In a surprise move, Microsoft has given one of it’s products a clever name: Photosynth. It’s a new sort of thing. In
their words:
Photosynth takes a large collection of photos of a place or object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed 3-Dimensional space.
With Photosynth you can:
• Walk or fly through a scene to see photos from any angle.
• Seamlessly zoom in or out of a photograph whether it’s megapixels or gigapixels in size.
• See where pictures were taken in relation to one another.
• Find similar photos to the one you’re currently viewing.
• Explore a custom tour.
• Send a collection to a friend.
Continue reading ‘Photosynth’
It continues to suprise me how many people use hotmail, yahoo, or their ISP’s email accounts. I suppose most don’t realize that there are other options, or see a reason to bother. However there are advantages in Permanence, Obviousness, & Spam-Avoidance in getting your own domain with it’s own email accounts.
To do this does require a minimal familiarity with the web & web technologies. If you don’t already have one, first you much purchasing a domain name (a .com, .org, .us, or whatever.) Do a google search for “buy domain name”. Look for a registrar that also provides email hosting (it might be free). The whole thing might cost $8-$15 a year. You now own that email address, (as much as anything on the ‘net can be possessed) at any point you can switching to a different domain registrar, or email hosting provider, and you keep the same email address. A common feature– automatic forwarding, can direct all email from one account to another. It can help you get over the transition between accounts.
Permanence:
The beauty of owning an email address, is it may be the only piece of contact information that can stay constant. Your address and phone number will probably change many times. If you are female (or in a witness protection program), your name may even change, but a well thought-out email address may last a lifetime. I can give people my email address something@jwbjerk.com and feel confident it will still work in 5 or 25 years. Hotmail, Yahoo, and even GMail may not always be around or they may not be competitive. Using and ISP’s email address is even more constricting, because it can lock you in to a service that may no longer be affordable or competitive. Continue reading ‘Email is forever’
This little video has been out for a while, but it certainly worth seeing especially if you care about design. While nothing i’ve worked on has gone nearly so wrong, i can empathize with the pain of a good design being killed (or at least maimed) by the forced addition of little extras.
Supposedly created by some of Microsoft’s designers, this video parodies the design process that the iPod packaging might go through if Microsoft was suddenly entrusted with a redesign. Microsoft redesigns iPod packaging presented by Google Video.
Continue reading ‘Design gone Wrong’
Fluffy is this monstrous plant, i rescued from the dumpster. Over 3 feet tall standing in the pot. It’s thorn-edges leaves make really interesting patterns where they press into each other. New leaves pre-printed with these patterns unfurl from the central spike.
I sketched out Fluffy in Photoshop with my wacom thusly in a little over an hour. Since i just drew it, i don’t know if it’s any good, but since i made it public, i’m sure i’ll perceive it intensely next time i look at it.
Many of the better remembered radio shows, such as The Shadow or Buck Rogers are a bit too pulpy and predictable for my taste. I prefer programs with a strong story, some suprizes, and a more literary style of writing. Excluding programs that were short-lived or hard to find, here are some of my favorites. Continue reading ‘Some Recommended OTR Programs’
One of the advantages of being a Graphic Designer, is that the fruit of your labor is tanglible & easily observable. A Designer’s portfolio is generally considered more interesting than samples of an accountant’s work.
However, the accessibility of our craft is a two edged sword. Because anybody can look at, for instance, a book cover, & instantly form an opinion, clients often believe that their gut reaction is as valuable (or more so) that the designer’s.
To address this belief, we need to consider something so natural & automatic, that most people don’t ever give it a thought: seeing. Continue reading ‘Seeing they do not Percieve’
A number of the links were moved from the left sidebar to their own Link Page. While this gives the links less exposure, it allows me to write a bit about each one.
I’ve also added a random-quote-displayer to the sidebar, which currently is a testament to my inabillity to resist quotes by G.K. Chesterton. The quotes do not always represent something i actually believe, but at least have an epigramatic quality that conveys a big idea with few words. And some i found irresistably funny. Most quotes were gathered from WikiQuotes, which feels more neglected that it’s big brother Wikipedia but did save me a ton of time page-turning and typing. And, no i haven’t actually read all the books i quote.
According to most news reports there are only 2 things you can listen to on an iPod:
- music bought on the iTunes Music Store
- music obtained illegally
Personally, i use neither. Continue reading ‘OTR: or what else to do with an iPod’
This site is very much under construction. Currently i’m tweaking lots of stuff is either obviously broken, or just not tweaked or written the way i’d like it. The gallery is especially unfinished. There is more CSS tweaking i’d like to do to make it more readable. Feel free to look around, anyway if you wish.
click on the picture to view a larger image.
basicly i’m testing out how pictures work with this blog.
From time to time i intend to review various books, movies, or CDs i’ve enjoyed. For your convenience (& in the vauge hope that it will pay the cost of hosting this site) clicking on the image of the product will take you to Amazon.com. Should anyone choose to purchase it, i’ll recieve a small percentage of the sale.
So with the full disclosure out of the way…
I’m just going to try this, i actually haven’t had a chance to listen to this CD more than once, but i was suprized how many people at work had never heard of Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Sure they aren’t the most popular group, but the music is so different from western genres that hearing one of their songs once should leave an impression. It’s apparently a unique take on traditional Zulu acapella singing. The way they fluidly harmonize with each other is amazing.
In a surprise move, Microsoft has given one of it’s products a clever name: Photosynth. It’s a new sort of thing. In their words:
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