael and Chris, so obviously I’ll be paying more attention to this chapter than the rest of the book (hey at least I’m honest about these things). So how did the boys do? Not too bad. What’s great about this particular chapter is that their characters come throughout the entire chapter. Blogging is about interating and reading other people’s thoughts. It’s about communication and expression. They’re the only guys that spend a bit of time telling you about themselves and what their knowledge levels are. It’s a great way to ease the user into a comfort zone. Michael (at the time) was still struggling with php (no problems now I’m sure as he’s decided to take on JS as well), to prove that you didn’t need to know PHP coding in order to design and play around with WP, all you need is the drive, patience and some time.
I’ve got to admit though that the most interesting chapter for me was the final chapter by Richard Rutter. Which walks you through the process of making your own blogging engine. Why is that interesting to me when someone else has already done most (if not all the hard work for me). To be honest it would just be fun to have everything running on something I designed and coded. The thing of course is that I’m not a coder and therefore won’t realistically be able to do something like that. Also the first thing that comes to my mind is how I don’t think I’d be able to deal with Spammers. I can’t do without Akismet to be honest and I don’t understand how other people can manage without this plugin.
The book targets 2 groups of people, those that want to start off blogging and what they’ll need to know; the second group of people are those that have passed that stage and would like to learn how to customising their blogs, and what to look out for. I don’t think I’m really the core target audience, but even I found several nuggets that were really worthwhile. It’s definitely a book I’d recommend giving to the newbie who’s interested but is also a bit overwhelmed by it all, because this book holds his hand in style. For the hardened blogger the book is interesting as an overview of other technologies so as to keep abreast of what’s going on, with a couple of areas that are definitely of interest, but then again that’s not who the book is targeted at, so it’s nice that the editor made sure there was something for that group of people as well.
Fables is one of the best series you can read by VERTIGO Comics. It’s written by Bill Willingham and illustrated (most of the time) by Mark Buckingham (who is without a doubt the nicest guy working in comics). I’ve effectively got to write my own little review; in the meantime there’s this excellent review to get into by the Fourth Rail boys and this Podcast by the Comic Geeks.