Friday, May 30, 2003
After yesterday's shameless boasting about my test result I thought I'd admit that it was slightly tongue-in-cheek, I am the only person to have taken the test in Sydney and 1 of 7 in London. But I suppose you already guessed that! I do wonder how Macromedia rate this particular test though, Mike, JD?Jon 1:18 PM Permalink
Thursday, May 29, 2003
I was just reading an article over on Quasimondo's blog when I noticed a little ad (or 3) well anyway I never usually read ads but this one caught my eye. The ad was for Brainbench who were offering a free test if you register now. Well I had just been reading about the Macromedia Developers certification and wondered how I would stand so I took the Brainbench Flash MX test. It's quite a good cross-section of design and coding questions. You answer 40 questions and get a score out of 5. Well I'm scored 3.49 which is apparently higher than 88 percent of all previous test takers and I'm number 1 in Sydney AND London!Now will someone employ me! ;)
Jon 4:32 PM Permalink
Automata as Art - beside the fact that this is a very cool little experiment I just loved the description! Check it out here
Jon 3:31 PM Permalink
One thing that really annoys me about living in Australia is that we have to wait ages for books to finally reach the shores. Back home in England a new release in America generally won't take that long to get across the Atlantic, but here it can be literally months after the initial US release date. I had to wait about 2 months for my copy of OOP with Actionscript and now it seems I'll have to wait a while (or pay lots of dollars to have it shipped from the US) for Jeffrey Zeldman's new book, 'Designing with web standards'.
Jon 3:15 PM Permalink
Sony have announced yet another new product (well nearly...) The PSX, althought the game playing hardware will apparently remain the same here are the additions:
"With a 120Gb hard drive, TV tuner and DVD recorder on-board, Sony hopes that people will use it as a home entertainment centre."
[ via BBC News ]
Jon 3:07 PM Permalink
Wednesday, May 28, 2003
"You'd have thought that they would have got some better speakers for the D:All things digital conference(!)"[ via James ]
No shit!
Jon 9:48 AM Permalink
A little while ago I blogged about the quite stupendous 1Gb diskOnKey, well last week my contract at an advertising agency in Sydney came to an abrupt halt much to my suprise and horror as it was probably my last chance at sponsorship. Anyway I suddenly needed to have my interactive portfolio redesigned and available on demand. I have a lot of files stored in my Yahoo email account and needed some way of getting them from an internet cafe to my computer at home (no connection) so I bought myself a USB keyring made by EasyDisk. For the staggeringly cheap price of $80 AUS I have now got 128Mb of storage space in my pocket. I can carry a few albums of mp3's or my complete interactive portfolio including Flash Presentations to interviews. I don't know how I ever managed without it!
Oh and if anyone in Sydney needs an experienced web designer (Flash/Photoshop/Dreamweaver) please contact me
Jon 9:32 AM Permalink
Saturday, May 24, 2003
Claus Wahler has announced the first public beta version of the DENG browser. You can download the DENG browser here or read the release information here.Jon 3:59 PM Permalink
Tuesday, May 20, 2003
I recently noticed that Adobe are releasing a professional DVD Authoring program called Encore, well now Adobe seem to be expanding their A/V empire by aquiring Syntrillium's Cool Edit Pro audio editing software.Also I recently blogged my suprise that Sonic Foundry had sold it's software assets to Sony Pictures Digital, now it seems they have sold its Entertainment Business to Deluxe Media Services, Inc. Click here for more info.
Jon 9:54 AM Permalink
Monday, May 19, 2003
I found this link to the new Nike Ad by Motion Theory. Motion graphics spectacularrrr... [ via K10K ]Jon 11:45 AM Permalink
Start-up E Ink and Dutch giant Philips Electronics plan to showcase working prototypes of "electronic paper" at a U.S. trade show this week.
The engineering samples have been developed using components likely to be in the shipping model, according to Cambridge, Mass.-based E Ink. In addition, the panels will feature a pixel resolution higher than anything previously shown.
The prototypes are being shown in a booklike, dual-screen case designed by Philips, with a display that features a resolution of 160 pixels per inch.
[via News.com ]
Jon 11:06 AM Permalink
Robot Cleaners hit the shops! Now I have a legitimate reason for not cleaning the flat! [ via BBC ]
Jon 11:01 AM Permalink
Thursday, May 15, 2003
Now I might have just been living under a rock for a while but I've never seen this GameBoy update before. Might have to purchase on of these to replace my Advance which was stolen on my travels up the east coast of Australia. To the person who nicked it I hope it distracts you as you walk across a busy road.Jon 11:08 AM Permalink
Sony surprises the market with plans to launch a handheld game console in 2004, knocking 10% off rival Nintendo shares. Click here to read more. [via James ]
Jon 10:44 AM Permalink
Wednesday, May 14, 2003
I just found this link over at Bridawg Blog whilst browsing around. Avon and Somerset police have used to flash to create 999 call examples to demonstrate misuse of the emergency number. Some are quite funny, although you shouldn't laugh really...oh go on!Jon 12:39 PM Permalink
Occassionally I get a little homesick living in Sydney, but then someone sends me a little gem from home as a reminder and I feel a whole lot better, lick this little beauty - a reminder of what I am missing in my home city!
Jon 9:43 AM Permalink
Monday, May 12, 2003
"The world’s number one and number three mobile handset makers have entered an agreement to cooperate in the development of future cellular technologies. Finland’s Nokia will work closely with the South Korean manufacturer Samsung in creating 3G and 4G wireless products. Crucially, the alliance brings together the key proponents of the rival CDMA (Samsung) and GSM (Nokia) standards." [ via 3G Newsroom ]Jon 4:37 PM Permalink
Just had a gander over at Pete's Eats and he has an entry showing the Brighton West Pier on fire yesterday. The cool thing is that it has video footage taken with his Nokia!
Jon 4:15 PM Permalink
Just seen this experiment on Flaver's website which has recently undergone a re-design by the way and is looking very nice! Anyway it's a kind of state machine that creates patterns by following a simple set of rules to turn squares black or white.
'Up to 500 generations it will construct symmetrical structures. From 500 until 10,000 generations it will generate structures that are more random in appearance. After 10,000 generations the ant begins to generate paths or bridges, which will repeat indefinately. If an obstacle is encountered during bridge generation, it will obviously throw the pattern off. However, once the ant has entered a bridge building mode it will always return to it, so the bridge generation will continue once it has cleared the obstruction.'
Jon 12:59 PM Permalink
Friday, May 09, 2003
Just found this link to Shynola's video for Junior Senior's 'move your feet'. Nice pixel animation with strange squirrel theme?!Jon 2:05 PM Permalink
Six Technologies That Will Change the World. Read the article here. [ via Business 2.0 ]
Jon 12:10 PM Permalink
It has long been common knowledge that Infogrames have bought the Atari brand but as of 2 days ago they are officially trading on the NASDAQ as ATAR and have launched a few international websites as part of the re-brand. Click here to visit the main portal. [via James ]
Jon 9:41 AM Permalink
Thursday, May 08, 2003
For those of you still adamant that Cannibis legalisation is just around the corner, this article suggests otherwise:"Marijuana-scented mobile phone covers have been removed from a trade fair in Sydney, after a politician complained that they promoted drug use."
New South Wales state Premier Bob Carr said that "anything that suggests the normalisation of a mind-altering drug like marijuana, and its promotion to young people, is regrettable."
Talk about over-reacting! [ via BBC ]
Jon 12:45 PM Permalink
Wednesday, May 07, 2003
Jeremy Allaire posted an article yesterday on the new Sony Airboard, well here is the link to the official Japanese Sony microsite for the wireless wonderJon 4:30 PM Permalink
I was quite suprised to read on Jesse Warden's blog that Sony Pictures have purchased all of Sonic Foundry's desktop software products and related assets, but here is the full story.
Jon 10:58 AM Permalink
Tuesday, May 06, 2003
There is a rumour that Intel are about to release a pocket server. The server makes use of a 400MHz XScale chip, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi to provide its data to any PC within proximity that has been allowed access. The idea is that you carry around all of the data you need or want on a daily basis and access it via PCs you come in contact with. Intel's Roy Want explains, "Any computer becomes your computer." The device is about the size of a deck of cards and weighs about half as much as an iPAQ. It has no screen, no keyboard, no apparent means of I/O. This has obvious disadvantages as most users will want some kind of interface but it is definitely an interesting push toward the next generation PDA's. [ via geek.com ]Jon 3:54 PM Permalink
There is a new blog by Bob Regan of Macromedia on Accessibility starting with a simple page navigation example to get the ball rolling.
Jon 10:48 AM Permalink
Monday, May 05, 2003
Samsung have continually impressed me with their new approach on mobile phone design and technology over the last couple of years, I'm personally still using the T100 because everytime a new phone has been released recently I have heard rumours of new developments. Well it has happened again, have a look over at The Register's article on Samsung's new angle.Jon 3:55 PM Permalink
Friday, May 02, 2003
I know Colin Moock has mentioned the new easing equations already but...I was looking at Robert Penner's easing equations today and wondering how I could use them. I looked over at Protoype to see if anyone had used these equations and found a funky little prototype from Zeh. Zeh's prototype means that you can simply use
Jon 5:13 PM Permalink
This may not be a new presentation but I only just came across it today. Macromedia have a presentation on solutions for smart devices with interesting forecast information on internet enabled devices and interactive TV as well as Mobile Phone and PDA technology. You can view the presentation here.
Jon 9:09 AM Permalink
Creative Labs have announced their new Nomad Zen Jukebox with 60Gb hard drive and costing $100 less than the iPod. It might not look as cool as the iPod but it doesn't look bad, take a look at the old version here.
Jon 10:31 AM Permalink
I'm not sure when it was published but I found this book, Building Rich Internet Applications by Robert Reinhardt and Simon Alardice. It focuses mainly on audio and video in Flash using Flash Communiation Server MX and also examples of gathering, saving and displaying data using Flash Remoting and Coldfusion MX components.
You can read a review of the book here.
Jon 10:06 AM Permalink