midnightmuse

The Nefarious Virus that is Apple

2008-07-30T21:46:00.002-04:00

I haven't posted on this blog in months. I've been too busy. I've not had much to say. I didn't have the time. Take your pick. You'd be right on any of the above. But Oh, do I have something to say now! There is an infuriating little icon in my Windows Control Panel entitled "MobileMe Preferences". Funny thing. I didn't sign up for it. Never requested the software to be installed. So you can only imagine my consternation.

For the one or two people that may happen on this posting and wonder about my anger, let me enumerate.
1. This is an entirely new software which was sneaked onto my computer without my permission from a so-called reputable company as part of a software update.
2. Apple has done this before with their release of Safari - "The so called best browser on earth". Then again, what thing has been released by apple isn't "The best blah blah on earth?". That previous release had the entire tech blogosphere crying foul. That method undermines the entire software update system, because if I don't trust a company to only install updates of software I put in there before, I may shut down the update system, which is bad because I may disregard actual critical software updates that I need. - There was incessant outcry from the previous issue with Safari. You would think they would learn.
3. If Microsoft tried this tactic, they would incite so much anger and flame from people. Apple does this and somehow, it's less of a problem? I think not.

The ironic part of this whole fiasco is that MobileMe has turned out to be one of Apple's rather crappy releases of the past few years. Way to go Apple.

With Apple's market share slowly growing, if this is what we should be expecting from Apple, there are lots of reasons to be worried.

The Geek Sandwich

2008-05-02T23:15:00.002-04:00

So, I was sitting in the subway on the ride home yesterday when I looked glanced to my right to spy on the book the lady beside me was reading and I noticed it was a book on Visual Basic. I smiled and turned away thinking to myself how often these days I've seen people on the train or bus reading a computing book - I saw a guy reading a book on Windows XP a couple of days before. I'm a programmer, I notice these things. Up until I looked to my left, it was a forgettable moment...

And then I looked to my left and saw the gentleman who just entered the train and sat beside me pull out a book on Battlestar Galactica. It was all I could do not to burst out laughing. I don't know if any one else gets it, but it was a funny moment.

In other news this week, Microsoft and Yahoo still don't know whether to make wedding plans and have a baby named Microhoo or throw "Your Mama" style insults back and forth. Good times.

Fantasy Interactive Fi, one of the top interactive website design firms has grown up today with the relaunch of their website and an what amounts to a rebranding of the company and it's goals. They are no longer all about Flash. They like Ajax and html too.

On Microsoft taking over the web

2008-03-18T11:37:00.004-04:00

Quite a bit has happend on the web since my last post. Among them in a nutshell,IE8 beta 1, Firefo3 beta 4, SXSW, MIX, AOL buys Bebo, The MPAA, RIAA and all other associated AAs are still crazy and self destructive, Apple finally release an SDK to the delight of many apple yuppies everywhere, I bit the twitter bug, Microsoft can't seem to give away enough software and oh yeah, let's not forget Microsoft wants Yahoo really bad.

But all that being said, I'm going to focus on only a couple of items that interest me.

To follow up on my last post, IE8 finally gets released as a beta a couple of weeks ago at MIX, microsoft's conference for all things web - designers and developers alike. In response to the outcry from the web development world, they decided to let IE8 default to rendering in standards compliant mode and instead forcing people who have coded their websites around IE8's eccentricities to do the work of updating their websites if they don't want them to break. For the most part, I'm happy about the move. Ask me in a year when the software goes RTM and I have to spend hours updating the templates on my older sites.

So far in testing, the browser seems to be a lot better with rendering to standards, although it's still got some work to do. I hesitate to criticize beta software as it is just that, a beta, so I'll leave it at that. Not much has changed as far as the interface is concerned. I'll post a more comprehensive overview when it's closer to release.

Staying on Microsoft, I'll say this much, when they decide to do things well, they do things well. Pundits and critics alike tend to like the MIX conference. I particularly like the fact that the presentations in audio and video formats are all available on the web right now for anyone to go and watch and or listen to. It's not quite the same as being there for the party itself, but you can still benefit from the content. Of particular note is the increased emphasis on designing and creating user experiences and not just producing software. I'll post more on that later.

Also, regarding Microsoft, the company has expressed a sincere determined interest in buying Yahoo. And they are not taking no for an answer. All signs point to this deal going down one way or the other as Yahoo hasn't exactly being doing very well recently. The stock is down and can't get up. With Microsoft offering to scoop up the company in an all cash 44 billion transaction, the stock holders are chomping at the bit to get this to happen.

I'm not sure I'm going to like this merger. I like Yahoo as a company. It's style, it's outlook and the way it relates to it's customers. Microsoft is in many ways an overbearing behemoth that can't let go of what it used to be - an old style software company. Granted, Microsoft is working very hard to change that and to their credit, they are doing a lot better. 'Open source' or more accurately "Less restrictive source", which used to be the enemy is now very much a present part of Microsoft's recent offerings.

Still, there is the very large possiblity of Yahoo suffocating under this Merger, especially with all the current management and talent vowing to flee if the merger happens. Yahoo, for the most part is all about open. In terms of services and software. As a developer, I love that. In simple terms, Microsoft despite its may efforts is still not. Might Yahoo be the arbiter of change at Microsoft? It's possible, but me thinks, unlikely.

J.T

Two parts Intrigue, one part hi-larious

2008-02-04T22:30:00.001-05:00

In the course of my day, these things intrigued me. I thought I'd share and post here for the record.

Intriguing
Improv-everywhere
http://www.improveverywhere.com/2008/01/31/frozen-grand-central/

In Car Karaoke
http://www.youtube.com/v/vjmZjr8a2K8

Recycled Heat - Sort Of
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/08/crematorium_plan/

'nough said

Standards or Bust!

2008-02-02T22:13:00.000-05:00

Short of going into a room filled with apple fan boys/girls and dropping a flamer like "Apple products are wildly overrated" (which they are), very few other things have generated a controversy in the developer community so intense as that triggered by Microsoft's announcement of the IE8 Standards compliant mode switch. Anybody who questions how passionately web developers feel about standards mode and it's side effects only need to see the responses to Jeffery Zeldman's post on the issue (234 at the time of this post. Yes, that's right; Two hundred and thirty four).

If you haven't read or heard about the story, here is the basic breakdown of it. In Microsoft's efforts to work towards standards compliance in their new browser, they announced last week that developers who wish to enable standards compliant mode in IE will have to add the following meta tag to their code at the top of the page.

meta equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=8"

Essentially, that tag tells IE8 to render the rest of the page as close to standards mode as it currently supports.

If they feel that their page will stay standards compliant regardless of future versions of the browser they can instead use this

meta equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge"

In my opinion, clunky hack that it is, I think it is a move in the right direction. Having experienced the repeated frustration of fixing my current websites to display correctly in IE6, (most times leading to ungentlemanly utterances) it gives me some kind of relief to know that the next version will make my life a lot easier. With a simple tweak. And there, my good readers is where the problem lies. The tweak.

The standards compliant idealists prefer that IE8 render by default in standards compliant mode and instead should revert back to 'quirks' mode when the tag is added to a page. In essence, opt in to use the previous display engines which worked horribly, but will keep your currently badly coded page displaying correctly. In their opinion, if the day after Microsoft releases IE8, half the world's websites suddenly went all wonky, and the 'developers' who created these pages come to realize that it is because of bad coding techniques, they will be motivated to learn how to code correctly and fix their pages. They wouldn't be called idealists if they didn't think as such. Then of course, there is the minor fact that they feel they would be once again bowing to Microsoft in using this tag. Rewarding bad behavior if you will.

The realists or pragmatists, of which I am one realize that a good majority of the world's web pages out there are ~~designed~~ created by people who 'save as' web page from inside Microsoft Word and other related software; Who still think that designing layouts using tables is the best thing since sliced bread. I know, because I'm revising a series of about 10 different websites created like that at the moment. And then of course, there is the abundance of corporate websites out there still being fed to the public from old, expensive content management systems. Standards compliant evangelizing isn't something new. And while there is a learning curve, it doesn't take a massive amount of effort to learn CSS. Far from it. Tutorials for CSS abound all over the web. I know. I learned CSS sometime in 1998, 10 years ago. And yet, with ALL these different resources abundantly available on the web for ALL this time, we still have to deal with terribly coded websites. And here's the bitter truth. Outside the tight knit developer community, most people don't know or care about standards. They just want to create a web page and be done with it.

Here is the bottom line. Many people, designers and developers in particular want Microsoft to get their act together and finally deliver a standards compliant browser. IE is currently the most prevalent browser on the web today (around 56% as of Dec 2007 according to these stats) which means that as much as we may want it, Microsoft cannot be irresponsible about how they deploy software. Those saying "Well, they were irresponsible in designing it this way in the first place" are right, but doing two wrong things won't make things right. It's a cliche, but it's no less true.

To be quite honest, I also consider that at some point Microsoft has to make a clean break a la OS9/OSX Apple style and leave those who want to program things the old way behind. But that being said this is step in the right direction. A clunky one, granted, but a good one.

Of Meats and Browsers

2007-11-22T14:12:00.001-05:00

As a result of quite a few incidents over the course of the past couple of months, this here citizen reporter is of the wild but not necessarily crazy belief that the universe is having fun at his expense. I mean, one thing happening. Well, that's life. Two things, it's a coincidence. Five things and well,.... I'm not crazy you know. You walk a in day in my shoes before you judge me

The most recent event which admittedly, could have happened to anyone begs the question - "Why is it that it's the day when you are so hungry you could eat a horse, you walk into a Chipotle Mexican Grill, and the person behind the counter decides that since he spent the last three hours killing, skinning and consequently grilling the pork/chicken he's about to serve you, he's only going to give you enough to flavor your food, the actual tasting and eating being so overrated?" . It's enough to drive one to cussing I tell you.

In a less related event, Firefox 3.0 beta 1 launched recently, and being the tech savvy person that I am, I decided to try it out. Despite the so far numerous good reviews the browser has been getting out there, I learned first hand why betas are called as such and released for testing only. The list of improvements is quite long and welcome, and as this is just a beta release, this isn't a criticism of the browser. It deserves a mention. I'm just going to have to find a virtual machine to test it on.

Also, I'm publishing this here post using the recently released Flock Browser 1.0 and travesty of all travesties, did I just see the "font" tag in my source code?

toodles..

Blogged with Flock

Adobe Customer Support Stinks

2007-09-07T11:37:00.000-04:00

Arrghhhh!! There are expressions in my head that are too vile to spill right now regarding how I feel about Adobe's Customer support department. I have had four interactions with Adobe customer support since Adobe took over Macromedia and all four have been nightmares, some of which I've chronicled on this blog. At the time, I put off the problems I was having to making my purchase during Adobe's swallowing of Macromedia, transition woes and all that jazz.

My most recent interaction started was this morning. Why did I need to contact adobe you ask. Sometime, earlier this year, when CS3 came out, I obtained a copy, a valid copy. Sometime this last week, I uninstalled my old fireworks 8 from my laptop and decided to install the copy of CS3 I had (Which, btw, the install time on a P4 2.6 Ghz machine is mind boggling, but that's a whole other issue) . As I wasn't at home at the time, I didn't have my serial number with me. I tried to run it in trial mode with the intention of activating it when I got home. It didn't work. I got some error message about being unable to activate the trial period, and I must enter my serial number or nothing. Either that or try re-installing it. I did, twice. Nothing. Well, there ends my work for the day. But hey, can't be helped right?

I get home and enter the serial number in my fireworks installation. It decides to go online and activate the software. After about a 5 dog years, it comes back and tells me everything is fine. And then I get this little window that says "License expired". WHAT!!! I just installed spent the last hour installing this stupid software and now I can't even use it? I pick up the phone to call Adobe Customer Service, dreading my next experience, because the last two times were so pleasant. I get put on hold, and then finally connected.

Adobe CS Person: Hello, can I have your customer number please?
Me: Uh, I don't know where it is at the moment, do you absolutely need it?
Adobe CS Person: Okay, sir, may I have your phone number?
Me: I give it to him
Adobe CS Person: Goes away to put a coin in the meter and comes back a minute later. So, how may I help you sir?
Me: I'm having some licensing issues with Fireworks, I had Fireworks 8 installed on before.....
Adobe: music, music, music.....
Me: What now? Did I bore him to death already? I hear a music and a couple of clicks

Interlude: Here's my question. Any self respecting customer service agent, knowing that you were speaking with a customer before, and you got cut off, doesn't it seem logical to call that customer back since you have his/her phone number?

Adobe: click, click, silence, click, after a minute, new person.
(for the purposes of this section of the conversation, we'll call this person moron #1 (heretofor Adobe CS Moron)

Adobe CS Moron: Hello, welcome to Adobe Sales, how may I help you?
Me: Well, I was talking to (Person) at Customer support before, and suddenly, I got cut off and now I'm talking to you.
Adobe CS Moron: Well, sir, maybe I can help you, what seems to be the problem.
Me: I'm having licensing issues with Fireworks, I had Fireworks 8 installed, but now after installing a clean valid copy of Fireworks CS3, I keep getting the error message "License has expired" .
Adobe CS Moron: (Sounds lost) Uh, well, what version of Adobe Studio is this CS2, CS3?
Me: Fireworks. FIREWORKS CS3, not studio. Running on Windows XP (trying to be helpful)
Adobe CS Moron: Did you try uninstalling and re-installing
Me: (thinking I'd save us both some time) Let me give you some background, I tried to run this software as a trial version before because I didn't have my key blah blah.............. so now, I've put in my key, and here's the error it gives me. And yes, I have gone through three install cycles, the third as I'm writing this blog post (each one takes about 2ominutes, no joke)

Adobe CS Moron: Did you obtain the software from Adobe Online, get a disc, etc?
Me: I got it from Adobe, legally. (For the reader: I didn't have to pay for it. I did get it from Adobe the company directly, but because of legalities, I can't get into details. I did explain the details to him though)
Adobe CS Moron: Oh, well, because you didn't pay for it, we are not obligated to support any software that we give away.
Me: Why? Why should that matter? I got the software legally.
Adobe CS Moron: because you didn't pay for it, we are not obligated to support any software that we give away. If you'd like to put in an order for a fireworks CS3 Product, I'd be happy to process it for you.
Me: Are you kidding? So, you're telling me more or less "too bad buddy, sorry, can't help you, you're on your own"?
Adobe CS Moron: Uh, well, no. I wouldn't put it that way. But we don't support software that we give away.
Me: Let's say hypothetically, that I bought the software, which btw, I'm not very inclined to do right now, is this supposed to happen?
(And here's the best part)
Adobe CS Moron: Um, well, no it isn't, but since you didn't buy the software and there's no way to know if it's a valid copy or not, I can't help you. If you'd like to buy a customer support package, or order a new copy of Fireworks, or Adobe Studio, then I can help you.
Me: Huh? (Is he implying that I stole it)
(Fuming at this point, reach out for my trusty zen media player with the available microphone so I can record).
Me: You know, every time I've called Adobe Customer support since Adobe merged with Macromedia, it's always been a pain. What the heck is going on?
Adobe CS Moron: Well, sir, like I said, since I can't determine whether or not you have a legal copy of the software...
Me: Implying what? That I stole it?
Adobe CS Moron: (Realizing what he's saying, back pedals... ) Well, sir, that was absolutely not what I was implying. (Liar)
Me: What the heck is going on over there? Plus, you're not encouraging me to be honest right now. I could very well have said I got this via Adobe download, and you would be none the wiser.
Adobe CS Moron: Well, sir, sometime during the conversation, we'd have asked for your serial number;
Me: Which I have, a valid serial number.
Adobe CS Moron: Well, that serial number would have told us what we needed to know. But for right now, unless....blah blah
Me: So, the long and short of this conversation right now is go figure something else out, Adobe is not going to help you today.
Adobe CS Moron: Yes, sir, that's more or less the case.
Me: Okay, then, well, thank you very very much, you've been absolutely no help.
Adobe CS Moron: Well sir.. you're very..(click. I hang up)

My first mistake was continuing a conversation with a nitwit in sales instead of just reconnecting to speak to customer support.

I love Adobe products, in general, but honestly, if the customer support remains subpar, it completely ruins the experience. I have the last bit of my recording with said nitwit on my zen. I'll have to figure out what to do with it.

Mono's Moonlight

2007-06-28T10:38:00.000-04:00

I just wanted to take a second to congratulate the team of the Mono Project, the open-source counterpart to .NET on Linux for nothing short of an astounding feat - porting Microsoft's Silverlight to Linux in 21 days. Condiering that the team had no knowledge of Silverlight before the MIX conference earlier this year, it is quite impressive. YAY!! for open source.

Based on my previous posting on Silverlight, and what I've seen so far, things can only get better. Silverlight, while still in it's infancy is a project with tremendous potential (assuming Microsoft doesn't mess it up) and with maturity will undoubtedly become quite ubiquitous. The icing on the cake, the fact that it is essentially a part of the .NET framework only makes things better for integration into other aspects of development as the Mono team is already doing.

I can't help but say though that my disappointment continues with some members of the Adobe team who, at this point seem to just wait on the sidelines so they can stomp on any news of Silverlight coming their way, sometimes, legitimate, sometimes just plain petty. Everyone is of course entitled to his/her opinion. There wouldn't be debate without it.

Sometimes though, you should just say congratulations on what is nothing short of an incredible feat, and leave it at that.

In search of englightenment

2007-06-28T09:50:00.000-04:00

In my continuous bid for self betterment alluded to in a previous post, I have been reading up on Grid Design in the context of the web as well as the use of Type.

Aside from keeping me occupied and distracted from the much over-hyped launch of the iPhone, it has added some well needed tools to my skill set and given me ideas to experiment with going forward.

I had briefly read up on grid design before thanks to the impressively good book - "Transcending CSS : The Fine Art of Web Design", written by Andy Clark, but as I didn't have much time to really look at it in great detail, finding other resources on the web that dealt with it such as designbygrid made me exceedingly happy.

In addition, I have spent some time reading up on hanging indents and punctuation, ligatures, leading, em spaces and kerning, thanks to Mark Boulton, who is thankfully trying to revive the lost art of Type design in this digital age. While his insights and articles were thoroughly enjoyable, he does seem to align himself to the classical way of thinking, which isn't all bad. And of course there's Richard Rutter who brought us the invaluable "Elements of Typographic Style - As Applied to the Web".

All in all, both good reads.

Steve's a Mac, and Bill's a P.C

2007-06-01T21:40:00.001-04:00

In what was without doubt an historic event, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, the two icons of the computer industry, rumored rivals and friendly competitors met for a joint interview at the D5 Conference in California.

The interview covered several topics from their historic beginnings working together in the late 70s to where they both see technology going in the next few years.

As has been commented on by other bloggers who viewed the interview, there was an obvious sign of respect on both sides, and an acknowledgement of how much both companies complemented each other.

View Highlights

User Experience - Why Customers come back

2007-05-08T04:58:00.000-04:00

The mark of a professional, I believe, in any field of expertise is the drive to improve their value, their worth as a whole to that field; The desire for self improvement. In some ways, it is what sets us as humans apart from the lower species. Over the course of the last few years, what has inevitably come to the fore for most designers and developers alike is the importance of customer experience, and in many cases, the emotional connection the customer forms with your product and or brand.

This connection is what fuels popular brands like Starbucks, Apple, JetBlue and others. They seem to have discovered this much earlier on than most companies and the benefits are tremendous.

As a designer and a developer, it is very easy in this field to lose sight of the most important part of the entire process. The Customer. Not the product, not the tools, but the customer. The customer's need, his connection with you and how much he feels you understand that are key in creating brand loyalty. Reviewing the recorded sessions from MIX07 that are on the web reveal a few sessions dedicated to rethinking the entire design experience, changing how we the producers of what customers use approach the process. My favorite of all those by far, and quite frankly, the best presentation I've seen in a while was the one given by Lewis Carbonne on "The Emotion of Customer Experience" available recorded. One of my favorite quotes from his presentation is this

Good, bad, or indifferent, every customer has an experience with your company and the products or services you provide. But few businesses really manage that customer experience... so they lose the chance to transform customers into lifetime customers.

I would classify that as well as several others as a must see for any designer, developer or producer as a way to provide context and direction for where and how they need to evolve in the current competitive market.

My Flash is bigger than your Silverlight

2007-05-03T03:05:00.000-04:00

In what can only be referred to as a playground pissing contest, I've been coming across quite a few posts by Adobe developers reacting to the news of Microsoft's release of Silverlight (formerly WPF/e) and the inevitable conclusion by this observer is that Adobe and it's developers are worried and are acting out, like children in a playground who just noticed a new kid with a better ball than them. With good reason I might add.

To start with, in my brief testing and review of Silverlight and it's capabilities, it is nothing short of stunning. And the potential for this technology is tremendous, and cross browser to boot (except for linux that is). Silverlight is without question a competitor to Adobe's Flash offering, which has more or less owned the market for vector animations and rich dynamic applications for quite a while. It's features are quite similar, both have a light install footprint, but more than that, even in it's beta release form, the video performance of Silverlight exceeds that of Flash. And to sweeten the pot, the upcoming version 1.1 opens up development to all .NET developers as it includes a reasonably full subset of the framework.

With all this going on, it is understandable that adobe and it's developers would be a mite perturbed. But instead of taking a step back and examining where they need to innovate and go from here to bolster competition, many of them are taking the juvenile step of attacking the technology and Microsoft, seemingly on every little weakness or deficiency of the technology. Nitpicking at this and that like kids at a playground. And interestingly, so far, this has been mostly one sided. Alessandro Crugnola, a well known flash developer referred to it as "Fear of Silverlight".

I am a big admirer of Adobe, quite frankly, as far as software goes, if there were software groupies, I'd be one. But I have to say, in this most recent outburst of emotion towards Silverlight, they leave a lot to be desired.

Design Treasure 35/5

2007-04-24T12:34:00.000-04:00

The good people at Smashing Magazine have released a survey of 35 designers, each answering 5 questions about their design process, workflow and approach and other tips. What it amounts to is a vital resource of ideas and suggestions and consequently a link dump of portfolios from other designers.

For anyone who is even remotely interested in design all the way to established designers, this is an excellent place to gain some perspective on what drives others in the field and maybe pick up a few nuggets of information to add to your design toolbag.

Highlights included

1. Communication, Usability, Typography, Navigation and Details being the top 5 things designers focused on when designing. Others were listed.
2. Normalizing the browser (reseting margins and paddings to 0px or 1px) before applying new styles as one of the top CSS techniques used by designers.
3. Helvetica, Lucida Grande, Arial, Garamond - classic fonts still widely loved.
4. Steve Krug's "Don't Make Me Think" came out on top by far as the book most designers referenced. (Just added to my Amazon wishlist)
Robert Bringhurst's "Elements of Typographic Style" also caught my eye in the list of books mentioned.
5. DigitalWeb Magazine as well as A list Apart came out as designer favorites in the online magazine category for the surveyed group. A good number have also opted out of reading online magazines and focusing on relevant articles as they come out.

View the full survey here..

Humorously Yours

2007-04-19T12:01:00.000-04:00

Inevitably in my travels around the interweb, I find new things that tickle me. Based on a link from a podcast I follow quite faithfully, I discovered this online column/video podcast on technology from David Pogue at the New York Times.

I particularly like the perspective he brings with his column, obviously tailoring it for the everyday user, who frankly is the average N.Y. Times reader. It's full of good insights and fun to watch. As a techie, it's sometimes hard to remember that not everyone understands why having an 802.11n router is cool or VOIP for that matter.

Can Wii have this dance?

2007-03-16T15:08:00.000-04:00

In the trend of continued popularity and adaptability of the Nintendo Wii, I happened upon the DJWiiJ. The concept on the site shows how Wii fans and users have modified the Wiimote to be used as a control device for D.Js. Pretty nifty stuff. Like I've always said, it's never really about the glitz and glamour. If you make a good lovable product, the fans will do the rest.

It is wiithout doubt, time I got me a wii.

via Jetset

Vista, Can you hear me now? What about now?

2007-02-15T15:42:00.000-05:00

I just ran into this hilarious video on YouTube of a guy using the speech recognition software on Vista to write a simple perl script . Thought I'd blog it for posterity, and for laughs.

warning: hilarious out loud laughter is sure to ensue.

via stacyyoung.org

Steve Jobs casts his vote in the DRM debate

2007-02-07T00:45:00.000-05:00

In what's bound to be without a doubt, the opinion that's heard around the blogoshpere and the technosphere, Apple's website today posted what appears to be an OpEd piece from Steve Jobs on the ever present debate over DRM (Digital Rights Management).

In said posting, Steve Jobs, who's company, like it or not controls the bulk of online music downloads via the iTunes music store stated that from his point of view, there are only three ways to currently solve the DRM issue. One, is to leave things as is, which quite frankly does nothing to resolve the issue, two - open up the DRM software that Apple uses, (thereby possibly encouraging other companies to do the same ) to promote interoperability or - and here comes the best part - sell their music DRM free. This is something everybody and their mama has been lobbying for, for the past couple of years. Why? In his words, which by the way, echo what everyone else has been saying..

Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy.

As he said, over 90% of the world's music is at the moment sold DRM free. Also evidence has shown that so far, DRM has likely hurt digital music sales much more than it's helped.

All of this comes on the heels of the trouble Apple is dealing with in Europe regarding opening up it's FairPlay DRM system to other companies (gotta love those pesky Europeans) . It's only likely to get worse as more and more countries join the band wagon. Apple is essentially now throwing the ball in the court of the big music companies, saying in part..

Convincing them to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace. Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly.

Hopefully this is a beginning of a turn in the right direction.

Design confessional

2007-01-12T12:19:00.000-05:00

I got an e-mail update this morning that reminds me of how much cooler a design shop can be if they don't take themselves too seriously. It adds a lot to the work environment. One of my very favorite design firms - group94 updated their site, - sort of. I'll let their project manager explain here

They did what inevitably happens to a lot of design shops. If you do manage to stay afloat and build a client base, you tend to spend most of your time working on client projects than doing your own website which inevitably may leave your website without an update for years. I for one am a poster child for this.

And considering that when I built my website,I was quite new at this whole web design thing and didn't put a content management system in, the idea of having to manually update the website didn't help. An updated version is coming. Soon.

iPhone, USue

2007-01-10T23:44:00.000-05:00

It's a beautiful new year, and as is prone to happen, what's old is new again. Technology as usual keeps moving at a dizzying speed and the law firms of Cease, Desist and Howe are rubbing their palms together waiting for who it is they can dig their claws into once again. Gotta love technology. I can only imagine how many General Counsels are thanking their gods for copyright infringement lawsuits. If nothing else, it's keeping them busy, without doubt funding house expansions and jacuzzi bathrooms and for us the observers, it makes for fun reading.

In a "I so didn't see that coming, wink wink" move, Cisco Systems today is suing Apple Computer Inc. over the use of the name iPhone. Yesterday, at MacWorld, the quintessential face and CEO of Apple launched the iPhone, the company's new entry into the phone/handheld/mp3 player space. What makes this interesting is that Linksys, a division of Cisco Systems, the copyright holder to the name "iPhone" a few weeks ago released their own product of the same name. While both products are reasonably different, there is obviously a conflict here. Considering that Apple knew about it and are actually in negotiations (albeit stalled it appears) to use the name, going ahead to use the name anyway is a bold move if I ever saw one. Cisco it appears is not amused.

Me thinks this is going to be a fun year.

Zune come, Zune to go

2006-11-28T03:05:00.000-05:00

So, in all the hullabaloo surrounding the premiere of the Microsoft Zune media player, just in case there haven't been enough comments about it already, I figured I'd throw in my two cents.
I got a chance to play with the good 'ol Zune last week when I went into J&R in downtown Manhattan. Like most people, I was impressed with the picture quality and ease of use of the player. So far, it has the largest screen and best resolution of all the players I've seen and physically handled, which to be quite truthful hasn't been that many.

That being said, the release of the Zune is classic Microsoft at its usual game of - It ain't ready yet, but lets get it out the door.

Potentially the one player that could have shaken the quintessential iPod from it's perch as top dog, Microsoft took a good thing and shot themselves in the foot. The player is quite clunky in size, I'm talking first generation iPod size here, maybe a lil bigger.

All that probably wouldn't be a problem if they did everything else right. The iPod is continuously successful largely in part to the ecosystem of iPod - > itunes music store and the classic plug it in and it just works philosophy. There have been numerous reports of how bad the zune software is, many from people who couldn't even get the software installed at all. Then of course the side effects of removing the software from your p.c and getting unexpected results.

What's even more terrible about this is that they've probably turned so many people gun-shy with this debacle that even if Microsoft learns from their mistake and releases a revision to the Zune next year with everything working, it wouldn't make a difference to those people.

Let's not even start on the branding, cheerfully shown on Zune.net - "Welcome to the Social". Really? that's the best they could come up with? Apple has nothing to worry about, at least not from the Zune.

There's nothing as sad as excellent potential in the wrong hands.

Behold the Vista

2006-11-09T12:28:00.000-05:00

That's right folks, Windows Vista has gone Gold, RTM. In normal people speak, that means the code has been mixed, baked, basted, poked, prodded, iced and yes, ladies and gentlemen after all that is ready to serve - in seven flavors no less.

Look for it on your shelves on January 30, 2007

technorati tags:microsoft, windows, vista, gold, release

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Curses and Blessings

2006-11-02T17:22:00.000-05:00

So, I've been quite busy over the past few months working on an in-house project which I will talk about soon. But part of the quagmire of nuttiness that I've been buried in has involved frameworks and wirings and structures and architechture and code and all sorts of things that are the stuff of nightmares. More to come on that btw.

As if that is not enough, it appears good 'ol Uncle Bill and his cronies are finally pushing out ie7 through microsoft update, consequently breaking sites that were otherwise carefully and thoroughly hacked to work in ie6 anyway. Thanks to their new semi-dedication to standards compliance improvement on the platform, one of the website I developed just got broken and here I am saddled with the unpleasant task to having to rewrite the layout for the site to work in ie7.

On the one hand, I'm brimming with curses. On the other hand I'm getting paid to per hour of cursing so what's the downside?

Thanks Uncle Bill. Time to get started on that list for Santa. I wonder if he knows anything about DOM, html and standards compliance.....

The Drive-in Web

2006-09-21T01:52:00.000-04:00

With YouTube, Yahoo video and Podcasting gaining in popularity on a daily basis, video on the web is certainly nothing new. Over the last year though, video seems to have moved up in the world with television networks. This week, as most major networks ( cbs, nbc, abc , fox) are premiering their new season of shows, it's really encouraging to see the networks picking up from where abc left off last spring, bringing a lot of their programming to a growing web audience giving us the opportunity to catch up on previous episodes and previewing what's coming up next. As the networks also seem to be realizing, it helps a great deal in promoting new shows that don't have an established audience.

For a long time, the issue has been which plugin/platform would be the best medium to deliver this content over the web along with the available bandwidth and names like Real Video and QuickTime come into play. While pretty good platforms on their own, without a doubt, those mediums have always been plagued with the issues of installation and updates across different platforms, but lately, that seems to be less of an issue to many of them who opt for using flash video, a platform for which the word ubiquitous was coined. The evolution of the new web continues.

Technorati, Aye!

2006-09-21T00:41:00.000-04:00

So it occurred to me that it might be fun to try this technorati thing out, so I hunkered down and signed me up for an account.

I have to add this lil 'ol widget

Technorati Profile

and presto!, I can hang with the big boys now.

Too much fun

2006-08-14T13:02:00.000-04:00

This here is just too much fun. Google maps flight sim

Oh, and quite a good read this here article from Paul Thurrott on Steve Jobs letting his mouth run away with him in the Apple WWDC which normally heralds good things from Apple, but turned out to be dramatically disappointing this year.

The future is now

2006-08-03T22:18:00.000-04:00

I just saw this technology that was demonstrated at the ultra-cool TED conference in california - the intuitive pressure/touch sensitive interface for computing introduced by Jeff Han, a research scientist at NYU. The potential applications of this are mind-boggling.

Via Geekbrief.tv

Catching Up

2006-07-13T12:12:00.000-04:00

The realities of developing a reasonably large project solo are anything but trivial. Hence, my lack of posts in the last month or so. Not that I was that regular at it anyways.

Here's what's been happening.

In case you've been under a virtual rock or better yet, are a video blog virgin, Amanda Congdon and Rocketboom have parted ways. Incredibly, I never really got into the video podcasting craze until this thing exploded. Rocketboom is currently back with interim host Joanne Colan, former MTV Europe VJ. Along the way, I discovered Geekbrief, hosted by Cali Lewis, totally adorable.

In Adobe news, Flex 2 got released. All details are here..

In Microsoft news, Vista will be delayed yet again, or wait, that's old news. Ah yes, Office 2007 will be delayed yet again. That's the most recent one.

Art Direction

2006-05-31T00:36:00.000-04:00

In the process of coming up with a visual layout for a website project I'm currently developing which hopefully I should be blogging about soon, the importance of art direction as part of the design process became re-emphasized. I was having trouble coming up with a satisfying design concept so I started just adding and removing things without much thought. I was frustrated and eventually realized that that just was not going to do. The concept of design with a purpose was one of the first things I learned as a designer.

As far as Art Direction goes, it is a term without a specific definition. The words below help to explain what it is from this excerpt from our good friends at A list apart

What is art direction? That’s a hard question to answer. In the movies, art directors are usually responsible for creating the “look and feel” of the film. In advertising and print work, art directors (often teamed up with a copywriter) come up with “concepts,” the creative ideas which communicate with us on a gut level through such devices as theme, metaphor, and symbolism.

One of the first things a designer learns is this - "Good design informs". As I browse the web more and more these days, I get blown away by impressive designs constantly that inspire me to be better at what I do and give me ideas for my own work. Very often though, it is very easy to get caught up in just publishing a website based on a little bit here and a little bit there that you forget to think about what you are doing. Why is that icon there or why did you choose that color? What is the audience supposed to get from the design of the website? How does the design help the overall purpoose of the project?

For now, as I sit back and think for a little bit, part of my design process will involve asking myself - yes, it looks pretty, but why do like the design for a certain website that I want to borrow a concept from? How do I feel when I look at it and how did the designer accomplish that?
A little thought on those questions go a long way to help me build the concept for my designs and ultimately come up with something that isn't just visually appealling, but is aesthetically satisfying.

In terms of visuals, the CSS Reboot has some goodies.

Ajax a la carte

2006-05-19T23:55:00.000-04:00

The Ajax phenomenon is everywhere. The buzz is palpable, undeniable,even suffocating sometimes. But undoubtedly, it is a technology that is way overdue. The limit of the web user interface as we know it - html, forms etc - was reached a few years ago and as technology can't be stifled, innovation had to come from somewhere. This is Web 2.0, the web re-inventing itself. It's almost the late 90's again.

I am typically one of the first to learn about new technologies, but I'm definitely not an early adopter. One way or the other though, it catches up with you and you can't help but join them. Here is a list of Ajax libraries and frameworks I've had a brush with recently that seem interesting. As with all web technologies though, caveat emptor (buyer beware)

Dojo Framework
Mochikit - not for the faint of heart
Prototype
Moo.fx - "The next little thing"
Spry Framework
- Simple and elegant

Blazing Trails

2006-05-11T12:50:00.000-04:00

In reviewing my blog roll this morning, I ran into a couple of awesome devevlopments that left me totally stocked.

HH0 Gas technology , a replacement for oxyaceteline or propane gas in industrial use which is sure to revolutionalize the world as we know it. Here's the kicker. It's derived from water. Clean, efficient, awesome!

For those looking for performance on the cheap, how does 4.1Ghz P4 at approx $130 sound to you? Yes, you read that right. It's not a hoax. Now close your mouth and let Tom's hardware let you in on the secret.

Smelling some roses

2006-04-12T09:17:00.000-04:00

In line with that school of thought that says you should look up once in a while and smell the roses, I figure now that I'm having a creative block, I should exorcise some of the thoughts I'd been wanting to mention in the last few weeks.

I caught this totally awesome edition of Primetime Live on T.V a couple weeks back on Game Theory. Six sets of total strangers were tasked with finding another six sets of total strangers. In the sense that, the first six were paired up, two by two at totally different places in the city. None of either of those sets had seen any of the other sets. Literally. All they were told was that somewhere in the city two other people were looking for them. I can't begin to tell you how complex that exercise was, in a city of approx 8 million people. I wouldn't even know where to begin.

Yet, they all found each other, somehow or the other. All of them, in about 6 hours or so. Blew my mind.

In other news, the webbys are back in town and the nominees for the 10th season have been announced. Congratulations to all the nominees for contributing to the best of the web

........

Uh, can you say that in English?

2006-03-16T00:50:00.000-05:00

I'm participating in an open source project at the moment, a cool new server called "Red 5", something I may have mentioned previously. In particular, I'm am tasked at the moment with translating the geek speak of the developers into usable english and examples for the not so technically versed. But more than anything, I quite glad that this project sees the need for it on their website currently being developed.

More than anything, in my opinion, one of the many shortcomings of opensource and a large part of the tech world is the assumption that everything must be in geek. The reasons for the obscurity of many excellent open source projects is simply that they have no interest or to be fair volunteers who decide to help out with building an informative and user friendly website around their software product, and quite frankly, that's what it is, a product. More often than not, those websites look like after thoughts and when they are developed, they look like they were made by the geek who wrote said software who is content to type along all day on a linux box.

One of the advantages of being symmetrically brained (a new term I'm coining, go with me for the moment) is that while I am a techie in all senses of the word, I have a fully developed and active artistic side and can appreciate why Apple spends all their time simplifying everything for the end user. I like simple. I would pay for simple. There is enough complexity in this business with the alphabet soup of abbreviations, terms, protocols etc that are being develped on a daily basis that when I happen on a website that puts things in simple terms it is an amazing breath of fresh air.

There is then the question of why there is a lack of visual/user interface designers in the open source world. Even the opensource graphics software tend to sport terrible interfaces. Is it that they are not invited to participate on open source projects or is there more complexity. - a topic for my next post. Definitely something I should look into.

For the moment, catching up on blogs that rock,I caught the podcast of Jason Kottke (kottke.org) and Heather B. Armstrong ( Dooce.com) at South by Southwest today. Interesting insights.

Also, the podcast of Jim Coudal and Jason Fried of Coudal Partners and 37signals fame.

To be continued..

Origami a la Microsoft

2006-03-10T01:37:00.000-05:00

Microsoft releases the Ultra Mobile P.C platform codenamed "Origami", what appears to be a much smaller version of the tablet pc. It comes with touch and writing recognition software which allows you to use it with a stylus/pen or by touching the screen.

It appears to be an interesting concept with a lot of room for growth. What makes it really cool in my opinion is that it runs the full Windows XP operating system and therefore almost any software that can run on said OS. But referring to the room for growth, the two hour battery life leaves a lot to be desired.

Visit: Microsoft UMPC

When you're smling, the whole world smiles with you

2006-02-21T11:49:00.000-05:00

So I was riding the ferry yesterday, tired out of my mind and of course consequently cranky. I rest my head back to take a nap and five seconds later, I hear a cackle and a cute little "helloooo". I open up my eyes and there was this adorable little baby on the other side of my seat smiling at me. She played peekaboo with me for the rest of the ride.

Sometimes, you just gotta enjoy the moment. I'm going to take a cue from her and have a good week. I hope you all do, you know, all two or three people that read this blog.

:)

Hit the ground running

2006-02-12T11:12:00.000-05:00

I'm baaack. Boy, that feels good to say. Although technically, I've been up and running for a few weeks now, unless you buy a new computer, sometimes dealing with repaired or upgraded computers is like watching a patient in post-op. You hope for the best, but ya never know.

So, it's been two weeks now, computer is out of recovery and it is now bigger and badder than before. This new computer comes with a mirrored hard drive setup. My days of living dangerously are over. I of course now have to catch up with a bunch of projects that were left hanging during the crash.

In the mean time, the world keeps moving. While I was out, so to speak, two projects I monitor constantly had releases -

Good ol ~~Macromedia~~ Adobe had an epiphany and decided to release Flex framework for free. A new beta is up for downloads at the Adobe Labs.

PHP framework - Prado v3 is now at alpha

And to all, a good night. NOT!!

2006-01-09T15:46:00.000-05:00

So, It's never a good sign when you ask your computer to reboot, and said computer reboots... and then takes it upon itself to reboot, and reboot, .. and reboot.

All in all, I'm sitting here at 5:00am on a Monday morning, technically the end of my workday, watching my week about to go down in flames. This is my primary work computer, my workhorse. I have backups on one other system and my laptop, but I'd like to think that this is the one that the other computers look to for guidance and advice.

I forsee a very long day ripping out computer parts and booting and rebooting and ripping out more computer parts to save this one. It's very much like surgery, only a little less messy. Oh oh, there it goes again about to reboot. Somebody get me the paddles

CLEAR!!

And the Shout Out goes to

2006-01-05T23:58:00.000-05:00

It's been an explosion this last year or so it seems, of good stuff on the internet. Reminds me in no small way of the early years of the dot com boom. Everybody was discovering the internet, everybody started a dot com and I couldn't aquire enough e-mail addresses. I stopped the count at 15 which I believe was offerred to me by Britannica Online. Hey, it was free, I took it. I'll figure out what to do with it later.

So, fast forward to 2005 and there appears to be a resurgence of good things, many in no small part to the competetive prodding by Google, the hosts of this here blog. 2.6gb email boxes, web 2.0 applications, open source versions of practically every type of software you need, from office applications to streaming media players ( kudos to the guys at vlc) and lots and lots more. You just have to look.

And now, the good guys over at OSFlash are making strides in what seems like every type of opensource flash app available, helping in many ways to promote the platform. When you're in the middle of it, you never realize how many people don't use words like Flash, and Flex and FlashCom on a daily basis until you're speaking to a colleage who incidentally also does web development, though in Java and he doesn't know about Flex or that Actionscript 3.0 is coming soon.

So, I'm going to do my part in giving a shout out to the cool guys over at RED5, also part of osflash and say, keep doing good work guys.

Opensource ROCKS!!!

Welcome to Macromedia - Now Adobe Systems

2006-01-02T01:42:00.000-05:00

So, I finally ordered Macromedia Studio 8. After all, despite all my ranting, I really do love the company, even if I don't care for the new daddy.Expectations were high. Finally, after all the anticipation, the exercise in patience, I broke down and ordered Studio 8 bright and early on a Monday morning. It was even more exciting to see that there would be free shipping. Now all I had to do was wait. and wait. and wait

[3 days later - Order status:"pending"]

Ring ring. Thank you for calling Macromedia - Now Adobe Systems.

Hi Adobe systems, why is my order still pending?

Three phone calls, a dropped call and about and hour later]. Uh, we ... don't know. It appears to be a result of the merger, things are sort of being moved around. We'll call you.

Uh, Okay. I guess. (I mean, what was I supposed to do?)
If you have any further questions

[Update]
So, they finally call me 8 days after my order. We've shipped your Order! We'll send you a free book to compensate when we eventually get to it.

Make of it what you will

public const CHANGE = inevitable

2005-12-05T16:44:00.000-05:00

I guess what must be must be. It is now final. Macromedia is now Adobe.

Mississipi Delta Blues

2005-11-18T01:03:00.000-05:00

I love this city. Even more, I love this city in the winter. Something about the cold air typical of this time of the year seems to make everything a little bit clearer. The sun seems brighter, the sky is a beautiful cloudless blue on most days and even the music sounds better as I was reminded today by the Mississipi Delta Blues, one of the many "underground" bands that fill the subways at rush hour.

This band consisted of a feisty old Black man on a guitar singing the blues accompanied by a Chinese guy on bass guitar. I couldn't find a cooler "New York Melting Pot" poster than that if I tried. As it happens occassionally, I went out today without today for a meeting with a client sans camera and I couldn't capture the moment

But that's alright. As I was reminded by the "Alex Lo Dico Jazz Ensemble" one stop later, the good times keep rolling.

On a seperate note, Spark, Europe's premier flash festival begins today.

When it rains..

2005-11-08T04:57:00.000-05:00

I get these moments in once in a while where I feel.. empty and lost all at the same time. Its wierd. The best I can relate it too is that feeling of - Well, I've climbed Mt. Everest. Now what? I only wish I had an everest in my affliction to give it some meaning.

it is in one of these times that I end up reverting back to my familiar/favorites places - people watching in Union Square for one. I don't know what it is about Union Sq. that appeals to me so much. I think it's the perfect blend of apparently normal people going by their daily business intermingled with the artists both perfomance and visual, poets and the otherwise misguided wack jobs with some protest or opposition to share all lounging together around the same square in their own wierd little symphony.

So it is there I am sitting tonight, finally taking my mind of whatever it is that's bothering me that as yet I can't seem to figure out. Of course, 5 minutes after I sit down, I start to feel drops on my head. After verifying that it's not my drunken charlie stalking me I realize that it's starting to rain.

I'm a big fan of the movies mind you and in most movies the actors, especially the dramatic ones tend to find inspiration somewhere in the rain.

For my part, I found myself a subway entrance. I figure in November all the good inspirations are probably staying warm in the subway tunnels anyways.

Love thy IT Guy

2005-10-15T04:18:00.000-04:00

Aah, yes. In the long list of life's unwritten rules lies a very important one in today's information age. "Love your IT Guy". This opinion may of course be a bit biased, granted. But it has basis in experience.
Case in point, this client that I have - let's call them client NO-IT . Their IT guy, like many across the country had finally had it with the mostly thankless job that we IT people do, and so he decided he was going to leave - in two weeks.

The boss gets upset and decides he doesn't need two weeks. The IT guy can leave. Here-in lies the danger of rash decisions. Unlike the larger part of the workforce, the one guy you do not want to fire in anger is your IT guy. Why? Because as became the case with this company, poor old Dorothy Secretary whose expertise is limited to typing documents in word and clicking "Print" ends up as the new network admin trying to figure out the alphabet soup of networking terms ( DNS, DHCP, IP etc ) while untangling wires and praying to God that she's plugging in the right wires in the right sockets.

"Hmm.. Now would that be the red wire or the grey wire. The guy on T.V usually goes with the red wire. I'm going to go with that one."

Aim thy pee

2005-09-21T14:45:00.000-04:00

In an event that can only be described as a New York moment, yesterday, I was coming back from a delightful evening of reading and coffee at my neighborhood Barnes and Noble. I'm coming out of the subway and here I am deciding which exit to take. They say it only takes a second to make a bad decision.

As I'm climbing out of the stairs on the left side which is the exit I chose, I start to feel sprinkles on my head. This is where I ask you the reader to freeze frame and answer. Are the sprinkles I feel

The rain that was expected to fall that day
A priest throwing out excess holywater after giving up on New York
Your friendly neighborhood bum discharging the water portion of the bottle of alcohol he drank a few hours before.

If you picked number 3 - ding ding ding!. You win the prize. I found myself being showered with pee and transitioning swiftly between disbelief and rage and.... eventually acceptance.

As I walk towards the Staten Island ferry station to use the bathroom for some temporary cleanup, it occurred to me how this story would make sense only in New York.

Ode to a client

2005-09-17T14:11:00.000-04:00

I wanted to take a few minutes out to thank my client for finally sending their checks in. For restoring my hope and confidence in humanity. For letting me be able to pick up the phone for the next month without screening for bill collectors. For helping me to be able to raise my head up high when I go into a starbucks and order not a tall but a GRANDE cup of mocha or a frappacino ( I'm still deciding between mint chocolate chip and mocha with hazelnut as my favorite). For upgrading my lunches from the Mcdonalds's 99cents menu to a subway 6" sub. For being able to look into the eyes of the cashier when I pay at the supermarket with $5.00 bills instead of $1.00 bills.

All is well with the world for the next month

Maybe I should cut down on my coffee.

Customer Support as in....

2005-09-01T12:15:00.000-04:00

sup·port [s? páwrt]
to give assistance or comfort to somebody in difficulty or distress *

It's a nightmare whichever way you look at it. Being the techie supporting the impolite, impatient client or being the knowledgeable client asking for support from an obviously incompetent, ignorant tech support rep.

I endured the popular nightmare of having to take my laptop in for service yesterday at CompUSA as per I bought the Technology Assurance Program Package when I got it from there. To be fair, it is one of their busiest offices, right in downtown Manhattan, but it took me 45 minutes to get my laptop dropped off eventually for technical service and then I was told to come back in two weeks. "TWO WEEKS!" . It could be worse. No really.

As you who may or may not read this blog may know, I am a web developer. I consequently engage the use of shared hosting services commercially available on the web. There is no perfect host, and that is a compromise that you'll have to accept. Also, there are fussy client considerations to deal with But I've been trying to upload a client's website now for the past three weeks. Why would it take so long? I've gone through 3 webhosts in the process. Plus there were DNS issues. Client wanted to keep DNS at Network Solutions and only redirect IP to new webhost.

Well, web host A gave me a nice hosting space, and a nice IP Address to go with it. - Client wanted a cheaper solution without having to pay extra for a secure certificate . It made things easier though, because you got your own IP.

Web host B gave me a nice hosting package, secure certificate included in the package, no ip address. I had to change my client's DNS servers to new host, and then redirect the DNS settings for mail back to Network Solutions. Nightmare.
Incompetent host B initally tells me they'll modify DNS, couple of hours. Nightmare turns into a couple of days at the end of which they tell me the DNS settings I requested which by the way I copied directly from Network Solutions are invalid. Client loses access to e-mail for 24 Hours despite some good old yelling. Clients gets frustrated. We move.

Web Host C - Network Solutions. Web Host C charges client for three years of hosting and another couple hundred dollars for SSL certificate. It takes them 1 week to setup and install the certificate. 1 WEEK. Next, they set it up and they get it wrong. Now they have to go back and re-issue the certificate.

I left out all the delightful conversations I've had with tech support, who kept bouncing me from one department to the other because they didn't know what they were doing.

All I can say is ARRRRGH!!!

*Microsoft® Encarta® Reference Library 2002. © 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

The heat is gonna get you

2005-08-03T12:58:00.000-04:00

And I mean that in more ways than one. Yup, its definitely here. Its about 94degerees outside as I speak, I've had four hours of sleep and I can see that I'm not going to make my deadline, for the second time.

That's okay. Who needs real sunlight when you've got monitor glare. Now if only they could build the monitors to emit tanning rays.

Transitions

2005-06-07T01:01:00.000-04:00

That was how Steve Jobs introduced the topic on everyone's mind at the WWDC today. Apple is switching to Intel processor chips. I wasn't there of course, but got the chance to watch the webcast on Apple's preview release of Quicktime 7 for windows. It's pretty good, though still definitely preview release, and maybe it was because of internet load, maybe it was another reason, but it was quite patchy, not at all smooth as I expected on my machine, 1.8Mhz AMD, 512MB.

A broader view of this event as related to the the computer world can be to see that it fits into the overall direction of things these past two years. Half the world's major software companies are going Open Source. Email and Web hosting space is practically being given away at 2GB a pop. VoIP is quite literally exploding into the market - Heck, I'm using vonage as my primary business line.

Add to that, Macromedia and Adobe merge, and now Apple, bless their hearts is moving to Intel(x86) line of processors. Steve Jobs' Demo was on an imac running a pentium 4 3.6GHz PC.

What does this mean for Apple's future? What does it mean for Apple Hardware. Will I by this time next year be able to pick up Mac OS X Tiger for my HP Desktop? Only time will tell.

Say What?

2005-04-18T15:49:00.000-04:00

Reactions across the board are varied and passionate as the news begins to spread in the design world. What news you may ask?

Adobe and Macromedia MERGE!!. Or more appropriately, Adobe buys macromedia in an all stock deal worth a little over three billion dollars.

This reporter's reaction is nothing short of stunned. Apparently, there has been undercurrents and rumors of this potential merger over the past couple of years as both companies' product offerings grew closer in purpose, but somehow, I never heard of it.

My first instinct is - NOOOOOOO -. I love Adobe. I love Macromedia. But the joining of both, for me is like (.. takes a moment to come up with a proper simile..) mixing peanut butter and chocolate. I know that there are hoardes of Reeses peanut butter cups lovers out there, but for me, the mix just never took. I like to have both flavors distinct, appreciate one and then the other. Combine them and what you have is just... not quite right. One inevitably gets lost in the other.

In addition, considering that these are the two biggest software companies out there for the products they offer ( for the unitiated, think graphics, print, multimedia ), this constitutes the death of choice, options and friendly competition. The last part particularly of note because friendly competition drives innovation. Now, they both have quite literally almost no one to compete against them.

What to make of this is yet to be seen.

Macromedia
Adobe

Inspiration... where art thou?

2005-04-15T19:36:00.000-04:00

I have this cycle, created, I think out of necessity. I get a project, or if I'm fortunate, ( or unfortunate as you may soon decide) I get more than one, and I have to play this juggling act. I'm working on coming up with something extremely ingenious for each project, to keep up with my standard of work. Ultimately, I do and then I burn out. I've used so much brain power I guess, that my brain demands rest. I have to stop and relax as much as possible if I'm ever going to do anything worth looking at for the next project. Of course, I'm beginning to wonder if this is the way to go. Something about pushing yourself to the point of burnout every other month is potentially unhealthy.

I of course started this because as a freelancer, when you begin, you take projects when they come, projects you are sure you can do no doubt, but projects none the less. You do this because the next few months may be unpleasantly quiet as far as clients go. Problem is you may end up like every other token designer out there eventually. Spitting out the same layouts, and ending up using lime and purple on your next layout.

Client Woes

2005-02-01T18:09:00.000-05:00

There's got to be something said for finding a new line of work when you spend the majority of your day feeling like you want to pull your hair out, tie it into a whip and beat clients with it.

I think I'm stuck in a rut. I'm stuck and I can't get out. Its enough I hear stories about the clients who unfortunately get stuck with the incompetent designer, and end up with websites that look like they were designed in Frontpage express and imported from 1996. I feel bad for the client and pray they find someone that better represents the profession next time.

And then I have to pick up the phone and beg my clients to keep up with their end of the bargain and I beg and I beg. I get frustrated and end up like I felt in the first paragraph and a little part of me feels a little less bad about the design hack. I curse them with the prospect of ending up with one for their next design project.

Considering the above, I'm sure there is a valid argument for having a little ying ( The bad designers and 'good' clients) and a little yang ( The good designers and the clients that suck). It's what creates the balance.

I HATE balance.

Stop and Smell the roses

2005-01-07T18:57:00.000-05:00

Every artist has a perfect moment, when the mood is just right, the lighting is just perfect, the music is exactly in sync and in tune and if everything could stand still in that one moment, it would be saved, captured and preserved through the artist's medium of choice - paint, film, ink, pencil...

I had a perfect hour earlier today, or so it seemed. I had just come out of the subway at City Hall. I turned right and there it was. The scene seemed to stop for one long second. It was drizzling slightly. The street lights were on, but in perfect contrast with the dwindling daylight. I heard nothing but quiet for split second. Then I heard everything. I saw everthing, smelled everything. I feared nothing. The three projects I had on my desk did not exist. For a moment, life was good. I thought, strangely to myself, If I died now, it wouldn't be a bad time to go.

It all ended when an hour later, the deli guy charged me 2 dollars for a cup of coffee.

J.T

One for the little guy

2005-01-06T13:30:00.000-05:00

I gotta say, every once in a while, the sun shines on the little guy. Therefore, a little exclamation of "ha ha" escaped from my mouth when I saw this story about the disgruntled Apple customer suing Apple over their restrictions on the AAC music format.

Don't get me wrong, I love Apple as much as the next guy, but that little issue always bugged me.

Melancholy

2005-01-04T22:03:00.000-05:00

It might have had a little to do with my bank account balance, which I saw on my ATM receipt this morning, or maybe that had nothing to do with it. Either way, my day which started out as a day I had taken off for a little me time turned sour.

I love movies, real well written movies that make you feel satisfied that you just watched them. Ergo, I loved spanglish. It's well written, just long enough. And yet, as happens occasionally to me when I watch these movies, I got sour after watching it. It had nothing to do with the movie and I suspect everything to do with me.

Aside from the occasional outing, movies are my escape. They are the last vestige of my artistic side I still try to keep a connection to, for reasons as yet beyond me ( Refer to previous posting). I used to write. A lot. Poetry, Novels. I used to sketch - a lot. I love languages. I dabble with spanish and a little french. As it is currently my only escape, I get a little withdrawal anxiety once its over. I wish I could continue to live in the movie, in someone else's life for a while and put mine on hold, or hibernation in computer parlance.

While it is not always recommended I'm sure, I decided to take a chance at a little self analysis, as this was not the first time I felt this way. The first thing that comes across quite obviously is that if I don't want to come back to my own life, it must suck intensely. Not so. It leaves a lot to be desired, no doubt, but there is also a lot good about it. Of course, this could all be denial. More on that, maybe a little later. I'm still not convinced that people I know won't be reading this blog.

The second thing I zero in on is that one of the characters in the movie is a lot like me. He's a professional Chef, an all around good guy finally living in his dream jobscape. But his personal life.. not so great. We are un-alike if there is such a word in the sense that I cook for fun and dabble with computers for a living, but I would love to have a restaurant, preferrably just like his one day. Unfortunately, while his personal life could be great - he's married, two sweet kids, - it's just not. Watch the entire movie and you get an answer to why his is not so great.

Now I just wish I saw the script of my life and knew about mine. As yet, I'm not sure my blog postings are making any sense, but stay with me, I might start figuring this all out soon enough.

J.T.

Creative Nirvana

2004-11-02T11:54:00.000-05:00

For every artist/creative, there is that dream job, that big one that either landed your name in the right circles, or put you on one of those unseen professional "maps" that people talk about. After that, you've pretty much graduated from the trenches. You can almost sit back and reap the benefits. You become a household name. You command your own prices, you can fire your clients!. It's creative nirvana.

I don't have one of those kinds of jobs. Yet. But I got a call from a potential client today that might put me in that situation. One of those clients that would hold the key to the locked room where they keep the "map". That's the good news.

The bad news is that the kind of project that they might want me to do, I have never done before. I have done components of the project, parts of it, for different clients, but never done the whole thing as a package before. So I am in one of those places where a large part of me wants to get the call for them to say, "Go ahead sport, you got the job" - I'm assuming that's what the "map" keeper would say if one existed, stay with me here.

The other part... well, you know.

childhood innocense

2004-10-16T14:34:00.000-04:00

My beautiful young niece came to visit this weekend, and she made me appreciate those photographers who are able to take pictures of toddlers and make it look easy. And in particular, how critical an SLR is to the process.

<epiphany>Never try to take a picture of an active toddler with a camera that only relies on autofocus.</ephiphany>

The Nikon Coolpix 5700 - while an excellent camera has several shortcomings, not the least of which is that it is not an SLR and therefore does not allow manual focusing on images, at least not in the conventional sense, or at least in the sense that's useful.

Be that as it may, there's something to be said for youthful innocense. More than not being able to take a single usable shot with my digital camera and having to resolve to using my Minolta film camera, I got satisfaction from the fits of laughter that emanated from her whenever the flash went off.

internal conflicts

2004-10-13T00:45:00.000-04:00

At what point do dreams get sacrificed for reality? At what point did that little bit of creativity used to replenish the soul become just another moment not doing something that could be constructive.

I used to dream of days when I would take my laptop to the cafe in the Met, sit down there and in inspired sorroundings produce things that may one day be referred to as creative in relation to the works of art in that magnificent edifice. Life creeps up on you and one day you find yourself looking back on what could have been and finding no real answer as to why it wasn't. New York City is as fertile as you can get for inspiration.And sometimes I can't seem to get enough.
Yet I feel empty sometimes. I guess I must not be soaking up the right things. The soul of a creative needs to be fed. Or else, being in a city like N.Y looking for inspiration can become like soaking a dead leaf in water. It may re-hydrate, but its never going to come alive. Am I making any sense?

I guess that's my point...